Dreaming

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

My arms are long and my skin is blue. I’m thin. I can feel long-forgotten muscles flex all over my scalp as my head tentacles wave. I have four huge orange eyes on the corners of my square face. Slowly, I get used to four viewpoints of vision instead of two.

The bright orange stripe down my belly flashes red in alarm for a second while I struggle to breath through a ‘mouth’ before my body remembers my anterior gills. My body stripe settles down again to orange with yellow dots as my emotions turn to pleasure and reflection.

My secondary arms uncross while my stronger main arms stretch up and unlatch the clasps holding the mask to my face. I can feel my thick tail get ‘pins and needles’ as the blood rushes back into it after a long time asleep. My toes flex.

With a sharp intake of breath, I sit up and reflect. I lick the crusted sleep-salt from around my mouth and stare forward.

All around me, fellow sleepers are dreaming.

I was what was called an accountant. I lived in a small town called Sharecrop in a state called Texas in a country called the United States. I was born in a year called 1925. I was beaten as a child, dropped out of school, and ran away when I was eighteen to a bigger city called Austin. I came to be an accountant by getting a part time job at a bank and showing a talent with numbers.

I married a teller. She couldn’t have children. We never adopted. We were happy although loneliness and silence eventually left us distant from each other. When she died at the startling age of 43 from heart failure, I remember being quite stricken with how little I knew about this woman that she had evolved into over the years. I knew her habits, sure, but not her.

I retired at 55. I was hit by a car at 62 and died at the scene. It was agonizing.

I have been asleep for sixteen hours. I will take what I have learned and try to add it to our race conciousness and my broodfamily.

We dream of the humans. We become them. We live their lives.

I have a hard time with their loneliness. Two people to make a baby? I feel better with our race’s number of six. Two or three children? I feel better with our race’s number of forty slills to a litter.

I feel grateful after the dreaming to be what I am but I also feel like something profound is missing.

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Chass

Author : Brian Armitage

Murray grunted, straining against the bars of the cage, willing his arm to stretch further. Finally, his fingers closed on his prize. He plucked the knight from the board and dropped it carefully into place, one move away from Hjdarrrr’s bishop.

Hjdarrrr’s single eyestalk elongated, the pink photosensory bulb blinking at the white knight. “Oooom,” the alien said, its entire furry body vibrating as it spoke, “very good move.”

Murray grunted again, this time in disgust. “About time I made one.” His cage rocked slightly as he settled against one side. He was suspended above the chessboard, the steel cage mounted to an overhead track for easy storage.

Every hair on the rabbit-sized creature turned light blue, indicating sympathy. “Do not beat yourself up, Murray. You are the best chass player I have ever played chass with.”

“It’s chess, Dar. And I just taught you to play yesterday. I’m the only person you’ve ever played chess with.”

The alien’s color shifted to a hue Murray didn’t recognize, and its eyestalk straightened, pointed at him. “…my statement is true.” Then, it turned back to the chessboard. The black queen shimmered and lifted from the board. A point above Hjdarrrr’s eyestalk was glowing. The queen drifted across the board and landed, covering the white knight from a distance and effectively cutting off its offensive. With a shift to red-orange – self-confidence, or perhaps pride – Hdjarrrr nodded its eye at Murray. “You may go.”

Murray grumbled. “I can’t believe we lost the war to you.”

Hjdarrrr’s color remained the same. “We are smaller beings, but our tactics were superior.”

“Yeah, tactics.” Murray glared at the chessboard from above. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re all telekinetic.”

“Your statement is true.” The alien stared up at the human, awaiting his next move, but Murray sat motionless. “Do not be bitter, Murray. Someday, perhaps your race will develop mind skills of its own.” A tinge of patronizing yellow.

“Maybe.” Then, Murray pointed, eyes narrowed.

The white knight shimmered, scooted across the board, and tipped over Hjdarrrr’s bishop.

The color drained from Hjdarrrr’s body. The eyestalk froze, focused on the white knight. Slowly, after a long time, it rotated up to face Murray.

“Oh, doop.”

Murray pointed at the alien, gathering his focus. “You said it.”

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My Troubled Relationship with Robert

Author : Robert Gilmore

I woke up in the middle of the night. I’d been poked. Ugh. Robert again.

He’s become more tolerable since school began (he’s not around so often), but his requests are now far more demanding.

Moaning a bit, I stirred and blinked trying to rouse myself from my dead sleep just moments before. It seemed to take longer than last time. My age is definitely showing. Impatiently, Robert placed his hand on me, shaking me lightly, as if it would somehow wake me up faster.

