The Difference Salt Makes

by Jared Axelrod | Mar 17, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

Carlos didn’t want to appear suspicious, so he stayed in a doorway three houses down from the corner. He tried to distract himself, thinking about the possibilities of using curry sauce in chicken Kiev, but he kept looking at the corner. Carlos wanted this to be over as soon as possible, so he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Skott had said it was simple. Meet the girl–who Carlos would know as soon as he saw, Skott assured him–make the trade, leave. That’s it.

Skott didn’t mention that Carlos would be thinking about the worst-case scenario over and over again. By the time the girl showed up two minutes late, Carlos had already envisioned himself be arrested, convicted and eyed by a gorrilla of a cell-mate named “Big Beauford.”

Skott was right, Carlos recognized her instantly. “I’m Saki,” the girl said when Carlos approached. “Are you Skott’s friend?” Even in street clothes, Saki looked like she was wearing a lab coat. Poor girl was probably born in one. She was pretty, though, in that little Japanese girl way. Carlos like the way her faded-pink hair brought out her dark eyes from behind her glasses.

“I’m a friend of anyone who’s eaten my coconut and wasabi custard pie. One bite, and you’ll know why.” It was a standard line Carlos used around girls at parties; it was the only thing he could think of. Big Beauford was still weighing very heavily on his mind.

“Heh,” Saki said, without any sort of humor. “You’re funny. You got the chow mein?”

“Hot and fresh,” said Carlos, as he handed over the paper bag stuffed with Chinese carry-out containers. Saki opened one of them, appraising the scavenged processor chips Carlos and Skott had spent all of the afternoon ripping out of junked motherboards. “You’re looking at enough processor power to run a small defense grid, you hook ’em up right. I brought the chow mein, you got the egg-drop soup?”

Saki shifted the bag to her left hip and dug into the right pocket of her jacket, removing a small translucent-plastic pod. “Here. It wasn’t easy to get, but I got it.”

Carlos cracked open the pod. Inside was a blob of silver and black, slowly swirling with the slight shaking of his hands. Thin, straight wires stuck out from the goo, giving the it the appearance of a melted spider. This was the goods. Top of the line. Unhackable. Uncorruptable.

Bioware.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to with that.” Saki said after Carlos had slipped the pod into his pocket. Her voice was low, a hurried whisper. “You can’t hack it. There’s no code. The programming is part of its structure. I know Skott is all about open sourcing everything, but this tech cannot be brought to the people, okay? It can’t be done. You’d have to be some sort of biologist to take it apart.–”

“Thanks for your help, Saki,” Carlos said, turning away.

“No!.” Saki thrust the word so hard against her clenched teeth that Carlos felt her saliva on the back of his neck. “Tell you what you’re going to do with that! You owe me that much, after what I’ve been through!”

Carlos’s posture softened when she grabbed his arm. Her hands were so small; delicate for a lab monkey. Carlos found himself imagining what else she could do with those hands. “Everything comes apart, Saki. That’s what biology teaches us. It’s how it comes together that makes it work.”

“But how could it possibly–”

“Because biological components aren’t just stacked like blocks, they’re mixed in specific amounts. They’re recipes. And any cook worth his salt will tell you that any recipe can be simplified or improved upon.” Saki looked at him blankly behind her thick glasses. Skott would approve of this, surely. This was bringing enlightenment to the people, wasn’t it? “Here, why don’t you come back to my place. I’ll explain everything with some curry sauce and a handful of dill.”

Sugar and Spice

by J. Loseth | Mar 16, 2006 | Story | 0 comments

“It’s not that you’re boring,” John protested, even though it was. He hated conversations like this, and they always seemed to happen to him. This was his third uncomfortable breakup in as many months.

“Then what is it?” Lila demanded, her pout twitching on the edge between anger and tears. John sighed. He’d seen this one before.

“I just, well, I’ve got other things to worry about in my life, you know?” John turned his head away and fiddled with the miniature joystick on his day planner. He’d had a portable version of Exatz World IV custom-installed so that he could play it while waiting for the train to work. Lila slapped his hand away.

