“A planetary AI, a quantum simbot, and an ice queen walk into a bar…” “Ice queen?” “One of those augs with the latest mods boosted to the max. You know the type. They act all cold and calculating, believing any display of emotion will make them look less advanced.”
By majoki7 months ago in Fiction
Some seven thousand years ago a micrometeorite winged a pine cone, clipped the ear of a very surprised marmot, skewered a large oyster mushroom, and buried itself in the thick duff of a mountainous forest in the north Cascades. Stan Clutterdam knew none of that when he unceremoniously peed on the ancient impact site.
This is going to feel like a set up, and it’s hard to deny that feeling when everything that caused the Last First is based on set theory. I’m hardly the person to adequately explain how Georg Cantor upended mathematics long ago when he proved that real numbers are more numerous than natural numbers. Essentially, Cantor’s set theory implies the existence of an infinity of infinities.
The chair creaked noisily when Sandoval sat at the table with five glasses set out. Even though he’d lost a few pounds since they last met, the old wood complained. Soon the others joined him: Avrilla, Hurst, Marpreesh, Suh.
By majoki8 months ago in Fiction
Standing among some of the oldest living things on earth, Mourad Du, felt his age. Not just in years, but in possibilities lost. And, now, the impossibility he faced. Who could he tell? Would it even matter?
You’re in your pod and Qwee hides your stylus as a joke. You smack Qwee because there is no other response. Qwee loves it and moves on to hide another podmate’s stylus while you flag the incident with the podmaster. Just another day in the pod.
Carpenter counted out loud while trying to carefully step over the swollen bodies. In the clunky hazmat suit his boot came down on the neck of a child.
You’d think I’d be happy about beating the odds on my very first try, of hitting a hole-in-one, winning the lottery, finding a needle in a haystack.
In my line of work, I hear it all the time, “Why do we have better maps of the surface of the moon and Mars than our own ocean floors?” To most folks it sounds like a reasonable question, but to a hydrographic surveyor it can be triggering.
When I lopped off my counterpart’s limb, it was not a very diplomatic move. Which was troublesome because I was the lead diplomat in this encounter with the Sippra.
“Farther? We’re at the ass end of the system!” “Farther.” Galihl slapped the navigation console. “Why? What’s the point? There’s no gateway beyond. We risk getting stranded between galaxies.”
Of course it’s overrated. You knew it would be before you paid the outrageous charter fee, travelled almost a thousand parsecs, endured the too-pious passengers aboard, and stood before the worn and crumbling fortress of stone that pilgrims claimed began it all.
