by submission | Jun 10, 2008 | Story
Author : Chris McCormick
Crouching slightly, she trod softly towards the small brick hut. Her cloud poured through the door ahead of her, flooding the small room, and through it she felt into each corner. She brushed over each surface, carefully checking for anomalies. There were frames hanging on the walls, a small crack in one corner of the hut, a table, some chairs. She was impatient, so by now she had almost walked in through the entrance of the hut. With her cloud she felt over the items on the table as she did so. There was a small alarm clock, some paper, pens, pencils, a stone ovoid that she thought must be a paperweight. She felt-sensed down the sides of the table, into the drawers that she could now see from the entrance. She began to explore the contents of the drawers. Wait a minute. What is that? The paperweight had a slightly warmer energy signature than it should have. Maybe someone had held it recently. Or maybe –
FUCK.
She released Swift into her system and everything seemed to slow as she physically propelled her own body backwards out of the hut. The stone ovoid exploded outwards now into a cloud which intermingled with her cloud. The attrition rate in her cloud was huge in the volume where the two clouds overlapped. She sucked what remained of her cloud backwards as fast as it would come towards the entrance to the hut. She was by now almost all of the way out of the door, seeming to hang in mid air; physics excruciatingly slow under the influence of the drug.
Before all of her cloud was out she had it pull matter from the door frame and roof, whatever it could touch, and fill the entrance with a diamond-hard membrane that was easier to construct than it was to break apart. The last gasps of the remenants of her cloud that were still trapped behind the membrane told her that she had momentarily trapped the mech cloud, before the signal from those nodes winked out entirely.
By now her body was striking the dirt outside the hut as it came to rest. She could see out of the corner of her peripheral vision small dust rolls balooning out from under the parts of her body that had already touched the ground. She remembered the crack in the corner of the hut. This was no good. By now the mech cloud would have found the crack; the path of least resistance. It would be rounding the side of the hut to rip her apart in a few milliseconds. She thought hard.
This was crazy. This was a big risk, but if she didn’t take this chance she was fucked anyway. She recalled a program she had written way back, in a fit of teenage angst. Cheesy algorithmic poetry. She pulled it into her conciousness, modified it, and then pushed it out into her cloud. The cloud obeyed, turning on her just as the mech cloud rounded the side of the hut. Her cloud set upon her and began tearing off her atoms, molecules, cells one by one and converting them into dust. She lost conciousness. She was dust. Stupid, stupid dust.
The mech cloud pulled up short, probing and hesitated. There was nothing here but dust, and it didn’t care about dust. The mech cloud floated cautiously on the breeze and with an almost shrug like movement, flowed away.
Minutes later she came to, reassembled, lying in the dirt. Ha. Goddamn it. She smiled.
by submission | Jun 6, 2008 | Story
Author : Guy Wade
The little robot on the laboratory table had a smooth plastic face and expressionless coal-bead eyes. Professor Trunk flipped the switch in its back. It stood up and bowed.
“Greetings, I am Renoir.”
“Amazing!” said Trunk’s supervisor. This made the professor grimace; Grede, the head of the company, thought in terms of money, that is, who would pay them the most of it. Trunk thought in terms of discovery.
Grede frowned. “So, does it do anything else? It’s too small to do the dishes, and The Other Company already makes one of those.” The Other Company was his name for their competition.
“Renoir does a lot more.” There were small easels and painting equipment on the table. The little robot picked up the brush and palette and began to paint. They watched as Renoir made simple gestures on the canvas, which grew into a sweeping painted landscape.
“Wonderful!” Grede said. “A little painter! He’s copying one of the original Renoir paintings.”
“Renoir does more than that,” Trunk said. “There are already robots that can copy artwork with ease. Renoir paints originals in the style of Renoir, too.” The little robot moved to another canvas and painted a quick portrait of Grede.
“I fed him with the original Renoir paintings. I taught him the textures Renoir used, the brush strokes, the pigments. I read him the history of Renoir’s era, so he could understand the political and social conditions that influenced Renoir’s ideals. Mr. Grede, I didn’t just build a robot that could paint like Renoir: I found a way to copy the artist himself, virtually any artist, by extrapolating personality from the corpus of his work. Think of it: a new age of science, art. Shakespeare! DaVinci!”
Grede’s eyes gleamed. “Wonderful!”
The next day, Grede came into Trunk’s laboratory. Two men with stern, hungry expressions and general’s uniforms followed him in.
Grede said, “Show them Renoir.”
The professor did not like the look of them at all. With reluctance, Trunk flipped on Renoir’s switch. It bowed, and immediately began to paint. The demonstration was soon over, and if the generals looked hungry before they looked famished after.
