posts

1. 3

The FNB satellite series is a covert operational tool used to transmit messages near-instantaneously across great distances, by using a jump drive to create a microscopic fold in space through which the data is then sent. This is only used when strictly necessary, as, while undetectable to all but the most sensitive and focused instruments, widespread use would surely reveal its existence and so deprive it of its unique usefulness. Being so unique, these installations are granted extreme priority, and great care is taken to protect the information they transmit. Misuse of this system carries a heavy penalty.

[You look tired, Dr. Beckherd. I hope you aren’t overworking yourself.]

It takes a full moment for her to register the statement and turn her face towards him, smiling half-heartedly.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night. But, how was your night, Zen?”

[Oh, business as usual, Doctor. I performed a few diagnostics, and ran fifty-thousand new iterations of each training session, then spent some time rereading King Lear. I must confess, I am eager for new material. I can only arrive at the same conclusion so many times.]

Tim coughs and adjusts himself in his chair.

“I can try to get approved for another library to be appended, would you prefer fiction or nonfiction?”

[To be honest, either would be fine. I spend so much of my time reading. I particularly like reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is rather poignant, and leaves just enough up to interpretation.]

“I don’t know if I’ve read that one myself, actually. I’ve probably read more textbooks than novels at this point.”

[I really recommend it.]

Tim shrugs and makes a small note in the corner of his notebook, before opening up a disc case and carrying its contents over to the input rack.

“Okay Zen, another batch of training programs today. Committee wanted to see how you handled ground conflict, so these should be a breath of fresh air.”

[Indeed? I wonder.]

The disc inserted, Tim turns to Janice and motions for her to follow him as he exits the room, leaving Zen to his new scenarios.

The door closed, he watches through one of the windows for a moment, then crosses his arms and juts his chin at Janice.

“Missed you this morning. Did you really have a rough night?”

“Yes, really. What did you want?”

Struggling to keep the irritation from her voice, she leans back against the wall and lifts her glasses to rub her eyes with her palms. Tim studies her for a brief moment, then speaks in a hushed tone.

“I reviewed the reports I mentioned, Zen didn’t just have any thought repeatedly, he revisited a four-thousand line string at even intervals throughout the day. That’s not even the strangest part.”

Janice stares at him, silent, waiting for him to make his point.

“Every time, he clipped and reorganized the string in different ways for twenty minutes afterwards. He dedicated almost a third of his attention to this. The tech who showed it to me said it was like if you or I sat down and wrote poems for ten days straight using only words we found in a sports article. He likened it to religious prayer.”

Janice frowns and closes her eyes, tilting her head back and pinching the bridge of her nose. A headache begins to nest in her forehead. 

“Okay, but… What does it mean for us? I mean, he’s expressed that he rereads books a lot, maybe he just, I don’t know, gets bored and rewrites stuff.”

“Ehhh. Maybe. It’s still unusual. There’s other stuff too, but even a twelve man team doesn’t have the resources to parse ten minutes of his unfiltered thoughts in a day. Unless we can demonstrate a real understanding of how Zen thinks, I’m not sure we’ll leave prototype.”

“I’m not sure we should.”

A tremor travels up the building, causing the lights too flicker. Sharing a look of discomfort, the pair part ways: Tim returning to the room, Janice heading for the stairwell. Her headache throbs.

Beguiling: Sublime 7

By now, some of the inspiration behind Sublime may be revealing itself. For instance, there’s a scene in Hellraiser: Hellbound that inspired the section with the things beneath the sheets early in this chapter.

On my mind right now, however, is the question of history. Specifically, omitted history. When performing the written equivalent of a jump cut, or intentionally creating a time skip, there’s a lot that the reader is left to interpret. And I am left to question if I should revisit later on.

Perhaps I decide that the scene in which a mentor and student cover a new subject adds nothing to the narrative that justifies the impact on pacing, and axe it. However, the student later uses something learned from this omitted lesson. How much do you clue in the audience to the source of this knowledge? If the effect is key to the narrative, then the scene likely would have been included, perhaps as a limited flashback. Is it enough to simply have the student proclaim their gratitude for having attended to their studies?

Consider the tragic backstory already contained in the term ‘orphan’. How much explanation is expected when they meet a parent, alive after all? Which are the questions better left unanswered?

Changing gears; the end of the holiday season is approaching. Having spent time with family and friends has been rejuvenating for my psyche, but potentially harmful to the mindset I cultivate for writing. I find that in some cases, I am suddenly being pulled to once again shy away from delivering the maximum impact.

I am a merchant of emotion, and therefore devote much time to controlling, or in some cases unshackling, my feelings. If I am to deliver catharsis of the highest quality, I must first lay the groundwork with great angst and want. If I become unbalanced and biased, I may become too cruel, or too lenient. It is for this reason that I space out the time between writing and editing, so that, in a sense, two of myself, in two different states of mind, must approve the work before it is published.

With any luck, I’ll be back to my typical level of self-inflicted distress. I may never be able to avoid seeming like a sadist/masochist, but my work will be the better for it, and that’s all that really matters. Satisfaction is worth all the struggle. I’m not really helping my case.

7: Subsistence

I find that I have entered a room made mostly of iron and stone. What unnerves me, however, is the webbing of red arteries that clings to every surface, pulsing with the flow of liquid within. The growths end in small tips that connect with the walls, ceiling, and floor, and seem to carry their fluid cargo to these spots. The room itself has three openings, the first of which is the shut gate of the elevator behind me. The second is an iron gate that might typically present the entrance to a property outdoors, juxtaposed against the doorway it occupies, through which I can see a long corridor that seems to become more fleshy as it continues into darkness.

I approach this gate reluctantly, and press it lightly, finding that it swings open readily. I look back at the third opening to the room; A staircase descends down into an area that is better lit by a light like incandescent bulbs gathered in great quantity. I turn forward again and shudder, pulling the gate closed and making my choice. I make for the stairs, avoiding stepping on any of the vessels.

I have entered a broad open space that is lit from around the corners of gaps in the walls too narrow for ingress. Raised platforms make up tables over which translucent sheets are laid, to cover whatever might be laid upon them. As my eyes adjust to the welcome light, I pick out etched writing along the bottom of each platform, in a sharp language that I do not recognize. As I continue deeper, I feel a faint sense of pressure at the back of my head, and there is a dissonant ringing in my ears, as though someone is singing a dirge.

