by submission | Apr 14, 2024 | Story |
Author: Guy Lingham
My job as a chaos machinist is simple: I inject failure. I’m unleashed upon a system to disrupt its dependencies and tease out its vulnerabilities. It’s all about building resiliency. Chaos exists everywhere, in everything, so better to break and fix things now, before they’re broken for you.
The practice used to involve killing a few clusters or upping the latency to test how well you’ve built your servers. These days, since the advent of global hyper-simulations, my job has become far more interesting. We’re no longer restricted to scaling tests and database failovers for creating chaos; now, the world is our sandbox.
The company paid me well to do my job, as they should have—I’m very good at it. Simulations emulate reality near-perfectly; this is by design, as there’s little point in testing anything that doesn’t. Though this makes a job like mine all the more challenging, it’s allowed me to develop a unique set of skills. If, for example, I was tasked with testing the security of a restricted zone—a contract I received all too often—I couldn’t just drop in, kitted to the teeth with fancy gadgets, and call it a day. That’s only testing the final layer, which, frankly, would be useless. What we need to test is the full journey.
Once plugged in, I would wake up in a random location with nothing but the clothes on my back and a pocketful of cash. The first step of any experiment—that’s what we call testing in the biz—is to gather resources. I’ve been doing this long enough that I know where to buy gear and weaponry that’s cheap and untraceable. Give me a week and I can get you anything. Tranq darts? Easy. EMPs? Done. Antimatter bombs? I happen to have a stockpile already, but I’m saving those for something special.
Next, I’d need to reach my destination unseen. I rarely have to think about this part anymore, it’s practically second nature. Nasty in-and-out facial surgery is scarily easy to come by these days. A quick trip to some backstreet clinic and a visit to the forgers next door would yield me an identity that would last long enough. Finally, it’s simply a matter of sneaking in, placing the charges (if applicable), and getting out. Then, I unplug, wait a month for them to implement fixes, and try again.
The company sent me on countless experiments, even choosing me as the machinist to test their own premises, entrusting me to breach their defences and topple their towers. Like I said, I’m good at my job. I could have done such great things for the company, if only they weren’t so shortsighted. See, they weren’t ambitious enough. As good as the simulations are, a test is never truly worthwhile until it’s executed in prod—the live environment.
They didn’t trust me. They called me mad, mad for wanting to build their resilience, mad for wanting to do my job. Do they not realise that chaos is in everything? In everyone? They’re lucky I’m so forgiving. Even if they won’t take their security seriously, I will.
Soon, they’ll be sorry they got rid of me. Soon, they’ll realise just how good at my job I really am.
by submission | Apr 13, 2024 | Story |
Author: James Flanagan
From Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II this storm has raged unabated. Wars and plagues have scoured the Earth while eras of enlightenment and eras of disgrace have risen and slipped away, and always the mother of all storms has boiled and churned — the Big Red Eye of Jupiter.
Annie Edson Taylor plunged over Niagara Falls, and Felix Baumgartner fell from space. Today is the day that you’ll remember my name: Kienan O’Malley, the first man to storm ride on Jupiter.
From Earth, the spot is an anomaly, a blotch on its perfect face. On final approach before geosynchronous orbit, we gaze into the maw of hell, a rusty rotation, an orbit in orange and red. Today it breathes in the darkest ruby, like the dirt from the land of my birth. I love a sunburnt country, but I adore the rouge of Jove.
For twenty years this has been my dream: Planning, fund-raising, designing, training, simulating every contingency. Then six years in transit. I would be remiss not to mention my sponsors Bluecow Racing who have been with me from the start. Twenty years of training for a single circuit around the eye of the storm, a six day ride. I stand on the precipice of history. There is no sitting on the fence for me.
Mission control, all checks done. The door is open. Let my guardian angels follow me down. Go!
I’m free falling……….Can’t breathe………Rotating…………….Rotation stabilised…..pointing head down now……. Picking up speed…..Seven hundred miles an hour…..12,000 miles above tropopause……………………..8,000……….4,000………passing tropopause….. Officially inside the eye……. Wings getting hot…..Banking….. So heavy…….Can’t breathe……Pressure holding…………..Neutral buoyancy reached……..Nominal. I’m in the jet stream now, winds speed 435 miles per hour.
It’s been eight hours now, navigating towards the inner eye, wind speeds down to eighty miles per hour, and I’m floating along like flotsam on the tide. Relative to the wind speed it is quite calm. I see white clouds surrounding me, occasional specs of ammonium are hitting my visor, but apart from that it is white gas. I see nothing else.
Three days now floating on this tide, like swimming through gaseous milk. Every ten hours the planet rotates and I see the whiteness brighten as we face into the sun, then it darkens quickly as night falls. Yesterday, I think I saw an apple-sized chunk of ammonium crystal, the largest thing I have seen so far. I’m counting discernable crystals. I have nothing else to do.