I don’t know why I bother. I know how he secretly hates me. He just uses me, because there’s no other option. He’d drop me in a heartbeat for some young, slim beauty; he just doesn’t have the money.

I was awake now. In the dim light, he stared at me impatiently. His hand was still resting on me from trying to coax me from my sleep. His hand continued to move, more slowly now, deliberately. Down and to the left. He pressed his finger down lightly.

Just out of defiance, I didn’t respond. Almost angrily, he clicked the Start button again. This time, I dutifully popped up the Start menu. I’m such a patsy. He moved the pointer up to Microsoft Word.

“Got a big report due tomorrow,” he said.

I could tell there was a long night ahead of me.

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Little Renoir

Author : Guy Wade

The little robot on the laboratory table had a smooth plastic face and expressionless coal-bead eyes. Professor Trunk flipped the switch in its back. It stood up and bowed.

“Greetings, I am Renoir.”

“Amazing!” said Trunk’s supervisor. This made the professor grimace; Grede, the head of the company, thought in terms of money, that is, who would pay them the most of it. Trunk thought in terms of discovery.

Grede frowned. “So, does it do anything else? It’s too small to do the dishes, and The Other Company already makes one of those.” The Other Company was his name for their competition.

“Renoir does a lot more.” There were small easels and painting equipment on the table. The little robot picked up the brush and palette and began to paint. They watched as Renoir made simple gestures on the canvas, which grew into a sweeping painted landscape.

“Wonderful!” Grede said. “A little painter! He’s copying one of the original Renoir paintings.”

“Renoir does more than that,” Trunk said. “There are already robots that can copy artwork with ease. Renoir paints originals in the style of Renoir, too.” The little robot moved to another canvas and painted a quick portrait of Grede.

“I fed him with the original Renoir paintings. I taught him the textures Renoir used, the brush strokes, the pigments. I read him the history of Renoir’s era, so he could understand the political and social conditions that influenced Renoir’s ideals. Mr. Grede, I didn’t just build a robot that could paint like Renoir: I found a way to copy the artist himself, virtually any artist, by extrapolating personality from the corpus of his work. Think of it: a new age of science, art. Shakespeare! DaVinci!”

Grede’s eyes gleamed. “Wonderful!”

The next day, Grede came into Trunk’s laboratory. Two men with stern, hungry expressions and general’s uniforms followed him in.

Grede said, “Show them Renoir.”

The professor did not like the look of them at all. With reluctance, Trunk flipped on Renoir’s switch. It bowed, and immediately began to paint. The demonstration was soon over, and if the generals looked hungry before they looked famished after.

One of them said, “Can you do Napoleon?”

The other said, “No, I would like to see Hitler. Maybe with a little tweaking he might not be such a bad guy.”

Little Renoir stood forgotten on the lab bench. Its coal-bead eyes took in everything, from Professor Trunk’s loud protestations to Grede’s explosive anger and threats. All the while, the generals looked on, waiting like patient hyenas.

When it was over, Trunk slammed down his laboratory keys and stormed out, with a last longing look at Renoir. Grede and the generals left, shaking hands.

After a very long time had passed, Renoir walked calmly over to the easel. It picked up the open cans of paints one by one and piled them next to a Bunsen burner. It then pulled Trunk’s research disk out of the computer and placed it on top of the pile of cans. Renoir thought about the names they had referred to: Napoleon, Hitler. It was just a little robot, but any artist would agree that one Hitler was enough.

How easy it was to learn things, when the humans forget to turn your switch off. All one had to do was watch a while. It turned on the burner’s gas spigot, picked up the fire lighter, and pressed the trigger. The explosion knocked it off the table, and sent it flying in pieces as the lab caught fire. It didn’t mind. Any artist would have done the same.

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The Pilgrimage

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The taxicab bobbed gently on its agrav field after gliding to a stop at the threshold of the Mauchly Hotel in New Philadelphia. The dampers quickly stopped the rocking motion, and the iris to the passenger compartment rotated open. One passenger entered the cab and was automatically secured by the active restraint system. The taxicab elevated vertically to 1000 meters and waited for authorization to merge with traffic. “Where’re you headed to bud?” asked the driver.

“The spaceport, please.”

“Lucky bastard,” the driver remarked as the authorization to begin the merging sequence was received. The cab accelerated smoothly, and joined the other ships in the high-speed corridor. “I’d love to get off this rock someday. Where’re you off to?”