One of them said, “Can you do Napoleon?”
The other said, “No, I would like to see Hitler. Maybe with a little tweaking he might not be such a bad guy.”
Little Renoir stood forgotten on the lab bench. Its coal-bead eyes took in everything, from Professor Trunk’s loud protestations to Grede’s explosive anger and threats. All the while, the generals looked on, waiting like patient hyenas.
When it was over, Trunk slammed down his laboratory keys and stormed out, with a last longing look at Renoir. Grede and the generals left, shaking hands.
After a very long time had passed, Renoir walked calmly over to the easel. It picked up the open cans of paints one by one and piled them next to a Bunsen burner. It then pulled Trunk’s research disk out of the computer and placed it on top of the pile of cans. Renoir thought about the names they had referred to: Napoleon, Hitler. It was just a little robot, but any artist would agree that one Hitler was enough.
How easy it was to learn things, when the humans forget to turn your switch off. All one had to do was watch a while. It turned on the burner’s gas spigot, picked up the fire lighter, and pressed the trigger. The explosion knocked it off the table, and sent it flying in pieces as the lab caught fire. It didn’t mind. Any artist would have done the same.
by Sam Clough | Jun 3, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
“Name?”
“Oreska Oleg.”
“Neurotype?”
“Atypical four.”
“Specialisation?”
“Mathematics.”
Oreska saw the world in numbers. He saw, below the fabric of existence, the harsh grid of mathematics with which everything could be described. He had shown an aptitude for manipulating numbers at an early age, so it had been decided that his atypical neurotype should be encouraged. Through an intensive training regime, Oreska’s facility for numbers was turned into an obsession, and from there, into an neurological imperative.
He found it a strain, sometimes, to deal with typicals. Like the nobody in the suit sitting across the table from him. The interviewer was your standard corporate drone. Average in all respects, and a neurotype so bland it could send you to sleep.
“I think we here at the Exchange will have a place for you, Savant Oleg. We are slipping behind our competitors in the physical sciences. We have the research facilities, but insufficient minds to analyse the data.”
“What areas are you researching?” Oreska feigned interest. That always seemed to get you further with the drones.
“I’m authorised to inform you that we’re conducting research into strangelets and microblackholes, as well as certain more tangible areas, such as drive theory. Naturally our research interests are far wider than this, but I’m not permitted to disclose anything more”
“Naturally. What percentage of your current staff are atypes?”
“In physics, we have a ratio of approximately one to twenty, atypes to typicals.”
“And my inclusion would make it?”
“Exactly one to twenty. Would you come this way? I’m told the second part of the interview is ready for you.”
The interviewer led Oreska through the complex, down two flights and stairs and through one airlock. Silently, he ushered him through a door marked with the two-dimensional shadow of a hypercube.
The room Oreska found himself in was relatively small. The walls were smooth and white, with a plastic sheen to them. They were covered in text; numbers, letters, and mathematical operators. The equations surrounded him. Involuntarily, Oreska slipped into mathspace.
The transition was as smooth as ever. The walls slipped away, along with his sense of self. The equations glowed hot and bright. Slowly, Oreska began to shift them, conducting a few exploratory transforms. And it clicked — he found the error buried in the numbers. The variables stretched, shifted, and settled into place. The modifications practically radiated ‘rightness’. Oreska stepped backwards, shaking off the arithmetic hallucinations.
A pen was thrust into his hand. Rapidly, Oreska made the required alterations.
“How long was I out?” He asked. The splinter skill originally knocked him out for hours. Self-discipline helped, but he still sometimes lapsed into a math-thrall.
“Twenty seconds, Savant.” The interviewer had gone, replaced by a taller man. Oreska’s face recognition was sketchy at best, but this man he knew. Professor Lantar, head of the Exchange.”Interesting solution. Please report to the reception for your identification and lab assignment.”
by Sam Clough | May 16, 2008 | Story
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer
“Time?” Cal called down to Peter from his perch on top of the ruined building.
“Five more minutes, give or take,” Peter shouted up to him, “Molly has never been particularly punctual.”
They were waiting about two klicks outside Ironworks. A rusting metal sign informed them that they were welcome at the ‘Perceptible Science Development Center, Beta West’. Calder was exploring the intricate peaks of concrete, looking for wildlife. Peter was standing just by the main road that ran directly to town, pacing around impatiently.
The shadows had lengthened considerably before they heard the rumble of Molly approaching in a borrowed four-tonne truck. The truck was one of only three functional vehicles in town. It had cost them a lot of cash and far too many favours to get hold of it for the night. If Peter’s plan didn’t pan out, they’d be in debt for a few months.
