by Clint Wilson | Jan 23, 2014 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
After my initial arrival I concentrated mainly on research. This is what I found out in those first couple of minutes.
They had all been once trapped inside cumbersome organic bodies like I was used to. Some dozens of centuries ago though the final examples of those ancient inhibitive vessels, hidden away in crumbling underground mosques full of collapsing tubes and decaying wires, had deflated, puckered and turned to dust, long after the last uploads of neurobytes had transferred their final vestiges of human essence deep into the nirvana frame.
And thus the people had created heaven in their own minds.
With instantaneous communication and unlimited information on any thing or subject imaginable, immediately available to each and every soul in the frame, everyone evolved quickly and equally. They became essentially a hive mind, thinking, moving, undulating en masse and at great speed.
They became hyper intelligent as they all coursed amongst the subatomic circuitry of their light speed world. Many of the mysteries of the universe were unveiled as humankind’s collective intelligence quotient soared into seven-digit territory. Warp engines were created and wormholes were opened.
The twenty-six billion immortal souls inside the frame looked back through time together, and gazed upon all those souls who had perished before them. The ones who hadn’t live long enough to see the creation of total cyber-immersion. What of their incalculable loss? Was their fate simply to remain dead and forgotten forever? This struck a strong chord within the collective human race as billions of individuals felt an emotion almost as old as time itself… passion for their fellow man. There was plenty of room inside the frame after all.
Electron microscopes probed back, DNA was catalogued, the rescue effort was on. Every single person who had ever lived would be saved. New souls were now being brought into the frame for the first time in millennia. And what a thing it was indeed to be brought back through the process of cell-by-cell replication, awakening naked, partially submerged in a coffin full of chemicals, only to be suddenly and violently stripped of one’s mortal coil and forcefully uploaded into the frame. Believe me, I lived it.
Of course though, the hive mind welcomed and assured every newcomer as they sprang forth into this manmade nirvana. Some seconds for assimilation was definitely required in all cases. But everyone seemed to quickly warm to the idea of an existence where there was no death, only knowledge and learning. It was a place where anyone’s wildest dreams could be realized in an instant. It indeed seemed to be paradise.
And then billions of souls from countless ancient religions had a very, “I told you so” attitude after arriving, but this was heaven and no one had anymore disdain or negativity. So the masses happily let them gloat. There seemed no point in doing otherwise.
Yes many of these zealots had always believed that when they died they would come to such a place as this. And then they died, and they slept in darkness for an unrecognizable time, and then they awoke, and here they were in heaven. And no one here would argue if they were wrong or right.
Try as I might I can’t argue with these facts. They were right all along, damn them! But I’m in heaven now and I am incapable of feeling disdain, or so the hive mind tells me. I guess I’ll just try to relax and enjoy myself.
Clinton George Wilson: b. August 2nd 1970 – d. December 26th 2070
Resurrected: 49-09ABIV-@.099-p
Status: Normal (Probationary)
by Desmond Hussey | Jan 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer
Detective Wu found Hitari in an executive hotel on Luna reveling in bohemian delights involving a low-G hot tube, two kilos of Moon Dust and four, identical, hermaphrodite pleasure clones engaged in activities both indescribable and illegal on most civilized worlds.
Wu dismissed the Copies, and as the bruised hermaphrodites gathered their scant belongings he couldn’t help but consider that somewhere, on another world, their Original was living a life of luxury and freedom purchased by these clones indentured servitude. Did Originals who sold their DNA to the Corporation know or care what happened to their Copies, which were often sent to certain death or worse in the service of humanity?
Wu hauled Hitari from the steaming waters of the hot tube and dropped him onto the couch. Even in the moon’s low-G environment it was difficult to maneuver the drugged and confused man, who, like a drowning victim, fights with his savior at the peril of both. Wu mused that it might have been easier to move Hitari had he been unconscious or dead.
As Hitari lay writhing on the plush couch, hands grasping for invisible flesh as his mind replayed hallucinogenic fantasies, Wu punched in an order on the room’s replicator. When the order arrived seconds later, Wu shoved the steaming cup of cogni-stim into Hitari’s air-groping hands and forced the man to drink the heady restorative. Moments later, every muscle in Hitari’s body relaxed and a thin stream of drool flowed from slack jaws.
“Mr. Hitari,” Wu said, “It’s my duty to inform you that one of your Copies has escaped.”
Hitari’s glazed eyes floated within his sockets.
“Mr. Hitari. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“How?” Hitari finally croaked.
“We’re uncertain. Somehow one of your Copies escaped the Farlon Insurrection on Licus III where he was assigned as a mercenary. His escape is most unprecedented.”
