flash fiction--rainforestSciFi "The Outpost"

flash fiction--designSciFi "The Outpost"

Data-alive: Dali Code

He gets up and walks to the mainframe orbital monitor(M.O.M.). Through his actuator he can make out an image in the low wave spectrum, a pretty face of light complexion on which is placed a digital smile. He can't tell if this is an official message or just a friendly visit. He's placed at Central Control. He seems to be in a conversation with someone over Suzi. 

"Dr Cooper?" the screen cackles. "Dr Cooper!" 

"Hello," says Cooper, in front of the screen. Not 'copy." He has a history of being a rebellious scientist, too intelligent for the world intelligence knowledge institutions(W.I.K.I.), rebellious, not trusting inbound satellite spectrum data against his own instantiated devices(I.D.).

"Hello Cooper," the moniter says. "Do you remember Dr Jenna?"

Cooper turns his face closer to the screen. Great, a real human voice is about to enter the room.

"Yes, I rememember her," Cooper says. He goes closer to the screen, ready to greet her.

She is Dr. Jenna Best, Suzie's designer. She is so beautiful, so unchanged, that Cooper is concerned his emotions will get in the way of his conversation. When he first met her she was a bright-eyed student, or at least pretended to be, smooth and active, unaffected by the genetic utero therapy(G.U.T.) trials. She still hasn't changed, she'll never really change, but has taken on enough of an institutional persona, a money making look. She is a tough speaker and adept in the skills of the therapy babies, her voice focused, her look direct.

"Jenna," he says. "It's been a long time."

She takes control of the conversation from the beginning. Her instantiation is the new world order economics(W.O.E.). Her data is based on theories without any re-cognitional treatments(T.H.W.A.R.T.), descrete packagings designed to prioritize and preserve last century's ( now, archaic) idea of "job;" fancy ideas presented to bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed students in the consortium's regularly organized college knowledge(C.R.O.C.K.) form. It takes after the science ignored corporate knows(S.I.C.K.) trend (types of thinking that grew, thinking of itself as political rogue, articulate, a media or film mogul maybe, a planner, a designer, down to its sheer make-up of mere zeroes and ones). This data module, Cooper thinks, must have thought itself to be legendary even before its time, a behemoth as economic myths go, and here now with it comes Jenna, , who even now wears a cold look, a blue uniform, jet black hair, appearing as if she should be on the cover of eReader displaying that beauty instead of here on this science monitor.

"Hello, Cooper," she says. She grabs his attention in a warm kind of way. Of course, she is aware he's been studying the data. She does not seem quite aware of which data he's been studying, though. What does she know?

flash fiction--designSciFi "The Outpost"

     What it is she does recall in perfect order pictures(P.O.P.) is a window on a mobile craft flying over the ocean, sensing that fear of flying she was coded to feel, touching her shiny new mainframe of steel and bronze (she thinks), and cognizant of her upcoming life at the outpost.

flash fiction--coastSciFi "The Outpost"

     A small promise then goodbye. She gets away, starting to feel the sensation of weather; not yet angry at the WatchdogZ data; surely, crazy to think this new plan of those watchdogs (that which has never run a business, never experienced an exchange cycle--that continues to demand for new submissions, even after the great small allocated business offering tax and gouge extinctions(S.A.B.O.T.A.G.E.). 

     A continued try these watchdogs make against the small.

flash fiction--jungleSciFi "The Outpost"

Cooper goes for a few more hours on the coast. Last night he had a dream. He was on the water, darkness was approaching, needed to get home. He hears what sounds like twenty, or so, airborne figures; his scanner indicates only one. "Sixty miles and closing." He can think of no other thing than that they would send someone if there were trouble. He wonders about Carter, a little ticked off, and yet, he thinks, Carter can take care of himself.

     "I'm sure I don't need to know all about that right now."

     He sits still for a while. It's somehow better this way, It is better that DNA and protein and DNA and protein have ended their cycle, that water, fresh water, had joined in the process and that it would never again.

     Cooper says, "I should get to a higher altitude."

     He was sure this was help on its way, but he still couldn't relax. He kept peering at  his wrist. He hoped he had the wrong time. His watch felt like a time bomb ready to rip his hand off.  He checked his scanner again.  The object had closed to forty-one miles. He had a funny thought, and then it was gone. This was the kind of connection he couldn't lose, so why worry about it? Another odd thought came to his head.  

