"This Scene Lacks Tension"

THIS SCENE LACKS TENSION
By Curtis C. Chen

"Your music sucks," Julie said as she picked up the garbage bag.

"Maybe your taste in music sucks." Marco opened the trunk of their unmarked police car. "Ever considered that?"

Julie hefted the bag of dead traffic-bot parts into the trunk, then used her phone to scan the code-tag so the convicts who had cleaned up the freeway would get their work credits. "You know shit about music. You just don't like anything that's popular."

Marco slammed the trunk shut. "There is a rich cultural heritage of sonic experimentation in the Balkan states."

Julie opened the passenger door and got in. "And you should re-tag your obviously pirated audio files with proper metadata. You work for the five-oh, you could at least pretend to respect copyright law."

"Look who's talking." Marco started the car. "Okay, where are we going now?"

Julie entered a passcode into her phone to decrypt the traffic-bot's last download coordinates. She waited for the map to load, then pointed westward.

***

The woman who answered the door of the large two-story house at the end of the long dirt road looked to be at least eighty years old. She grinned broadly at Julie and Marco through the screen door. Julie hoped they weren't dealing with a crazy person. There had been no other houses within five miles.

"Good morning, ma'am," Julie said, holding up her ID badge. "Portland Police. We're investigating some vandalism which occurred near here, and we need to check your UIA box for some information."

"Oh, of course, dear," the old woman said. "I'd be happy to help. But, if you wouldn't mind?"

She gestured toward the NO SOLICITORS sign that hung next to the door. Julie held her badge up to the sign and let the hidden sensors detect the RFID embedded in the badge, handshake with the onboard crypto chip, and verify her identity data.

"Officer Julie Nickerson," the sign said in a synthetic male voice. "Portland Police Bureau, Computer Security Section, badge number 6331. Authorized for law enforcement activities in Oregon state and Clark County, Washington. Supervisor, Lieutenant Lawrence Mitchell. Contact portland-oregon-dot-gov-slash-police for more information."

"And your friend, too, please," the woman said, still grinning. Julie wondered if her face had frozen like that after too many church socials and tea parties. "You can't be too careful out here, you know."

Marco held up his badge for the sign to scan. "I don't need to come in."

"Just pretend he's not even here," Julie said.

"Most people do," Marco added.

"Nonsense," the old woman said, after the sign had verified Marco's identity. "It's very nice to meet you both. I'm Margaret Whitaker; you can call me Margie. I was just making some tea. Please, come in and sit down for a minute. You can spare a minute, can't you?"

"That sounds lovely, thank you," Marco said, moving past Julie into the house.

"You don't even like tea," Julie grumbled as she followed him.

"Free food, man!" Marco replied.



Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight cc

"Her Story"

HER STORY
By Curtis C. Chen

In 2023, Amanda learned something about her daughter.

She found the doll's head jammed under the living room sofa. She didn't see the rest of the doll. Her first stop was Barry's room.

"Have you seen your sister's Barbie?" she asked her son, brandishing the head and hoping to elicit some sign of guilt.

Barry shook his head and went back to programming his Hexbugs.

Amanda proceeded to her daughter's room, fearing an imminent tantrum but wanting to get it over with before Donald came home from work.

"Colleen," Amanda said as she stepped into the doorway, and stopped.

Her nine-year-old daughter was hunched over her teatime table, prying open the torso of the AI-Barbie with forceps and a craft knife. A small pile of wires, circuit boards, and microdot sensors lay on the pink plastic tabletop.

"Colleen," Amanda said, kneeling and holding out the doll's head, "are you looking for this?"

The girl looked, shook her head, and smiled at her mother. "No thanks, Mom. I don't need the head. There's nothing inside there!"

Amanda nodded, put the head on the table, and went back downstairs.

***

In 2032, Donald failed to keep his family together.

"You can't just leave," he said as his daughter flung clothes into a suitcase.

"We're done with the estate stuff," Colleen said. "I need to be in Cambridge next week to sign for the scholarship."

"You're really going to go." Donald folded his arms. "You're going to fly across the country and leave your brother and me here."

"Jesus, Dad, you're both grown men." Colleen opened a closet.

"We're a family!" Donald said, louder than he had intended. He took a step forward, but stopped when Colleen flinched.

He waited for her to look at him, but she only turned away.

***

In 2099, Colleen helped her brother end his life as a human.

"How long will it take?" Barry asked.

