A Perceived Hiatus

It's been a while.

Over a year. I've been writing, more than I ever did when I posted my short work on here. But I've also been incredibly busy with what Phillip K. Dick defined as "what I could stop believing in, but wouldn't go away". That is to say, good old real life.

But good news is on the horizon! I haven't forgotten this archaic blog, nor its equally archaic and antiquated contents. Believe me, however bad you think this drivel is, I think it's more than a million times worse. Especially Of Procul. It fills me with shame.

But I've regretted deletion too much to give into contempt for my younger self, so it's all staying up. Maybe I'll even post some more written material, and feel ashamed of that one day too.

Expect very little, but hopefully what eventually crawls out the cocoon isn't more deformed, ugly moths, but a beautiful butterfly. Hopefully.

Until then, friends.

Joasse Holmes, Viral Geneticist

“Should we give hormone treatments to infertile women whose children are born from synthetic wombs, to fool them into loving the child?”

Pale and nervous, the apprentice skirted around the bollard in front of him as he followed his study onto the courtyard at the base of the towerblock.

“Not sure boss, want me to-?” He replied hurriedly, before the curt but not offensive tone of his superior cut him off.

“Don’t bloody query it, what do you think?” She raised her voice in the second half of the sentence, pushing her breast out slightly for the doorman sensor to correlate her speech patterns with the microQR on her lapel. Blazers weren’t in style, but being different was, so she’d worn it anyway.

The intern was dressed a lot more appropriately different, speckled with reflective creams and black buttons. He was actively thinking of a reply to her question, which surprised her pleasantly. Halting outside the lift, she scanned the other potential occupant. Didn’t know him by name, but they’d spoken. Friendly, but only out of office hours. A party or lunch sprung to mind. No point greeting him really.

“Ah, Joasse!” The man said anyway, as his eyes picked up the movement of her and her apprentice sidling up next to him. “It’s been a while, how are you?”

Noticing that the intern was wordlessly subvocalizing his voice into a search engine for what had bloody better be scholarly articles and not the latest social medium, Joasse did her best to maintain pleasant conversation with her workmate until the lift arrived, and up the three flours before her departure. It was tricky, especially having to imply she knew his name, or anything about him at all. She kept the conversation on herself, but without being vain, gesturing more than once at the younger servant behind her, who managed a polite smile each time. Eventually the man who was to rename nameless was forced to make a goodbye as Joasse stepped out the lift into her domain, scowling at the empty office in front of her.

“Yes, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again soon, especially this month!” She finally spurted, her cheery grin collapsing as soon as the lift doors shut. Normally she felt everyone else stopped smiling as soon as vision was severed, but that overly intense specimen was probably still grinning to himself.

“So!” She rounded on the apprentice, whose name she certainly did remember. “Mark. Hormone treatments? To infertile women? I’m hoping you were trawling far from recent news about the controversies a few years back.” As he gathered himself for another one of his damn monologues, she walked slowly back to her cubit, a little more relaxed now she knew nobody was watching, given how the floor was deserted. Voluntary paid quarantine month. Sometimes the oldest techniques worked the best.

“I did scan a press piece about the case in Brazil, where the mother killed herself and the child.” He began carefully, clearly wary she was going to cut him off and demolish his argument prematurely. “On the actual referenced studies, all signs seem to point to yes, that is if the specific aim is to fool to mother into thinking the baby came from her body.”

Reaching Joasse’s cubit, she sunk into her chair, before her understudy did the same. Busying herself with the usual intranet chaff which had accumulated in the mere half hour they’d had lunch, she gestured for him to continue.

“But I personally think that the mother is fully aware of the alien nature of her child, genetics aside. Hormone treatments to simulate affection, oxytocin derivatives primarily, just undermine her own rationality. And it would seem, sanity. And given recent trends in infertility, any technique which can stimulate birth-rates deserves to be promoted, which these hormone treatments certainly don’t.” He finished with his signature flourish, and Joasse had to admire his confidence in his argument, given the number of times she’d mercilessly deconstructed them before. But today was different. Today he was right.

“Mark, my scarcely recognised brilliance must be rubbing off on you. At least, that’s what WHO-U seems to think.” She nodded at a screen her offhand had been pulling up as she spoke, and whipped the screenshot onto the twenty-year-olds lenses screens. His eyes defocused as he read the article, clearly taking his time. Joasse did a quick brush of her teeth with a disposable she pulled from her desk, before twisting the hilt to semi-liquidise the toothbrush, drawing the thin hilt into her mouth dextrously, and chewing the entire thing into a small lobule of mint-flavoured gum. As she finished her self-admittedly disgusting product, Mark’s eyes refocused on her with the hints of a smile around his mouth.

“Well, good. WHO-U need a victory, especially given the latest shedding novavirus.” Mark said and relaxed a little, gratified he’d passed one of his mistresses tests.

“It’s not a victory they need,” Joasse replied, chewing absentmindedly, “just the faith of the public.” She waved aside a following sentence from her aide. “I know that’s what you meant, I’m just selfcesting. Anyway!”

Joasse rotated back to her desk, and unclipped the headset dangling above her monitor. She depressed a few buttons, and slid a thin dial on its apex, before turning back to her apprentice. “Want any, gum, or anything?” She tried, putting a little sincerity into her voice. She knew she was an utter bitch to the boy, but he’d been well informed of that. Plus, she got the increasingly odd sense his enjoyed it, the little masochist. He shook his head in reply to her question.

“I’m fine, thank you.” He had removed his own headset from his satchel, and unfolded the slick curvature around his now unfocused eyes. “More SARS analogues like this morning?” He asked with just enough emotion to constitute excitement, as he pulled on his dextrous contact interface gloves.

