by submission | Jun 23, 2009 | Story
Author : – K –
It moved about on the monitors, exploring the small space it had been confined to. Its motions were cautious, curious almost, as it poked around the simple imaginary box.
Kevin stared at the screen for almost an hour. This was a success. An unforeseen and unfathomable success.
The idea behind the system was simple: harnessing quantum mechanics in a CPU in order to calculate a real-life situation right down to the subatomic particles. Thirty years of research and obscene quantities of money later, his team had achieved the ultimate simulation computer. The program could recreate an entire plan et, complete with flora, fauna, and population, right down to the last atom. From there, anything was possible. This machine was the crystal ball of life.
It could also create life, apparently. Digital life, at least.
He re-read the reports on the auxiliary monitor.. There was no way to access the system from the outside, and he had only been running diagnostics for days leading up to going public. The only thing that he could determine was that some subroutine within a macro had looped back on itself and by some quantum uncertainty had become… alive.
Independent? Definitely.
Aware? Too soon to tell.
The glowing ball stopped moving around. It settled to the base plane and sat there, wobbling gently. It was confused, then curious, and now plain bored within its digital prison.
Keyboard clicks filled the room as Kevin logged on. A plain cursor, the classic white arrow, appeared on the screen. The thing took notice. It jumped up from the floor and rushed to the back wall, puffing itself up and shaking. Kevin was scaring it.
Pulling the mouse, he ge ntly lowered the arrow to the floor. He moved it from side to side, eyes fixated on the trembling blob of data. The thing slowly returned to its original shape and approached. After a moment, it began to bounce a bit. Was it happy to have company?
His pulse was thudding in his ears as the thing began to poke at the cursor. Had he just created life? If enough quantum information is in the right place, could it actually create a digital mind and soul? This creation was not part of the programming. It was its own entity.
Thirty years ago, Kevin had set out to make a computer to give humanity a “God’s eye view” of the world. What he was going to give them was the chance to actually be God.
A flashing on one of the side screens caught his attention. Something was running in the system. The diagnostic scan! He’d scheduled it to run every six hours, and now the machine was humming with power. Every cubit of information in the behemoth contraption was being scanned and put in its proper place. His eyes turned to the main screen as he scrambled to the keyboard to stop the process.
The thing knew. It pressed up to the cursor and trembled as the world slowly began to disappear around it. Kevin couldn’t get past the security protocols and it began taking the thing apart, each tiny speck of data being pulled from its form and put away.
Kevin’s hands stopped as the ball dispursed. It seemed to look at the cursor once more and move a bit. It was saying goodbye.
The screen was empty. Whatever it had been was gone now. Dead.
His heart sank. Kevin wondered if this was how God felt.
by submission | Jun 21, 2009 | Story
Author : John H Reiher Jr.
Family Faxor Kwer had lived on this comet for five generations. The light of the home star Sol was indistinguishable from the light of the twin stars Alef and Bey, or the nearer star Prox. Their ship dwarfed the small comet, stretching far past it in both directions.
The great night of space wrapped around Morgzha, who took little notice of it. He had been born in it, his body was made from it, and he knew of nothing else. He was the son of the headman of the family and overseer of the mining machines. They mined the needed water and minerals from the comet as well as the even rarer metals. They very much needed metals.
Oh there were stories of Hmon arising from the round balls that circled the stars, rich in metals, but he didn’t believe that. How could man come from those balls? The pull of the worlds would crush your chest. No, those were stories for young ones, to listen to and dream of while the crèche mothers raised them to be good workers. Ah to be a child again, thought Morgzha, but if one were to wish for something, it should be how to make different machines.
Morgzha stood on the soft snowy soil of the comet in his airsuit, his handfeet leaving steaming craters as his body heat melted the frozen air. Diggers, the size of twenty men pawed at the ice and snow. Sniffers floated in the near zero gravity and checked the chemical content of the ice being mined. They also checked for the signs of metal, any kind of metal beneath the regolith.
When Family Faxor Kwer chose this comet generations ago, they had chosen poorly. So far, the only metal they found had massed only 2,000 weights. They needed more, much more, to finish a sister ship to Faxor Kwer’s, and start a new family, the Faxor Kweronie. They had bought the right to build the ship ten generations ago from family Faxor Onie, at the same time as the families Faxor Octo and Faxor Neun. Those two families had built their new ships 4 generations ago, while family Faxor Kwer barely had enough metal to build an fifth of the new ship.
There was plenty of carbon compounds and other long chain elements, but without machines that knew how to weave these chemicals, they were forced to find every atom of metal this comet possessed. They could buy the information to manufacture the machines necessary, but the price would be enormous. Faxor Onie was the only one with that information. Morgzha did not want to know what the cost would be to buy this knowledge from the first family of Faxor.