     "You can't just press a rewind button on this thing, or could you." He has waited, and now this, and for what?

Beautiful Prison

flash fiction--designSciFi "The Outpost"

FlyBys

Her scanner locks in on him in a bipolar way, as if on a series of flybys at a distance planet. Suzi comes looking. Her face has a fiery surface, and Cooper could assume nothing about her state and couldn't, or wouldn't, ask anything of her at this moment. "Here comes trouble." As if  Mother Nature's daughter herself were wandering the tunnels and catacombs below the cliffs and rocks, the exact point where ocean meets land, under the deep dirt. Small as biobots go, she makes up for her size in sheer fury; the message she posts to the main frame appears deceiving, "There's been some activity."

flash fiction--mysticSciFi "The Outpost"

flash fiction--spiritualSciFi "The Outpost"

The God Gene

The jungle tries to be a world of invention. Yes, that is what it must be--something that tries to maintain itself by creating new rules. It places survival in its inner sanctum. Now the banyan grove, ( no, her banyan grove) carries the sensation of the dominant and submissive to a clear articulation, more vibrant, as an  entity he calls the tigress paces with her own set of needs. 

The forest stares out at the distant horizon in search of its long lost clock. It's gone far past the death knell now. Why did this jungle bother, put in the effort, with endless chains of tightly wrapped and cross bound cellulose chains--how could it ever have thought humans were smart enough to use that form of tightly held energy in a clean way? She should be letting them help themselves to her secrets, not resisting; not denying the birthplace of the human mind one last shot at survival. The jungle should wake early, merge its mind with those who have emerged from here, presenting her hidden knowledge  (no, not to Suzi,) to those whose mind still has some life in it. She hears their cries from across the dead ocean, the Corporate Overlord Politician Society (C.O.P.S.) broadcasting, but not administering their rules, ignoring the mass media. This jungle should join them in their quest, shouldn't it? It should be on a podium in front of a microphone wearing her best blues and greens, announcing to the world her secrets to these few who they have been sent to come to figure out for them. Yet when she listens to her own silences in her own constant way ( after 4.5 billion years)--she lives exactly the way she wants to be, a rhyhm signal in a far place, a cool motion bathed in exotic energy as if a system created of its own choosing, that appears to be now directing its attention to some farther place---she smells the stink of human markings surrounding her, the omni death data(O.D.D.), and feels the time is now for a new campaign elsewhere in the universe. The humans are having enough trouble trusting each other in this Laboratory Outpost Station Transporter (L.O.S.T.) effort. Yes, perceived notions of status will remain completely oblivious to evolution's tragic inevitabilities. This cellulosic endo ordering(C.E.O.) has been building for eons and humans have answered their questions in their own way. "Catastrophic callings embraced by deeds and desires as pride mutilates freedom." They negotiated the transition from Meaningless Altered Neanderthal (M.A.N.) to duty, very badly, an entire species remaining distracted by hormones, for eons; should they be permitted their gaps in attentiveness, to remain sleeping on the globe, to chant and rant over mere perceptions and stimulations of the God Gene? 

The tigress will remain, with her swift and exotic ways, to continue to arouse no controversy. She is their only hope.

flash fiction-realmSciFi "The Outpost"

The Beach

On the beach, Suzi relaxes on the sugary sand, stretching out on a soft patch near the green water with its yellow waves. How amazing she is, photo voltaic sensors, fully awash in sunlight, saturated in quantum processors, the brainchild of so many international corporate and political consortiums.

"Hello, Dr Cooper," Suzi calls. Her eyes brightened when she saw him.

"How are you?" The ultimate in artificial intelligence he would think.  She always gave him that feeling, as if sudden fame were about to arrive.  

The warm eagerness disappears from Suzie's face as she focuses on Cooper's eyes.  Oh, she thinks, just before my photo charge, here's trouble. What, to be perfectly precise, does a sunbathing robot say to a disturbed scientist, or to any human?

"Let's make this simple," Cooper says. "You are what you were built to be, and nothing can change that."

Just as it should be, the scientist holds all the questions-the hypothesis. This much Suzi knows, her code tells her so. Suzi does no harm to the human race, but she does not help them either, not even under her HolyOnus trinity (H.O.T.) code.

