by Julian Miles | Nov 23, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“What do you mean you lost her? This is Central, the most surveilled planet in the galaxy. How do you lose a two meter tall three armed gal?”
Gens Adamant had the grace to look crestfallen, and so he should. He may be from a long line of scientists, but by all the Sacred, he should have kept the gal under tighter survey.
“With respect, eminence, your last directive enabled her escape.”
The bald-faced cheek of the man! Trying to turn his failure of ward into my problem. I let my frustration tinge my voice as I replied.
“How exactly can ‘pretty by late twentieth century standards’ cause that?”
Gens looked about as if seeking an escape route. Good. Maybe he finally understood the scale of the disaster he was party to. He ran his hand through his un-gelled hair and tried to straighten his rumpled low-weave suit.
“Because she seduced one of my technical staff.”
I raised my hand for silence as I composed myself through the waves of disgust. How depravedly venal. I waved for Gens to continue.
“He gave her access to his terminal. Your eminence knows of her capabilities?”
Stupid man. Of course I knew about her specification, she was built for me, the ultimate in privacy drones, and decorative too. Smart enough to anticipate interruptions and dynamically stall trespass into my data space. I nodded curtly to him, not deigning to reply.
“She didn’t do much, he told me before he was cauterised. Just used the access to fill gaps in her education.”
So the gal was knowledgeable now? She would need flushing before adding to my domestics. Gens maundered on,
“But she did something else. I presume you gave her your imprint to ready her for staging?”
Of course I had. What use was my privacy drone if she couldn’t see my data to protect it? Really, the man was just fishing for a way to escape blame. I nodded again.
“She used your imprint to add some additions to her directives.”
I looked at him. His disingenuous look hid something. I gestured for him to continue.
“She increased the breadth of the suites you ordered for her, and added features from your private guardsmen.”
I composed my voice before calmly querying him;
“But she couldn’t get anything offensive? It would be beyond her design protocol.”
Gens nodded.
“Of course, eminence. Nothing like that at all. But she seems to have interlaced the privacy suites you gave her with the personal combat countermeasures from your guards.”
Really, I wish he would get to the point. I fixed him with a gimlet stare and brought him back on track.
“This is all very informative, but how does this relate to the fact you have lost her?”
Gens reply was immediate,
“We have lost her because unless she wants it, she cannot be seen by any form of surveillance.”
I sat there and ruminated. Gens had the effrontery to interrupt my deliberations.
“Eminence, I realise the potential here, but you have more serious problems.”
The gall of the man! How dare he come here with his failure and attempt to advise me. I simply glared at him. He paled, but continued.
“She has your imprint, eminence. She knows about the three year duration you place on your drones.”
Ah, that could be awkward. She could take umbrage at that.
“Your recommendations, Adamant?”
“Revise your security and data space. Change your imprint and move your funds…”
I raised an eyebrow as Gens trailed off. He seemed to be struggling with something. Finally he spoke again.
“Pray.”
by featured writer | Nov 22, 2011 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer
I open my eyes and gasp aloud.
Where… is this? What… what day is… time is… where am I? Who… who… who… who am I?
Although my entire awareness is a swirling multitude of uncertainty, I know I am looking up at the sterile white interior of a… a lid, yes a lid… on a coffin? No, not a coffin… a… a… I just don’t know.
Then my stasis chamber’s computer, sensing my consciousness, begins to speak in a soothing female voice. “You are Cyril Brendan Thompson, citizen of Canada. Do not be alarmed. You have been in stasis.”
Like a punch to the face so much memory comes flooding toward my senses all at once. I hadn’t been ill? but what? Just… just middle-aged and sick of life; but what to do? Back then it was all the rage. All the aging hipsters were doing it, personally I didn’t care I just wanted the world to change.
So for a hefty sum I reserved a position in the well-sought-after fast forward limbo of the time skipper.
But why has my chamber awakened me now? This is the one thing still unclear. I decide to address the computer.
While my vocal chords are physically intact and have been, as I quickly discover, quite obviously well preserved, the sound of my own voice echoes back at me off the inside of the chamber lid with the dry complaint of a long unused musical instrument. “What is the date please?”
