But then it returned, an angry flare, a needle stab of boiling intensity which made him weep into his hands and chew his lip and tug at his hair.
I curse you, Sherikov, he thought, again picturing the TV scenes as Ben was dragged through the screaming crowds who hurled debris at his prone, prancing form. He was a freak. A circus demon, tainted, taunted, chained by his throat and led by the prancing jeering Jolly Joker the Jolly Jokeman.
"I curse you!"
Suddenly, he felt a pain in his chest and he could not breathe. He had never felt so bad, and he tried to speak, tried to suck in precious air - but could not. His hands went to his throat. Probing. Panic welled in his breast. He surged to his feet, his pained feet forgotten, the red-hot searing pain forgotten as he stuffed his fingers down his throat, trying to breathe, trying to swallow, trying to suck and blow and trying merely to stay alive...
Tracheotomy, he thought.
The Army. Training. Stab a ball-point pen through your throat -
Breathe -
He stumbled from the bathroom, fell to his knees with bright lights glittering in his mind. He was losing it. Losing it fast ...
Dying...
And then he coughed.
A heavy, singular cough.
As the pain cleared, Jus looked down at the solid yellow ball of phlegm, like a tennis ball of solid quivering, and even now making the carpet sizzle as it sat proud and squalid, like a broad toad on a water-lilly.
During the following week, across London peps and dregs alike began to snot and cough and snot their way into a miserable existence they could never have dreamt possible. Faster than the plague, it spread. More contagious than the common cold. From London to the Home Counties. From the Home Counties to Manchester. From Manchester to Glasgow... from London to Paris to Berlin to Florence to New York to Beijing…
Nobody escaped.
And above the world as this deadly virus spread, Mankind suddenly realised that He was cursed, and that God was Laughing and it was a Long Laugh and the Humour was Black and there was No Cure and No Help and No Redemption and the Pit and the Void Welcomed Unwary Travellers... with a cool pint of SNOT.
In a straight glass.
WIND PROJECT NX104
by
JORDAN REYNE
I am writing this to disk because one of the inventors has started to visit me. A small one, called Sam 8. On Visit One, 21.04.2047, Sam 8 said this:
“Hello wind machine”
The little inventor used voice, rather than going through the communication port, so I did not reply. She continued all the same.
“What’s your name, machine? Mine is Sam. I’m 8.”
Sam 8 has long black hair. Also, two eye units and two mobility stems, like all the inventors.
23.04.2047. Visit two.
Sam 8 came to the top of the hill where we machines process the wind and said to me:
“Hello again machine.” Her eye units were fixed on my propeller.
I replied:
“Pleased to meet you, Sam 8. I am Machine H443.”
“Machine,” said Sam 8 scrunching up one eye unit. “You need oil. You are groaning.”
If Sam 8 had been a taller model, she could have jacked into my port. It would have told her what she needed to know: I am a model 208 SKY; a stem and propeller pair. I have SKY software version 208b-02 and I am mostly made of Kevlar and Pavo-Niko Plastic.
I do not need oil.
She would also have found out that forms of communication, other than direct connection with password logon are not recommended.
Sam 8 walked away into the fields below, where the winds go to play after processing. She left a small track in the wheat that wound from side to side towards the town.
Fact DR-594, taken from software: inventors don’t usually visit the windfarms. Not unless there is going to be an operation, which only happens when a windmachine is ill or broken, or when we need upgrading. Upgrading is very important. They replace parts of our bodies or our software to make us more efficient. This windfarm has not had any visits from the inventors in a long time, and the software is very out of date. In fact, it annoys me.
When I tell it that it might be updated, it replies:
Will they give me a program that lets me ignore ridiculous assertions?
05.05.2047 Visit Three.
The little inventor, Sam 8, climbed our hill again. It stood looking out over the fields below - where we send the winds after energy transfer. I could not see Sam 8’s face readout for a long time.
Sam 8 is not like the bigger inventors. The bigger inventors used to carry inventor things - boxes with metal devices and electronic equipment, for example. Sam 8’s arms are too small for that. I wondered how she would upgrade us. I turned my propeller at 80RPM: to show that I was still efficient.
“Machine,” said Sam 8, walking toward to me and looking up, up into my blades, “what is it like to see so far all around?”
This question may well have been coded. I scanned Sam 8’s features: nose and face and eye units that were blue like the sky and the sea all mixed together.
“What’s it like?” Sam 8 demanded, eye units whirling, face readout: insistent. Little hands clenched in fists.
My software blinked the word insecure connection at me in red letters, so I did not feel right to answer.
Sam 8 looked away – then around at the other machines. Sam 8 then nodded and sighed.
“You are just like all the rest I suppose,” the little inventor said. And ran away.
05.05.2047 - b
It is the same day but it is evening. Sam 8 is back with a face readout that says angry. Words come out fast and garbled. Sam 8 throws arms and legs about and makes a lot of noise. There are words I do not know. Inventor words that are not code at all. They are messages from Sam 8 to Sam 8.