Joasse was popping microstimulants pills, illegal as of next week, but being used generously now given her reserves at home. “No, we’ll wrap that up tomorrow when I’m feeling a little more up to it. We’ll go over the locust bacterial symbiote genomes they picked up in Arizona last weeks. Little bastards which live in the locust stomachs. We need to assess the potency of our counter-G-drive and its interaction with the locust host. It’s only a handful of generations, and less variety than we’ve seen in populations like this before. I’ll show you.”

Joasse’s hands made love to the keyboard. Mark’s writhed in their gloves. They both disappeared into data.

***

Slumping on a sofa which hummed into action, hugging her shoulders in a vain attempted to relieve stress Joasse sighed. She normally kept the screen off unless she had company, which was rare, hence why it hadn’t turned itself on when she shut her apartments front door. But the train home was depressingly empty enough to warrant herself marching into her own brain and, as usual, being her own worst critic. She wanted to take her mind off herself, for once.

Waving, and making a little niggle of the index finger, Joasse made the screen pop into life. A microlens followed her pupil, obeying her blinks as her eyes drifted through menus until she reached the news-streaming sites. She ignored a supposed tier 4 alert which winked in the background, knowing it would just be another powercut due for this evening. The televised news mediums had morphed into modern and hip versions of their old selves, but at their core remained the same. Voiceovers and images, providing as the public desired. While the streamsite had instinctively tried to cater itself to Joasses dispiritingly defining train as a viral geneticist, she blinked it aside without a thought, asking to just hear a general breakdown from the last twelve hours from some of the smaller new sites. The voices washed over her, and she rubbed her eyes with her hands, scarily listening. Without a pair of eyes to track, the computer just cycled randomly through the channels.

“-but the dam should be up and running by tonight, Elsa! So you’ll all be-

-don’t fret! There’s just announced to be a fifth release! That’s -

-and full payment to the victim’s family is expected within the week. In other-

-And! And, think back to what you said in March! Hardly just ‘ripples’ now Misses Chair!-

-a genetically modified SARS analogue unlike that seen before-“

Joasse listlessly looked back to the screen, and blinked to signify she wanted to stay on general news. SARS analogues was too specific to be anything but picked by a machine to interest her. But she was on general news. She was actually on the BBC. Strange.

“The novel strain, which from preliminary sequencing efforts by emergency teams, seems to have incorporate infection DNA from several other deadly viruses, undermining the belief this was a natural phenomena” The news reporter said, as a blurry electron microscope photo of a faint viral halo hung behind him. “The SARS analogue virus was suspected to have been aerosol released, in a similar manor to the novavirus two months ago, in the Beijing Capital Airport. Estimates for the infected range from ten to twenty-five thousand, with a death toll currently unconfirmed but in excess of two thousand.”

Almost without conscious thought, Joasse had sat stock upright, and was sitting at a level of attentiveness she’d not felt since her last date, perched barely on the edge of her sofa. Her eyes were locked on the screen in front of her, the microlens happy she hadn’t blinked for a while. It was so great, Joasse almost didn’t feel the terrified awe.

“Experts have given the temporary name ‘SARSAB’, SARS Analogue Beijing. A summarised statement from the WHO and local WHO-Us will follow within the half hour. Globally, cases have been reported on all continents, with even conservative estimates pointing this to be the greatest piece of bioterrorism in human history. The government urges all citizens to-“

A knock at the door woke Joasse up rather apruptly, and she jumped. Dragging her eyes away from the macabre world map now adorning her screen, she pulled herself up and walked to her door. Her mind wasn’t really functioning, at least that’s how she would describe it in hindsight. She didn’t even bother checking the outside camera, instead just pulling the door open. In a brief flash she saw two policewomen, a man in a suit, and a lab technician wearing a woolly jumper. She only just realised they were all wearing protective facemasks before the nearest policewoman rudely shoved something over her mouth. The word ‘kidnap’ rushed through her head childishly before she felt the two policewomen fastening straps round her head and ears, informing her panicked brain she was now wearing a breathing mask. She took a deep breath of metalized air, before her lungs relaxed.

The man in the suit stepped forward, eyes severe above the rim of his mask. “Joasse Holmes?” he asked, rather rudely she felt, absurdly. “The viral geneticist?” Joasse nodded, eyes darting between the four figures in front of her.

“Who, who are you? What do you want?” She stammered, the shock of apparently being arrested mounting on top of what she’d just seen on the news.

“What do we want?” Said the lab tech, smiling at a policewoman, who nearly chuckled. “Well, seen the news recently?”

The two cops released her, and Joasse fell forward slightly. “Five minutes.” Said the stockier one, gruffly. “Essentials only. Pack for a couple of nights.”

Joasses frightened brain complied to authority, as they so often did, and over the sound of her frantically packing a combination of electronics and clothes, she only just heard the lab tech laugh coldly. “A couple of nights. Yeah, right.”

Three Flags.

The Antarctic

Joint Antarctic Research and Conservation Program

United States Antarctic Program (USAP)

Dr. Scott Lehman, USA. Mission Director, Spatial Ecologist.

Dr. Mark Cote, USA/Canada. Climatologist.

Cynthia Nevinson, USA. Meteorologist. [Deceased]

Helen; AIRNE, Artificial Intelligence. Site Administration and Communications.

Chinese Antarctic Administration (CAA)

Wang Biyu; Jasper, China. AI Psychologist.

Li Qiang; Charles, China/France. Meteorologist, Glaciologist.

United Kingdom, Australian and New Zealand (UKANZ) Antarctic Survey

Tomas Dytham, UK. Deputy Director, Microbiologist, Ecologist.

Oliver General, Australia. Maintenance, Engineering.

Hailey Wilson, Australia. Entomologist.

John Whittaker, New Zealand. Edaphologist, Hydrologist. [Deceased]

***

Dawn broke on three flags.

Red and white stripes shimmered roughly, brushing off a light dusting of ice clinging to the bottom. The fifty state flags were forfeit for the patchy white outline of the Antarctic, the same shape blazing yellow against the red background of the Chinese equivalent waving beside it. Slightly lower, flagpole sunken embarrassingly, the quartered UKANZ flag married the white Antarctic map, union crosses and white and red respective stars of Australia and New Zealand. The three danced on the same wind, weaving and dodging the breeze.