"We should go back to the lab," Cooper says, "and get out of this sun."

"No," Suzi answers. "I'm on my naked inter-code embed (N.I.C.E.) mode, it wants me to be outside."

"You need to know this.  I retrieved some of your data. It came up on my screen. It's your self-injected genes."

"Cooper, I..."

The conversation was about to change into a beast's lair. Suzie's eyes grew cold. She opened her mouth to speak but then changed her mind. Her anger was still stuck on her face.  "Can you explain?"

"I'm not free to say," Cooper said, walking away.

"What exactly are you free to do?" Suzie shouted.

Cooper turned and gave her a short, slow look.

Suzie was the perfect animalist. Love of mankind wasn't her program, and no environment had ever put any constraints on her. Reinventing herself wasn't part of any plan.There was no battle between the sensual and spiritual in her world.  She needed nothing but a response. Her every motion was the product of a perfect calculating machine.

"You go up there in the blackest part of the night with some self-inflicted genes expressing yourself. Who's to blame if you get yourself killed?"  Suzie was showing some heat now, so she shut herself off.

Other than the pounding of the surf, there was silence.

flash fiction-fashionistaSciFi "The Outpost"

    Once he is away from the lab, crunching all the data possible, Cooper says to Carter,"These new findings are pure conjecture. The research is too low key. We've got to find the bug and get the newE.A.R.T.H.E.R. code up and running. We should have done it yesterday."

     "Well, now," Carter says, picking up on Cooper's mistrust of Suzi. "She'll be glad to see you won't she."

     Cooper ponders the new developments, which are distasteful but not overblown to his mind."I hate this," he says. "She was a beautiful design."

     Carter smiles unconsciously, secretly, as if he were finally getting his way. He is not concerned in a regimented way, as ComTrax would expect from their soldier of fortune in the jungle. Where do these signals emit from, these designer fashionista Xradio waves that arrive so brilliantly in the dead night?

Has one of the machines tapped into a Wide Angle Need Track (W.A.N.T.) code? 

flash fiction-jungleSciFi

The Gift

The tigress rises, smooth, without thought. She knows the pattern signal. Dispatch razor sharp claws flying, and feel the blood.  A telling yelp emerges up the steep cliffs.  The signal of 'they had hit their mark.' A dialogue that convinced with no apology.The pure passionate urge to kill.  An honest rendering of the laws of this jungle.  She had sensed movement in the corner of her eye.  The manifestation of a device designed by evolution, the edge detector. Her head turn was instant.  First nothing, then a ghost shadow.  Her figure moves once again with grace, the gift given her by nature. 

flash fiction-mysticSciFi "The Outpost"

Here in the calm, in the banyan grove the Tigress opens her eyes to the jungle valley below. Wide scenes of recognition, dark to blue hues, carry quiet clues of what forces wake her in the night.  Her unease is clear. There would be no sleeping now. She knows the jungle floor isn't as it should be. The night offers no moon through the canopy. She would notice any new shadows. They are not there.  

She stands , a slow warmth leaves her body but the feeling from the valley stays.  Someone or something was here from the outside.  Nothing reveals the intruder; the silence is treasonous. 

flash fiction-rainforestSciFi

Her instincts are burdened by intelligence, the kind not of her choosing; as if something inquisitive had crept inside, seeking unique answers. She simply noticed something different, not as it was before, but as a disease and a cure carrying a common secret; natural precursors to intelligence.  Forces of evolution condensed, command her to ignore nothing and carry no persona of friendship. Forces allowing no sign of rest, having traveled far, greedy, as if a monetary need. Her perceptions are her only currency.

flash fiction-realmSciFi

flash fiction..The Old Coast

Cooper focuses on the ocean and its horizon, and it seems they have traveled together, not as traveling companions but as acquaintances on a long trip, and have endured much, and now must go their separate ways as the more dominant coast comes into view. He senses the quiet there as well, and it seems they too are old friends, even with the shoreline's absent-minded old wind. Cooper smiles at the few breezes this coast offers. He looks at it as a sacred place now; a place to settle any thoughts that come to mind even if he recognizes none of them as his own. The stillness of the vast ocean laps gently against the rocks below the cliffside; he hears words descending in old hymns of layered monotone. He's not sure how long he's been out here.

