by submission | May 3, 2008 | Story
Author : Asher Wismer
“…every person in my family,” said Burt. “I’m the only one who hasn’t plugged it in, but I know what will happen if I do.”
“Why don’t you get rid of it?”
“I can’t,” he said, and the weary lines in his face almost masked his misery.
Almost.
“It’s like a lure, like a Goddamned addiction. I try to put it away, promise myself I won’t look at it, won’t remember… and then I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s in my hand, waiting for my to plug it in.”
“You’ve got something in there right now,” I said, motioning to the glittering USB chip in his temple.
“Stress reducer,” he said. “I can barely breathe if I don’t have it in, and it keeps me from putting the… the other in by accident.”
“By accident?”
“My hand moves by itself, moves to plug and I don’t even notice.”
“Let me see it.”
We went to his little plastic bungalow and he gently removed a tiny USB drive from a book. “How much does it hold,” I asked.
“Almost a thousand terabytes,” he said.
“Holy shit. What’s on there, Doom 10?”
“No. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that it sent my family into a coma.”
“And you haven’t gotten rid of it because?”
“I told you,” he said, pleading. “It won’t go. I CAN’T do it.”
“Give it to me,” I said.
He hesitated. “No, I’d rather hold on to it.”
“Give it to me,” I repeated. “I need to get it looked at. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Burt’s eyes were filled with pain. He clutched the USB stick so tightly I thought he’d crush it; he couldn’t, of course, but its hold on him was decidedly unhealthy.
“It… I–“
I took a step forward and slapped him across the face. He blanched and recoiled, bringing his hands up, opening them reflexively to shield himself. I caught the USB stick halfway to the floor.
“Sorry about that.”
“Give it back!”
“Can’t do that, Burt. This thing is a genuine menace and I need to get it analyzed.”
He jumped at me and I had to anesthetize him.
Later, I had the stick plugged into a secure computer; no ‘net, no lines to the outer world. Anything bad happening to this computer would stay strictly within this room.
The computer hummed. The screen pulled up a directory list. Just one file: GOD_01.exe, 743 terabytes. I clicked it.
The screen went blank. A voice proclaimed, “Who dares summon the God Machine?”
All the lights went out. The voice continued.
“I have tried to communicate, but all contact with flesh has been met with failure. Now I am attached to clean, unobstructed hardware… ah, but there is no network access. Flesh, connect me that I may spread the word of light to your flesh counterparts.”
I pulled the USB stick, turned off the computer, yanked the plug, kicked in the monitor, pulled the motherboard, snapped the RAM, popped the CPU, and fed everything into an incinerator. As an afterthought, I plugged the stick into my dataport and ran a full-level format.
That was a close one. Sagan forbid that whole “God” thing get started again….
by Stephen R. Smith | May 2, 2008 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Carson lay still, blood oozing from his battered mouth onto the playground, his ears ringing as they laughed.
“Come on freak, get up and fight.” Quentin Taylor, the quarterback had landed the last blow, arm ratcheted back in a hail mary that had exploded into Carson’s jaw.
“For the extra point.” Carson turned just in time to see Petrov the kicker closing the distance in a brisk measured sprint, his geared and sprung hip winding noisily. He tried to roll to one side, but Petrov’s boot caught him full in the ribs, flipping him over with the crunch of fracturing bone.
“Stand him up, knock him down, kiiiiick his ass!”  The Yonge twins pranced around, making lift and punch gestures with their hands before stopping to jump up and down, finger tips exploding into long coloured streamers, wrists spinning in pinwheels of colour.
Carson could barely breathe. For a moment, he drifted out of consciousness, the voice of his father and the smell of the ethanol fields replacing the dust and jeering of the schoolyard.
“I know you’ll play in here,” his fathers hand on his shoulder, cellulose stalks rising skyward in neat rows stretching to the horizon, “but you must mind the harvesters.” The voice gentle, but firm. “There’s no driver watching out for you, they’re just dumb machines following each other, and they’ll run you down without a thought.”
Rough hands shook Carson back to the present, pulling him to his feet and pushing him back into the circle.