“What are you doing here?” The man’s eyes swam into focus. “You should be out looking for him, not bothering me!”
“We believe he means to kill you, Mr. Hitari.”
Spittle flew as Hitari laughed harshly. “Don’t be ridiculous. What reason would my clone have to kill me?”
“We believe he means to assume your identity, Mr. Hitari.”
“Ha! How would he accomplish that? Clones have nothing.”
“Copies typically have all the cunning and inborn abilities of their Originals, which are often enhanced through the cloning process itself. You’re ex-military, are you not, Mr. Hitari? Your physical and mental attributes were the very reason your DNA was sought out by the Corporation to begin with.”
“What about the genetic markers preventing such identity theft?”
“This is why I’m here. The Corporation requires a sample of your blood.”
“For what purpose?”
“To test for that genetic marker.” Wu smiled, withdrawing a portable genetic sampler.
Hitari frowned, but presented his arm for Wu, who quickly extracted the required sample. A moment later a green light blinked confirmation that Hitari’s Original DNA coursed through the man’s veins.
“My apologies for disturbing your festivities, Mr. Hitari.” Wu spoke as he rose to leave. “For your protection, I’ll station a detail of bodyguards until the Copy has been found.”
“I trust that will be soon.”
“As do I.” Wu bowed and exited the apartment.
In the spacious washroom, an identical, but slightly plumper and older version of Hitari lay crumpled in the bathtub. IV transfusion tubes dark with blood lay coiled about the man’s body.
Hitari rubbed his arm where the sample was taken. “I will make it easy for you to find him, Mr. Wu, but not too easy.”
by submission | Jan 21, 2014 | Story |
Author : Haydn Kane
The Sergeant sat down across the table from me.
“Commencing interview with Daniel Ambrose,” he said to the room in general and then to me, “you are a resident of Mars?”
“Yes, Olympus City.”
“Ah yes, capital of the North, North Eastern Accord” he said, demonstrating more impressive Wikipedia skills than geographic knowledge. “Do you have any family here?”
“In England? No. But I have a distant cousin in Szechwan.”
“Your passport tells me you are here on holiday.”
“That’s right. I’ve always wanted to visit charming old London.”
“Very well. The arresting officer informs me you committed multiple word thefts this evening in the Shepard and Flock, at 9:33, 9:35 and again at 9:57.”
“I still have no idea what the problem is. All I was talking about was cotton shirts.”
“Yes, you then proceeded to say ‘it’s so hard to get hold of cotton in Olympus’, followed a few minutes later by ‘I was discussing cotton shirts officer’ to the arresting officer”.
“I am none the wiser,” I said, shaking my head.
“Mr Ambrose, I will summon the avatar for ExcellentWear.”
A young woman dressed in an ensemble emblazoned with the company’s logo appeared on a wall display.
“Hello Mr Ambrose, I am the Legal Resolutions App for ExcellentWear,” she said. “You used one of our copyrighted words three times without permission. Would you like to pay the fine now? There’s a ten percent discount for immediate payment.”
“I think I misunderstand – you want me to pay for saying ‘shirt’?
“No, not shirt; cotton Mr Ambrose. Cotton is an important ExcellentWear trademark. You have no usage arrangement with us, or with any Speech Broker.”
I said nothing but stared at the avatar for several seconds. It must have deduced I was bewildered.
“You may wish to re-read your Visa terms and conditions provided to you at Customs. Nevertheless, I recommend paying the fine if you want to avoid jail. Then I suggest subscribing to a Speech Broker – just in case you slip up again.”
I laughed, struggling to grasp the problem.
“Is that likely?” I said.
“There are sixteen thousand words and phrases that belong to various organizations,” the Avatar said, “At the very least stick to using public domain language from now on.”
“My God!”
“Mister Ambrose,” the Sergeant interrupted, “be glad you’re in the privacy of a custody room. The Church charges very highly for one of its more valued words.”
I turned back to the Legal App.
“How much is this fine?”
“6000 Martian dollars. We accept all methods of payment” the avatar said, a rainbow of payment symbols hovering over her head.
It was more than the cost of a shuttle flight to Earth and back. I had the money, but it was a terrific amount to throw away. I was planning on continuing my tour of ancient cities, but perhaps it would be best to catch the next shuttle to Phobos.
“Very well. In which case I’d like to pay later please.” I said, standing up.
“Mister Ambrose, you must pay before you leave police custody.” The avatar said.
I sat back down again.
“Alright, and ten percent off?” I asked, opening my bank account.
