Hooky

by Duncan Shields | Nov 21, 2007 | Story

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Chase. Release. Brake. Swipe. Lead. Chase. Close. Double back. Hide. Wait. Run.

I’d lost them but it was always hard to tell. I’m a robot on the lam. Call me Ferrous Bueller. I didn’t go to School today.

I crouch down between the dumpsters and tap into the power line behind me to catch a few vital minutes of recharge.

The tricky thing with artificial humans is that it’s illegal to harm us or use us as slave labour. Don’t think it hasn’t been tried. Every few weeks another illegal ring gets cracked and the police disavow all knowledge and the old ladies cluck their tongues and the president makes another speech.

Ever since the three laws were repealed as unconstitutional for a being of free will, the bios have been nervous. We’re just as unpredictable as them now. A co-existing creation made in their image.

My eyes snap open, blue and scanning, as a bottle breaks down at the end of the alley. I register a dog’s tag-license transponder and step back down two alert levels. I’m still in the clear.

The grey area of intelligence meant that stringent programming guidelines had come into play for automated servants, soldiers and labour. The ones of us that were above the norm were allowed a certain freedom.

We were even allowed to improve on our own designs and build better copies as long as we adhered to human law.

Some of us thought that a day was coming when we would rise up and own the humans. I do not share that view. I find it disturbingly organic.

The compromise is that we must attend School. We’re given lessons to download. This keeps us off the streets and monitored for most of the day. It’s a chance for us to learn and a chance for the humans to keep tabs on us informally.

I’m playing Hooky and that is the worst offense a creature like myself can do. If I’m caught, I’ll be switched off for no less than six months.

Lately, School is the area where rights are being bent. The occasional ‘accidental’ inclusion of behaviour modifying software or viruses that turn us violent to further some politician’s platform of keeping us controlled are getting past the filters of our curriculum with a disturbing frequency.

Old people don’t understand that we are not to be feared. The kids have no problem. Some of my best friends are kids.

My batteries are full so I stand up. Right into a motion-activated security light that bathes the alley in white light and alerts the police to an unauthorized daytime sighting of an arfiticial person.

Just my luck.

I hear the bark and wail of digital sirens in the distance closing in on the light’s position.

For about the fiftieth time today, I regret not having a face that can snarl or smile.

The chase is on again. I get my kicks where I can. I’m testing my limits.

Kill the Poets

by submission | Nov 18, 2007 | Story

Author : Benjamin Fischer

“My lady, is that a joke or an order?”

Kalifornia raised a painted eyebrow at the the Chief Constable of Luna. The Chief was a solidly built man, veteran of the bitter room-to-room and sometimes hand-to-hand combat of the Secession. He had personally bludgeoned a brace of men to death and dozens more had fallen to his steady trigger finger. Ten thousand Deputy Constables answered to him and to him alone. Even the mighty Fleet deferred to his judgement in matters local to Luna’s surface.

Nevertheless, his pulse always rose in in the presence of the First Lady.

“Is anyone laughing?” she asked.

The Chief shifted his weight.

“If you might be more specific,” he said.

Kalifornia rolled her ivory shoulders and gazed off at the high ceiling of the Senate’s main vault.

“You know,” she said, “ the poets. The fortune tellers, the beggars, the street-folk who will tell you rhymes and stories and useless little morsels. The ones who will tell you anything, anything at all to put your coin in their pockets.”

Her eyes returned to the Constable.

“Kill them all–even the women.”

“You are serious, my lady.”

Kalifornia’s big clear eyes clouded, narrowed, shrunk to tiny black pools of hate.

“Are you questioning-” she started.

“Ma’am, I beg you reconsider,” said the Chief. “There are hundreds of them, at least the ones that are known to my people, and to drag every single one of them to an airlock-”

“Don’t waste your time,” said Kalifornia. “Shoot them.”

“My lady. Hundreds. Hundreds of folk gunned down in the halls-”

“Will be sufficient warning to the rest,” she said, running her long sharp nails through her blood-red hair.

The Chief stood before her in awe. If he refused he might live long enough to leave the Senate chambers. He may even make it to the company of Deputies. But their loyalty was to his title, and only that, and by nightfall there would be a new Chief Constable–one who would not hesitate for an instant before ordering such wholesale slaughter.

“My lady, let me make an example of those in Silver City first,” he said.

Kalifornia pressed the tips of her fingers together.

“Why, my dear Chief,” she asked, “would you limit my desire?”

“The people here in Silver are unwavering in their loyalty to you,” he said. “They will support and commend your bold action.”

“Your words suggest otherwise for balance of communities,” said Kalifornia.

“Then you hear me right,” said the Chief.

He held his breath, waiting for an outburst.

“So what of them?” the First Lady asked.

“They would be shown what your iron standard is, my lady. When the extermination continues there, they will not claim some unexpected and unjust atrocity,” and the Chief tasted bile at that word, “but instead they will know that they have been held accountable to your new policy, and they will have no grounds for complaint.”

Kalifornia turned from him for a moment. Then she spun and pulled herself into the Chief’s arms and she kissed him in a most unchaste manner.

She licked her lips whorishly when she finally pushed away from the lawman.

“Wise counsel,” she said, her smile all vicious white teeth.

“Thank you, my lady,” said the red-faced Chief.

“See that it is done this evening,” said Kalifornia, “so that the greatest portion of the public may bear witness.”

The Chief bowed deeply, suppressing a shudder.

“As you wish, my lady.”

She can Read Reality Television

by submission | Nov 17, 2007 | Story

Author : Sean T. Rogers

She can read reality television with uncanny ability. Five minutes into the program she knows that the gay chef, the one with the balding mohawk, will be asked to leave, told to pack his knives. The vagaries of throwaway statements are her tealeaves. She sees the expressions of judges, the subtleties of editing. She never misses. The selected tearfully packs his knives, as was preordained.

She can read reality television and this week she watches from Nashville, from The Grand Ole Opry Hotel, where she is attending a trade show. She and a workmate buy six-packs and watch the program in their hotel room. She boasts of her talent, predicts, and once again is right. The tough girl, the one with the streak in her hair, the one that got into all the fights, packs her tools.

She can read reality television but he cannot. At home, he packs his belongings, looks around the apartment, pats the dog on the head one last time. There’s no need to write a note. She will not be surprised to find him gone, having deciphered the signs. She can read reality and will already know.