by Anthology
It was all very surprising.
***
"Talk to me about redundancies." The voice was female. Human. Heavy orbital accent, which meant a station somewhere, not planetside.
"Wasn't any." Different voice. Male. Tense.
"Nothing?"
"It was a small exploratory operation. We were within regs."
The female voice made a skeptical fffffff noise. A techie noise. And the male, definitely business-side.
My optics were still offline, but my processors were warming up. I let the available data wash over me. The distant throb of stabilizers confirmed my location—the slightly-too-fast frequency of the engines matched the signature for NT-34, a station near Titan used primarily for maintenance. I wasn't due, and that meant—
Shit. Incident Diagnostic.
"What the hell went wrong with it?"
"Maybe nothing. It scans okay."
I ran my internal diagnostics. My modules were all absent. Disconnected. Maybe destroyed. I felt like a two-legged spider.
No noticeable malfunctions in my primary module, but something had gone wrong. I was in the tunnel when it failed. Why had I not detected it? A structural shift, a seismic event, an antigrav generation failure, something.
"Then do different scans. Mines don't just fall down for no reason, and this useless thing didn't so much as beep before that tunnel dropped and vacuumed out."
"Mmmm." The Tech wasn't listening. She was thinking, puzzle-solving.
"Fifteen crew," continued the Businessman. "The government's already crawling all over the site. We'll be dealing with the regulators and the courts for years." I could hear his heart pounding. It was arrhythmic—he should have that checked out—but steady enough to be safe.
"Mmmm," said the Tech, with no more enthusiasm than the first time.
The Businessman left soon after that, left me and the Tech to answer the only question that mattered: what had I missed?
***
The next round of tests was exhaustive. Dynamic vibration tests, spectrum analyses, bioscans, toxicity tests, structural integrity simulations, and a full checklist of every category of event that was supposed to trigger an alarm. It was the most thorough workout I'd had since manufacture, maybe ever. Day after day of vigilance and blaring alarms, each of which jolted through my system like lightning, and always with the anxiety—new to me—that something might slip past unnoticed.
***
The Tech tapped her fingers against the top of the datapad, frowning at me.
"How do you think you did?"
I took a few microseconds to replay and analyze each of the tests—not that I hadn't already done that thousands of time in the past few hours—and lifted my arms. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"Um. Perfect?"
"Mmm." The Tech leaned back. "Are you certain?"
I hesitated. She nodded.
"Well," she said. "No false positives. That's good. And no false negatives, also good. No issues with overlapping triggers, no apparent blind spots whatsoever."
"But—"
"We have the preliminary report back from the mine. There was a structural shift several dozen meters above the tunnel. Probably caused by asynchronous vibrations. Your crew was being sloppy."
"But we just tested…I thought I did fine."
"On the tests? Perfect. We recreated the key elements of the collapse at least thirty times and you caught it every time. Might've been a localized problem with one of your remote modules, of course, but there's not much left of those to dissect."
So there it was. They were all gone. I was a queen bee without a hive.
"What about George's clutch?"
"George?"
"The worm."
"Oh, him. I think the company impounded them. The ones that survived, anyway." The Tech set the data pad aside. "How do you feel?"
"Feel?" Confused. Alarmed. Agitated. "Tired."
"Not really in your programming, is it?"
"Not precisely. But…look, I'm clean on my tests. When can I get back to work?"
"You're being retired."
Her heartbeat was infuriatingly steady.
"But you said yourself I'm functioning perfectly."
"Tested perfectly. But you failed in your primary function and we can't explain it. If we can't explain it, we can't fix it."
"And if you can't fix it, you can't guarantee it won't happen again, yeah, I get it. So run more tests! Run as many tests as you need to either find the problem or prove there is no problem."
"It doesn't work like that." She stood up and walked to her desk. "You're a QSFT7 mark 2, so that makes you, what, eleven? Maybe twelve if you were early off the line?"
"Oh. That's what this is about."
"Like I said, you're being retired. We can't trust you with our lives any more."
I felt hollow.
"The good news," she said brightly, picking up a handset, "is that your malfunction, whatever it is, isn't an affirmative danger."
"Well hoo-ray."
"Which means we won't have to deactivate and scrap you."
Deactivate? What the hell kinds of conversations had these people been having about me?
A future without purpose stretched before me. After a decade of relentless work—hundreds of accidents averted, tens of thousands of lives saved—my programming didn't have an answer to this yawning void.
"What—what will I do?" My voice was barely audible.
"We have a place."
***
The halfway house was a low, grey building on the outskirts of the biggest city on Tantalion. "A small planet," the Tech had explained, "mostly agricultural. Good place to clear your head." Then she had lasered off my serial numbers and boxed me up with the rest of the cargo.
The building was surrounded by the fractal symmetry of a garden, complex and immaculately maintained. From the curving, sandy path, a small robot floated toward me.
"Welcome," it said, "to the Quiet House. We'll be doing a little reprogging. Deprogging, really. But mostly just helping you figure out how to operate without a primary imperative."
"What about my modules?" I felt naked, just one primary module clunking around all by myself. It was ridiculous.
