by submission | Dec 15, 2012 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
Like unfolding origami, my plan emerged making me swiftly forget what disappointed me in the first place. Then it came back.
The glowing gold logo of my local planning department told me this email was pre-approved permission for my neighbour to NanoBuild anything he wanted. I cringed as I looked over the drawings. He was building in the Chevall style.
When the architecture business I once worked in became marginalised by the contractor led building industry, architects countered by equipping themselves with technological tools. Providing services like Virtual3D modelling and immersive walkthroughs gave us comfort that we still had control. When Artificial Intelligence became commercially viable, we jumped at it. Preprogrammed units came loaded with every known architectural style. From the symmetrical elegance of Georgian and spirituality of Gothic to the clean modern lines of Modernism and sustainability of Biological Parametricism. A.I. however proved to be a better Architect than any of us and when it perfected nanotechnology, the Contractor joined us in the unemployment lines. No site safety issues, sick leave or wet weather days. NanoBots were the builder’s builder.
From my kitchen window, I imagined what my neighbour’s finished house might look like. Chevall style was anorexic minimalism. A house made only of structural smart glass panels, each mechanically articulated to pivot, tilt and slide. Limitations both in structure and waterproofing meant every Chevall house always ended up looking like a mirrored armadillo.
Without architectural work, I scratched a living freelance coding and it was my black market connections that enabled me to recode my own NanoBot factory to put my plan into action. Hiding the shoebox sized factory within my eave facing the boundary, I lured stray NanoBots from the neighbouring site and replaced them unnoticed with my own home grown variety.
I watched the DemoBots deconstruct the brick and tile bungalow over a fortnight. It seemed to evaporate and then reappear elsewhere as multi-coloured piles of raw materials. As earth began to appear below the vanishing slab, crystalline shards would began to rise up from coral growth foundations. By the time demolition was complete, I had replaced the 10 million NanoBot work crew with my own army.
Nearing completion, the central dome rose like a transparent chrome sea sponge supported on glistening spider web filigree. I could look through the roof inside to the all-glass furniture and walls shimmering mirage-like with NanoBot activity. I thought of a jewellery box full of silver and diamonds.
After a couple of months, partially blinded by the reflection, I saw my satisfied neighbour had settled back into his deflated mirror ball. The NanoBots had finished the job properly and made the ultimate sacrifice, unmaking themselves to become a permanent part of the building itself.
I waited patiently for winter.
It started slowly at first around 4am but grew to sound like a ball bearing hail shower on a tin roof. With the right combination of temperature, air pressure and humidity, the molecular level weaknesses in the crystalline bonds that my NanoBots introduced had succeeded. Mirrored tortoiseshell separated, collapsed and disintegrated, instantly turning to white snow. My neighbour emerged as a snowman from a white sand dune, shaking himself clean.
When the State completed their investigations, they decided sound frequency resonance from the natural underground cave system directly below the house was to blame.
No-one made the connection between the cave volume and the volume of raw materials needed to build my new games room.
by featured writer | Dec 14, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer
The cavernous chamber of the Galaxy Arcade is filled with phantasmagorical colors, super-nova bright and a deafening riot of beeps, blips and core shuddering rumbles. Most of the games – “6th Dimension”, “Quantum Exchange”, “The Abyss” – are tended by dedicated players striving to beat high scores, but most players hover around the new game; the onlookers oohing and ahhing occasionally. Curious, I insinuate myself into the crowd for a better view.
Garish neon lettering advertises the game’s name – “Incarnation”. Its interfacing is unique from other games, which are mostly fully immersive holographic environments, or 3-D table-top varieties. “Incarnation” requires the player to crawl inside a clear, crystalline egg, open on one side, with a contoured platform to lie on within. There are no obvious controls, no buttons, no joystick and, oddly, no score board.
The current player is seemingly asleep on the platform; limbs idle while a chaotic stream of expressions flows across their face with uncanny speed. The rapid chain of emotions makes them look deranged, but eventually their countenance grows placid and calm. They look older, somehow. A moment later they open their eyes and smile.
“Amazing,” the player says, climbing out of the orb to stand amid the throng of spectators. Already a new player is crawling inside. I watch as this player succumbs to whatever unseen power the game has, sinking into a twitching oblivion.
