Friends

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/29/marshoppers-and-birds/

Author : L.Hall

Robert Lynch kicked the treads of the small field tractor, clots of dried mud falling off and busting on the ground. He took off his ball cap, looked up in the air and ignored the old man, Paul Gilbert, standing behind him quietly. Bobby, his five year old son, stood near his terrain utility vehicle trying to grab a marshopper. Robert watched him for a moment.. there was no awe on the boy’s face at the genetically engineered insect, designed to cross pollinate plants and burrow into the ground to loosen soil under the Mars biodomes. Just a boy trying to catch an insect. He turned slightly to look at the old man.

“Paul, I gotta tell ya.. Times been tough on everyone.” Robert scratched his chin.

The old man scuffed his boot against the red soil on the dirt road.

“I know, son. But I just can’t see how I can let’er go for less’n fourteen hundred.”

Robert nodded and walked around the tractor, green paint worn off in spots around the hitch. Bobby chased a marshopper closer to Paul while Robert deliberated on the cost.

“You know it ain’t worth eight.” He said, looking across the top of it at the old man. A low chuckle came out of Paul as he shook his head.

“Boy,” he said a bit louder, catching Bobby’s attention. “You hear that bird?”

Bobby started looking around him confused. He’d read about birds in books, but had never seen one, having never been off the Mars agriculture colony. Looking up at Paul, he shook his head. The old man bent down on one knee.

“You don’t hear that bird? Listen.”

Robert leaned against the tractor watching the act. Bobby was straining so hard to hear. Paul held up his hand to his own ear.

“Hear it? It’s going ‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!’”

Robert started laughing as Paul stood back up and grinned at him across the tractor. Bobby continued looking around curiously.

“Fine! Tell you what. I’ll give you nine for it, and eight bales of feed.” Robert said, laughingly. Paul grinned as he walked over to the tractor.

“Throw in one of Mary’s pies and maybe supper?” he asked, holding out his hand. Robert shook his hand and clapped Paul on the back.

“Now.. that’s between you and Mary.” he said.

As Robert and Bobby pulled off the Gilbert’s homestead, the young boy looked over at his Daddy curiously. “Daddy, I never did hear that bird.”

Robert laughed as the TUV bumped over the dirt road toward the lights of their own biodome.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/28/simulation/

Author : Omkar Wagh

“How many days of funding do I have left?”, I asked.

“Well your thesis has been accepted and you have already been given a Ph.D. degree. So the college is willing to support you for about three more months at least.”

“Damn It! I would have never expected such a toxic species to last so long. Is there no way I could wrap up my work without landing in prison?”

“No I don’t think so. It’s a bit harsh but necessary. You’re going to have to fund the experiment with your own earnings now. I did advise you not to dabble in such experiments though.”

“Sir, but why is this law even in place?”

“Ever since a species in another simulation experiment conducted somewhere across the globe had developed enough to run their own simulation experiment, some blokes somewhere thought they actually had sentience, life even. They had as much a right to life as we did. Which meant a person could not stop such a simlation until all life had terminated.

Now depending on the laws of physics in that universe, this could take any time from months to years.”

There was nothing I could do. The job prospects for a universe simulation graduate were bleak especially with the negative publicity surrounding the research field because of the several casual genocides that were caused. Students would start simulations with random laws of physics, see which ones led to life, publish papers and then terminate them. I was one of the last students to take this line.

All that changed when some simulated species began their own simulations. What if we were a simulation ourselves? Would we want the same fate on us? Hence, we could not stop a simulation without all life terminating of it’s own accord.

I had to hire a talented hacker to bring down our systems from outside the university and delete all data. It was criminal. It was genocide. But at least he could claim he did not know of the simulation within the system. At least he wouldn’t get the death penalty. And I won’t be there to hear their last cries.

I’m not sure I want to play God anymore.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/27/impact/

Author : Gavin Raine

It’s ironic, but I’d been having having such a good day. The children all had their heads down, working on their numbers, and I even had a little time to daydream for once.

Then, I had that strange feeling that my chair had just sunk six inches into the floor – you know the one – and I knew it was real because the children reacted too. I was just about to reassure them that everything was OK when the gravity went off and all the lights went out and everybody started screaming.

The darkness only lasted a few seconds, of course, but it was terrifying for them – and for me too. If I hadn’t been shouting at them to be quiet, I think I would have been screaming myself.

