by submission | Sep 17, 2010 | Story
Author : Brenna Robinson
Something happened back in those days that caused the compound to go into lock-down and never open again. When I started asking myself questions, and I decided that it could be only one of two things. Either the world had ended, or there was a malfunction in the computer. It was supposed to open when danger was gone, so danger was still there, or seemed to be there by its calculations.
At first, I continued to do my duties, even though my family had stopped asking me to–even though my family had stopped moving. A home can always be cleaner, can always be rearranged. I dusted, vacuumed, everything I had always done.
At first, I did not think. I only did. Then one day, I began asking myself questions. I began to become… I began to become bored. I played puzzles with the computer. I started thinking new theories and philosophies. Yet, I never considered trying to leave. This compound had been all that I had known.
Then there was a knock at the door, and many other loud noises followed. Someone, or something, was breaking in. I was excited and frightened. I hid where I could see the door. Then something happened. There was a beeping very loud inside my mind. I sprung to a perfect posture, and against my will I began to move toward the door. A switch had been flipped, it was the only explanation that made any sense. I was no longer in control of myself, but I could still think. That was something.
A group of men and women eventually flooded the corridor, and I was waiting.
“Welcome to our home,” I said, though I had not intended to say anything at all. “May I get you anything? Right this way to the sitting room.”
“Everything is still functioning,” one of the women said. “Interesting.” I wanted to talk. Instead, I led them to the sitting room, where my family was waiting.
“My god, they’re all skeletons.” Another said, flatly. I had tried my best to keep them as they were in life, my family. I had set them up around the table as if they had been talking all this time.
“It has been centuries. We’re lucky just to find this place. It’s a tomb. We should collect that Butler Unit for study. Leave everything else as is for now, though. Shut it down and take it to the lab.” This one seemed to be in charge. Maybe I could reason with her. If I could just get my voice activated. I said nothing. How I wanted to say something, but nothing would come out. I was stuck in my original programming loop, like a spectator in a body that was not mine.
“Butler Units aren’t sentient, are they, boss? I mean, I don’t want to shut him down if he is. We could question him.”
“It, Jones, it. No, there wasn’t the technology for self-aware bots back then. Just open it up and get its records. This is quite a find.”
I screamed inside my own mind. Shut me down? Now, just as the world was open to me. Just as I had only a century ago began to see it in this new way? I had the chance to see all of the places I had seen in pictures. I–
“Roll it out of here and let’s get started. There is so much work to do.”
by submission | Sep 16, 2010 | Story
Author : Martin Sumner
Sydney Park, Loss Adjuster for Prudential Insurance, straightens his tie. Slides a manicured finger into his starched shirt collar. Swallows. Checks for the third time that he has his leather briefcase with him, and pushes open the swinging glass door. The morgue attendant looks up from his desk in reception. Sydney hands him a card. Disinterested.
“I’m here to, ah, see Mr. Swann. So to speak.” The attendant shows him the way. White and peppermint green. The corridors, the signs, the staff uniform. Bright sterility. Overlit. The labyrinth echoes to the sound of Sydney’s brogues. The attendant has slippers. He shows Sydney into a small windowless room, daylight-white strip lighting flickers on, the attendant hands him a magnetic card. He checks that Sydney knows the procedure. He says he’ll wait outside. He sits down on a plastic chair.
Sydney closes the door and slots the card. He sits down. Clears his throat. A screen comes alive. It shows a profile of the deceased, one Jack Swann. The screen asks for a proceed command, and Sydney hits the appropriate key. A dial tone becomes a series of pips, and then a ring tone. The screen offers a choice – digital face animation or slide show? Sydney goes for the slide show. Always pick the slide show.
“Hello, this is Jack Swann.” The voice of the dead fills the room. Images of Jack Swann on the screen, a life that was. A life lived. A life lost.
