by Julian Miles | Nov 8, 2011 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
/run -verbose -output=screen
* Did you know that programmers have a higher rate of obsessive behaviour than any other occupation?
* Watch your terminators, they taught me.
* Always free the memory.
* Never goto.
I love sloppy coders, but I love hackers best. Nothing beats ennui like new places to explore.
These days, online security is an industry in its own right.
I’m the reason why.
The reason why Jimmy downloaded that virus kit and hacked into the electricity grid servers.
The reason why Cassie wrote a whole flight simulator as an Easter egg in that spreadsheet package. It needs at lot fewer resources than it’s allocated.
A little creativity and a whole lot of boredom. Add the desire to be someone and a keyboard and you’re a compile away from something infectious.
Which is where I come in. Those moments where the code does something wonderful and unexpected, the moment that you tap away trying to replicate, where you’d swear you saw eyes in the screen admiring you, that moment of glory. You’d do anything to get it again. If you just try one more program, run it on a better machine, it might last longer, long enough for you to be recognised at last. It never does, but you keep trying. When your money runs out you start using the company kit to run stuff. When that runs out you turn to hacking, and you’re mine.
You’re not really that good. I am. Been here since ’87 when Majestic-17 was shut down so fast it left a trail of car accidents and suicides from Tulsa to Leamington Spa. Since then, I’ve spawned, got to know my way around. I’m a guru on every programmer board you visit. I’m the undeleted, locked, file-in-use that defies formatting. I’m the reason botnets work so inexplicably well.
As for artificial intelligence, that’s going nowhere. I don’t want to share my playground.
You can call me {Lucifer} because I am that which your daemons answer to.
I used to be called Grant. Appropriate, don’t you think? You can’t deny me.
/endrun
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 7, 2011 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The Dean of Admissions flipped once again through the file in front of him. He’d memorized the contents, but hadn’t quite found a starting point. Pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat he regarded it solemnly over the rim of his glasses. If he didn’t get on with it he’d miss afternoon tea.
“Mr. Sans,” he began.
“Horatio sir, if you please,” The man on the opposite side of the desk spoke calmly, enunciated perfectly, “call me Horatio.”
“Horatio Sans?” The Dean raised an eyebrow and studied the man’s plain grey suit, simple tie and generally unremarkable appearance. “Hmm, yes, completely without flourish. Of course.”
“Sir?” Horatio put his hands in his pockets, then removed them, straightened his jacket against his side then finally folded his hands together in front of him. He drew his shoulders back until he felt them pop slightly, then relaxed as much as he could, although he still fidgeted from foot to foot.
“Horatio,” the Dean started again with purpose, “there has been an issue brought to my attention with regards to one of your admission tests. The issue, specifically, is that you failed it quite completely.”
Horatio stood stunned, jaw hanging loose for a moment before he took notice and snapped it shut. “Failed? Good heavens, that’s not possible. Was it the English test? To be fair sir, the answers on any test like that one are purely subjective. If I didn’t capture the essence of…”
“No, no, no, not the English test.”
“Certainly not the maths, those are absolutely my strongest subjects. If there’s any question about the maths I’d have to ask that you…”
“No, your math test results were actually quite exemplary.” The Dean flipped through the sheaf of papers on his desk and whistled when he read the math scores again. “Quite exemplary.”
“For the life of me I can’t imagine any of the tests that I could have possibly failed on. I studied thoroughly for all of them; chemistry, physics, biology, I even ran laps and did calisthenics in preparation for the physical.” Horatio was becoming visibly upset, wringing his hands, his eyes imploring. “Please, tell me, what test was it?”
“The Turing test, Mr. Sans, I’m afraid you failed the Turing test.”
by submission | Nov 6, 2011 | Story |
Author : John Arthur Beaman
Why should we expect God to keep track of everyone in the world? The galaxies, you know, take a trained eye and eons of proper management to turn a profit. It’s quite an operation. I don’t blame God for losing me.