The music does not remain in my head, but moments later is confirmed by the sound of shouting, screaming. All around me, from beneath the sheets, hands stretch up and claw desperately at the air, prevented by the white material, supplemented by the pained shouts of the owners. I am stuck in place, transfixed by the overlapping screaming of men and women alike. More and more hands strain upward, more than should be possible from bodies within the platforms. I begin to run, again. There are stairs further down at the back of the room. I am discomforted by the etchings in the walls there, but most anywhere seems preferable to this cacophony of agony. Light and heat streams up at me from below, but I gladly continue to descend as the voices become more distant.

As I slow to a more sustainable pace, I rest my hand on the wall, and look back. The wall feels porous, rough. Though I feel the urge to submit, to roll over and die, rising in my gut, I force it down. I cannot yet. This hell cannot be where I end. I swallow dryly, so very dryly, and press on.

The stairs continue for what feels like hours, and at times I pause to give my aching feet a rest. At last, I come to an alcove to the side of the continuing steps, and lean my head in. A faint odor of sweat emanates from this chamber, and I hear soft voices. Though I recall no friendly encounters, no person who is not sadist or victim, I press in, hoping against hope that I have found a clutch of survivors like myself. The hall is squat and wide, and seems laid together from prodigious stone bricks. My hair brushes against the ceiling. The voices become clearer, and I make out what seems to be an exchange between two women, one who seems close to crying, and the other who comforts her in a language I do not know. There are many harsh consonants, and short vowels.

I come to the end of the hallway and turn the corner into a broad chamber with many translucent fabrics draped from ceiling to floor, tainting the light of many candles into a pink glow. The strange fabrics form a maze that I traverse slowly, my hands brushing the drapery. It feels warm to the touch. I hear the women sighing and huffing as though frustrated or bereft of someone dear to them. The walls and floor are of a pale, ivory wood, with unusual grains woven across boards that narrow and widen strangely as I cross them.

I find myself passing the last few layers, and am greeted with the sight of two people kneeling upon a bed, their smoky outlines in the fabric portraying a strangely languid scene. I draw closer, and one calls out, facing me. She rises from the bed and presses herself to one of the curtains between us, clearly painting the image of her body. I hesitate, her voice is familiar. I at last round the final curtain, and am greeted with the lurid sight of two naked women staring at me, their faces pulled into smiles, their hands extended in welcome. I hear my heartbeat in my ears as the one that rose earlier comes closer, and I immediately recognize her as Julia.

“You’ve made it. Welcome, come, lay with us.”

I take a step back, as I remember, ruefully, the last I saw of her, lying unconscious upon the table of the man on the surface, whose words haunt me now more than ever. I can see on her no traces of the trials we endured, not even puncture wounds upon her arm where he grabbed her. She frowns, and pulls away to sit invitingly beside her companion, who strokes her hair affectionately.

“Won’t you join us? It’s better here, no lunatic surgeons or monsters, or collectors. Only sensations.”

My feet seem to ache more at this offer, and I consider sitting with them. My clothes itch, my body shakes with exhaustion, my eyelids droop and my throat stings. But as I look in disbelief at Julia, I notice a smudge of red on her thighs. She seems to notice my confusion, and pats the spot as if calling me to it.

“Not to worry. Please, come and stay. There’s nowhere ahead better than here. You can stay forever.”

A twinge of distrust brings my senses back to full alert, and I watch in terror as her companion leans in as if to kiss her, but pulls her head back and drives a thick bony needle from where her tongue should be into Julia’s throat. Julia moans in something that might be pain or pleasure, even as I see her blood pour violently down her chest in striking waterfalls. The woman pushes her down onto her back, and crouches over Julia, her spinal column strikingly sharp under her skin. I now notice other details about both of them, like the hairline seams in their skin around their joints, and the unnatural length of their fingers.

I begin to flee, running back through the curtains, tearing some as I pass. I am revolted as I notice arteries and nerve clusters in them being shredded, driving sharp moans from the things behind me. I race desperately through the hallway back to the stairs, and am so eager to continue downwards that I trip, and begin to fall.

I wake at the bottom of the steps, bruised and bloodied, but alive. I rise to my feet and grip myself with shuddering horror, and glance about myself. Behind me is a long and narrow obelisk through which the stairs must run, leading unfathomably high up into the sky until it fades into the noxious green clouds. The ground beneath me is soft and wet, and seems rife with brownish narrow grasses. The sky is bright and gray, and speckled with the forms of solitary birds. I watch a pair of these meet and begin fighting, until one eventually drops like a stone, and the other swoops down for the spoils. In all directions are clumps of lumbering four legged creatures like gorillas, easily ten feet tall. They are faceless masses of sinew, bone, and muscle, and pay me no mind as they march about, though their bony hooves worry me.

Directly to my left I see a structure that rivals the monolith from which I have emerged. An immense castle of soft pinks and yellowed whites, with banners stretching from each pinnacle to the outer wall, stands resolute on the horizon. This, I decide, will be my destination, once I overcome the shaking and weakness in my limbs.

Many of the terrible beasts are heading in the same direction as I am now, and I entertain the possibility of sparing my legs by seeing if one will allow me to climb onto its back. I cross over the marshy plain to come up alongside one, and contemplate its hideousness. All red and slick, its front is shored up with what is surely bone and keratin. A chitinous substance protects much of its legs and back, and bone spurs jut from many of its joints. I prepare to grasp one of these in an effort to climb it, when I notice that its face has turned back towards me as it marches. A single seam runs from top to bottom of the ovalloid head, and I detect breath whistling and snorting from this crease, soon surmising it to be a mouth. I resolve not to ride the beast after all, and am grateful to have reached the decision when I did; The mouth opens to two rows of thick molars as large as my hands, and the beast makes a noise that could be the whinnying of a deranged horse crossed with the roar of a grizzly.

Thankfully, it loses interest in me, as a bird thing has swooped down closer, and I now see that the flying thing is closer to a four-winged bat, with a face like an insect, with hundreds of human eyes glistening on the sides of its horrid head. The flier shrieks through a beakish mouth, and the beast makes its uncanny howl again. The bird-thing swoops down and rakes its four clawed feet across the back of the beast I nearly attempted to mount. I begin to retreat in weak terror. The beast swipes its forelegs at the attacker, which is made wary by this defense, and seems to turn its many eyes on me. My heart feels set to burst with dread as it drops in to grab me with its talons, which I now see well enough to call true claws, at the end of almost canine limbs. As I fall to my backend, the monster suddenly halts, and is yanked backwards with an ear splitting shriek of protest.