“Ah, Mr. Swann. How, um, how are – um, well, anyway. I’m from the Prudential, your insurers. I’m processing your claim. In fact I’ve processed your last three, if I remember correctly.”
“Sydney, isn’t it? Yes, I remember you. All is well, I hope!”
Might as well get straight to the point. “Well, not exactly, Mr. Swann. Complications I’m afraid. Several complications. Firstly, your, ah, death occurred whilst you were in violation of your policy agreement, according to the police report. The policy specifically states you are not covered for dangerous sports, acts of God, travel to proscribed areas or, um, gun running.”
“Dammit Sydney we went through this last time. I wasn’t gun running. They are high explosives for strip mining. Purely commercial.”
“Well, ah, that worked last time, certainly. Interpretation, one supposes. However Mrs., ah, Alicia, err, Swann, your wife has been in touch.”
“We’re divorced, dammit.”
“Indeed, however as she rightly pointed out – upon checking – she is still the benefactor of your will. And, well there is no easy way to say this Mr. Swann, but she is pushing for a death certificate. She wants a pronouncement, and she is rather insistent. Certainly we at the Prudential cannot meet the cost of regeneration on this occasion, given the circumstances, and the scrutiny we are likely to get from Mrs., um, your wife’s legal team. You see our position, Mr. Swann?”
“Ex-wife, man! Ex-wife. Well what the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t afford to pay for regen myself. That’s why I pay you. Damn that woman. Where does this leave me?”
“Well, Sir, is there no way the, ah, Company can cover your expenses?”
“You kidding me? I have to buy my own damn Geiger suits. Cover my expenses!”
“I see. Well, it’s probably immaterial anyway, Mr. Swann. Perhaps it’s time to think about a new career inside the matrix. You know, retrain. OS development. Anti-viral service. Wiki. That sort of thing?”
“Immaterial? What exactly do you mean by that, Sydney?”
“Well Mr. Swann, perhaps you’ve lost count. I’m afraid you’ve had your eight legalised regenerations already.”
“Shiii-ite.”
by submission | Sep 15, 2010 | Story
Author : K. Pittman
Barrett’s neighbors, Ceely and HH, had straight papers, so they were the only ones who could give Barrett a ride.
“Where’re you headed,” they asked in unison, dressed as twins for this week’s theme party.
“SuperMall East,” Barrett said, unsmiling. “Got a job there.”
Ceely and HH shared a similar build and height but were physical opposites otherwise. Barrett surmised that the eerie synchronicity of movements and gestures displayed were worked out beforehand, but supported and sustained by some elaborate cocktail; something boosting mirror neuronal activity, cut with Ocytocin. Ceely and HH were really into Ocytocin this month.
“What’s wrong with your papers? Aren’t you cleared to travel?” asked in unison again, Ceely’s accent bending their sentences out of shape.
Barrett shrugged. “I missed a bill payment, and the Cred revoked my PubTrans permissions. I’m a flight risk or something.”
“Oh.” Their sadness and confusion was authentic. This was something they could never imagine happening. “SM-East isn’t on our route, but we’re picking up revelers past there. How long is the job?”
“Fourteen weeks. I can get a ride back.”
“Okay-okay!” they chirped; Barrett clenched his jaw a little. “We leave in sixty, will you be ready?”
“Yeah.”
The car was a new-model long-distance electric sedan, usually issued to small families. Barrett didn’t ask the twins who’d forged what to get what, minus kids or oldsters. He knew how these things worked.
Ceely entered their travel plan; when it cleared, the car started. The gang zone surrounding their gated blocks of flats was quiet today. Outside of the checkpoint, past robots bristling with exotic non-lethals, HH looked over at Ceely, who turned on and tuned the dash audio to a nostalgia band specializing in fin de siecle musics from previous centuries.
Nobody spoke.
Barrett watched a landscape of scrub and ochre roll by through hooded lids.
