by submission | Feb 23, 2013 | Story |
Author : Lisa Play
Daphne scared me when I saw her take the stairs to the catwalk this morning. The way she moved, I wouldn’t have given her a second glance. That was a problem. Normally there was a slight tick that gave her type away, something stiff in the knees or the elbows. Her steps were so effortless, it made me think she must be new, fresh from Development. Her skin was taut yet supple, not a blemish or a scar anywhere. The Mast Laboratory Natural ASUORI Line was finally beginning to look, well, natural. This was better for hospice work, sure, since the androids don’t need to eat or sleep and can be constant companions for dying, their voices (male or female) calibrated to a soothing pitch, their movements finally powerful yet fluid after six developmental generations of testing.
We didn’t need to make the ASUORIs as strong or good-looking as they turned out to be. They had to look convincingly human and they had to be efficient. ASUORIs are for the dying, they needed a face like a mother’s, friendly and nourishing and gentle. Hands that would stay at human body temperature so that the patients would not be reminded of the chill of death as Nancy (or Jill or Anne or whatever) gave them a sponge bath or changed their clothes. It was very considered. We were designing farewell bots, not to be worn down by the emotional toll of their work, to be a comfort to the survivors.
Corporate was only contrary on one point: “Moms don’t sell, guys. It’s not going to look good in the catalog. Can we have a little more Sofia Loren and less Susan Sarandon?” It wasn’t a suggestion. So the skin tightened up, the waist came in, and the bustline perked up a bit. The softness of the face fell away to reveal intense cheekbones. The features we had designed to mellow the beholder were overtaken by those that would intrigue, excite. We, my development team, considered ASUORIs differently after their redesign, worrying if our patients’ families would regard the technology less seriously because the androids looked closer to Victoria’s Secret models. But they did sell, regardless. We expanded into a “male” line as well, endowing them with biceps sculpted enough to imply strength without brutality and a gentle jawline. The face of death was becoming a pleasant one.
by submission | Feb 22, 2013 | Story |
Author : Matthew Wells
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Aden’s chains struck the floor like bursts from a lazy pulsar. The voices from the other side of the clear partition, chaotic and full of rage, were strangely mute. He saw the crowd without really seeing it, and he knew only the sounds of his chains.
Upon some unseen signal, the inflamed gathering reluctantly took a seat while he was fixed to a steel chair.
As he looked, two faces in the front row stood out. He knew the family. They had testified at his trial. Thru a fluke, they were the only ones to have directly survived the disaster. Today, a young man with black hair sat between them.
Members of the gathering, a small selection of families of victims, took turns lashing threats and oaths, rebukes and rancor into the microphone.
To be fair, while the accident was a devastating catastrophe—a colossal failure, it was wholly unintentional. He had set fire to a star. The Deep-well Boson Cascade, his experimental magnum opus, had burned a solar system to ash.
After the poisonous words ebbed, he was given the chance to speak. Instead, he hung his head and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” came the soft reply.
Aden looked up, surprised to see the young man with black hair standing at the microphone. The crowd behind him watched dourly. His father looked baffled. The young man observed Aden without malice.
“You survived the blast too, didn’t you?” Aden said.
“Yes. My name is Bo,” he said softly. “I know you didn’t mean to do it.” No one challenged the young man. As the only survivors, his family held a unique status among the families of the victims.
“No, I didn’t. But, it was my fault.” The entire project board was indicted and the corporation assets seized, but he naturally took the fall. And, he embraced it.
Bo looked down at his shoes, then up again at the prisoner. “May what happens next be a reminder. Though, I believe this guilt is too much for one man.” There was a meaningful pause, then, “I forgive you.”
An angry murmur arose in the room as Bo returned to his seat. His father looked anxiously about the livid faces; his mother had gone white.
Aden’s heart had paused for a full second following those words. Emotion washed through him. Forgiveness had seemed unimaginable. Yet, here it was.
The chair began to swivel and the wall behind him opened. A stiff, ocean breeze shook the plank as it extended over fitful waters a thousand feet below. The sea was red under the coral sun. He wobbled involuntarily. The wall closed behind him, but they would be watching, millions of them, as they had twice before over the past decade.