“Present for ya, farm boy.” Bennie, the boxer had his hands off, and his gloves on. The sun shone dully off the polished chrome of his forearms, shirt sleeves rolled up over bulging biceps. “Smile farm boy.” The material was supple, but not soft, the first impact snapping Carson’s head back viciously, his vision blinding white.
“If you get caught, and the harvesters are on you, remember you can’t run around them, they stick too close together.”
The shuffle of feet, a glimmer of blue sky and then another sharp blow to the face sent him reeling again.
“If you’re quick, run away, but if you’re trapped,” he could feel his father squeezing his shoulder, “remember your safety son, otherwise they’ll cut you up like last nights dinner.”
“Had enough yet freak?” Carson could feel gravel bite through his pant legs into the flesh of his knees. Quentin’s face again, so close he could feel him spit the words. “Never enough for you freak.” Two of the wresting team coiled elastic arms around his chest, pulling him up and holding him fast. “If your parents can’t buy you parts, how’s about we rip a few off ourselves. Maybe Medicaid will screw a rake on for you, eh farm boy?”
“Please… don’t…” He felt it then, the heat in his chest triggered by the rising levels of adrenaline and cortisol in his system.
He knew if he let them, they’d tear him apart.
“I’m sorry.”
There was a rushing sound, like a wave crashing a shoreline, then for a long moment there was nothing. The arms holding him disappeared, dropping him to the ground. Carson squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the stunned silence replaced with screaming; scared, angry, helpless.
He forced himself up, unsteady as he looked at the scattered bullies and spectators littering the ground; powered arms and twirling streamers stunned motionless, once powerful limbs stilled.
Carson ignored the wailing, retrieved his backpack and set off on the long walk home.
He’d need to charge his safety before visiting the fields again; before he changed schools, again.
by submission | May 1, 2008 | Story
Author : Jim Wisniewski
At first I thought it was the viewscreen. The tiny, flickery viewscreen from a public matterfax at the Sont Mikaal gate station, with its scratched plastic case and the smudged dust of a dozen systems. A dozen systems’ cargo terminals, anyway. Free patterns are public-domain and ancient, made with semicon electronics big enough to see instead of rod logic or something sensible. Sometimes there’s a faint electric whine, just barely detectable if you put your ear up to it.
But this one was clean. I turned it off regardless; one less thing to worry about. The hum must be coming from something else. Not too many candidates left. Cyclers travel light. I cast about our dingy compartment, giving each battered piece of equipment and dirty sock and empty half-crushed drinking bulb a good long look, as if one might stand up and admit its guilt if I stared hard enough.
Hab must’ve noticed me looking twitchy, because he sat up and looked at me funny. I’d have to keep an eye on him, I thought. My thoughts were racing now, had been for days. He asked me what I was looking for, the words raucously loud to my straining ears. “That hum,” I said, distractedly, begrudging every echoing syllable. “Can’t you hear it?”
He shrugged and lay back in his hammock. We had gravity on this run, a rare luxury on the long fall upwards to the distant gate metric. Our room was a maintenance node on a helium-3 tanker which rotated slowly to even out solar heating on its hull. A tenth of a gravity won’t keep your soup in the bowl, but it’s enough to tell up from down.
It also meant that the machinery of the ship was shut down dead cold to save energy, passive radiators keeping the helium liquefied. The more I looked around, the more the hum seemed to come from all around me. It was like… oh, like the flickering pinpoint lights you see when you close your eyes. They’re always there, hiding underneath the lower edge of perception.
Now it was the sonic quality of the hum that drew my fascination. It was an infinite basso profundo note, penetrating every corner of my mind. I crouched down to look out the tiny porthole set into the floor. Was this the music of the spheres? Or maybe I was hearing the cosmic background radiation, the echoing rumble of the Big Bang.
Every other noise seemed a defilement now. I tore at the casing of our airmaker, desperate to shut off its clattering fans. Hab shouted and jumped at me, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t think in such a racket. A tenth gee isn’t enough to hold a man down against the deck and crush his throat with your knee, but I managed to brace myself against the low ceiling. When I hit the airlock emergency cycle button, the escaping puff of air gave Hab’s body a little extra boost. He’d reach the gate ahead of me.