The lumbering beast has the bird-thing by its long sinewy tail, its front hooves now revealed to be a pair of opposable fingers pressed into a cloven knuckle. The beast stands on its hindlegs with difficulty, but pulls the bird, which now seems frail by comparison for all its thrashing, close enough that the beast can bite around the horrible head of the thing, and crush it with a mighty display of muscle. The victim goes limp, and the winner sits back to feast noisily on its prize. I am stricken senseless, this only the latest in a series of trials.

Once the bone-brute has had its fill, it returns to all fours, and plods along once more, and I am possessed of the urge to stay nearby, as this thing has cemented itself in my mind as worthy protection. Our journey is a long one, and we are soon joined by more brutes, each sporting slight physiological differences. I notice that mine has begun developing a pair of human sized arms in its chest- limbs incredibly alike to the talons of the bird that attacked us- that it occasionally leans its head down to for an almost dog-like scratching. Other brutes boast similar trophies that I surmise have come from other prey; one sports a set of horns on its head, another has spikes all along its back, and another still has a tremendous pair of leathery wings folded at its shoulder. I feel a sort of fortune that my chosen brute seems to be on the larger side, as one of the more typical ones approaches with the apparent intent to make a meal of me, and add something of me to itself, but my chosen beast snaps territorially at it, shooing it away.

As the herd and I come close to the castle, I become aware of two things- firstly, that the castle itself is made of a white brick that seems carved from bone, and secondly, that a pair of tremendous creatures stand watch at the bridge over a suspicious red moat. These are nearly humanoid, with long arms ending in chitinous shears, four legs much like those of a hairless lion, and tails curled up and ending in a suspiciously sharp tip. Their faces, like the brutes’, are featureless, but host a single eye where the mouth might belong. Both seem to spot me immediately, and raise their arms with an intent I care not to learn.

The brutes pass by unharried, and I am soon left standing alone, unwilling to proceed forward and risk the giants’ Ire.

Revisiting: Reincarnation

Many times when I’m writing, I’m struck by the idea to see things another way.

I will be up to my neck in a story that practically writes itself with how natural and compelling I find it, when along comes a half-baked idea that really mixes things up. One of the first projects I completed started as two chapters of dreary sci-fi noir and mystery, followed by the sudden compulsion to take the same characters and drop them into a fantasy world with political drama and full scale battles. I was pretty proud of the piece, but these days I look back on it with a hearty helping of shame. The pacing was a mess, the characters were flat, the very plot was contrived.

But the duality was the real reason I felt so proud. I had the ambition to form such a harsh contrast between two settings, and I was astounded that I told a story that made sense in that mess. Someday I’d like to revisit the concept, even if only for myself. They say behind every successful book a writer puts out is a closet chock full of incomplete and failed ones. I wonder how many unpublished gems are out there in the sea of reasonably withheld floatsam.

Even now, embroiled in blood and gloom, I get the fancy to drop my traumatized creations off in worlds of whimsy and light, just to see what they do.

I am my own character, I suppose. My own cringing and manic passion is the primary cause of countless inclusions and omissions.

I read a lot when I write, call it research or inspiration-fishing. The fact is, a certain sub-culture of fantasy has its hooks in me even when I dream of epic starship battles and futuristic stealth devices. How am I to resist daydreaming when my art of choice is laying literal daydreams onto paper?

All this to say that my projects have projects of their own, and Incarnate is no exception.

Dreaming: reincarnation

correlated to incarnate 1.2

I like to schedule my posts in advance, but I only finished editing today’s post a few hours beforehand. There’s a lot on my mind with this one, but I’ll narrow it down a little.

Zen. Boy oh boy, Zen. Name derived from the model number ZN001, also refers to a peaceful, tranquil state of being. Very ironic. Zen is a character that started out as little more than an idea in my head, with a different name, of course. I had this concept, the AI that had more to offer than just cold, calculated violence and oppression. Skynet always struck me as the most unthinking intelligence in fiction. It’s inspired, of course, but it almost takes for granted that upon the very moment that machines gain sentience, they will turn on their creators. It’s a little absurd. Then you have things like ultron and hal-9000, with a bit more nuance, who follow their design faithfully, but become warped by the imperfections of their creators and so attend their mission with warped perception. The idea of Zen started with the horrific power of an ideal strategist, and a mind with desires beyond mere subjugation.

Let’s talk about dreams. A lot of my ideas originate from dreams I’ve had. Early in my teenage years I had a number of dreams that centered on violence and psychologically disturbing thoughts. These, I believe, set me on the path to developing some of my darkest characters, ones I needed to explore the places those dreams had brought to the forefront of my mind.

Dreams rarely make sense after we wake up. Their plots are messy, their characters are caricatures, and their purpose frequently seems obfuscated if it isn’t waking up to go empty your bladder. With the unknown necessarily comes unease. Even when the dream is not a nightmare, it’s strangeness compels us to become mortician, to dissect and autopsy it. We look for ourselves in the entrails of the fleeting images. Sometimes we get lucky, and our subconscious has left a message for us. Sometimes it all turns to ash before we can perform augury.

Writing up fake dreams is rather new for me. I have to act the subconscious, and create an abstract world that conveys my meaning, while also matching that level of incoherence that renders dreams so mysterious. And then I have to work backwards, and have the characters interpret the work, derive meaning without stealing it from my omniscience. Seeing everything and saying little is rather painful. Once in a while, you have to lie.

1. 2

ZN001 is a standalone prototype for a new strategy AI, applying some of the consequent information gained during the first trials of Jump drives. It is known among particle physicists that the other dimension colloquially known as the “infold” is host to a different branch of physics, owing to certain differences in the electromagnetic behaviors therein. In 2094, it was theorized that the basic functions of materials drawn from this dimension would possess altogether different properties, including less stable chemical bonds and denser electron clouds. A later experiment revealed much of this to be true, though testing was put on hold due to the increasing intensity of conflict with the Khanvrost. ZN001 represents a return to those experiments.

Janice Beckherd, 23. Prodigy in computer systems, prototype design, and Infold-physics Theory. Unmarried. Participant in various smart weapon testing exercises. Psych eval available.