“You mean like that game? Don’t touch that thing when you’re around me, Jonathan! I mean it!” Lila’s eyes were sparking and her pout increased, screwing up her face in a most unattractive manner. “Is that what this is all about? Did you meet some girl online? Are you cheating on me?”

“No!” John protested in exasperation. “You can’t cheat on somebody with a video game, damn it! They just have much better writers than whoever came up with your life.”

“What do you mean, writers?” Lila was aghast. “John, this is real life. There are no writers! There is no script! Get your head out of the clouds!”

“I’m sick of real life, okay?” John snapped, sitting up from his customary slouch and glaring at Lila. “Nothing changes! All the girls are the same, all the places are the same, all the stuff that happens is boring and predictable. It’s all sugar and no spice. There’s no… no… conflict! No heroism! You can’t be a man in real life!”

“John, you are really starting to scare me. Are you even listening to yourself?” Lila stared at John as if he’d grown two heads. “That ‘sugar’ is called peace! The world finally gets itself into some sense of order and you’re complaining?” She threw up her hands in disgust. “You are the most disrespectful man I’ve ever known. What would your father say if he could hear you now?”

“At least my father was a man!” John snapped. “He got to fight for what he believed in. He had a hero’s death.”

“What he believed in was a peaceful world for his son. You’re disgraceful.”

“Get out of here!” John grabbed a cushion from the couch behind him and threw it angrily in Lila’s direction. He had had enough. Everything she said was exactly what he’d predicted. It was a good thing this wasn’t a script, because John would have marched right up to the writers and given them a piece of his mind.

Lila gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. “Your father would be ashamed of you,” she said, voice trembling, then turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her. John sighed. In all honesty, he was relieved that she was gone.

Turning to his console, John sank back into his comfortable, slouched position with a groan of contentment. It only took a single keystroke to call up the world of heroes and villains, of struggles and escapes and creativity. It was easier than breathing to slough off the peace that his father had fought for in the war to end all wars. As he fitted his goggles over his eyes, John prepared to lose himself in an earlier time.

Martian Bluff

by Jared Axelrod | Mar 13, 2006 | Story

Zai Lockheart felt slightly claustrophobic on her mother’s porch despite the open, rolling wilderness of the Martian countryside that surrounded her. The house was a pre-fab job—“my aluminum box” her mother called it—and it felt cheap and flimsy compared to the monument of stone and wood Zai had grown up in back on Earth. Zai was sitting on the lacquered-metal porch because she couldn’t sleep inside the house; the image of the house tumbling down the mountainside sprang to life every time Zai closed her eyes.

“They have a legend up here, you know.” Zai was startled by her mother’s voice behind her. “They say, before you can live up here on the mountains, you have to go to the highest bluff you can find, and shout, loud as you can, ‘I am a Martian!’ And if God believes you, you’ll live in these mountains in happiness and peace, until the end of your days.”

“And? If God doesn’t believe you?”

“Smiting. Lightning. Fire from heaven. That sort of thing.”

“Well, it is a beautiful country-side. I can see why God’d be so picky about who’d get it.” Zai stood up and stretched. She had her father’s height, and as such towered over her mother, despite them both being in bare feet. “I miss the old house, Mama.”

“Didn’t seem to miss it when you moved out,” Zai’s mother gave her a sly grin. “It was too big. Too big for an old woman without a family. I could have kept it, and you still would have only visited on holidays.”

“I just have trouble picturing you living anywhere but home.”

“And I have trouble picturing you without a scabbed knee and pigtails. But look at you now.” Zai’s mother turned away from her, and placed her hands on her hips. “Watch that sun come up. Paints the whole world red. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“Mom, why did you move here?”

“Because,” her mother said, not looking back. “I am a Martain.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s nice, dear,” Zai’s mother said patting Zai’s hand as she shuffled back in the house. “But you’re not the one I have to convince.”