December 3, 2008 – 10:10 pm
The headset slid on like a fighter pilot slamming down his helmet visor. And, with a deft gesture, his ears filled with Interpol’s “Slow Hands”.
The coding context unfolded into his headspace and caffeine set fingers a jitter. Task lighting cast a calibrated magic circle. All distractions stranded in shadow beyond the illuminated space would spend [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:10 pm
He had no words to describe what was happening to him. More accurately, he had nothing in his possession from which words could be conjured.
In point of fact, he possessed nothing but himself—though admittedly, his self-definition was a tenuous thing, more a collection of potentials than solid fact.
Still, of his own existence he was firmly [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:09 pm
The hiveminded, phosphorescent lichen are conspiring with the mechanized saurans in low earth orbit. They share a common conception of the color blue, at odds with the occluded vision of the mad pachiderms.
They plan to bombard the elephants’ capital city in India with M&M-shaped tofu blobs–an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second from [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:09 pm
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Update: I’ve made an attempt at recording this, playing with the idea of podcasting. Comments welcome. I think I rattled the thing off too fast, have problems with my levels, and might have had too much fun with GarageBand clip-art.
starhook
One hundred vapor trails and more struck upward that day, all around the world, [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:09 pm
“What the hell were you thinking?”
The machine was silent, offering only a slightly energetic twinkling of blinkenlights across its diagnostic panel as evidence that the question had been heard.
“Well,” the operator sighed, “I’m waiting. Explain yourself.”
“You’re quite impatient for a human. Did you know that?”
“Yes, I’m well aware of my own psychological parameters. Stop evading [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:08 pm
“Do you remember the first time you were badly hurt?”
“Not really. Don’t we all experience our share of scrapes and bruises in childhood?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Have you ever suffered an injury of such severity that you were left less capable than you were before? One that took weeks or months to heal?”
“Oh, [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:08 pm
They wanted his pinky finger at customs.
At first, he’d thought maybe they just wanted a print or a blood sample. But then, he’d seen what happened to the tentacle of the sapient in line ahead of him: It walked away with a fresh blue-weeping stump, the tip excised by the eye-blink swipe of a sterile [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:08 pm
I sat at a bus stop a few blocks from my old apartment, waiting. I’d fended off a handful of half-hearted self-assassination attempts along the way, a manifold practical manifestation of the doubts I felt toward what I was about to do.
Soon enough, at around ten after nine, I came walking briskly down the sidewalk. [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:07 pm
The pair boosted forward into the asteroid’s single inset airlock, pulling a cargo sled behind them. It eased into the habitat’s half-gee field, dropping to bump once against the floor plating before settling into a hover.
“Shit, careful with that!” Jim warbled, his comm voice all square-waved. “They won’t take any if a single one is [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:07 pm
“Looking for this?” said Cynthia, behind him.
Startled, Philip whirled on her. With a jaw clench, he regained his dignity and held out a hand. Into his palm, she placed a dram of clear liquid in a stoppered glass vial. But, as he began to close his fingers, she closed hers first and grasped his hand, [...]