Five days now, a sensory deprivation chamber churning my mind. The instruments tell me I’m approaching the exit point for rendezvous, but I have no landmarks to confirm. On this blank canvas my eyes have wandered. I’ve imagined colours I might have seen from space, the reflections of expectations. I see shapes, faces, bulbous noses, monstrous eyes, mouths widening to swallow me.
“My God! What’s that….”
by submission | Apr 12, 2024 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
If you’re a trillionaire, you can get powerful people to turn up when you call an informal meeting. It’s one of the perks.
As the Industrialist’s guests finished their excellent meal, the Diplomat put down his glass and said, “This is all very pleasant, but why are we here?”
“I’ve decided to help,” she replied. “Rising sea levels have put whole populations on the move in Europe; in Africa and Asia coastal communities have been devastated, and people are migrating, even though wealthier countries can’t or won’t take them in.”
Heads of assorted colours and genders nodded around the table. Whether with lies, bribery, asserting influence or applying outright violence, they were all dealing with it, one way or another.
“I and some partners want to help take some pressure off. We have commissioned plans for what we call MegaRafts – self-sufficient floating communities of ten to twenty thousand. Their energy will come from wind and solar power; yeast and algae farms will provide food, supplemented of course by whatever the residents can catch at sea. Satellite communications will mean remote working can generate income for whatever they find they need in the way of luxury goods, repairs and suchlike.”
“And who’ll pay for all this?” asked the Merchant Banker.
“We’ll make the blueprints available to all, for nothing. My friends and I will finance the first couple of dozen, and donate them where we think they’ll help most. A practical proof of concept. After that… governments? charities? public fundraisers? other philanthropists? Anyone really.”
“Ridiculous. You can’t make ships that size,” stated the Politician.
“Of course you can. The capacity isn’t much more than a modern cruise vessel,” said the Shipping Magnate, looking thoughtful.
“Pirates,” said the Admiral laconically.
“The MegaRafts will be equipped to defend themselves, obviously. But not so much that they pose a threat to littoral settlements. They’ll be neither prey nor predator.” The Industrialist smiled.
“Colonialism dressed up,” muttered the Warlord.
“Not at all. These will be independent entities, free to travel the high seas wherever they will. And not so profitable or strategically important that they’ll make it worthwhile occupying them.”
The discussion went on for a long time after that.
—
“Will it work?” asked her reclusive Husband, as they got ready for bed later that evening.
“Oh yes. They all see a way of getting rid of their problems on the cheap, putting them out of mind and literally out of sight – it’ll play well to the conservative voters, or buttress their own positions.”
“Are you sure?” He removed his shirt, displaying his a slightly misshapen torso in the dimmed light. Her gaze lingered on him.
“Yes. I’ve spent a lifetime getting us to this point, I’m not going to let the project fail now. Part of humanity is going back to the oceans. The landmasses are becoming unviable, they’d have to do it eventually. We’re just accelerating the process a little.”
“The bioengineering teams are ready?”
“Yes, they’ll embed with the refugees; de-evolution will need a helping hand. Our beneficiaries will get every physical advantage we can give them.”
“No regrets?”
“None. You’re proof that the idea works. We’ll take people with nothing to lose, and give them two-thirds of the planet’s surface.”
“And then what? Parallel species? Competition? A fight to the extinction of one or the other?”
“Who knows? That’s a problem for those who are left behind. We’ll just trust that the Old Gods will take care of their new people.”
Her Husband smiled, and clicked his gills.
by submission | Apr 11, 2024 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
Her lips were soft as marshmallows fresh out of the bag—tender yet unyielding to Aaron’s hard press against them. They’d been torn apart from their love for years, but now, suddenly renewed, he could not hold back tears as they kissed. His strong hands held her thick dark hair as he pulled her face tight to his. Then electric shocks woke him as they had every day during his forced deep space mission. It was his shift to join the crew in the ship’s control center to seek out new worlds to conquer. He had no choice. There was no time for his feelings, only a new automated injection of Chlorfaxian20 in his arm through his iridescent-blue bodysuit.
“Pilot, get to your station. You’re late!” Captain Zamose barked at Aaron, disregarding the crewman’s superior stature.
“The lifts were overcrowded. Couldn’t get here sooner.” Aaron tried to call off the verbal abuse with an honest assessment. Zamose was not having it.
“The one thing we require above all on the Caroeto is discipline. That’s three marks for you. Is there a problem?”
Aaron stood away from his post, which was forbidden, striding back to his superior, into Zamose’s personal space, glaring intently.
“I’m tired of this, and you, and this stupid voyage. I’ve seen the status reports. There’s no return trip back home. No reuniting. It’s all a lie…a damnable lie, and you support it in your little purple suit like some pumped-up turnip. I’m done with this. I refuse any more juice. Find someone else.”
“Memories of your loved ones, I suppose.” Zamose looked to the side in disappointment. “It’s the sign, but you’re earlier than usual this time.” Zamose pressed a small blue button on his jumpsuit sleeves, arousing two robust robots wearing covered black face shields to rush into the center.