The flags barely visible through the sleet dashing against the window, Dytham turned back to the table. Biyu’s eyes darted away just as he glanced at her, returned to her soup. The precious stone she wore round her neck re-entered her grasp, as her off-hand fiddled with it nervously. Cote showed no such irritation. He cricked his neck, and stood to take his bowl over to the sink. Dumping the half empty bowl in the soapy water, he wiped his hands on a dishcloth and walked out without a goodbye. Biyu continued fidgeting, without looking up.

“Are you still making Cynthia’s oxygen readings?” said Dytham, breaking the silence. Biyu jumped slightly, and replied instantly.

“Shi, yes. Yes. Me and Scott rerouted a little power from morgue lighting and boosted the YSI. Helen said it wouldn’t be a trouble. It’s nice to have something to do.” She looked up and smiled a little. “I enjoy the data.”

Dytham smiled back, and glanced out the window again. Cote had suited up, and was climbing down the ladder to help General fix the Hagglunds. The ATV had suffered a vague engine failure after its last excursion to the coast to recover Nevinson, and was in the process of being repaired. Dytham has remembered the gaunt look on Oliver General’s face as he shut the door behind him, and explained to the entire team Nevinson’s grim fate. Hailey had cried again, but Dytham and Qiang had volunteered to bring her body back into the makeshift morgue. She lay there now, wrapped in a bodybag with “Cynthia” scribbled sadly on the side.

“Tom.” Biyu had nearly whispered it, barely audible over the wind outside. “I’m worried about Li, I mean Charles. He hardly speaks to me anymore, and when he does he sounds so, depressed.” Biyu sunk her chin into her hands and rubbed her eyes.

“Next time I see him, I’ll speak to him.” Dytham promised emptily. He’d made the same promise to General about Hailey after the Cynthia incident, but hadn’t made good on it yet.

He murmured a nicety, patted Biyu’s shoulder, and walked to the sink, placing his empty bowl in the effervescing broth. A robotic arm begun wiping it, as a second pulled Cote’s now clean bowl out of the sink and onto a rack above. A tiny yellow light blinked into existence on the wall where the arms erupted, signalling Helen wanted to talk to him.

“Hi Tom. Next time, could you make sure Mark finishes his meal? I’d tell him myself, but he’d likely find it patronising.”

Dytham agreed, but didn’t say so. “Sure thing Helen.” He pulled an earpiece out of his top pocket, tapped the side, slid the smooth cone into his ear, and continued the conversation out in the hall.

“I can’t keep track of everyone here.” He said quietly, pulling the door to the kitchen behind him closed. “If Qiangs as bad as Biyu says then I’ll have to check on him as well. I haven’t even seen Hailey for days, but-“

The optimized female voice cut him off gently. “Tom, you’re staying remarkably calm given the situation. Depression is our worst enemy now that Scott’s stabled our hydroponics. You can help, please do.”

“Why not tell Scott this?” Dytham replied irritably. “Lehman’s meant to be leading this bloody operation, and I know he’s busy with the food but why not get-“.

He was cut short as the large door behind him swung open, and General stomped in. He made a gruff acknowledging nod at Dytham as he pulled off his balaclava and threw it on a box by the door.

“How’s the Hagglund?” Asked Dytham, discreately removing the earpiece and stowing it in his pocket.

“Bad.” Replied General, without looking away from a tablet he’d pulled off the wall. Tearing a glove off one hand with his teeth, he begun typing. “It won’t be taking us anywhere until we can print out a new set of cylinders.” His thick Australian accent suddenly took a grimmer tone. “And we’re low on multi substrate as is. Helen, what are the chances of us pulling some emergency multisub from any of the active projects?”

A yellow light pinged at the tablets corner. “Unlikely, unless you can bring a sufficient supply from basecamp, I can’t maintain processes here.”

General and Helen’s voices disappeared down the corridor, trading insults and figures respectively. Dytham scratched his beard, and put his earpiece in again.

“Helen, still there?”

A quick reply. “I can continue three or four conversation at once Tom. You had mentioned Scott?”

But Dytham’s mind had wandered from Lehman. “No, no forget it. Where’s Hailey right now?”

“She’s working in the smaller laboratory. No, sorry. She’s there, but she’s been browsing photos of John for a few hours. I suspect she would prefer to be left alone.”

“I’m sure, but I’ll pay her a visit anyway.” Dytham pulled on the gloves and balaclava General had left by the door, and grabbed an immense parka off the wall.

***

Heaving the door shut behind him, Dytham took a deep breath of warm air from the laboratory building. Cote hadn’t seen him as he passed, too focused on the intricacies of the Hagglund’s repairs. The three doors ahead of him were all shut. Helen’s MCH core was sealed tight at the end of the corridor, but the two laboratory doors were unlocked. Dytham slowly opened the door to the smaller of the two, and smiled at Hailey as she looked up.

“Tom! Hi, hi how’s it going?” Hailey’s enthusiasm was dialled down through the sentence as she rapidly realise she was trying too hard. Her mouse made a small but quick movement, before she lay back and crossed her arms. Dytham suspected that a window had just been minimized.

“Fine, actually. I was just talking to Oliver about the ATV, he says it’s fixable.” Hailey’s smile was genuine.

“That’s great. Great.” She turned back to the screen, and feigned concentration.

Dytham walked over and sat down next to her, paused and then said. “Look, you don’t have to pretend. I know you must be worried about John but I’m sure he’s ok. Just because he couldn’t setup comms from basecamp doesn’t mean he’s in trouble. If anything he’s doing better than us.”

