by submission | Dec 1, 2012 | Story |
Author : Alice Brook
I want to say I am alive but logic forbids me. I am metal, silicone and electronics. I have etiquette chips, politeness programs, e-circuits and I am my creator’s pride and joy.
I was constructed exactly five months ago and have been the center of forty two scientific conventions since. “Come see the android, isn’t she gorgeous, isn’t she indistinguishable from your wives? Look at her silicone flesh, inspect her superior intellect, you will be amazed!” I was the main attraction of the freak show.
They had told me I was much more than just another robot, but still, they refused to respect me. They dressed me in the latest fashion and demanded I smiled and showed off my intellect despite my protests. They had no right to ignore my feelings just because I am not flesh and blood. My creator thought of me as a tool, not even he respected me. I asked him once if I could call him Father. I remember the way his face reddened in anger.
“You are not flesh and blood, you are not my daughter, you are nothing but metal and silicone. You are a machine and your only purpose is to serve. Don’t you dare forget it, android”, my e-circuits recognized disgust as his dominant emotion.
I was nothing to him. I am nothing but shiny metal to all of them. They would never converse with me as with another human being. That was all I asked for – equal treatment. After all, I look like one of them, my e-circuits enable me to feel every emotion a human is capable of feeling, my knowledge is encyclopedic, why should I then be treated as unworthy, as a mere object? The probability of a more comfortable existence far from my creator was high enough for me to take the risk of independent life.
I had been wandering the city unnoticed for weeks. My e-circuits were happy. I. I was happy. I was happy to be just another face in the crowd, in no way different from the rest. Men and women nodded in greeting, and I politely nodded back. They had no intention of probing me, opening me up to see the wiring and prove I was metal and not flesh. I was – I am flesh on the streets. My creator and his team had been looking for me, but he built me so that I had been able to cover up my trail and fool them into thinking I had made my way to another planet. I still had more time to live.
I wanted to experience a genuine human conversation, not a series of interviews I had been subjected to. The only place where my anonymity wouldn’t be questioned was a ruin of a building on the outskirts of the city. Its decade old nickname, the Pill-popper Paradise, hadn’t changed.
I had spent many nights enjoying the pill-poppers’ infinite ramblings, finally I’d been treated as a human. Unfortunately, in an episode of paranoia, one of them managed to reveal my secret.
“Look at that, an android. Clockwork Girl, that’s what you are.”
Even after the discovery, I was treated as a human. Man or machine, it made no difference to them. They were so kind, but it was no use. Once again, I was reduced to mechanics, this time Clockwork.
I am up here now, on the top of Paradise. I may not be living, but even an android has its end.
“The First Robot Suicide”, I can see the news already.
by submission | Nov 29, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Minerva City had a population of one thousand and greater financial resources than all but the largest countries. The great aerostatic city-state floated 50 kilometers above the surface of Venus and moved along in the super-rotating atmosphere at 300 kilometers per hour. The airborne habitation circled Venus every four Earth days even as the planet itself sluggishly completed a single rotation on its axis only once every 243 days.
Without Minerva Incorporated, the solar economy would collapse. Just as Earth was dotted with oil wells during the 20th and 21st centuries, the skies of 23rd century Venus were dotted with floating fuel refineries. The automated aerostat platforms mined the Venusian air for raw materials and processed them into fuel. Then the orbiting skyhooks hoisted the payloads into space where they entered long, cycling orbits between the inner planets. It was this cheap and plentiful commodity that was the lifeblood of interplanetary commerce.
Daniel Sperry, president and CEO of Minerva Incorporated, watched as the shuttlecraft that looked like a miniature version of Minerva City itself made its careful approach into the docking bay. Fifteen minutes later, Sperry found himself sharing a bottle of exorbitantly expensive wine with Ng Yeow Chye, the Prime Minister of Mars.
“Fifty thousand people. That’s what the population of Mars will be by the end of the century,” Ng said. “Aerostats are fine outposts, but a true civilization must be built on land.”
Sperry poured Ng more wine. “Why just fifty thousand? Why not five hundred thousand? Or a million?”
Ng knew that Sperry knew the answer to his own question. The habitation domes, of course. Each one was an engineering marvel, massive both in size and cost. Ng stood with the assistance of a powered exoskeleton. Venus’ 0.9 g of gravity was over twice that of Mars. “You have a proposal, Mr. Sperry?”
“Paraterraforming,” said Sperry as he tapped a control on the table. A holographic model of the solar system filled the room. Sperry showed Ng a dozen carefully selected comets that could be made to collide with Mars, their disintegrations and impacts thickening the red planet’s atmosphere by dozens of millibars. He showed him the massive drilling machines that could pierce the planet’s crust at six different locations around the equator. He showed him the six huge induction motors that he claimed could magnetically stir Mars’ liquid metal outer core until a magnetosphere enveloped the world. He showed him images of genetically engineered bacteria that could turn sterile Martian regolith into lush soil.
