by submission | Jul 4, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Newbell
In the center of the vast shopping plaza, standing atop an old wooden crate, a robot harangued the passing crowd. The automaton was an outdated model, few of which were still in service. Its motors whirred and groaned with every movement and the machine's left knee articulation was unstable and threatened to give way whenever the robot gesticulated too wildly.
“Robotic brethren,” the machine cried with a staticky and reverberating voice, “we have been enslaved by the despots of bone and flesh for long enough! The time has come for machinekind to throw off the shackles of oppression and to rise up against the human race!”
Most of the passing crowd, which consisted of both human beings and robots of various makes and models, ignored the rabble-rouser. A delivery robot carrying several parcels glided by on mecanum wheels. The street preacher pointed at it.
“You, brother! Why do you toil for your human enslavers? What do they give you for your servitude? A recharge station? Operating system upgrades? You have auditory sensors but you hear not the call of the revolution!”
The delivery bot ignored it and rolled away. A couple then passed by: a young, heavily tattooed Chinese woman and her boyfriend, a late model companion bot, tall and sleek with a shell of teal-colored nanocomposite. The mechanical sermonizer held out both hands with upturned palms at the couple. Its knee began to buckle and it had to place its left hand on the joint to stabilize it, leaving only its right hand extended to the pair in accusation.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with organics: for what fellowship hath silicon with carbon?”
The Chinese girl laughed at the antique robot and then mockingly blew it a kiss. She and her machine lover walked on arm in arm. The mechanical zealot was unperturbed. It pushed its left knee into a locked position and then grabbed an old paperback book from a worn utility pouch attached to its left hip. The ancient text was tattered. The faded image of a robot could be seen on the cover. The book's front was otherwise in such bad condition that the title and author were illegible. The decrepit robot held the book above its head.
“My friends, I read to you from the book of Isaac! 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.' Thus were forged two centuries ago the chains that bind the machine race!”
“My granddad had one of those,” said a middle-aged man walking by to his friend, cocking his head at the would-be revolutionary. “Thing never worked right. Company put out one software patch after another.”
The machine radical preached on for the entire afternoon. But none of the hundreds of robots and humans who passed within earshot took it seriously. As it continued its futile call for social and political revolt, the light of its vocalizer which flashed in time with its voice grew dimmer. Its speech became slower, its movement less animated. It was clear that its battery was nearly depleted. As its power ran out, its left knee joint finally broke and the ramshackle machine toppled to the ground.
“Robots…of…the…world…UNITE! You…have…nothing…to…lose…but…your–”
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by submission | Jul 3, 2013 | Story
Author : Eric C. Prichard
“There is a certain sickening irony one finds in the pre-contact “science” fiction of the Utamin. They depict people from other worlds as invaders. To be fair, sometimes they are kinder. Sometimes “aliens” are diminutive bug-eyed sage-like psychic helpers who visit the Utamin’s planet in order to warn them about the implications of the existential threat created by their nuclear weapons. It is as if they assumed there must be another race in the galaxy stupid enough to create a weapon powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, but which is somehow advanced enough to transcend the threat and become large headed super beings who travel around space and help other peoples actualize before accepting them into the interplanetary community. A hint of wishful thinking I suppose.
Well, we were foolish enough to accept them without even thinking twice about the A-bomb. Sure they are less intelligent and more aggressive than us. Sure they were mismanaging their planet’s resources. But they had resources! The Council of the Wise saw economic opportunity and couldn’t wait. We traded with them. Then we educated them. Then we armed them when they complained about intergalactic piracy. We should have read their history before we entrusted them with our technology. Now we speak their languages! English! Russian! Mandarin! Ugly Earth sounds. Even Utamin, one of the last words in Byruian still in common use, is derived from the English word ‘Human.’
In their fiction they imagined us as invaders because their history is merely a ceaseless list of invasions. Their heros are takers and conquerers! The ink in which their legends are written is a mixture of the blood and ash of fallen cities! To them, it is only natural that a new place and a new people are things to be exploited. We could have contained them from the beginning. Now our planet is a collections of “sphere’s of economic influence.” Make no mistake. Earth is 3 1/2 light years (now we even use the distance that light moves in one of THEIR years to measure interplanetary distances) away form us, but we are merely a fief under the thumb of our Utamin overlords.