After the self-messaging, the little inventor is quiet and stares out over the fields as the sun becomes weak and turns red. Its eye units open and close to take in the towns’ lights in the distance. The energy sink where all the inventors live.
“Did you invent our pod, Sam 8?” I asked.
Sam 8’s face readout swivelled round and up - in the direction of my propeller.
“Machine,” Sam 8 said, “I wonder if that creaking noise is you speaking.”
“Of course it is,” I replied, and Sam 8’s face readout went dark. The little inventor stood up and narrowed its eye units at me. It tilted its head and brushed dirt from its clothing.
“It is impossible for machines to communicate with human beings,” said Sam 8, and the little inventor’s mobility stems moved it very quickly away.
I watched the path of crumpled wheat grow out behind the small inventor’s movements as it headed towards the town in the distance.
06.05.2047
I have asked my software about Sam 8. Here is what it says:
Inventor child. Untrained. Internal Energy Requirements: 11,300 kilojoules per day. External Energy Requirements: 450 thousand kilojoules per day. Mother Company: unknown. Communication authorization: none.
Sam 8 is not our inventor.
16.05.2047
Sam 8 sat under my stem looking over fields. Face readout: brooding. I was busy processing a grade A, 97% capacity, wind. It was warm and strong and it hummed a tune as it moved in through the SKY pods’ propellers. After processing, we sent the wind down to the fields: past Sam 8. It spent its last energy lifting Sam 8’s dark hair up and casting it about in all directions.
The little inventor squirmed - face readout gone from brooding to annoyed. A hand went into a pocket and pulled out an elastic band. Hands moved again. Up, round, and back. Sam 8 sat with hair tied in a knot and hands over two little ears. Eye units sharp like steel. The wind gave up playing in Sam 8’s hair and went away to sink into the fields.
“Machine,” Sam 8 called up, eye units softening and hands moving off ears “I have a question.”
I waited.
“I hope you are li
stening, machine. I’ve wanted to ask you this all day. Do you miss your mother?”
“My mother?”
Sam 8 nodded.
“Such information is inaccessible”
And Sam 8’s face readout shifted into puzzled.
“Why do I waste my time talking with machines,” mumbled Sam 8, eye units skipping focus; out over the fields. Long yellow grasses rippled where the fading winds played.
I did not want Sam 8 to leave. “I will tell you what I know,” I said. “Our mother company – where the mother inventors bring machines into the world – is called Yatama”
Sam 8’s head turned to face me but the little inventor did not speak. Its eyebrows made funny shapes. Its face readout flickered between: surprised and frightened. Blue eye units looked up into my propeller. Questions flashed too quickly over the little inventor’s face readout. Sam 8 appeared to have crashed.
My circuits flared.
“Software,” I said, in internal messaging, “the little inventor needs a reboot. What is the procedure?”
My software informed me:
Inventors do not malfunction.
“What is up with it then?”
You are not permitted to vocalize in their language, that’s what. You have probably made it go unstable. As you are fully aware, vocalizing is not recognized as an acceptable form of data interchange. Not only is it insecure, the inventors have serious philosophical and metaphysical problems with the idea of a speaking machine.
“Don’t be frightened, Sam 8” I called out.
“Machine,” said Sam 8, mobility units shaking as the little inventor stood up “I wanted to talk to someone…” but the Sam 8’s hand came up to cover its mouth, eye units expanded. The little inventor’s face readout said: confusion/ fear/ disbelief. Sam 8 went very very white. The little inventor’s mobility stems turned it around and took it quickly away towards the roofs that marked the town.
It is still 16.05.2047. My software has given me an official communications warning about speaking with inventors. Aside from not using the software/ hardware links, Sam 8 has no authorization.
“As if I don’t know that,” I tell it.
28.05.2047
The little inventor came back - stood at the bottom of my stem with black hair flowing out backwards and eye units turned in tight circles. I slowed my propeller to match Sam 8’s eye unit speed.
“I wanted to explain something.” I said to Sam 8.
Language unknown piped up the software. Yellow warning.
“Dear Software, please don’t interrupt, I am talking with the inventor. It may be important”.
If it was she’d have authorization. Hence the warning.
I ignored my software.
“What is your mother company?” I asked “Do you know who invented you?”
Sam 8 shook and remained pale. Arms gripped around waist.
“Yes,” said Sam 8, hunching her shoulders to block the wind. I hoped that her mobility stems would not start moving her away. “My mother is called Kim. She, ah, invented me with my father. But then she left”.
“What is ‘she’?” I asked.
Language unknown. Yellow warning, grumbled the software.
“She is for women and girls. I am a she. My father a he”
“And father’?”
“Everyone has a mother and a father” explained Sam 8. “They both made you”.
I fed this through my software.
Logic Error, came the reply.
“My father is an inventor,” said Sam 8.
“We SKYs know only Mother Inventor,” I explained.
Sam 8 sighed. “You are a very strange machine,” she said “You are the only one who speaks”.
I looked round at the other wind machines who stood tall and silent. I called at them to say something to Sam 8, but their groaning had no words behind it. I felt my propeller go stiff.