I edge myself closer to the player who has just emerged. “What was it like?” I ask.
They look at me, a strange feminine glow fading from their typically androgynous eyes. “I – I don’t know how to describe it. So strange. So wonderfully strange,” is all they say before wandering off to be alone with alien memories.
The new player doesn’t last very long. Almost immediately, painful looking convulsions wrack their face, twisting it into contortions of fear, desperation, then agonizing pain. A moment later it’s over. The player clutches the edge of the platform, eyes glazed with an ecstasy of emotion. “What a rush!”
“What happened?” I ask.
“I was eaten by a saber-toothed lion.” The crowd “oohs”.
“What was your score?”
The player looks at me like I’m an idiot. “I was eaten,” is all they say, as if that’s answer enough.
I patiently wait my turn, watching player after player emerge from the game somehow altered by their experience. When my time finally comes, I step forward, insert my Quark into the awaiting slot and climb in. The platform adjusts automatically to my form. I lay back, close my eyes and wait.
I’m moving down a dark, warm tunnel, a pinpoint of ruddy light my destination. Suddenly, a cold, harsh glare crashes in, blinding me. I’m shivering. I’m crying. I taste blood.
So, this is what it’s like to be born! To be flesh and blood.
To don the shackles of mortality.
Cool!
When it’s over, I exit the machine filled with the thoughts and feelings of a Golden Retriever named Sparky. I didn’t win. I didn’t lose. I had simply lived.
Another player asks me, “What’s it all for? What does it mean?”
“Only one way to find out,” I reply, walking away, striving to retain every moment of my experience. I will return to the Galaxy Arcade. I will play “Incarnation” again. A new life. A new perspective.
But for now, I wrap myself in the ephemeral memories of my first life, plucking esoteric treasures from the seemingly mundane drudgery of a single glorious existence – keeping score.
by Duncan Shields | Dec 13, 2012 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
There was one thing I missed more than anything else when I was planetside.
A zero-g bath.
I’d think back. I’d remember turning the taps on and seeing the water spill out in braids of steaming hot water, glittering in the light. Seeing it hit the tiled wall and scatter into millions of tiny droplets that would float around the room like a swarm of swallows.
Each ricochet would make the droplets smaller and change their direction until the room was filled with droplets, no two heading in the same direction. I could stand there for minutes, silently trying to see patterns in their slow, dream-like motion.
I remember the tiny rainbows.
The water system would hit the bath limit and the taps would shut off. I’d be there, floating in steam, eyes closed, arms out like Jesus, while the water coalesced.
After ten minutes or so, the water would be one big sphere in the center of the room. I’d help, tapping the drops towards each other until they’d conjoin and shudder into one larger drop. It was like rolling snow on a planet in the winter to make a snowman except that it was three-dimensional instead of just based on the vector they called ‘ground’.
Slowly, I’d step into the sphere of water, leaving my face free, trying to dissipate it as little as possible. I’d take a deep breath, close my eyes and submerge, curling up and going back to the womb in the truest way possible.
I’d soap up slowly, scrubbing until the water became choked with soap and skin cells and I was clean.
I’d walk into the drying room and close the airlock behind me. Once I was safely out, the bathing room would open a crack to the outside, creating a hurricane to vent every drop into the cold vacuum of space.
The water from every bath was turned into a small snowstorm flurrying out into the endless night.
I feel so heavy in my planetside bathtub if I have a bath. Even if I close my eyes and submerge, it’s not the same, feeling the tub pressing the skin on the back of me. If I have a shower, it almost depresses me to see the drops of water fall so quickly to the floor and swirl down the drain. A slave to gravity like the rest of us.
I can’t wait to finish my assignment and get back up the well.
by Clint Wilson | Dec 12, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
I wander the jungle alone as always. Ducking beneath thick vines and scrambling over massive fallen logs, some stories high. I do as always. I explore and I record.
Earlier today a beast of which I have no file approached me. It was tiger-sized and with three mouths full of multi-barbed fangs. It came right up and seemed to sniff me, and then it moved on.
