Escape Velocity: The Anthology

by Unknown

  Sven marched past the house and barged his way into the car. “Drive,” he said.

  “Where do you want to go to, Sven?” the car’s alto voice replied.

  “Just drive.”

  “Have you any preferences?”

  “Why can’t you just drive, damn you?”

  “Do you wish me to initiate the random destinations program, Sven?”

  “Yes, you silly integrated lump of inert metals.”

  The car locked the door, rolled up the driveway and turned right onto the road. “Were there any implied instructions in your last phrase that I might have not understood?”

  Sven groaned. Whatever had put that moronic application together should have had its neurals melted slowly over a live volcano. He took a deep breath. “There were no implied instructions in my previous phrase. But I would like some music.”

  “Have you any preferences?”

  “Just put on some- Holst’s Planets.” He let his mood be submerged into the bleak crescendos and jarring jazz beat of Mars.

  The car slipped neatly between two cars rushing north at the crossroads. Androids were topping up the batteries of two empty logging lorries at a roadside garage. Which of Dalarna’s forests was for the chop this time? Its timber would only be buried as carbon-capture in Falun’s defunct copper mine. Why were they in such a hurry to fill their Swedish quota? Why couldn’t they let the trees live a bit longer? They had plenty of life in them yet, unlike him. Sadness welled up inside him to force a few tears down his cheeks.

  He had to stop thinking about the future. All he had was the here and now. “Drive away from any androids. Drive into the countryside.”

  The long serene notes from Venus calmed him as the car veered onto a ridge road between two lakes. Silver birches with fronds waltzing in the breeze, clumped along the roadsides. Dotted in between were immaculate houses where cats lazed in the sun and dogs slept on the doorsteps, not an android in sight. They must all be at work. Whether it was in environmental engineering, knowledge questing, upgrades or historical preservation, didn’t matter. What did matter was paying the extortionate green taxes to dwell here.

  The car turned off the ridge onto curving forest roads. Pines grew where they could between lichen-crusted boulders. In the lower dips, the road hugged the side of a lake, with its raft of lily pads and golden globeflowers. Neptune’s female chorus faded into peaceful infinity.

  “Would you like some more music?” the car said.

  “Yes. Put on a random selection of the Abba hits.”

  The harmonics of Fernando melded into echoing sounds. “Now we’re old and grey, Fernando,” reminded him his blond hair had recently turned to gossamer. He studied his hands. They were all knobbles and ridges. Anti-aging therapies could only do so much. He was, after all, a very respectable 257 years old.

  The car drove down a slight hill. Sven recognised the road despite the trees having grown taller and thicker. “Turn into the car park about a kilometre from here.”

  “Do you mean the car park to the bird mountain?”

  “Yes, you numbskull.”

  “Why are you calling me numbskull?”

  “Just shut up and drive there.”

  A few seconds later, the car turned into a car park and manoeuvred its way into a space nearest a trail leading off into the trees. It opened the door.

  The midday’s heat blasted into the car. Sven smelt the dust. Mama Mia was in full surge. “Turn the music off.”

  “Are you talking to your car?”

  Sven reached over and switched off the infotainment.

  “That answers my question.”

  A breeze rustled through the trees. There was not a tweet. Nor could any bird be seen, not even pied wagtails strutting backwards and forwards.

  Sven scanned the trees. Their branches all swayed in one direction, north-east. There was no odd quivering branch or splash or colour. The heat must have grounded the birds.

  On closing his good eye, pines turned from greenish brown to greenish black and their outline against the sky fuzzed. No improvement. This was as good as it was going to get. The doctor didn’t know how long his eyesight would last. There was no telling when his cancer would kill bits of him off. Hell, there was no certainty except a nasty, ugly death.

  Sven shook his head to try to shake off his self-pity. Instead, it buried deeper into his psyche. The only way he could forget was to find something to interest him.