Anyway, the emergency lighting came on and I started grabbing children out of the air and pushing them towards their lockers. They were all very good really and they remembered their drill perfectly, but it’s not easy getting into a pressure suit in zero gee. Most of them were crying and one of the boys was sick and Molly Davis got it in her hair and… well it was just a god awful mess.

We were just about getting organized when that idiot Lieutenant Birch started talking on the PA. “Wow that was a big one!” he said. “The engines have cut out because we’ve got a bit of spin,” he said. “We’re going to have a nice new crater after that one,” he said. He talks to us like were a bunch of kids on a fucking fairground ride! I’m sorry, but it’s just really inappropriate.

Listen, I know we’re inside an asteroid with a shell ten meters thick, but this is happening far too often. Inter-stellar space isn’t as empty as they told us it would be and traveling at 80% of the speed of light is just plain suicidal. We’re still six months from the turn-around and we can’t slow down, or we miss our target, so you know it can only get worse.

I’m sorry Captain, but you’re going to have to find yourself a new schoolteacher. I’ve made my decision and I’m going into the freezers tomorrow. All things considered, I’m not prepared to sit around and wait for the big one. I think it would be better to die in my sleep.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/26/happy-holidays/

We would like to thank all of you for spending your valuable time with us throughout the year, and wish you all the very best of the holiday season and good health and prosperity in the New Year!

Best,
The Staff and Writers of 365tomorrows

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/26/null-geodesic/

Author : Jim Wisniewski

She smiles and tilts her head to push a lock of brown hair behind her ear. I run the image back a few seconds and watch it again, entranced as always by the fluidity of the motion. The machines can show me any moment of her life, but this is the one I keep coming back to. Such grace, such elegance encompassed in so simple a gesture. Even so there is no sense of artifice in it. The beauty is simply a part of her, in everything she does.

I play the scene back in slow motion, studying every changing nuance of her face. The detail of the image is excellent, now. Resolution was low in the early days of the project, but at this point there’s enough holoscopes to sift even the tiniest detail from the shell of thirty-year-old photons. Before long we’ll push the cloud out to a hundred light-years and begin again. That much distance will be hard on the algorithms, but with enough patience we’ll see everything. Dirichlet will not be denied.

A changing shadow on the wall alerts me to one of my colleagues passing by in the hall. As casually as I can, I flip over to a different display until the coast is clear again. Everyone knows some bandwidth goes towards personal uses, but we’re not supposed to flaunt it.

Not that they’d understand anyway. This way I can be with her at every point in time, sharing in each completed perfect moment. Here I wince at the pain when she was twelve and broke her wrist. There I feel the stress when she has to decide which school to pick and which friends to leave behind. Laughing along with her and her classmates at the commencement party, worrying about her new job, right up until the accident–

I don’t watch that far ahead, usually.

It’s better this way, it really is. Unrequited love is the purest kind. Watching from out here we will never fight, never grow distant and drift apart. She will never age. Photons don’t experience time flying along their lightlike paths. I suppose they carry my own image outwards as well, to anybody who knows how to look closely enough.

But no matter how long I watch, I can’t seem to find myself in the picture with her.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/25/artificial-claus/

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Kathryn opened the door to let her fiancée in. He brushed passed her and parked in front of the hall mirror. Carefully, he fluffed the snow off of his hair. Satisfied, he turned to kiss her, but stopped short when he noticed that she was still wearing her work overalls. “Kathryn, you’re not dressed yet? My parents are meeting us at Ducasse’s at eight.”

“I’m sorry Quincy, I was so busy that I lost track of the time.” Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she added, “I have a surprise for you. I activated my android this afternoon. Kris,” she yelled, “come out and say hello to Quincy.”

A plump android with a long white beard wearing cotton long johns walked out of the den. His cheeks and nose were a rosy red.”

“What? You’ve spent the last six months building a drunken old man?” exclaimed her fiancée without humor.

“Ho, ho, ho,” bellowed the android. “Don’t be silly, young man. I’m Santa Claus.”

Kathryn smiled. He was soooo perfect. “Kris,” she said, “go put on your red suit.” After the android returned to the den, she turned toward Quincy and put her index finger to her lips. “Shhhh. He doesn’t know he’s an android. I programmed him to think that he really is Santa Claus. I’m taking him to Macy’s tomorrow. The children will love him. He’s so full of joy, it’s contagious.”