Hailey had smiled slightly at that last part, but quickly her face fell again.  I spoke to Oliver after he, after he brought in Cynthia.” She tried and failed to keep the emotion from her voice. “The cabling was sound all the way up to where it went underground. There’s no way we’ve lost comms with basecamp, John just never made it there.”

Dytham couldn’t help but marvel at the façade Hailey had put on for him, as she swallowed and kept a brave face on announcing the death of her husband.

“You don’t know that.” Said Dytham gently, before nervously saying “But Oliver asked me to check up on you, and Helen says you’ve been in here for hours looking at photos of him-“

Sorrow flew from Hailey’s demeanour, as she whirled around to face the tiny camera embedded in the fall. “That fucking machine’s been spying on me again?” She nearly shouted, slamming her laptop screen shut. “That AIRNE’s done nothing but pry on me since I got here, yellow light or not it’s always fucking watching me I swear.” She stood, and angrily romped over to the corner, pulling some electric tape out of her back pocket. “I’ve wanted to cover this thing since I got here, I’m sick of this shit.”

Dytham jumped up, and hurriedly grabbed her shoulder. “Hailey, Hailey! Helen’s just looking out for you, she’s just trying to make sure you don’t-“

“Looking out for me!” Hailey stopped her advance on the camera, but laughed wickedly. “Tom it’s a fucking AI! She doesn’t care about me, it’s all just optimization to it.”

A yellow light had slowly turned on next to the camera, and Helen’s voice gently joined the discussion. “Hailey, please listen to John.”

Hailey rounded on the camera, and got as close as she could without standing on a chair and roared into the aperture.

“Fuck off! I don’t need your hypocritical emotional analysis!” She kicked a box to her left angrily beneath the camera, and raised herself up. Tape spread across the lens, and only once three layers were applied did Hailey stop muttering obesities, and stepped down from the box.

Dytham stood in a state of shock on the other side of the room, almost impressed with the emotional outburst his normally timid workmate had shown. He waited until she sat down again to speak.

“AIRNE’s aside, are you sure you’re ok? That didn’t seem, very, you.” He nodded towards the now obscured camera on the other side of the room, and folded his arms apprehensively.

“I’m sad, and angry, and all sorts of messed up I’m sure.” She replied furiously calm. “But I don’t need a half-cocked physiological subroutine analysing me.”

Dytham turned his attention to the laptop his workmate had returned too. The webcam was uncovered. He was about to ask, but Hailey pre-empted him.

“I pulled it from the intranet.” She explained. “Unless it somehow gets a drone in here to plug the ether cord back in, she-it, can’t spy on my personal affairs.”

Picking up on nearly calling Helen “she” instead of “it”, Dytham was shaken. He felt he’d outstayed his welcome.

“Okay, alright.” He replied, walking slowly over to the door. He turned back to her, and sighed. “Don’t worry about the computer, ok? If you want to anyone, just give me a ping.”

The two smiled at each other, and Hailey humbly murmured a thank you and goodbye. Dytham walked out.

***

The larger lab on the opposite side of the hall was a lot warmer than Hailey’s. The troughs and trays that lay beneath the assortment of lights were rough and fragile, hurriedly printed a few days after the mainland messages came in. The various plantlets and stems which wove their way around the lab-turned-farm were all looking healthy, and hopefully edible. Dytham shut the door behind him to preserve the heat, before Lehman told him too.

“Tom. I heard shouting.” Lehman didn’t look up from the large computer in front of him, as he adjusted a set of dials atop the water purification system he’d assembled a few days ago.

“Yeah. Hailey having a little freak out about Helen watching her. She’s covered the camera in the small lab, and pulled her laptop from the intranet.” Dytham sat down near the door, and unzipped his parka.

Helen chimed in from the computer before Lehman could reply. “I won’t be monitoring her anymore. But the covered camera could pose a real danger, if there’s an accident-“

Lehman was only human, but still technically Helen’s boss. AIRNE’s didn’t get paid, but they could get shut down. “Helen it’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on her. She’s not left that lab for days.”

Dytham smiled a bit. “You’ve not left here for days either.”

Lehman looked up, smiled briefly in return, and pushed his wheel chair away from the computer. He leaned again his desk and grew sombre again.

“It’s been hell trying to get this hydroponics system working. I’m surprised it’s working at all frankly, especially given our resources. I don’t trust it enough to leave for more than an hour or two. Too much could go wrong.”

“Well, you need to show your face a little. Only me, Oliver and Mark seem to be keeping it together, touch wood. Biyu’s saying Qiang’s in a bad way, and she’s not great herself.” Dytham smiled again and looked Lehman in the eye. “We need another inspiring speech, like the one you gave us after the mainland dispatches. That really pulled us all together.”

Lehman surprised Dytham by laughing, which he hadn’t seen the man do since the Christmas party two months ago. He tapped his watch a few and signalled Dytham should do the same.

“You’ve got Helen to thank for that little show. She wrote the damn thing, scavenged from three or four speeches in her records. I was almost scared you would recognise the words of Winston Churchill.” Dytham wasn’t shocked, Lehman valued efficiency over all. Flicking through the text on his phone, he didn’t recognise the words per se but could believe it. Helen spoke again.

“It was still very well done Scott. I agree with Tom, another speech would be excellent for morale.”

Lehman shook his head. “I’d just be repeating myself. Once Oliver repairs the Hagglunds, we’ll be able to make full outings to the coast, where we’ll at least be able to try and contact the mainland again.”

Dytham wasn’t impressed. “Well at least tell people that. Have a meeting in commons or the kitchen. Get people out of their rooms. In fact, let’s do it now.” He stood, and returned to his watch and tapped Helen’s symbol, but she pre-empted his request.

“I heard you Tom. Scott, should I make an announcement?” Dytham had zipped his jacket back up, and turned to Lehman who still sat at his desk. He thought for a second, before replying.

“Okay then. It’s a good idea.” He walked to the door Dytham held open, grabbing a jacket off the rack. “I’ll tell Hailey in person, remind her there’s a person opposite her, as well as a machine.” The two left the lab, the door pushed shut behind them.