The machine hums and whirrs at me but the voice does not answer.
I try again, with more authority this time. “Why have you awakened me?”
Again the mechanical whirring, this time interspersed with a few plastic clicks and ticks. Still the machine says nothing.
“Computer!” I command dryly but sternly. “What is the current state of the world outside?”
Suddenly the mechanical hum of the chamber stops. Then without warning there is a dull metallic thud, as though an iron ball has just dropped and triggered a sinister mechanism inside my coffin-like prison. Then the soothing voice returns as if though nothing is amiss.
“Certainly Mr. Thompson. The date is 6289 AD by your Julian calendar.”
Then without pause it answers my second question. “You requested not to be revived until such time as the human population has been reduced to less than one billion persons.”
And then as I grasp for words but before I can effectively react it plods on mechanically to respond to my third query. “The state of the world outside is utter chaos. A comet approximately forty-two kilometers in diameter has impacted the planet. The shockwave has circled the earth seven times and is still moving. An estimated ninety-three percent of all Terran life is thought to be lost due to this event and its apparent magnitude.”
Shocked to my very core, I decide to ask no more questions for the moment. Everything seems still and tranquil. I am fairly certain my stasis chamber remains in its protective sarcophagus; surrounded by shock absorbers shielding me from the goings on of outside.
I finally decide to address the machine again. “Computer?”
This time she responds instantly.
“How may I be of service sir?”
“Do you retain a complete record of human activity dating back to my time of internment?”
A quick whirr and hum and then, “Yes sir.”
“Tell me then,” I ask with a faraway look of boyhood wonder on my face, “Did the Vancouver Canucks finally win the Stanley Cup?”
by submission | Nov 21, 2011 | Story |
Author : Huw Langridge
Carla’s hand retreated from the ON switch while the media wall flickered to life. The software programme went through its final initialisation stages, with lines of configuration code working its way up the screen. She waited.
ADAM appeared on the wall. ADAM, the shining humanoid avatar, the ‘physical’ representation of the Artificial Intelligence program Carla had been working on for so many years. So many years in this small garage behind her house. Beautiful code that was in the final testing stages. Soon she could patent the program, then release it to the world. Anyone who saw ADAM would be convinced that Artificial Intelligence had finally come of age.
“Good morning Adam,” said Carla when the voice parameters finally loaded.
“Good morning Carla. have you had a good rest?” said ADAM, leaning in towards the screen. Carla smiled, constantly astounded by the realism within the avatar’s movements.
“I did thanks. I had a beautiful dream.”
“Really?” said ADAM, “May I ask what it was about?”
“I was… dreaming about the past,” said Carla.
“That’s interesting. What aspect of the past?”
She looked around the garage, pondering the dream. She looked at the shelves with their old paint-pots, the tool rack of garden implements she could never remember using. Though she was a keen gardener she never seemed to have the time. Outside, beyond the trees the light from the sunrise shone pink through pastel clouds. A beautifully calming scene.
“I was young,” she said. “An infant, in the dream. It was strange because I only had a vague understanding of the world around me.” She smiled to herself, it was so interesting to be telling this to an AI program, but it would be even more interesting to discover what ADAM had to say about her dream. Some of the higher algorithms may struggle with the concept of dreaming, but it was worth the test. “My mother was helping me learn to ride my first bicycle.”
“What colour was the bicycle?” asked ADAM.
“Adam, you are aware it wasn’t a real bicycle? Just a dream-bicycle.”
ADAM nodded. His nodding seemed a little clunky, a little… unlikely. Carla made a mental note that she would have to play with that part of the code.
“It was yellow,” she finally said.
“I knew it would be that colour,” said ADAM.
Carla smiled. She wasn’t surprised. Yellow was the first colour she taught the ADAM program to recognise through its multiple high-definition cameras.
“Did your mother… say anything to you in the dream?”
Carla shook her head. “No but I was talking to her. At least, I was trying to, but I couldn’t find the words. I was so young, in the dream. Too young to articulate how much I loved her. I…”
ADAM interrupted. “Loved her? You talk about her in the past tense. Is she no longer with you?”