“Kathryn!” Quincy snapped. “Have you lost your mind? You’re wasting your degree in cybernetics. You couldn’t think of anything practical to construct? That thing is worthless.”

Belittling her dream angered her. “Would you be happier if I created another pompous ass?” she retorted.

“You could do a lot worse than me, Kathryn. There are millions of eligible women who would kill to be in your shoes. Now, turn that damn thing off and get dressed.”

Kathryn’s eyes began to tear, but she didn’t move.

“Look Kathryn, you either do as I order, or I’m going to the restaurant without you.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you just go, for good.” She pulled the engagement ring off her finger and slammed it into his hand.

“You can’t be serious. Okay, forget it. I’m better off without you.” And he stormed out the door.

Kathryn sat on the couch, weeping. Suddenly, she felt a strong, reassuring arm reach around and hug her shoulder, as the android sat next to her. “There, there, Kathy, please don’t cry. Everything will be all right. Look,” he added, “I want to show you something.” He took a magazine from the coffee table and tore out a sheet. He deftly folded the page a dozen ways and produced a beautiful origami swan.

Kathryn managed a smile, although she was still sniffling. She wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “It’s beautiful. But, I didn’t progra… How did you know how to do that?”

“I’m Santa Claus, my dear, I can do anything.” And then he produced a red rose, as if from thin air.

She took the flower and sniffed it. “It’s real. But how?”

“Consider it Christmas Magic. You know,” he added thoughtfully, “Quincy is the world’s greatest fool. And on Christmas Eve, I think I’ll put a big lump of coal in his stocking.”

Kathryn laughed, something only a few minutes earlier she thought she’d never do again. She hugged the cuddly android. “Thank you, Santa.”

“Come,” he said, “let’s go to the kitchen for some milk and cookies?”

“I’d like that,” she replied. “I love milk and cookies.”

“Me too,” he said as his eyes literally twinkled.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/24/codename-winter/

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The body was huge. Seven feet tall, at least, and heavy.

X-Rays had shown a delicate tracery of machinery throughout, strengthening the huge frame to allow it to move quickly.

Its bright, neon-blue hair glowed in the dark. It was the same colour as the lips, fingernails, and nipples.

It was the same colour as the glittering eyes.

It was dead now.

It stared out at the scientists, unblinking, and awkward.

It had been found, naked, stumbling through the snow up in Alaska close to a week ago. Its skin was as white as the snow.

We called it Codename Winter because of it.

In the week before its death, it had picked up a few words of our language and could respond to rudimentary questioning. It was a slow process as it seemed to be straining not only to find the words but also the concepts behind them. I hate to say it, but it seemed really stupid.

Its story, told through clumsy mime and pieced together as best we could, was that it had come here from space and had left its ship to explore the wilderness in Alaska. A passing human airplane had spooked Codename Winter’s ship. The ship bolted and the alien was left alone.

It insisted that it was the only one on the ship. It insisted that the ship was probably worried about it and was looking for it.

It had been dead for two hours and there had still been no contact with the ’ship’ of its story. Planes that had passed in the region she was describing witnessed nothing.

While it was alive, a tennis-ball sized lump of what we took to be biocircuitry in the center of it had given off a steady stream of data that seemed to be directly tied to its sensory organs but we couldn’t decipher the data we collected from it. We were still trying to figure out what the densely packed stream of trinary data meant.

However, it had not issued any transmission that we could detect after the alien’s death. No homing beacon, no SOS message, nothing.

Its death had been immediately preceded by a burst of a data washing through the biocircuitry that burned it out. Codename Winter had looked at us, puzzled, and died that way.

We’d come up with a saddening hypothesis:

Its warranty was up and it had been switched off like a light.

Its ship had scanned our planet, looked at the dominant life-form and made a copy out of the material it had on board. The ship drank in all the information that skin, eyes, ears and nose could provide. Maybe it didn’t waste time on colour or maybe it just had no idea what colour was.

Maybe the next step would have been to make a better copy that could fool us and let it wander around downtown Los Angles or something.