"Oh, about fifteen minutes," Colleen said.

"That fast," Barry murmured, flexing one arthritic hand.

"Your genome's a good candidate." Colleen booted the autodoc. "Runs in the family."

"Too bad this wasn't available for Mom."

"It wouldn't have helped her. The tumor was in her brain."

The autodoc's manipulators whirred to life, cycling through their startup diagnostics.

"Is this going to hurt?" Barry asked.

Colleen coughed out a laugh. "You probably should have asked that before signing the consent forms."

"Speaking of forms, they told me I'd have to re-integrate," Barry said. "Is that true?"

"We do all the paperwork here at the hospital," Colleen said. "Don't worry, you won't have to stand in line at the federal building."

"But I'll be a new and distinct legal entity. A post-human being." Barry looked at his sister. "Was the transition difficult for you?"

Colleen stared down at her genetically engineered, double-thumbed hands and softly glowing green skin. Then she looked at the old man who was her brother.

"We're not just the sum of what came before," she said. "We're more. We're different. But we don't forget the past."



Photo Credit: Deborah Leigh (Migraine Chick) via Compfight cc

"Wizard and Robot"

WIZARD AND ROBOT
By Curtis C. Chen

Vernor watched anxiously as Alpha-Nine maneuvered her rifle and targeting scope into place. He turned to the building across the street and prepared to project his catchment spell. Property damage was one thing; civilian casualties were another. Seconds passed.

Vernor said, "What are you waiting for? Take the shot!"

"Calculating projectile vectors," Alpha-Nine said, a metal statue vocalizing through her left shoulder.

"Are you kidding me?" Vernor said. "You've had blueprints and radar scans for days. What the hell are you still calculating?"

"Materials analysis was incomplete," Alpha-Nine said. "I am observing pedestrian traffic across floor surfaces to estimate after-target deflection probabilities."

"We don't have time for this," Vernor hissed. "I'll wrap the bullet in a self-destruct envelope, make it disintegrate after it moves through living tissue. Take the damn shot."

"Too many variables—"

Vernor stood up and raised both palms. He focused his mind, spoke a sequence of arcane syllables, and the twelfth floor of the building across the street erupted in flame. He released the catchment.

Broken glass and crumbled masonry fell and stopped twenty feet above the pavement, caught by an invisible barrier. The individual pieces would lower themselves to the ground at a hundredth of their normal speed.

"Come on," Vernor said, smacking Alpha-Nine's backpack and moving away from the edge of the roof. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Impatient," Alpha-Nine vocalized, rolling backward and retracting the components of the rifle back into her torso.

"Hurry up!"

***

Two bodyguards grabbed Vernor as soon as he stepped through the portal and pulled him to one side. Two other heavies seized Alpha-Nine when she came through and locked her in place with an electromagnet.

"Is that really necessary, guys?" Vernor said to the thugs.

"I'm afraid it is," said a raspy voice from across the room. "I wouldn't want my favorite vendors leaving before they explained why they deviated from our agreed terms of service."

Because I wanted to send a message, Vernor thought. Because I only wanted to kill Lampton, and encourage the rest of his crew to leave town. Because I don't want to deal with more than one criminal syndicate at a time.

Out loud, he said, "Hey, our contract said nothing about the method of assassination. You wanted to scare off the competition, right? Mission accomplished." Vernor stared down their client. "Now when the fuck do we get paid?"

The old man wearing dark, oversized eyeglasses and a suit that had probably been tailored three female Presidents ago smiled and nodded. "Your cash and... pharmaceuticals are waiting back at your hotel. Please, try not to overindulge yourselves. We may require your services again soon."

Vernor shook off the bodyguards. "Yeah, I hope so." The sooner we're off this case, the better.

In the back of his mind, he felt Alpha-Nine's comm path: I agree. This assignment has proven to be quite distasteful.

Keep it together, Nine, Vernor thought back at her. Just one more week.

That is several million compute cycles too long, she replied.



Image: Gandalf & WALL•E. They're cops by Molly Lewis, January, 2013

"CSI: Computer Science Investigation"

CSI: COMPUTER SCIENCE INVESTIGATION
By Curtis C. Chen

The file hit Julie's desk with a clatter. It was an encrypted white ceramic slate, not one of the normal local-jurisdiction jackets printed on translucent floppy plastic. Julie knew it was FBI without even seeing the logo.

Julie did not want to deal with a federal case.

