Tag: science fiction

The Robot Flock

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The parish priest was tired of giving sermons every week, so he built a robot to deliver his sermons.
The worshipers were tired of listening to the priest’s sermons, so they built robots to listen to the sermons.
Robots delivering sermons to robots, week in and week out.
After the nuclear war, all the humans were dead.
But the robots kept going to the services, and the priest robot kept delivering them.
Nobody knows what the robots do the rest of the time.
Because all the humans died.
Maybe they write silly stories, and you listener robots listen to them?

Turtle Teacher

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Every classroom has a turtle in an aquarium, placed on a table in front of each class.
The kids stare at the turtle for four hours, take a break for lunch, and return to staring at the turtle for the rest of the day.
Cameras watch the turtles and students, and the principal watches the video screens.
Nothing happens for days… weeks… months…
The Ministry was ready to pull the plug when an alarm went off in Classroom Twelve.
The turtle was gone, a greasy smear on the inside of the aquarium.
Upon review, one student’s eyes glowed red.
Success!

The Pair

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Teri had the most beautiful blue eyes.
So, she sold them.
You’ve seen them in some fashion magazines, I think. They made the model who bought them famous.
Teri used the money to buy a set of multispectrum sensorpods. She also paid her way through college and grad school.
The rest went to a startup in Silicon Valley, where genetic replicator tanks worked on the challenge of biological replacement technologies.
The research was a success, Teri having volunteered for the first human test.
She looked in the mirror and declared victory at the sight of her perfectly-reconstructed… and now-cancer-free breasts.

Boiling Point

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Doctor Odd only received one F grade in his life.
His chemistry teacher asked “What’s the boiling point of mercury?”
So, he built an orbiting doomsday laser and performed experiments on the planet Mercury.
The next day, he presented his results.
“I meant the element, not planet,” she said.
She gave him an F. The class laughed.
Odd vowed revenge and transferred to a different high school.
He didn’t wait long to determine the boiling point of the old teacher, her class, and that entire damn school.
He never again got less than an A, or reason to boil again.

The Ex

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The second-longest wait is from the time you issue a Reboot command to the time your bridebot opens her eyes and sees you for the first time as her husband.
The glint in her eye, the look on her face… it affects everything she says and does.
The longest wait is, of course, when you reverse the firmware flash for the divorce to take effect.
Usually, the glint and the look are long gone by then.
The memories remain, though, which is why it’s best to do a seven-pass erase procedure before recycling any bridebot.
Exes suck, especially metal ones.

Cough And Dagger

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The Dark Days are here.
I see their faces in the shadows, handing cough drops to each other.
There’s something in them. I just know there is.
No, I don’t know what it is. They won’t let me in the lab anymore.
I hear whispers: “Keep them medicated, keep them under control.”
I am offered the coughdrops at every corner, and I palm them to fool the others.
But now, their eyes are starting to glow green.
I can’t fake that, so I’m fleeing the city.
And then… I cough a single cough.
They hear it, growling, and I run.

The Waxlings

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Come here, Waxlings.
The sun is too bright. Our world is melting.
The great mountains of the west are hills now, flowing in all directions.
The oceans are too hot to live near. Our great bridges have fallen and turned to goo.
As has nearly everything else.
Our only solace is that we are of stronger waxes. We sweat and drip, but maintain our lives by eating and finding what little shelter that remains.
One day, the heat will be too great even for us, and we will melt into the core.
Forgive me, my children, but you are delicious.

Calling names

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Every boy in my kindergarten class is named John and every girl is named Joan.
The other five classes are the same.
We check with the other schools in the district and they are reporting the same thing.
You’d think someone would have noticed this with the birth certificates, but nobody noticed a pattern or raised an alarm.
Normal name distribution in the district, normal migration patterns for a developed country.
One boy’s eyes flash blue for a moment.
Then the others. They all smile.
Where did these kids come from?
And where did all of the normal kids go?

The shock

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Today, we fill our bodies with drugs to make up for reckless lives.
In the world of tomorrow, futurists say there will be nanobots making adjustments, repairs, and corrections.
At what point do we stop being ourselves and end up at the mercy of machines?
Does it matter who controls the machines?
Does it matter who dispenses the drugs?
What raw animal instincts are we prisoners to?
Perhaps we never have had any control over ourselves?
I feel a spark and my vision flickers for a bit.
I feel better now.
That shot didn’t hurt at all. Thank you, Doctor.

Dustsucker

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We used to clean these buildings by hanging a scaffold for guiding men with powerwashers and squeegies.
Now, we release Dustsucker Beasts on the ground, and they slide up the building to the top floor, leaving a streak of clean windows and bricks.
The trainer then leashes each beast, rides the elevator back down, and starts again.
It takes a third of the time and, when you consider insurance costs, much cheaper.
Until some idiot left a window open and wanted to pet a Beast.
So furry, so cute.
So acidic.
Inside rubber gloves, the trainer’s burnt, scarred fingers clench.