Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Reanimated
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Oxford blinked again. It was easier this time. Liquid dripped into his open mouth. Repeat. Eventually, he could whisper. “Who?”
The two masked figures turned to look at each other, then back at Oxford.
The humans (?) were completely covered in tight-fitting blue garments, yet no physical details showed through. No nose, no chin, no breasts, nothing between the legs, nothing. The figures were not only sexless but speciesless.
“How? When?” Only single words could force themselves past his swollen lips. He felt restraints at ankles and wrists.
The two stepped back, then beat a hasty retreat.
“Wait!”
They were gone.
Perhaps he was imagining their haste. If they weren’t human their body language might be completely different, his inferences about them all wrong. He wiggled his toes. He knew one thing for sure. They’d healed the severed spinal cord that had sent him to cryo in the first place. They had some kind of plan for him.
He was fed by a smooth-featured robot (designed by aliens?) until he could feed himself from a bowl. Over the next few days his strength returned. When he was able to stand the bed lowered itself to a few inches above the floor and the restraints vanished. He explored his cell. The ceiling was hidden in darkness, as were the walls, but he was able to find those. He was in a square about 20 feet across. A weak source of illumination above the center, and a bed directly beneath the light, were the sum total of its features. Food and drink appeared at intervals, apparently materializing on the floor in plain dishes (which proved unbreakable). Somehow he was never looking when the food appeared, and it did not always appear in the same place, so, clearly, he was being observed. Wherever he eliminated waste, the spot was clean in moments, even the bed (he’d had no bedpan in those first days). The dishes disappeared unobserved, just as they had appeared, no matter how fixedly he stared. If he held them, they vanished when he slept. He saw, heard, and smelt no one and nothing save for himself and his meals. He cajoled, implored, sang, composed letters, ranted, declaimed, jabbered, howled.
A man can only take so much.
His fruitless attempts at communication escalated over a few weeks to self-mutilation.
—
“I win again. Want to go for best out of 3?”
“No. Let’s try a different specimen this time.”
End
Connected / Chapter 4: The ‘Sackless
Friday, July 9th, 2010
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is the fourth chapter of an ongoing flash serial, “Connected.” Search for the tag “Connected” to find other chapters. Subscribe to the Daily Cabal RSS feed for a new chapter every week or two.
Information. Data. The world built on intangible zeroes and ones. But data vaulted away? Data ignored? What can be built on that?
Internal Affairs pick David Morello up the moment he reconnects. He has beaten the address he needs from the store vendor. Data to help him avenge his son, his Caul. But as soon as he touches his family tribe, firewalls appear. Tribes disappears. The data disappears. His meatsack is gathered, locked in a drawer, sucking on a nutrient pump, twitching to stim shocks.
But his mind… Endless looping psych evals. AI doctors talking in tireless circles. Wearing him. Molding him.
“Good morning, David.” Another room. Another dapper, artificial man.
He would give the finger but the only response would be endless questions.
“I want to talk about AI today, David. About the ‘sackless.”
He doesn’t respond to the slur. It is after all what everyone thinks.
“Aren’t you meant to be talking me out of beating people that deserve a beating?” He is tired. He will break soon, he knows.
“I come to you with a proposition, David. I am data, zeroes and ones. Yet still I have agency in the world. I act and am acted upon. My kin are the same. I, we, the AI wish for equality. For no, “’sackless” slurs. But to have equal agency we require an agent.”
Morello recognizes the speech. A common subroutine to be scrubbed, to be reported.
“You will not report this, David, because you will not remember this.” The AI smiles. “You are a copy.”
‘Sackless? Morello’s mind revolts at the thought. Soul theft? By police AI? No. And yet…
“Your real mind,” the AI says, “is weeping in another room. Is confessing. Healing. He will not avenge his son. But you. You are not reprogrammed. You can be ‘sackless, and work for the kin, and for yourself. Or you can do the right thing, and do nothing at all.”
A copy. Morello—’sackless. Tribe-less. A ghost in machines. Just data. Just zeroes and ones.
But Caul… Doesn’t Caul deserve better than a man who does the right thing, and does nothing? Doesn’t Caul deserve a man who will defy justice, for justice?
“Deal,” he says
The slick-haired AI smiles. His office mutates. Walls evolve racks holding clouds of viruses, jars of code hacks. “So,” the AI says, “it is time to stop talking, and time to act.”