Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 3, June 2014 Read online

  Jenna Bilbrey

  Incidental radiation enters my optical fibers and strikes my CCD array. Each pixel is recorded in square microns, the highest resolution capable in a mobile unit. The continuum of wavelengths is centered at 632 nm, hexadecimal number #F4BBCF, RGB color model (240, 183, 205), common designation blush, the color of embarrassment, of romantic interest, of sexual reproduction. But these are merely academic associations. Color loses its emotional connection once biology is discarded. To us blush represents the color of planetary rotation, the sun receding and reentering the hemisphere at regular intervals.

  Mounted on the dirt knoll overlooking the central workstation, I observe the planet rotate towards the sun and cogitate the antiquated notion of nostalgia. A dormant processor, not used since the testing phase of my inception, spontaneously activates, but I cannot determine the cause. No command was prompted. I detect no imperfections, no defects, no additional upgrades. I have all possible advancements, yet something is missing.

  Extant birds have returned from their migratory phase and are gathered outside of the workstation boundaries to prepare their mating displays and practice their courtship calls, more antiquated notions of the biological world. As my auditory sensors mute the birds’ endless chatter, I wonder at the anxiety they must feel by entrusting their species’ continuation to the arbitrary exercise of sexual reproduction. Genetic improvement isn't guaranteed in this genre of evolution, and they lack in-generation upgrades. I realize, as I observe the last vestibules of natural life flailing about in an attempt to procreate, how fortunate I am to be cybernetic.

  One of three hundred mobile units, I am tasked to probe potential expansion sites and compute their permanence potential. After drones scout the aerial landscape, I delve below the topology with a wire-thin probe to determine geological instabilities, mineral composition, clay density, and unextracted oil deposits — though the last is a rare occurrence, indeed.

  The current mound has a solid foundation, a cool granite base, with a layer of powdery clay 2.624 meters in depth, perfect for a centralized nuclear core. Permanence potential at eighty-seven percent. The birds will have to find an alternative nesting site.

  I transmit my findings to the central workstation and await my next task. Sometimes the orders don't come for weeks, so I inhibit my mobility unit to save my power cells for times of necessity. My internal auditory units activate Piano Sonata No. 5 and my visual input hibernates. Internal visuals overtake the fading #F4BBCF sky. Schematics of the central workstation, the electron flow, the magnetic field alignment, appear. I monitor my colleagues, double checking their computations for amusement. I find no errors. I do this for three rotational cycles.

  On the fourth, my auxiliary visuals power on autonomously. Something has triggered the nodes. My image point is blurred. My optics can't focus. I emit a high frequency pulse to map my surroundings. The pulse bounces back from all directions. My auditory monitors resume function. Squawks of different pitches combined with low resonant fluttering inundate my sensors. My sensory nodes finally connect and I recognize myself as the epicenter of a bird frenzy. They must have taken roost on my unit. The pulse has frightened them from their slumber as their coming and goings had unwittingly frightened me from mine.

  They quickly calm, settling once more in the homes they’ve made on my protrusions. In this instance none block my visual optics. Their squawking quiets to light chirps. The oscillating auditory frequencies form wave patterns in my internal visuals. Mapping the waves in three dimensions frames a terrain unlike any of recorded terrestrial ancestry. I imagine scaling the crest and inserting my probe. What would I find under that audio layer? Is there a deeper structure than my inputs perceive? The birds seem to think so, for they never quiet.

  It's been thirteen days since contact with the central workstation. Not an unusual delay, nothing to ping in about, but enough to long for a secondary task. The birds have stayed with me all this time, roosting and nesting on what they must instinctually assume to be branches. Where they found the material for the construction of their delicate straw nests I do not know.