  He dug out his standby rucksack from the trunk and checked its water bottles were full. A car vroomed along the road behind a line of birch saplings. Road hog. Androids were always in hurry.

  But he’d never been able to resist a good road and revs at his fingertips. Exhilarating. Did androids feel exhilaration? Or were they trying to remember what happiness felt like? When he asked, they had to a positron avoided answering him. He needed to know now more desperately than ever. Yet, they stayed silent.

  Four weeks was all he could be sure of. Four weeks to do all those things he had forgotten to do in his life. Damn it.

  He stomped off along the trail. Grass verges with their mass of summer flowers lay in front of pines. He picked out the rare Dalecarlian county flowers, harebells twice the size of his thumbnail. Honeybees flitted from flower to flower. It would be a good honey crop this year, not that he would enjoy it. He knew he was feeling sorry for himself again. He force-marched on.

  The trail curled towards a cliff. The pines gave way to five acres of clumpy grass surrounding two tarns. A breeze dulled the water’s shine. The colours were drab greens, greys and browns. Unlike the spring twenty years back, when the thawing snows had left sparkling puddles teeming with wildlife, there was nothing of interest. He carried on, returning into the forest.

  A waist-high cone of pine needles stood between two pines. A sheet of ants scurried over it, thinning out into a string of two-way traffic crossing the trail into the greenery. They at least had a cone to show for their brief lives. He had nothing to pass on except humanity’s essence.

  None of the androids could fully appreciate it with their limited senses, like hearing only in the key of G. Bits of humanity, yes. Not the totality, which was far more than the sum of its parts. He was the last analogue: the last person to sense the in-betweens, and analogue-fuse these into a whole wonderful and exciting experience.

  He felt sorry for androids. His own failures of old age had cut his access to small slivers of his world. He could no longer hear high frequencies, see as far into the ultra-violet, or smell some perfumes’ subtleties. He made up for these deficiencies by extrapolating the vibrancy of his memories onto the present day and adding poignancy through his imagination. Could he do the same, but better, if he went android?

  He could not even guess the answer.

  Sven stepped over the ants and carried on walking. The trail led up a steep gully. On reaching its top, he was gasping and felt tightness around his chest. It was a joy to feel his pain, to know he was alive.

  The trail narrowed to a path allowing a single person to pass. It snaked upwards along the side of the mountain. The birds were still silent and invisible.

  He was out onto a precipice. Lake Balungen and its dam, stretched out at his feet. Pine forest hills undulated to the horizon. The beauty of the panorama brought him some peace. He sat under an old pine and drank heavily from his water bottle.

  A dragonfly drifted up over the edge, its tail coated in a glowing sapphire lattice. Its wings wafted the air, while the stiff body waggled as if encased in a bone corset. Yet, it was free to fly and hover at will. He watched its flutters until it floated down towards the lake. Would an android’s body feel the same, a rigid prison for his roaming thoughts?

  With the sun long passed its zenith, it was becoming cooler. Time to leave. Sven rose, taking one last look at the lake.

  The path curved in towards a cleft and then down a precarious path with the occasional step carved into the stone. It widened onto a ledge. Enough soil had bee
n pressed into the ground for a lime tree to grow. Sven touched a fissure in its smooth bark. It was, like him, old and a relic from the past. Limes like this one had grown in the Earth’s summer before the last ice age. Its toothed heart-shaped leaves crackled in a gust scented with pines and wild flowers.

  Sven picked up a seed from the ground. Its outside was dried and brittle. He rubbed the casing away to reveal a firm lime seed. There was still life at its core. Sven wrapped it in a tissue and tucked it into the rucksack’s side pocket. Why had he done that? He would never see it grow as a person.

  As an android he wouldn’t see the subtle changes in the colour of its leaves or scent overtones. Dying would avoid the regrets and sorrows of missing out these nuances. Sven wished his choice on the devil himself. There was no easy answer.