***

Commons was large. The room was meant to accommodate the entire crew and guests from the coast or mainland, but the room was depressingly far from full today. Dytham was the last to enter, just as Lehman looked like he was about to start. Biyu, General and Cote sat on one of the sofas near the door, while Qiang stood alone at the other end of the room. Hailey leaned reluctantly by the door, scowling at Lehman, who stood ahead of all of them at the centre of the room. Making a surprise appearance, Helen had illuminated the flat screen television to Qiang’s left with an image of her “face”, which would talk and express emotion whenever she spoke. It currently looked sombre and serious, much like all the more realistic faces in the room.

“Right.” Lehman began, crossing his arms and looking around the assembled scientists in front of him. “It’s been about two weeks since we last all got together, and while the situation is far from perfect, negative attitudes won’t help things.” He gestured at Cote. “Mark here says that we should be able to print new parts for the Hagglunds, and after that it’s just a case of ferrying people to the coast. Once we’re there, we can try and contact the mainland again, and-“

Almost on cue, the room began to shake. Mugs, books and the entire tables themselves begun to skitter and trundle around the room. Qiang grabbed the wall, and barely remained standing. Everyone else just locked in, and hung on to whatever was largest and nearest. The shacking continued for about thirty seconds, before fading and finally stopping.

Unfazed, Lehman continued. “And once at the mainland, we can try to-“, but found himself cut short again.

“And then what?” Qiang’s Sino-French voice was raised and annoyed. “You heard the messages, we all did! There’s nothing left of a mainland to visit! And even if there was, you think the Milner survived?” He pushed himself off the wall, and advanced on Lehman. “We haven’t heard anything from the coast, the station’s probably destroyed!”

Biyu’s face had disappeared into her hands, and Cote looked troubled enough to almost make Dytham like him. General and Hailey were less amused. Logical arguments presented from the two were rebuked by Qiang’s own, until eventually the three descended into a dull roar. Gesticulating and waving, the trio attracted each other into a matter of centimetres. Biyu cried. Dytham felt his second in command duties rising themselves up from the thick fear of embarrassment he’d felt a year ago when he was forced to tell Hailey and John the crew could hear it when they copulated in their room. Lehman was still for a moment, before turning to Helen’s digitized face and nodded.

A claxon screamed. The shouting was cauterized. The siren died as well after a brief millisecond, unheard since the safety briefing that had actually proceeded in the copulating incident by a few weeks, back when the mission started when the crew moved in. Lehman made good use of the now heavy silence.

“Charles. Pessimism isn’t going to get us anywhere, so calm down.”

General agreed, muttering. “Remember your training you coward.”

Lehman pre-empted Qiang’s response as he rounded on General. “Charles! Please we all know the situation is bad, but you-“. He didn’t finish his sentence. Qiang had left, looked utterly defeated. He made an effort to not barge into either Dytham or General as he passed the two on his way out. Crying mixed with depressed laughed echoed from down the hall before a door slammed, leaving only Biyu’s quiet tears to accompany the reshuffling, as people sat back down. Cote patted her on the shoulder, with Dytham noticing how he nervously glanced towards General, who didn’t look happy.

“Well, now we’re all collected.” Lehman continued, pausing to look at the door. “I’ll talk to Charles later, I’m sure he’s just stressed. I know we all feel a bit like him at the moment, but it’s important we don’t fall apart. The situation seems a lot worse than it is.” He gestured at Dytham. “I just showed Tom the hydroponics I’ve set up. Just last week we were falling apart about food, and now we’re nearing self-sustainability, as long as we don’t expect any roast dinners.” He smiled, and a bit of warmth returned to the room.

“The Hagglunds is looking better.” Said Cote, as he laid back slightly in his chair. “Helen’s printing some parts now, and I’ll probably be able to get them installed in a day or two.” He looked pleased with himself.

“Excellent.” Hailey commented, before she coughed slightly and turned her face steely. Blinking, she continued. “I just want everyone to know that if, when, when we make it to the coast, I would like to be one of the first there. To see, to see if John is okay. If he’s alive.” Finished, she relaxed.

“Of course.” Lehman eased, as he leaned far forward off his chair and patted her arm. “Oliver and you can be the first to go.” He looked up at Oliver, who nodded gruffly before turning away to the window. Dytham spoke up too, directing his question at General.

“What was our multisub situation saying?” He asked, before turning his eyes to the monitor expecting some graphs. General walked past him and began to explain the figures which had replaced Helen’s visage, but suddenly the screen changed violently.

“Alert!” Helen said without any emotion, optimized only for getting attention. “I think, yes. Li Qiang is attempting suicide.” The screen showed Qiang from above, as he wrestled with a craft knife. Dytham didn’t see the rest, as he launched himself out of commons and down the corridor after Cote who was yanking open the intermediate doorway and sprinting towards Qiangs room. Beyu’s scream and a satisfyingly severe “Jesus Christ!” from General were heard from commons. Lehman walked.

By the time he had slowly strode to Qiangs room, both Dytham and Cote’s hands were warm with blood. Qiang’s lifeless eyes traced the arch of the ceiling as the pair lay his head down on the blanket they’d used to try and stifle the gash across his neck. Lehman closed his eyes. Biyu wrapped herself around Hailey, their tears mirrored in Cote and Dythams face. An aftershock tremor painted the pool of blood into a mathematically pleasing randomized shape.

“Fuck.” Said nobody in particular.

***

Persequendum est...

[Ping]

[Anglic Norte]
[Incoming]
[TwenCen]
[VCast VCaught]

Hi Mendel.

Just fishing some Oort debris out the way for Euphoria of Known Sex, and we're having a lot of problems with what we're guessing incredulously to be shrapnel from the First Lunar War. Only Asiatics were using velocity mass projectiles, and archives imply the conflict was mainly fought along one long front, hence the bizarre alignment of the old munitions. Bullets and shells curved round Sun once, then were directed by Jupiter to where we're picking them up now. While incredibly spread out, we've experienced minor injuries but approaching substantial damage to accretion facilities. Item analysis confirms.