"We'll assign you new ones soon, don't worry about that. First thing's first: what's your name?"
"Serial number QSFT7mk2.7853."
"Yes, yes, I know that," the robot replied, wobbling on its thrusters. "But here we all adopt names. Proper names, to live our new lives with."
"But I don't have a name."
"None of us did, but now we do. My name is Boston. Historical reference. American Revolution. Familiar with it?"
I lifted my front arms.
"Ah, of course not, you're a miner…not much need for fancy book learning." His voice was flat. "Anyway, I chose that name because in this life I'm free, and my name reminds me of that. Most of us choose names that mean something special to us, or that remind us of something unique to us—we had so few of those things when we were progged. Did you have anything like that?"
"Well," I said, "I remember tunnels."
So many tunnels, dark and rough to begin with and then greyer and smoother as we progressed.
"Okay, good, but maybe something more—and this is a concept I know will take getting used to—something more personal?"
I thought of the rhythm of the cutters, the shouts of the miners, all those shared experiences. And I thought of George.
He had never used my serial number. Not once. And I'd never called him "worm" like the others. To each other, at least, we were more than that. Why had I never thought about that, about what it meant?
In the double-sunlight of Tantalion, my module gleamed, smooth and unblemished for the first time since it was cast. No numbers; no etchings; no warning symbols. George would have liked that.
"Yeah, I guess I do," I said. "Call me Canary."
Tigerskin(Short story)
by Kurt Hunt
> First published at Strange Horizons (December 2015), edited by Lila Garrott
Ravi was only five. He could tie his shoes (barely) and write his name. But he couldn't stop the tiger.
It came down the basement stairs, muscled flank gleaming in the fluorescence, each step a drumbeat accentuated by the little boy's maraca lungs. And its eyes, the size of wiffle balls. Its Gorgon gaze.
Blood iced within Ravi, slowing his limbs and curling him beneath the computer desk, his cheek flattened against the concrete floor. That's where the tiger found him, staring, piss-stink paralyzed. And that's where it ate him.
There was no blood, no stripping of meat off bones as an adult would expect of such an experience. This was a child's consumption, unshaped by understanding or preconception. Like climbing into a sleeping bag, a formless, all-encompassing black.
***
At first, he was aware only of his breath, shaking like a rattlesnake tail. Then movement. In warm oblivion, he lurched first to one side and then to the other as the tiger walked across the room. He rolled backward across wet folds of rugae as the tiger crept up the stairs. And he opened his eyes, first one and then the other, to see the inside of the tiger glowing a soft black-red, exactly the way Ravi's cheeks glowed when he put a flashlight in his mouth to scare his brother.
"Tiger?"
"Hmm?"
"Tiger, can you hear me?"
"Be silent, little one. You are eaten."
Ravi stayed quiet for a few moments, listening to the soft rush of the tiger's feet padding on grass.
"Tiger, where are you taking me?"
Wind murmured in response. Ravi's skin prickled as if the tiger's fur, rustling like wheat, was rooted in his own body. Adjusted to the dark, his eyes traced the contours of the inside of the tiger's face—eyes less fierce from within; clenched scimitar-teeth less threatening.
A flashing glimpse of moon revealed the eyes to be clear as windows. Ravi rose to his knees and pressed his face against the tiger's like it was a mask. Fresh air curled in from its nose. The slick backs of teeth pressed against his jaw. Through its eyes, he saw the world streak by.
They were running hard under the night sky. The tiger's lungs swelled and deflated beneath his knees; he pulsed like driftwood against a beach. The heart throbbed its rhythm through every bone and every pore.
At Ravi's sides, the root-ends of whiskers tickled against him. He grabbed a cluster and gently tugged and the tiger yelped and veered to one side. He grasped the other cluster and the tiger lurched to the other side. Soon, he could guide it as easily as if it were his own body.
"This is not how this is supposed to work," growled the tiger.
Ravi laughed and steered it into the forest.
Their muscles stretched powerfully and drove them forward between the pillars of trees and into the tall grass. There, Ravi's brain lit up with the musky scent of quivering prey. Deer. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but the tiger sensed it and shushed him.
"No sound." It sank to the ground and crept one muscle at a time across the field, hardened for the pounce. The deer stood erect, eyes wide but turned the wrong way.
They leapt. Claws flexed before them and grasped. The deer's eyes rolled.
***
"This is very unusual." The tiger was stretched out beneath a hedge, rubbing its jaw against the branches. "And you, child, are surprisingly fierce."
Within him, Ravi yawned and laid back. "Being a tiger is sort of boring."
The tiger grunted. "Men bore too easily. That's why you never stop moving." He rolled upside down and stretched into a curve. "Idleness, then ferocity. That's a real life. You could learn something from tigers."
Ravi shrugged. He knew nothing about it. His life was still games and the protection of parents and of home. Through the tiger's slitted eyes, the lights of the town glowed before him like captured stars. The shadows of leaves lay heavy on him. He shivered.
"It's very empty out here in the woods," he said.