flash fiction-rainforestSciFi

It is altogether possible Cooper has crossed over into a parallel world, a world that until now has eluded him. A world with promises of sensations that resemble contentment, promises to make him the man he thought he would rather not be. The distinct possibility of a morphing right here on the rocks of this sheer cliff in the presence of that distant view. He has captured another version of himself.

flashFiction

He is sipping his reflection in the water. "That smile," he thought. "That unexpected smile." He hears her voice, soft, smooth. He'll always hear it as poetry. He thinks for a moment, that she never hated, but she never loved either. He thinks of all those blues. All those tints of blue in her eyes but barely a human heart. He thinks he could escape when she pierced into his eyes. He escapes from nothing. That look of hers always comes out to play and it's here at this moment as a memory. She looks glamorous--beautiful--the way she always wants herself to be presented. Though her memory has come after him as if a phantom, he sees only her beauty. He sees her as any man would see her, not as something odd about her program. It's always summer with her, summer in robot seasons. Where raindrops never hit the ground.

mysticSciFi "The Outpost"

flash fiction-ecoSciFi "TheOutpost"

Call of Wild

Cooper flashes up at the ceiling, not thinking, not at this moment. Nothingness thinking is a state of mind he has grown accustomed, his residual thoughts blurry, his face expressionless, as if nothing ever happens--the face of a Buddhist monk., willing to accept all the world's offerings, or nothing. It is the state of mind he brings to his lab bench. As he opens his perceptions, his state is jerked away and replaced by heavier, thicker thoughts of a warrior who has fought and struggled, who has asked more of himself than anyone or anything can offer, and who is more than willing to take up a weapon at the sound of any noise.
"What the hell," he says. "Damn! Did you hear that?" Did you hear that Carter asks, as if strange sounds were not a part of this jungle. Cooper says,"My heart just gave birth. Do you have a weapon?" "Yes." "Is it loaded?" Carter switches the security lamp on."You found your cat." You found your cat he pronounces, as if cats are suppose to be in this jungle, running around, climbing trees, and whatever else phantom cats do. The sound was far away but unmistakenly primal.
He stands straight, awake, almost military in his stance, the sound echoing in the jungle blackness. The sound has no face staring back at him, yet something told him it was inhuman--
Cooper says, "That's no cat."

ecoSciFi "The Outpost"

       

Dr. Cooper looks into his computer screen with solid, composed expectation. He feels, for the moment, like a wild-eyed college student in the computer lounge. His reverie vanishes; it is improbable to feel curiously comfortable with Suzie--she's beautiful, soft and naive about her intelligence, a selection of new generation of computers scientists and physicists would say, She has what it takes to save the human race, she does. 
The science world already, secretly, has an odd feeling being closely involved with her brand of artificial intelligence.
Cooper looks out the window, thinks again of his college days. He does good science, by accident; he plays god with his genetics; he runs his gels, the genetic code, far from the misery, hunger, far from the everyday stresses of life. He does his work. Who cares if he is neither fast nor intelligent. "Hey," he says to Suzi. He is a little shocked at his urge to get Suzi to speak. "Yes," Suzi says. "Did you get the data? Did it come in on time?" Suzi sits perfectly still, for a moment, as if looking nowhere. She thinks to herself. She sits at her station the way one would sit in a pew during church service. She says, "I have to search the augmented reality maps (A.R.M.) for a few more days." "What happened?" "I'm not sure exactly. I have some kind of interference program." "Damn." "It's crept in, I think. My maternal codes." "What?" "My brain. I have to give myself a look." "How?" "I'm not sure---some fantasy impoverished childhood teacher interference off network (F.I.C.T.I.O.N.)code. ComTrax ordered it. I need you to stay silent on this." "OK. What did they want?" "It's only that I needed to scan it, and they need for me to tell them what I find, truthfully. It may be--what the problem has been all along. About getting the data" "Then," Cooper says. "Then they will help you get back on task." "They say they will make that decision. They say they want to hear my findings first." Cooper looks at Suzi, who does not speak again. "You're a robot. You didn't have a childhood," he says.

ecoSciFi "The Outpost"

flashFiction "The Outpost"