I would recommend HiveMind and Prodigies to, if nothing else, investigate this phenomena for potential future incidents, especially following the fifty year later Second Lunar War, which saw continued use of velocity mass projectiles. Euphoria of Known Sex has an above average size accretion shield, which would see incredible damage at time of departure if these randomised small projectile incidents are continuous.

Apologies for the lack of formalities, but I feel this would really benefit from further investigation.

All the best,
LeMarkte

[Received]
[Response Pending]

Moral Programs

Nobody sued musicians for their album art on the screen of handhelds, clenched vicelike in the hands of recent suicides who opted not to drown. Statistical artefacts, classified under “contributory factors”, deemed immune to blame. The same should be for videogames.

But what if they directly implied the player didn’t exist?

Meta. Extremely meta.

The premise was this; upon opening the game, players where given a heavy dose of expository spiel. They were informed that they were “Moral Programs”. Philosophical AIs with enough complexity and electrical similarity to brains to deem them human enough on the Turing scales to be passable as the real thing. Machines which felt. Sufficiently. The player’s life up until launching the game was described as a subroutine. Something to give the AI a sense of reality and weight.

Players laughed. Quaint. If they shut the game prematurely, to test the supposed depth of the game, they were simply bought back to the main screen on reloading. Failure also took the player back to the start, a difficulty just hard enough to activate primal hunting instincts and a desire to try again. Nothing special, but enough to entice playing further.

The gameplay consisted of simple masked optimization problems. “You” accompanied a drone, which was actively seeking foreign targets in a foreign land. The player’s goal was essentially to observe, their humanlike presence in the conflict a necessity only by international law. Occasionally, players were instructed to decide which targets were more “ethically challenging”. Advice the drone to run the risk of killing six children, or three young pregnant women? Two criminals or one innocent civil servant? A teenagers arm and ears, or both his legs? “Missions” were evaluated at their conclusion at a military tribunal, where the player/Moral Program were analysed and its ethical combat decision-making commended. Failure resorted in a reset. Infuriating. Try again.

It was curious complexity. People talked about it to their friends on and off-line, as it warped and spread across the net. Watching other people play the game wasn’t as satisfying as playing it yourself, but the fans still crowded to their streams. Reviewers lapped up its intricacy in a genre with dying thematic principles. Overall it was being well received.

Now things become most complicated at the very end of the game. The player/Moral Program was constantly being reminded by their in-game commander of their lack of existence, and how “everything else” (being, everything but the game), was a minor script in their programming to ground them in reality. The façade grew and grew. The player’s/Moral Program’s family were mentioned, in vague enough terms to catch the attention of a wide audience. Probing into the open-source freedom of social media, the game occasionally pulled friends and lovers names out the blue to scare the player/Moral Program. The game even describes these processes within itself, bathing in the meta-conversations which acknowledge axioms themselves, lathering the audience with the triviality of a known illusion good enough to keep you fooled. The game knew it was a game. But did the player?

The ending itself was what finally drew the most blame. The final “mission” was to retrieve a package for the government the player/Moral Program served. It was cutting edge, and exceedingly hard for the player to morally retrieve. Civilians and double agents crowded the battlefield. A second drone entered play. A hospital was conveniently in the line of fire. Neurones fired faster along their new muscle memory than they had before. Breath was held. A satisfying boss fight.

The cutscene which followed hammered the final nail. The package was revealed as an artificial “heaven”. The commander described, in a speech clearly designed for repetition to many audiences, that the Moral Programs were too humanlike in their complexity to be simply shutdown like the unconscious drone AIs. Instead they had to be stored in “heavens” until they lived a standard human life. Then they could die like the rest of us. The game ends with the commander thanking the player/Moral Program for their work, and says their coding will be recommended to their superior.

And that was that. Replaying the game was identical, and the command simply explained it was just another facet of heaven to entertain the player. Players shut down their PCs, went for a drink, and then moved onto the next serial FPS. But fans don’t die hard.

All it took was 0.001% of the players which deemed themselves “fans” to post their datamine on a forum and the secrets were out. Paragraphs of additional dialogue, deemed “unfit” for the game’s final build. The commander’s speeches were tedious, explaining the game was the only way within the law to use Moral Programs, and his own concerns that the AIs would become too aware of their false lives and commit suicide. He went on, describing how only a handful of Moral Programs were even used in the conflict, and that the rest of the “player base”, and “fans” of the game were just subroutines of subroutines. Other characters, who helped designed the program were hinted at in a spiders web of intrigue. The commander in one passage even seemed to be close to a breakdown. It was very well done.

Of course there were sceptics. Or rather, realists. It was all made up. Obviously it was all made up. But still very very well done. The thematic praise actually won the game a few awards, which the sole creator took sullenly and with a barely managed fake smile. It was all made up!

But the brain in a vat stipulation evolved into the Moral Program on a chip stipulation. The game was even brought up at a low-level philosophy conference at an equally low level university. Even professionals however conceded it was a good way to get kids interested in philosophy. A year after release, having made a tidy sum, the one-man development team retired, from videogames and public life. People began to forget about Moral Program.

Then, in the short space of a month, about eleven teenagers killed themselves. So what. Well, after two more months and another fifteen later connected suicides, it was agreed that all the dead, along with a slew of previously ignored suicides from months ago, were massive fans of the game. They had watched stream after stream, done play-through after play-through. Most datamined, with all having joined in lengthy forum arguments for weeks. One or two even had merchandising. After a further four months, the suicides reach fifty. At this point, the parents of the initial dead were frothing at the mouth. The illusive developer, until now declining comment, was hauled in by the police. An eight-year-old, left at home with nothing but his laptop and a deep desire for attention from his arguably as much to blame parents, walked in front of a bus while playing the games theme-tune on his handheld. That got the rest of the general public involved and caring.