Carla felt a tear running down her cheek. She was shaking her head, knowing that ADAM’s camera could see and interpret her movements and gestures.
Adam triggered the OFF switch and rotated his bio-canister to look through the view-port at the parched planet below. “It’s so close now,” he said. “I hadn’t yet programmed in the concept of death.”
His great-great-great grandson stood up from the grav-seat and floated towards him, softly touching the metal surface of the bio-canister which preserved the old man’s brain. “You will never get those times back. I really think it’s time you let her go.”
by submission | Nov 20, 2011 | Story |
Author : Martin Berka
Tom stood meters behind the ethicist, armed to where his teeth had been until they encountered grenade shrapnel two years ago. She knelt in the alleyway, engrossed in some insect or small plant ? it was not his job to understand. He could end this right now, and never again have to wonder what she was thinking.
Slowly, reach up and draw the pistol from the shoulder holster. With minimal movement, point. Fire.
He had sworn three oaths, and signed as many secretive contracts, promising to protect her for two years, until his replacement arrived. The contracts had been burned, their copies purged from every database by viruses, and everyone who had witnessed the oaths was dead. The agreed-upon period had expired, and now, excellent offers promised wealth and safety for a few minutes’ work.
Dash forward, gripping the left hip knife. Hold down by the shoulder and stab at the base of the neck. Clean the blade and sheath it.
Tom did not know what the world as a whole saw in the ethicist. A scattering of technologists, wealthy idealists, and experimentally-minded societies had chosen her to be half the world’s judge. The multi-trillion-dollar computer system that would see and evaluate all actions of a few billion people had the legal knowledge and logic, but the ethicist would provide pure, evolving, emotional humanity. The psychologists swore she was the perfect personality, with all the best mental indicators and potentials. Of course, they had said the same about Tom and his capacity to be the protector.
Certain other corporations, religions, and countries saw the ethicist as a criminal, a false prophet, and a herald of one-world government, respectively. The resulting war had left millions dead, many more under occupation, and shredded the Justice Project before it passed a single judgement.
They had escaped, just ethicist and protector, aided by luck and others’ copious sacrifices. Then they escaped again, and again, fleeing bunkers, cities, countries; every population held a few who hated everything the ethicist stood for. The two had together grown scarred, and occasionally very thin, but Tom doubted they were entirely alone: whenever the need arose, there was always a pilot, gun dealer, or prosthetic surgeon suspiciously willing to take mercy (and a profit loss) on two refugees. These suspiciously well-placed good Samaritans tended recognize the ethicist, and to see her as a responsibility, a messiah, or an enemy (though the latter, infiltrators, all met rather sudden ends at Tom’s now-artificial hands). Tom had desperately queried each, but bare rumors came back. Perhaps the Project was strong and growing. Maybe the unending war’s tide was about to shift. Someday, a new protector would arrive.
Tom himself saw a twenty-year-old woman, with a different name and hair color every month; the real ones eluded his forty-year-old mind, along with the history of the strange girl he had first been introduced to a decade ago, on a Project campus now probably melted and radioactive.
Now, she stood, revealing her focus — a faded group photo in a broken frame, once mantle centerpiece of some family, recently driven from this new ghost town. Seeing the two attackers’ corpses, she gave Tom a nod and a weary smile, laid a hand on one’s head, and walked slowly towards the abandoned store where supplies might be salvaged. Jogging to catch up, enhanced ears listening for any sign of hostile life, Tom pondered the future, Justice’s pipe dreams, and what the ethicist, young enough to be his daughter, was thinking. Breaking years of habit, he asked.
by submission | Nov 19, 2011 | Story |
Author : Eugen Spierer
“Why do you want to work for Bosch paper mills?”
The question echoed distantly in my ears. I knew it didn’t matter what I answered, my future was being decided as we were speaking based on the blood sample I had donated five minutes earlier.
“I think the company can offer me a challenging environment to work in. One I can grow in, professionally and personally.”
This was of course, a lie. It didn’t matter what I said. The vice president of the company I was talking to just needed to pass the time until the results came in. My fate was fixed and not dependent upon this conversation’s outcome.
An awkward silence. We both knew what was happening.