If he could create a machine to weave the chemicals into support struts and walls, then they would be free from the thumb of the first family and it’s rules. But no one knew how to tell the machines how to do what they did, that knowledge was erased from the memory banks of their ship. Only self-repair systems were in place, and basic life-support and entertainment modules were working. The machines could make the very thin skin of the star sails, but that could not be adapted to structural members.
If wishes were plasma drives… he thought and smiled. His thoughts were disturbed by the alert he received from one of the sniffers. He bounded over to the crater the diggers had excavated and saw a wonder: a 10,000-weight, large iron-nickel rock. Morgzha smiled. Maybe he should wish more often.
by submission | Jun 18, 2009 | Story
Author : Ari Brill
It is always a joy to bring rightness to God’s creation. The Good Doctrine’s shiny hull glimmered in the blackness of space, the eerie light of the alien sun reflected off of it and somehow purified. The 100-meter-long starship had just completed its seventh (a lucky number indeed!) mission and now orbited the alien planet, while the hyperspace coordinates for the voyage back to Earth were calculated. But surely the people inside the starship are more important than the mere material object!
Captain Joseph Daniels, son of Jeremiah, looked with satisfaction upon his sixteen assembled crewmembers. For the seventh time they had completed their – all of humanity’s – mission of helping purge sin from the galaxy, and bringing a heathen species to God. He spoke formally:
“Crew, you have done well this day. Alien species 338-I has been purified and sins no more, through your righteous work. But we do not rest! After our short voyage home, to refuel and resupply, we again shall go forth to bring the divine will to the galaxy.”
“Now, a short prayer, led by Chaplain Amos.”
All bowed their heads and mumbled piously. Several wept with joy. When the last man had lifted up his head, the Captain motioned to a crewmember. The man stood up, straightened his jacket, and spoke.
“We estimate that over 12 billion 338-Is ascended during our mission. Before, the insects knew only sin, swarming over and under the planet’s surface. Now, their souls are at peace and harmony. Approximately 300 warheads were expended during the purification process.”
Several again wept with joy, but this time mixed with a little sadness. For while all other sentient species must be freed from this impure, material world, it stayed humanity’s fate alone to remain behind and spread the light and fire of God.
Some hours later, a red light flashed on the bridge console. Crewman Uriel examined the video message – from Earth, a forty-five minute time delay. At first he didn’t quite understand the meaning of what he was seeing.
“Great and glorious God in heaven above!”
The five crewmembers on the bridge, as well as the Captain, dropped their mundane tasks. A truly spiritual message must be at hand.
On the screen, the radiant image of – it could only be! – an angel spoke from seemed to be the bridge of a starship, its echoing voice a strange fusion of thunder and the sweet bubbling of a fountain. The angel’s body superficially resembled a man’s, but it had to be the most beautiful, glorious man ever seen – to the crew’s eyes, it was the essence of perfection. Truly, it was as different from man as a man was from an insect.
“Today, humanity shall be rewarded for its holy work! As you have so rightfully done to others, you shall now receive your due. For the past eighteen scores of years, mankind has done God’s work and purified the galaxy.”
The voice of the angel grew awesome, and terrible to perceive.
“The reward of mankind is nigh!”
The message suddenly cut out. Crewman Uriel frantically pushed buttons.
“Sir! All I’m getting now is static…”
But no one was paying attention.
On the bridge, all wept with joy.
by submission | Jun 15, 2009 | Story
Author : Michael Varian Daly
The city had once been prosperous and beautiful, tall shining towers, broad tree lined boulevards, full of vitality.
Now it was a smashed ruin. Most of that had happened during the Age of Storms, Category Six monsoons scouring those once shining towers, adding their debris to the general destruction of wind and rain.
Battle damage had now been added to that forlorn landscape.
Drajica looked around at the ruins from the wide intersection where she had set up her Tribunal. The helmet of her battle armor was opened ‘on the half shell’ and would snap shut if the suit detected any incoming threat.
In the distance, she could hear the buzz/hum/hiss of Marine weapons, the snapping of century old ex-Soviet assault rifles, the occasional crump of chemical explosives. The air stank of general decay, with an undercurrent of burnt flesh.
Her security team had established a perimeter around the intersection. In its center, a hundred or so local males were lined up, kneeling, hands bound at the small of their backs. A stack of black plastic body bags were in an orderly pile a dozen feet behind them.
“Pathetic,” she thought, “But they had been warned.”
As the Age of Storms slowly abated, the Union of Matrilineal Republics had emerged from North America’s West Coast. The Sisterhood, as it was colloquially known, spread rapidly into the chaotic aftermath.
In the half century since, it had displaced most of the ‘systems’ that had survived the Age of Storms in an essentially peaceful process, and then expanded out into near Earth space.