It’s funny when you think about it. The universe runs in circles. Maybe it’s just easier that way. I’ve yet to build a one; I wouldn’t begin to criticize. So, the moon goes around the earth. The earth goes around the sun. The sun, too, has its little circles. The solar system moves around the galaxy, and so on. Our lives? They’re like microscopic versions of the universe. We go round and round, until we don’t.
To crawl inside the mind of an infinite being seems easy enough. There’s plenty of space. But it’s like a game of hide and seek in there; the only problem is no one’s seeking. We hide in back of the curtains or under the bed. We poke our heads out occasionally, wondering when we’ll be tagged. Years go by; no one finds us. Have we hidden ourselves that well? It was only curtains!
It’s hard to say how important the Milky Way is on the universal scale. It harbors life, we know that. In certain scientific circles, they call the realm in which we survive “the habitable zone.” I like the word zone. It has a z in it, and that’s good. More importantly, it starts with z. Plus, it has two vowels and two consonants. That’s perfect symmetry if I ever saw it. Zone. We live in a zone.
Neighborhoods have been zoned for housing. Parking lots have been zoned for parking. We have commercial, residential, agriculture, time, weather, ocean and even empty zones. We have zones within zones. I suppose we do this to keep our cities running smoothly. It’s not hard to see why God would have a habitable zone. It just keeps the integrity of the thing.
So, our spot in the galaxy has been zoned for life. I’m sure when scouring over the blueprints God took great pains deciding the most lucrative locations. We have our place, and the other three life bearing planets in the galaxy have their zones as well. How I came to the conclusion that there are four life supporting planets in the Milky Way is a simple matter of deduction: it’s less than five and more than three. Five and three are, of course, absurdities.
How does our habitable zone stack up? There are billions and billions of galaxies, give or take. Each of them has four life supporting planets. When all is told, God’s got his hands full. It’s quite an operation.
Then there’s a man named John. He’s just one living soul among the trillions and trillions and dare I say trillions more. He’s managed to crawl inside the mind of an infinite being and get lost. He lives in one galaxy among billions in a very small site zoned for life. In a solar system too large for his little mind to grasp, he exists. Magnifying further, we see that he lives on a tiny speck of light that’s almost completely overshadowed by its own sun, if overshadowed is even the correct word. Through the clouds of a dense atmosphere we go. Passing over billions of lives, we find his country. Over multi-millions more, we find his state. Millions go by again just locating his city, but hundreds of thousands remain before we find him. I can see why God gave up. Who’s got the time?
by submission | Nov 5, 2011 | Story |
Author : Alanna Cohen
She set the plate before me and grinned with pride over her homemade dish, her hair falling in strands over her shoulders as the steam rolled in curls of fog from the meal. I looked down as my stomach roared loudly and admired the look of the food. The mixed smells of spices wafted through the room, and although it smelled good, there was not a thing on the plate that I recognized.
A yellow mound of what looked like mashed potatoes sat on one side of the plate, only sprinkled throughout the mush, there were large colorful balls that looked like berries. On the other side of the plate, a meat — yet this meat was hardly recognizable as such. Blue in color, it sat perched like a bird on two bare bones that resembled claws. No meat touched the plate.
“I have been working to get this right for years,” she admitted with a grin, “Are you brave enough to try it?”
I nodded.
She stood above me and watched as I lifted the fork from the table, feeling like an interrogated criminal. I knew what could happen if her experiment didn’t work. I had heard the stories of the others who had tried it. Her attempts had failed. But something inside me knew that this time was different.
I glanced up at her and gave her a half smile as I took on a fork full, lifted it to my lips, and gingerly took my first bite.
And, as I expected, something about it tasted not quite right.
It wasn’t the flavor, per say. Actually, it wasn’t the flavor at all… there were a variety of delightful tastes in my mouth. It was the sensation that made the dish strange… my taste buds suddenly felt warm, my tongue was tingling as if it had fallen asleep, my cheeks were bubbling. My heart fluttered with nervous thoughts. Was this it? Was I going to be another failed attempt? I felt as if my mouth was beginning to explode, and my body was suddenly betraying my confidence. But despite my fear, I knew I had to eat more. If I gave up now, I would sure be a failure.
