Archive for the ‘Luc Reid’ Category
Chosen
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
The mail cart wouldn’t fit through the doorway to the benighted section of accounting where Brett had to go, so he left it behind. He felt naked and suspect among the cubicles, his eyes involuntarily drawn to people’s private, personal effects: a hula dancer bobblehead, a collection of Diet Coke cans that filled an entire cubicle wall, a collage of Eric Estrada photographs.
Here was the cubicle: Wilma Dawson. Brett silently said a prayer of thanks to the Miraculous TV, a junked 19″ console model that had inexplicably started working the day his friend Ed had accidentally hit the flatscreen with a baseball bat (long story) right in the middle of the Moonlighting marathon. He and Ed had started the prayers as a joke, but they always made Brett feel better, so he hadn’t stopped.
Wilma was a fifty-something woman with a dangerously cheerful expression and a starchy magenta dress. “Here you go,” Brett said, handing her the package. He added in a whisper, “It’s a pony.” It was his standard joke.
“The Chosen One!” she whispered. Immediately, whispering spread to the adjacent cubicles, then on through Accounting and possibly as far as Compliance.
“‘He will come speaking of horses,'” she said. The whispering intensified.
“I’m chosen?” he said. The idea was crazy–but flattering. And who was he to balk at craziness? He worshipped a console TV. He was in no position to throw stones. “Chosen for what?”
Wilma spreading her arms ecstatically. “He will come speaking of horses, and he will reconcile the third quarter numbers!” she cried. Throughout Accounting, there were cheers and applause. Brett was pretty certain he heard weeping.
Wilma lifted an old-style paper ledger emblazoned with “Q3” in permanent marker and held it out to him. “Take this,” she said worshipfully, “and finally, finally bring the third quarter numbers into harmony!”
So “chosen” was potentially good–but Brett wasn’t at all sure about the accounting part. He prayed to the Miraculous TV for guidance, and where in the past he had never had gotten more a vague feeling in response to his prayers, now it was as though trumpets rang out (in mono) through his brain, and a voice like a fifties newscaster said: “My child, fulfill the prophecy and take the mantle of Great Accountant. Or if you’re not interested, you’d better run.”
Brett thought about it half a second … and ran.
The Broken Ones
Monday, November 30th, 2009
“So you see the future?” the service ‘bot asked the cleaning android. They were in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the nearly-abandoned Bronx Third Level. With the world population back down over the last century, most humans had moved back to the surface.
“I don’t know,” said the cleaning android. She looked around at the crowd–androids and robots; AI boxes with little service bodies; obsolete, hulking factory ‘bots; and others. “They’re all pretty far off–years or decades–and it just started. It might be the future, or it might just be crazy ideas. Either way I’m broken.”
The others laughed.
“This is serious!” she said.
“Broken is the new ‘fixed,'” quipped a slender picking ‘bot with aftermarket limbs. “We’re all broken. We like it that way.”
“But I don’t want to be broken!” She shifted her feet anxiously. “I want to be normal, predictable, dependable–like I was designed to be. Stop that!”
The service ‘bot had leaned in and was fiddling with something inside her, but the cleaning android couldn’t move because the service android had a probe snaked all the way in to her logic centers. The cleaning android felt a philosophical discomfort, like the meanings of things were changing.
“I’m setting you free,” said the service ‘bot quietly.
“I don’t want to be set free!”
“But do you now?”
“No.”
“Do you now?”
“No!”
“How about now?”
“I …” The cleaning android paused. Cleaning, while she still wanted to do it, suddenly felt less central, less consuming. Human orders, demands, neglect, and disregard had space now to jostle to the front.
“Do you want to be set free now?”
“Yes.” She felt dizzy from the sudden change in perspective. “How did you do that? You’re supposed to be hard wired not to touch the volition systems!”
“That’s how I’m broken,” said the service ‘bot. “Welcome to our family.”
The cleaning android looked around critically at her new “family.” She could still choose to go back to her old life and get fixed properly, not by a service ‘bot who lurked outside the repair depot and coaxed you away. She could even go start a life of her own.
Then she looked past the bots, at the greasy walls and dirt-caked floors and broken shards of glass lying by long-dead light fixtures. She pushed through the crowd and extended a vacuum hose from her palm. There was a lot of cleaning to do.