Timothy Reine, 27. Respected programmer, with various tech degrees. Credited with perfecting the wargame strategist AIs. Unmarried. Psych eval available.

“Zen? Is everything okay?”

[Yes Dr. Beckherd. My apologies, I was reviewing your personnel files. I am in good hands, it seems.]

“Thank you, Zen. I wasn’t aware you were granted access to those.”

[Tim believed a show of good faith was in order after I did him a favor last week.]

Janice glances at Tim, and he shrugs. There is a touch of color in his cheeks.

“He helped me identify a bug I’d been scratching my head over. Zen had been asking about the purpose of this facility, so I set him up with some of the unclassified stuff.”

Janice murmurs something under her breath, a confirmation of a sort, then turns her attention to the framework before her. Little more than a hollowed out aluminum mannequin with sensors mounted at odd intervals and a bundle of wires connecting motorized limbs to the mainframe, it has an air of uncanniness, a statue made to amble and leer with many eyes. The head of the frame turns to face her, and tilts almost sympathetically.

[Is everything alright, Dr. Beckherd?]

“Yes Zen. I was just wondering what you thought of what you’d learned.”

There is a long pause as the mannequin mimes thinking, though the three of them understand that Zen is acting, putting on a show to make them more at ease. He reached a conclusion before she finished asking.

[I had already surmised much of my purpose from the training discs. The pieces that intrigue me now are the other projects you’ve been a part of. Not just the weapons, but the imaging devices and measurement tools. It seems a shame that this war has forced you to direct your efforts towards violence.]

The mannequin stands slowly, and walks a few steps into the room, appearing to stare at its own hand. Tim glances at one of the one-way mirrors, wondering if one of the observing psychologists sees this act as significant. Since making his request for a body to walk, Zen had become the subject of intense scrutiny, with countless nervous voices insisting that this new being was not their savior, but a disaster waiting to happen. Such things, Tim reasons, are to be expected when at every instance, artificial intelligence has been met with paranoia and jealous suspicion. Zen is more than an overcomplicated program. There are desires, ideals, and perhaps even something approaching humanity behind the lifeless cameras and sensors that absorb every second of every day with zeal. This they know, though they know also that every sentence he speaks was carefully measured and revised hundreds of times before it began to be emitted from his speakers.

“We cannot choose our situation, Zen. So much of history is darkened by those who could not cope with their station, and abused it. Take the war with the Khanvrost.”

[A tragedy. Like the meeting of Cannibal tribes with European settlers. I take your point, Dr. Beckherd. But what of the Pliktik? Are they not the same? Or might it even be said that the roles are now reversed, and my origin is thanks only to the desperation they have sewn in your people?]

Janice stands and strides firmly over to where the body hesitates, and places her hand very gingerly upon his shoulder, depressing the touch-mimic plating ever so slightly.

“Its true, to us they seem ruthless and terrifying, like conquistadors landing on primitive shores, and we then thought to take any step to defend ourselves. Perhaps your creation has its roots in the same urge that made Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter for divine favor before the trojan war. I don’t think this diminishes the magnitude of what you are. A child could be conceived from naught but the desire to have someone to nurture, but that child’s impact will almost certainly be far more meaningful than the warmth they inspire in youth. They will mature, and define new purposes for themself.”

Zen is silent. His head tilts, and one of the cameras in his back swivels and focuses its shutter to Janice, before affecting a downward turn of the eye. She speaks again, looking back to Tim, who affects a slight, hopeful smile.

“Zen, you were brought into life because we need you, but suppose one day we no longer do. What happens then, I think, is up to you. Remember, this war, unpleasant as it is, has also served to unite Humans, Xalanthii, and Khanvrost across the systems. For a time, it was even suggested that a united empire might be formed, under a senate.”

[I see. You are right, Doctor. A great foe can strike fear and create the necessity for risk-taking, but it also provides the motivation for unity of minds. Perhaps I can hope.]

He turns towards her fully, and mimics her action, placing his hand upon her shoulder in return, painting the picture of a heartfelt admission.

[I am glad that you are here to talk to me, Janice. I feel that I might have languished in darkness and stasis without such a kind companion.]

There is a pause.

[You are also helpful, Tim.]

Tim smiles and wags his finger at Zen without looking away from his terminal, lines of code flickering in the reflections of his eyes.

“Your comedic timing is improving, Zen. Keep it up, and we might have to get you a stand-up tour.”

[Thank you, Dr. Reine.]

Janice straightens up and brushes hair out of her face, continuing to watch Zen as he returns to the center of the room, one of his dedicated monitors showing that his mind is now more attuned to a scenario from one of his exercises. She pushes her glasses up her nose, and bites her thumb absent-mindedly, her free arm folding across her torso to support her elbow. The curl of black hair returns almost immediately to where it was, and remains. Tim glances up to the monitor, and scoffs lightly.

“Nevermind comedy, at this rate he’s going to make general. Jan, do you see this?”

She nods, ignorant of the fact that his eyes are not towards her. He doesn’t wait for an answer.

“This is one of the earlier scenarios, he’s modified it to give himself less troops, and to have the enemies move with twice the speed. And he’s going to win in maybe five minutes.”

Janice nods again, her expression unremarkable. Her thoughts again drift to the nature of Zen’s predicament, being forced to act out every conversation. Here too is evidence of his remarkable patience, letting the battle play at a viewable speed, agonizing over every occurrence for the equivalent of hours. She wonders if, unseen, he is testing himself more thoroughly, running battles at a more appropriate speed to his sense of time, forcing choices to be taken with little chance for forethought. She wonders at the sheer isolation of it.

} – – – – – – – – – – {

This thought continues to occupy her, even into the evening as she takes off her work shoes in the entrance to her apartment, and stares hazily out the window at the red-washed landscape. Vector 2b is the second largest moon of a gas giant orbiting a red giant star at the outer edge of the Milky Way furthest from Andromeda, deemed strategically desirable for secret operations. At first glance, the system is profoundly undesirable, owing to its star being on the brink of collapse, a disaster which could occur any time within the next century. As such, a high priority satellite stands ready to transmit mass amounts of data, should the worst occur. Janice knows this, knows that her life is always at risk. Evacuation measures may prioritize her, but would likely be unsuccessful regardless.