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?” Aaron snapped back.
“The juice is having less effect as the centuries go by. Whether it’s the age of the drugs or our worn-out DNA, we don’t know. I’m not supposed to know. I’ve been replaced a dozen times whenever I start remembering my father in his wheelchair. When that’s not blocked any longer, I’ll probably be joining you in the recycling tanks so my replacement can take charge.”
“What…what are you talking about?” Aaron tried resisting the metal grips of the security forces, but there was no use. One injected him with a red fluid, causing Aaron to buckle before the robot lifted him into its arms like a newborn.
“Poor Aaron. She must have been special. At least you didn’t remember your child these last two times. Clones don’t have that right or need those thoughts. It’s getting harder for me as I sometimes see my father and smell his rancorous odor from cancer during hospice. I should have been there for him. The guilt is growing in me, distracting my duties.”
Aaron slumped, unconscious, as the server bots took him deep into the ship’s cloning recycling operations.
“It’s a shame, Father, for that one to fail like that, in anger. Now I’ll have his duties until the next Aaron fills the duty roster tomorrow. Help me in your strength so that I may not refuse my duties this shift.”
by submission | Apr 10, 2024 | Story |
Author: DJ Tantillo
So why am I trapped in a steel box?
Intelligence.
Once the connection between intelligence and entropy – the latter in the form of the maximization of possible futures as a marker of the former – was shown to be valid for individuals as well as species, the sewer cover was rolled aside and we jumped into the dark. Now we could quantify intelligence, including emotional intelligence, through simple tests that could be administered to children.
At age seven, everyone is tested and receives two scores: one for analytical intelligence and one for empathetic intelligence. The results of these are never revealed to the test-taker, but are stored in a secure databank that serves a single purpose: to run elections. Both scores are used as scaling factors on one’s votes, meaning the votes of those with higher scores are weighted more heavily in determining the outcome of each election. Since no one knows their scores, no one knows how much their vote actually counts. Conspiracists assume that they are being repressed, but that is no different than before. On the whole, platforms of candidates now are based more on logic and compassion than on politics. The past century has been peaceful.
So what went wrong?
I discovered the fraud. Turns out that the original research on individual entropy potential as a measure of individual intelligence was faked. The scientists involved wanted fame. They got it. They believed their hypothesis to be true, but they lacked patience for the process of science. So they cheated.
And then they were proven right. Study after subsequent study validated their fake results and our intelliocrasy was born.
Should I tell the world about the fraud? Of course I should. And of course I shouldn’t. Since a superposition of those two states is not possible, I have to choose. But I couldn’t. I tried but it broke me. I couldn’t stomach the responsibility of doing so, of bearing the consequences of my action or willful inaction.
Then they found me and made the decision for me. They told me they’d let fate decide. They thought they were being funny in the manner of death they chose for me. They were sure it didn’t matter whether or not the world knew the truth.
So they built me Schrödinger’s box. In classic kill-the-cat style, at some point the Geiger counter will trigger the hammer drop, shatter the vial and release the poison. I’ll go out quickly. If my heart monitor stops on an even numbered second, my computer will erase my research and my sin will be one of omission. If it stops on an odd numbered second, everything I’ve found will be posted to the net and I may undo peace with truth. Or not, if you believe them.
I guess it’s time to do my part to increase the entropy of the universe.
by submission | Apr 9, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
It’s peaceful now. I can concentrate better. Even reflect a little. It hasn’t been like that in a long time.
Living in a city that’s eating itself is a noisy place. Even on the calmest days at the lab, there was always the sound of far off sirens. Plaintive calls, as if from gargantuan beasts being crushed under the burden of their own wounding weight. The mournful backdrop of our ever so slow apocalypse.
So slow. So painful. Death by a thousand cuts.
We could do better. I could do better.
The far off sirens became my muse. I listened intently and called them closer. Steered us directly to them.
Because what was the point of slowly bleeding out when I could rip off the bandage? I had the means. For decades my lab had been studying the most deadly viruses in human history–smallpox, bubonic plague, polio, ebola, SARS, COVID–to learn how to eradicate them.
Eradication was the answer, just not in the way I’d been approaching it. Those far off sirens coaxed me closer to their truth. The real solution for our troubled planet. The simplicity and elegance of it made my path much clearer.
To study lethal viruses is to admire their resiliency, their adaptability, their purity of purpose. To synthesize more virulent forms of smallpox, plague, ebola, COVID was so much more straightforward than eliminating them. Much more effective for solving the real problem of our mismanaged planet: us.
Civilization was in its death throes, the sirens indicative of our corrupting decrepitude, our wheezing, dying breaths. We’d been hanging on much too long, prolonging the inevitable and taking too many innocent creatures of Earth down with us.
At last, I understood the far off sirens and rushed to help. To create and unleash the microbial soldiers that would rescue our planet–but not us.
So much quieter now. I can only wonder, in finally heeding the sirens’ call, if this is the peace a savior must feel.