His breath held and his heart quickened. He sensed the moment was now. In the brightness of full day, a brilliant flash filled the sky—his star, annihilated all over again. His arms pulled against the chains, his neck strained until he vomited over the rocks below.
It was some time before his pulse slowed and those imagined cries grew quieter. In silence, he gazed upon the shining suns. He would be left on the plank for days while the light faded. But, it no longer mattered. Near the pain, a renewed sense of purpose began to grow. What would it take to build a memorial the size of a star? Over the next seven decades, as he was taken from world to world to relive this event again and again, he would find a way.
by Duncan Shields | Feb 21, 2013 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
This was my fourth summer paving the flat parts of Nevada with solar panels. The project had been going on for four years and looked like it would go on for another six.
A summer under the cruel desert sun will teach you about yourself. The sun teaches you your limits and it teaches you the elastic nature of time.
The solar panels are printed off and cut into lightweight, paper-thin wafers before being loaded into heavy groups of four hundred panels each. These panel-blocks slot nicely into our backpacks.
To lay the panels, we reach back in a motion as old as archery to grab a panel, flop it down onto the dusty ground and latch two of the corners to the panels already laid. We dust the leads, spray the protectant and walk one step forward to do the next one.
We put the black thermal side down and the shiny blue solar side facing up.
It’s a mechanical and quick motion that needs to be done in a relaxed manner at a steady pace without being straining. New guys come in and race ahead only to burn out with tennis elbow or RSI halfway through the season.
People ask why this process isn’t automated but the answer is obvious. It’s always cheaper to employ meat to do this kind of work. You don’t have to repair a human. You just hire a new one.
A few Workers Board lawsuits had resulted in the relative guarantee of job safety but you needed to pay attention. Water rations, sunscreen, night tents, proper gear and clothing, everything was yours and needed to be looked after.
I thought of Fremen. I thought of Arabs dressed in pristine white robes on camels. I thought about the Egyptians and their capitulation to Ra, the sun god.
I felt like I could teach them all a thing or two about desert living by now.
Our crew marched forward up the dusty walkway until the edge of where the other team had stopped before us. The irregular border spread out in a jagged line for miles on either side of us. Half of us went single-file to the east and half of us went single-file to the west. All across Nevada, hundreds of other teams were doing the same.
From orbit, the tiles were bright, sky-coloured, shining, square kilometers with thin sandy walkways in between. We were turning the desert into a grid; an energy-producing azure powder-blue plaid. Vegas and Reno now sprouted from fields of shining sapphire glass.
America’s desert was becoming the colour of a tropical ocean. Baby-blue batteries. Powder-blue powerhouses.
The earth was done giving up her oil.
We didn’t have the number of bodies for the bicycle farms of China. We’d dammed up all of the rivers that we could. The wind farms, wave booms and geothermal drills were giving us a good deal of energy but still not enough.
Paving Nevada with solar panels was going to recharge the entire country’s economy. Regular repair and upkeep would keep just over ten percent of the entire continent’s population employed.
Panel People. Redbacks. Sunkids. There were many names for us, depending on where you came from.
The sun screamed down at all of us. We were ants on the hot ground. I looked up through reflective lenses and smiled at the sun’s punishment, daring it to do its worst.
I walked to my grid point designation, reached back over my shoulder for a panel, and got to work.
by Clint Wilson | Feb 20, 2013 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
“Donovan, anchor the antenna atop that formation, mother says it’s the only place high enough.”
The mountain jutted up at an odd angle. But it was only more of the non-descript surface of this desolate, lifeless rock. His captain looked at him sternly and he knew there would be no arguing. He grabbed the antenna and slipped it into his belt.
As he trudged away, his spacesuit protecting him from the almost non-existent atmosphere, the hill loomed threateningly. He picked a reasonably flattish path to start his ascent, but the trail quickly became near vertical. He clambered further, using his hands, finding it difficult to get his gloved fingers into many of the cracks.
