by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 8, 2009 | Story
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Mama?” A tiny voice slipped quietly through the room. Between her and the woman in the bed an impenetrable forest of metal stands, tubes and blinking machinery stood guard.
“Come in sweetheart, it’s alright.” Her mother’s voice warmed the space, shushing the noisy equipment. “Mama’s alright baby, come see me.”
Clad in a pink dress and knee socks, the girl of no more than five years bravely stepped away from the safety of the door frame. Big blue eyes focused and fixed on her mother lying in the hospital bed, and her legs carried her along that line of focus until she could reach out and touch her hand.
“There, there, Mama’s all better now.” She held her daughter’s hand gently, but firmly. “The doctors made me all better. Come. Climb up here and cuddle with me.” She tried her best not to wince, shuffling a little to one side to make room. She held her one arm away so her daughter wouldn’t become tangled in the web of cords snaking away from her body.
The girl climbed cautiously up the side of the bed, nearer the foot so as to avoid the side rail, and then crawled up beside her mother and lay her head gingerly on her chest.
“Did they really take out your broken heart Mama?” She barely breathed the words.
“Yes dear, they really did.”
The girl put her ear tentatively to her mother’s chest, listening for the familiar thrub thrubbing, but there was no such noise.
“Mama?” She started and stopped.
“Yes dear?”
“Mama, can you still love me now that they took your heart away?” The words were brave, but her voice quivered.
Her mother wrapped her arms around her baby girl. “Of course I still love you. My love for you isn’t caught up in some broken old heart, it comes from everywhere.” She suppressed a gasp as the little girl squeezed her back tightly.
The girl contented herself snuggling quietly a time.
“Mama,” she said finally, “your love doesn’t rumble like thunder like it used to.” She pressed one ear again to her mothers breast, covering the other ear with a free hand. The sound rising up wasn’t the familiar steady beating she had grown with, but rather a different sound that ebbed and flowed. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened to breath being drawn in, and pushed out, and to the rhythmic rushing that kept time.
“Mama, your love whooshes like the ocean. Like the great big wide ocean.” She lay there, eyes closed and smiling, liking very much the new sounds her mother made.
Her mother lay still too, her tears also like the ocean, but adding no sound of their own.
by submission | Apr 7, 2009 | Story
Author : Gwen Harper
The math, of course, came first.
It took a while, nearly forty years, for the technology to catch up to the possibilities in her set of equations.
They said it was impossible, the body of those who considered themselves enlightened thought. Even if such a thing would work – as the numbers, indisputable, cold, facts those numbers, indicated – it would not have the effect that its creator sought.
The human mind is more than data they said, and such a rich medium of data as the human experience could not just be coded.
Even if that were possible, somehow, using some fuzziness of logic that escaped all but the best and brightest of them, it wouldn’t really be more than a simulation.
You could replicate, or so the theory went, the human personae, but you could neither store nor transfer it.
She, the grand architect, disagreed.
They told her it was tantamount to homicide. Suicide, maybe, if you believed it would merely be a copy.
Legislators seized on the whole thing. They’re good at that, those legislators. Excellent at seizing on the crux of a perceived problem and dragging out every last little bit. Clearly, said those experts legal and – ostensibly – scientific, the very notion involved the commission of a crime, but what sort of crime. Precisely where, they asked, loudly, where all could see and hear, did the ethical transgression occur?
What, precisely, could they charge her with?
She held the patents, by hook and by crook. She knew that this would work – she’d had four decades to make certain of that. It would work, precisely as she had envisioned. Injunctions were filed; long winded speeches became sound bytes on the newsfeeds.
A simple matter, on reflection, it was. And – viewed from the right perspective, something of a solution to all of humanity’s considerable ethical, spiritual, and moral problems. Not an escape, as some had proposed, but a new thing. A wholly new way of being, of existing.
Others, perhaps others closer to the architect, laid their fears down like confessions. Others questioned her judgment, if not her equation.
But how could you cast away the flesh so casually one asked.
She smiled and said you’ll see.
And so the nation and the world talked, and talked, hot air likely contributing to the enhancement of an already rosy warm climate.
As the hour drew near, and the world grew strident its belief that they could put a stop to this sort of crime, she found a sense of peace where none had existed before.
This would work, she would be the first, and it would be all hers, for as long as she felt content to hold it. Which probably wouldn’t be long, as the architect had never been a greedy woman.
They key to unlocking the code, the equation, the difference between all things had been maintaining their symmetry. In the right proportions, anything made of matter or energy could safely be changed from one to the other – the rest of it had been mitigating loss of one as it became the other.
That last night, the longest night, was all preparation. Cords and wires, and tests – countless tests, were run, attached, documented, and run again. The immense blue crystalline slab of memory was wheeled in and its backups run.
She didn’t say good bye, for it wasn’t good bye.
She dismissed them all, that small contingent that had believed in her and her work. The lights went out, and in a moment of Frankenstein glee, she threw the switch.
At 0917 pm 21 December 2036, she committed immortality.
by Patricia Stewart | Apr 6, 2009 | Story
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
“Quite frankly,” said Stuart Whitley, the Director of Operations at Computerwood, “I am not pleased with this vendetta that you’ve launched against our movies. We are clearly producing products that the public wants to see.”
“The public makes emotional judgments, not rational ones,” was the flat response of Kostas Kritikos, movie critic for the World Times.
“I think that you’re the one being irrational,” Whitley retorted. “How can you not accept the fact that computer generated movies are substantially better than the old cellulous ones? The quality is so perfect; I challenge anyone to tell the difference between a flesh and blood actor and today’s computer generated counterpart. It’s the best thing to happen to the industry since the talkies. We no longer need those pampered, spoiled brats, whining about their trailers, the hours, and so-and-so having better lines than them. We’ve also eliminated the need for sets, props, and location shoots. We’re free from weather delays, agents, and actor strikes. We produce a better product, on schedule, for less money. It’s a perfect solution, Mr. Kritikos.”