  I activate my touch sensory node even though the activation increases my total CPU usage by forty-seven percent. I take in readings of landing force and gripping strength. I measure the weight of their nests. I tare that weight and record the weight of the birds as they settle in their homes. In one extraordinary instance I determine the weight of a cluster of eggs. The data I keep for myself. The central workstation has no use for extraneous information on biological species. Then again, neither do I. I presume I activated my touch sensor out of curiosity — relic code implemented by the original programmers to allow for self-expansion — or was it loneliness?

  For three months I continue to monitor the birds. Every twelve hours I establish a limited connection with the central workstation. All is constant back home. All is changing here. The external audio has lessened now that their mating rituals have come to fruition. The eggs have hatched and the mature females spend their direct solar hours flying to and from their roosts and emptying nutrients into the mouths of their infantile prodigies. Each secretion weighs less than a gram.

  The infants shed their down in an effort to develop mature plumage. Some leap from nests and scrabble about in the dirt. At these occurrences I chart the lost weight and assign the loss a designation. I store redundant files of this information in my tertiary partition.

  The audio resumes as the progeny learn to take wing. Their cheeps are an order of magnitude less intense than that of the mature specimens. A fourth dimension is added to the auditory structure.

  After five and three-quarter months the central workstation pings in. I am to await the arrival of the leveling device for development of this knoll. Meanwhile, the progeny have matured and built nests of their own in the surrounding area. Each progeny has a unique auditory signal that I correlate to the designation assigned at the time of their exodus. I reflect on that time in both joy and sorrow. It was the moment they left the collective and became individuals. They must separate to progress, a concept entirely unknown in cybernetic culture. But soon the cycle will restart and another generation will be birthed. I intend to monitor their progress and provide the structure on which to build their nests.

  The central workstation reports the leveling unit is one rotation away. Schematics are uploaded to my processors. The knoll will be leveled and nuclear rods will be inserted two meters down at a spacing of five meters. Then I will depart. The birds will lose their structure.

  I relay to the central workstation that the ground has become unstable. That no nuclear rods can be installed without potential damage. That I am left immobile.

  The central workstation cancels its orders and disconnects me from the network. I recover sixty-two percent of my hard drive from the erasure, which I partition into generational units, twenty-three in total. By the time my processor reaches maximum capacity, my power cells will have run dry and I truly will be immobile.

  I have nearly six solar cycles to observe these creatures, to provide for them, to love them.

  ###

  Jenna Bilbrey is a Ph.D. chemist with literary interest in machine cognition. Her work, both fiction and nonfiction, has appeared in such outlets as Inside Science, Materials 360 Online, and 365 Tomorrows. She is also a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

  The Broken Places

  Melanie Marttila

  “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway

  The man stopped speaking mid-sentence. I hadn’t asked his name yet, my stylus poised to start my report. The look on his face made me forget his words, their meaning. It’s happening, now. I’d never witnessed the initial transformation before, only its result.

  He closed his eyes and his skin turned blue, cyanotic, a sign of suffocation, hypoxia, or hypothermia. I knew the man experienced none of those conditions, though. When h
is eyes opened again a second later, they were black. No, not black. They disappeared. In place of his eyes were two absences. Of light, of color, of everything, as though two infinitesimal singularities had taken root in his skull.

  They went on forever. I felt them sucking at my soul. My mind rebelled at the thought.

  He reached out and an impossible image flashed through my mind. A scalpel cut into the thin, buttery skin of a newborn puppy’s belly. My hands held the blade. I could feel its soft, squirming warmth, smell its milky breath, hear its squalling, and then the blood, the heat and stink. I recoiled.

  We had no living animals but Homo sapiens on the Noblesse Oblige. They weren’t allowed on a space ark except as frozen, fertilized ova. How could I know the smell and sound and feel of a puppy? The vids weren’t that good. These were memories people two generations ago couldn’t have.

  The cutting moment, in all its sensory gore returned and I not only stepped back, but convulsed with disgust, helplessly.

  “Give us a kiss, luv.” The man’s voice turned sibilant and seemed to speak over itself, the words echoing in cascade. “Slip the blade in, quick!”