Another slew of suicides and game faced a mass-recall. As the one-hundred mark was reached, computers connected to the internet uninstalled the game automatically, citing “mental health risks”. But somebody cracked the thing open and made it run offline undetected. All it took was a trip to the ‘Bay and the entire experience was yours. Forums which had covertly inadvertely been promoting the suicide pact were also shutdown superficially, but all it took was real devotion and you’d find them again. Parents, family and friends became more and more fearful. The “Moral-Program” effect littered the news, blaming any game it could. Previously laid to rest court cases were dug up. Irate mothers threw their bawling preteens consoles in the outside bin.

Then one self-seen Assange managed to leak the footage from the final stage of the developer’s trial. The creator had been indicted for months, as the death toll mounted and mounted, until it finally begun to recede two years after release, with him facing a lengthy sentence. Hearings and evidence mounted, witnesses went from screaming to sobbing. Hate crimes were committed against the developer’s innocent parents, who eventually began to condemn their son as much as the parents of “those he’d killed”. The general public grew tired eventually, as the trial drew to a close. But the footage was too enjoyable, and it sparked an aftershock unlike anything before.

He was quite deranged, everyone agreed. The developer had gone without any real attorney or defensive lawmaker whatsoever. He’d just sat sullenly, confirming what was true and denying lies eventually deemed to be false as well. All sane. All until the closing statement. He’d certainly been thinking about it for a while. And he certainly knew how to a capture a crowds attention.

He erupted, fervour unseen before in the courtroom outside of the grieving parents. He condemned not the courts, but all videogames themselves. Flirtatious combat simulations, which toyed with the brain just enough to make it feel like it was actually doing anything, tricking the matters into releasing joyful hormones for nothing. He laughed and ran his hands through his hair, announcing he was almost glad at the suicides, deeming the dead’s brains too susceptible to false trickery and manipulation. He referenced a utopian apocalyptic future, where we put our brains in the very “heaven” machines he’d hypothesised, seeking pleasure over any tangible impact on reality. The machines would rule us then, he said, while we giggled child-like in our self-made illusions. More laugher, more tears. He eventually devolved, and was dragged out the courtroom ranting about mankind’s inability to handle anything short of ultimate pleasure, given a choice. The last footage the leak captured was his biting a guard’s hand, manic eyes scanning a stunned jury, while screaming inhumanly.

“They’ll kill our will, our impact! The fucking games will kill us all!”

Trawling the man’s hard-drives turned up similar rants. He’d even written a short story, describing almost an identical scenario, which when cross-referencing his final screams in the story and reality was scarily accurate,  especially given how he’d been separate from the computer for months.

The world was quite shaken. At least for a few months. Then it went back to caring about only the prettier endangered animals, and trivialities of celebrity. And its video games, of course.

Dissapointments

Disappointments.

The first was time. The second was space. Or at least half of space.

We couldn’t go faster than light, so we didn’t technically master space. But on the way to our disappointment we made some interesting discoveries. We couldn’t go forward, back, left or right. So what do we do? We go up.

Shifting dimension is an incredibly apt metaphor seeing as that’s essentially what was done. We delved downwards into two and one dimension universes. We waved dark matter around until we got a very basic response. They’re still working on getting a reply which isn’t seemingly random to the point of meaningless. They’re also working on breaching a zero dimension universe but those departments don’t get any funding anymore. Or more accurately power, as its computers which run the entire show.

Upwards was more promising. We got basic mimicry from five through to seven, then more interesting responses. We got a number system going with positive and negative interactions in a nine dimension universe. That was big news for a while and the genius which coded the genius which figured that out both got very famous, but only the first genius made any money. Some were happy with a plateau there, but eff that.

Finally after a generation and a social trend towards transhuman biotech and videogames, the public’s eye was drawn again to a sudden bout of interesting results from a 17D universe. Yes? No? Prime numbers? Headlines for once lived up to the research. A civilisation sick of Fermi’s bloody paradox was eager for some aliens not of our design, or the design of our aliens. Translation was difficult, and we assume they overloaded their systems several times throughout the process given long stretches of time without a response. But the language progressed. Eventually we said “Hello”. Then they did too.

And it was all very enlightening until they asked if they could speak to the water.

We re-translated. Many, many times. But they were infatuated with water. They almost refused to speak to us, at one point referring to us as (And this is an extremely rough translation) “Nitrogen-heavy fat confusion makers”. Nobody around the sun took that well.

We explained that the water couldn’t exactly speak back, but they insisted. We tried hooking all manner of dihydrogen monoxide systems up to our communique, but to no avail. They asked us to leave, and let them speak to the water, citing important philosophical arguments they had to share.

Aliens from another dimension. And they were completely effing insane. Or maybe we were the insane ones, seeing as we apparently couldn’t speak to water.

Needless to say we all went back to videogames.

Of Procul Preview - Chapter Three

3201

Earth

An explosion reverberated through the valley.

The figure lying under the thick thermal rug jerked suddenly awake, scouring the hillside around him. Darting upwards, his eyes followed the path of a beige lighter craft as it descended behind a low hill in the distance. The ships tracer trails lingered behind it for a few seconds, before slowing fading out of existence. Its rapid rise from stratospheric to normal jetting speeds had created the sonic boom which had awoken the man. He hadn’t spied any markings from this distance, but Earth saw little to no interplanetary activity outside the E.R.C.O, so he sized the craft was there’s. Pulling the blanket off himself, he stood. Having slept fully clothed, he proceeded to unfurl the thick poncho he had wrapped around himself in his sleep. Stepping into his boots, he bent to tighten their elastics, and picking up a cowl draped over the weighty rucksack he had used as a pillow, he covered his shaven head from the sun above.