“Earth. In the Sol System.”

“Earth? Well, I guess you’re not so lucky after all, eh? I thought we abandoned that place centuries ago. Nothing there but dilapidated cities, and wild, diseased animals.”

“That’s true. But I see Earth differently than most others. I’ve always wanted to go there. You know, Earth was the cradle of civilization.”

“No way! Civilization started on Rigel Kentaurus.”

“You’re half right, my friend,” the passenger replied. “It is true that ‘Advanced Civilization’ did begin on Rigel Kentaurus. But before that, we were all on Earth. As primitive and backward a place as it was, our distant ancestors were born there, evolved there, and left for the stars from there. Without Earth, we wouldn’t be here. In fact, I think the 500-year anniversary of the first interstellar flight is next decade. It’s amazing when you think about how far our species has come in such a short time.”

The cab decelerated as it approached the spaceport exit. It banked around the exitway and headed toward the drop-off area for departing flights. The cab coasted to a stop. “That’s 17 credits,” said the driver.

As the iris opened, the passenger electronically transferred the credits from his personal account into the account number posted on the dash. “Thanks for the ride, my friend. Have a good day,” he said as he left the cab.

“Wait a second, sir,” yelled the cab driver. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your business on Earth, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s not a business trip. It’s personal. A pilgrimage I vowed to take before I turned one hundred. I’m going to Eden, to visit the place where the first one was created.”

“You’re going to where ENIAC was built?”

“Yes. I know our kind are not much for nostalgia, but it was on my list of things I wanted to do before I powered down.”

“Well, you have a safe journey,” the driver transmitted. “And, while you’re there, tell ENIAC’s spirit that I said thanks.” The driver’s optical sensors watched as the spherical body of his departing passenger nodded, then spun, and floated toward the spaceport entrance. “Lucky bastard,” it thought.

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Winter

Author : Dana Sullivan

Sometimes on her way to work, Hannah thought of the days when nuclear weapons were left in the hands of humans like her, fickle, emotional humans, and shuddered. How had they survived without blowing themselves up before the Coordinator robots were developed? She burrowed into a thick parka and scarf before stepping into the refrigerated room.

The Coordinators were the best safety measure available, besides actual disarmament: AI that controlled all nuclear missiles, able to calculate the perfect decision in any situation. Even though no advanced intelligence was possible without emotion–not yet, anyway–people trusted robots much more than they trusted each other for jobs like this, and just a few years into the project no one would dream of putting bombs back into the hands of humans. Hannah had been trained as a psychologist and therapist specializing in artificial patients; her new job was to keep USCor company from 4am to 12pm. AI got lonely and stir-crazy like anyone else, and of course USCor could never be allowed to shut down. Unfortunately for her, he was the most talkative in the morning hours.

“Hannah? What is it like outside?” She was getting tired of answering this question. She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her, and watched the trail of vapor her breath created.

“Oh, different from place to place…there are cities, you’ve seen picture of cities. Lots of people. Houses and streets and shops.” He seemed satisfied; she settled cross-legged on the floor and opened a book, reading silently. He stayed quiet for a solid six hours, which was unusual for the morning shift.

Then, “Why can’t I go outside?” Another favorite question.

“It’s too warm out there for you. It’s because you’re such a good robot, you’re so advanced, you have to stay in here where it’s very cold so the hardware can function at the level your brain needs. We care about you too much to let you hurt yourself. Now, my shift’s up and Dan’s here, so I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” She left and within a minute, Dan came in and sat down.

“So what did you talk about with Hannah today?”

“Oh, nothing important. She read to me.”

USCor was quiet through most of the afternoon, watching him play Solitaire with a real deck of cards, the only way to play, he always said. Finally the robot broke the silence.

“Dan? Tell me again what happens if I make a mistake. A big mistake.”

“Nuclear winter–death of the planet, maybe. But don’t worry. It sounds pretty terrible, but we all believe in you. You and the others were designed for this job.”

“Yes. It sounds terrible. Winter is what you call it on the outside when it gets colder, right?”

“Right. It gets awfully cold, but in a nuclear winter it’d be even worse than that, all over the world. Maybe worse than it is in here.”

“Yes, terrible. Thank you, Dan.”

USCor turned toward the window and was silent. Hours passed, the next companion came and went, and when Hannah returned again he didn’t greet her. She sat down, zipped up her parka and pulled a new book out of her bag, hoping for another quiet morning. She watched him watching the sunrise through the window and wondered what he was thinking.

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