  I almost turned and ran as his words repainted the picture in my mind. Where would I go, though, that wasn’t full of affected patients just like him?

  The sound of his voice pierced my brain and I felt synovial fluid drip down through my ears and ooze, warm, onto my skin. My hands trembled as I tapped my uplink.

  The man collapsed.

  “Dr. Kaarju?”

  It took a moment before the pressure eased and I regained my equilibrium. I’d have to swab my ears, seal the samples for analysis.

  “Doctor? Meika?”

  “Medical transport to the factory. We’ve got another one.” I hoped my voice didn’t sound as haunted as I felt.

  That made seven today. Already considered an epidemic, the unidentified disease now threatened the entire population of the Noblesse Oblige.

  I feared science would have to concede. The disease — whatever it was — defied diagnosis. In the months since the first case arrived at my health sciences center, I’d analyzed and cultured every bodily fluid searching for the source of the infection.

  No bacteria, parasite, prion, or virus could be detected. No genetic abnormalities had been found in any of the victims. MRIs, biopsies, nothing indicated any problem at all. Conscious or not, alive or dead, the condition was indiscriminate. The victim’s skin turned blue, their eyes into vacant holes, and they’d start speaking in strange little sound bytes like they’d channeled some ancient Dadaist savant. Their voices caused mild brain damage, though nothing appeared to have changed in their larynxes.

  After the verbal salad, the affected fell unconscious, their skin and eyes returning to normal, and they remained that way until the next outburst, hours, or days, later. My HSC was full of them.

  The first time the transformation occurred in the morgue, the medical examiner had a heart attack. Dr. Davidson was still on bed rest, which meant I had to pull double-duty. None of the latest batch of interns was qualified or prepared to take on the responsibility. Besides, they were being affected at an alarming rate themselves. We might not have any staff left if this kept up.

  I’d never hallucinated as a result of an episode before, or heard reports of anyone else seeing things, let alone experiencing a memory that couldn’t possibly belong to them. Was this a new symptom, a transmission vector, or had I just broken down under the stress?

  I tapped my uplink again as the medical transport departed.

  “Yeah. Sal? We’ve had another one at the factory. No, it doesn’t seem to be contagious. Appears to be totally random. I’ve been around them from the beginning and I haven’t had any symptoms yet. Any new insights?”

  I’d called Salif Marad, a spiritualist, in on the problem some weeks ago. Having exhausted, but not entirely given up on, my research, I’d entertain just about anything while I waited for science to yield proper answers.

  “Can you come by the HSC? I’m headed back there now. I think you’re going to have to explain this new theory of yours. Thanks. I’ll be in my office. See you then.”

  Sal had suggested possession before, but had to agree that the signs didn’t match any reported or suspected incidents of possession he knew of. He’d also suggested the possibility of a first contact scenario, but surely we’d see some sign of the life forms trying to communicate with us through our people, be able to pinpoint the source of the signal, or at the least be near a planet. Sal’s new theory involved alien possession, which was too far removed from reality for me to be comfortable with, but I’d have to give him a chance to explain. I was desperate.

  On my way back to the HSC on the monorail, people were scarce, spooked. No one wanted to take the risk. For the first time in ages, I became aware of the rumbling of the ark’s engines. I’d heard and felt them all my life, being the third generation of many that would be born, live, and die on the Noblesse Oblige. We were en route to Lyra and the habitable planet waiting there for us. One of the Keplers, but I couldn’t remember which. Our new home, our promised land, was little more than a myth to me. I’d never see it.

  “Meika.” Dr. Lars Lundquist, neurosurgeon, hurried down the hall to intercept me before I reached the office. “You’ll want to see this.”

  He held out the data-dot for me and after passing my hands through the sanitizer, he pressed it onto my finger and I touched it to my lens.

  “What am I looking at, Lars? I’m micro, not neuro.”

  “Brainwaves. Mrs. Munro was affected this afternoon.”