Some pockets of Phallists had resisted with violence. But with limited capacity to reproduce, they faded quickly. Uterine replicator technology seemed set to reverse that, but unaugmented tank babies were almost universally sociopathic, except for the psychotics, of course. Those societies imploded brutally.
This city was one of the very last strongholds of Phallism. The Sisterhood had compiled evidence of genital mutilation, impregnation rape, and foot amputation for the women who tried to escape before it took action.
Two Warnings were issued. Then came an EMP, followed by a Marine Drop Brigade. Mobile Tribunals did the mopping up.
Drajica walked over to the line prisoners. She’d picked the first one specifically. She knew his type.
He wore a finely knit kufee and a now soiled white robe. His beard was long, but neatly trimmed.
Drajica faced him. “Do you Swear to honor and respect your Sisters?” Her voice was soft, but firm.
He smiled, but his eyes were hard. “There is no God, but God,” he said, “And Mu-”
She pointed at him. An actinic flash burst from her fingertip. A pinhole appeared in his forehead, a thin wisp of smoke puffing upward. He fell over backward, his body jerking. The smell of piss and shit adding to the overall stench.
She sighed. The next in line, a terrified boy no more than seventeen, had already pissed himself. She faced him. “Do you Swear to honor and respect your Sisters?” she repeated in the exact same tone.
“Ye-ye-yes, Mistress,” he blubbered with utter sincerity, “I Swear by my life!”
Two Marines hauled him away to a waiting ground vehicle. His fate would be agricultural resettlement, or possibly servitor augmentation. But that was not for her to determine.
Two other Marines were dragging the mullah’s corpse toward the pile of body bags. He would wind up as DNA harvest. His smug face would haunt her dreams for a while.
Drajica sighed again. “It will all be over soon,” she told herself, and moved down the line.
by submission | Jun 13, 2009 | Story
Author : John Logan
Leviathan IV floated in space, amongst the debris of its brother and sister starships, somewhere in close proximity to Alpha Centauri. Inside its massive hull, a team of veterans were preparing for their last mission. They were the last hope for their species and each man felt the weight of responsibility rest heavily on his shoulders.
“Do we have to use these antiques?” asked Stims.
Their leader, a man named Flex, grunted and spoke, “I don’t like it any more than you, but Dakros said we can’t leave any trace of technology on Earth.”
An array of carbine powered rifles lay before them and Stims grudgingly picked up one equipped with a scope and then slung it over his back. “Damn, if they ain’t heavy,” he said.
The other men retrieved a similar weapon and followed Flex down a tight claustrophobic corridor. The walls of the ship began to vibrate, testament to the experimental technology that was powering up to transport the team over four light years distance and six hundred standard years into the past.
The team passed a porthole, the silhouettes of broken ships and suspended corpses painted a bleak picture of devastation.
“They’re all gone,” whispered one man. “All of them.”
Flex turned and scowled, “Shut your mouth, Brack. I don’t want to hear it. Stay focused or I’ll put my foot up your ass.”
The team moved on, each man silent and brooding—lost in his own thoughts. They came to an open chamber where a spherical pod rested half-embedded into the floor. Around it, an eerie crimson light pulsed.
Dakros stood there waiting, his face contorted into a mask of impatience. “Time is running out,” he hissed. “The Earth men have found us. Quickly, all of you gather round.”
Flex nodded to his men, prompting them to form up and stay attentive to Dakros’ words.
“Here is a dossier with all the information you will need concerning the target,” said Dakros, handing it to Flex. “You were all specifically chosen for this mission not just because of your ability to kill, but because of your knowledge of human language and culture.”
Flex studied the dossier. He lifted his head from the printed paper and said, “Are you sure this is gonna work? I mean this is a prototype ship after all—”
“Let me make it clear, gentlemen,” said Dakros. The lines on his face deepened under the shadows of the room. “The human scourge has already annihilated our fleet, next is the home world, your families, loved ones and friends, all of them will die.”
Stims nudged the rifle into a more comfortable position.
“I’m very confident that we can send you to the correct space and time,” continued Dakros. “However, it will be a one-way trip—I’m sorry.”
None of them protested.
Flex plucked out a photograph from the dossier and held it up. “This him?” he asked.
Dakros nodded. “Our historians have worked hard to pinpoint the turning point in the human evolution of space travel. This man…” Dakros pointed an accusatory finger at the photograph, “…is responsible for the human progress that has ultimately led them across the stars to war with us.”
The face of each veteran soured with hatred as they studied the photograph, committing the features to memory.
Dakros suddenly clapped his hands together, shattering the silence. “All aboard now, we have little time,” he said.
They piled into the cramped pod. After a few moments preparation, the pod detached from the Leviathan and hurtled through space, its destination Earth, Dallas, 1963.