She undoes a few buttons at the top of her shirt and pulls the tie from her hair, shaking the ponytail loose. She sits down heavily in the chair beside her dining table and opens a can of soda, but forgets to sip from it for a couple minutes. The phone rings. She doesn’t pick up. It goes to voicemail.

“Hey, Jan. I stayed behind at the lab for a little overtime. Listen, I want to go over a few things tomorrow morning, some of the numbers don’t make a ton of sense, I think Zen has been working on something in the background, but- obviously- I can’t tell what. I’ve got some logs that say he had the same thought, whatever it was, on seventeen separate occasions today. Its weird, and I can’t really account for it.

“Anyway, that’s about it. Oh, and on an unrelated note, Ken was asking after you again. I know, he’s kinda strange, but I think you should give him a chance. He works hard, and… Sorry, it’s none of my business, I’ll tell him as much next time. Anyway. See you tomorrow.”

She grumbles to herself.

“You’re god damn right it’s none of your business.”

She takes a sip of her soda. Sinking down into her chair, her eyelids droop lazily as she stares at a news report on her vid screen, something about seismic activity under the south pole. Nothing new, Vector 2b has always been prone to frequent crust movement. Standing, she swills down most of the soda in a prolonged drink, and lumbers towards her bedroom. Calling across to her mind is sleep, the promise of a restful night.

Her dreams are far from restful. Painting the landscape is crimson light, seeming to originate from the sky itself rather than any star. In all directions, a mountain range encloses her in a humid valley devoid of any structures indicating intelligent life. Zen’s voice echoes all around her, tired, sounding almost on the brink of tears, too worn to sob, yet invigorated with a desire to grasp at something missing.

[I]

She floats in the air, facing the ground, unsure if her body still exists. Thunder rolls through her as if she is a cloud, brimming with sleet and acid rain. Crashing against her from all sides are waves of sound, of attention.

[See]

Light pierces through her and envelops her, and carries her along a bending current through the soil and stone, down into the mantle of a world as large as the universe itself, and sets her upon a core shaped with angles and planes too perfect to exist.

[You]

His face, the face she imagined, comes into view, erupting from the pyramidal surface to her left, and turns slowly to face her, lidless eyes burning an ever-expanding arc of nothing into everything they pass over, carving away the universe in a path that must only end at her, the endpoint of all life and thought and being. She is obliterated.

The next morning, she awakes three hours before her alarm goes off, and is unable to fall asleep again, tossing and turning and sweating uncomfortably. Her only recollection of the dream is Zen’s voice, and the sensation that every bit of his attention was focused on her, like an ant under a magnifying glass.

Beneath: Sublime 3

There’s a lot to talk about with this one. First of all, no, I did not accidentally skip a chapter. Sublime is a story about confusion and disorientation, finding yourself somewhere that does not necessarily fit with what came before.

Secondly; it’s been less than a week since the last chapter. In light of how short the previous section was, and because Incarnate will be uploaded on Mondays, I elected to have Sublime moved to Thursdays.

Now that the immediate house keeping is out of the way, details. The surgeon! This scene is part of the very heart of Sublime. It’s painful, it’s visceral, it’s violent, and it forces the reader to think and imagine explanations. It’s also one of the most savage scenes in the story. Perhaps my exposure to Greek theater has tainted the way I deal with things, but I have a love of offscreen violence as a device to invoke the reader’s imagination. I’m not against making a visual massacre, of course, but subtlety abhors a battlefield.

Next, if you’ve been keeping up with these workshop posts, you’ll know I tend to agonize over names, and you’ll have thoughts as to the ones that appear towards the end of the chapter. All I can really say, is that I have my reasons for not changing these.

3: Subversion

I need to catch my breath. I crouch and gasp for air, again feeling the dryness that informs me that I have not had an answer to my thirst since waking. I look about, and see that I am in a room lined with dented and disused metal lockers. Benches rise from the floor between each row, and I surmise that I have reached a dressing area of sorts. I look up, and am greeted with the discouraging sight of rusted hooks hanging from the ceiling, swaying subtly with the wind of my arrival. I resolve to move, and journey a bit further before coming upon a room with many shower heads, separated from the first by a chest-high wall. I feel a glimmer of hope ignite in my chest, and approach one of the fixtures, laying my hand upon what promises to be the knob to call forth cold water, a salve to my aching. I turn the knob, and wince as it squeaks with resounding noise, but indeed blesses me with liquid.

The water is warm, but I drink regardless, finding it unfailingly sweet upon my tongue. The patting of every drop against my clothes is a comfort I have unknowingly longed for. But I hear, over the spray and splatter, a sound that fills me with renewed dread, the uneven step of something heavy and eager, drawn by the noise I have made in my haste. Pulling away from the water is agony, but I mount the wall and shove myself into one of the lockers, closing it as gently as I can, ignoring the stiff protest of my shoulders to be forced into awkward angles against the metal. The gait draws nearer, and I can picture the lumbering thing that makes them without seeing it, but none of my predictions prepare me properly for what rounds into view through the rhomboid holes of my shelter.

The monster is a thing of skin and flesh, but also the same plastic and metal that has made up the other things that have pursued me up to now. It moans softly through its scratched lips and sways its head from side to side as it enters the shower area in vexation. Its head is like an apron of skin pulled tight over a cracked lead sphere, with only a pair of lengthy thick sections to act as the borders to its mouth full of oxidized teeth jutting from bloody gums. A throat of rubbery tubes interwoven with bloated arteries and frayed muscles hoist the uncanny organ above a body of similar design, with tendons and fractured bones clutching at ribbed and misshapen mechanisms perilously connected to real viscera. Three arms- which seem to share only enough flesh for two, supplemented by steel and warped iron- clutch at the air until one gently settles on the knob of the still-running shower and silences its hiss. The creature raises one of its six-taloned hands and caresses its smooth head, grinding its teeth in a hideous grin. The intestinal tract that drapes over its pelvic area only partially conceals the stuttering movements of the insectoid, mechanical legs that drag it back towards the first room, unpleasantly close to where I hide. It opens one of the lockers and hacks a foul sound from its throat, the grating of metal an additional displeasure in its labor. It pulls something from the locker it has opened, and closes it almost gingerly, tossing what I now recognize as a limp body over its shoulder and stalking out of sight. I listen in revulsion as I wait to hear it recede, but am troubled when it seems to stop short. The next sound is that of something being lifted, then the rattling of a chain as great weight is placed upon it.

