Saturday, July 24, 2010

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.

No comments: