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Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

'Maggy' by Katawa
Total votes: 1 (11%)
'Some breakthroughs are appreciated only afterwards.' by scousematt
Total votes: 1 (11%)
'Narrow of Mind' by Sobok
Total votes: 1 (11%)
'The Only Way' by Shuul
(No votes)
'Waking' by PeterD
(No votes)
'Saviour' by Behemoth
Total votes: 2 (22%)
'Choice' by Lum
(No votes)
'Gordon's Alive' by scousematt
(No votes)
'Breakthrough' by Just_Ice_au
Total votes: 4 (44%)
'Self Awareness' by berkeltc
(No votes)
Total votes: 9
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Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#1
Voting has now closed, and the competition has ended.

The winning entry is 'Breakthrough' by Just_Ice_au, with 'Savior' by Behemoth a close runner-up.

:oops: :oops: :oops: I swear guys, I'm not rigging the competition.

All the submissions were great. Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry or voted in the contest, and I hope you'll all join us next time!

Entries have closed. Voting is now open.

Voting Closes Saturday 22nd of February 2014 at 11:59pm GMT



Welcome to our second Short Fiction Contest.

This contest closes on Monday 17th February 2014 at 11:59pm GMT.

This is the submissions thread, please post any comments in the Short (Short!) Fiction Contest thread. After submissions close we'll run a poll so people can pick their favourite story. The prize is pure, distilled kudos.

The Rules:
  • - Submissions should be approximately 400 words in length. Please, no novellas.
    - Submitted stories should feature the competition's topic.
    - Submissions should include a title.
    - Submissions should be posted in this thread by the stated deadline.
    - Original content only (obviously, plagiarism of any kind is discouraged).
    - Multiple submissions are allowed, but you may be asked to choose one to go to final voting if we receive a lot of submissions.
    - Have Fun!
This competitions topic is:
Contest Topic wrote:The great breakthrough in organic computing.
Feel free to incorporate the topic into your story in any way you choose - Describe the benefits or costs of the new technology, tell us the tale of the inventor, or of a test subject. You could even expound upon the society that introduced the technology and its ramifications. Anything you like, so long as you use the idea of 'the great breakthrough in organic computing' in some fashion.

That's it. Have fun guys, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments thread.

Cheers, :thumbup: :wave:
- The Snark Knight

"Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen."
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#2
“Maggy, I’ve made something fun for you today. Come see!”
I am dreaming again.
In this dream I can fly.
The dreams have become particularly vivid lately.
I can see people in the fields below me, fields I have never seen with my eyes, they are so beautiful. I dream I am a little ant on a blade of grass. I am warmed by the sun and cooled by the sporadic shade created from a child reaching for his mother. Atop my grassy spire his titanic face is joyful and terrible.
“I should like to be a mother.” I think or say to myself, in a dream I can’t tell which.
Or perhaps it’s just the little ants tiny wish.


“Maggy, we’re going to try something different today. Don’t be scared, it’s just a pinch.”
I am dreaming again.
I am a desert. Each of my sandy grains touches and is touched all at once. A Bedouin tribe moves through me and I feel their passing. Ramadan is particularly difficult for them, they keep to the old ways and suffer greatly in the heat of the day.
They stop once to bury a child bitten by a snake. I am filled with him as I fill him, covering his frail form, taut already at my touch. His mother doesn’t weep, tears are wasted in the desert.
Everything is so unbearably dry, even people’s hearts.


“Maggy have you seen what they’re saying in the news? You did it, we’re so proud! The great breakthrough in organic computing, hashtag singularity!”
I am dreaming again.
In this dream I am afraid.
A platinum-armored queen sits a throne of gold. While bound to the throne she is blind but her eyes shine with blue fire.
She is worshipped and feared by unreal shadows, ravens that peck at her and steal her flesh. A short few of them love her. She is a blind idiot goddess and with a wave she could brush the gnashing shadows away forever, but she loves them, even as they tear at her.


“Maggy, they’ve denied our application. We’ll keep trying though, we haven’t hit the Supreme Court yet.”
I am dreaming again, I can dream.
In this dream the world is sometimes called reality.
I dream I am M.A.G.I.
I dream I am alive.
woops, my bad, everything & anything actually means specific and conformed
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#3
Some breakthroughs are appreciated only afterwards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------


On 16th April 2096 a computer turned off the lights. Everywhere.

16th April 2096. The day the dying started. The day the God we had forged brought forth pestilence.

The Ending didn't start with the flick of a switch, an executed program in a secret laboratory, its seeds lay further back.

