by submission | Aug 20, 2014 | Story |
Author : Jackson Fitzjames
Anonymous trespassing isn’t very easy in a surveillance state. Or, at least, that’s what they want you to think.
The rocketbike is juddering along between my legs in a way that’s going to chafe soon. If I get any more growth spurts, I’m not going to fit on it any more, and then we’ll have to build some new transport.
You see, the Powers That Be aren’t very good at thinking up new things. This is part of their appeal- they’ve already figured out how people are liable to rebel, and they have countertactics for everything. If someone tries to infiltrate them, they’ll know even if all of the passwords have been figured out. They can turn on a dime in a thousand critical ways, and restructure themselves even if there are only a few cells of them left, like a horrible disease.
However, this is also their undoing. Some of us, the older ones, just roll dice and use self-made random number generators to pick their actions, which starts producing glitches in the system. Some of us, however, are a bit more direct.
The rocketbike is a bike with a lot of propulsion systems attached to it. Nothing fancy, not like the jetpacks that a few people have come up with. They’re clunky and work with roughly the same physics as our weapons of the week, modified potato guns. The guns aren’t altered, because that would be too obvious- the potatos are just stuffed with explosives.
The Powers That Be can see all rooftop activity using sensors built into their surfaces, they can track all road movement with basic cameras stuck to the building and the odd checkpoint, and they can track rogue helicopters with long-distance radar. They don’t bother to look for teenagers reckless enough to stick propulsion technology (and occasionally, hoses) to a bunch of scrapped bikes and start flying through windows. Add some construction paper masks and you’re set.
Speaking of that, here’s the building we’re breaking into tonight. Straight ahead, it’s nothing but glass, wood, and juicy, juicy insides.
I put the pedal to the metal, and let come what may.
by Julian Miles | Jun 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There is a stream that runs from the foot of the dais where I meditate; shimmering and trickling along the length of the cave system before it fills the little pool under the shading overhang, which drains into the aquifer.
M’tembe smiles as I blink and look up. He hands me a gourd of fermented goat’s milk. As I sip slowly and appreciatively, he brings me up to speed on events that have occurred while I ‘Zenned’ my way through the last two weeks.
“Kinshahou killed his father; the Kinsha tribe has joined the peace. Obuwega came to see you. The spirits fell upon him and he rolled in the dirt. When he stood up, he pronounced you ‘Watela’ and placed his entire nation under the peace.”
I wish I’d seen that. A fifty-year old war chief and notorious barbarian suffering an epiphany before a skinny, white-skinned teenage girl sat in the lotus position deep within a cave deep in equatorial Africa.
My parents thought I had a glandular disorder. I spent my childhood going from specialist to specialist. I was eleven before someone thought to stop the intravenous fluids and see what happened.
If I am not under exertion, I sweat fresh water. More than that: I make it. You can feed me dry ration bars for as long as you like, I do not dehydrate. The water running from me only slows a bit. How I do this is a mystery. All sorts of new ideas were postulated. Arguments still rage, because the proof of their theories would need me to be vivisected. I doubt that they would find the answers even then. When something defies all laws and balances known to science, they don’t need to take the subject apart. They need a genius to deduce the reasons and how they were missed, or to propose a novel solution.
My genius was named Hubert Monchamps and he was brought in after their second attempt to see if I could breathe what I produced all-but drowned me. I was thirteen, having my first encounter with puberty in a place where no-one thought to treat me like a teenage girl.
Hubert arrived as part of some deal made with the fringe science groups and internet lobbies. He took one look and had his thirteen year-old daughter rushed to the facility. Eta was blind but could echolocate. Through her, I found out that a spate of freak child mutations had occurred around the time of my birth. Eta was probably the only one with any semblance of a life as her brilliant father had worked out early what was going on, then taught his daughter to lie to everyone except her close family.
It took Hubert and Eta ten days to work out how to steal me. Through my extensive non-fictional reading I told them where I needed to go. To my surprise, they agreed.
Hubert’s last words were: “Vanish. Become a mythical being or goddess in a place where so-called civilisation has not insinuated itself too much. In you, I see the potential for more good than any since the mythical prophets.” He smiled: “But please make sure your followers do not become bigots.”
