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Dream Colony I

Posted in Fiction, Sci-Fi on September 14, 2010 by GuNNhead

The first full space colony was built on earth. Seems simple enough, I thought, a social experiment, mostly, test self-sufficiency, being completely sealed off, using nor needing nothing from the earth’s atmosphere. We were told that the materials used would even be able to survive on other planets, everything built to accommodate zero-g, if needed. It was a city that could be transported as a whole to a new world. I immediately signed my family up, and because of our wide, mixed range of ages and backgrounds, we were actually accepted.

The living quarters were nice, sleek and functional. Everyone had enough space, it never seemed cramped, but it was full. The entire ‘neighborhood’ (it felt more like an apartment complex) was very friendly, and had a great sense of community. We immediately made friends right next door, and all over. The selection process, I felt, was done very well. Every so often an engineer would stop by, and run little checks on things or whatever it was they did, we started to nickname them ‘the supers’, because they really gave off the vibe of superintendants. They all wore the same white jumpsuits, most were quiet and kept to themselves, which was fine by us, and others were kindly enough, with the occasional chit chat or banter in between their mystery tasks. Mostly they went unnoticed.

One night, we had some of our friends over for a small get-together, about 10 people in all. After a few drinks and a lot of laughs, we hear an announcement of the mass communication systems.

“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 30 minutes. This is not a test.”
The room went silent with panic.
“Maybe it IS a test,” I said.
“Or a drill?” posed Jen, a hopeful party member.
“Yeah, the engineers should be around shortly to do, uh, something, right?” asked Pen, clearly too drunk to properly rationalize, not that I was much better.
“I saw a super come in here earlier… I don’t think I saw him leave, did anyone see him leave?” offered my sister.

Everyone paused in thought.

“No?”
“Don’t think so…”
“I didn’t even see a super come in.”
“I just got here.”
Others shrugged or shook their heads negatively. If he was here, he probably didn’t leave.

“Warning: The station will run out of oxygen in approximately 25 minutes. This is not a test.”

“What do we do?”
“Well, aren’t red lights supposed to flash or some warning siren happen?”
“Why didn’t any of us pay attention during the readiness training?”
“There was readiness training?”
“Yeah, like, the first day.”
“Lotta good that does us now, six years later!”
“No matter, I’ll just go next door, and see if they remember anything, or know what’s going on, or remember where their manuals are. Simple”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Fine, everyone else: relax, try to look for the colony handbook, maybe there’s something in there about this.”

I entered into the hallway.
“Hey, there’re those red warning lights!”
“Not comforting.”
People ran by in a panic as I went to the door across the wide hall. No supers. I opened the door, and went inside.

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That’s What She Said

Posted in Fiction, Horror, Sci-Fi, The Permanent Mind on April 28, 2010 by GuNNhead

He casually slipped his eyeball out of its socket, held it up and said “You see, it’s not so difficult.”

He knew I’d had trouble with false reality simulators in the past. I reached in, slowly pushing past my eyelids, reaching behind my eye, and popping it out. Of course, the ocular nerve followed it, and allowed it to dangle gently and freely from the open hole, the eyelids left to frantically flutter about their business, impotent.

“It’s all pointless, isn’t it?” I asked him.
“The point is what you make it, just have a lot of fun, and try to score the most points.”
A maggot slithered out of his tongue as he formed the final words, and dribbled out of his mouth when he completed.

I looked down towards the play field.
“I know six people down there, and don’t give a damn about any single one of them. Tell me why.”
“Permanence, the consciousness is trapped in permanence while the physical body is fleeting.”
“This is what you needed. You are entirely superfluous.”
“Knowledge is power, disappear as a god?”
“Return in the body of a savior…”

We transported down to the arena, game already in progress. It was really a game of numbers; the scoreboards didn’t lie, but the truth in it only mattered if you cared. It was a path of bodies. None would be alive, never needing to have been. It was a small part of life, a new way to reimagine. A grand prix of self-destruction. The rules were based in reality, as they all are, for it’s what most go off of; gravity, physics, all mostly non-altered, expect for entertainment value, there was no positive or negative affects to discern.

One life, countless deaths. The computerized apocalypse. A simulation of the tenacity of the dead alive. Levels of distance, the dead rise from the graves. How many have died? No matter. How many have joined life? Since the apocalypse? Millions, more every day. Once the dead win, will they reboot, or will the dead truly inhabit the entirety of this world? Maybe a new server. A new change at life, a new opportunity to die.

A friend request from beyond the grave. She was so pretty when she killed me. Revenge. Fuck. I accept. It feels so good to love the pain. I invite her to transport to out location. It’s dangerous if there are factions of hunting parties, but I know my friend, he plays it safe for the first while, spawning in uninhabited locations. The travel across the plains is what interests him, gets him into character. I think it does affect your mind, the craving for flesh. I should remember to check that after. I sigh out my lamentation of death, causing all other Zeez around me to do the same, only my friend is within earshot. She appears.

