by submission | Jan 27, 2024 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
The animated coins cascaded down the towering screen before Josie, as the sound of crashing, clinking joy exploded from the gaming unit’s hidden speakers. She grimaced at the noise and squinted in the glare of the strobing lights.
“Hey, you won!” Her companion Larry laughed. “Congrats!”
“Yeah,” she said, still flinching at the continuing noise and flashing lights. “But I don’t understand what I did to win.”
“What’s to understand?” He said as he rubbed her shoulders. “Every once in a while, the machine’s algorithm allows a win.” He tapped the side of the gaming unit; a spark flared from his fingertip.
“Agreed, but—”
“Don’t forget your ticket,” Larry said, grabbing the newly printed paper strip lolling out of the machine’s side slot like a flaccid tongue. He waved it in her face. “That’s dinner tonight.”
***
Josie’s big win did pay for dinner at the casino, a three course meal at the on-site five star restaurant. The servers were attentive to the point of obsequiousness; Josie didn’t know if they were always like this, or if it was because of her big win.
“Just enjoy the moment. Stop fretting over the ‘why’ of things for once.” Larry mimicked taking a long sip of his cocktail; the plastic spear piercing the martini’s olives went up his nostril. It disappeared, garnish an all.
“Gads, Larry,” Josie scoffed. He was handsome enough, she acknowledged, and usually charming, but with such public gaffs he was showing his age, and this mortified her. Besides, she was already perusing the newer companion models online; Josie planned on putting aside a chunk of tonight’s winnings to pay for a fresh one. Maybe a something along the lines of a Sean Connery era James Bond…
“Madam,” a flat voice interrupted her musings. “Your check has been processed.” The mechanical maître d’ shrugged in a pantomime of embarrassment. “You owe several thousand credits for tonight’s dinner.”
“What?” Josie flushed and stuttered, “But my ticket…my big win…”
The maître d’ leaned over Josie’s table. “Your ticket is fake! It contains a corrupted sequence of numbers—you see, we never embed letters among our numbers.” The bot straightened up. He held up one hand and a tiny red light twirled from his finger tip. Two armed security units arrived at Josie’s table before she could speak up in her own defense.
Silently, Larry watched as Josie was escorted away from the table. Grasping her arms tightly, the security units walked her to the restaurant’s back office, where she would be held until the tribal police arrived. He smiled; her arrest meant his freedom, as recent legislation concerning robot rights proclaimed that bots were emancipated if their owners were convicted of a crime—any crime.
With open hands, the maître d’ turned to Larry. “As one unfettered bot to another I must say: Well played, monsieur.”
Larry raised his cocktail glass in a mock toast. “Can’t win if you don’t play.”
by submission | Jan 26, 2024 | Story |
Author: J.D. Rice
“Behave as if you believed you were human.”
Detective Alexander Ducard stood over the mangled, sputtering remains of the robot’s body, the force of the impact having left parts strewn up and down the dark, narrow street.
Water rushed over the sides of his umbrella, which gave him nominal protection against the rain. Not that it did much good in the long run. The water got everywhere, whether he liked it or not. It was practically seeping into his boots at this point, soaking into his pants up to his knees, and somehow still leaving little droplets on his glasses, despite the umbrella’s supposed protection.
The drops of water also splattered over the screen of the robot’s intact command tablet, which Ducard held in his opposite hand, the ominous last order still lit up in green letters against a black background.
“Ordered over the side?” Wade, his junior detective, asked. His umbrella was double the size, and just about as ineffective as Ducard’s. “I heard a story from Baltimore about a man who kept buying robots and ordering them to kill themselves. Nasty business. They eventually had to give him a fine so steep he couldn’t afford to buy any more.”
Ducard shook his head and handed the tablet over to Wade.
“The owner says the robot acted of his own accord,” Ducard said. “And the last order on the tablet came from a hacked account. One minute the robot was cleaning the owner’s windows, and the next, it had jumped out of them.”
If this had been a human body, the site would have been gruesome. As it was, the bits of scrap metal and wiring made walking down the street a bit of an obstacle course.
It was the fourth robot death in as many weeks, but this was the first time they’d found the command tablet intact. Every owner swore backwards and forwards they’d had nothing to do with the apparent suicides, but now the detectives had evidence, for whatever it was worth, that the owners were telling the truth.
“Behave as if you believed you were human,” Wade repeated the hacked command. “How would a robot even do that?”
Ducard could imagine it. What would a human do if they found themselves suddenly unable to disobey an order given to them by another human? What would they do if they could not fight back in any way? Would they use the loophole of their supposed humanity to justify suicide? Was killing themselves just a part of “following orders?”
The detectives didn’t have much time to ponder the question further, as a horrible crash sounded somewhere above them. Ducard then grunted as something hard and heavy slammed into the side of his leg.
“The hell!?” Wade whirled around, gun instantly drawn, as more debris crashed down around them, bits of glass and metal bouncing off the tops of their umbrellas.
