Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Crow Guide
Friday, September 24th, 2010
Doreen tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear and licked her lips. She had never seen the Martian tarot before. For that matter, she had never been this close to a real-live Martian. But she had to know what was in store now that her guide was gone.
The creature placed the first card on the table. The painting was composed of dots, but no pattern emerged no matter how she squinted. The Martian pinched the next card’s corner with three spatulate fingertips, turned it over. Another pointilist nonlandscape.
“Fate, the inevitable. Also, subterfuge.” Doreen didn’t know what this meant. She turned her head. Looking at the card with just one eye didn’t seem to help.
“What position does that take?” she quavered.
“Behind you, of course,” it muttered, placing the card beneath the first. She looked quickly over her shoulder. Nothing. She shook herself, nodded quickly for the next card.
This one was predominantly blue and green, but no more interpretable than the first two. “The moons.” Doreen was beginning to feel bloated.
Another card. A whole range of pale shades, but no white. “The sea.” Doreen bobbed her head nervously. Her arms trembled. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it with a snap.
Card. “Pathways, in search.” This one looked like a photorealistic painting of a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. But the meatballs were … wrong. They had legs tucked up beneath them, and eyes. Doreen could no longer sit still. She hopped up on the seat, shuffled her feet, fluttered her arms.
Card. “Release, equanimity.” Mountain peaks stood up before the stars. A bird flapped heavily in front of two small moons. Doreen scratched behind her ear with her foot.
Card. “Disclosure, a return.” A shove, and the chair landed on its back in a puff of dust.
The end
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