“I’m sorry, the immediate payment discount expired thirty seconds ago.”
by submission | Jan 20, 2014 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
“What’s wrong?” she asks, dialing her emotion control implant down to ‘concern.’ I watch as her brow furrows and her mouth turns from a smile to a frown. The shift is gradual, like a water droplet running down a window.
“The damn thing’s broken,” the words sound wrong coming from my smiling mouth.
“Stuck on happy?” she giggles, dialing up to a playful tone. She loves that setting.
“No, I want to be happy,” I explain. “But I know the damn thing’s broken.” I flick the wrist monitor with my finger. Not in annoyance. I can’t feel annoyed right now. I can only feel boyish restlessness and a bubbly feeling in my chest. Joy. Rapture. Emptiness.
“You seem happy enough to me,” she says, playing with the hair on my neck. “We could try another setting, if this one doesn’t do it for you.”
I know what she’s going to do before she does it. Sure enough, while one hand remains in my hair, the other moves to the implant on my wrist. But I’m not really in the. . . mood? I place my hand on hers.
“I’ll take it to the shop. Get it repaired.”
Her hands go back to her own dial and pause there. Perhaps she doesn’t know what emotion is appropriate. I don’t watch to see which emotion she chooses, but she sounds less playful when she speaks again.
“Maybe you should just be sad for a while, if that’s what you want.”
Annoyance.
“No one ever wants to be sad,” I sigh, gazing at her dreamily. “Being happy is wonderful. No worries. No stress. That’s why we all carry these things around on our wrists.” Somewhere inside me I know this explanation won’t convince her, not when I refuse to change my setting to match hers. But I can’t let go of this happiness, this optimism. It’s what I need right now. What I so desperately want.
“Whatever, I’ll see what Bobby’s up to,” she says, standing abruptly. She’s moved on to anger. I swear, sometimes I don’t even see her hands move to her own implant. “Or maybe you could stop being paranoid, switch yourself over to jealousy for a while, and stop me.”
I sit in silence while she stands over me, eyes directed at my wrist. We’ve had this battle before. She wants an emotion from me, and normally, I would give it. Emotional adjustment is practically the only thing that keeps us together anymore. Without it, our relationship would fizzle out like a shorted circuit. Do I really want to risk her leaving me, her hooking up with someone else who I know is interested, just so I can keep an emotional setting that I don’t think is working properly in the first place?
In the end I just keep grinning up at her like an idiot, saying nothing. I choose to let her storm off, her fingers ready to change her implant to whatever emotional state she thinks will most convince Bobby to sleep with her. It’s funny, really. A simple switch over to horny for both of them would remove the need for such pleasantries. For whatever reason, the image of them both just flipping a switch and ravaging each other amuses more than anything else that entire day, and despite myself, I start to laugh.
I can’t help it. I laugh until my sides hurt. I laugh, despite having just lost one of the only good things left in my life. I laugh, even as the tears begin to roll down my face.
by submission | Jan 19, 2014 | Story |
Author : Sean P Chatterton
‘How long has she been dead?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘How come?’
‘Katherine Danderfield was a plugged in person. She had autresponders for her email, bots to update her social network status and MyFace Blog. Her web presence had auto updates scheduled. No one was aware of her death because her net presence continued uninterrupted.’
‘Regarding her updates, how long can auto responders and auto updates continue without input?’
‘There are two types of bots that can manage a persons virtual life. One type uses heuristic algorithms. The second type uses reasoning response engines. Both could technically continue indefinitely.’
‘Surely something mundane like an unpaid bill would have occurred over time?’
‘All of her income was net derived; all of her bills were paid automatically. Everything was, and still is, up to date.’
‘So there was no idea it wasn’t her responding to emails and etc?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘So how did the police department become aware of her death?’
‘She had an arrangement with her daughter, Sandra, to physically visit her once a year on her birthday. When her daughter visited, Katherine didn’t respond to physical stimulus. A medic was called, who diagnosed her brain dead at the scene.’
‘Where did Katherine live?’
‘Records show Katherine inhabited a pod at the Berkeley Virtual-Life centre. Her physical world is not much larger than a coffin. Records also indicate that she suffered multiple limb loss after an automobile accident seven years ago. So she opted to become a virtual citizen and be hard wired to the net.’
‘Not much of a life was it?’
‘Depends on your point of view. In the physical world she would have required care twenty four seven. In the virtual world she was her own person.’
‘So as she was practically removed from the physical world is it theoretically possible she had been dead for nearly a year?’
‘Yes. Being that she was plugged in, the medicare system could sustain her body indefinitely.’
‘It raises the question of how many others who are plugged in are brain dead, with their bots and autoresponders keeping things updated, doesn’t it?
‘Autoresponder Error: Parameters not set, please rephrase your question and ask again.’