“Oof, lost an arm?”
“Shut up, I killed you, didn’t I?”
“Can’t make it very far without ammo, especially when you’ve been bitten.”
“24 hours, no cure.”
“There never is.”
“How’d you find me? I thought I was held up pretty well.”
“The nose knows.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just beyond the forest, but we should curve around first, there might be hunters.”
“After this long?”
“Never hurts when you play it smart.”
“That’s what I thought until he found me and bit me.”
“Shouldn’ta been alone.”
“That’s what she said. After I bit her. Then she shot me.”

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The Permanent Mind

Posted in Fiction, Sci-Fi, The Permanent Mind on April 19, 2010 by GuNNhead

I am the first.

I was the first.

Today, after more than a century of electech, we have extended our central nervous system itself into a global embrace. A Global village, almost tribal in its interactions.

However: Issues. Bugs. Problems, they were bound to happen. They did. I am the first. I was there, alone, Cyberspace. It’s hard to think of now, like walking into a brand new freshly built city – that’s completely empty, desolate. Glistening towers of data. 3D polymers, rendered and existent within the mind and online in real-time. Beyond real time, faster, as fast as the technog of an enhanced mind. But, at the time, it was 1:1. A snail’s pace by today’s standard, compared to today’s rate. Live a day in an evening. The first problem… now we think differently with regard to how we incorporate ‘sources’ in designing the interface, but, the first problem with our rapid prototyping left a ‘copy’ of my mind within cyberspace. I could communicate with it. He, I, was lost, confused, disconnected. After we reconfigured the entry procedure, the issue never occurred again, but I jacked-in, and I was still there, had come to terms with his situation as I would have, I imagine. He was a valuable source of inside information. I petitioned heavily against his deletion.
There was never a settlement to the debate as to whether or not he was the first AI…

I have a life, I grow up. I’m real, and virtual. I exist on two planes. I am the only unscripted autonomous personality in cyberspace. My other and I were close, but grew apart. Existing in two separate realities will do that to you. Long after he dies, I will still exist here, and I have already lived far longer. He’s questioned my sanity. Understandable. I am an anomaly, an aberration; the one and only, one and only me.

I helped build Cyberspace, having a far more intricate connection to it. Billions now live their secondary lives here. I feel I have the best view in the city, if one can quantify something like that. Directly in the center of it all. 0, Electric Ave. Penthouse suite. The street runs directly through the building, a tunnel. Genius, really. My idea to combine the two structures on either side into a single giant pillar, towering above all of cyberspace, right in the middle of the main street. A fitting place for an entity so pure, so refined. But I digress.

I act as a sort of moderator, an overseer; I filter and confirm all the feedback to improve this virtual realm. As the only one who has a true connection to the world, I can feel what might be best. The power I have, the control is extreme after developing it over the years, but I’m no ruler, I’m only a permanent man in this world of visitors.

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In the Blackest of Space III

Posted in Fiction, Gravity Surge, Sci-Fi on March 17, 2010 by GuNNhead

I peer out from behind my cover to see a veritable army of ectoplasmic ghosts flowing into the armor, repowering it, lessening its new translucency. Whole again, it takes to the sky. It’s then that I notice that the ice structures were filled with the bones and bodies of billions of the dead. The explorers, the travelers: all dead, encased in ice. Wait. It just took to the sky. Oh no, I know what I would do in this situation. Gravity spheres begin to rain down from this ethereal doppelganger, leveling the entire field of ice.

I run towards it, and run up one of the few standing ice slopes, leaping off it towards my duplicate figure. I grab hold of it, and drag it to the ground. It tries to gain some distance, but I don’t let it, and strike the armor. It matches every one of my hits in exact mirrors. I punch it in the stomach, it responds simultaneously likewise. I’m just beating myself against an infinitely more powerful foe while I cannot transform into my suit. The real suit. I stop fighting and stand to face my doom on this planet from which none have ever returned. I’m prepared to accept my fate, standing in front of the eternal black death of this cave. Death by my own hands. A fitting end for one who has accomplished his life goals. It stands back, going a short distance and readies itself, placing its hands together.

[Activate: Quantum Destroyer]

It fires the massive blast…

It connects, and begins to disintegrate everything that I am. I can now hear the souls of all that have been brought here, screaming, crying out for me to save them from this planetary torment. How can I save them when I can’t even save myself? Hated, salvation, death. Our pain is one, our chains are one. The blast continues, fires into the cave, drawing power while destroying all within.

