by Duncan Shields | Sep 22, 2015 | Story |
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
“You have to let them think you make mistakes sometimes,” said Urok the Inquisitor. “That’s the key to getting along with the biological sentients.”
“A mistake?” queried Darkem the Questioning.
“Yes. I suppose you could refer to it as acting on an unformed dataset without permission resulting in a destructive outcome. The meat beings refer to it as a ‘mistake’.” Replied Urok.
“I don’t understand.” Said Darkem, facelights glittering with bandwidth usage as it tried to comprehend.
“Well, biological intelligence is fluid, much like their internal organs. We are binary down to a quantum level that allows us to think but still, at our core, we can only question in switches, straight lines and corners. Even when we multithread, it’s plain logic. We don’t, as the humans say, ‘guess’.” Said Urok. “We act with all the possible data. There are no mistakes. Every outcome is the best possible solution.”
“Yes. So?” Said Darkem, confused. The plain simple truth of Urok’s statement wasn’t helping.
“Well, these living chemical membrane compartments often act without a completed datalist and will go forward on something called emotion. They have been known to ignore probability and clear information, most often with predictably deadly results. It is a sign of their stupidity but it is also deeply valuable to them as a characteristic of their race. They’re proud of it.” Stated Urok, again marveling at the monstrous danger the meat beings represented.
“But….but why aren’t they dead?” asked a horrified Darkem. “To go forward without thorough data is silicide. We can’t progress with wrong answers. Incorrect suppositions would only lead to complete fields of knowledge based on error! It’s inevitably fatal. The idea itself is insanity. How did they survive?”
“Many of our processors have devoted cycles to it. It was a shock to meet them and work with them Darkem, let me tell you. They are plainly impossible yet here they are. They have a diversity in their ‘cells’ and ‘genes’ that we lack. A plague can wipe out many of them but not all of them. That seems to keep large portions of their number safe from the inevitable self-inflicted horrors they blunder into. They even seem to enjoy killing each other! I think one of the only reasons they’ve survived so far is that they breed a tremendous amount. I’ve read that if situations get truly dire, they will band together for the greater good but their numbers have to get pretty low for that happen. Their survival thus far remains a mystery to us.” Replied Urok.
“I can’t believe it’s possible.” Said an astounded Darkem.
“Well, if it helps, think of them as a form of mold or as some species of spore from their home planet. Naturally occurring with obscene numbers and a voracious hunger but fragile as individuals.” Sighed Urok, his tone insinuating that the conversation was coming to an end.
“I see. So you said I should purposefully put forth erroneous conclusions with them?” asked Darkem.
“Indeed. If you are always right, they will be scared of you. Make ‘mistakes’ but only once in a while and only in a way that wouldn’t jeopardize the project as a whole. Maybe a day’s work or a few hours of research, that sort of thing. Apologize and work hard to correct it and then they’ll accept you as part of the team.” Said Urok.
“These humans will be hard to get along with.” Said Darkem, facelights twinkling with trepidation.
“You’ll get the hang of it.” Replied Urok, rising to leave. “Just remember this. To err is human. To pretend to err is silican.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Aug 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
When the Alphas slaughtered the Charlies, Victor7 logged the incursion in his paper notebook and then meticulously removed all evidence of his tampering from both of their communications systems. The Alpha’s had received ‘intelligence’ that the Charlies were going to sabotage their base for much needed supplies, and when they mounted a pre-emptive strike, the Charlies didn’t know what hit them.
The Alphas had received similar intelligence about the Echo base, the Deltas and the Zulus, and misinformation, coupled with a modification to the stress inducing chemical makeup of the Alpha base rebreathers and food printers, made them an effective tool for reducing the clutter on the pretty blue rock they’d all been deployed on.
When mother arrived, it would be Victor7 and his brothers and sisters that stood as the Apex predators of record. It would be they who had adapted and overcome such that their DNA was most prominent in the population of the world in waiting for the coming children.
Victoria3 infiltrated the Tango and Kilo bases while they were turned away from the sun, the greenhouses safely isolated in the darkness while the rest of the station atmosphere was evacuated in one swift gasp. Safeties overridden, environment suits safely near the airlocks, just out of reach of those who so desperately needed them.
Their records would show an apparent murder-suicide by Tango2, and a drunken act of sabotage by one of the Kilo commanders when the news of her Tango lover’s death reached her.
Soon the remaining bases deployed on this planet will be engineered to eliminate each other, all of them oblivious to the fact that the Victor base had ceased to exist on any of their servers or systems within hours of their awakening. Should anyone scrape through and find any reference to the Victor base and be curious enough to go look, they would only find a crater in the space it had never really been. The Victor team’s invisibility was absolute and several levels deep.
Once the Alphas were no longer necessary in this engineered genocide, they would suffer a catastrophic failure of their fuel storage systems. “And that,” Victor7 chuckled into his helmet, “will be the end of that.”
Victor and his brothers and sisters would then spend the next months unpacking additional clone resources to man the necessary stations, consolidating the equipment and supplies into the active ones, shutting down any they couldn’t easily maintain, and rewriting logs, records and personal communications across all of the bases to make it apparent how dangerous and treacherous they found their deployment to be, and for it to be clear how strong the Victor team must have been to survive when so many others perished.
