by submission | Apr 16, 2008 | Story
Author : V.L. Ilian
Vice manager Hans Heidelberg exited the elevator with unusual nervousness. He knew the chief was awaiting his report but never in his life had Hans been so unsure about himself.
“Mr. DeVries… The report on the 2 hour outage of our mainframe is complete.”
“Well… get on with it.”
Hans took a deep breath imagining the scene where he gets fired for incompetence in interpreting the data.
“Less than 24 hours ago the mainframe started constructing a profile for a new employee, Joana Baker, a young graduate student who’d been accepted as a research assistant. 6 seconds into the profile build a speeding ticket threw up a red flag with the plausibility checker.”
“How can a speeding ticket fail a plausibility check?”
“It seems it had been issued exactly 54 minutes earlier in Singapore. The AI established that Joana Baker could not have traveled from Singapore to her interview in a 20 minute window. However this did not freeze our mainframe. A series of programs started running to check for mistakes, identity theft and a number of other theories.”
Hans put his thumbdrive on chief’s desk and pressed the little button on it. The file of Joana Baker appeared on the display surface of the desk in front of Mr. DeVries.
“It turned out another Joana Baker who lives in Singapore received that ticket.”
A second file appeared next to the first one that also read Joana Baker but the photo was of the same person. Different hairstyle, different clothes but undoubtedly the same person.
“The puzzle is their biometrics match 99%”
“Separated sisters?”
Hans pushed the little button again.
“Researching this other woman threw up several other plausibility errors. We discovered a third woman named Joana Bakker living in Amsterdam.”
A new file was being displayed, again of a woman who strongly resembled the first.
“Are you certain this is correct?”
Hans swallowed dryly and continued.
“All 3 women are exactly the same age and match biometrically 99%. This time the results attracted the interest of a background program that had been running continuously for 20 years. It had the credentials to prioritize itself and it did so by putting every program on hold. This resulted in the freezing of all our operations.”
“What program is this? Who gave it these permissions?”
“When queried it identifies itself as Project Harper Detector v3.2.”
Mr. DeVries changed his expression noticeably.
“No links, no ownership info and there’s no project Harper in our database. It was so firmly rooted in our mainframe we couldn’t stop it without cutting all the power. We were ready to do just that when it finished and returned the mainframe to normal operation. It… gave us some results”
Hans pressed the little button again, the first three files shrunk and the desk was filled with files. All variations Joana Baker, all 99% match to the first, spread all over the world.
“In total we’ve identified 27 Joana Baker… s. Born on the same date, in fact if we take into account errors in hospital clocks… they’re all born at approximately 13:30GMT.”
Hans waited to be fired.
In a moment that is rarely witnessed Mr. DeVries smiled broadly.
“Project Harper was a classified research initiative… we tried to create ripples in the fabric of the universe. The theory was that if we could disrupt space-time we could create anomalies that we could detect and find out how the great machine ticks. After 11 years of failures the project was abandoned but we left an AI running to spot data anomalies just in case.”
Hans looked down at the 27 files.
“…The universe threw an exception error?”
“Yes… Now we just have to figure out how.”
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by Duncan Shields | Apr 8, 2008 | Story
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
It wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I knew what had happened.
Lisa Sagan and Andrea Hawking were helping Petra Turing make sure my vitals were stabilizing. It was Henrietta Einstein that was chairing the ‘wake. I could see my dear Shelagh Newton looking down from the observation booth with tears of joy in her eyes.
I’d been caught and killed. They’d had to wake up another copy of me.
I needed to know how much memory I was missing and if the Two-X project was still functioning.
We’d wrested control from the governments. We were the smartest minds on the planet. We’d taken over from the war-mongering males and turned the entire continent into a matriarchy that was feared and respected.
It wasn’t enough.
We need the world to be with us if we were to conquer space.
“Don’t try to move†said Carla Marconi. I bristled at the sound of her petulant voice but remained still. Soon, I would leave this hospital bed and be debriefed and rebriefed. The project was safe. I could see that much from here.
The black ceramic hummed above us in the nuclear cooling tower. Miles long, it crackled with barely restrained power. It wouldn’t be long before the world would fear us and have no choice but to obey. It was regrettable but the quickest solution.
The weapon is of my design.