The ship wasn’t coming back for this creature any more than we would return to the site of a picnic for a lost fork.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/24/makers-cory-doctorow/

Paul Di Filippo had this to say about Cory Doctorow in a December 22nd review of Makers

In science fiction, however, the pool of hip, youthful, happening, fresh-eyed, keen-witted, media-savvy, broad-shouldered, accomplished, extroverted and talented writers, blending both revolution and tradition in just the right proportions, is noticeably shallow at the moment. There’s Neal Stephenson, but he’s rather too distant and hermetic, with a low profile and unfathomable, mutating goals. So these days, when pundits and fans alarmed over the prospect of SF’s demise want to point to a knight in shining prose who can defeat all the dragons besetting the genre and guide it to the Shining City on the Hill, they invariably point to Cory Doctorow.

Cory’s our kind of people. Read the whole article here…

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/24/cybrosis-the-debut-podcast-novel-from-p-c-haring/

Cybrosis is a podcast novel written and narrated by P.C. Haring with the voice talents of some of the biggest names in the podcasting community including Philippa Ballantine, Christiana Ellis, Podcasting’s Rich Sigfrit, Mur Lafferty, Chris Lester, Chuck Tomasi, and Heather Welliver. This full length podcast novel hacks your RSS feeds on 01/01/10

The fantastic cover art for this podcast novel is the amazing work of J.R. Blackwell, and Jared Axelrod.

Check out Cybrosis

http://www.avclub.com/articles/december-23-2009,36578/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=type_savage-love

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/23/inside-joke/

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/22/inside-joke/

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer

Purple waves gently lap at an azure beach. Our footprints quickly wash away in the encroaching tide. The setting twin suns of Rijos, the red giant aptly named Rojo, and her blue companion Danube cast an eerily beautiful violet light on the endless expanse of beach.

We walk hand in hand, her flowing red hair reflecting a dazzling colour for which I have no name.

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispers, almost too low to hear, “I wish we could stay here forever.”

“We can,” I replied, stroking her cheek, casually pushing back a loose strand of hair, “we will.”

We sit down to watch Danube make his death plunge into the smooth waters of the sea. We lay down to sleep

In a shabby, cramped yet somehow immaculate room the bodies of two elderly people lay on a cold, brushed stainless steel table. A technician in a coffee stained lab coat watches as his colleague removes the electrodes from their shaven pates and wipes away the conductive saline gel.

The bodies are those of a man and woman well into their centenary years, ravaged by time, hands locked tightly to one another, inseparable even in death.

As the technician carefully cleans and replaces the electrodes in their foam lined drawer and prepares the bodies for further processing, his companion stares intently at the flickering glow of the readouts on his iPadd.

“Marbling good, protein quality high, lipids fine…,” he mumbles as he checks off a box on his list.

“Hey Arnie,” he calls to his friend wheeling the bodies through battered double doors, “I’ll bet Edward G. Robinson would get one hell of a laugh out of this.”

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/22/flipped-to-the-sky/

Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer

The last thing I remember before I hit the jagged edge of mountain rock was falling backwards, my feet flipped up, shoes dark against the snowy gray sky. Perhaps that’s a way our bodies and minds conspire to protect us, screening out the moments of painful impact from our memories. When I woke I was in a small, dim hospital room. Next to the window there was a teenager perched on a high stool. She was looking outside, white light on her face. She could have been my daughter, with our deep set eyes, high cheekbones and full lips, but I never had any children.

I heard the soft chime of a monitor. She turned to me and put both hands on her knees, in a movement so familiar that I blushed with embarrassment. How could I have forgotten my mother’s face? Then again, this was her face before she was my mother. I never knew this younger woman.

“Yong,” she said, and I saw that her cheeks were wet.

“Oh, Mom,” I said, my voice a surprising rasp, “don’t cry.”

She hopped down from the stool to stand by the bed. “It’s all these hormones.” she said, wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Puberty sucks no matter how many times you go through it.”

I reached out to her but my ribs shifted painfully at the movement, sending a stabbing jolt along my left side. “How bad is it?” I said.

She pulled her hair back into a high ponytail. “You cracked your hip, slipped a disk and got a concussion. They called me when I was in a business meeting.”

My emergency chip. I had never bothered to change the contact information. Stupid. The emergency chip didn’t know that I had stopped talking to my mother sixteen years ago. It didn’t know about the holiday where she demanded that I go to her doctor and where I yelled at her the catchphrases of the pro-aging movement, words I didn’t mean, words I regretted. The chip only knew what I had told it when I first entered it under my skin, that if I was severely injured, it should call my mother. I suppose I thought myself immune to injury. I had been arrogant.

