The toy soldier guarded the corner of the commander’s makeshift field desk. The faded tin sentry with chipped red jacket, high peaked cap and bent bayonet stood upon the order.
By majoki21 days ago in Fiction
Snow on the convent. War in the fields. Sister Maryna prayed. Then programmed. Children would not have to suffer this world of cratered streets, gutted homes, crushed dreams. Sister Maryna understood what needed to be done and coded.
Sergeant Taylor always checks us thoroughly before sending us in: regulation uniform, backpacks, anti-ballistic helmets, Kevlar vests, and, of course, your gun. You can’t go anywhere in this place and be safe without your gun.
Life is strange. Living in the mouth of a SHARK is stranger. Many would dispute my use of the term life. Technically, I don’t get to claim that I’m alive. No remora gets to have a life in the classic sense. When you are of a class of scavenger bot with low level AI, you aren’t recognized for much beyond your capacity to mindlessly feed on the damaging space dust that ionizes the precious methylium plates forming the hull of a Star Hunter And Rebel Killer. (Even to a remora like me, it is clear that acronyms have not advanced nearly as fast as interstellar drives in the past few hundred years).
By majoki22 days ago in Fiction
“A synaptic map of the brain.” “Social media pathways on the Internet.” “A spider web. If the spider had taken acid.” The program director waited as each volunteer gave their interpretation of the sprawling diagram being displayed in the research center’s conference room.
On Splinx, you have to follow the rules if you wanna break the law. Rule 1: Phasespace is your friend. Rule 2: In phasespace you have no friends.
It has been noted that the first few dozen steps tend to dictate the following few thousand. For sheep. I wonder what that makes me. I’ve been on this trajectory for 80,000 years, and it’ll be another 1000 years before I reach Proxima Centauri b.
By majoki23 days ago in Fiction
Thang Danang balanced the hypodermic on the tip of her index finger. Reckless. Irresponsible. Crazy. That’s what her cousin Luc had called her. He’d yelled that her visions of their family ancestors weren’t real, that she was hallucinating.
Light leaving the sun took a little over eight minutes to reach Earth and about four and a half hours to pass Neptune. Another two hours and those much fainter rays registered on the hull of the Kaladiss deep in the Kuiper Belt.
By majoki24 days ago in Fiction
“Another blow in.” I think the foreman would’ve spit, if he hadn’t been in an enviro suit. It’s kinda self-defeating to spit in a sealed system. Still, I think he was tempted just to be sure he registered his utter contempt for me.
Once there was and there was not a place. a time. a man. a woman. a child. a robot. The medina was a maze of alleyways and shops largely unchanged for centuries. Until this one. Saad, Buchra, Abbas and Rafik sidled through the dark, narrow footways lit only by their piezoelectric clothing. Fleeing the most recent roundup brought on by the latest outrage, they sought sanctuary.
It really wasn’t his thing: pain and panic way too up-close-and-personal. The chaotic video and jarring audio, the total mayhem of battle were so not his thing, but it was up to him to wrap this melee in a nice, neat bow. A twenty-two minute package of war that Cosca demanded should “curb-stomp the viewer to their couch.”
By majoki25 days ago in Fiction
