Up until now, I helped move call center jobs to India.
But that wasn’t enough for the shareholders, and they wanted more return on their investment.
So, I worked with a friend at Temporal Labs, and we started up a helpdesk based on workers in the future.
“It’s a quantum tunnel communications channel,” I said. “Expensive, but permanent. The great thing is, they know how things turn out in the future, so they can send answers back to us.”
I guess leaving our debts to our grandchildren wasn’t enough. Now we make them answer all of our stupid questions, too.
Tag: science fiction
Nanobots
Long ago, Sally would have had to clean her teeth with a brush, fluoridated goo, waxed string, and medicated rinse.
Now, it’s done with nanobots. Tiny robots programmed to scrub away food particles, eliminate bacteria, and rebuild any damaged surface material.
Everything is done with nanobots. Zapping cancer cells, replenishing muscle fibers, healing bone, and enhancing nerve signals.
They’re not supposed to go into the brain, but they do.
The tooth maintenance routine doesn’t quite work in the brain, neurons sheathed with shiny hard enamel.
Sally collapsed in the mall, staring blankly, with a perfect dead smile on her face.
The Falling Leaves
It takes two hours to reach this spot, but it’s worth the journey.
See those trees? The ones with the red and orange leaves?
They’re just about ready, I think.
Spread out the blanket on the perfectly smooth grass, lay back, and look up at the sky through the branches.
Then, with the first breeze, the leaves start to fall… upwards.
Into the sky they rise, up and out of sight.
I don’t know why the leaves do that.
Maybe it’s a gravitational anomaly, or perhaps something in the leaves.
Just lay back and watch them rise, up and away.
The Stone Church
We founded the church on Peter, commanding the funeral masons to shape and polish his remains into a single massive cornerstone.
The Ancestors are hauled from The Garden of Memories, and they are also used as building blocks for the church.
Soon, The Birthing Mine is producing more blocks for the church than children. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a young stoneman walking about.
The Teachers, replaced by the priests as the authorities of our land, were commanded to volunteer themselves for quarrying.
Some resisted, and they were pulverized to provide pebbles for the walkways.
Timeshifted
When the time machine exploded, the research team told you I was dead, my atoms scattered throughout history.
I was badly hurt, sure, but there’s great medical care in the future. All kinds of advanced Star Trek stuff here.
You can hardly see the scars from where they regrew my arm, and this new eye is as good as the old one… even better, with the anti-aging treatments.
If only you’d have held on. They could have cured that cancer.
Instead, I wasn’t there to help you though it.
You killed yourself, and I’m laying a flower on your grave.
Raise the flag
As a joke, the doctors trained one of the monkeys they had nursed back to health to raise the flag over their observation post at dawn and lower it at dusk.
That monkey taught the other monkeys to perform this trick, and pretty soon there were flags all over the research center, raised and lowered by monkeys.
When one of the scientists tried to lower the flag by himself, the monkey bit him.
That scientist is known as Patient Zero in the records.
Not that there’s anybody left to read the records.
The monkeys still raise and lower the flags.
Gertie and Eustus
My rich Great Aunt Gertie lays in bed, eyes closed, arm around her beloved cat, Eustus.
He’s not the original Eustus.
Gertie tried cloning. Cloning is hit-or-miss with personalities, though.
Luckily, the last came out nice and docile.
Now, she’s trying out the latest in hologram fields.
Before, they just rendered dusty, translucent ghosts.
These days, they’re quite lifelike with tactile presence.
Eustus wakes up, stretches, and curls back up, purring contentedly.
Gertie flickers for a moment, smiles in her electronic sleep.
She left everything in her will to Eustus.
(Even though he’s just a cloned copy, my lawyers say.)
Unfair
It’s interesting to see people adjusting to ever-advancing technology.
From chalk and slate to Microsoft MindLink, teachers preparing kids for yesterday’s challenges, kids distracted by the newest gadgets.
Susie has a dataport on her arm, and she covers it with a long sleeve.
MindLink still has brainwipe issues, her parents say. A class in Chicago got zombied last week.
She pouts, runs to her room, crying.
Plugging in, she updates her journal, tagging it with all the unfairness, all the envy of her friends who got their way.
Just like her daughter will do.
(With the next generation of technology.)
Restoring Faith
The Sermonizer has been priest of Steamtown for a hundred years, presiding over weddings and funerals, delivering the Sunday sermon without fail.
Until today.
Pressure tank exploded overnight. Punchcards strewn everywhere.
Looking down from the equipment loft, I stare at Sermonizer’s marionette, slumped over the pulpit.
I climb down the stairs, and I lift it.
Not heavy at all, really.
I climb back up and tug at the support ropes.
Sermonizer wobbles to his feet.
“Dearly beloved,” I groan loudly.
Every child mimics Sermonizer in Steamtown, you know.
Clean up the cards, Deacon, and ring the bells.
Time for church.
The Mechanical Arm
701512
The mugger tried to take the girl’s purse.
She fought back.
And lost, with a bullet in her heart.
Despite the fact that the girl in the street was dead, her mechanical arm was still running.
The AI routine was cycling through idle behaviors, drumming the fingers on the ground, opening and closing on its own.
She liked to wear gloves, so the lifelike sleeve with the tattoos ended up convincing the mugger that she was still alive, so he shot her a few more times.
The hand kept moving, twitching, and the mugger picked up her purse and ran.