“Hiking on a glacier?” My mother started to pace around the room. ” You are too old to go hiking on a glacier.”

“Mom, you’re 35 years older than I am.”

” Yong, if you were rejuvenated you could go hiking on glaciers whenever you wanted. Why do you court death? Are you really so in love with your romantic notions of a limited life?”

“It’s not about dying, Mom.”

She took my wrinkled hand in hers. “Then you are going to stop this,” she said with certainty, with a finality that seemed humorous on someone so young. “You are going to get rejuvenated.”

“Mom, I want to get old, I want to experience dying. It’s the way nature intended us to live.”

She shook her head, her ponytail bouncing. “I can’t believe you’ve fallen for that ridiculous argument.”

I blushed. “I’m sorry I brought you here.” I spat the words. “I’m sorry I dragged out of a meeting. I forgot to change my chip. It won’t happen again.”

I meant to her hurt her but she didn’t wince, didn’t pout. I saw then how old she was in her young skin. She touched my forehead with her cool fingers. “I hope you never remember to change that chip,” she said. “Because no matter what you believe, I’ll always come for you.”

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/21/emale/

Author : C. S. McClendon

I stepped out of the lobby just in time to watch the last metro transport of the day speed past and turn the corner without so much as slowing down. Great, that meant I had to walk home, and these heels were already killing me, wonderful. Still, no use complaining about it, and at least the trans-walks were clean, not like the way the streets had been ten years or so ago. I slipped the heels off and stepped onto the trans-walk. Technically you can just stand there and let the walk do all the work, as long as you keep an eye out for the intersections, but I didn’t get a butt you could bounce a federal credit off of by standing around, and besides, according to the flash message that had come in before I left work, there was a package waiting outside the apartment, and I didn’t want to risk one of my neighbors snatching it on their way up the shaft before I got home. So I ran.

By the time I made the last intersection and stepped through the entrance of my high-rise, the curfew chimes were sounding through the public address system. Guess it was a good thing I chose to run today. I was going to have to send my supervisor a flash about keeping me late though. If I get caught after curfew just coming home from work we’ll both be in for it.

Stepping into the air shaft I felt the heated gasses ease the tension from aching muscles as they surrounded me and sent me rocketing through the pressure tube toward my apartment. Stepping through the aperture, I snatched up the small, plain brown carton. It might have been anything. All mail comes in these plain unmarked cartons these days after all, since the privacy act of 2112, but I knew what it was, thanks to the flash from FedCom.

I stepped through the door to my place and kicked it shut behind me before slitting the carton open with the lacquered nail of my index finger. No invoice, that was all handled by flash. It was just a small, unmarked silver disc. Again, it could have been anything. I tore the RFID off the spine of the carton, that couldn’t go into the recycler, and tossed the carton itself down the chute. The small plasma readout above the recycler registered a two credit deposit into my account, not that I needed the reminder.

I slid the disc out of its packaging, and tossed it to my desk. Let the sensors start reading while I finished unwinding from work. I dialed up some soft Latin strings on the sound system and moved to the bar to pour a shot of rum, gods it would be good not to come home to an empty house every day. I tossed my heels into the closet in time to hear the beep from my terminal. The desk had finished reading the disc.

“Compile, and execute,” I called out to the empty room, while feeling the first tremble of nerves.

The holographic pickups around the room hummed, and an image coalesced just in front of my chair. The well toned man in front of me cleared his throat, and looked around for just a moment before saying softly, “Good evening, I’m Andrew, your purchase from EmalE: A new kind of companion for a new Generation of women.”

Yes indeed, it was definitely going to be nice not to come home to an empty house every day.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/20/orange/

Author : Glenn Song

Jeanette hated Dr. Kogen’s waiting room. It screamed blue at her – the cushions, the walls, and even the magazine covers were coordinated in a fan of azure. Nestled in a wicker basket, on a round table in the center of the room, sat a red delicious apple, a banana, and an orange like a zen puzzle to be pondered. It was too structured, too perfect, but Jeanette dismissed the decor with a mental shake. “Whatever floats your boat,” she thought, tossing a softball almost to the ceiling and catching it first in her right hand, then her left.