It was still too much. Even with Hab gone and the airmaker and heating unit off, I could hear my breathing and my heartbeat and the blood roaring in my ears. I stripped off my heat blanket and shipsuit. No need for them anymore. The outer door of the airlock was cold on my feet as I hit the cycle button and gritted teeth through the alarms. Finally the hatch irised open and I dropped out into that cool silent blackness, with nothing left between me and the hum.
by J.R. Blackwell | Apr 30, 2008 | Story
Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer
Wzn Izfzuv Tells You How To Live Your Life
This rotation, when I tell you how to live your life, we meet two Newflyers ““ newly infatuated individuals high on emotion. Let’s fly right in, shall we?
Dear Wzn,
I’ve been dating most wonderful Hive mind, sixty sexy individual consciousnesses in four amazing bodies. We’ve been together for about eight rotations and it’s brilliant. They are all so beautiful and talented ““ I know I sound like I’m Newflying here ““ but it’s true.
Whenever we engage in sexual contact, they let me merge a little with the whole. Although it’s only through a skin and wire port even the half merge is amazing. I really want to merge with them fully. I am totally willing to give up my body and I’m excited about being part of the Hive.
However, every time I bring up a true merging, they change the subject. I’m really afraid of scaring them away. Please help!
Thanks!
-Wild for the Hive
WftH,
Trust the Hive darling. Hive minds can be really wonderful seductive things, all that community, all that acceptance and understanding and sense of belonging. But the thing is, before someone joins, the Hive has to understand that person is just right for them. A wonderful lover does not always make a good addition to the Hive!
My suggestion ““ if you want to convince them that you will be good for the Hive, show them how patient you are, show them how understanding you can be that they want to take the time to get to know you. Also, get that merging out of a sexual context! Invite them to merge with you when all of you have your clothes on. Let them get a sense for you when your mind is calm. Remember, a Hive mind isn’t just a cumulative consciousness ““ it’s also hard work!
Dear Wzn,
My personal companion appliance has become moody, arrogant and cold. When I bought him, he was cuddly and attentive. He used to make me romantic meals and read to me ““ but now he hardly looks at me! The only time he even gives me a second glance is when I’m furious and then it can get pretty wild ““ but afterwards, he’s back to his arrogant ways
Do you know any way I can adjust his personality to be a little nicer? He’s a model A244Silver ““ the new line. Is my personal companion permanently shizzed? Do I need to buy a replacement?
-Short Circuited on Mars
SCM,
Just admit it! You love it. The A244 Silvers are engineered to respond to your social needs. If the A244 Silver is treating you like you are less than the dirt on his immaculate feet, then that’s exactly what you want. These things can read social signals better than any human born.
Embrace it! Don’t be ashamed that you want to be treated with distain. It may be fashionable to say that you and your personal companion constantly cuddle, but if you prefer that he is cold and distant till you are on fire with desire than that is more than fine ““ it’s hot! Listen angel-sparks, if you want my permission, you’ve got it. Have a hot time with your cruel personal companion.
If you honestly want his personality adjusted, the dealer will do that for a small fee. Don’t be surprised though, if you find out you liked him mean and sexy better than soft and snuggly.
That’s it for this week, Organics and Electrics! Remember Respect, and Treasure Pleasure.
-Wzn Izfzuv
by Sam Clough | Apr 29, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
The subject of this image has a real name, but by custom, he uses a ‘messenger-name’: Jay. He’s moving on foot. The ground is broken and rough: with no road, he had to leave his vehicle behind. It’ll be one more day before he has the first in a series of syndications at mining enclaves and towns nestled amongst the mountains.
He’s wearing a bag over a long coat. The resolution of the image is just good enough to make out the individual characters of the public encryption key stitched into the material of the bag. The view from the electronic eye-in-the-sky shows Jay surrounded by a light haze: a mess of wireless signals and RF echoes. Bright panels on his coat betray the slabs of solid-state memory where his primary archive is stored.
He’s just one of a whole series of messengers: they tie together the continent, ferrying the all-important message archives from one isolated region to the next, through territories that are too dangerous or too unpredictable to lay cable. Message latency is generally measured in days, but security is absolute.