  “The woman in the coma?”

  “The same.”

  Lars had been monitoring Mrs. Munro’s brain for more than a year since a subdural hematoma landed her in the coma. When she’d turned blue this afternoon, Mrs. Munro’s Alpha, Beta, and Delta waves went wild. Once the episode ended, her brain activity returned to normal levels, at least for someone in a coma.

  “What does this mean?”

  Lars’s laugh verged on hysteria. “I have no idea. Yet.”

  “Tell me when you do.” I returned the data dot to his custody and entered my office.

  Sal sat waiting for me.

  “Walk with me. I have to check on my cultures.” I sanitized again and sat down at the incubator unit. First, I prepared the samples of my synovial fluid and inserted them into the machine, one for direct analysis and the other for culture. Then I selected samples, prepared slides, and examined them in the electron microscope, controlling the tools with hand gestures in the sensor bay below the screen. “Tell me about your alien possession theory.”

  “They’re ghosts,” he said.

  “Alien ghosts?” I didn’t look up from my work.

  “I — well. If this is an attempt by some other life form to make contact with us, they’d either have to possess incredibly powerful telepathic abilities, or...”

  “Or they’d be incorporeal. Yes, you’ve told me this before.”

  “The thought of incorporeal life forms existing in space itself is not impossible.”

  “You can’t prove a negative. We haven’t found evidence of such a life form. Go on.”

  “We have been able to prove the existence of energies that affect the mind, though, that some people interpret as ghosts, or psychic phenomena.” As he spoke, I could hear him tapping on screens, running his hands under the sanitizer, moving anything that he could. Fidgeting. Nervous.

  “Agreed, though that’s more in Dr. Lundquist’s territory. Stop fussing with the equipment. You break anything, Sal, and I’ll make you fix it.” I heard him shift further from the lab units. So far, I wasn’t seeing anything pathogenic in the slides. It wasn’t unexpected, just disappointing. The direct analysis of my sample proved equally unhelpful.

  “Sorry. So energy can’t be created or destroyed, right. It just changes form. What if ghosts are random bits of energy that used to be living things?”<
br />
  “If they’re just echoes of what was, it would explain all the “woo-woo” nonsense people report.”

  Sal didn’t reply.

  “You know, how you guys can never get ghosts to answer a question straight? Why are you hanging around? What’s the big family secret? I know what I’d be doing if there was life after death and it wouldn’t be moaning at my family and moving objects without purpose.”

  Silence. A frisson ran up my spine and lifted the hair from my neck.

  “In the locked box under the bed,” said Sal’s suddenly slithery voice.

  Jesus Christ, I blinked and looked away from the scope, trying to move slowly so I wouldn’t send slides and samples smashing to smithereens inside the incubator. Why couldn’t the damned disease wait until Sal explained his theory?

  “Get your shoes and megaphones ready ladies.”

  He reached for me, like the man at the factory. Just as I’d extricated my hands from the sensor bay, the vision hit.

  No vivisection this time. Now, I ceased to exist, felt like I was in some kind of vacuum. Silence. No breath. No sight. No smell. No feeling of any kind, just me and my thoughts. After only a few seconds, I panicked. As seconds became minutes, hours, panic exploded into—

  #

  Throat dry. Sore. Something in there... Intubated. What the hell did Sal — my experience of sensory deprivation rushed back in a shattering landslide. I screamed, but all that worked its way around the breathing apparatus in my throat was a series of squeaky choking noises that couldn’t be heard over the screeching alarms. Why wasn’t somebody removing the tube? Sedating me? Anything?

  Lids flickered open and shut, but my eyes focused on nothing. All I saw was light. Muddled sounds rang in my ears. My hands felt like they weighed a hundred kilos each. Relax. I had to stop fighting the medical equipment that had kept me alive long enough to regain consciousness. Rest. Relax. Sleep. I hoped that next time I opened my eyes, I’d have enough strength to do something more than gurgle.