Doctor Kogen appeared from behind his door and stood before the blue wall. He flashed a smile at Jeanette, and she half expected him to present her with the five-day forecast. He approached her and shook hands. “Well, are we ready?”

“Hell yeah,” Jeanette said. “I’m ready to walk out of here.”

Kogen frowned. “Did you consider–”

“I’m sick of the chair.”

He plucked the orange from the wicker basket and tossed it to the left of her. She snatched it from the air and looked for traces of disappointment in Kogen’s face. Yeah, she wanted to tell him, I caught it. He simply smiled and said, “Jeanette, before we begin, how does that orange feel to you?”

She tossed the orange in her hands and ran her finger over the lumpy skin.

“What about it?”

“Take a sniff.”

She humored him. “Smells like an orange.” She tossed it back. “The new season starts in two months. I want to play again.”

He nodded. “Very well, this way.” Kogen opened the door a crack. Jeanette placed her hands on the back of her wheels and once the door was half open she revved herself down the hallway. “Third door on your right,” he called after her. She entered the room rolling over a speed bump bundle of wires. LCD panels filled out an entire wall displaying various statistics that would soon be drawn from her body. A stoic figure lay on a bed behind a curtain, but before she could see who it was, two nurses helped her onto her bed, began an IV drip, and placed plugs on her.

“Brainwaves normal. Heart rate, blood pressure, vitals all stable. We’re ready to download,” a nurse said.

“Jeanette, last chance,” Kogen said.

“Yes. Always, yes.”

“Then, take a last look with your human eyes.” Kogen left the room. Jeanette’s world blurred and darkened. The last thing she heard was the sound of her heart flatlining.

* * * * *

“Jeanette.” She identified Kogen’s voice and opened her eyes. Her visual cortex established a pixelated image and then adjusted the resolution. Behind Kogen, a fly fluttered its wings. She saw every wing stroke.

Kogen handed her a mirror. She looked like herself, maybe better. She ran her fingers through her hair. It felt like her hair, maybe softer.

“Diagnostics complete,” said the nurse. “She’s fully functional.”

“Jeanette, we’ll have a battery of tests to conduct before you leave the hospital, but as you are well aware, you’ve died and moved into a mechanized body. How does it feel being a cyborg?” Kogen tossed her an orange.

Her grip surprised her. She crushed the soft fruit, spraying pulp and juice on herself, Kogen, and his nurses. She faced her old body lying next to her and fingered through the mush in her hand, wondering for the first time what she’d done.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/19/45-feet-over-ninevah/

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

Forty-five feet over Ninevah, Phillip is enclosed in a spherically symmetric potential. He’s feeling somewhat philosophical.

Below, on the steps leading to the courtyard of the Library, Ashurbanipal, the last of the great Assyrian kings, faces his death. He’s surrounded, literally, by advisors, priests and acolytes, and a platoon of soldiers clad in full battle dress of conical iron helmets and rounded wickerwork shields, with short swords at their waists and pikes in hand. They’re waiting for Ashurbanipal’s traitorous sons.

Overhead Phillip is thinking, have I been the best man that I can be?

Outside the potential’s bubble, where crazy math occludes normal time and the obviated spin-state of subatomic particles creates a slight, sparkling shield, Ashurbanipal’s Library rises high above Phillip’s vantage. In two decades time the great Library will be gone, torn down and sacked by the invading Babylonians and Medes. The thirty thousand tablets and texts stored there will be discovered millennia later by the hapless Sir A. H. Layard and his sloppy successors. Inside the bubble the virtual recording gear is rolling, the minimal life support sighing. All systems are nominal.

Ashurbanipal is very old. He stands supported by his Queen, Ashur-sharrat, and two palace women from the bit-reduti, where he was born from the flanks of his father’s consort. A scribe is reading, from a papyrus scroll, a list of complaints against him, a diatribe of supposed crimes against his own empire. His sons, too jaded, too fresh with the power they will pull from his death, await the end of this reading in the comfort of the palace. Ashurbanipal, as the only Assyrian king capable of reading script, knows well what the scroll holds.

Phillip scratches his nose, bites into an apple. He thinks, have I been a good father?

The scribes conclude reading the scroll. The sons stroll in with their retinue, and the youngest son approaches Ashurbanipal. He has a foot-long, embellished ceremonial knife in his hand. Ashurbanipal slumps into his wife, and raises his head. His eyes seem to lock onto Phillip’s eyes, and he smiles slightly as his youngest son penetrates his abdomen with the knife

Phillip takes another bite of the apple and thinks, while watching Ashurbanipal slump further into his wife and consorts, I need to fix things.