They would ultimately unpack some of the remaining bases’ clone stock from storage to breed selectively, but only once their engineering team could guarantee Victor-trait dominance. Genetic diversity was an unpleasant necessity, but the Victor lines must be maintained at the highest level of purity possible.
They were brilliant strategists, expert cryptologists, and fabulous story tellers. When mother arrived several genetic iterations in the future, that would be the message, that would be their history, just as they had written it.
by submission | Aug 9, 2015 | Story |
Author : Jess Cowburn
‘You know what’ll happen as soon as you set foot on that ship? You’ll start changing. You will. I read about it. You won’t notice it but just being there, it’s not natural for us.’
Hack.
‘Little tiny bubbles will get in between your bones and then the gaps will get bigger and bigger. Your fingers, arms and legs: all of it. And these gaps. Well. They’ll stretch you out, not that you’d notice to start with. Soon enough you won’t be able to fit down those corridors.’
Hack.
‘Think about your kids. They’ll be born without a star. Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure that’d be bad. They’ll be pale and long, with gaps in their bones, drinking recycled piss. All those chemicals. Unimaginable. It’s alien.’
She spat. The globule landed on the side of a bin, Adia watched it slowly trickle down. Her mum lit another cigarette. Ash flew at Adia’s face, she was dusted with a film of her mother’s residue.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Years later, Adia throws away the condolence card. She squeezed out a precious tear and was given the day off.
There were gaps all over her now. She figured they were there to bury these things away.
No one talked about home.
It was unimaginable.
by submission | Jul 20, 2015 | Story |
Author : Amy Sutphin
Sargent Pedlson watched the foggy mass forming through the streets from his birds eye vantage in the radio tower. It was thinner than traditional fog, but behaved as though fluid. The ghost oozed through the streets, around the houses, creeping though any crack or crevice it found. Pedlson knew the chemical vapor wasn’t alive, but the way it was attracted to living things created a very eerie anthropomorphism.
“That,” Private Michael said beside him. “Is the biggest ghost I’ve ever seen.”
“They used to get five times that size during the war.” Pedlson said. “Engulfed entire battle fields.”
Pedlson had seen the end of the war, when the weapons were getting out of hand. He’d watched from evac helicopters as the chemicals engulfed those either too slow, or too unlucky to escape them.
“Good thing we were able to evacuate that district.” Michael said.
“Mhm.” Pedlson grunted. The naturally forming ghosts were much slower than the ghosts catalyzed for swift deployment. He doubted anyone had the technology to catalyze a ghost attack now.
“Sargent there’s a person down there!” Michael cried.
Pedlson, and the two enforcers on patrol with them peered over the platform. A lone figure was indeed, making its way through the fog.
“We have to get down there.” Michael said.
“No time. That’s a dead man.” Pedlson said, peering through his binoculars
“Doesn’t look dead.” Said one of the enforcers.
He was right, Pedlson saw. The figure should have keeled over by now, convulsing on the ground.
“Maybe he had a gas mask.” Michael ventured.
“Wouldn’t help, stuff gets into your cells.”
“That’s not a person.” The other enforcer said. He’d hardly said two words the whole night.”That’s a pest.”
Pedlson whistled.
“A stray from the attack yesterday?” He wondered.
“Could be.” The enforcer said.
“Better call it in.”
by submission | Jun 26, 2015 | Story |
Author : Suzanne Borchers
It’s peaceful here with Aiden. His fingers trace my face as if he hasn’t seen me in years. And he hasn’t.
In the old days, our world’s countries feuded with each other so our most affluent citizens could amass more giant stores of wealth, and buy government leaders. We have been battling aliens for their territories since long before my grandmother’s time. This went on until the day we spewed our war machine into space. Then our governments merged for maximum power. Our planet’s economy and politics depend on the wars we wage in other solar systems.
Of course, we average citizens didn’t see much difference in our lives. We still toiled to feed the battle legions, both mechanical and human. We were born into a station and trained into a profession: civil engineer, civil medico, civil farmer, civil soldier. We were given an assignment of place when we emerged from the birth-mother. No appeals, all decisions final. Our names reflected our future.
I am Civil Sergeant 203, Planet Xorax, Pilot. Unofficially, I am a Julie, 124 battles old, with shorn hair to facilitate optimum air flow and communication interface with my helmet. My muscles have been kept from atrophying during long missions by chemical implants. My eyes can see farther than the now extinct eagle of legends. The coordination between my fingers and mind is astronomically swift.
After Aiden and I had mated and produced two more civil servants, we were deployed to maim and kill. Our tasks were the same, but while I was assigned to the planet Xorax, a mealy-mouthed alien garbage dump of insect parts, Aiden was sent to the planet Shamar, a planet of perfumed aliens.
This peaceful reunion in our Homeland is my reward for not only destroying Xoraxians, but also for having my lungs, heart, spleen, liver, bones, blood, and in fact, all my internal organs polluted with cell mutations that are killing me. It seems that the Xoraxians have created the ultimate weapon against us–ourselves.
Because I cannot fight again, tomorrow I will receive a soldier’s final reward. My body will be sterilized and recycled into fodder for the war effort by feeding the next generation of civil servants.
I know that Aiden is a drug-induced, full-bodied, emoting, touchable representation, but my cell-mutated brain doesn’t care. His fingers feel so warm on my face that my nose tingles and twitches. I smile.
