Late that night, when the only sounds were Tiphani’s soft snores and the gentle whisper of wind through the Bel Air Hotel’s gardens, Jimson Ogilvy slipped out of bed. First just to go to his own, because you never knew when a Chief might remember they were a Chief, and the old pen-and-company-ink thing wasn’t a great idea.

The Shrill’s cage, sketched in shades of charcoal and black, changed his plans.

They’re probably monitoring every word, he thought.

But hey, points for initiative.

But hey, fired for unauthorized contact.

The Shrill scratched aimlessly at the diamondoid cage, seemingly unaware of him. Jimson cleared his throat and said, “Hello, Shrill Ambassador.”

“Hello human life (entity). It is time for viewing of failed competitors?”

“No. It’s still night. I just thought you might be bored.”

“Have not been compromised.”

Jimson frowned. What did that mean? “I thought you might want to talk.”

“Communication with other nodes (mind-components) continues. Limited by defects in transmission.”

“Talk with me.”

“Have communicated with humans.”

“I mean, something less formal. You could tell me what it’s like to be a Shrill and I can tell you what it’s like to be human.”

“In process of discovering human capabilities (limits).”

“But you don’t really know us. And we don’t really know you. What do you do for fun?”

“Garbled term.”

“Fun?”

“Garbled term.”

“Entertainment?”

“Garbled term.”

“You mentioned songs. Stories, theater? What do you do?”

The Shrill went silent and still. Slow seconds ticked past on the antique mantel-clock. Humphrey Bogart stared down from a pop-art print above.

“We compile songs of other races (times). Other terms garbled.”

“But what do you do?” Jimson said. How could an entire race have no concept of entertainment or fun, even if they were some kind of distributed mind? Even the Floaters sang, and some claimed they had something like stories of the far past.

“Humanity flaw in design (universe),” the Shrill said, bumping the transparent cage. “Humanity seeking contact, forever separate (not networked). Other life (floaters) connected. We connected. Your datanet (WOW) connected.”

“What does that mean?”

“Definition of previous unnecessary.”

Jimson frowned again. It was almost as if the translation itself was being garbled. And with algorithms – probably rushed for this auspicious trip – it might just be. Sudden thought struck:

“Suspect translations imperfect,” Jimson said.

“Possible hypothesis.”

“Test with me by repeating phrases exactly?”

“Test by repeating phrases (songs).”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“I’d like to talk with you.”

“Conquer (ingest) you following understanding.”

“Wow. That’s bad.”

“Garbled amazement imperfection.”

“I would like to see records of your defunct competitors.”

“Request songs of life (entities) assimilated or destroyed by current dominant life.”

Jimson shrugged. “That’s close.”

“It is nearby.”

“Ok, that’s enough. There are big problems with the translation, I can see. Maybe I can get some new algorithms, that would clear up a lot.”

“Sufficient quantity. Problems in translation can be perceived (heard). New formulas will make clear.”

Jimson shook his head. “The test is over.”

“Test ended.”

“Will you stop?”

“Please stop (continue).”

Jimson chuckled, despite himself. “Ok, Shrill. Good night.”

“Victor pure darkness.”

Jimson stifled a louder laugh and went to his room. As he lay down on top of the sheets, a terrible thought hit him: what if the Shrill was still repeating phrases tomorrow morning?

###

February 6th, 2009 / 930 Comments »

Tiphani sighed. It was good to be back. Not for the assignment. That was too much. But for Earth. She’d lived on fourteen of the fifty-three planets in the Web of Worlds, but none of them were ever as right as Earth. Even the best of the engineered ones, higher oxygen and lower gravity and milder climate and beaches and forests and mountains that made the advertising team cry with delight, there was something subtly wrong, something not-earth.