My name is Tamara Tesla. A glorious future awaits.
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by | Apr 6, 2008 | Story
Author : =arkhein
Deeg snuck out of his parent’s cabin late on the last night.  He had noticed the elevators had cameras in them, so he took the stairwell instead.  There would be consequences for his actions, but if he could avoid some of them, that would be nice.
The stairwell turned out to be a narrow tube, thirty stories high, with a flimsy ladder welded to the inside.  The sight of it made his eyes bug, but he climbed in anyway.  She would be there.  She probably was there already.
“Are you going to be at the homecoming party at the Core tonight?  Veena had asked.  Deeg distinctly remembered the rainbow sparkles in her long blonde hair and the overwhelming scent of strawberries.
Rather than asking what the ‘Core’ was, Deeg just nodded and said “of course!”
Halfway up the tube, Deeg was exhausted and sweaty.  His hand slipped, and he fell.  Deeg almost screamed, but realized he was falling much more slowly than he should, and grabbed the ladder quickly.  Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself up hard and sailed upwards several feet before slowing down.  The rest of the way up, he took superman leaps.
“Oh, I’m going to be there too,†Veena had said, looking down at the ping-pong table intently and twisting the hair near her ear round her finger over and over again.  Deeg opened his mouth to ask her if she wanted to play another game, but she set the paddle on the table.
“Well, I gotta go.  Bye,†she said, making eye contact with him for a second, then rushing over to a gaggle of giggling girls who were playing a dancing game in the corner.
As he approached the hatch, a thumping sound came to his awareness.  Deeg opened the hatch and dance music blared.  He pulled himself inside.
The Core was a huge circular compartment, over a hundred feet across.  Thin poles ran at all angles across the cavernous room, bearing multicolored, spining lights. People moved up and down the struts via handholds, and then swung themselves out into the air, dancing and flailing and spinning.
Deeg’s eyes were on the huge, circular windows on the walls throughout the Core.  Most showed some part of the huge white ship they were on, the cisluar ferry Atluntos.  Its bulk was the huge habitable ring that could be seen in all directions.  The Core was at the very center of the ship, attached to the ring with huge struts.
Then he saw Veena.  She was at the nearest window, peering out.  She was dressed in a rainbow colored body suit covered in lights that pulsed with the beat of the music.  Her golden hair formed a floating, shining corona about her head, and Deeg gasped. Â
Veena looked up, saw him, and grabbed his arm.  She said something, but Deeg couldn’t hear.  She said it again, then pointed at the window.  He looked out.  There was Earth.  It wasn’t full, but still glowed brightly against the blackness of space.
She moved forward and he could feel her breath on his face.  It made him dizzy.  She bit her lower lip slightly and looked into his eyes.  Then she kissed him.  It was sloppy and rough and the taste of strawberries filled his mouth.  His hands moved to her back and behind her head, and he returned the sloppy, wonderful first kiss.
* * *
Years later, the only thing he could remember about his teenage vacation to the moon was a strawberry smell, and the reflection of the crescent Earth glowing brightly in Veena’s eyes.
by | Apr 4, 2008 | Story
Author : Salli Shepherd
In Fresno, California, Kalisha Henderson jacks herself in to a palm-length, slimline psii-pod and closes her eyes. She is young, barely in her teens, and her mind soon fills with images of pink, prancing horses with horns of silver.
She hasn’t yet learnt to hold her impressions well or long enough to leave a decent neural imprint. Soon the horses shred and tatter, fading into cartoonish, equine ghosts. With a low moan of despair, she watches her popularity rate spike briefly and then plummet again to almost zero. She’ll have to try harder, much harder, if she is ever going to succeed. She also realises her Subscription is running out and, in anticipation of that terrible loss, weeps loudly into her hands.
On the other side of the world, Peter O’Flaherty is enjoying the fruit of being a Master of his art. From Peter’s psii-pod and thence into ArtiCon’s main gallery flows a horrifically lifelike pack of Hell Hounds, slavering and many-limbed, set loose on a roomful of barebreasted cat-women. Millions watch the carnage, enthralled, and for every minute they do so a credit leaks from their account to ArtiCon’s coffers. Peter will see one ten-thousandth of the money, but he doesn’t care. His popularity rate just went through the roof, and the subsequent endorphin reward meted out to him through the Subscriber chip embedded in his temporal lobe sets him shivering, pleasure dripping wet and warm down his thigh.