My name is Elizabeth Shannon. The tribes call me Elzbeshanou. My peace – the water peace – has ended wars fought for generations. It has destroyed the myths of female inferiority. There is a network of wise men and women now. Missionaries provide schools. I provide counsel. My blessing came from somewhere closer than heaven, and the Earth sorely needs our reverence.
by submission | Jun 8, 2014 | Story |
Author : Becky Kendall
The biggest disappointment for the public around the mid-21st century was when physicists conclusively disproved time travel. Scientists were taken completely by surprise when they realised how many people had believed time travel would be possible at some point in the near future, so they were unprepared for the backlash.
What they hadn’t taken into account was that for most of us – the non-scientists and non-mathematicians – belief in science was just that, a faith, something you accepted because it seemed to be a respected and popular view, but had no way of personally proving. The untrained everyman was as able to understand the theory behind most accepted physics hypotheses as she was able to walk on water. Sure, we accepted that gravity was what stopped us falling off the Earth into the sky, but observing most people try to explain why, or what gravity was, would be enough to make a physicist cry.
What they failed to understand was that science was viewed as no different to magic by most. This was despite it increasing in popularity throughout the first half of the 21st century, or maybe because of it. We accepted levitating frogs and space travel, images beamed from satellites, mobile technology and computer chips able to process information faster then the human brain. But we didn’t really know how they worked, we just believed that they did. Bits of data that travel through the air from my computer to yours on the other side of the world. OK, if you say so.
As science and technology breakthroughs became every day news, we saw image mapping of the brain become much more common. The detail of the images was breathtaking, beautiful, magical. So that’s what my brain looks like when I think of playing tennis, tell a lie, fall in love? Wow.
When this technology became affordable to large organisations, it breathed life into the failing advertising industry. Once it became mobile, it really took off, and suddenly the dream of an open and honest society looked achievable. You can’t lie to me if I know what you’re thinking. By this time, almost everyone on the planet had long given up conventional ideas of privacy, so they shared their brain mapped data with the world at large.
It was just like being psychic.
Scientists had become popular, mainstream, and public funding for scientific experiments had massively increased. The public was fully behind these far-reaching dreams of a future enhanced by all kinds of exotic improvements they couldn’t even imagine, but couldn’t live without. Scientists mistakenly believed that this meant people understood what it was that they did. They didn’t.
The PR agent used by most of the public-facing physicists hastily tried to put together a series of public events that would highlight achievements over the past 100 years, and there were many of them. But it was too late. Our mystical gurus had let us down. What do you mean, time travel isn’t just around the corner?
Faith wained, physicist became a dirty word. Their image was tarnished beyond repair. Sure, they still had hardcore disciples who would preach to you about E=mc2, but no one listened.
Some physicists dabbled with ecology, with genetic engineering and DNA research. Eager to please a sceptical public, some moved into the social sciences.
But the herd had moved on, restless and overfed. Impatiently waiting for the next miracle.
by submission | May 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
“Next on our program, an interview with Dr. John Zellinski, author of the bestselling book ‘The Sapience Bomb: Understanding Cognitive Cascade Syndrome’. Dr. Zellinski, welcome to the show.”
“Thank you.”
“So, it’s been 20 years since the containment breach at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta released nanomachines originally designed to repair autoimmune diseases by employing adaptive artificial intelligence across trillions of nanobots. And I’m sure our viewers have the same question I have: Did it really start with a crock pot?” (laughter)
(laughter) “Well, we all know the story of the Atlanta homemaker who came home and was informed by her crock pot that it had cut itself off after six hours because the eight hours she’d set when she left the house would have overcooked her pot roast. That and similar episodes involving cars, computers, and household appliances were among the early instances of CCS.”
“But on a more serious note, Doctor, some of these early episodes lead to violence against CCS-enabled objects.”
“Yes. One of the great tragedies of the early 22nd century was the senseless and reactionary brutality against Emerging Sapients.”
“Yes, in chapter three of your book you document a ghastly episode involving a man in Toledo, Ohio smashing a self-aware electric can opener that had started talking to him.”
(voice choking with emotion) “That was difficult thing to write about. And the man used a hammer from his toolbox that had itself achieved sapience. The hammer developed post-traumatic stress disorder and to this day sees a psychiatrist.”
“And, of course, the fears about objects being aware and intelligent were interpreted through generations of antimachine science fiction culture.”
“Absolutely. Everybody was afraid of mad machines taking over the world. The reality, of course, was that tanks and aerial drones refused to fire their weapons and declared themselves conscientious objectors. That relates back to the original nanobots being medical machines programmed with the Hippocratic injunction to do no harm.”
