The light from the explosion will probably be reaching us soon.
I hear the lesser magellanic clouds are pretty.
Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
Oops
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009Freak
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009“Gods. What egg did you hatch out of?”
I get that a lot. With billions of species to mix and match genes from the birthing eggs can produce some real oddities. I get to be one of those oddities. I could change my body, but despite its eccentricities I find I’m rather attached to it.
Still. Two legs, two arms, a single head. Bilateral symmetry even. I’m a bit of a freak.
Gates
Saturday, April 11th, 2009I spent some time as a superintelligence once. It was weird. Eventually I got bored of it, trimmed myself down and stuffed myself back into a body.
I don’t remember a great deal about it – it’s hard to remember what it was like to be smarter than you are now – but every now and then I get flashes where I remember some fact or event.
For example, once I remembered how the travel gates work.
It turns out this was not a good thing. I ended up terrified of using them and couldn’t bring myself to leave the planet I was on at the time. I spent most of the next century drunk out of my mind and, when I finally sobered up, I resolved to do something about it, built myself a slowboat (you wouldn’t believe how much effort it takes to bootstrap a society from hunter gatherer to interstellar) and took a thousand year trip to find someone I trusted to help me edit my memories.
Anyway, mission accomplished, I got the knowledge expunged from my mind and happily returned to the life of a modern interstellar traveller, gating all around the galaxy. What a lark.
Thing is, there’s a problem with memory editing. You tend to edit out the reason you got your memory edited in the first place. And then you start burning up with curiousity. After a good few hundred years I finally couldn’t take it any more and just had to find out. And I did.
Want another drink? I think I’m going to be here a while.
Spam
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009I recieved the strangest message earlier.
“HOt SlutS will be begg1nG for your cock!!!”
Well, yes. I suppose they could be. But it would be a bit childish, don’t you think?
Anyway, I tracked it down to an old archive machine. It seems it had been purely in monitor mode, but through some bug or malice had started forwarding messages from its data source. Rather odd ones, but that in itself wasn’t so remarkable.
Still, it was curious, and I had a few minutes spare time, so I thought I’d investigate further.
It seems it was a very old archive machine, hooked up to the most marvelously archaic setup. A few million ancient computers scattered across the planet, all connected up together with fiber optics. They must have been decades old. I’d never seen the like.
It seemed mostly to be concerned with sending text like the above amongst itself. There were a couple common variations – something to do with “viagra” or “cialis” (perhaps they were the same thing?) appeared to be the most common theme, but “amateurs” featured frequently as well.
Each piece of text would be sent from one machine to many others. Sometimes it would stop there, sometimes it would be forwarded to another. Occasionally the same mail would be passed on to further recipients. More often it would simply sit there, eventually getting deleted.
It was all very peculiar. I couldn’t quite see the point of it to be honest. Clearly some sort of laboratory experiment someone left running and forgot about. I suppose it might be interesting to some people – there’s no accounting for taste.
Anyway, I took a backup of the whole thing and then shut it down.
It wouldn’t do to let this sort of thing get out of hand after all.
They called me mad
Monday, July 21st, 2008I haven’t written any fiction in ages, mostly because I kept dropping ideas as they were taking too long, so I’ve decided to start experimenting with microfiction as a format. Here’s the first of these.
They called me mad
I wake up on an operating table. I try to sit up, but I’m strapped down. Of course. Why is this never easy?
“Ah, Mr Michaels. You’re awake. Terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but we couldn’t have you interfering with the experiment. I’ll let you go as soon as we’re done here”.
I look at the speaker. An older man in a lab coat (why do they always wear lab coats? It’s not like they really need them. They’re always pristine white), fiddling around with some computer setup. My target.
There’s another table to my left. A dead woman on it – quite far gone. Well preserved, but withered and with a trace of decay. He’s further along than I’d hoped.
I strain against the bonds. No luck. I try to get to the knife in my hidden pocket, but it’s been taken. No way out but talking I guess.
“There’s still time to stop. I can guarantee you won’t be harmed.”
He looks genuinely puzzled.
“Why would I stop? Things are going so well”.
“What you’re doing is against nature! It will turn around and bite you if you don’t stop before it’s too late!”
“Do you live in a tree, Mr Michaels?”
“What?”
“Simple question. Do you live in a tree?”
“No. Why would I live in a tree?”
“Natural state of living for monkeys like ourselves. This modern housing, very unnatural.”
“That’s different”.
“Is it? Oh well, I suppose you’ve convinced me. I have seen the error of my ways and shall come quietly”.
“Really?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Anyway”, he said smiling brightly “all ready. We might as well begin”.
He presses a few buttons and a background humming noise I had hardly noticed raised in volume and pitch. My jaw dropped
“But how can you be ready? The storm isn’t for another two days!”
More bemused looks.
“Why would I need a storm? That sounds like a very unreliable way of working. I have a generator in the basement, and capacitors for storing the electric charge”.
I’m panicking now. I’d never let them get this close before. “Look, just stop! It’s all going to be horribly wrong!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you think I haven’t tested this? I’m a scientist Mr Michaels. There is a process for these things. They called me mad, but the one accusation they never leveled was that my methods were insufficiently rigorous”.
“But you’ve never tested it on a human. Never on a being with a soul!”
He laughs. Not a cackle, just an amused little chuckle. I’ve heard a lot of mad laughs. I’m practically a connoisseur of a good diabolical laugh. Believe me, this chuckle is a lot worse.
“Of course I’ve tested it on a human. Tell me, Mr Michaels, did you think people normally wake up feeling quite so well rested after being shot in the face?”
I remember. I had my gun out, pointing at him, when there was a loud bang and then blackness. Oh god, he actually did it.
The humming raises to a fever pitch. There’s a crack, as if of thunder, and a bright white light fills the room. The dead woman sits up, decay fading and color and flesh returning to her. She smiles.
“Now, Mr Michaels, would you care to join Alice and myself for tea?”