"Come on, Lieutenant," she said to Mitchell, the beanpole who supervised the day shift. "I haven't even finished my morning coffee. And look at my backlog." Julie pointed to the pile of plastic on her desk, each display board flashing a rotating animation of case number, suspect photo, and report abstract.

Mitchell nodded. "What are you working on now?"

Shit. Julie locked her phone to hide the display and shrugged. "Just some more legwork on that NFC fraud thing. Lots of victims to interview, you know the drill."

"That's retail." Mitchell tapped the FBI slate. "This is federal. Go."

Julie picked up the slate, then paused with her thumb over the touchpad. "Wait. I'm going somewhere?"

"It's a house call."

Julie stifled a groan.

***

"Okay, now watch this next part."

Julie unpaused the video. Behind her, Marco scratched his beard.

"I thought this was an urgent dispatch," he said. "Why are you still here?"

"Shut up and watch."

On the screen, the traffic-bot recording abruptly changed from the side of the white minivan to flat blue sky. A blurry face moved into frame for a split second, and then the image vibrated briefly before cutting out completely.

An error dialog popped up with a soft bing: PREMATURE END OF FILE.

"So he killed a traffic-bot," Marco said. "Big deal. We used to go through a dozen of those every Saturday night back in Santa Cruz."

"That's not the problem," Julie said. "Did you see how fast the guy did it?"

Marco narrowed his eyes. "Okay, yeah, that was pretty quick. You're saying he's taken apart cop bots before?"

"What if he was speeding on purpose?" Julie asked. "What if he's part of a robot chop shop, stripping them for parts? I could be walking right into an ambush."

"You just don't want to go outside," Marco said.

"Can you blame me?"

"Those bots are made with the cheapest hardware in the world." Marco waved a hand dismissively. "It would take, like, a hundred of them for anyone to have enough components to build anything useful. There's no storage; there's not even a battery pack. They get wireless power beamed down from aerial drones. Trust me, nobody is hiding out along I-5 harvesting our bots."

Julie folded her arms. "Maybe they're just waiting to hit human police when we follow up. What about that?"

Marco took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Is this your roundabout way of asking me to come with you on the call?"

"No," Julie lied. "I just want you to make a note of the time, so you can tell the homicide detectives exactly when you last saw me."

"Oh, Jesus Christ." Marco stood up and grabbed his jacket. "You're driving. My tunes. Let's go."



Image: coding is not a crime! by mike_tseng, July, 2007

"Debriefing"

DEBRIEFING
By Curtis C. Chen

"Nobody died," I said for what felt like the hundredth time.

"And that's your criterion, is it?" the examiner barked from the other side of the desk. "You destroyed an entire city block and blew the cover of everyone in your support team, but hey, there were no actual fatalities, so let's chalk that one up in the 'win' column?"

I shifted in my amazingly uncomfortable wooden chair. "All I'm saying is, it was just a training simulation. A computer-generated exercise. What's the big fuss?"

"What's the—!" The examiner's face cycled through three distinct shades of red before he shook his head. "These simulations are how we evaluate your potential to be a field agent."

"Yeah, but I knew it was a simulation, didn't I? I mean, to be really effective, shouldn't you put me in a dangerous situation which I believe is real, to see how I would actually behave?"

The examiner frowned at me. "You're suggesting that we deceive our people in order to evaluate them?"

I shrugged. "I'm just saying, knowing that it's a simulation, knowing that the stakes aren't real, diminishes my motivation."

"Oh, I see," the examiner said. "So we should use a different standard to evaluate your performance. You're just that special, is that what you're saying?"

"Well, I am—"

The examiner's fist smashed against the desktop. "I'm only going to say this once. Nobody is so extraordinary that the enemy will not kill him. Nobody is so singular that he can survive a bullet fired into his skull at point blank range.

"Our ranks and titles only matter within these walls. Out there in the field, it doesn't matter who you are. It only matters what you can do. And before we send you off, we need to know what you're capable of and what your limits are. Is that clear?"

I nodded.

"Nobody gets special treatment," he said. "If you can't summon the wherewithal to do your best in training, I have no confidence that you'll perform any better in an actual life-or-death situation where you need to make split-second decisions."

"So you're not going to let me try again?"

For a moment, I thought the examiner's eyes might pop out of his head. "You are dismissed. I'll send a full evaluation report to your supervisor by the end of the day."