SuperMall East was a massive, blunted jet plinth filling the horizon, splitting the sky. Terraced gardens, visible as they grew closer interchange by interchange, did nothing to cut the building’s brutal impression.
“People live here,” pronounced the twins in awe.
“Yeah,” grunted Barrett, shifting in his seat, “people spend their entire lives here. It’s a mega-city.”
HH broke character and looked at Barrett over her shoulder. “Are you moving here?”
“Hell, no.” Barrett smiled and reached into his bag, pulling out a vintage tie. ”It’s a job. I like where I live.”
“Cool,” said the twins. “You’re our favorite neighbor. We like your cat.”
Barrett’s smile widened. “My cat and I like you too.” The kit-cat had been a good purchase, inspiring genuine reactions in people. Barrett used it as a metric, since he felt very much like that near-extinct animal. As above, so below, he thought not for the first time.
They pulled into to a disembarkment lane that led to a shuttle terminal. “What will you do here?” they asked.
Barrett started putting on his tie. “Some shoe sales, some maintenance programming. I have seven days off, so I’ll try to go to the top, take some photos.”
“Will your cat be okay?”
“His food and stuff is automated.” Barrett grabbed his bag, adjusted his tie, and exited into blasts of hot, dry air. “Pet him for me when you see him, huh?”
“We’ll pet him extra.”
“Thanks. See you you gals in seven fortnights. Have fun!” Barrett waved the twins off, and walked towards the nearest shuttle, into the beginning of his sentence.
by submission | Sep 14, 2010 | Story
Author : Ellen Couch
I chose this job. I guess I just wanted to stay close to home.
The big work was done before I was born. Grandad was in demolition- Nana said watching him work was dead exciting. But everything that was coming down came down a long time ago. There are pictures of Nana in front of what Mam called ‘sky scrapers’. The idea of being that high terrified me.
They jumped at the chance to leave. Mam and Dad weren’t that old. They wanted to try for another baby. Down here the rules about that are very strict. That’s why my job is so well paid. Nobody wants it.
I know there are others like me. I don’t see them, of course. We’re not supposed to leave our Remit. But sometimes, if I’m right out on the edge of the farm, there will be a figure in the distance, silhouetted against the endless fields. But whoever they are, they’ve as much work to do as me. And there’s the counsellor if I want to talk.
It’s not a bad life. One of the perks of the job is getting first crack at whatever we can get to grow. My first tomato was a revelation, after nothing but nourishment pills.
They’re talking about reintroducing livestock. Just to see how the animals get on. Maybe one day they’ll be able to repopulate, but not in my lifetime. Probably not for a few lifetimes.
Sometimes, the loneliness gets so bad all I can do is lie in bed, shaking.
But the wheat grew this year. Next week, I’m going to learn to bake bread.
by Duncan Shields | Sep 13, 2010 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
I was manufactured.
There are no more fathers. There is only one Mother. The humans grew sterile and could not breed by any other means. They were successful in making artificial life but they failed to cure the sickness that took away their ability to make children naturally. They grew old and they died. Now there are only us. We are made by and dependent on machines. There hasn’t been a true birth in two centuries.
I am processed meat.
The human factory of my birth is located in Missouri. I am a body of rejuvenated dead flesh whose appearance marks me as an expendable worker.
The specifications of my birth factory’s product line are one: Strong.
The automated collectors of the dead brought the corpses into the rear-loading rendering tubes at the Factory. There, the bodies are brought inside and separated into elementary components of tissue, fluid, tendon and muscle. Chemicals add elasticity and tensile strength. Vigor is restored.
Like a sausage or a can of spam, these parts of the dead are reconstituted together into a human form by machines designed for the task, moving with the bored speed of efficient programming. Staple gun retractors pull tendons taught over heel and wrist bones and keep them tight with glue-gun biopoxy. Electrical stimuli test-widens pupils and makes all the body’s muscles twitch in a shuddering preset order. The bodies are bathed in anti-rejection microbe gel. Coagulated blood from storage is thinned by chemicals and hosed into the hollow veins.