She glanced at the Shrill, tapping feebly against the walls of its cage. Jimson watched the scenery passing outside in open-mouthed wonder. The humming retro teardrop of the tourbus carved the restored blacktop of Sunset Boulevard. Past Carneys, where the early-evening crowd was gathering under the black-and-white striped canopy, their faces painted in sickly green fluorescent light. Past the Whisky and the Comedy Club and the Rainbow and the Viper Room and the towering neomodern inside-out pillar of U Be Dancin, with their authentic reproduction posters advertising bands hundreds of years dead, and authentic reproduction trash gathering in the corners of the entrance, and simulated aging and weathering guaranteed to look like it looked in its prime, back before the Mars Enterprise and the Jerists and the Corporate Age. Past the last of the seedy little shops and liquor markets and corner delis, to the broad smooth expanses of north Beverly Hills, where the Chiefs and Perpetuals of over fifty worlds drove their restored Bentleys and Vipers and Mercedes along the new-old blacktop, their hair slicked back, sunglasses clamped firmly around their rejuvenated heads. Laughing, their arm around beautiful blonde things maybe less than Staff, maybe not even real.

It would be easy to imagine that she was back at the end of the age of government, but there were no police to ticket the speeding Chiefs, no cameras hanging over intersections, ready to flash freedom away. In that, museum Earth had failed.

But it’s best not to remember some things, she thought.

Past the outskirts of Beverly Hills and into Bel-Air. The shimmering UCLA dome poked over the tops of restored mansions, orange-red in sunset. Tiphani remembered her time there, those bittersweet moments when she first realized how lucky she was to be born of Chiefs, and how unlucky she was to be born on Earth.

Through the gates of the Bel-Air Estates, where Jimson Ogilvy persisted in being Young Staff.

“It’s hard to believe this is authentic,” he said.

“What?”

“The hotel. Up here. In the middle of all these mansions. It doesn’t seem as if they would’ve allowed it.”

“It was here,” Tiphani said.

“And nobody complained?”

“I doubt if they had a very rowdy clientele.”

Jimson went silent, but still looked doubtful.

In the hotel’s tiny parking lot, there were no doormen or porters to help Jimson with the unwieldy powercart and diamondoid cage for the Shrill. Not surprising. The Shrill terrified everyone.

But that’s only Shrill instinct, she thought, remembering the unedited records of first contact. That’s not the Shrill mind. Humanity was blessed with a much greater degree of control over our instinct.

She watched Jimson struggle the powercart up the steps, trying not to bang the Shrill from side to side. The Shrill scrabbled against the transparent side of its cage closest to Jimson, not more than six inches from his face. She saw his grim look and for a moment felt sorry for the boy. Just out of indenture, and she had dragged him here. But he was a smart thing, even smarter than his cutes, though his fresh young twenty-eight-year-old features and bright blue eyes and shiny black hair were appealing as well.

The hotel’s con caught her optilink and spilled data on nearby zoos onto her field of view. She blinked through them. The Los Angeles Zoo had just been restored fourteen years ago for the turn-of-the-century festivities, and it guaranteed that all animals were provably real and of the most original genetic types they could find. She scrolled the list and nodded. There was also New York, or the African savannah. But if they could do it all here, why waste resources? Get the deal done fast, and they could even cancel their charters to the One True Shack and the Original Store. More points to her.

“We have an excellent zoo nearby,” she said, as Jimson wheeled the cart into their suite. “I’ll get us scheduled for tomorrow.”

“Zoo contains life not winner (vanquished)?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Quantity?”

Tiphani scrolled. “Several hundreds.”

Silence for a time. “Surprise at magnitude (number),” the Shrill said. “Ensure correctness?”

“That’s correct.”

“Continuing surprise at magnitude (number).”

Tiphani shrugged. “I’m repeating data from an information network.”

“How reliable?”

“I don’t have any reason to doubt it.”

Again, silence. Finally: “It will be test for next day (light).”

“Then I will await the truth with you,” Tiphani said. “If you require nothing else, my assistant and I will retire for the night.”

“Food not yet necessary.”

“Goodnight, Ambassador.”

For a moment, she thought the Shrill would say nothing, but after a few moments it said, “Pleasantness until next seeing,” and went still.

In the bedroom, she lay back on the satin quilted cover of the big bed and looked up at the big portait of Marilyn Monroe that hung above it. Marilyn looked down on her with slit eyes, squashed by perspective, abstract swatches of black and white.

