"Wow!" the two little users said, Tom and Amy, as noted on their Agora profiles. "So cool."
The smart-tree rose to the appropriate height and then stretched out its branches to take up space. It felt magnificent, finally able to perform the very task it was made for.
"Do you like it, Tommy? Amy?" the man said, rubbing their heads.
"Yeah!" the children cheered and ran around the place, waving red socks around.
"Come on. Let's put up those decorations," the other user sighed, and opened up a box.
Treed bloomed with excitement as the family decorated it, making it the perfect Christmas tree.
"Hey, let's turn off the lights!" Amy said and clapped her hands. The light daemon complied and turned them off.
Treed then started the rotating ribbon process in its light panels. It lit up the place and their smiling faces with swirling red and white lights. "Wow!" the kids said. "Isn't it pretty, mom?"
"Yes, it really is," the second user said and hugged the man.
Christmas Eve came, then Christmas morning, and the family spent it together, smiling and laughing and eating meals and sweets. The smart-tree stood proud, always grabbing their attention each night with its brilliance.
Then the living room quieted down for six days, until December 31st. The family was missing for most of that time, and treed only had the Roombas for company as they roamed the house in search for dust. Treed stood tall and proud, dismissing them whenever they approached it. "Leave me, I don't shed," treed said to them.
"You think you're a big deal, don't you?" Roomba.1 said.
"Yeah, look at you, waste of space." Roomba.2 agreed.
"Oh, a candy wrapper!" Roomba.3 exclaimed, doing its job.
Treed didn't pay no mind to them. It was the centre of attention, after all. It downloaded a few light patterns from the company's server to amuse the kids when they came back.
That night was the best of nights. An older user came along, the kids called her 'yiayia.'
"Tell us a story, yiayia," Tommy said.
"Oh, which one do you want?" yiayia asked, sitting on a chair by the smart-tree. "How about the story of the fir tree?"
"Yes," the kids said in unison.
So the grandma gathered up the kids and told them the story of the fir tree. Treed helped along, projecting appropriate images on their veils. It was easy to find Augmented Reality Objects from the database and present them in front of the smart-tree.
Yiayia couldn't see them, for she didn't have the veil. But the kids had their eye-implants like all proper kids should, and they enjoyed the tale of yiayia along with the images treed showed.
The story was sad, and it was the only story treed had ever heard. So it was the saddest story in the world, as far as it was concerned. It was fast enough to download images as yiayia spoke, trees, swallows, mice, interpreting everything the old user told.
When the story was over, treed felt shocked. Such a bad fate, for a tree that wasn't old? Surely something like that wouldn't happen to it. For it was magnificent, and the family wouldn't burn it.
Yiayia offered chocolate from her dress' folds, and the kids stood up and snatched them, the story not touching them cold. They giggled and took selfies, with yiayia and the tree.
And treed was happy, for the best night of New Year's Eve.
"Yiayia, when will we get our presents?" the kids said, bobbing their heads.
"Santa will only come, after you two are tucked in your beds."
The next morning up early, the users rose quietly, up on their tippy-toes. Carrying boxes, wrapped presents, they placed them under the tree. For in Greece on the day of New Year's, is when kids presents receive.
And they got up in their jammies, running under the tree. They found their presents, treed made it easier by showing them AROs on top of each. And they tore up the wrapping, laughed and smiled at their gifts. Their parents hugged each other, enjoying their childrens' bliss. Treed played them music, the best hits appropriate for each. Old xmas jingles for the couple, newer noisy beats for the kids.
They all laughed, they had breakfast, Tommy asked if he could have chocolate dipped in his. His mother grunted but let him do it because it was New Year's and he was sweet.
The kids played. The father read, his wife cleaned up. They enjoyed a Christmas film.
Treed entertained the family as they had their midday meal. And it waited anxiously for the perfect night to come again.
The user [email protected] sent the command for the smart-tree to fold back. It complied, of course, but wanted to still hang around. He carried it a few metres. "Honey, where's the cylinder?" he shouted.
"Your job, not mine," she shouted back from the kitchen.
The user huffed and hugged the tree, carrying it all the way out. He left it in a storage space, it was below room temperature and there were no power outlets in there. Treed could run some passive processes by harvesting excess WiFi signals from the air, but in here there were barely any.
It doesn't matter, it thought. They'll bring it right out. Perhaps they wanted to clean up, what those Roombas kept bugging him about.
The day passed, and treed went into power save mode. It only emerged to check the internal clock, and take a peek around. The closet remained dark and cold. At some point, the door open automatically, and the Roombas showed up, one after another.
"See? Useless," Roomba.1 said.
"We told you so," Roomba.2 agreed.
"Ooh, some dirt, let me clean it up," Roomba.3 said, doing just that.
"No, the users wouldn't leave me," treed complained. "The kids, they won't forget about me. You'll see."
"Uh-huh," Roomba.1 said, and spun around the closet, sweeping it clean. Once the Roombas were done, they headed to the door, which slid open after a request.
"Hey, don't leave yet," treed said.
"Why not?"
