"Next up is Leighton Decker." Leighton walked to the front of the class, dragging her feet as she walked so that her polka-dotted boots—her favorites, though entirely out of season—scraped loudly against the coarse carpeting. Twenty-three blank faces stared at her in wait. By the end of the year she'd be able to perform the… Continue reading My Summer Vacation
Tag: Research
Out of Body
There were a lot of bodies. They were neatly laying on stainless countertops spaced evenly throughout the windowless room, amidst a labyrinth of push carts with gleaming tools and monitors that blinked stupidly in the silence like dead-eyed cattle. None of the bodies were Kent, though. I picked my way through the laboratory under the… Continue reading Out of Body
We Were Here
Tana was the world's best cryptographer. She hadn't thought so before, though she'd known she was talented, but her very presence on this task force confirmed it. Everyone here was the best at what they did. The eclectic team included a renowned Oxford linguist, a cosmologist stationed on Luna's far side, an Angolan who was… Continue reading We Were Here
Ultracortex
Ivy wrestled a braid of fiberoptic cables off of her shoulder. Snagged on the joint seal again. “How much longer?” Holden stopped and slowly, carefully turned himself around in the fluorescent underwater tangle. Air bubbles trickled up from the back of his suit, stringing together a breadcrumb trail leading from his rebreather to the surface… Continue reading Ultracortex
Keeping Score
Once we cracked it we became unstoppable. Most people thought we were unstoppable before, but that's only because it had been so long since we'd been stopped. We were only overwhelming back then—still impressive, but not quite the same as unstoppable. Our chances of ever losing another battle went from non-zero to zero. It was a… Continue reading Keeping Score
Multigenesis
The dust got into everything; wrinkles in the rubber gaskets, the edges between a helmet and a visor, under the plastic joints around an elbow or between the proximal and distal phalanges of a thumb. Everything. It doesn't matter how much compressed air you got blasted with in the airlock or if you were diligent… Continue reading Multigenesis
Existential Risk Management
What is an acceptable level of risk when tempting existential threats; the very future of humanity, or the universe itself? How's a fifty-fifty chance of obliteration sound? Seems high. One in a hundred? Astronomically high, no question. How about one in a billion? This is where the average person begins to feel reasonably safe, but… Continue reading Existential Risk Management
Gods of Incompetence
The world's first artificial consciousness was on suicide watch. She was housed in a humanoid platform, more for the researchers' benefit than hers, and more for their hubris than their benefit. She oscillated between despondence and rage at regular intervals and was unquestionably a threat to herself. They worried she might become a threat to… Continue reading Gods of Incompetence
A God in Our Own Image
Dr. Rykovanko had finally done it; she'd mastered the process of digitizing human minds. It had taken a lot of trial and error, made all the more unfortunate by the destructive nature of the procedure. But progress is rarely a linear path. The procession of brain boxes in her office laid out the milestones, lest… Continue reading A God in Our Own Image
Me? Scared?
Cassidy relived himself as he walked to the edge of the shore. The sun was close to drowning beneath the horizon and it skipped its last rays across the liquid methane sea like weather beaten stones. The evening fog was forming. His heavy boots kicked up rust-colored regolith as he dragged his feet. When he… Continue reading Me? Scared?
Warmup Pages 