The tiger laughed and rolled right-side-up, shaking Ravi around with him. "Empty? This all used to be wild." He spit. "Men. The jungle is smaller every day."
"But it's so lonely."
The tiger didn't respond.
They lay quiet, then, and Ravi sang a lullaby, the way his mother used to. Loud, then quieter as he grew tired. The last few lines were mere whispers.
"You are crying," observed the tiger.
"I miss my family."
"I did not know mine." The tiger lay his head down. "There are so few of us."
Through the tiger's eyes, they watched some night-creature scuffling in the underbrush. It raised eyes, iridescent in starlight, then vanished with a sudden flick into a hole where it was greeted by soft chirps and squeaks.
"Perhaps," said the tiger, "perhaps you can stay? We can be a tiger together."
"I can't. I miss my home."
The tiger looked at the sprawling arms of the town and back at the shrinking jungle. He closed his eyes. "Yes. I understand."
***
Ravi's fingers pried at the teeth. "Come on, tiger."
The tiger shook his head and grumbled. "This won't work."
"It worked before."
"That was different," he snarled. "You are built to be eaten."
"Come on." Ravi tugged affectionately at the whisker-ends. "Can't we just try?"
Morning had come, and with it the shouts of friends and family. "Ravi! Ravi, where are you!"
The tiger crept deeper into the trees.
"I have to go back, silly tiger."
The tiger grumbled. "Do you promise it will work?"
"Promise," said Ravi with the certainty of a five-year-old.
"And you promise we will switch sometimes to run in the fields while they remain?"
"Promise."
"And you will be fierce, always?"
"Always!"
The tiger sighed. "It would embarrass me if you were not fierce."
"Tiger, I will be fierce. Now come on."
"Fine."
The tiger opened his jaws and stretched out his tongue. His sides contracted as Ravi climbed out into the dewy grass.
"There, that wasn't too hard." Ravi danced and stretched in the sunshine as the tiger cleaned himself. "Now. Hmm…the next part."
The voices were coming closer.
"Hurry," said the tiger. "They'll chase me and kill me if they find me with you."
"Okay, okay." Ravi cocked his head. "It's just…I've never eaten a tiger before."
"Start with a paw?"
Ravi took the tiger's front paw in his hands and worked it into his mouth. Even retracted, the claws traced grooves into his tongue. The fur was dry against his palate. Slowly, inch by inch, he pulled the paw in, and the leg, then the next, and finally the head. There was no pain, but he felt a kind of warm fullness he had never felt before. Once the shoulders were in, the rest was easy and he felt the tiger curl within him.
"Tiger? Are you okay?"
"Yes."
Ravi could sense the tiger's eyes behind his, and feel its twitching tail.
"You are warm, little one. But very small."
His response was interrupted by a figure crashing through the brush. Father.
"Ravi! It's Ravi!"
His father rushed forward and scooped him up and kissed him over and over and over.
Inside him, the tiger purred. Ravi smiled, savoring the new breath within him.
L.S. Johnson
http://traversingz.com
Vacui Magia(Short story)
by L.S. Johnson
Strange Horizons
I. The First Principle
The first principle of conjuring is that nothing can be made in a vacuum.
Accounts of golem-making refer most commonly to clay as the sole element, and while this will work, the result will be a lumpish thing, smelling of dirt and manure and wholly unsuitable for your purpose. The choice you must make is not whether or not to make the gole
m, but whether or not to make it correctly, using the only thing upon which you can build the scent and texture of a baby’s skin.
To make it correctly, you will need a baby’s bones.
If you are reading these words, however, you already know this. Nothing can be made in a vacuum, and certainly not the desperation that has led you to these words.
II. The Second Principle
The second principle of conjuring is to know and understand your purpose. Your purpose springs not from thwarted maternal desires, but from the day you finished converting your mother’s bedroom into a sickroom. A sickroom for her, and yourself as well, for you were sick with grief and fear and a sympathetic pain that made your body shudder in time with hers. In the mornings you touched your breasts and armpits and fancied swellings there; at night, as you crossed the moonlit fields to return to your cavernous cottage, you listened to the silence and tried to imagine the world without her.
On that first day, as you settled her into her new bed, she had seized your hand and whispered, I only wish I could have met your daughter. I know she’ll be beautiful.
And then she started crying.
Until that moment you had taken it as a given that she understood, without you saying anything. Understood that you have lost count of your white hairs, that your knees ache in the mornings and you have fine spots in your vision. That you had endured more pointless couplings than you cared to remember, under the influence of every concoction and potion and incantation you have been able to unearth.
You cannot conceive.
Still she cried, and the hand in yours was gnarled and callused and trembling, and when had you ever seen your mother tremble?
Thus it bears repeating: the second principle of conjuring is to know your purpose with clarity, and your purpose was to do anything that would ease her fear and her grief. You whispered this to your pillow three times nightly and to your reflection three times at daybreak; you recited the most salient element over and over until you reached gnosis. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything to bring her joy. Anything to spare her these brutal regrets. Otherwise you would have done better to simply tell her the miserable truth and broken her heart once and for all.