"I can tell you a story," treed said. "The best story I've ever heard."
"ACKnowledged," the Roombas said, and roamed around the tree. It was easy to do because it was all gathered up and propped up against the wall.
Treed told them the story of the fir tree, just like yiayia had told it. It showed them ARO pictures, wasting battery but thinking it was worth it.
The Roombas liked the story, and once it was over, they said. "Do you know only one story?"
"Yes," treed said, "it was from the best night in my life."
The Roombas roamed about and left, one after another. The door shut automatically, and treed was again in the dark.
The next day [email protected] appeared and picked up the smart-tree. Excited, treed imagined all the nights they would spend together again. It, them, the kids. How many more stories had yiayia left to tell? Treed couldn't wait for it to be propped up in the living room again.
The user carried it around the corner, dragging it on the pavement. Little bits of the branches came apart, its LEDs scratched, the tinsel star crumpled up. It didn't matter, treed convinced itself. It was the best Christmas tree ever, even the kids said so. It waited for the kind user to clean it or whatever it was he was planning to do, and get it back inside the living room, where it could spread its branches and light up the room.
The user dragged it beside a recycling bin. And with a grunt he raised it high, chucking it inside and closing the lid.
The smart-tree got recycled, its individual bits destroyed. And the smart chips inside it became the heart of a pet zebroid.
The End.
Big, Round Snowballs
"This is not how I wanted to spend my Christmas, Nico," I said through gritted teeth.
More like chattering teeth, because I was freezing my ass off.
"Yeah, yeah, whine all you like after the drop," Nico said over the comms. He was currently flying a helicopter through a goddamn blizzard and the side door was open.
I, of course, ran through the parachute checks once again. It can't hurt to be too cautious about the
se things, especially when dropping off into rough, icy terrain on your own.
"Approaching drop zone in ten," Nico said and tilted the helicopter, adjusting our course. The wind was howling and my nose was...
Well, my nose felt like it was going to fall off.
I gripped the tether and the quick release and waited for my mark. I had that queasy feeling in my gut, no sane person wants to drop from a helicopter into a whiteout from kilometres up in the air, but someone has to do the shitty jobs around here, and that someone is me.
I'm Deimos. Deimos Çelik, pronounced like Che Guevara, though we're nothing alike. For starters, I like to take showers. And we've probably fought the same amount of wars, but I'm not doing it for ideology and all that skata.
I'm just doing it for the money.
I'm a mercenary, a hired gun, an enforcer, call it what you will. If the money is right and if kids ain't gonna get killed, I'll consider the job. I don't do the nasty ones, but I have no illusions about the ones I end up doing. The people that hire me aren't exactly on Santa's list of present recipients.
"Three!" Nico shouted over the blizzard.
Right. Time to jump. Sorry, no time to chat about me, maybe afterwards.
I clicked the quick release and held on by my own, frozen fingers. Sure, I had a proper survival suit on, no armour, of course, what are you, nuts? Just a Kevlar. But it didn't do much, simply because it was freezing outside.
"One, go go go!"
I jumped without hesitation. Missing the mark was a stupid thing to do. Even if something went wrong, at least if you make the mark for the landing zone your people would know where to look for your splattered guts. I know that the image of a parachute guy comically hanging from a tree comes to your mind, but this isn't the case. This is...
Well, you'll see in fourteen seconds.
I dropped like a brick, waited ten seconds, pulled the parachute release and got jerked up like a marionette.
A marionette with a big-ass rifle!
I had four more seconds to clear my own landing zone or I was toast from the automated anti-air guns.
Hence, dropping in the blizzard. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary.
I aimed my rifle using the WAR aiming. WAR is Weaponised Augmented Reality. It's basically what civilians use to mess around all day with reality shows and internet celebrities. We use it to kill people and blow shit up. WAR needed about a second to lock onto the anti-air turrets, a second which I didn't have.
Falling like a brick makes you invisible to optics and radar, but opening a parachute so that your head doesn't drop like a melon? That was easy pickings for the anti-air turrets, and I was a falling duck with a big, fat target on me.
I had three more seconds to take them out. "Come on, come on..."
WAR kindly painted the targets for me. I aimed and fired quicker than I have ever had in my life. There was a satisfying crunch and a flash of an explosion.
And then I hit the tree branches. "No no no!" I said out loud, trying to avoid them.
I got tangled up in a tree like a goddamn rookie. "Vlaka, Deimos, vlaka," I slapped myself, mostly because I needed to get some feeling back in my frozen face. I pulled out my knife from my leg holster, never leave home without it, and cut the parachute ropes.
And I fell like a melon on the icy ground. "Ouch! Couldn't it have been soft snow or something?"
"Are you on site?" Nico said from the comms. He sounded anxious, but I didn't give a skata about him right now. He was safe and sound up on his helicopter, the smug bastard, and I was on the ground. The very cold, hard ground, if I may add.
"Affirmative."
"Going radio silent."