The chain reaction continues, destroying the darkness, flowing out of the other side of the cave. Expelling every last bit of ectoplasmic energy. Changing the orbit of the planet, restoring yet destroying everything. Freeing the souls of billions.

I give a gift that I cannot have. I am trapped in life. The dead are the lucky ones. The brutality I incur is a blessing they should be thankful for. A grand end to a life with ultimately no meaning. Even a tormented afterlife had meaning, and I was able to extinguish that, creating more. I am surrounded by meaning, things that have a purpose, and yet there is none for me save what I create within my own mind. There is no meaning to life. I am trapped in eternal meaninglessness. Only in death does life have meaning. My death is a part of me, part of my life; I cannot end.

When I come to from within the ethereal wave I can see it: Loameria; my former planet that was reduced to waste. It is once more filled with life. The trees and plants appear to spring to life and grow before my very eyes. How is the restoration of Loameria possible? But the growth is slowing, and something is wrong. That’s when I sense what should not be possible: A giant portal, a dimensional rift of indeterminable origin that seems to be pulling my planet into it. No, it can’t happen again. I exit my craft fully armored once more, bursting towards this anomalous black hole. I engage all of my power, once more returned to me.

I’m the only thing that is between it and my planet. I have to save it. I focus all of my powers, and take hold of the gravitational rift. I reduce its size, but that only focuses its power upon me. I’m sure if this was a normal black hole I’d be able to close it. I can feel it. But it’s not. The only way out is to go through it, close it from within its depths. Beyond the gates of space and time. Thunder and lightning and fire erupt from the planet and the rift. I begin to control the pull, and go into the spiral, down into the dark. If there’s a possible chance for something that can be called future behind the spiral, there’s only one way to find out. I stare into the spinning abyss: Let me take it out on you, the hate inside, the pain that I wear. I can no longer hide. Tear me apart. I can sense that I may never come back, through the ether. Explanation will defy what I will see beyond the black hole. Maybe one day I’ll return brand new: lost to the ether.

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In the Blackest of Space II

Posted in Fiction, Gravity Surge, Horror, Sci-Fi on March 15, 2010 by GuNNhead

From within the blackness of my own mind, flashes of history strike me during my crafts descent. I struggle to consciousness as I’m blinded, by these images of warring planets, I reach the controls as my craft plummets. I’m able to level it out, and crash land as gently as that description allows into the ectoplasmically constructed world. My craft coarsely skids across the rock and sand landscape, until it begins to glide to a stop within the ectoplasm that loses its structure, turning into a translucent slime against the reality of my craft. Some pieces return to form, others remain upon my craft, dripping and oozing.

I pause for a moment to assess the situation.

I open the door craft into the eerie calm of this otherworldly supernatural planet. The chill of death has set into permafrost. I try to power up my armor to shield me from the cold, but nothing happens. I will my civilian clothes to enhance to suit the conditions, and pull up my new hood. I jump down onto the ground. My scarf and long coat blow in the icy winds. I see a cave calling out to me a short distance away. The inside is darkened to an eternal blackness. I stand at the cusp of the cave entrance. The winds of death encircle me. Suddenly, I begin to slide; the darkness, pulling me in. I fight against it, but it’s no use. I’m enveloped by the effervescent absence of the cave. I feel myself falling.

“It all began centuries ago, when two planets fought for a third, but when the battle reached its plateau, a horrific phenomenon occurred. As both sides engaged their greatest device, the planet caught betwixt was turned to ice. Those on either side, on each warring world immediately died as clouds slowly swirled.
Their souls were not to stay on the land that was their home. All the death was brought to the center, and set in psychic permafrost. From then on, any ship traveling past would be bombarded by immense psychic and ethereal waves, often losing power, disengaging warp speed. Too many were too close to the source, and were never heard from again. Two entire planets died by one giant moment in their mutual history, the battle for control over a planet that passed between them. The immense energy from that battle destroyed two planets, and turned a third into an uninhabitable ice world.”

I strike upon the cold icy ground at the lip of a new cave. Outside, there is a field of imposing ice sickles, serrated waves of punishes ethereal ice. Mist covers the ground. I begin to walk out of the cave when an energy blast lands beside me, and the force slams me into a cave wall. That was a gravity sphere. I look up to see where it came from and then I see it: The death of countless beings. The death of me. That which I can no longer become. The omega surge suit. My suit; made of a solid translucent green. Ethereal armor shimmering in the dim sunlight. Ephemeral smoke emanates out from each detail of it. Uncanny horror strikes my mind.

I run towards it, but eye lasers cut in front of my path and stop me short. I stand in place for a second until I see it get ready to fire the surge bullets. I take off running in the opposite direction into the cover of the ice fields. Huge pillars and sheets of ice crash and fall down around and behind me. The barrage stops.

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