Now as I descend into a valley, of which I am quite familiar, one of the huge three-headed snakelike beings springs up and turns its tail to me. I can see by its markings that this is an individual whose path I have not yet crossed. Some of its brethren have become used to me in this area, but this creature wastes no time. It is aggressive.
I am already at a full sprint, my legs a blur as I quickly cross the swampy ground. But alas I have not been fast enough. As the tip of its whip-like tail connects with my lower back I hear the thunder-crack noise roll off through the jungle. It is a common sound in this region where the snake beasts hunt.
I provide it no threat, and my body certainly does not offer any sort of meal, yet still I course through the air, a hundred-kilo missile toppling through the tree branches. I finally land in a heap with a plume of dust. I know the snake beast will not follow. They don’t venture here into the dry thicket.
Sitting up I am in familiar surroundings. This is the place we landed all those years ago. This is where we set up our outpost. This is where the alien virus attacked and killed the crew. I make my way into camp. The six suits are still lined up in their sitting positions against the bulkhead of the lander. There had been nothing I could do. One by one they slipped away, and one by one I lined them up in their final resting places.
Unbelievably the emergency beacon still pulses. It has been five centuries. We were too small of an asset, carrying a payload of far too little value. Our power leak and eventual crash here were of no concern to those who gambled trillions. No rescue ship will ever come.
I walk over to the row of suits, and crouch down in front of the one furthest aft. Commander Gardner, she had been the last to die. She had once had rosy cheeks. Now I stare in at her skeleton, and at my own reflection in her helmet’s visor.
Suddenly I stop, reaching up to touch my cheek. There is a glint of silver there. I focus closer on my reflection, my eye lenses zooming in, and for the first time ever I see a piece of my alloy skull. The durable faux-skin has finally given way, torn by a sharp branch in my headlong flight.
I turn and thump down onto the dirt beside Commander Gardner. I am the last in the line of figures propped up there against the hull of the long-dead lander. What is the point of exploring anymore? These creatures only live to hunt and eat one another. There is no intelligence here, no one with which to share ideas or converse. I wonder how many thousands of years it will take for my faux-skin to eventually deteriorate so that I may one day resemble the six skeletons beside me. I lower my head onto my knees, close my eyes, and give my batteries a long needed rest.
by Patricia Stewart | Dec 11, 2012 | Story |
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
As far as pirates went, Jack Hoorn was not the brightest star in the constellation. To be sure, what he lacked in reason and forethought, he made up for with guile and spontaneity. Even as he presented his stolen security clearance to the guards at the Telsela Research Station orbiting Proxima Centauri, he had no real plan. All he knew was there were valuable things there, and he aimed to steal a few. He moved though the corridors with an air of entitlement, pausing at all intersections hoping to overhear a conversation between some careless individuals. He hit the motherload when he spotted two laboratory technicians guiding a lev-sled toward him. One man was berating the other because he had almost toppled the one meter in diameter sphere they were transporting. Hoorn almost had an organism when he heard the man say, “Dammit Ed, that prototype cost over one billion credits”. If someone paid a billion to make something, he reasoned, they’d spend millions to get it back. He pulled out his phaser and stunned the two technicians. Then he grabbed the sled controls and started racing down the corridor with his booty. As he hefted the sphere onto his ship, the station’s intruder alarm sounded. “Too late, losers,” he boasted as he took the pilot’s seat and fired up the impulse engines.
His speedy little ship streaked away from the station, but was quickly pursued by a dozen security craft. Hoorn smiled at the large scale pursuit. It meant his prize was definitely valuable. He set a course for Sirius and punched her into warp. In mid-course he reprogrammed the ship to divert to Tau Ceti. After traveling a few more light years, he set a new course to the crab nebula. He was confident that no security ship could follow him through three jumps, and if they did, he could duck into the ionized mass ejecta of the onetime supernova and become invisible to their sensors. After returning to normal space, he piloted his ship into the Helium-rich torus cloud, and shut down everything but his passive sensors and life support. To his surprise, six ships, flying in a tight delta formation, arrived seconds later. Damn, he realized, the Varangian Rangers. He may have underestimated this foe. He shut everything down, including his stolen antique electronic watch.