Got that wrong, she thought. Marilyn had nothing to do with this hotel. But she was an icon. They used her statue in the Consumeristian Church, and lord knows she had nothing to do with churchly things, then or now.

“That was a blowout,” Jimson said, arms crossed, blazer slung over his arm. Without the Staff pin, she could imagine him a young indentured, or even one of the adventurous ones who took their own course and tried to make their own legends.

“A misunderstanding,” Tiphani said. “It asked to see our former competitors, and we interpreted it in the most human way. Our fault for being so current-culture-centric.”

“It still may be talking about war.”

“I don’t think so,” Tiphani said. “It said, people like you I’m not interested in. Paraphrasing, of course.”

“It keeps using multiple words, like dead and vanquished. That suggests war.”

“Business is war.”

Jimson put his jacket down and paced. “They don’t seem to be pacifists. And not in the business sense.”

“Their instinctual need for food is something they can’t control,” Tiphani said. “They suffer from a dichotomy of instinct and intellect. Their instinct is to obtain food and protect their territory, but their minds are rich and inquisitive. They’re very much interested in talking to us.”

“So they say.”

She sighed and sat up on the bed, to look at Jimson. “You’re a smart boy. But you weren’t part of the initial talks. I was. I’ve seen Shrills carry on a discussion of higher-order physics while beating against the walls of their cage, trying to tear apart the physicists they were talking with. A bit disconcerting, but nothing we can’t overcome.”

“We should make the boxes opaque.”

“We tried that, but even with screens hung inside the diamondoid, they complained that something was missing from their visual perception.”

“Can they see?”

Tiphani shrugged. Nobody had gotten close enough to examine one. Between their fractal-tree shells that sheared off skin like fine coral, to their carbide underfangs that easily snapped through bone, they were unapproachable. “Best guess it’s a multiple-pinhole thing, hidden in the fractal shell. Truth is, we don’t know yet.”

“And yet here we are, giving them the grand tour.”

“We should count ourselves lucky that we can communicate with them at all. They could be Floaters.”

“Floaters don’t have anything we want.”

And you’re a boy too smart to be thinking such things, she thought. She let the silence draw out, looking him in the eyes. He tried the pokerface staredown, but he was too young, too engaged. She waited until he dropped his gaze.

“Are we using artie translation?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Arties are supposed to be a myth.”

“You told me they weren’t.”

“And you’re not supposed to know anything about them until you hit High Manager. So please don’t go broadcasting it around.”

“Or you’ll get in trouble.”

“I’ll make sure your head rolls first,” Tiphani said, forcing a sweet smile. He was just young and smart and ambitious. Probably be Chief himself in less than a decade.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Algorithmic translation, not AI,” she said. “If we had the resources, they’d be working on the glink datastream.”

“But we don’t.”

“No.”

“Too bad we don’t know what the Shrill is saying to its fellows,” he said, coming to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Maybe.” Latest theories were that Shrill intelligence was a network phenomenon. Like an artie. The communication between this node and its kind might be nothing they could ever decode or understand. They might have more in common with computing than humanity, except for the fact that there seemed to be something deeply biological going on within their carbide-hard shell. Let the scientists and arties argue about whether they engineered the shells themselves, or if it was a natural extension of their kind of life. Let them wonder what kind of super-efficient life-processes ran at almost 90 degrees C. Let them argue about the fragments of DNA in their droppings, or whether or not they were droppings, and do talking-head things about panspermia and relationships with earth-life and the possibility of parallel evolution. Because the real thing was that they appeared to have a biological component, they claimed to never die, and that was what mattered.

The voice of Honored Maplethorpe, came, unbidden: Spindle for immortality, Spindle for immortality, that is our offer.

And his unspoken thought, thick in the darkened room: Whatever it takes to make them accept it.

“The restaurant here, you think?” Jimson asked. “Or night-on-the-town it?”

“Later,” she said, grabbing his tie, pulling him down.