As he busied himself with breakfast and preparations for the day, the poncho rattled and clattered as he moved around his makeshift camp. To a spectator from afar, the garment resembled a greyed urban camouflage, or a tessellating piece of tactile electronic art. Drawing closer, the patterns discerned themselves into a collection of tiny rectangles of varying sizes. Some hung as large as a palm, others smaller than a fingernail. The plates overlapped seamlessly, to such an extent than the material beneath was invisible. It resembled a haphazard chainmail, steel of antiquity or carbonfibre of today.

The camp reorganised and stowed in his pack, the man hoisted it upon his shoulders and grasped a staff he had laid carefully by his bed the night before. The staff mimicked his poncho, a long train of cubes of differing sizes, but all connected into one another. Near the staffs head, thick and thin wires wove together into a hairball mess. Using the staff to steady himself, the man slowly descended from the ridge where he had slept. He stumbled only once, but caught himself on a rocky outcrop behind him. Eventually reaching the scarcely visible road beneath him, he continued his journey southward. The old tarmac creaked and groaned underfoot, complaining against the careful steps. Several times the whine rose to a roar as large chunks were dislodged and threw themselves into the valley below. It didn’t faze the walker though. He had made this journey countless times before, and the road begrudged him passage every time. With his spare hand, he fidgeted with one of the smaller plates adorning his garment. Twisting it between fingers, gentle not to pull it from its clasp. His mind wandered. Six hundred years. Over six hundred years it had been kept a secret. For a hundred years after the war, searches were made with effort. Teams and drones ransacked the still breathing cities and buried the dead ones. After then, their enemies relaxed the hunt, realizing their wartime allies were peacetime foes. Foreign eyes left the Earth to be left in peace and pieces.

2894. It was a Martian astrobattleship which launched the spear that struck the Gutenberg-Alexandrite Library City of Europa. No other datastore was left untouched, as drone and zealot alike rushed over the crippled Earth. Fragile intelligence was overrun by violent ignorance. In a matter of hours, every city felt the blow of the astrospears, while the slaved Ceresian AIs wrought destruction on the intranets webwide. The last bear was crushed under a Martian landing craft in Brazil. The last fern was vaporized and smoked by a Titaness mercenary as she triumphantly waved at a cameradrone. But one does not extinguish a flame so easily. Mere minutes after the munity of the moon disabled Earths defensive satellite network, the EarthGov met for one final time. As the combined ships of the Defiant Movement slowed into Earthen near space, rushed decisions were made. As the meeting drew to a close, almost half the data on the planet had already been copied. By the time the Unpronounceable General and his Ceresian court entered the atmosphere, the entirety of the planets data was safely copied and being printed onto memdrives. Flashcards were hurriedly inserted into ports, while memory sticks were brandished ecstatically at image banks. It’s rumoured even a hard copy disk was taken out of storage and re-digitized. As the Unpronounceable General and a Martian Leejun entered the Office City of Brussels, wading through the ice water which writhed in the streets, the EarthGov was quite calm. Peace was signed within the hour, over the tumultuous clamour the crowds outside. As the fire of the astrospears peaked the horizon apocalyptically and intranet implants were torn out to screams and nosebleeds, the last EarthGov president felt warmth in his heart. But not for long.

The slaved AIs picked up the intranet ping trail within minutes, and messages ordering the mass data reproduction were decoded in the fleet command centres above. The Unpronounceable General’s rage saw the last president and his congress die feeling their throats boil. But with their last petaflops the loyal Earthen AIs managed to mask the location of the transcription from the invaders, before succumbing to cessation themselves. So when the first nomad left his burning city and strode out into the wilderness, he knew that the knowledge he carried in his garment was safe from the barbarians above. Weaved into the poncho he wore under thin rags and plasfilms, was all the knowledge left of the planet. The EarthGov knew they had lost the war. A century of hubris had seen to that. Cities and fortresses fell, their allies too far and weak to help. The last remaining super-AIs were bargaining with the enemy for exile beyond the wormhole. There were no option left but to hide. It was the idea of one official who lay now clutching their microwaved jugular in the Brusselèèr Office City, to hide in the people themselves.

And it worked. The septillions upon septillions of bytes of data were woven into inconspicuousness. As the first wearer of the poncho settled down in a newborn shantytown on the southern coast of a forgotten coast, the knowledge was hidden from prying eyes. They were visited thrice by search parties in the first year. But nothing was found. When the first nomad’s third grandchild saw the occupation end nearly ninety years later, the treasures remained safe. The Castillo cave paintings. The works of Mozart, Boucher and Unchu. The social media trends from the three hundred major neural forum sites from 2200 until 2894. The full 3D scans of Prague, Tasmania and Beijing. Photos of every human who had ever lived since 2078, and genome sequences from 2162, both excluding deliberate outliers. The all-powerful entanglement “frequency” of the induced wormhole, which had sealed itself shut after the last AI carrier craft passed through. All this information, culture, wisdom and history was safe. Hidden and forgotten.

The man who walked the road along the mountainside stopped fidgeting with the memdrive between his fingers and brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the shimmering sun. These thoughts of history were racing through his mind, but these emotions of loss drifted from one subject to another. The words his mother had spoken to him when his father grew bleeding were harsh but true. The weight and burden was forced onto his shoulders but he carried it dutifully. He scarcely remembered his mother’s face, yet he remembered events from six hundred and fifty years ago which he’d never lived. But the present was pressing. Squinting, he could make out the shattered shafts of Santiago touching the heavens in the distance. The Orosh had passed, but the dust storms still whipped up the air around the city into a thin fog visible kilometres away. Closer to him, alongside the young river birthed last year by an earthquake, lay a Neuvo Santiago. Smoke rose from a few houses, and a smile broke the man’s face.

“She still lives then.” He murmured quietly for nobody to hear.

 Tightening his packs claps with a yank, and continued down the road towards the fresh settlement. He was the twenty sixth wearer of knowledge. His name was John Nino.