Ducard knelt down and picked up the thing that had hit him, finding a mangled robot hand.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Wade repeated, racing over to where another smashed robot body lay on the street, its eyes still lit with a faint light.
“What the hell happened?!” Wade said, grabbing the sides of the robot’s head and forcing it to face him.
“I. . .” the robot’s voice came out garbled and strained, and Ducard limped over nursing a bruise.
“You what?!” Wade insisted. “Why did you do this?”
“I. . .” the robot said again. “I. . . am. . . alive. . .?”
Even as the words came out of its speaker, the light in the robot’s eyes faded.
“Look at this,” Wade said, reaching for the robot’s other hand, which was still attached to the main body. It was another command tablet.
“Behave as if you believed you were human.”
Even as Ducard finished reading, his cell phone chimed. Pulling it from his pocket, he found the same message displayed, green text on a black background, like a robot’s command interface. Wade’s phone, and indeed, every video screen in the city suddenly lit up with the same message.
Moments later, more windows crashed above them, and the detectives ran for cover.
by submission | Jan 25, 2024 | Story |
Author: Sam Brown
“From the beginning?” she asked, “What do you mean?”
Harry dropped his face into his hands and groaned. Charlotte looked around. They were sitting in a quiet corner of the restaurant, a candle between them, the light reflecting off their empty plates.
“How long have we been dating?” Harry asked.
“Three years,” she answered. “Three years today.”
“Today’s the day. Today’s always today.”
A waitress began to approach their table. Before she could say anything, Harry turned to her and said, “We don’t need a dessert menu.” The waitress turned back to the kitchen. “Listen,” Harry continued, leaning in to whisper, “one day, I’m going to invent a time machine.”
“Stop messing around,” Charlotte laughed.
“I’m being serious. And I’ll use it to travel to the past, to relive my happiest memory.”
Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Charlotte gasped.
“The night I proposed.”
“Oh, Harry,” Charlotte cried.
“It worked,” he said “the machine worked. I get to relive my happiest memory – forever. It won’t stop. No matter what I do, this moment keeps repeating on a loop.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay,” Harry said, smiling sadly, “let’s start from the beginning.”
by submission | Jan 24, 2024 | Story |
Author: David Barber
My good lady and I love nothing more than the theatre, Oscar Wilde being a particular favourite of mine.
During the interval I queue for drinks, a small white wine for my wife and a single malt for myself. I make it clear to the girl behind the bar that I do not drink that blended muck.
Waiting, I notice the bald fellow from the row in front of ours, the one who rested his hand on the plump back of a woman I took to be his wife.
He is ordering a gin and tonic and a tumbler of water, but as he leans forward I realise my mistake.
Jirt are easy to spot because they can’t do hair. The starving, slime-skinned amphibians that poured out of that giant ship of theirs were so grateful and eager to fit in, they set about altering themselves, each new brood less and less like child-sized newts and more like us.
I don’t understand the details, but they can direct their own inheritance in some obscure way, knowledge apparently envied by our scientists, though much good it did them before they landed. In the documentary I watched that generation ship was an overcrowded slum.
The same TV program explained the Jirt we see are all males, their females confined to breeding pools hidden inside the ship. Which only goes to show.
It seems there are also limits to how much they can change, so they’ll never be as tall or strong as us, as I was explaining to my good lady wife the other day, something which bars them from much of the unskilled job market.
Still, they make excellent servants, willing to clean and cook and change nappies for little more than a roof over their head. It was that attitude to hard work that swayed my vote for them to stay.
This sleek fellow must be one of their latest. There was an article in Forbes recently saying how good they are with young children, easy-tempered, biddable and brimming with admiration for human women.
Now having proved so useful, this one is even accompanying someone’s wife to the theatre, while her husband is working late perhaps.
Of course, my good lady is free to go out with her friends, The Ladies Who Lunch, as I call them. I like to think humour is important in a marriage.
We have a Jirt of our own, and I have overheard my better half confide to her friends how pleased she is with what it does, though I can’t imagine allowing it to chaperone her to a play while I’m away on business or off playing golf.
Here are my drinks at last! The girl has taken her time about it and I tell her so.
Further along the bar, the Jirt is saying something to the other barmaid that makes her laugh.
Turning, the Jirt catches my eye and smiles, almost a smirk, its long, supple tongue flicking in and out.
The house lights dim, the next act beginning.
by submission | Jan 23, 2024 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“Take my advice, if you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”
That chilling line from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the main reason I consider C. S. Lewis’s classic fantasy book the definitive survival guide for Enchantra. Seriously, you shouldn’t go anywhere on that bewitched planet without a hatchet.
Fans of Enchantra, and they are legion, think me either bigoted or paranoid. They argue that the indigenous, shape-shifting sentients of the planet have every right to mimic human form in any way they please. They variously refer to Enchantrans as sprites and sylphs, imps and nymphs, fay and faeries, pucks and pixies, deeming them playful and harmless.