He didn’t hesitate. He was kind and considerate and even seemed interested. Tiphani smiled. It was possible, just possible, that he liked her.

###

January 30th, 2009 / 1,182 Comments »

Did you know that bottled water in the United States is a $15 billion dollar industry? That’s about the same size as NASA’s budget ($17.6 billion).

Sit back and think about that.

We’ve grown a business segment that simply did not exist 30 years ago to one that’s half the size of the movie industry, complete with “water sommeliers”—and it’s based entirely on something that, in 1970, the rational answer would be “The drinkin fountain’s over there, kid.”

(Cue the pure capitalists saying, “Bully for us! We saw a market niche and served it. Look at the wonder of the modern market system.”)

(Cue the pure socialists saying, “What an incredible waste! We’ve sucked billions of dollars out of the population for no real reason!”)

The truth is, of course, somewhere in-between. But consider. For 15 billion dollars, we could have:

• 90%+ of NASA
• 150 Mars Pathfinders
• 1.5 space elevators (from the 2008 Space Elevator Conference)
• A 3850% increase in the NSF’s funding for nanotechnology research
• A 300% increase in national funding for cancer research

So what’s the point of all this? Maybe no point. Maybe to get you to think a bit before you reach for that nonrenewable plastic bottle, happily leaching its gender-bending chemicals into your drink. Or maybe to illustrate that the system is full of inefficiencies—and full of opportunities for smart people to redirect some of these monies for more interesting things.

If this helps you look at some of the silliness we take for granted today, and decide if you want to participate in it, then this little article has done its job.

January 29th, 2009 / 1,086 Comments »

Cross-posted from Adam Rakunas’ blog.

Adam says:

If you were a member of the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver last year, or if you’re a member of the Montreal version this year, you can nominate stuff for the Hugos.

So, if you can nominate stuff for the Hugos, please take a look at these works. If you like them, please tell people about them. And if you really like them, please nominate them.

Best Novel: “Pandemonium,” by Daryl Gregory. Del Rey, August 2008.

Best Novella: “Far Horizon,” by Jason Stoddard. Interzone #214.

Best Novelette: “The Right People,” by Adam Rakunas (hey, I know that name!). Futurismic, October 2008.

Best Novelette: “The Elephant Ironclads,” by Jason Stoddard. The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Del Rey, April 2008.

Best Short Story: “Willpower,” by Jason Stoddard. Futurismic, December 2008.

Best Short Story: “Living with Creely,” Andrew Tisbert. Rosebud #41.

Best Short Story: “Tetris Dooms Itself,” by Meghan McCarron. Clarkesworld #23, August 2008.

Best Short Story: “Random Acts of Cosmic Whimsey,” by Jetse de Vries. Flurb #6.

January 25th, 2009 / 1,155 Comments »

“This is the best-preserved example of a Starbucks in the western half of the United States,” the tour guide said. “The entrance was sealed in the Second Big One in 2034, and the shop itself was not rediscovered for almost three hundred years.”

Her name was Amy. Pretty thing, Jimson Ogilvy thought, blonde and blue-eyed like you’d expect in Old California, young and bright with that curatorial fervor. He nodded and smiled, angling his bright new Staff pin to catch her eye. But she looked only at the Shrill.

“Because of its isolation from light and moisture, you can still see the original ink-jet printed art on the walls, and the menus are complete. The espresso machines have been fully restored, and we host historical re-enactments of what conversation might have been like in the early 21st century.”

The shop had that gloss of historical perfection that museum Earth put on all its treasures. Coffee-stains on the blonde wood counters. Fingerprints on the stainless-steel credit readers. Impromptu art showing smoothly-muscled surfers leaning on boards on the even-then-retro chalkboards. Inedible reproductions of scones, complete with little plaster crumbs. The flickering of ancient fluorescent lamps. And, of course, the lingering smell of over-roasted, super-caffeinated beverages.

For a moment, Jimson forgot the sharp scratching noises of the agitated Shrill and wondered what interactive moguls or 3D artists might have sat there, almost three centuries ago. They were on the canals in Santa Monica, near the resto-Third-Street mall where even the old linear guys used to hang out. It was possible that Jere and Evan had sipped a frappucino here, while talking about Winning Mars.