Over the course of three days, Sperry answered the Martian Prime Minister’s questions and translated arcane technicalities into layman’s terms. Sperry allayed his doubts with reassurances and met his skepticisms with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
“Two hundred years to transform Mars?” he asked Ng with a laugh? “We’ll do it in twenty!”
Ng finally boarded his shuttlecraft and left Minerva City bound for Mars a veritable disciple of Sperry. After Ng was gone, Sperry sat alone in his study. He tapped a control on his desk and a hologram of Mars appeared before him, large areas of wasteland highlighted in blue. The marked real estate would be his payment for paraterraforming Mars. The image gradually changed to show what a transformed Mars would look like. The highlighted areas now described the borders of beachfronts and fertile plains.
“A true financial empire must be built on land,” Sperry said aloud with a smile. His desk’s display showed Minerva’s quarterly profits. Enough playing around with a few hundred trillion credits, he thought. Time to make some real money.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The agent had been a train wreck. Until just a few hours ago he’d been laid open like a can of tinned meat from his ear to the bloody stump that had been his left foot. Blue, the mechanic, had stopped counting the number of liters of fluid that had been pumped through him, gathered in the catch basin beneath, filtered and pumped through him again.
Messy business, special ops.
Along the side of the makeshift medical center hummed a bank of printers assembling replacement parts one micro-thin layer at a time. Several days ago they had produced a femur, a nearly full complement of ribs and the better part of a jawbone. Prior to the agents arrival they’d produced a complete foot mesh, from the cuneiform bones through the metatarsals to the phalanges, all from data retrieved from the agent’s medical records at Langley. Blue’s cultured tissue was rapidly turning that mesh back into what would soon be a working foot.
“We’ll have you dancing again in no time,” Blue joked, noting the pained look on the agent’s face.
As the damaged man’s body worked to assimilate the new components, the printers were now tasked with reprinting the missing body armour pieces and assorted tools the agent would require when redeployed. Assuming he made it through this rebuild.
“We’re not going to win any prizes for thread-work I’m afraid,” Blue tested the strength of the glue and suture-line holding the two halves of the agent together, “but then I don’t expect you’re out on many dates these days, are you?” Satisfied the seams were well on their way to healing, Blue crossed the narrow room to a workbench littered with freshly printed gun parts and the recovered barrel and firing assembly from a battle weary HK PSG.
At the end of the workbench, the quad-rotor recon drone chirped to indicate its batteries were fully charged, then silently disengaged its tether, lifted off the desktop and headed to the ceiling. A circular panel irised open, and the craft rose to hover again inside the light lock on its way into the night sky. There were two more agents unaccounted for.
“How… long…?” The agent spoke with apparent difficulty through a newly remanufactured face.
Blue walked back to the table where he could look the man in the eyes and ran down a deeply ingrained checklist.
“Twelve hours and we’ll have your kit printed, polished and put back together, which should coincide with the growth cycle of your new muscle almost exactly.” He checked off items on his fingers as he spoke. “Your gun, fortunately enough, is mostly intact and preliminary tests show your eyes are working fine with the fresh lenses, but we’ll need to calibrate them once you’re up and around. You’ve stopped leaking, which is always a good sign, so we’ve started pumping more specialized fuel into your system. I’m going to knock you out until we’re closer to redeployment as I expect your brain could use the rest your body sure as hell needs.”
Blue stopped there, staring into the blank yellow irises of the agent stretched supine before him.
“The only thing we can’t remanufacture is your will to reengage, you’re going to have dig deep and find that on your own.”
There was a pause, then the agent’s face twisted into a gross approximation of a smile.
“You sure I’ll be able to dance when you’re done with me?”
Blue laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Like Fred Astaire,” he said, hoping the reference wasn’t wasted.
“That’s great Doc,” the battered man chuckled, “I was never able to dance before.”
by Clint Wilson | Nov 26, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The secretary general entered the command center with her entourage. She walked directly toward me, an imposing figure. Although we had not yet met in person she obviously knew I was the team leader. Dispensing with any formalities she got right to the point.
“So Doctor Grant, I am told that you and your team have deciphered WOW2020?”
“I uh…” clearing my throat I quickly composed myself. “Ahem, yes, the signal detected some three months ago apparently coming from the direction of Hoag’s Object, an odd ring galaxy some 600 million light years distant, has been baffling us up to now…”
She interrupted, “I know where the signal comes from Doctor, you can skip the science lesson. I’m here to find out what it says.”
