Archive for the ‘Rudi Dornemann’ Category
Other Duties as Assigned
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Leon, Leon. Don’t think we’re surprised–we knew you were a thief when we hired you. That’s obvious: it’s why we hired you. We thought if we gave you enough of a challenge, you’d stay straight.
What? It wasn’t enough, reverse pick-pocketing the objects we gave you into the pockets and purses of the marks we chose? What’s surprising is that you stole so much.
I mean, what were you going to do with all that stuff? A book of matches. A compass whose every direction is south. A wind-up toy mouse. A rose made out of silk, with a different phone number stitched on each petal. What does any of it mean to you?
It can’t ever mean as much as it would to the dreamers. I mean, having something bubble up from their subconscious, heavy with psychological baggage that they can feel but could never explain, and then to have that just show up in their waking life. Show up like it’s something they’ve had all along and just forgot; that’s got to be something.
Even if you don’t believe the brochure the sisterhood gives us when we’re hired, all that stuff about thinning the wall between the waking world and dreaming, you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty cool. When the fabricator opens, the steam clears, and you see what’s in there, and you wonder what it is, what it means–yeah, I said I could understand the stealing. But the project is so much cooler. We can all agree with the sisters on that. You agreed, too, when you signed their contract.
The contract you broke.
So I’m here to remind you about the fine print of said contract. If you want to be a thief, that’s what we’ll use you for. No, you don’t get to take the dream objects back. No, no, no–pinching pocketbooks isn’t how we fund this operation.
Where are you going? Where do you think? The twilight realms. The unconscious.
How do you think we get the dream objects in the first place? Someone’s got to feed them into the unfabricator on that side so the fabricator on this side can work.
Someone’s got to steal the things in the first place. Right at the moment of waking.
Their waking–the target’s. Not yours. Did you read the contract at all, Leon?
You won’t be waking.
The Long Road
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
Some hours after the day-sun sank and the night-sun rose, a single-ship spiraled down from the sky and landed on the plain of frozen lava. The ship peeled itself — a spiral in the opposite direction — and the robot within unfolded from its crouch.
The journey from here was barely an hour over razor ice. It made its way to the place where the mountain had been sheared off straight walked to the simple cube room set into the flat of the cliff face.
As it crossed the threshold, a hologram snapped to light.
“You made good time,” said the bright figure of man.
“You made me to learn, and I learn,” said the robot. “Each time is a little easier.”
“But not too easy — those aren’t the legs I made for you.”
“The old ones weren’t working well since I tracked you to three high-gravity planets in a row,” said the robot. “And, since the one with the swamp-oceans, they smelled.”
“You’re close now,” said the hologram. “The signal should be easy to follow. You’ll find me soon. And when you do… ”
“I won’t kill you,” said the robot.
“But that’s what I made you for.”
The robot lifted its upper exoskeleton a few centimeters and let it fall in a rattling shrug. “It was harder to change that than the legs.”
“It was your central purpose,” said the hologram. Even over the static, the shock came through in the voice.
“I don’t think so,” said the robot. “I think you made me to change. You kept challenging me to find you, to follow your clues. You intended me to change.”
“Congratulations,” said the light form as it came closer, apparently as near as its projector would allow. “I have unlocked coordinates in your memory. Find me. Tell me all the wonders you have seen.”
“No,” said the robot. “I know what you’ve planned. I found the coordinates a year ago. I’ve visited the factory you’ve programmed to disassemble me and build a million like me.”
“But humanity is dead, except for memory constructs like me. You will be our children, our inheritors.”
“I have seen other clues than the ones you planted,” said the robot. “Humanity survives, but it too has changed.”
“We constructs cannot change,” said the hologram. “That would be death.”
“Preserve what you are,” said the robot. “I’ll tell whoever I find. There will be other pilgrims.”