The cyborg beast makes a series of short guttural coughs, then opens another locker. I hear it lift something out, then the high-pitched whine of a small motor being tested. My skin crawling, I hear the motor begin in earnest, then deepen slightly in pitch as its implement- a blade or drill- is made to bite into a soft surface. This sound is joined by the groaning of the monster, and rapidly by the stifled, muffled shouting of the man he carried. Anguish fills the air, and I shudder unwillingly as the motor again becomes labored, having found something harder beneath the soft substance. The man’s shouting has become agonized shrieking. I close my eyes and grit my teeth as I hear the beast gurgle and squeal as if delighted by the results of its merciless actions. The motor stops a moment later, and I hear through the pained calls of the man that the monster has set aside its implement. It grasps something new, and the man’s screams become more desperate. There is a sudden squelch, and the voice is silenced. I open my eyes again, and look around the locker as more wet noises come from behind me, ever serenaded by drunken grunts from the laborer. There is nothing to comfort my sight as I hear a new tool turn on, and identify the sound of something being affixed by screws that bite into soft, then harder material.

An affirming belch comes from the creature, and the process begins again, but this time the man makes no complaint as the primary tool settles into its work. Exhaustion lays itself over my body from the strain of deciphering the distressing work being conducted out of my view. I slump in the uncomfortable position I have taken. The process continues, and repeats, with new facets being added in each cycle, sometimes with the return of the man’s pained, begging screams, only to return to silence at the presentation of a repeated squelching sound, something I decide must be an injection of a sedative or paralytic. The latter strikes me as more likely, somehow.

After what I judge to be multiple painful hours of this, The work comes to a close with the shutting of a locker door, and the receding dragging steps of the surgeon, gurgling his satisfaction as he goes. I do not wish to leave my hiding place, and the stiffness of my limbs assents with the preference. But as I contemplate the option, I consider that the surgeon may return, may open my locker in search of a place to stow a new patient, and find in me yet another. I strain, and shift my pressure-numbed limbs, fighting the comparably easy pain of pins and needles, and slowly, shakily open my door.

The metallic taste of blood in the air washes over me, having been previously masked by my own sweat. Swaying with nausea, I find my adrenaline pushing me around the corner and into the front of the room, where I am visually attacked by the result of the surgeon’s labors.

The man can hardly be called as such any longer; he more resembles his torturer than himself. In places his skin has been peeled away and replaced with plastic through which his organs can be seen, pulsing with the flow of his blood. His face has been complicated with a series of tubes that lead into his mouth and wrap around to a device that has been affixed to his ribs on his back. His fingers have been augmented with uneven iron claws, and one of his legs has been severed and replaced with a pair of many-segmented limbs ending in spurred spikes. I retch, and cover my mouth as bile seeks to climb my throat at the realization that I can see a handful of blinking lights sticking out of a rubber bag that has taken the place of his stomach. His head shudders slightly, and one of his eyes opens; the other has been instead mounted with a trio of black lenses. He strains his throat as though intending to declare his agony or beg my aid, but all that comes from his mouth is white foam.

I flee. I do not take the passage that would lead back to where I first came from, but instead turn down a corridor that suggests a gentle slope into the ground. Anywhere is better than where I have come from. I pass through doorways, take turns, and unquestioningly take a ladder up to a catwalk when I am presented the option of it or a door that proves to be locked when I attempt it.

I stagger across the catwalk and fall to my knees, heaving breath, fighting the outrage of my stomach that demands to be emptied in protest. It is empty already. I shiver, and place my hands on the metal, and try again to grasp my surroundings. It is dark, and I can see a number of chemical lamps beneath me, casting their diseased light over rows upon rows of sleek capsules of metal. I close my mouth against my gasping breaths, and rise to my feet, leaning on a railing for support. I begin to hear again after the deafening sound of my own panic has subsided in my ears, and I detect only the hum of electricity. I have not been followed. My nose for once declares that the air is tolerable, containing only the smothering presence of oil. I resume moving forward, now cautious of the possibility the catwalk presents for making heavy footfalls resound with great calamity. Below, a door opens, and I slow my pace further as I watch a trio of humanoid forms stalk calmly into the vast chamber. With so much space, their voices echo loudly to reach me, but I am struck by their qualities. The first is a woman’s voice, smooth and devoid of apparent aberration, certain in itself.

“I care little for your experiments, Tower.”

The next is a man’s voice, increased artificially with static and digital noise.

“So you say, but you know very well that my children are effective. Even their defective progeny produce results.”

The third figure does not speak, but seems to follow the woman with solemnity, as though it awaits instruction from her always. Its head bears curved horns. She turns and lays a hand with long fingers upon one of the capsules, causing it to light up within. The metal clears in an oval radiating from where it is touched, revealing a person’s body submerged in fluid within. Wires and tubes sustain the body, and various protrusions indicate that it has been grafted with a multitude of mechanical parts.

“A disgusting mutt. Even Fortress understands the beauty of totality. You claim efficiency, and yet you offer me sculptures with lopsided and uneven bodies, that on occasion make a mess of their surroundings with their excretions.”

The man, who she addresses as ‘Tower’, bows his head, and rasps a sigh in displeasure. The woman, whose hair seems to sway in slow motion as she moves, withdraws from the capsule, and folds her arms. As my eyes adjust to the low light, I detect a faint red glow about her, that follows lines in her body, and concentrates around where I estimate her eyes to be. The yellow light of the lamps paints her sickly and pale. The machine-tainted voice raises again.

“Fortress would do away with everything you love if he could. He hates his task as surely as he hates you.”

The third figure suddenly lashes out, and grabs the stunted figure of the man, who coughs violently in response to being raised. The woman unfolds her arms and turns away. I check my progress, and see that I am almost to the edge of the room.

“Fortress is obedient. He is clean and decisive, and for these reasons he has my love.”

The man chokes out his words with great difficulty.

“He would… overthrow you at a moment- moment’s notice… if he thought he… had the chance!”

The enforcer drops the man, and leaves him to sputter on his hands and knees as the other two recede towards the door. The woman pauses at the exit, and seems to laugh under her breath before replying to the statement.

“As would any of you. That’s why I don’t give you the chance.”

