Category: Halloween

The cyberbrothel is always busy. Subscribers come in at all hours.
They make their selections, and the warehouse assembles their desire, and arranges the room as they like it.
By the time they get to the room, everything is ready.
Candles. Scents. Sheets. And a smile.
Afterwards, the system disassembles and cleans up everything in the room and returns it all to warehouse storage.
How the system mistook the senator for his date, well, we’re still reviewing the log files and tapes.
But as messy and tragic as it is, he did sign a release form like every other customer.

There’s an old saying:
Two people can keep a secret if one is dead.
So, I proposed this for my doctoral thesis.
“How are you going to prove that?” asked my advisor.
So, I had him whacked and stuffed into a 55 gallon drum.
“Shit,” I said. “I forgot to tell him a secret.”
So, I got another advisor, told him that I’d whacked my first advisor, and had him whacked.
“Oops,” I said. “Forgot to get his approval.”
The barrels began to stack up.
The university shrugged it off.
“It’s easier than firing professors with tenure,” the dean said.

When a Hollywood legend wins a Lifetime Achievement Award, they usually stand up and make a joke about not being done yet, or did they hear something from their doctor or something like that.
Except Burt Curtis.
The guy’s at least a hundred.
Deaf. Blind. Trapped in a wheelchair.
You couldn’t tell he was alive if it weren’t for the blinking lights and the whisper of the ventilator.
Still Hollywood’s elite wheels him from banquet to banquet, ceremony to ceremony.
His doting relatives (…right!) speaking on his behalf when they’re not fighting over his will.
The twisted grimace twitches feebly.

Saul the Saw was a magician.
He and his assistants, Janet and Sue, sold out theaters across the country with a double sawing act.
Janet in blue, Sue in red.
In went the blades, switch the boxes around, and they came out with each other’s skirts.
When Sam caught them together under the sheets, he cut them both in half for real.
And Sam went to prison for the double murder.
Now and then, he gets a hold of a deck of cards.
In the dining hall, shuffling.
“Pick a card,” he says.
When he guesses it, always say yes.

After the boys whacked Rico, they put him in the trunk and drove off.
Nobody saw Rico ever again.
The cops brought in the boys and gave them the third degree.
But they never said anything, and the cops had to let them go.
The cops followed them for a while, but they didn’t lead anywhere.
Over the years, people claimed they knew where Rico was, dead or alive, but nothing ever panned out.
Rico became a punchline and a bit of trivia, then faded from the headlines and memory.
Now, when you mention Rico’s name, the kids say “Who?”

I love estate sales.
Other people shop for barely-used appliances. Or jewelry. Or odd knick-knacks from their travels.
Clothes, well, that’s a bit too personal.
So is a bed. A bed frame is fine, but a bed? No.
It’s rare to find home movies.
The family usually keeps those or throws those out.
But every now and then, there’s a can of film in a projector or a tape left in a VCR.
I watch them all, and get an idea of what they were like when they were alive.
Before I killed them.
After all, I love estate sales.

Who doesn’t like Andy Anderson?
With his wide smile and red pinstripe suit and straw hat.
Marching down Main Street with a big grin and a firm handshake and a “How do you do?”
Kissing every baby and handing out cigars.
“I’ll clean up this town!” he shouts. “Vote for me!”
The next day, Andy’s body was handing from a lamppost.
His tongue pulled through a hole through his neck.
Columbia isn’t too far away to send this town a message.
“Nothing to see here,” says the chief of police, a fresh wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket.

Clutching his head, a searing headache, a migraine of migraines.
“Jeremy Blake the Fourth.”
Jeremy repeated that in the darkness.
Shadows, then lights, shapes came together to form a white room.
One moment, he had been in the scanning center.
A flash of light, and then darkness, and the massive pain in his head.
He looked at his hands, flexed his fingers, and clutched his head to squeeze out the pain.
“This one’s corrupt, too,” said a voice. “We’ll scan again.”
Jeremy’s pain vanished, along with Jeremy, and another Jeremy appeared in his place.
“Jeremy Blake the Fourth,” he said.

From the moment he knew of his existence, Detective Hargreaves knew he was AI.
Why would a singularity of billionaires and trillionaires upload a mere cop?
And why would they even need him?
Tracking down corrupted uploads for scanning and repair, why did they try to run?
He always found and caught them.
Why go through the charade at all?
Just access their file, templock it, and make the needed fixes.
Hargreaves shrugged and felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Overthinking things again?” said another Hargreaves.
He nodded, templocked himself, and waited for the cleansing sensation of the data repairs.