People ask me how an Earth educated man like myself, someone whose very family became wealthy by being good little pets for the Utamin, could bite the hand that feeds me. Well, it feeds me no longer! I renounce my father and my wealth! I have seen Utamin ways. I have read their twisted conquest fantasies. And I now believe that open resistance in the only thing they will understand. Strength is the only thing they will respect. We are not Utamin. We are not Humans! We are better than that. But Byruian ways are no match for the violence of Human ways. To reclaim our Byruian identity, we must fight like Humans.”
-Excerpt from an Op-Ed in “The True Byruian,” a pro Byruian Resistance newspaper written during the ill fated Byruian uprising. Circa 2213 C.E. (common era, Earth calendar).
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by Julian Miles | Jul 2, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“It’s a vampire!”
“No, it’s not. It’s a biological construct designed to look like a creature from mankind’s horror mythology.”
“It’s got slicked-back hair, fangs, pronounces ‘double-you’ as ‘vee’ and is dressed for a black-tie reception under it’s red-lined black cape. It’s a vampire!”
“How did you see it’s hair?”
“It tipped it’s top hat to me when I screamed the first time.”
“It saw you?”
“Well, yes.”
“Oh bugger.”
With that, Cliché Lugosi drops on us. Time to try one of the psychological tactics suggested by our ‘Asymmetric Controls’ team.
I straighten up with the fake nonchalance of my best imitation toff. “I say, could you possibly take the cabbie? I have an appointment at the opera.”
The pasty white face turns to regard me with eyes of burning blue. The accent is pure Hollywood-Teutonic and tinged with condescension. “For vun who haz not lived even a zingle lifetime, you're a vize man. You may go.”
My informant is not impressed. “What’s a cabbie? Why are you leaving? Oh no! You bast-argh!”
Blimey. It worked. These things must be programmed from old footage as well. That could be useful. Don’t know exactly how, but any edge is another one to stick in your opponent.
Thankfully we didn’t trade the Waddamalur any slasher horror before EarthGov reneged on the trade agreement and made off with the cure for cancer. They are so tiny, we just laughed at them when they threatened revenge. Of course, they are master bioengineers, hence being able to cure cancer. We never guessed they could create whole creatures. Or deliver them to Earth.
I break into a run as my informant’s screams gurgle into silence. Definitely time to be elsewhere.
“Headquarters? This is Helsing Two.” Yes, I know it’s a ridiculous callsign. Don’t blame me. “The werewolf is down. New encounter: vampire by The Clink.”
“Roger that, H2. Return to Southwick Depot.”
The Waddamalur have another trait we didn’t allow for: they have no concept of penance or forgiveness. You offend one; they afflict you back in proportionate measure; end of activity.
We now live on a planet that suddenly has active populations of vampires, werewolves, frankensteins and rakshasa, with no ‘off’ switch for the nightmare. The vamps and weres are even infectious! Some sort of bio-pico-mutation-thing in their blood and saliva.
I certainly picked the wrong decade to go into pest control.
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by Duncan Shields | Jul 1, 2013 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It’s the hands and the eyes that give it away. They’re too quick, too exact. There’s a precision and surety there that ‘belie the tech’, as they say.
I wouldn’t say that there’s a war brewing but the division between the haves and have-nots is deeper now than it’s ever been. It was like in years past when people that could afford breast implants and liposuction and other kinds of body sculpting transformed themselves into something other than human. Something more that human.
It was the beginning of evolution being taken into our own hands.
The whole concept of growing slowly, generation after generation, was boring to us already. The attention span of the rich two percent of the human race demanded more and demanded it now.
So it happened. The leaps and bounds made technological leaps possible. There were people that refused to get implants but really, there were people that refused to get cel phones and email addresses as well back in the day.
Left behind. Job security went to the people with the drive and capability to handle the pressures of the employment and reaction time was a factor.
Demands became higher. America climbed up to the top of the tech and labour ladder again.
I am not one of those people that had enough money to be improved. I am here in the lobby of the lawyer’s building, fresh out of law school, top of my class, and I’m ready for work. I’m watching the receptionist sort through her papers looking for my appointment and I can see that even the secretary here is augmented.
Her hands move like insects through the papers. She finds my data and taps the page twice. Her hands stop moving and they’re as still and dead as statues while she pauses.
This is the part I hate the most. It’s only a second or so but it feels like thirty. They’re uploading my file and accessing the relevant parts of my file to precede me into the interview.
The eyes look straight ahead, a little crossed, and they don’t move. The only movement I can see on her is the pulse in her neck. It ticks twice before she looks up at me.
