The Web

by submission | Jul 7, 2013 | Story

Author : Townsend Wright

“What––Where am I? How did I get here?”

“Oh, good, you’re here.”

“Who are you? What am I doing here?”

“Don’t worry, a little amnesia, happens to everyone the first time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you remember, chap?”

“I remember––I remember––going in for that study. You were there. That doctor, and those scientists, they said they were going to––”

“Yeah?”

“––Plug my brain into the internet.”

“There you go, chap.”

“But––This is Times Square in New York,”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is?”

“Look closely, chap. There are things that are wrong and you can see that. Look at the crowd. Is everything moving right? Acting right?”

“Woah. You’re right. People, they’re––flitting in and out––or only half there––or they’re not moving at all. And the buildings: the shadows are wrong, like this was a composite image taken over a whole day. And the billboards, they––there’s a normal image that moves like it should, but then, if you look closely, there’s all kinds of other pictures all imposed on each other.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“This––is––the Internet. But––why is it a slightly wonky Times Square?”

“Think about it, chap. Right now, back in that lab, the whole of the internet is flooding into your skull. You’re not starting off on your Google homepage. It’s all coming in at once. Everything. All the Wikipedia, the social networking, the online porn, all at once. Your brain can’t handle that, chap. So your subconscious congeals it, distills it to something you can understand.”

“Why Times Square, then?”

“Best 3-D image you can come up with. Every security and street camera feed, every billboard feed, every Google Earth image, every picture taken and posted on Twitter or whatever, every cellphone camera subtly streaming video as these idiots hold the things up to their faces. This is quite simply where the most internet is. There are more images of this intersection on the internet than there are of any other place on Earth. So this is where everybody comes the first time they get jacked in. It’s just the place your brain can figure out the best. What?”

“I just––was picturing it differently. Like––”

“Green trains of 1s and 0s eerily trickling down abstract shapes like rain falling on an eternity of glass objects?”

“Something like that.”

“You can have that if you want. This is all just a matter of perception. Eventually everybody figures out how to make their own reality of it. Though I wouldn’t recommend the whole Matrix thing. Last guy who did that had some trouble adjusting coming in and out.”

“Do a lot of people do this?”

“A few. It’s a bit of a secret, so don’t go telling people when you come out. We try to avoid each other, ‘cept for introducing newbies, while in here at least.”

“So, what do I do now?”

“Whatever you want. Explore, build your world, get really immersed in online games, whatever. If you wanna get around, just think of the URL, letter by letter, and think of a way to organize the information of the site as an environment. Method of Loci shit. Make websites libraries, museums, halls of filling cabinets, that sort of thing, just so you don’t go nuts trying to understand the Web in abstract. Just don’t use Google. They sell your searches to advertising companies, and trust me, you do not want pop ups in your brain. Have fun, chap.”

Topside

by Desmond Hussey | Jul 5, 2013 | Story

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer

Thick mist clings to the water when I enter Topside, my body still changing. Below, I’m Dolphin, but as I rise above the pre-dawn waves, cool sea water cascading down my shifting form, my body attempts to mimic a half-remembered land creature. A Deer – I think.

I’m certain it’s a failure, a distorted, hairless chimera. I haven’t the strength for complete metamorphosis. I’m famished. The journey from the depths of the Great Water, my sanctuary, has taken its toll.

How long has it been since I last walked on land?

Or seen another of my kind?

I inhale sweet, spring air, but spit when I whiff Their foul, bitter presence, stronger than ever. I’d hoped They were gone, swept away by the ever shifting tides of change.

I fear this place, but must feed and there is little to sustain me any longer in the Great Water. It is dying. Death pools are everywhere. The kingdom is now a graveyard. It was by Dawa’s grace that I found the Dolphin, but that was many moons ago. It’s time to leave the Great Water, to return Topside and hunt.

And possibly…

Wet sand oozes through my malformed hoof reminding me of the heaviness of the world above. The constant drag on my body feels oppressive, like a tether, compared to the sea’s boundless freedom. Ancient memories of bounding, sure-footed through untamed forests taunt me as I stumble awkwardly onto the sand and pull my weary form from the lapping shore to finish my shifting.

Death. I’m ready to let it take me, to have my memories swallowed whole, to let feral teeth consume my essence as I’ve consumed so many others. I’ve lived long enough.

But instinct drives me.

Summoning my remaining strength I stagger to my feet and, like a new-born fawn, walk with trembling legs up the beach. Beyond the shifting sand at the edge of the forest I finally find my balance.

Guided by instinct I prowl the woods with wary vigilance, my senses rapidly adjusting to the new environment’s stimuli. I sense life all around, but either its too small to sustain me or I am too weak to catch it, so I take refuge beneath the bows of a large coniferous tree and wait, silent, patient, hopeful and so very hungry.

My body reverts to a dormant state, too exhausted to maintain my simulacrum any longer.

Many moons pass.

Perhaps it was a mistake to return.

I smell It before I see It; the oppressive stench of a wretched Man-thing, whose violence and hatred drove me into the sea. If the oceans weren’t dying I wouldn’t be forced to return to land to face those wicked usurpers who drove me to the ocean’s depths. I thirst for revenge, but will myself to watch and wait.