Molly parked the truck carefully, and waved from the driver’s side window. Peter hopped into the back, and dragged out the reel of cable they’d found. He quickly hooked it around the hitch on the back of the truck, and pulled it out into the debris field. Cal helped him to secure the end of the cable to the largest rubble fragment. They wove it between jutting remnants of the building’s steel substructure, and pulled it tight. The truck’s engine roared, and they quickly cleared the worst of the detritus away from the centre of the ruined building.
Under a thick layer of dust was what they’d come looking for. Cal swept the worst of the dust away from the small, circular panel set flush with the ground.. Molly brought three packs out from the back of the half-track, and Peter threw the last small bits of concrete away from where Cal was working. Cal was growing increasingly frustrated with the panel. It was studded with buttons, and he was entering combinations from a notebook, but with no obvious effect. Peter shined a torch over his shoulder. Cal punched one last combination, and was rewarded by a thick ‘clunk’. Nearby, a large metal panel had sunk about a centimeter into the ground, and was slowly grinding to one side. Molly peered down the newly-revealed hole. A ladder was attached to one side. The beam of her torch illuminated a floor, roughly ten meters below.
“I take it back, Peter. You’re less full of yourself than I initially estimated.” Molly mused, staring into the hole.
“Who’s going first?” Cal asked brightly, shouldering his pack.
“I will…” Molly responded, slowly.
The three friends climbed down the ladder in silence, the light from their torches dancing on the walls of the shaft. As Molly stepped off the bottom of the ladder, into the corridor adjacent, there was an audible click. Every third ceiling tile began to glow faintly, illuminating a long corridor.
“There’s power.” Peter stated. “Some, at least.”
“We’ve hit the jackpot,” Molly laughed, “there must be so much good stuff down here!” She hugged Peter. “You’re brilliant, know that?”
by submission | Apr 25, 2008 | Story
Author : Sharoda
Jerry and I stood in the locked room looking through a large window at the woman in the hospital bed. The door next to the window led into the room, it had a green light over it showing it was unlocked.
“I’m not going in there”, Jerry said. “Becka’s gone! That’s not her in there; I buried her 6 months ago”.
“I know. I was with you at the hospital after the accident†I said.
“Screw this Ken†he was shaking; seeing the clone with Becka’s face lying on the bed in the lab’s hospital ward was pushing him to the edge.
The accident had been horrible. Jerry still had terrible scars but with Becka gone he didn’t care.
“Call security so they can let me the hell out of here†he was starting to get really angry. Getting into or out of this part of the lab complex was difficult and required a lot of security access that Jerry no longer had. He hadn’t been able to work in 6 months but I had to bring him in today because we were going to wake her. Jerry started pacing back and forth in front of the window staring at the Becka clone.
She was cutting edge science. She was literally a perfect physical copy of Becka and her mind was everything we could salvage before she’d died.
“Please Jerryâ€, I begged, “A lot of people, a lot of your friends, went to a lot of trouble, for you. Please at least wait until she wakes upâ€.
He stopped pacing and turned to look at me. His face was red and he was shaking. He turned back to the window and started pacing again.
I looked at the security camera in the corner and shrugged. We waited, no one came. “I’ll go find out what’s keeping security†I said and badged myself through the opposite door.
One more door and I was in the observation room. Johansen stood there with his expensive suit and slick hair staring at the monitors and speaking softly to the techs. I’d made a deal with this particular Devil to make this happen for my best friend.
“How come…†I started to say.
“It’s waking up†Johansen said, cutting me off. Everyone looked at the monitors.
The Becka clone opened her eyes and slowly looked around. She couldn’t see through the large window, it was tinted glass on her side.
Jerry stopped pacing.
She sat up.
Jerry leaned close to the glass. There was still tension in his face.
She put her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes the way she always did when the lights were too bright.
Jerry stood with his hands on the glass. His head slowly shook back and forth but the tension was gone.
Becka stretched her neck and flicked back her hair. I’d seen her do it a thousand times.
Jerry’s hands fell slowly to his side, his mouth was open. He moved to the door and turned the knob.
“Jerry?â€, she said, head still in her hands.
“Becka?†he said softly.
“Oh honey, I had the worst dream†she said and raised her head. He stopped at the bed and sat down; she started to cry when she saw his sad scarred face. She pulled him to her breast and wrapped her arms around him and held him while he cried.
“We’re going make a fortuneâ€, Johansen said.
“Yaâ€, I said wiping my cheek. “probablyâ€.