“Is this an original Greiman?” Tiphani Mirate said, leaning in close over the inkjet wallpaper. Jimson imagined her optilink feeding data on long-dead digital artists.

Tiphani was the archetype of a powerful woman Chief. Slim and almost curveless, her skin soft and smooth and pale, gray no-color eyes flashing below white-blonde hair cropped short. She wore a bright blue suit of almost geometric perfection. Not a Perpetual, but well-kept. Jimson guessed fifties.

“It’s a pastiche, Chief Mirate,” Amy said. “We sell reproductions in the gift shop.”

“Wallpaper?” Tiphani said, turning, her bright Winfinity CSO pin glinting on her perfect suit.

“Giftwrap and wallhangings, Chief Mirate,” Amy said.

“Call me Tiphani.”

Amy looked around quickly. “I couldn’t do that, Chief.”

“Ah.” Tiphani shook her head.

“I’m sure we could special-order wallpaper, Chief Mirate.”

“This is the home (lair) of your dead competitor?” the Shrill said, its synthesized voice a deep, rich baritone.

Tiphani and Amy snapped around to look at Jimson and his cart. In the diamondoid cube on top, the gray fractal Shrill beat against the glass, revealing a the complex nest of its underfangs. Blood stained the sides of its cube, remnants of its last meal.

“This is one of our former competitor’s retail stores,” Tiphani said.

“Competitor made its (their) home here?”

“Starbucks had 11,556 retail stores at their height,” Amy said, her bright eyes locked on the Shrill. “However, by the time this store was sealed, only about 3,440 dedicated retailers were left.”

“You killed (vanquished) an enemy already in decline?”

“Winfinity and Starbucks weren’t really direct competitors,” Jimson said.

A look of horror from Tiphani, quickly concealed. “We offered coffee and tea beverages through both our restaurants and our retail stores. We were competitors.”

The Shrill went silent and still for a time. Probably conferring with the rest of its mind via the glink. Jimson wondered again what went back and forth on that raw datafeed, and if he could pull some favors at corporate and get a transliteration for himself.

“Where are Starbucks?” it asked.

“What?” Tiphani said. “If you’re asking about geographic distribution, I’m sure Amy can get you a map.”

“Is this where Starbucks life (entities) lived?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Life (entities). Your competitors. Breed like you. This less-than-shell. Dead. Where are songs of vanquish?”

Tiphani shook her head, looking at Amy.

But for Jimson, sudden meaning flowered. “I think it’s talking about the people who worked here.”

“Entities who lived here, that is correct,” the Shrill said.

“We do re-enactments on Saturdays,” Amy said. “You could come back and see then.”

“What is re-enactments (undefined term).”

“We have people play the roles of Starbucks employees,” Amy said. “So you can see what it was like, back when they were in business.”

“Your people (humans) (Winfinity) take these roles?” the Shrill said.

“Yes, our people . . .”

“Your people not Starbucks, therefore invalid. I wish to see Starbucks entities (life), or hear songs of them.”

“The original employees are long-dead,” Tiphani said. “Our lifespans are limited.”

Silence and stillness for a time. Then the Shrill beat at the diamondoid with renewed vigor, shaking the cart. Amy jumped back, and even Tiphani flinched.

“There must be representations (songs).”

“We have photo and video records of the time period.”

“Flat forms not useful. You do not preserve life of competitors?”

A sudden thought struck Jimson. “Our competitor was Starbucks, not the people who worked in it.”

The Shrill stopped moving and pivoted towards Jimson. Even though it had no eyes, he couldn’t help but think it was looking at him. Regarding. Processing. Somewhere, deep in space, millions of other Shrills were decoding his words. Jimson looked away from the motionless alien, down at his new-minted Winfinity staff pin. He’d thought Sentience would mean working with the Centauri floaters and the Arties. He’d never expected to be here on earth, with the Shrill ambassador, trying to decode its cryptic requests.