They are just two, among six billion Subscribers.
Kalisha’s little burst of misery, a mere drop in the ocean, is nevertheless a  source of great happiness to Narghaflog. Roughly the size and shape of an inflated sleeping-bag, the alien hooked up to ArtiCon’s artificial brain by hairlike microfilaments quivers and blubbers in joy. What fuel these creatures provide! What manner of mesmeric delicacies! Narghaflog’s entire planet is beholden to It for this cheap source of food, fuel and entertainment. And to think, It almost passed the place by. With a pulse of neurons and self-satisfaction, the great Arcturean explorer transmits a message to Its second-in-command.
“Lhamayaoh! Plant discord in that large spike on Subscriber #27985362, immediately.â€
The lesser creature does as It is bidden, proceeding to insert a twin trend of manufactured outrage and disapproval into Peter O’Flaherty’s rating stream. Immediately, a massive wave of murderous anger drives response levels off the chart– Peter’s dedicated fans and followers, numbering in their millions, won’t stand for the creations of their favourite Dream-Weaver being sullied by unfavourable critique.
Moments later, the slug-like denizens of Arcturus let out a telepathic roar of approval as a tide of human rage floods at the speed of Thought across space, permeating their depleted auric channels. Narghaflog allows a final shudder of pleasure to wobble Its colourless flesh before turning back to the neural monitors, thanking the Spawn-Source for happy accidents and the limitless vanity of artists.
by submission | Mar 29, 2008 | Story
Author : Tim Hatton
The hull was a likely prospect. Nothing much else caught his eye. The inside seemed neglected – full of potential indeed, but sorely neglected. There were also certain crucial updates missing from the internal computer system. The map array was as recent as his salesman’s overcoat. Jack noted with slight surprise that even his home world was uncharted.
“And you said this craft was used for freight delivery – “
“Yes, yes,†the unsavory salesman injected, cutting Jack off in mid-sentence, “not a sturdier hull anywhere, sir. Max load exceeds 23 tons.â€
Jack moved a short distance to the left in order to avoid the spittle shower that erupted every time the sleaze-bag spoke.
“It doesn’t seem to have made very many deliveries, though,†muttered Jack, “the map entries only cover the nearest seven systems…â€
Despite his tone, Jack rather appreciated the virgin nature of this particular Trellis Shipyards Courier Class. He had always admired the smooth curves and easy movement of the Trellis ships. Imagining his first craft to be from that elite stock brought a slight tremble to his hand.
The trouble with Jack was his own virgin nature. He had never piloted his own ship into space and the uncertainty ripped his confidence apart. He had never seen a terrible accident or been in any firefight. No, there were no terrible memories. As of yet, there were no memories at all. He was simply too insecure. Nothing else brought so much wonder and so much terror to him like the thought of striking out on his first voyage. His life was not exactly fulfilling there on Phams, but at least it was safe and steady.
“I’m sorry Mr. Gantry, I just don’t think today’s the day…†Jack began to make for the exit. He cast a sorrowed glance back at the Courier and tried to block out the nagging protestations of Gantry, the salesman. He reached the gate and looked down briefly at the cluster of signs on its grate. A yellow and blue ad caught his attention. It flashed a message at him; “Meet you’re true love today! You only get one chance at life, don’t let this opportunity slip…†Jack stood dazed.
Sure life was safe, secure and easy on Phams, but to hell with Phams! The universe was out there. Just a few miles away, adventure, uncertainty, thrill and peril was resting, staring at him with a thousand bright eyes cast against a never-ending onyx sheet. What a waste he was!
He turned around and resolutely strode back to Gantry. Without a word, he transferred in the required funds and firmly, wonderfully, pressed his thumb on the scammer and felt the lasers probe his pupils. A green light confirmed his identity, and Gantry, now smiling genuinely, passed Jack the slot disk that belonged to the Courier.
“She’s all yours Jack,†said Gantry.
With a smile and a thrill of fear, he climbed the hatch into the heart of his mistress and resolved to express his undying love for the universe to which he belonged with every new journey he endeavored upon.