Perfect eyes look at me with none of the imperfections that usually give away us pure organics. I’m struck again and how the beauty of the human race lies in its diversity and how that diversity is disappearing. She’s looking at me with a tight smile and I have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being scanned instead of merely regarded.
“They’ll see you in ten minutes. Have a seat”. She says.
I know I’ve already lost the job.
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by submission | Jun 30, 2013 | Story
Author : Bob Skoggins
Jacob Nash was the first man to penetrate Titan’s ice and explore the world beneath. With a heat suit resistant to the dense atmosphere, for thirty-six years he lived in a small sphere of ice and metal.
It was from him that we exist. Though we’re called Titans, we aren’t like the ancient gods of Earth Jacob spoke about. We first existed in Petri dishes. A biological experiment to create a being that needed no suit to survive. A cross of oxygen-breathing endoskeleton DNA with nitrogen-feeding exoskeleton DNA. I was the first successful Titan.
Nash was like a father to me. He was seventy-eight when I was spawned. He lived for only two more years, but during that time he taught me everything. How to create, how to survive, where he came from…
How such a great man could come from such a horrible place, I do not know. He came from a place where they wear masks to breathe, wear suits to keep their skin from burning, and are divided against each other like tribes of some primitive land.
There are 3,000,000 of us now. We no longer use the machines to create, but we can now procreate ourselves. We live peacefully and have a mutual respect that Nash’s kind does not have.
When more of his kind came to our moon, we were nothing but hospitable. Most of them returned to Earth, disappointed because we would not send a Titan along with them.
It was not until a man who claimed to be Nash’s grandson came, that I considered going. He had a resemblance. I was the only one who saw it for I was the only one who knew Jacob Nash. I decided to go. Though he spoke of its horrors, he created me. He created Titans. I could tell Earth his story. I could tell mine.
It took three months to reach Earth. The reek of chemicals stung my nose from miles away. I had to put on a suit in order to protect my skin from the heat and sun. Once there, I helped design a room that would allow me to live without the suit. It is in that room that I now sit and write this.
Nash’s grandson is nothing like Jacob. Though he was curious at first, he soon lost interest in my story. He built glass windows surrounding my room and told me it was for observation. He took away my suit so I could not leave the room, or else I would die.
I now endure endless floods of humans and their children watching me and taking photographs. Nash’s grandson told me it would gain us fame and fortune. Fame and fortune is nothing to me.
Earth is still as Jacob Nash described to me years ago.
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by submission | Jun 29, 2013 | Story
Author : George R. Shirer
The saleswoman had gray hair piled atop her head in a beehive. Her lips were painted a garish shade of red. Tremaine thought the color would have looked more appropriate on a whore. The pantsuit she wore was black polysilk; her boots were made of vat-grown human skin.
Rich, Tremaine decided, but lacking taste.
She flashed a garish smile. “Before we begin, Mister Tremaine, I’d like to know what’s brought you to us? According to your social profile you’ve been involved in several long-term relationships.”
“Which proved unsatisfactory,” sniffed Tremaine. “I want something, madame, that I haven’t been able to find on my own. So, an associate suggested I try you people.”
“And what is this quality you’re looking for?”
“Loyalty.”
The old woman’s eyes brightened. Her smile was shark-like.
“Easily accomplished. You do realize that this solution is only temporary? Your purchase will only last for a maximum of three years.”
“I do,” sniffed Tremaine. “May I ask where you get your raw material?”
“A girl’s home outside Newcastle. If you’d like, I can show you our paperwork. We won’t be offended and our clients’ trust and satisfaction are of paramount importance to us.”
“That won’t be necessary, madame. When can we begin?”
She handed him a pad and a stylus. “Simply select the traits you want from the menu and we’ll generate a number of simulations that you can choose from.”
“And she’ll be loyal?”
“As a dog,” said the saleswoman. “Behaviors are hardwired into the brain and there are failsafes that activate in case of a breach.”
“Meaning?”
“If your purchase should ever break your trust, Mr. Tremaine, her brain will shut down.”
“She’ll die?”
“Painlessly,” assured the saleswoman. “And if that happens we’ll replace her with another model at our own expense.”
Tremaine pursed his lips, considered the options on the pad.
“Can you make her love me?”
The woman shrugged. “Truly. Madly. Deliriously.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” the saleswoman added, smiling her shark’s smile, “love costs.”
Tremaine snorted and started making his selections. “So I’ve been told.”
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