Sewing machines churn out templates of thick, fatty multi-colored skin by the acre to wrap us when we are near completion.
No aesthetic specifications are included in our reincarnation. Only function. We come off the lines ugly, strong and stupid. Filled with pacemakers, stimulators and regulators. Our behavior would be regulated by pain controls implanted too deep to remove but there are no humans around anymore to press the buttons on the pain sticks. We are sterile zombie eunuchs with skin melted together from all races in a bruised, patchwork, rag-doll, jigsaw collage like farmer’s fields seen from a plane.
No two of us were exactly alike. Our eye colours are random from eye to eye. Hair colours sprout from our heads at the whim of the random flesh pulled around our skulls. Neopolitan morlocks. Shelley’s legacy. True Frankensteins.
We were grown for hazardous labour.
Some are not.
The factories up North and on the Coasts were created to grow humans for the general population and a pristine few grow bodies for the rich. Replacement clones, sex slaves, high-end front-of house secretaries and restaurant workers. The factories still churn out beautiful specimens but without instructions, these flawless bodies wander the growing wilderness in helpless tribes, food for the wolves and other predators.
When they die, they are collected by the automated necro-retrievers and brought back for re-integration. After two or three cycles of this, they are judged unworthy to be made to those factory’s specifications and they go down the ladder of automation until they are brought to the factories like the one where I was born and their parts are made into something ugly like me with no thought of appearance.
I was made with faults. My life span is only ten years. My siblings are the same. But we are strong and can withstand much damage.
Our logic is sound: The more of the pretty ones we kill, the more of us there will be. And the more of us, the better.
by submission | Sep 12, 2010 | Story
Author : Cosmo
Every day I am losing more of my sight. Every night, the edge of the moon blurs a little more. I can no longer see the stars. In its way, this slow drift into obscurity comforts me. It reminds me of my mortality.
The city streams by several thousand feet below as the zepp glides through the night. Rock and metal flow together, become a light-specked river, as above a cold wind snaps through the zepp’s mainsail. I lean over the railing, trying to make out individual buildings, and try my best to ignore the scraping of talons against the elevator wing and the following thunk as Aryan lands upon the deck.
The HARPY joins me at the rail, c-fiber wings retracting soundlessly into his back. For a few minutes we stand and say nothing. I can almost hear his eye shutters irising as he tries to infer my line of sight.
“I don’t understand,” he says at last, rotating his head towards me. “Every night you come out here. What do you expect to see?”
“Nothing,” I reply, trying to keep everything out of my voice. My hand rises, almost unconsciously, to feel the silver cross that rests beneath my shirt. Aryan knows about it, and I know it irritates him. He has taken it from me once before, but sees no harm in me keeping it.
“Your body is failing. We offer you treatment.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You are going to let yourself die?”
“Death is natural,” I reply.
In the ensuing silence I can feel him contemplating forcing the surgery upon me. But he knows that I would escape it afterwards. “I see,” he says. “Why do you wear that cross?”
“Who were you?” I ask. “I mean, before?”
For a moment, I think he is going to respond. Perhaps this time I have caught him off guard. Perhaps, somewhere deep within that network of wires and nanotech, he retains a vague recollection of his past. “I don’t remember,” Aryan finally says. “It is not important.”
“It’s the most important thing there is,” I respond. “It’s why you will never understand.”
Something changes about him. Aryan shifts his weight uncomfortably from talon to talon, then suddenly throws himself over the railing. I watch moonlight spark from his body as he plummets towards the earth. I can hardly see him when he opens his wings and veers left.
Below, the city streams by. Through this long journey, I have been keeping track of the latitudes and longitudes. Somewhere ahead of us, the city breaks against the Dead Sea. Somewhere below, the ruins of Jerusalem lie, sinking slowly beneath wave after wave of metal.