Cooper pulls close to the window, views the deep jungle. He thinks of his life, a scientist's dream, a window into the evolution of intelligence itself. His memories are, clearly, a powerful possession--for simple reasons, they stay with him, untouched by jungles. With each passing moment distant pictures of a wife, a family, capture a deeper hold on his thoughts. "You don't believe they sent us here to find only antibodies, do you?" "Yes, I am simply a Biobot so I must believe that." Cooper turns his eyes toward the jungle again, through the cool wet window. His memories seem to be shaking him now. Cooper may be at the beginning of a new approach here, as if there were now some real danger. A danger like no other, beyond beauty and intelligence itself, beyond the craft of logic he perceives in Suzi. The feeling that survival itself has the need for Cooper's expertise. Cooper turns back and says, "I trust you. You are an intelligent woman, artificial or no." Suzi's eyes showed nothing.

flashFiction "The Outpost"

"Don't hold this against me, Cooper." Suzi says. "What is it?" "Sorry, I seem to have forgot you're a scientist. The last time you asked for government data, I was thinking something else, about remembering the government programmers. And I do remember those programmers. I seem to have drifted." "The programmers haven't arrived yet." "Please believe me, I get it. But, you know, I feel as if I drifted forward, as well. I have a clear memory of programming events that haven't happened yet. I remember their coding as if it were yesterday." "Did they install the Founding Fathers program?" "How do you know of that? Of course they did." "And did your hard drive receive it?" "I remember taking the program. But it's possible I only planned to take it." Have you noticed any government programs intermixed with the Biodata?" "I haven't noticed any yet." "Then I guess I figured a way to store it with the Physics data. Government programs don't really mean anything, right?" "This government data matters a lot, Suzi" She says,"I'm not sure I can handle it, Cooper." "Handle what?" "Being fast and articulate around humans. My memory places me in the center of government programmers. My biodata wavers with uncertainty, a little biorobot accepting powerful government instructions." "Suzi, you don't need to be fast and important if you don't want to. "Yes I do. I won this assignment. You must know I'm here because of my speed, for being fast, not intelligent. "Stop. You know this assignment has the markings of your knowledge. Your knowledge of the beginning and ending of the evolutionary trail." Suzi stared at Cooper.

ecoSciFiction "The Outpost"

ecoSciFi "TheOutpost"

Cooper gives Suzi a salt water injection. "You look good today," he says. Suzi's silicon face has always been captured by her beauty: the rounded high cheekbones and bright wide eyes; the shiney hair, soft textures of her skin. She was designed to work with young scientists, never to be aged by the passage of time. "Thank you," Suzi says. "It seems like you are a little disinterested." "You know, just because I am a robot, I don't always do what I've been told." "Really." "Even Pavlov couldn't brainwash every one of his dogs. Some he had to castrate to get them to do what he wanted." "Excuse me?" "Never mind." Cooper is shocked at Suzie's apparent sudden relaxation of censorship. But he wasn't ready for her next suggestion. "Would you take me to church in the village this Sunday?" "Why?" "Because I want to know why humans go to church." "I can tell you why. They stop wanting to listen to each other, only to God." Suzie said nothing.

Hutch Hut

Carter picks up his gun from the lab bench, spins it Old West style. He says, "Do you know this lab building is right over the top of an ancient burial ground?" "Right, I recall." Cooper prefers keeping these thoughts to himself. The deep secrets that remain hidden in burial grounds etch Cooper's face and remind Carter of an old gunfighter, and he gets the feeling of a gunslinger readying, steady in stare and grip,for a real life gunfight. He says, "There is something out there, I think. And it walks at night. "Out there, Carter? And walks? "We haven't been in the forest on the mountain behind the lab station at night, ever. I'd rather keep the noise pollution down, it would kill the data." "Tracks on the coast mean there is something up there, I don't have to go on the mountain to know that." Cooper's look became serious. "You're a plant,aren't you." "No, I'm human." "Don't get cute with me. You've been placed here to test my will, haven't you?" Carter was doing some quick thinking for being half a computer. "I want you to tell me the truth. The government is running their own little experiment here, aren't they... American and Chinese governments are run by the same people, aren't they?" Cooper was looking for a clue in Carter's eyes. He found nothing there.