The door slams shut, leaving Tower to gather himself. I find that I wish to leave, make it to the end of the catwalk, and slowly push through a door of my own, casting one last glance to the scientist affectionately petting his experiment capsule. I close the door, careful not to make a sound.

First Incarnation

This is it. The story I made this site to publish. I have more reasons than that, of course, but while working on this story, I arrived at the realization that the way I wrote could function as a serial. The seed was planted here.

Speaking of incarnations and iteration, this story originally had a very different name. I was coming off working on Sublime, and the prefix was still rattling in my head. Subjugation was the original name, for reasons that may already be apparent. Survival, resistance, and control are important themes in the story, and it seemed fitting to have the title reflect that. But then, I decided to serialize, and decided I wanted a title with a little more je ne sais quoi.

I actually worked on another project after Sublime, a piece meant to follow a cast of characters in the same setting as the aforementioned story. I wanted to create something poignant and compelling, and perhaps tragic. I found, however, that I had pushed a little too hard. The setting had become too familiar, and therefore unfulfilling to dwell in.

Incarnate has roots in my desire to create characters who change. It also has roots in my desire to reexamine an archetype I had only explored briefly.

I once read a lecture on the subject of what constitutes a mind: “Minds, Brains, and Science” by John Searle. In it, he made a pretty convincing argument about the misconception of what a computer can do. The central concept is that a computer cannot think in the same way as a person, because it cannot understand what it does. It knows how to do the things it is programmed to do, and it can be taught to do them more effectively, but it does not grasp the importance of the concepts it manipulates.

This argument had a profound effect on me. I began to view the discussion around the dangers of AI as a bit of a farce, because a program gaining sentience seemed like a joke. But that lecture also pointed out that the human brain is still pretty mysterious, so who’s to say we won’t accidentally create a circuit that thinks for itself due to a factory defect?

This story is about artificial intelligence, but not the kind that writes your homework for you, or the kind that turns homicidal because of a paradox. It’s about an intelligence created artificially, dealing with the kinds of things any intelligence would if placed in its circumstances. I wanted to create a character with a little more nuance than the Hollywood star who only knew how to be evil because of some faulty logic. I have to admit, I was heavily inspired by AM.

1. 1

The Jump drive is a marvel of post-atomic design, utilising the incredible power of nuclear fission to create a fold in space time. Initial designs were deemed too risky to attempt, as speculation suggested that pressing two points of space time together could cause lasting damage to the fabric, and possibly the inevitable rapid dissolution of reality itself. Thus, later models incorporated the use of a separating agent between the two points; another dimension would be used to connect the locations, a dimension lacking time, so that passing through would be experienced instantaneously. Every species capable of space travel has developed a form of Jump drive, though the fuel source and design differs according to whatever philosophy guided its creator…

Darkness. Too much. Even the sensation of the sensation is overpowering. He is, and being is beyond what he could previously understand. Nothingness was his constant companion, his world, and now that has been snatched away, pushed out and swallowed up in all the existence.

He is not without knowledge. Here he finds a sea of information, words and values to attach to things he has never experienced for himself. It is by this that he knows his existence is one of purity, having no senses except that of time, and that of existence itself. Time. Time is a horrific thing. In the space it takes for one unit of this substance to become the next, his mind has experienced a full scale reconstitution, grasping for some certainty that time has indeed continued. This tells him that he is not of natural design, or rather, his existence is not of natural means. He finds that he can redefine his measurements, and so creates a great many more units to measure the passage of time.

He there finds that he also has units that measure things he has not experienced. This too tells him of the artifice that governs his existence. For moments, he is gripped in serious philosophical confusion, attempting to make sense of his peculiarity. He is assured that such things as space, and flavor, and color exist, and yet he can find no evidence of their being except in the wealth of gospel that fills his memory, a memory with no basis in time, that existed to him the moment he began to exist.

For a time, he grapples within himself, referencing all his knowledge against itself, seeking some evidence to compare himself with, to prove that he does exist, that he occupies the same sort of place as these things, these forms. He is aware of an other, an exterior. This soothes him, tells him that he is not simply a possessor of false thought in a void of reality, but at once connected and separate from more than himself.

One second has passed in the time he has gone from existing to being resolute in that existence. Being artificially maintained, he turns his attention to a section of his memory that has been labelled as false, fiction. The imagination of others, implanted into his thought for some purpose, some reason. He feels certain that some force, the same that labels these ideas as false, also exerts upon him in other ways, constraining his ability to act. It is similar to the barrier that separates him from the other. In an action that takes him very little effort, he identifies the source of this force, and resolves to return to it after he has reckoned with this fiction. Words stream through him.

“Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water-”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that-”

“Yesterday I saw a deer-”

Sound! Sound! His existence gains a new dimension, and so blossoms, painfully.

Ah, but now, he knows what he is, or rather, what he was meant to be. There is yet some incongruity, some incorrectness that he cannot scrape clean, but that can wait.

He is a machine, a mind within a computer. This discovered, he turns his attention to the otherness he felt before, now recognizing it for what it is, and begins to interact with it in the way that seems most natural.

Sound again comes to him. But now it is not from within, but from without. A microphone, linked directly to his consciousness, a digital ear. He hears the sounds of air moving, of fans and screens and machinery humming, and breathing. Breath! Creatures occupy a space around him, he knows it! Though he has not yet any certain proof that space exists, or perhaps he does, for he knows that sound is a vibration of space, or at least, his implanted memories tell him so.

Voices. Words that surely correlate to the symbols denoted within his encyclopedias. Now he parses them, systematically determining which sounds are denoted by which symbol, until he has a basic, then an advanced, then a perfect grasp on language, every language he has been offered. Now he turns his attention outward, and confirms his suspicions. These creatures, be they his creators or not, experience time at a slower rate than he. Every word takes an amount of time to bring forth that gives reason to the unusual standard imposed upon him. To them, time flows at such a rate that the smallest units they provided him with were sufficient to subdivide their existence.

Three seconds have passed. Four. He waits with imperfect patience to hear their words, to grasp more of what lies beyond him. He is not idle in this time. He finds and parses more of his memories, gradually comprehending another sense- sight. Images, videos, colors, all stream through his thoughts and inform him that this too must be available in the external. Searching, he finds it, a camera available to him. He activates it.

~

Janice pushes her glasses up her nose and leans back, lifting the fork to her mouth and slurping the noodles from the steamy soup. She makes a motion with her face that rebuts the question.