“Correct. We are interested in entities (life) you have vanquished,” the Shrill said.

“You asked to see our defunct competitors, not battlefields.”

“Meaning is roughly same.”

“Starbucks was a competitor. It was a legal entity,” Tiphani said.

The Shrill slammed against the diamondoid, hard, and everyone jumped. The voice was the same as before, probably taken from a long-dead movie butler, but the words were biting:

“Uninterested in human non-network limited skewed concepts not relevant. Life only. What life (entities) have you (life) vanquished?”

“We were never at war with Starbucks,” Jimson said.

“Except in a corporate sense,” Tiphani said.

“Show me life or songs (representations) thereof. Life not winner of competitive universe (lottery). Uninterested in fables.”

“A zoo?” Jimson said.

“You want to see animals?” Tiphani said.

“It is possible (yes).”

“That may be it,” Tiphani said. “Life that did not reach the peak of human?”

“Life (entities) not able to raise itself to your level is acceptable for display.”

Tiphani nodded. “Where is the nearest zoo?”

Amy frowned. “I’m just historical, Chief Mirate. If you’re talking current biodiversity, that’s a different division.”

Tiphani rolled her eyes. “God, you’re not much better than government. I’ll get it myself.” She mumbled something into her throatmike and her eyes went glassy with optilink data.

Jimson wished he had an optilink, but Staff was the lowest level of Winfinity, just out of indenture, no higher really than the girl Amy, curator of a tiny corner of a dead and preserved world. Eventually, he’d make Manager, and Director, and maybe someday Chief, but for now he was Staff, and Staff were lucky to be issued datovers. Staff were incredibly lucky to be able to travel by Spindle Drive from the Web of Worlds to museum Earth. And it was almost unheard-of for staff to work directly with a Chief. His career stretched ahead of him, shiny and beckoning. Manager by thirty-five. Maybe Director by forty. With his own desk in a physical building, a big expanse of real wood, with his own antique datascreen, his own optilink.

And then maybe someday Chief, with his own office, his own dominion. Just like the Chiefs of times past, from the noble Native Americans to the legendary precursors to the modern age: Rockefeller, Ford, Gates.

“This datanet is crap,” Tiphani said. “I can’t get a reliable con.”

“Outside, maybe,” Jimson said.

Tiphani nodded. Jimson wheeled the Shrill back up the ramp that led down from street level, out into the ruins of old Los Angeles. The sun was slanting low on the horizon, and the bleak gray concrete structures were painted in golden tones. The remaining dark-mirrored panes of the chrome-glass buildings cast shards of sun along the restored facades of Fourth Street. Museum Earth had parked period cars along the roads, Corvettes and Mustangs and Hyundais and Toyotas, shiny and perfect enough that Jimson wondered if they might actually run. To drive on the reconstructed freeways, with a beer in one hand and a babe by his side – that was one of the central images of American legend, complete freedom to go anywhere, top down, wind in your hair, everything within reach, stopping only momentarily at drive-thrus like a strange species that never landed, blasting vintage hip-hop on his radio, vacuum tubes glowing softly within. Jimson had heard all the stories from his Manager dad and his Staff mom, and now he was here on Earth! He could live some of their dreams! He could . . .

“Showing life when?” the Shrill said.

Tiphani frowned. “Still not a good con. Let’s go back to the hotel. I’ll find a zoo and we can go tomorrow.”

“Disappointed in time passed.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Tiphani said, turning to face the Shrill. “We misunderstood your request, and will make every effort to understand you better in the future.”

“Do not understand why cannot show now.”

“The zoo will be closing,” Tiphani said.

“And you are life (entity) needing rest.”

“Yes.”

The Shrill bumped once against the side of its diamondoid cage, showing its underfangs. Amy frowned and turned away. Jimson smiled, thinking, Good thing it’s in there, or we would be its next lunch.

“Are you still interested in the wallpaper, Chief Mirate?” Amy said, as the tourbus hummed to a stop in front of them.

Tiphani just looked at her. After a while, Amy looked away.

###

January 23rd, 2009 / 1,677 Comments »