  Below him was an island canopy of maples, sycamores and more limes long since cut off from their southerly cousins by the pines. The tarns and cliff warming up by day and giving off their heat at night, had kept them alive during the big freeze. Time had slightly altered them, but they had survived.

  Chirp.

  Sven scanned the maple where the sound had come from. Nothing.

  Chirp chirp.

  This time the sound had come from the lime next to the maple. A small branch quivered with a whispered rustle.

  Sven made his way down some wooden steps until he was under the canopy. He searched the trees’ crowns for the chirper. Only branches and leaves.

  Tweet.

  He looked to his right. He heard wings flapping, but saw nothing move.

  Chirp. Tweet. Chirrup.

  Evensong was starting. Sven found a dry spot of earth beside a smooth lime bole and sat down to listen.

  The birds played a concert of chirrups, tweets, twitters, squeaks, squawks and chirps, with the rhythm supplied by wing beats or a woodpecker hammering a tree trunk. The odd cracking of a branch sounded like a clash of cymbals. It all fused into melody.

  Sven picked out notes while enjoying harmonies. More birds joined in working up to a crescendo or resounding power. He was at the very heart of music. One by one the birds became silent until only the twitters were twittering away. They also phased out until there came a final long tweet.

  Sven sat still. He let silence act as background music to the memory of the birdsong, a memory he would always cherish.

  Snap. Birds screeched and flapped. An android walked up the path. He had a too perfect face for someone in his mid-twenties, which contrasted with his scruffy T-shirt and jeans.

  “Hello. I’m Arne from the Swedish Historical Preservation Office. I was sent to find you.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m to make sure nothing untoward happens to you.”

  “What? Am I one of your errant museum pieces?”

  “It’s not the way I would have put it, but you’re right.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Have I said something wrong?”

  “Go away. I can look after myself.”

  Arne hesitated. “I won’t be allowed to.”

  Since when was he considered unable to look after himself? It wasn’t as if he was suicidal. His cancer wouldn’t be affecting him that badly, at least not for the next few weeks. Damn. “Keep out of my sight.”

  “I can do that within reason,” the android said, returning down the path.

  “And no recordings,” Sven shouted.

  Arne did not reply.

  Only whining mosquitoes broke the silence. There was no chirp or squeak from the birds. They were gone. With that android around they were gone for good. At least he had the memory of their last symphony, the notes, harmonies, rhythm and enjoyment turning into wonder.

  Was it possible for him to remember the enjoyment as an android? What about other emotions? What he needed was a key to trigger the memories. A key he could use at will.

  A key? He was the androids’ last existing key to unlocking their lost memories of happiness. No wonder Anneka got high pay for her live recordings of him and Arne had been snitched onto him. He now knew how to make such a key. He had a way forward to the way back. For the first time in far too long he was at peace with himself.

  The daylight had given away its golden brightness to the gloaming’s more silvery hue. He stood up, dusted the dirt off his trousers and trotted down to his car, occasionally hearing a twig crack behind him. Another car was parked beside his, presumably Arne’s.

  He nipped into his car. “Play some more music.”

  “Have you any preferences?” the car said.

  “Carry on from where you left off.”

  The car started Mama Mia mid-note. Then came Abba’s: Thank You for the Music. Sven listened to the notes at one level, the tune at another level and the words at a further level. The phrase: “Thank you for the music, for giving it to me,” resonated deeply.

  All he needed was a key to trigger memories like these. Sven switched off the infotainment and yelled: “Arne.”

  “I’m here,” the android said striding from beneath the pines.

  “Do you have a full recording kit?”

  “Yes, like every field agent in the Preservation Office. I am fortunate enough to have enhancements in sight acuity and touch granularity.”

  “You won’t need either of those for what I have in mind. You might as well join me and direct your car back to its base.”

  Arne stood there. “What do you precisely have in mind?”

  “I want you to record my memoirs I’m about to dictate.”

  “There is no need. We already have your life history in quite some detail.”