“I couldn’t disagree with you more. Your movies are a travesty. The industry has a proud heritage dating back more than 100 years. You can’t create great movies in a warehouse basement using a couple of programmers and a supercomputer.”
Whitley indicated the mammoth trophy case packed with more than one hundred golden statuettes, “That cabinet full of Oscars, Mr. Kritikos, says that you’re wrong. Besides, you’re over simplifying the process. We still have screen writers, directors, storyboard artists, concept artists, texture artists, animators, riggers, compositors, and sound designers working on every production.” He steepled his fingers. “Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. Kritikos. What’s your real problem with our pictures?”
“Since you’ve asked, it’s what you’ve done to the classics. Shirley Temple playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Ronald Reagan staring in Casablanca rather than Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper playing Rhett Butler, and Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones. For the love of God man, have you no decency? Those movies are the very heart and soul of Hollywood, and you’ve desecrated them.”
Whitley smiled. “Each of those people was the director’s first choice to play those leading roles. We’re letting the public see the movies that could… no, should have been. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Kritikos, our remakes are exactly what would have been released had the directors had the actors that they initially wanted. Tell me Mr. Kritikos, what can I do to convince you to write a favorable review?”
“There is nothing that you can do,” Kritikos roared. “I will fight these abominations with ever fiber in my body. Mark my words Whitley, you create one more of these vile remakes, and I’ll spend the rest of my life…”
Whitley cut him off, “That will be all, Mr. Kritikos. I’ve got what I needed. Your services are no longer required.”
“What? My services? What are you talking about? I don’t work for you.”
“Ah, but you do, Mr. Kritikos. You see, Computerwood is doing research into new product lines. As a consequence, we needed advanced feedback from the public, including movie critics. Unfortunately, Mr. Kritikos, you’re not a real person. Our programmers created you so that we didn’t have to actually hire a pompous, overpaid critic. Funny, isn’t it? Our characters are so perfect; they don’t even realize that they’re just a simulation. Computer, end ‘Critic 12’ program.”
An instant later, Kritikos faded away, his mouth still open.
by submission | Apr 5, 2009 | Story
Author : Imran Nazar
He found himself waking up in a field. There was nothing unusual about that; he’d camped up in fields many times during his travels. Something was different this morning, though. For one thing, he could feel the wind over his face, and that meant he was in the open.
He opened his eyes. Expecting to see the dark green of his tent over him, he found a blue sky, tinged with the orange of a rising sun. He was indeed in the open, so where was his tent?
He sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to focus. Around him, there was just grass; it was an open field, and he was apparently asleep right in the middle. He couldn’t remember finding this field; even if he had picked this place to sleep overnight, his tent would’ve been over him, and he’d be nearer the woods. Maybe the tent blew away last night, but he couldn’t see it now. He’d have to find another at some point.
He looked behind him, and there was a house in the distance. With the sun behind it, lying in its own shadow, the house looked stark. He could see, though, that it was a wooden house. The walls were lime-washed, and it looked like some of the windows were broken. The front door had been boarded over at one point, but the board had fallen away on one side.
He felt himself being drawn to the house, for some reason. Maybe because the side window was open just enough for one person to get through, though anything useful was probably long gone. His plan was to head further south today; his old map showed a village by the road, which might prove a good source of food for the next couple of weeks.
He got up, and made ready to leave. Instead of heading south, he turned around to face the house. He found himself walking towards the open window, as though something was pushing him towards it; as though a command had been given.
> GO NORTHEAST
by submission | Apr 4, 2009 | Story
Author : Trevor Foley
Dear Miss March,
I’ve read pamphlets: “88 Reasons the World Will End in 1988”, “Give ‘Em Hell in 2012”, and my favorite “Apocalypse is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose”. I proved the world’s going to end next month: Your month. I’m writing, because Step 9 requires I make direct amends with those I’ve harmed. I saw you half naked online and said, “I’d kill for one night with her.” Three days later I proved, by lengthy equation, Apocalypse coincides with the month you’ll appear in Playboy.
With the foreknowledge of our demise, I’ve become an accomplice in our doom. I refuse to calculate the how, maybe, because my heart can’t bear the truth, but in any case, my willingness to ignore this slow train coming makes me equally guilty for our destruction. Since I’ve doomed us all, perhaps you’d spend a night with me. I have a waterbed.
Included with this letter is a mix tape. Mostly they’re songs about the Apocalypse, starting with “The Apocalypse Song” by St. Vincent. There’s also a track with the chorus “What a man, what a man, what a mighty, mighty man,” which I’d like to play while I climax.
I read intelligence is one of your turn on’s, which is also why I included a copy of my Master’s Degree and a picture I clipped out of the newspaper of me holding my trophy after winning the city chess tournament. The trophy’s really big…and hard. Just like me, but I don’t have it anymore, because I dropped it walking home from said chess tournament.
O, I also make delicious guacamole, so if you’d like, we can eat it off each other!
On a sadder note, my cat, Tuxie, (because his fur looks like a tuxedo) died two days ago. We should visit him at the pet cemetery…
That’s all I’ve got really…
Reply as soon as you get this. I’m sending this via the U.S. Postal Service, so we’ll probably only have more like twenty-seven or twenty-six days once it’s arrived.
Sorry about the Apocalypse!
Love,
Alan Gibbons
P.S. When you write back don’t spray your letter with perfume, I’m allergic.