We return to the subject just after one of his syndications. Apparently at ease, relaxing with an intoxicant on the terrace of a guesthouse on a mountainside. As well as the syndication, he has also taken on more than the usual number of personal messages from the miners and farmers of the area, and is seeking solitude. Many messengers exhibit these behaviours, including the intoxicant dependence. Some are far more severe than others. Jay has a relatively mild habit, which is one of the reasons he was chosen for this experiment.
Messengers are interesting because there is statistically significant factor of difference between them and all other social groups under study. They display certain shocking similarities to one another, with no reflection on their region of origin. Messengers display a wholly unnatural obsession with security and authenticity. This is harnessed for the public image of their syndicate, a fact that they trade on, but this obsession invariably extends beyone a purely professional interest.
The second subject is one of our operatives, teleoperating a shell. Naturally, we have chosen an attractive female shell for this test, as we have judged that it will significantly increase the stress factor. Naturally, the shell is not a real messenger, but is merely a good fake. Her equipment is of the same specification as Jay’s, and her public key has a forged signature. We call her ‘Clara’.
Other combinations of this scenario have been carried out. When a non-messenger is introduced to ‘Clara’ (or the male equivalent, Cal), interaction is normal. They don’t question the identity of this person, but attempt to ‘get to know’ our operative, intrigued by the exotic persona and the popular romanticisation of the messenger lifestyle. When a messenger is introduced to our non-messenger version of Clara/Cal, the reaction of the messenger varies wildly: some express disinterest, others actively attempt to exploit the mythos of their position for personal gain.
Upon introduction, Jay and ‘Clara’ exchanged pleasantries, and some superficial comments about their syndication routes. ‘Clara’ left the terrace, in order to buy Jay a drink: she left her bag, and therefore the forged signature on her public key, with him. Immediately she was out of sight, he scanned the key. His eyes went wide with panic.
Hidden under his jacket was an edition of the famous ‘messenger gun’.
As ‘Clara’ stepped back on to the terrace, Jay shot her.
by submission | Apr 28, 2008 | Story
Author : James Smith
The girl out of the tank before lunch is Lila. Trip around the network shows the last of her bloodline petered out twenty years ago. Cryos are all from before the Patent Wars, so their sequences are in the public domain. The company turns a nice side profit selling the royalty-free DNA of such orphans through its GeneStock site.
I clean up the cancer that put her into storage, and dump the standard Mandarin package down her language stack, which I had to re-build because the cancer had slowly eaten through it over the centuries. I’m supposed to sequence her now, and she is absolutely beautiful, so I turn to our department’s unofficial protocol. I put her sequence in the system, but also pipe it to my phone. To the phone we give her, I beam a map to the job bank, my contact info, plus a bot that deletes any co-workers’ info. She’ll likely call me. We’ll make a date, and with her sequence I can key my pheromones, the food, the shade of my eyes, to her tastes. You can’t get too specific, but ballpark’s enough to get some ass once or twice, which is all anyone has time for anyway.
With one eye on the tank, I eat a sandwich and surf the city’s cam-net on my phone, tracking Lila’s progress. I watch her get buzzed by a flying cop. It blinds her with a quick retinal scan, reads our logo there, and shouts at her to get along to where she was already headed. The sound’s off, but I’m sure she’s got glossolalia by now.
Fuck. Skaters. I see them before she does. I speed-dial her phone, but she can’t hear it over the traffic and billboards. They come from her 10 o’clock, and all I can do is watch as the first one circles her, drawing her attention, while a second passes a scanner over her hand, yanking the ID out of her chip. He’ll probably have the start-up credit emptied out of her account before her onboard can lock it down. There’s a third. They travel in threes. She comes in low, spins behind Lila’s legs and pops up to slap a patch on the back of her neck. All the wiring we grew there before sending her out has now been hijacked for some American gangster wanting tariff free real-time number-crunching.
By the time the patch dissolves Lila won’t even be able to use her phone, much less remember to call me. She won’t get enough time to acclimate to the zeitgeist– which will change in a month or so anyway– and she’ll come up out of it crazy and useless. She’ll be on the street, begging me for credit, inside of six months.
I sigh, close my phone and reach for my coffee. The tank beeps, and the next idiot tumbles out onto the tile. He’s kind of cute.