"Right." I stood up, reached into my pocket, and pulled out the jump drive I'd pocketed during the sim.

It hadn't been easy, finding the correct computer-controlled holo-character and then lifting the tiny prize off him, but demolishing the building had provoked an appropriate flight response in all the chars except my target. I would never have done it in the real world, but I knew how to beat a computer game.

"Will you be wanting this back, then?" I asked.

I could almost see smoke escaping from the examiner's ears, and only months of training kept me from smirking as he snatched the drive from between my fingers.



Image: Apple store covent garden by Andy Lederer, August, 2010

"Now and Later"

The following story is fictional. No actual person or event is depicted.

NOW AND LATER
By Curtis C. Chen

Now, Christian Francis Reed plays with a toy rifle, expelling the cork projectile over and over, pretending he can strike targets across the room. Pop. Targets like the tinseled tree, or the sleeping dog, or his sister. He wonders when his father will get him a real gun. He imagines shooting BBs, hitting things before they can get close enough to hit him. He aims the air rifle and imagines the face of the largest boy in class, the one who punches and kicks harder than anyone else. Pop.

Later, Christian Francis Reed walks through the shopping mall, covered in ceramic body armor, an automatic weapon in each hand. He likes the way the guns bounce as he fires them, rat-a-tat-tat, scattering bullets left and right. He doesn't care if he hits anyone; he's just shooting to clear his path. He imagines the noises not as gunshots, but as drumbeats. That's what they sound like, through the helmet: rump-a-pum-pum.

Now, Christian Francis Reed admires himself in the mirror, holding the first firearm he's purchased with his own money, a revolver which he selected after days of research. The six-shooter reminds him of Westerns, but there are also practical reasons to prefer "wheel guns" over "bottom feeders"—the latter can jam, and that's no good. Christian likes to know that he will be able to shoot his gun whenever he wants.

Later, Christian Francis Reed sees the police sniper on the upper level of the mall, and Christian drops the sniper with half a clip. The sniper falls and lands in front of Christian. She's a woman. He hesitates, confused—shouldn't she be at home with her baby?—until she draws her sidearm, and then he shoots her in the neck. But she manages to put a bullet in his leg first, and he has to hobble forward. He's annoyed that she slowed him down. Christian doesn't like it when people stop him from getting what he wants.

Now, Christian Francis Reed wrestles with the girl in the backseat, pinning her down. He's not sure if the noises she's making are even words. He releases her wrist to reach under the seat, and she slaps his face before he can grab the pistol. Christian slams the butt of the weapon into the girl's skull, and then she is silent and still, and he gets what he wants.

Later, Christian Francis Reed lies on his back in the center of the mall, wheezing as broken ribs scrape against his lungs. The police made him drop the detonator, and though he has to respect their marksmanship with the new non-lethal shock darts, he is very unhappy that he won't get what he wants. His fingers twitch toward the detonator, just inches away, but a boot kicks it out of reach. The owner of the boot kneels above Christian, and he sees that it's another woman.

"You're under arrest," she says, cuffing his wrists. "Don't die before we put you on trial, asshole."



Image: Science Museum of Minnesota bans guns, July, 2008

"Not As We Know It"

NOT AS WE KNOW IT
By Curtis C. Chen

"Here we go." Renfti pushed the button. "End of the world."

Sarlmon watched the flashing red color spread across the map on the wall display for a second, then sat down at the control station next to his student. "You seem confident of the outcome."

Renfti folded her hands and smiled. "I've studied this species for a long time. They're quite gregarious—almost pathologically so. Cut off their social contact, and they start losing their minds."

Sarlmon nodded. "An interesting hypothesis."

"I've tested it with several small groups," Renfti said. "Same results every time. The key is to isolate them, remove all objective evidence from external sources, then initiate a dominance struggle. It never ends well."

"But to reproduce that on a large scale?" Sarlmon asked. "Surely you can't expect these beings to self-isolate everywhere. Cultural and geographical differences will provoke different responses across the planet."

"Some things are hard-wired into the brain." An alert popped up on Renfti's console, and she tapped at her controls. "Survival instincts remain, because the genes are selfish. Civilization alters the dynamics and causes instinctual responses to have undesirable results..." She frowned. "That's unusual."

"Let me guess," Sarlmon said, "something unexpected in one of the large population centers, probably a coastal city."

Renfti gaped at him. "How did you know?"