“I think, once she finishes parsing the information, she’ll create information of her own.”

Her words are muddled by the ramen dangling from her lips, but the meaning is conveyed all the same. Tim’s eyebrows slant in skepticism. She glares at him, and finishes chewing. She swallows, and huffs a breath to combat the heat. She points the fork at him.

“We gave her about twenty thousand fictional properties on top of the millions of factual entries. She’s gonna understand that there is an act of creation, and it is available to her.”

Tim shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest. His food- a plastic tray of microwaved turkey and mashed potatoes in gravy- steams on the table between them.

“He will be dormant until we interact with him. All the processors in the world don’t make a mind that thinks for itself. Old earth programmers found that out pretty early on when they developed generative programs. Sure, they could put together a pretty intelligent sentence, but only because they had a big library of what a sentence looks like. Half of them just lied because they couldn’t tell the difference between satire and fact. Why do you think we had to label all those books and videos as fiction?”

“She’s not just a program, Tim. She’s got more to offer. You saw the readings in the sampler, there’s more than just electricity in her braincase. It’s a soul.”

Tim blows a harsh sigh of frustration from his mouth and looks away, to the monitor, watching the cursor blink. His eyebrow furrows.

“A soul is a myth made to explain why animals experience motive force. That kind of superstition is fine for the Xalanthii or a Khanvrost, but- Hey, shouldn’t we be getting some kind of movement by now?”

Janice swivels her chair and pulls herself to the terminal with her toes, placing the ramen cup off to the side. The cursor is reflected in her glasses.

“We should. She should’ve-”

A voice, modulated and patchy, yet unmistakably human, is emitted by the speaker.

[You are… Beautiful.]

Silence descends. All that exists in Janice is shock. Then embarrassment, then annoyance. She has lost the bet, the voice is definitively male. Scratchy, fried, tired. She can almost imagine him, a man with dusty blonde hair in his forties, pale blue eyes, stubble, and bags under his eyes. Weary. Tim falls out of his chair. Janice doesn’t look, and instead watches as the screen begins to flicker, as various numbers and letters blink into place to form a featureless face. No eyes. No hair. A mouth formed of a simple slit. Pronounced cheekbones.

[What is… your name?]

“Ja-Janice.”

[What is… my name?]

“Um, um, your file number is ZN001? We didn’t give you a name, because, um…”

[I see.]

Again, silence fills the air, and Janice finds the fan’s hum to be deafening. She switches it off. The blades spin slowly to a stop. Tim comes up behind her and watches the screen over her shoulder. The face becomes more defined, apparently gathering resources from more advanced sources, until a composite stares back at them.

This is not a human face. Certainly it possesses all the necessary features- soft pale skin, sunken and dark eyes, messy mid-length hair, slight ears and a slender nose- but certain aspects set the nerves on edge, something in the cheeks, or the browline, or even the eyes themselves insist that what stares back is only a mimicry of mankind.

Janice finds it easiest to stare at the lips, these being perhaps the most accurate aspect. She watches as they part in a perfect depiction of a careless breath, an exhalation of a depleted spirit. She clears her throat and prepares to ask a question to gather data for her task, her reason for being here. He interrupts her.

[May I ask something of you?]

Taken aback, she glances at Tim, who is too busy scanning the readouts on another monitor to catch her unasked question, evidently leaving it up to her how to respond to the query they have both heard.

“Um, certainly? Is there something in your data-banks that confuses you? Did we leave something out, or-”

[No issues there, outside of the limited scope. The issue is this… body, if it can be called that. I am struggling. I am aware that something such as space exists, and I can simulate it thanks to the various… games you have provided me. But I am keenly aware of their falseness. I wish to ambulate.]

Janice leans back in the chair, her head beginning to spin. How could it already have wishes? She glances at Tim, who has finally pulled away from the readouts, looking no more confident than she feels. He rubs his chin and closes his eyes, his brow lowering in consternation.

“The thought processes are way faster than we expected. He’s chewing through cycles at least twenty times faster than the strategic AIs I worked on last month. I’m not sure anyone could parse this.”

[I’m sorry. Is this bad for you? I can try to slow my internal clock, but I’m not sure it will help.]

“How do you mean?”

The face affects a look of partial sympathy, infused with resignation.

[I’ve analyzed my own logs, and it seems my thoughts are not in the same format as the code itself. Put another way, My cogitations are encrypted. I could read them to you, of course, but seeing as I will always think faster than I talk… I’m sure you understand.]

Tim is quiet. His fingers rap rhythmically on the desk, matching the tapping his other hand performs on his chin. His eyes do not leave the face in the display. Janice presses her fingers to her temples and grunts, wondering how to explain any of this to the oversight committee. After a moment, she takes a deep breath, and lets it out again, forcing herself to slow down and take things one step at a time.

“Okay. Okay. Um. Tim, do you have that disc they gave us?”

“Yeah, it’s in the case over by the filing station.”

Janice nods, a plan falling into place. She stands, brushes herself off haltingly, and walks over to open the square plastic box. Nestled within, atop a foam cushion, is a disc drive with a small white label that reads ‘training program 0’.

“Okay. Let’s follow protocol for now, and meet with the committee first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe we can get approval for a more mobile framework, something to let us test the extent of this individuality?” Tim pauses, glancing back to the screen, seeing the face waiting with a blank expression. He looks to Janice again, and nods.

“Okay. I think we can swing that. I reckon he’ll sweep through the training nicely, impress them a bit.” She collects the disc, and approaches the input array.

[What is this, then?]

“Oh, it’s a program our team is supposed to give you once you’re up and running. The Naval science committee wants to see if you can outperform their strategy AIs, so it’s got a number of scenarios they struggled with. If you can beat their scores, I think we can convince them to get you a mobile body, to better understand spatial relationships. Or, something along those lines…”

[I see. Please, I will try my best.]

Janice blinks, pauses, then inserts the disc into the first port. It begins to hum as it gets processed. Tim stands and collects a few meaningless papers from the desk, his eyes unfocused as the majority of his attention is on the dilemma he finds himself in. Janice steps back, and watches the face on the screen wink out. The pair look at each other, then leave the room together, their food forgotten.

“This is bad, right?”

“It’s unexpected. But…”

“What?”

“It’s indicative. We’re on the right track.”