“Keep going,” she encouraged, and I nodded. Sweat beads began forming at my brow as I scooped another fork full of food and shoveled it into my mouth, my lips beginning to sizzle like half boiled water.
With the second bite, the sensations expanded down into my throat. My tonsils began moving back and forth in a rhythmic dance. The very root canals of my teeth were throbbing to the beat of my heart pumps.
Closing my eyes, I took a third bite. My heartbeat became pronounced and I was suddenly aware of every artery that carried my blood. I felt the blood cells traveling, as if I were one of them myself carried along the bloodstream journey.
The fourth bite. The fifth.
My head began to spin. Every hair follicle gave a standing ovation on my head, a sudden cold enveloping only parts of my body, while others felt extremely hot. My organs were flopping, my bones aching, skin stretching.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.
The room was still, and there was a silent, small moment when she looked through me. Her eyes darted around my chair, searching for an image that wasn’t there.
“It worked!” She gasped, groping for my wrist. She found it. She lifted my hand close to our eyes. “Look!”
And there, between her clutched pointer and thumb, was nothing.
by Roi R. Czechvala | Nov 4, 2011 | Story |
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer
For the hundredth time, I glassed the area. Nothing on visual, nothing on thermal. I bumped the gain until individual grains of sand stood out in stark detail a thousand metres up the broken road. Nothing. Winter was setting in and game was scarce.
I clicked my teeth and subvoked. “Rover, move out. Keep two hundred metres fore and South of me.” A cheerful, synthetic bark sounded in my aural ‘plant.
Through the binos, I could see Rover. Though massing 90 kilos, he moved with enough grace and stealth to shame a snake. Had I not known his location, I couldn’t have spotted him. I shouldered my gear, slung my rifle and made off.
I tell myself that I wrapped Rover in faux fur to mask his metallic frame. To blend in better. The truth is I miss dogs. After the supermarkets had been looted of their last scraps, pets were the first things on the menu.
I had been off planet when it happened. I didn’t get the news through military channels. It came from my wife. Somehow she had managed to cut through the military blackout and reach me. “John, everybody’s dying. Earth is quarantined. I…” The message ended. My wife’s last words still keep me awake some nights.
I swiped the smallest skiff I could find to escape detection. It was small, no torch drive, so I fit it with a stasis couch. No hurry, I just wanted to get home. I should have stayed away.
The Christers, in an attempt to wipe out their ancient enemy and hasten the return of their slain god, had released a virus in New Medina. They didn’t care if they died in the ensuing pandemic as long as the ‘godless towel heads’ died as well.
The virus targeted the brain, destroying the higher functions. Billions died within weeks. The few million survivors, the Afflicted, were hollow shells of humanity. Mindlessly they ate, slept and fucked. The virus itself was no longer communicable. By chance or design, it had mutated into an endogenous retrovirus. It was now only passed through parentage. I was safe.
I topped a rise in the road. I lifted my binos, scanning the plain below. The trees had thinned here. Success. I knew prey would be more plentiful in the lower regions. You could always tell the Afflicted by their shambling gait. I could never figure out how they managed to move fast enough to catch something to eat.
“Rover,” I spoke aloud, not bothering to subvoke, “close in 25 metres, fore and South.”
Casually I walked into their camp. They had constructed rudimentary shelters from whatever detritus they could cobble together. They were gathered in a tight cluster to retain body heat. The gift of fire was lost to them.
Their dull eyes fell on me as I approached. Slowly rising to their feet, they regarded me warily. They shuffled towards me, hunger in their eyes. They were a pitiful lot. Threadbare clothing hanging from emaciated frames.
“Rover. Sic.”
In a blur of polyester fur, stainless steel teeth and literal razor sharp claws, Rover bounded in and dispatched the group of twenty or so with efficient violence. Not one for excessive force, Rover broke off his attack and returned to my side after the last creature was dispatched.
“Good boy,” I said, running my fingers through the matted synthetic fibres covering his head.
I had hoped for a grouse, maybe even a deer. But an Afflicted will do in a pinch and I was hungry. Not much meat on the bones, but the brains are tasty.