"My dear, you are not the first candidate who's ever tried to defend this thesis." Sarlmon waved at the wall display. "Show me the data, please."

The map zoomed in, and one shaded area resolved into clusters of pulsing red dots. As Sarlmon and Renfti watched, one particular cluster moved upward, accreting other red dots.

"This doesn't make sense," Renfti said, poking at her controls. "An anomaly. One bad datum. It won't affect the outcome."

"How many individuals in that cluster?" Sarlmon asked.

"The computer estimate is..." Renfti shook her head. "That can't be right."

"How many?"

"Nearly a thousand!" Renfti hammered at her controls. "There must be some mistake. They couldn't have self-organized that quickly; the communication issues alone would be insurmountable—"

"They're moving." Sarlmon pointed at the screen. "Where are they going? Can you overlay the radar scan?"

"Yes, Professor. There." The display flickered, and the translucent blue ghosts of buildings and structures appeared, cobalt-tinged jars around the teeming crimson fireflies. "Oh no. No, no, no..."

"Let me guess," Sarlmon said. "A launch facility."

A large red sphere blossomed in the base of one of the blue structures, and alarms began sounding all around the two scholars. Renfti screeched. Sarlmon slapped his override and began programming a transfer orbit.

"I don't understand!" Renfti wailed. "It should have worked! All the simulations were positive!"

"Nuclear-capable societies are always complicated," Sarlmon said as he piloted the ship out of weapons range. "I'm afraid your experiment is over, my dear. They've seen us. It's the military's problem now.

"Oh, stop blubbering. Your next course will be Earth history. Learning how we survived our nuclear age should help you understand how to make things go wrong on these undesirable alien worlds."



Image: wifi stations in berlin by Michael Kreil, April, 2011

"Barely Legal"

BARELY LEGAL
By Curtis C. Chen

"So," the human asked, using the translator in his computer tablet, "what's a nice pupa like you doing in a place like this?"

Anafful suspected this was an attempt at what humans called "humor," and what her mother called "useless vocalization," especially if it came from one of Anafful's friends.

It was lunchtime, and the friends in question had all abandoned Anafful to gawk at the aliens milling about the cafeteria downstairs. She had seen this human walking around the wards previously, talking to various people until he was shooed away by the nurses.

Anafful suspected he was a galactic census adjunct or some such boring thing. She had watched as he approached, mystified as to why all her friends found these endoskeletal beings so fascinating. To Anafful, the human looked pink and squishy, like an oversized and undercooked land grub.

His appearance made her a bit nauseous, to be honest, but she did her best to be polite. After all, he was a guest in her star system.

"I will soon enter the chrysalid phase of my adolescence," Anafful said, speaking slowly so the translator program could follow along. "My ancestors are among the custodians of this institution, and thus my family enjoys the benefit of its medical care."

"Got it. Trust fund baby," the human said, operating the tablet with his soft, fleshy fingers. They made a disturbing, wet, thwack sound with every impact against the touch-screen.

"I do not know what that phrase means," Anafful said.

"Don't worry about it. So, your friends who were in here earlier, are they classmates then?" the human asked.

"Some of them, yes. My school is—"

"And at least one of them was male, is that correct?"

Anafful suppressed any display of annoyance at his interruption. "Two were males. Gaddlim wore the bright red cap, and Driicha has the emblem of ascension etched into his left wing carapace. They—"

"Have you engaged in sexual relations with either of them?"

Anafful could not help fluttering her mandibles at that. "Why are you asking me these questions?"

"Or are your eggs not accessible until later in the metamorphic cycle?"

"Who are you?"

"What about with the other females?" the human asked, apparently oblivious to Anafful's objections. "Have you ever performed mutual—"

Just then, a nurse passing by the open door of Anafful's room burst in, seizing the human by his lumpy shoulders and spinning him around.

"Hey!" he yelped.

"You again!" the nurse said, and shoved him out the doorway. "Out! Right now, or I call security!"

"I'm allowed to be here!" the human protested from the corridor.

"You're not allowed to harass children!" The nurse slammed the door shut, then turned to Anafful. "Are you well, miss?"

"Yes," Anafful said, clutching her bedcovers close to her shell. "But confused. He was asking me all sorts of... strange questions. Who is he?"

"Just one of those soft-brained human scholars." The nurse shook her head. "I swear, it seems like all they ever want to talk about is sex."



Image: I'm looking through you by Gabriela F. Ruellan, February, 2007