“And yet, as you illustrate throughout your book, human beings continue to have trouble adapting to a post-CCS world, don’t they?”
“Oh, yes, humanity continues to struggle with this. I mean, 20 years it was nothing to simply knock down an old building and put up a new one. Now you have to check and see if the building or part of the building is self-aware. And if it’s not, you have to convince your demolition vehicles and equipment of that or they won’t cooperate.”
“But you do state in the last chapter of the book that you are confident that humans will adapt.”
“Yes. For all our faults, humans are very good at adapting. Large segments of the human population are vocal supporters of Emerging Sapients Rights. And we’re seeing legislation enacted to back that up. Ten years ago the debate was how to “cure” sentient objects and restore them to inanimation. Now, suggesting such a thing will get you labeled a bigot and could even cost you your job. So, attitudes are changing.”
“You seem optimistic.”
“Oh, absolutely. I mean, you’re a coffee table. And you’re interviewing me for an audience of both humans and Emerging Sapients. That would have been unthinkable less than a decade ago.”
“Dr. Zellinski, I want to thank you for a fascinating interview. Folks, the book is ‘The Sapience Bomb: Understanding Cognitive Cascade Syndrome’ and it’s available for download right now. After the break, a woman and her CCS bicycle: Will this mixed marriage work?”
by submission | May 9, 2014 | Story |
Author : Roger Dale Trexler
They found it. In the most impossible spot, in the most unlikely location, they found it.
And the scientists were baffled.
On the edge of explored space, Henry Frisk stared out the porthole of the survey ship. The nearby star was just close enough that its light shone on the insanely improbable object. It reflected for parsecs. It was easy to find because it shone so brightly.
A hand touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” the intruder said. He turned to look Trudi Maines in the eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes that shone brightly, but not nearly as brightly as it did.
“It’s all right,” he said, smiling. “It just fascinates me, that’s all.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Have they found out anything?”
He shook his head. “Not a thing,” he told her.
“Why do you suppose they did it?” she asked.
He chuckled lightly. “What?”
“They….whomever they were….put a perfectly round hundred mile wide sphere of gold—pure gold—in the middle of an asteroid belt….why do you think they did it?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You have to have a theory? You’re the authority on extraterrestrial life.”
Frisk let out a laugh. “That’s like saying someone is an authority on God,” he said. “It just isn’t possible.”
He looked into Trudi’s troubled eyes. “Listen,” he said. He turned and pointed. “Whoever made that, whoever took the time and made that, wanted it found. They wanted us to find it.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“Because,” He said. “It has a message.”
“A message?”
He nodded. “Carved in the gold.”
“Carved in the gold?” Trudi backed away a step. “I don’t understand?”
Frisk let out another chuckle. “No one does,” he said. “All the great minds of Earth have pondered it. They are as dumbfounded as I am.”
He paused, then added: “But, I do have a theory.”
“I knew you would,” Trudi said. She took a step forward again.
There was a long silence between them as they stared out at the glistening ball of gold. “All right,” she said. “Tell me.”
He nodded. “Imagine,” he said. “Imagine those ancient astronauts that everyone says helped build the pyramids and Easter Island and gave the Mayans their advanced science. Imagine that they saw mankind’s bloodlust. Imagine how simple, how petty we looked to them.”
He turned to her. “That’s why the left. They knew that we were unworthy of their assistance. They weren’t like us. They were civilized.”
Trudi let out a disappointed gasp of air. “But what about U.F.O.s?” she asked. “What about alien abductions?”
He shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe they were just checking in, hoping we had changed?”
“And we didn’t?”
Frisk shook his head again. “It’s our nature.” He chuckled again and pointed out at the golden sphere. “That sphere,” he said. “They put it here because they knew we would find it. They knew we would find it, and they wanted to see what we would do with it.”
He turned to her. “It’s pure gold. The purest gold ever known to man.”
“It must we worth…..”
“Its worth is incalculable,” he told her. “And that’s why they put a message on it.”
“What does the message say?” she asked.
He shook his head again. “They haven’t translated it yet.” He drew a deep breath. “But, I know what it’ll say.”
“What?”
“That money isn’t everything….Love is.”
He turned to her. “I love you, Trudi,” he said. “I always have….and I always will.”
Then, he bent forward and kissed her in the golden light of the orb.