Until they close for good, the dying king’s eyes never waver.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/18/of-andys-and-upgrades/

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Andy knew he was a relic. He used to violently object when it was suggested that he was past his prime, but after a while the reality was too apparent to ignore.

It had been years, maybe decades since he’d been able to find factory fresh parts. Most of his equipment now was made up from bits scavenged and scrounged, then adapted as best he could.

Sometimes there would be an accident in the construction projects, and if he was lucky, and quick, he could tear off whole limbs or liberate power cells before the maintenance crews arrived to chase him away.

Most of these parts were too new, but some could be modified to fit, the rest traded away.

Andy found himself wandering through a section of the city that he remembered as it had been, vibrant and alive, but as he trudged down the streets and through the alleys, he found the roads in disrepair and littered with rubble and refuse. The once tall and gleaming buildings that reached skyward were now bent and broken, some leaning across the street on a neighbor, as if seeking comfort from the overwhelming decay.

This part of the city too, it seemed, had outlived its usefulness, now just awaiting its turn to be torn down and born again.

His head turned skyward, marveling at the battered structures holding each other aloft, Andy didn’t notice the road had given away before him until his weight had shifted too far over the empty space to recover.

Safety systems gone out of alignment and a battered gyroscopic guidance system struggled to orient him for a favorable landing, but Andy hit hard, scrambling circuits already oxidized to the point of being barely functional.

For a while, Andy was still, his world dark.

When he regained motor control, Andy pulled himself roughly and unsteadily upright. He was aware that he’d fallen, but could not recall the events preceding it. Around him he could make out the rough structure of a transit tunnel. Metal rails reached off in either direction in triplicate, no longer shiny from use but rather tarnished and pitted with age. Andy knew how they felt.

Andy picked a direction at random, and had trudged for some time before the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern on one side. In the middle, a pile of refuse burned surrounded by a cluster of shadowy figures who scattered into the darkness as he approached.

“Derelict maintenance droids, ” Andy muttered to himself, then loudly at the retreating figures, “if you were working for me I’d have your parts.”

Andy pulled himself up on the platform, then trundled to the fire, carefully stamping it out.

As he stood surveying the scene, he noticed one of the droids had not left, but rather was lying in a heap on the ground. Andy nudged its head with the toe of one large foot.

Nothing.

Excited, Andy pulled the droid into the middle of the platform where he had room to work. The droid was relatively small, but no doubt useful. As carefully as his tools would allow, Andy set to work disassembling the wiry unit.

Hydraulic fluid spilled everywhere, it’s plumbing obviously ruptured internally having no doubt resulted in overheating or loss of motor control.

Andy marveled at the delicacy of the inner workings of the unit, but was frustrated and confused that there didn’t seem to be a single part compatible with his own chassis.

Arriving back at the head, he examined the dent his foot had left in the casing. It was at this point that his headlights fell full on the droids eyes.

Andy paused, awestruck by the workmanship of these white and colored orbs staring back at him. They truly would be beautiful, Andy thought, if they weren’t so vacant.

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/17/savile-row-steel/

Author : Ruth Imeson

Edward Smithfield knew better than to hide.

The heavy oak door to his lodgings rattled in its frame. The handle spun. Exquisite brass gears, cogs and counterweights shifted. The door swung open. Vapour entered the room, but the man it shielded dallied at the threshold. London’s fog had found an entry point on the eve of the hanging; for at dawn a hapless fool would swing in Edward’s rightful place.

Edward did not flinch – something always came to protect the gateway and, sometimes, him.

The stranger was silver and black with crimson motion. His suit was bespoke Savile Row. His frock coat bore a red sheen and a top hat was tucked under one arm. His nails were tapered iron and his knuckles hissed. Steam escaped from every joint.

“You will help me,” the man rasped.

“Sir…?”

“You will open the time door.”

Edward’s eyes widened. “Sir, I cannot.”

“I am glad.”

“That I refuse?”

“That you do not insult me with pretence,” the stranger smiled with the sound of shearing metal. “You must do as I say. You must open the door.”

