Archive for September, 2010
After the War
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
The last remnants of the robot armies huddled together on the peak of the planet’s highest mountain.
As far as the eye–or spectrum-enhanced optical processor–could see, the valleys, the slopes of neighboring mountains, the plains beyond, all were covered in a layer several meters thick of broken machinery. Their fallen comrades, casualties of a thousand years of automated warfare.
The few remaining squadrons parleyed, forged a hasty alliance, hashing out the terms in a hexadecimal pidgin common to all robots. Above them, huge shadows loomed–the low-orbit ships a more fearsome and implacable enemy than they’d faced before.
They clung to each other as the magnetic beams swept down and the scrap-corpses began to ascend into the air around them.
The recyclers had arrived.
Let the Goats Try
Monday, September 13th, 2010
Charisse wouldn’t walk on the new carpet, said it felt too much like grass. Nate could talk all he wanted about oxygen production, leaf-blade adjustment, stomatal dilation, and so on. It didn’t matter; the stuff made her feet itch. Which is why they were in the back seat of a rented flyer hovering 2 m above the old Riverfront Park when a stretch of carpet in a well-traveled hallway at l’Hôpital Charles de Gaulle in Paris went rogue. The carpet had assimilated home-grown subroutines from the fallen wing covers of insurgent arthrobots. The insectoids, AWOL from a corporate war the previous year, finally had been wiped out by a tailored virus. The global power and communication grid was well protected, but no one had thought to monitor carpets. There was carpet everywhere. The transition from self-repairing floor covering to green commando was almost instantaneous and, consequently, devastating.
—
The recorded voice said “This transport device requires emergency service” and went dead. The flyer bounced off a large crepe myrtle and crushed a recycling bin.
“Ow,” Charisse said.
“Sorry.” and “What happened? These can’t fail.” That didn’t seem to call for a response.
Nate managed to kick one door open. Bruised, but no worse, they disentangled and climbed up out of the flyer. The wreck was leaking something pink that smelled of hot plastic. Nate shaded his eyes and looked around. Smoke rose from the power plant on the other side of the river.
“Crap.”
“Flyers run on broadcast, don’t they,” Charisse said, following his gaze.
Nothing but birds moved in the sky, their phones were dead, and they were 30 miles from the lot where they’d rented the flyer. Something called out. A cardinal? “I’m _so_ ready to get out of here,” Nate said.
“That might be a problem.”
After a few minutes, they started walking.
—
The emerald city shone, a myriad tiny vanes tracking the sun, roots draining batteries and reservoirs, bioelectric networks running simulations, optimizing.
end