At one point he found a small plateau and turned around to see the team in the distance. They were tiny white specs. His earpiece crackled. “Everything okay up there? You gotta keep moving son. Mother is reporting meteor activity nearby and we want to blast off ay-sap!”
“On it sir.” He turned and began moving to the left, sweating bullets. Soon enough though he rounded a bend and saw that he had picked the wrong route. Part of the ledge on which he was standing had broken away, leaving nothing but sheer vertical rock. On the other side of the gap the ledge continued. He thought he could probably make the jump without incident yet the consequences of a misjudgment were unthinkable.
His earpiece crackled again. “Can’t see you Donovan. Are you almost there? Mother says we’ve gotta move. Apparently we’re about to get hammered by a major shower. This piss-poor atmosphere won’t help us. You hear me? You moving your ass son?”
Donovan knew he had no other choice, so he took a deep breath and he leapt. And the distance was farther than he had thought, and for a split second, as he hung there in empty space, he knew he had failed, and he closed his eyes tight.
But he thumped down onto solid rock. Surprised he opened his eyes and was shocked to see that the gap in the ledge had somehow repaired itself. Again his captain screamed in his ear. He snapped to and scrambled forward confused.
A few minutes later he crested the summit and there he quickly anchored the antenna. Then as he turned to make his way back he saw a far off glowing streak followed by an explosion. Meteors began to pelt the planet’s surface in the distance. Donovan started to run, a bad idea when descending a steep mountain in a bulky spacesuit.
As the shower thickened and drew closer he ran faster, and then he tripped and spilled headlong out over nothingness, and this time he saw the mountain move. A sudden protrusion of rock jutted out, catching him gently, and then began lowering him toward the stony plain below. He stared wide-eyed, thinking the mountain was collapsing, but then quickly realized to his utter surprise that the whole mass was actually lurching forward!
In another moment he was deposited gently alongside his wild-eyed crewmates. And then as another meteor exploded just meters away, the liquid mountain reared up, and before anyone could question a thing, they found themselves and their landing craft under the protection of a vast stony ceiling. There were muffled explosions above, yet they remained completely unscathed.
And then as quickly as it had started the onslaught stopped, and the rocky ceiling lifted away with a whoosh, revealing the clear dark sky once more. And they all sat stupefied as the living mountain slowly lumbered back toward the horizon.
by Patricia Stewart | Feb 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
(Caution: Science content) The Perseus Space Colony is a marvel of twenty-third century engineering. It is located approximately 400,000 kilometers from the Earth, and trailing 60 degrees behind the Moon. Astronomers call it the Lagrange (L5) point, and it’s one of the very few truly stable orbits in the Earth-Moon system. The gravitational forces of the Earth, Moon, and Sun keep the mammoth habitat in an 89-day kidney shaped sub-orbit around the L5 point. Like a marble in a bowl, if the colony drifts in any direction, the E-M-S gravity fields always brings it home.
The Perseus’ outermost “H” ring is 2,700 meters in diameter, and it houses the living quarters for the 824 permanent residents, and the 182 visitors that are “on-station” at any given time. The Preseus rotates at a leisurely 0.73 revolutions per minute, which produces a comfortable 0.8g in the “H” ring; less as you approach the hub. As the H-ring spins at more than 100 meters per second (circumferentially), it produces some disorienting physiological effects on the occupants. For example, if a person in the H-ring drops an object, it curves sideways as it falls, a radial Coriolis effect. It’s the same phenomenon that causes hurricanes to rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere. Permanent residents don’t even notice the effect when they go about their cycle’s business, but first time visitors always move around like they had taken too many recs.
Senior Maintenance Engineer Louis Spiridon crawled backwards out of the cylindrical conduit that exits the noisy pumping room of the C-ring’s recycling center. As he removed his hearing protection, he became aware of the variable wail of the station’s emergency alarm. He activated a comm panel along the wall of the main corridor to find out what was wrong. The computer informed him that there had been a significant solar flare event, and that all personnel had been ordered into the shielded auditorium at the station’s hub. “Do I have time to take a shower?” he asked, knowing that it generally took hours for the sun’s coronal mass ejection to reach Earth’s orbit, and because the recycling center tended to leave an unpleasant scent on all those that pass through.