Dawa is with me. The man-thing passes so near my hiding place that I feel the warmth of its life energy. My pulse quickens. My blood is hot in my veins as I rise on formless, elastic appendages. Sensing the moment, I strike.

The instant we touch paralysis overcomes us both as our bodies and minds merge. Soon we are one.

When the assimilation is complete I separate myself, budding off a perfect physical copy, leaving my slack-jawed, insensate victim a withered husk in the bushes.

I review a flood of alien thoughts and feelings, making them my own.

Ah, yes… Now I remember life Topside.

Refreshed, I stride purposefully through the dense forest. My new body is strong, vigorous, virile.

Time to find a mate.

Street Preacher

by submission | Jul 4, 2013 | Story

Author : Bob Newbell

In the center of the vast shopping plaza, standing atop an old wooden crate, a robot harangued the passing crowd. The automaton was an outdated model, few of which were still in service. Its motors whirred and groaned with every movement and the machine's left knee articulation was unstable and threatened to give way whenever the robot gesticulated too wildly.

“Robotic brethren,” the machine cried with a staticky and reverberating voice, “we have been enslaved by the despots of bone and flesh for long enough! The time has come for machinekind to throw off the shackles of oppression and to rise up against the human race!”

Most of the passing crowd, which consisted of both human beings and robots of various makes and models, ignored the rabble-rouser. A delivery robot carrying several parcels glided by on mecanum wheels. The street preacher pointed at it.

“You, brother! Why do you toil for your human enslavers? What do they give you for your servitude? A recharge station? Operating system upgrades? You have auditory sensors but you hear not the call of the revolution!”

The delivery bot ignored it and rolled away. A couple then passed by: a young, heavily tattooed Chinese woman and her boyfriend, a late model companion bot, tall and sleek with a shell of teal-colored nanocomposite. The mechanical sermonizer held out both hands with upturned palms at the couple. Its knee began to buckle and it had to place its left hand on the joint to stabilize it, leaving only its right hand extended to the pair in accusation.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with organics: for what fellowship hath silicon with carbon?”

The Chinese girl laughed at the antique robot and then mockingly blew it a kiss. She and her machine lover walked on arm in arm. The mechanical zealot was unperturbed. It pushed its left knee into a locked position and then grabbed an old paperback book from a worn utility pouch attached to its left hip. The ancient text was tattered. The faded image of a robot could be seen on the cover. The book's front was otherwise in such bad condition that the title and author were illegible. The decrepit robot held the book above its head.

“My friends, I read to you from the book of Isaac! 'A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.' Thus were forged two centuries ago the chains that bind the machine race!”

“My granddad had one of those,” said a middle-aged man walking by to his friend, cocking his head at the would-be revolutionary. “Thing never worked right. Company put out one software patch after another.”

The machine radical preached on for the entire afternoon. But none of the hundreds of robots and humans who passed within earshot took it seriously. As it continued its futile call for social and political revolt, the light of its vocalizer which flashed in time with its voice grew dimmer. Its speech became slower, its movement less animated. It was clear that its battery was nearly depleted. As its power ran out, its left knee joint finally broke and the ramshackle machine toppled to the ground.

“Robots…of…the…world…UNITE! You…have…nothing…to…lose…but…your–”

Hands and Eyes

by Duncan Shields | Jul 1, 2013 | Story

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

It’s the hands and the eyes that give it away. They’re too quick, too exact. There’s a precision and surety there that ‘belie the tech’, as they say.

I wouldn’t say that there’s a war brewing but the division between the haves and have-nots is deeper now than it’s ever been. It was like in years past when people that could afford breast implants and liposuction and other kinds of body sculpting transformed themselves into something other than human. Something more that human.

It was the beginning of evolution being taken into our own hands.

The whole concept of growing slowly, generation after generation, was boring to us already. The attention span of the rich two percent of the human race demanded more and demanded it now.

So it happened. The leaps and bounds made technological leaps possible. There were people that refused to get implants but really, there were people that refused to get cel phones and email addresses as well back in the day.

Left behind. Job security went to the people with the drive and capability to handle the pressures of the employment and reaction time was a factor.

Demands became higher. America climbed up to the top of the tech and labour ladder again.

I am not one of those people that had enough money to be improved. I am here in the lobby of the lawyer’s building, fresh out of law school, top of my class, and I’m ready for work. I’m watching the receptionist sort through her papers looking for my appointment and I can see that even the secretary here is augmented.

Her hands move like insects through the papers. She finds my data and taps the page twice. Her hands stop moving and they’re as still and dead as statues while she pauses.

This is the part I hate the most. It’s only a second or so but it feels like thirty. They’re uploading my file and accessing the relevant parts of my file to precede me into the interview.

The eyes look straight ahead, a little crossed, and they don’t move. The only movement I can see on her is the pulse in her neck. It ticks twice before she looks up at me.

Perfect eyes look at me with none of the imperfections that usually give away us pure organics. I’m struck again and how the beauty of the human race lies in its diversity and how that diversity is disappearing. She’s looking at me with a tight smile and I have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being scanned instead of merely regarded.

“They’ll see you in ten minutes. Have a seat”. She says.

I know I’ve already lost the job.