  He wanted to say: “Shut up you fool and record.” Instead he smiled sweetly. “Let’s call it an experiment in comparing the recorded truths. Get in.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll give you an example to try out. We’ll start with today. I’m sure Anneka has sent her recordings round from our haranguing this morning.”

  Arne paused. “Anneka does not want me to answer that question.”

  “She’s answered it. Now get in this damned car and start recording.”

  Arne sat himself in the passenger seat. “I am now recording as requested.”

  “Car, drive home.”

  Arne’s car drove off. His car shut its doors and purred its way out of the car park.

  “When I entered the lounge, Anneka was pirouetting fast enough for her hair to lift from her shoulders. Her one-piece suit clung snugly to her body. Her breasts were firm, her waist slender. Her eyes shone with anticipation and her perfume… hmm… her perfume of freesias suffused with old English roses hinted of liveliness…”

  “Any other time I would have enticed her to bed, but not then. I was in shock from what the Doc had told me. My brain had fogged into a stupor of inaction. I felt nothing. I thought nothing. I wanted to do nothing.”

  “May I ask a question?” Arne said.

  “You just did.”

  “Are you going to record your thoughts about a sex act?”

  “Absolutely. But all in good time. And while you’re at it, book an appointment in twenty-five days time for me to go android.”

  “Are you turning me into your secretary?”

  “Yes. Now where was I?” He continued. “Anneka held her hands and asked how I liked her new ones. The nail varnish matched the colour of her new hair. Then an all too familiar glint caught my eye. The nails were real gold. She’d been spending again. Money runs through her hands like water. After all these years she should have known better. Why couldn’t she learn? I was angry, but I didn’t want to cause another row…”

  Royal Flush

  Ian Whates

  She was beautiful; a fact that only registered after she was dead.

  Even then it was an observation noted as a peripheral thought rather than an emotional response. After all, I had just killed her. I had no choice, you understand. She stepped off the subway at the same time as I did. Not reason enough in itself, of course,
so had a couple of dozen other people.

  It was what came after that sealed her fate.

  I chose the quietest exit, deliberately so. Only a handful followed me out and just three turned the same way once we hit the street. Initially, it was the kid in the tattered jeans and the hoodie who aroused my suspicion – an obvious narc-head, perhaps too obvious. ‘Hide in plain sight’ as they say.

  Then I caught a glimpse of his eyes – wide, skittish and wild – and knew that he was for real, which made him unlikely. That left the squat bald guy in the all-weather suit… and her. Smartly dressed, business-like, she was the last one out of the subway exit and I hadn’t managed to catch a proper look at her yet.

  I stopped to buy a coffee, waiting while the man in front received and paid for a latté and a pastry allowing me to casually glance back. The girl walked past, head averted, as if preparing to cross the road, which she did almost in front of me. Slender, with blond hair, and wearing a full-length, raincoat – designer label by the look of it – but I still hadn’t seen her face.

  Brown shoes. I hated brown shoes. And that overcoat could have concealed just about anything.

  I lingered to banter with the coffee vendor, who bemoaned the weather and the disastrous effect it had on his trade. I tried to look interested and nodded sympathetically, all the while counting the seconds. The whole process took a little under five minutes and when I stepped away, none of the three from the subway were in sight.

  Cradling the piping-hot flimsy in one hand, I sipped tentatively, using the opportunity to scan the street in both directions. Nothing. Satisfied, I dropped the coffee bulb with its cheap and chicory-bitter contents into a nearby disposal chute and began to relax for the first time since leaving home that morning.

  Perhaps they weren’t onto me yet after all; perhaps I was in the clear. The mental reprieve enabled me to take stock of my surroundings. It was a dull and miserable day – damp pavements and the sort of doom-laden sky I thought existed only in paintings. The offices and shops that predominated here seemed just as grey and soulless as the weather, and the people who bustled past were preoccupied and in a hurry, with heads down and collars up, precluding any chance of making eye-contact with one another.