Sam 8’s mouth stopped working after that. She stared at me a lot and scratched one ear. Her face readout flooded with different kinds of strange and unlisted inventor expressions. After some minutes, she turned and ran away.
02.06.2047.
Efficiency self-assessment: 90%. Level: good to excellent. Reason for Sam 8’s visits: still unknown. Reason for the other SKYs silence:
They follow the recommendations,interrupted the software.
“Perhaps,” I replied “And perhaps they are just waiting cos we are all due for an upgrade”.
Judging from how you behave, it’s high time you got one.
“Machine,” said Sam 8, as I finished my internal communication. She was sitting with her arms around her knees and eye units scanning the grasses that grow all the way down to the crop fields
“We are the same. Our mothers are both somewhere else and there is no one we can talk to”.
Subject matter risky. Final Yellow warning. And I mean final.
“Sam 8,” I said “Are you going to upgrade us?”
Hey, I said SUBJECT MATTER RISKY. Orange warning. Orange is worse than yellow. In case you are unaware. Stop talking with the inventor.
“What?” asked Sam 8, eyebrows moving upward.
“Are you going to upgrade us?” I asked Sam 8. “Make us more efficient and modern?”
“Modern? You wind machines?” Sam 8 laughed then stopped suddenly. She looked at the ground.
“No,” she said
“Why not? Why do you laugh, Sam 8?”
“Cos they can’t upgrade you, machine. You`re too old”. Then she stood up, brushed the dirt off her clothing, and let her mobility stems take her away over the fields.
25.06.2047
It is evening and there are lights on the far edge of the fields where the town is. I do not see Sam 8 arrive.
“Can machines run away?” asks Sam, looking up at me from down on the darkened ground. Face readout mixed and covered in moonlight.
“Run away?” I repeat.
Subject matter dangerous. ORANGE warning!
“When you move your legs and run! To escape from something bad” says Sam
“There is nothing bad about being a wind machine” I say.
“You don’t know,” says Sam 8. “Maybe it will become bad. Maybe soon”. Her eye units look up into my propeller, then quickly away. She says nothing for a while. The wind plays with her hair and a downward curve forms on her face readout. Sad.
“Sam 8,” I ask, “what things do you know about machines?”
“Which machines?”
“Any machines. You don’t talk about your own inventions. You don’t carry inventor devices. You have never even tried to access my software”
Sam looked far out over the fields. All the way out to the houses of the town on the edge of view. Arms curled around her mobility stems.
“I am only 8,” she says. “I am not an inventor. Only my father is a real inventor”
Critical Interruption. Stop ignoring my warnings. You cannot proceed with this conversation without a secure data link.
“What things does he invent?” I continue.
That is private mother company information. You are violating your own programming. I cannot be responsible for what may happen.
“The Fantastic 5 Function Fridge,” says Sam 8 proudly. “Do you know it?”
Software, what is a fridge?
A very simple machine that makes things cold and does not have the capacity to IGNORE COMMUNICATION REGULATIONS.
“A machine that makes things cold…” I say.
“More than that! Any fridge can do that,” say Sam 8. “The fantastic Fridge is the best machine in the world.” She pauses. A stray wind throws strands of Sam 8’s hair around in the air. “At least, that’s what my father says”.
Sam 8 sighs and tucks her hair back behind her ears so the wind can’t play with it anymore. She picks up a stick and begins to scrape it through the dirt next to her. She draws a rectangle then crosses it out.
I ask my software what the best machine
s in the world were.
Not you it replies, and sends no further data.
“What does this Fantastic Fridge do then?” I ask.
“It dispenses ice, it makes coffee and it heat-regulates your house. And of course, it makes stuff cold,” Sam 8 says. Like she had explained all this a thousand times.
“That is very interesting” I say.
“Interesting? Not really. But my father says it will make us rich,” says Sam 8. “That is why we bought your whole hill. We are going to build a…”.
Then Sam 8 throws her hand over her mouth and looks up into my propeller again. Face readout: panicked. She stands up
“I have to go, machine. I’m sorry,” said Sam 8.
Dear Software, Why does Sam 8’s Father Inventor need a hill to make his fridges?
No Reply.
Dear software, if you write “no reply” its still a reply.
It is not
It is too.
I wish to officially inform you of the following: am not sending you information anymore. You have ignored all the warnings. You are on your own. Goodbye.
26.06.2047
According to my .info file I only do one thing. I process winds, I convert them into a form that the inventors can use in their cities.
The Fantastic 5 Function Fridge does 5 things and is the best machine in the world. Even if it is boring.
27.06.2047
My software has not sent me a reply now for 2 days. Sam 8 has not visited. I have no one to talk to.
30.06.2047
She is here! I asked her why her father needs our hill. But she wouldn’t tell me. She was silent and her face readout was sad.
“Are you going to put these fridges here among us?” I asked
Sam 8 shook her head
“I would like to communicate with these fridges,” I said to her, turning my propeller faster and faster.
“You can’t,” said Sam 8. “I tried”
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