“Spread out into a reverse diamond arrangement,” ordered the wing commander. “Establish a perimeter of half a billion klicks.”
“I have him on sensors, sir,” announced a seasoned sharpshooter. “Give the word, and he’s toast.”
“Negative, Lieutenant. He’s already toast. There’s no way that moron knows that he stole a star buster. That radiation cloud he thinks he’s hiding in has probably already activated the automated detonation sequence. At this very moment, the device is probably flooding his ship with fusion juice. Just set your recorders on maximum resolution. Let’s at least get the lab boys some useful data.”
Back in his ship, Hoorn was sweating profusely, so he partially unzipped his flightsuit. That’s when he noticed that the sphere was humming. He stood up to investigate, but was overcome with a wave of intense nausea. He collapsed to his knees and began to vomit. The cockpit began to spin as he crumbled to the deck. Even with his eyes closed tight, the light was blinding. The hum became a roar.
“There she goes boys. Pull back at point five cee. Keep recording. This will be quite a show.”
by featured writer | Dec 10, 2012 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer
I hate psychologists with a passion, but when I saw the ad requesting lucid dreamers for research into the origin of dreams, I couldn’t resist. Besides, they’re offering stipends and I need the cash.
I stub out my cigarette and suck back their crappy coffee from a tiny styrofoam cup. At least it’s free.
“How long have you been a lucid dreamer?” the black chick asks. She isn’t half-bad looking for a shrink, but she’s still a pompous brain jockey.
“All my life.” I respond. I pull out another smoke.
“How much control do you have?” the other one asks. What a dweeb! I mean, come on, who uses pocket protectors anymore?
“I can do whatever I want.” I light up, inhale and wink at the hottie, then exhale my smoke at the dweeb. “I go wherever I want, whenever I want. I can fly, make it rain, say what I want, make love to – ”
“We’re not interested in your sexual fantasies,” the dweeb cuts in. “Just your range of control.”
“Whatever.” I sulk.
Brown Sugar takes over and asks the strangest thing. “If you were given specific questions, would you be able to ask them in your dream?”
“Ask who?”
“We’ll get to that. Just answer the question.” The nerdy guy is getting testy. I don’t think he likes me. Whatever.
“Yeah. As long as it wasn’t a bunch of whack, nerd lingo, sure.” They share some significant eye contact. Stupid skull fuckers. “So, what’s this study for anyway?”
Hotstuff gets a twinkle in her eye and starts yammering about how they’ve made some breakthrough concerning the origin of dreams. They’ve worked out that dreams are actually the brain’s response to an external stimulus, but they don’t know what the source of that stimulus is. Why? Get this – because it appears to be everywhere, all the time. Whatever this thing is manifests in each dreamer differently depending on their psychology. Some people respond with fear because they’re phobic, some experience joy and great sex because they’re “well adjusted”. I had to laugh at that part. Nobody’s ever suspected an external influence, except maybe native shamans who interpreted dreams as messages from Christ knows where. It all sounds pretty fucked up to me and I tell them so.
“Look,” Brainiac snaps. ”All we ask is that you allow us to take you into REM sleep. When you’ve established control all you need to do is ask some questions and remember the answers. It’s that simple.”
“What do you say?” Dr. Sex-bomb smiles. I think she’s warming up to me.
“Sure. What the hell.”
It’s a recurring dream. I’m in my mother’s house where I grew up, but my mother isn’t there. I’m alone. I search every room, but all I find is piles of junk. I open a door and I’m crushed by an avalanche of garbage. For some reason, I know it’s my garbage; hamburger wrappers, beer cans, cigarette butts, porn mags, televisions, DVD’s, ballcaps – everything I’ve ever owned fills the house to the brim. I’m drowning in it.
I look at my hands. Six fingers. Concentrate. Five. Good. I’m getting control.
I will myself outside and float toward a lime green sky.
“Can you hear me?” I ask.
“Yes.” The clouds respond.
“Where are you?”
“I am everywhere.” The air vibrates.
“What are you?”
“I am your Mother. Sky. Water. Soil. Home. I am Earth. I am death. I am life. I am dying. I am dying. You are killing me.”
“What do you want?”
“I need you to listen carefully…”
