Let the Robot Write!
The first time he heard of the existence of a robot that writes fiction, Pat T. Knight, bestselling author of detective novels, laughed. How could a machine, let’s face it, barely more than a program, ever be capable of conceiving a coherent, innovative book that would keep its audience on the edge of their seats from the first to the last page? “Truth be told, many of the stories written by robots have their inventors as co-writers,” Leyla, his editor, admitted. They were having lunch in a pub on Shaftesbury Avenue close to the headquarters of the Centauri Publishing
The Body Electric
“There are many locked doors in this house,” Tesla told me skipping down the corridor, in her ruffled dress, giggling delighted. Her sounds should have been those of a playful child, but coming from her mouth, in that house, they seemed more like the distant laments of a ghost. Her face was covered by a veil, but it could not hide the red pallor of her lips or the way they curled in mischievous satisfaction whenever she troubled those around her. She was “the body electric”, sacrosanct mater familias, a child of barely nine. After dinner on my first evening
Mr Tanaka Says Goodbye
The day Mr Tanaka decided to say goodbye to the world it was a crisp spring morning and the cherry trees lining the Kamo River had yet to bloom. The buds, still wary of the last chilly breaths of winter, lay huddled on the barren branches, waiting. Mr Tanaka was sitting on a bench watching the still-dozing nature and it occurred to him he did not wish to see the cherry blossoms that year. He, who was considered an avid lover of passing beauty. He, who had just the previous fall bought a special lens advertised as ideal for photographing
An Alien in Japan
My name is Akihito Fukuda and I am 8 years old. I live in a small village in the northern part of Japan. I like baseball and eating watermelon in summer. Lately, I have realized, there is an alien living in our village. It all started early in summer, about the end of the rainy reason. I was practicing my pitch on the field near the bus stop when I saw it. It got off the bus from Aomori and fell flat on its face with two suitcases and a backpack. It looked like a snail carrying a colourful house
The Invisible Girl, Epilogue: Rainbows over MegK
“Really, at your age, what were you thinking?” Jor asked as Rul entered the office, all stitched up. On account of the blood loss and head trauma, he had apparently passed out and fallen overboard during the body retrieval. “Can’t let the subs have all the fun, can we?” Rul tried to laugh, but stopped when he realized even a small attempt at it caused him a rather nasty headache. “Too bad about your girl…It’s a shame especially when they’re so young. If you want to see the body, it’s…” “No, that’s okay,” Rul said, feeling a chill creep up
The Invisible Girl, Chapter 3: The Magician
“Oh, this guy,” Jor suddenly said from behind him and Rul startled awake. The office, previously occupied only by a few drifting colleagues, was now suddenly much too lively. He blinked rapidly a few times and turned toward Jor. He was looking at one of Sparky’s sketches from Lucy’s memories. “You know him?” he asked hopeful. “Yeah, that’s Fluke, used to be a pick-pocket up on level 19. He had quite the guts on him, even stole from uppers if he got the chance,” he said. “Why wasn’t he in the system then?” Rul asked. “He never got caught so
The Invisible Girl, Chapter 2: Lucy
It took Rul another two hours to return to headquarters, get the lab to construct the tissue needed to emulate the fingerprints – something the labs usually denied the knowledge of, but that was a far too standard subversion tactic not to have become routine – and then return to level 15 where to his annoyance he was once again subjected to security checks. “You’d think they’d show a little solidarity to a man in uniform,” he said to Marcus as he rearranged his clothes. However he himself was well aware of the never ending feud between MegK’s security factions.
The Invisible Girl, Chapter 1: Airlift
MegaKaleidon had a population just shy of one billion. It had been an ambitious metropolis from the very beginning. Its first ever recorded census put it at 30 million. One year there had been nothing there but fields, the next, a colossus had been erected with the seal of approval of the almighty viceroy himself. It was like a hungry toddler eating everything in sight. It speedily swallowed the suburban areas around it, the villages, the cities, it encouraged an elevated birth rate, attracted investors as well as immigrants, it granted asylum, rehabilitated criminals, and became the number one location
A Question of Freedom
Maast blinked when the watch – the third stand on the right, above the bloody kitchen knife, beneath the bundle of wires he kept promising himself to sort out tomorrow, never today – started beeping uncontrollably as if possessed by real life and a rather choleric personality. 00:00 it boasted far too proudly. Too bad it was broken and it only occasionally recalled that hour much to Maast’s dismay. He blinked again. The screen in front of him was blank – now he noticed. The cigarette hanging loosely from the left corner of his mouth had long burnt out. He
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