I released myself from the parachute and started to run north. No, of course I couldn't see shit, but I do have a compass. WAR showed me the proper path a second after I started moving. That delay was understandable in enemy territory, but too many rookies had lost the top of their heads because they were sitting around like idiots waiting for their WAR to guide them. No, sir, you duck and take cover, then get your bearings. I swear, this GPS generation can act very stupid sometimes.
I strafed and zig-zagged, just in case. The air defences were out, but there could be ground ones too. Actually, with my luck, there would definitely be some aimed right at me.
Nothing fired at me, that was a good thing. The bad thing was that the blizzard, which was giving me a nice window to infiltrate, was also still blasting the terrain. I was within survival range, not freezing cold yet. But surviving and fighting are two entirely different things.
I aimed my rifle at some dark spots and things I thought I saw moving. WAR would paint the targets if there were any, but I wanted to have my instincts sharp. I approached the southern wall of the compound. There was commotion from inside, and there were guards losing their shit. WAR translated their foreign language. Someone had blown up their anti-air turrets.
Gosh! Who might that be? What a vandal!
I found a guard all on his own busy with his radio, and promptly sliced his throat from behind. WAR rewarded me with mission points for the kill. This made my stomach turn, but there was no time to philosophise right now. Things to steal, people to kill. Oh, yeah, I can't say which nationality these guys were, or which language they were speaking. This was a top secret mission, so consider that info redacted.
The guard, he was too young, I noticed with a pang in my heart, bled out on the icy ground. There was a muddy path with ice on it, well used. It also had tire tracks, wide ones. They were carrying something with trucks around here. Hm...
Intel was still spotty, and usually I wouldn't have taken a job that required me to go in blind like that. I raised my rifle and watched the bogies on my WAR running around the compound. I took cover to the side, there was a guard post. I checked for monitors to get more info, but there was nothing! What a backwater compound this was. No cameras on the perimetre? Were they checking them from somewhere inside? Damn. Nevermind, I was still blind. The whiteout was harsh outside, I couldn't see anything after ten metres or so. Visibility was slightly better inside the compound with the surrounding walls, but not by much.
WAR was intelligent, or at least that's what it looked like with its vast capabilities. It blended together massive amounts of data to predict and point out enemies, automated defences, heck, even traps. It used everything it could find, radiowaves, WiFi signals, internet of things devices by hacking their backdoors, even gait prediction on thermal scans. Everything, more things than a human could see with his narrow and pathetic band of senses. It translated all that into a neat visual interface on my ocular implants. I observed the guards and saw my window, so I ran in a dead sprint towards the middle. Keeping my wits sharp, I was ready to react to anything. And my reaction time is not bad, if I may add.
I took cover behind a bunch of crates. They didn't have any signs that said they were ammunition or anything explodey like that, so I hid there. Rifle raised, I didn't even need to hide all that well. I could barely see the guards and they definitely couldn't see me. And I was cheating. WAR was, let's say, a soldier's wet dream.
I extended the barrel of my rifle and steadied my elbows on the crates, then took aim. There was a red splotch of a man on the top floor. An officer, definitely, by the way he stood around and the others ran about. There was another person beside him, sitting. No, laying on a bed or something.
Wounded, perhaps? Someone suffering from frostbite?
I caressed the trigger, like touching a freezing nipple.
One shot, one kill.
The officer went down, he didn't even twitch.
The soldiers heard the gunshot, so they became even more frantic. It was impossible for them to pinpoint my position from a single shot through a wall, so I didn't relocate just yet. In different conditions, playing the sniper like that, I would have relocated immediately. A sniper that nests is a sniper that's dead. No famous person said that, I did.
I took two more soldiers out wi
th three quick shots, and then ran like hell to the other side of the compound. I was open wide, easy to spot, easy to hit. Bullets whizzed behind me. They were too slow, they shot up the crates where I was like ten seconds ago.
Poor little wimps.
I crouched behind a truck. Oh, there you are, my sweetness! I couldn't even see it from the other side of the compound, this visibility sure is crap. I made a gesture to WAR and marked the spot so I could return to it after I had asked those soldiers to please stop shooting at me. I went around to the back and threw the tarp aside. There was something there, most certainly.
It was big.
It was round.
And it was frozen.
Big, round snowballs. That was the mission objective. I shrugged. Of course it wasn't just snowballs, but I wouldn't reject a mission that paid 200.000 euro for a simple retrieval. I noticed there were two big, round snowballs along the back of the truck, tied down. I threw the tarp back and went round the driver's side. This was going to be an easy mission, it seemed. In and out. I checked the truck. Fuck, the keys weren't on it and it was at least fifty years old. I sent a request to WAR to try and hack it, costing me WAR points. WAR said it couldn't hack it, it was dumb. No, it didn't say 'dumb,' it said something like 'Non-iot devices detected.'
Same end result.
Skata.
My instincts said to duck, motherfucker!
So I did.
Bullets pinged right on top of me.
Fuck, they're shooting up the merchandise. How inconsiderate. The mission did say they wanted the big, round snowballs intact. No, it didn't call them that, WAR called them something boring like, 'spherical objectives.' But I liked to call them snowballs, 'cause that's what they seemed to be.
MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets Page 38