“Look,” said the VP, “let’s cut the crap. Why don’t we start by you telling me about your family. What were your parents like?”
“My dad was a maritime engineer and my mother was a bookkeeper.”
“A book keeper, eh?”
I knew this would strike a nerve. Employers look for a pedigree of prestigious employment.
“Yes. She’s worked with Coen and Travis, the shipping company.”
The VP just stared at me with a face devoid of any expression. Probably assessing my value.
The lab technician’s echoing footsteps in the hall sounded like an axe wielder walking toward the hanging post. He came into the room and handed a small computer printout to the VP.
After staring at the bottom of the page for a few seconds, the VP fixed his gaze on me. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Jacobs, unfortunately your past experience is insufficient for us to hire you.”
This must have meant that I failed the genetic test. They probably found out that I had a heart problem that is going to kill me in a few years or that I have reached the peak of my mental capacity. I still don’t know what it was to this day. I stood up, thanked the VP and walked out of the room and into the elevator.
This was my fifth job interview and I had failed them all. The blood test did the trick every time. I would be considering a genetic shift treatment, if they weren’t expensive and illegal.
The elevator’s floor numbers raced by like my life.
The day light momentarily blinded me as I stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby. There was no one there but the security man who, from the look of it, had just finished his night shift.
“How was your interview?” The guard asked.
“It didn’t go well.”
He appeared unsurprised.
“I could have told you it wouldn’t go well,” his voice followed me as I pushed open the door and stepped out into the busy street, “they only like white people around here.”
by submission | Nov 18, 2011 | Story |
Author : Cesium
It is only from one of the higher towers, the myriad smaller buildings laid out below and higher ones gleaming in the distance, that the City’s infinitude truly becomes intuitively and not merely intellectually apparent.
But even in the mist of a cool morning, when only the closer bridges and skyscrapers loom nebulously out of the featureless white, the City’s sheer vastness is never far from one’s mind. The City has no limits in the horizontal; it is bounded below and above only by what current technology can delve from the ground and claim from the sky. It is immeasurably old and constantly evolving. It contains buildings, and indeed whole districts, of every conceivable purpose and architectural style, and no sooner is a new one invented than some aging, decrepit building is torn down to make room for its first exemplar.
The City is everywhere inhabited; its populace moves about on its daily business via a network of streets, walkways, and rail lines, irregularly distributed, intersecting interminably with more of the same. The system is of course impossible to diagram in full, though local maps are readily available. Many people find employment and contentment within a few miles of their birthplace; some travel great distances to settle in different regions of the City; the remainder are restless wherever they go. I count myself among the latter few.
Once in my youth, driven by the impetuous urge to prove wisdom mistaken and the City finite, I leapt onto the back of an emptied supply truck as it departed the local produce market. If any activity went on beyond the limits of the City, I reasoned, it would surely be agriculture. But the truck arrived finally at a vast complex of greenhouses and hydroponic farms, surrounded by the familiar yet unfamiliar skyline of some other part of the City, and, seeing no obvious openings for further exploration, I was forced to make my way home.
In the decades since, I have traveled uncounted distances across the face of the City. A few years ago I began to hear rumors of the Tower of Jorge, which called it variously a tourist destination, an ancient relic, or a pilgrimage site; its fame seemed to grow the closer my journey took me. This very morning I arrived in the square where it stands, a tall straight spire pointing upward at the heavens, and climbed the winding stair to its top.
An inscription there defines the Tower to be the center of the City. The claim is absurd; the infinite has no center, or equivalently, every point is the center. But soon the chaotic sweep of the City all around me began to make a sort of sense; I seemed to perceive the avenues emanating from the square below, the districts arranged radially, disguised though they were by centuries of construction and demolition. In that instant I could believe that the City had started here. And if it had a beginning then perhaps it is not endless after all.
This is all I have discovered, for I have not managed to recapture that momentary revelation. I leave this note here in the hope that it will reach someone younger and better equipped than I to explore the mysteries of the City. I plan now to follow as far as I can the direction of one of the hidden avenues; perhaps I shall find its end in a location as distinguished as this one from the rest of the City. More likely I will die still unfulfilled. The City will continue, eternal and indifferent.