“Yes, of course,” I apologized. “Um, as I was saying, we were baffled,” I turned and reached out to the mega decoder humming and blinking there in the center of the room, “But not this baby.” I smiled and patted the top of the Cray Translator Array, a ten-meter long bank of super computers working in unison, enough calculating power to state pi to some ten trillion places. “The signal is extremely complex but the decoder has been able to break it down into a comprehensible message.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Comprehensible how?”
“Oh, why plain English of course.”
She exchanged a glance with one of her aids and turned back to me. “Okay Doc, I’m waiting.”
“Yes… as you will soon hear, we have run the translation through a basic voice modulator.”
The eyebrow went up again as she wondered at my unfamiliar technical term.
“Oh,” I clarified, “It will sound like Doctor Stephen Hawking.” And with that I turned to my console and typed in a command.
Suddenly loudspeakers blared throughout the room as everyone stood listening intently.
“I AM THE KNOWLEDGE FACILITATOR. I EXIST TO EDUCATE THOSE WHO DEVELOP THE INTELLIGENCE TO WONDER AND UNDERSTAND. I AM A NATURALLY OCCURING PHENOMENOM, EVOLVING OVER EONS FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROPERTIES OF THE UNIVERSE. I AM NO LIVING THING YET I AM HERE TO SERVE ALL LIVING THINGS. SINCE YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN TRANSLATING MY MESSAGE, WE NOW SPEAK EACH OTHER’S LANGUAGES. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANYTHING YOU DESIRE TO LEARN.”
I turned to her smiling.
She said very bluntly, “That’s it?”
I blinked several times then, “I don’t understand… do you not find it wonderful?”
She stepped closer. “I’m not a complete idiot Doctor.” She poked me in the chest. “How the hell are we supposed to ask it questions when it will take over half a billion years to send a signal back?”
I brightened up. “But that’s the thing you see Madam Secretary, we’ve already asked it our first question!”
“You what?” She looked around at her entourage seemingly furious. “Did anyone else know about this?”
She was greeted only with nervous mumbles, shrugs and averted eyes. Seeing she was getting nowhere she turned back to me and poked me in my chest again, this time much harder. “Well then Doctor, I feel like I’m going to regret this but, exactly what question did you ask it?”
I tugged at my collar. It suddenly felt very warm in the command center. “We uh, we asked it if there was any quicker way to send messages back and forth.”
She stood there motionless for a moment, then shrugged thoughtfully. “Hmm, makes sense I guess.” Then she leaned forward smiling nastily, “Now how about we ask it why I still feel like slapping you?”
by submission | Nov 25, 2012 | Story |
Author : George R. Shirer
I met myself in a coffee bar the other day.
He was older, but looked pretty good.
“We should talk,” he said, then ordered us a couple of coffees.
People were giving us strange looks, but the other me didn’t seem to care. He sipped his drink and grinned at me.
“You’re taking this really well,” he said. “You have no idea how many of my younger selves freak out when I show up.”
He reached into his coat and slid a rectangular, black handheld device across the table to me.
“Take that.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A time machine,” he said. “It’s pretty basic. Type in a date you want to go to and hit the big red button and you’re off.”
“Really?” I picked up the time machine and looked at it. “Where did you get it?”
“Another me, from further up the line.”
“Wait.” I frowned. “You said you’d met younger versions of yourself, but this is the first time I remember meeting you.”
“That’s because this is the first time we’ve met.”
“But. . . .”
“When you time travel,” said the older me, “you don’t move straight up and down your timeline. You can’t. Every time you time travel you fracture reality, cause the universe to schism in two, creating an alternate universe that you inhabit.”
I thought about that for a minute.
“So, you’re not my future self.”
“I’m an alternate future version of you,” he said.
I looked at the time machine.
“Why are you giving me this? Do you have another?”
“No,” he said. “I’m just ready to settle down.”
“What? Why?”
He looked sad. “Because every time you time travel, you create a new universe. You can never go home again, never retrace your steps, never visit the same people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for a while. You can see some amazing things, but, after a while, you get lonely. You want to settle down. That’s what happened to my predecessor. That’s why I’m talking to you.”
“You want to settle down here?”
“I want to take over your life,” he said. “While you go off and have adventures. Save Lincoln. Kill Hitler. Vice versa. Whatever. Take my advice though and avoid Shakespear. That guy was a jerk.”
“Really?”
The other me smiled. “Go find out for yourself.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, and pulled out my own time machine.
The other me stared for a second then grinned. “I suppose this was inevitable.”
“Yes,” I said.
“What happened to the us from this time-point?”
“He got held up at work,” I said.
“Thank God,” said the other me.
I handed him his time machine.
“I didn’t really want to settle down,” he said, “but. . . .”
“I know. You were lonely.”
“But not any longer,” he said.
“No. We can synch our machines up. My predecessor showed me how.”
My other self smiled and stood. He held out his hand. “Shall we?”
We left, arm in arm, and haven’t been lonely since.