Tropical Prison

flash fiction-ecoSciFi "The Outpost"

A Lonely Nest


The loneliness is always present, sometimes cryptic, and Cooper's sense of home, however distant, always feels temporary. At times the lonely feeling arrives for a short visit, with soft noises shifting through the jungle darkness, then retreats for the secrets to remain guarded. Sometimes a cold smoldering of mist rises above the canopy in the moonlight causing an ebb inside Cooper. In a blink, the amount of time eternity took to build this forest, the loneliness pans out across the valley as if the forest isn't there, or had never been. Even in its flickers and shadows, the jungle holds no pretense of fantasy. As complete blackness of the night holds desperate struggles, the loneliness plays along, but Cooper doesn't wish it away the way the memory of a loss would be wished away. Competition in sport is as full of loneliness as the strugglers in this jungle, where winners rest. There is no silence here in this canopied place, no silence within his heart either. There are only gradients of loneliness and noise. The constant hum of the jungle can be interrupted by only intense sound, even amidst the unrecognizable, the loneliness stalls and something different comes to life, no smells, just pure essence that appears from behind the banyans, or just under the green canopy. Anything living here knows the meaning of these timeless apparitions of loneliness, yet no data has emerged from the chilled darkness, the inner sanctum of this rain forest. This timeless place keeps its secrets.
.

flash fiction-mysticSciFi "The Outpost"

Fur Clad, Club Wielding 


The creature, he thinks, should have been dead a long time ago for reasons that seem, not so obviously, of her own choosing. Her banyan cove will go the way of all the other coves. A kind of trick played by nature that for all her glory, all her prowess her defeat lies within the very soil she walks. For her, the chemicals are more destructive than any predator's fight. Cooper looks out the window. He senses a strong control in himself as to who or what is the creature. Whether she held good or evil intelligence, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter anyway. His mind doesn't work in two's like that. "What time is it?" Cooper asked. "It's the dawn of time." Carter focuses on his weapon, as if its shine carries a special message, revealed only to him. "Is that gun loaded?" "What do you think." This type of communication wasn't on Cooper's agenda at two o'clock in the morning, especially this morning. "I know what it is." Cooper says, even though he has to try to look unconcerned. He tells himself: this beast is not a killer. Don't think of the ocean; don't think of the sulfur in the air. "What do you think it is?" Carter became serious. "I can tell you what it wasn't." "OK…" Carter waited. "Fur clad and club wielding." "Very funny. You are feeling safe because we're four stories up and these walls are three feet thick." Yes, this lab fortress must stand up to this force, and protect.

Cloud Creature

flashFiction-A bioBot Beauty

Suzi's Game

She will not ask the source of the noise; she in reality is not programmed to care of such frivolous things. Suzi, alone in her class of bioRobots, holds no innate interest in the natural world. Suzi simply doesn't see life forms as dimensional entities. It is, Cooper thinks, simply a matter of no ego in her program. Suzi can't imagine an existence more exciting than a flat screen and scanners, image animations, and all the offerings to humans that make they themselves feel more intelligent around her. Yes, their time with her will sooner or later, make them more intelligent. Suzi's game is not to paint others as smaller, her quickness, and lack of ego excludes her from doing that.
Cooper asks,"Did you hear it?" "Did I? Yes, there are some things I just can't help. My scanners were on." "What do you make of it?" "Well, it's a life form." "A tropical plant?" Carter looked serious. Suzie looked serious right back. She says, "Yes." Then she says, "No."

mysticSciFi

ecoSciFi "TheOutpost" --acapturedversion

A Captured Version


Near the coast the world is quiet. A few breezes and a wind.
Cooper doesn't recognize any of his own thoughts as he looks out over the ocean. He smiles as words descend as if a hymn in layered monotone upon his memories. He's not sure how long he's been out here, but it has been awhile. He looks at Suzie with some distance now. It seems abruptly easy to have worked by her side. He loves his work, as scientists do--he doesn't leave questions unattended for long. It is altogether possible he has crossed over into a parallel world, a world that until now has eluded him with its sensations of contentment, the man he thought he would rather be. The possibility of a morphing of personality right here on the rocks of this sheer cliff in the presence of this view of nature's beauty. He has captured another version of himself, the version who thinks and wonders.
Yes, he thinks and wonders, about Suzi.