“Negative,” responded the computer. “This is an X-class flare. The immediate concerns are the high levels of electromagnetic radiation, not coronal ejecta. Lethal levels of x-rays have already reached the station. You need to start running anti-rotation, now.”
“What? Shouldn’t I head for a spoke, so I can take a lift to the auditorium?” Just incase the computer knew what it was talking about; Louis began jogging against the station’s direction of rotation.
“Sorry,” replied the computer. ”The lifts won’t function in an X-class flare. But, fortunately for you, the current orientation of the Perseus has the shielded auditorium located directly between your current location and the sun. However, you’ll only be in its shadow for another 3 seconds. Since the station is rotating, you need to run, not jog, to stay within the auditorium’s shadow. As long as you maintain that position, you’ll be shielded from the lethal radiation. However, you need to sustain a steady pace of 780 meters per minute to keep the auditorium aligned with the sun. It’s only 0.1g at your current radial distance, so it should not be too difficult. The lethal phase of the flare will only last for another two hours and five minutes. That’s 91 laps around the C-ring. I’ll regulate your pace. A little faster please, Mr. Spiridon.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 18, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
TRANSCRIPT: 01141220072461
INCIDENT: LEU1093-19072461
OUTCOME: PERPETRATOR FATALITY
INCEPT: 230336 Emergency call made from D40F38CB17: “Help. He has a gun. And a knife. And my daughter.”
RESPONSE1: 230619 LEU on scene.
RESPONSE2: 230728 Call for Policeman.
‘Call for Policeman’. Three words that define my life. Enforcement at all levels has been automated for over four centuries, yet the continuing need for discretion when dealing with humans resulted in real Policemen returning to duty three centuries ago. Machines cannot cope with the diversity of human actions, the nuances of emotion and expression. Lethal force had been applied too many times in minor situations, when decision trees bifurcated their way down to a guaranteed result that actually did more harm than good.
In my first life, I put nineteen years into the police force. On a rainy day in 2043, I was gunned down by a teenager with an assault rifle after intervening in a petty dispute over who controlled the drug distribution rights for a playground.
I had filled in the ‘Revive to Serve’ form thinking it was a joke. I’m not laughing anymore. This is my fourth tour of duty, each one lasting twenty years or until I am killed.
Last night I got the call and made my way to the thirty-eighth floor of Cityblock Seventeen. In Dwelling Forty, what used to be called a family-sized council flat, Mister Stevens had consumed his post-work alcohol ration and augmented it with several grams of something that apparently turned his world into a paranoid hell in which his family were out to get him. So he defended himself. He knocked his wife out with a home-made squeezegun before stabbing his son and the first LEU to arrive before barricading himself in the bedroom with his daughter. The fact he’d managed to scratch the LEU showed how far gone he was.
It was clear from the ranting that he had left the rails completely. He would return tomorrow, all grief and remorse. But for tonight, he was a chef beyond redemption. If he hadn’t grabbed his daughter, the response would be contain until sober and then fine him. As he had a hostage and was out of his mind, I had to try and talk him down.
I am equipped with body armour and full data access, nothing more. If I want physical intervention, the Law Enforcement Units on scene will apply it.
I spent two hours talking to him, hearing how his profession is no longer rated as such due to vending being available for all and no-one wanting to pay for the personal touch. He was angry and sad, seeing the end of his vocation. He’d mortgaged everything to keep his restaurant going, his family’s comfort secondary to the need to keep cooking.
I tried. I always do. The evaluation headware that monitors my effort and mental state flashed an ‘out of options’ decision after ninety minutes. I kept going for another thirty. Then he sliced his daughter’s arm and clipped an artery. I saw his smile and realisation dawned moments before the response to life-threatening injury caused the LEU accompanying me to burn a hole through his skull. Within five minutes, the organ salvage unit had whisked his body away to pay his debts. My data feed told me that his corpse value was enough to pay them all and allow his family to live comfortably for a long time.
Nearly nine decades of service across three centuries and I still see desperate love expressed as ‘suicide by cop’.