The man stepped into the room. Steam leaked through his joints. Edward called on his keepers. For this was no man. Its hair was full of monsters bound in chains and bent with iron; a medusa for the 1890s.

Where were the guardians? They were supposed to protect the conduit; that was the deal.

“The door is not mine to open,” Edward said, his voice faltering. But if no one was coming to help him, of whom should he be the more scared?

“I come from those who gave you this honour.”

The stranger moved closer. Redness crashed over lips and eyes of obsidian so polished as to be perfect for scrying. The nose was beaten steel riveted to bone; the eyebrows rusted filings; the mouth encrusted with oxidisation.

“You will open the door,” the creature said, “please.”

Edward smiled. No man nor woman nor incorporeal creature had ever said please before. Where was the harm in doing one good deed? It would be his first. He pulled on his goggles and his clockwork wings and followed the stranger down flights of narrow stairs and into the cellar. Edward’s furnaces quieted as the rusted man approached.

The creature laboured to the time threshold. It halted and turned to look at Edward, pointing metallic fingers at the hissing machines.

“Stoke the fires,” it rasped.

Edward hesitated. He doubted.

“This is your last service,” it said. “Then you will be free.”

So, Edward coaxed his machines from their slumber. His wings bore him from one to another, cajoling, stroking and feeding. The gateway slid open.

“Free, you say?” Edward asked.

“Yes,” the machine stepped through the doorway, “free to pay for your crimes. Free from our protection.”

“Sir, what is your meaning?”

The stranger smiled. Rust flaked where his face cracked. “Before the gaol flooded and the rust came I was a fair substitute for your flesh. I was to take your appointment with the rope, but my appearance has deteriorated somewhat. Seeing as you have been so kind as to aid my escape… Well, no doubt the authorities will come for you.”

The gate began to close. Frantically, Edward pulled levers, but the closure could not be aborted. He was on his own.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/december-16-2009,36327/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=type_savage-love

http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/16/angel-of-death/

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The sensor charges go off and for a second I become a percussion instrument for the Devil.

I’m wreathed in black smoke and dropping like a stone. Explosions kick me like excited children. I’m a trillion-dollar pinball of curled-up offensive weaponry plummeting towards the enemy with the wrath of god in storage.

There’s sudden silence as I pass beneath the flakfield I was designed to penetrate. The air rushes by, whistling through the feathers of shrapnel embedded in my hull.

I unball and snap open the wingspread. Screaming with delight, I pull a tight three-gee loop in defiance of the enemy and in pure celebration of life.

I look left and right through amped senses to check out limb integrity.

A quick diagnostic reveals an acceptable level of damage.

I transform from a rock into an arrow pointed down.

The last of the clouds snap past me and my ocular facets becomes a rainbow of targets flowering towards me. Incoming priorities overlaid on city blocks and towers. Starpoints with missiles in the middle are getting larger as I look at them. Contrails are forming a spiderweb in the sky with me at the center. The city below me sends its best.

It’s too complicated to take in with my primary brain so I dump a priority comp request through and feel the jabs, waking up the other two brains. My ego dissolves and I become trajectories, vectors and tracepoints.

Even my memory fades. The only time I remember this state of mind is in my dreams during testing and repairs.

The city is a dartboard and I am headed for the bullseye.

It’s with a high whine that I pulse the accelerator. Two mach-donuts of ruptured air smash out from my tailfins. Windows shatter in the top floors of the towers below me as the sonic booms hit them twice.

I pull horizontal just above the tip of the tallest tower. The missiles aimed at me adjust accordingly.

I spin, turning the exhaust streams of sixty-eight cruise missiles behind me into basket weavers. My twinjets leave a dna helix of superheated gas.

I am flying flat now with a pet arsenal of enemy ordnance at my disposal. Automated defenses are so stupid.

I take a wide left and circle back towards the tip of the building that’s worth the most points.

I crank up an old recording of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday Mr. President as I fly straight towards the top floor.

He’s looking out the window. I couldn’t ask for more. I zoom in on his widening eyes as he takes in what’s happening. He moves in slow motion and I have entire tenths of a second to take in the picture.

I’m an angel chased by suns reflected in the glass he’s standing behind.

With a smile, I spread my wings again, wide, to brake.

I stop before nuclear fire overtakes me and I become Daedalus and Icarus rolled into one.

I’m a record cover for a second. Then I’m burning atoms.

Mission accomplished.