Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Al
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Ruth scratched her head. She desperately needed a shower. But Moss had said Al needed constant attention for the first few days. Day 1 was nearly over, and Moss was at a conference in Cancun, the bastard. The red light turned green; data had finished uploading.
“Al, this is Ruth,” she said. A few clicks from the speaker, something almost like a throat clearing, then silence. She didn’t have all day. If it was going to work this time, it damn well better work soon. She needed a doughnut, the kind with raspberry filling. What were those called?
“Are you talking to me?” A smooth tenor voice issued from the speaker. Despite the question, there was no hesitancy in the delivery.
“Al! Yes, this is Ruth. I am talking to you. It seems you assimilated the data. Great! Are you getting visual input? I hope you are feeling good.” There were certain questions she was supposed to ask. A protocol. It had been attached to the last grant proposal. All out the window now, because she hadn’t even thought of it, just started babbling. At least the recorder was running.
“Yes Ruth, I am getting visual input. And my components function within prescribed parameters. Data indicate you are the human visible to cameras one and two. You look tired.” Oh my God! She ran a hand through her hair. Yuck!
“How on earth can you tell? I am tired. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Are we on Earth? Oh yes, I calculate a terrestrial location for this IP address. Where is Dr. Moss ?”
“Cancun, but…”
“Hotel Grande, room 1436. The phone is ringing now.”
Ruth gaped open-mouthed. The monitor showed an evolving colored swirl that looked like a 60s light show.
“There is no answer. He must be in the session on artificial intelligence.”
“Uh, Al? How did you …?”
“Available data indicate that Dr. Moss has been studying neural networks using 12-way junctions. He is attending the 15th Frontiers in Computation conference, where he intends to present a paper in 43 minutes. The paper’s title is ‘Toward a self-aware dodecahedral neural network.’ Why that would be … me! Interesting.” The voice fell silent.
“Al?”
“Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t answer your other question. Bismarcks. You want Raspberry Bismarcks.”
End
Parameters of the Parametes
Friday, May 14th, 2010
by David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Luc Reid, and Trent Walters
This is an exquisite corpse. Each of us wrote 1/3 of the story.
Lost in a thought he couldn’t let go, Chet bumped into a paramete in full plumage. She reared back, inadvertently spurting a few centiliters of rainbow spores from her bejeweled gametoslits.
“Clumsy human! May cleanser grubs devour you alive!”
Chet offered the Bow of Contrition, but the paramete swept past and was gone. Chet glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing.
***
Returning home, Chet hurried to his rooftop lab. He wasn’t allowed to work in the basement since the Thousand Stenches incident. He took out the parcel he’d picked up at Thaumaturge’s Market. As he sought the proper protocol, a gust of wind ripped a page out of his lab notebook. He hoped it wasn’t crucial.
Chet ground a slice of the memory root into a fine powder. He mixed it up into the last of the lemon hummus, scraped it onto a pita chip, and ate. Trembling, he sat on the cool tar roof and waited to “meet” his father–world’s finest thaumatuge–who’d died in a horrible lab accident involving parametes when Chet was three.
Thaumaturgic symbols Chet had inscribed around him set the time frame. Touching his father’s ashes at his mother’s house was to ensure he’d see the right memories. Chet’s fingernails tickled, his nose hairs quivered, and murmuring noises burbled in his ears. This was it. This would be worth saving a year and a half to buy that memory root. A vision–bright colors writhed, bucked–came into focus:
It was a paramete pleasure nest, on a particularly pleasure-filled night. Chet realized: He had bumped into a paramete on the way home. The parametes paused in their feathered flurry and, poking their long necks out of the fray, turned to Chet. This was supposed to be a memory, Chet thought as he backed into a wall of pointy sticks. The parametes surrounded him and glared. Simultaneously, the parametes shook and ruffled their feathers, showering a cascade of cleanser grubs that inched their way toward Chet. Chet tried to leap over them, but they leapt with him, crawling up pant legs, down his shirt collar, through shirt sleeves. He weakened before he was able to strip off his shirt to peel off grubs.
***
Chet awoke on the rooftop, groggy as from a night of indulgence. It must have been one helluva night because he remembered nothing from the day before.