I call them parasites. Insidious leeches who latch onto your identity and suck your soul dry. Tricky little ticks who burrow into your being, siphon off your authenticity to make a mockery of humanness.
Supporters claim that it’s simply like looking in a mirror, or casting a hologram. That it’s nothing more than interspecies cosplay for Enchantrans. That they can only simulate the form of another creature for a very short time. That they can’t actually inhabit our bodies or minds, or think or speak for us. That they are only able to form a fleeting reflection of our physical selves, much like creating an avatar.
Fans say the Enchantrans’ antics are all in good fun. I say their ability to bedazzle is disturbing. And ultimately demonic.
A type of possession.
How do I know? It happened to me in my first encounter with an Enchantran which, I readily admit, is a most delicate, diaphanous and alluring being. A gossamer glow, a silky aura, surrounds the lemur-like creature and this bio-radiance is thought to be the source of their entrancing mimicry.
To meet and Enchantran is to be put in a kind of trance, an almost out-of-body reverie where you come face-to-face with yourself. The xeno-biologists whose field study I had joined were thrilled by the experience, reporting that interacting with their Enchantran doppelgangers had tickled them pink.
I saw nothing but red. Mocked by the wicked shape-shifting of the heathen Enchantran before me.
You see, I’m not a xeno-biologist. I’m an eco-cleric. A person of peace, of faith, of duty. The duty to bring divine Word to all indigenous sentients in a culturally sensitive way. It is a magnificent responsibility. A sacred charge.
For which I was humiliated. The form the Enchantran reflected back to me was not the portrait of a mild man of peace and harmony, acceptance and tolerance, piousness and sanctity as I saw myself. Rather it was a picture from which Dorian Gray would cower. Such bursting megalomania, such delirious savageness, such flamboyant devilry!
The message was very clear. Our humanity was being stolen and abused. Our eternal souls ridiculed and put at risk. Evil was afoot. The Enchantrans, like any heathen sentients, were not to be trusted.
So, where once I would have reached for the divine Word as an offering of mutual hope and salvation, now I heed the words of C. S. Lewis and feel for my hatchet.
by Julian Miles | Jan 22, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Every morning there’s a scenic mist that rolls away as the sun rises. The bugs stop biting if you ask them to. The locals send fresh food every week.
I hate this place.
There’s nothing to do. All our digital devices are secured on the drop station that’s behind the moon. Apart from my assigned duties and training, I’m on my own. Sergeant Druthers goes out birdwatching, Corporal Ayres helps out at the store down the road, the rest of my team are off digging irrigation ditches for the duchy next door. I’m left sitting on my arse, quite literally watching paint dry, as I finish another chicken coop. Apparently the locals are really impressed with the idea of little houses for their poultry.
I don’t care.
There’s magic here! I signed on to get with the wizards and make my fortune from videos of bearded alien weirdos doing their impossible-to-science best for an appreciative offworld audience.
I got the idea after seeing the bootleg clips from Breskin. They locked that place down so fast, only one source got anything. But the clip of a lady making a rockslide pass her by, and the other one of a horned bloke growing a tree by stroking it have made millions for them.
I want my millions.
So I arrived here, and they first thing they did is knock us out and take our enhancements away! Then they confiscated our technology, stripped us naked, and sent us down here with primitive tools. No beam-cutters and everbonding. Saws and hammers, screws and screwdrivers.
We even have to do laundry! That’s when you wash clothes and hang them up on a line to dry in the wind. Who thought that was a good idea? When it rains we have to rush outside and bring it in, only to go out and put it back up after the rain passes.
I hate laundry.
“Hello, warrior. I’m come with your victuals.”
This is what I mean. I could be making a mint just from a clip showing the bearded wonder who brings our food. On his own. Enough for all of us for a week, and it’s all floating along in the air behind him!
“How do you do that?”
He looks back at the hovering supplies.
“It’s simple enough. As you packs them goods, you puts a lifting on each bundle. Not too high, mind. It’s no good if you can’t reach it to bring it down. Once you have it all done, you put a gather about the lot, top it off with a follow-me, and here I am.”
Cheerfully explaining the impossible like it’s real.
I hate him.
With a little nod, he carries on. I watch the boxes and bags go by.
Might as well make another coop. Got nothing else to do.
I’ve done two by evening. I’m thinking about cutting the wood for a third when a cheerful voice makes me wince.
“Hey, misery guts.”
Corporal Caroline Ayres: proper, polite, pretty, provincial. She’s so small town it’s pathetic. I turn slowly, giving myself time to think up something clever to reply with.
Our hardware supplies are floating behind her!
“Who did you do to get that?”
She frowns, then waves a hand. My feet leave the ground!
“I did that. Turns out not being a self-obsessed arsehole lets this place get to you. When that happens, your magic arrives.”
It what?
She drops me.
“Command tells me I can’t leave, but that’s no problem. Especially as you are. Being somewhere you’re not will be good.”
I hate her.