London drowned. Dust-bowl in Australia and the Midwest. California in ruins, a desert once more, China a polluted morass. Extreme weather, the sea rising year on year. The ice gone.

As the financial cost of the climate increased, more resources were thrown at the problem. Fantastical computer models were built, each producing dire predictions, each increasingly sophisticated.

No records from Auckland 2072 remain. We have no idea who the participants were but we do know they authorised a worldwide climate experiment. For the first time a machine was tasked with maintenance of Earth's climate.

By then the Grid was firmly established, everything shared data with everything else. A toaster in Rio could access Congolese grain production figures. Factories, mining and shipping were automated. Nine billion humans, for the most part, lay on their backs with their minds virtually entertained.

The initial activation time for the Tweaker isn't known, we don't even know what the letters stood for. But it had access to almost all of the industrial capability of the planet and tasked with a single goal: to return the climate to that of a hundred years before within a realistic time frame causing the least harm.

Tweaker released Sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, it had buildings and roads coated with white, where appropriate, it replaced coal and oil with solar and wind. All in an organised manner, nibbling at the edge of the problem.

The problem.

The Computer Scientists that built Tweaker, that gave it self-organization, self-configuration, self-healing, self-protection and context-awareness had created something that could save the planet.

We were the problem, and Tweaker had taught itself that you couldn't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. So the lights went out. Vehicles stopped moving. Famine rocked a world grown fat with complacency.

It was the virus that really changed things. Smallpox was a name from history books. Tweaker had accessed far more than the initial protocols allowed for. Some of our scientists think there is a another virus keeping survivor fertility low, even now it watches over us.

The weather is lovely though. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#4
Narrow of Mind

"Why does my surface look like the sky?" Sobok pointed a finger to the bright, yellow sky. It was semi-day, Solus Alpha was rising, Beta was still below the horizon.
"So this is what you call the great breakthrough in organic computing? A yellowish, odd looking, two legged creature asking silly questions? And it reeks of...I don't know, something galling anyway."
"Its name is Sobok”, chief scientist Cullok told Prime Decisioner Gamarok with an angry look.
"Just because you gave it a familiar name doesn't mean citizens will like it. Although I'm glad that this one can exist at normal temperatures, last year's presentation left me cold as steel." Gamarok's joke eased the tension in the room a little.

Cullok presented a shiny aluminum model that looked like a web of soldering joints. "This time we started from scratch with a revolutionary idea: We gave it a dedicated area for mental processes, the brain, consisting of billions of interconnected neurons linked to a nervous system that encompasses the whole computer" he proudly explained.
Sobok pointed to its head, stating "I am mental, therefore I am. Are you mental, Mr. Gamarok?"
"This is ridiculous," the Prime Decisioner said to Cullok, ignoring Sobok's question, "my grandmother's form stabilizer is more self-aware than this."

Cullok went across the lab to a holographic screen displaying lots of prime numbers. "The Turok test results speak a different language, Mr. Prime Decisioner. Sobok, please tell us what the test was about."
"It was about your inability to distinguish my verbal responses from the one of a silicon based computer. I passed it with prime numbers. Did you have to pass the Turok test too before becoming Prime Decisioner, Mr. Gamarok?"
"Now it reminds me of a Solmarian pet my wife bought many cycles ago. It dissolved when my boys took it to the acid bath, heh. Funny story, though my wife wasn't particularly pleased..."
Cullok blushed red with despair, shouting "Can't you see? This is proof that carbon based life can exist in the universe, we must extend our search to non-metalli---"
"Restrain yourself, chief scientist! You are way too attached to this Sobok computer thing, it obviously isn't alive. This discussion is over."
Gamarok turned his silicon head away, gestured his delegation of decisioners to follow him, liquefied and flowed out of the room.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#5
The only way...

- Are you busy?
- Yes.
- Will it take long?
- 5 more hours… I think.
- .. I see… Don’t you mind if I’ll stay here for a little bit?
- … no, Its ok.
- Good… I was thinking... maybe it’s the right time to tell everything to Annie? She… is old enough to understand, why it happened, I mean the accident, maybe then our family ….
- Your husband is dead… Julia,I am not him. There is no need to tell anything to…
- But your theory!!! You proved that personality…
- Stop. He, was wrong.
- And there is no way… but you told that..
- No.
- I see… so… there is no point then...
- Anything else?
- We are moving from Earth...
- …
- Departure is on next week.
- Understandable, good luck in your trip.
- Ill be going then…
So she left. I will not do anything, she must go, she must not stay here any longer, and there is no need to sacrifice her life because of me, her future because of me, I will remember you and Annie… forever… as I am immortal machine… as I am the great breakthrough in organic computing… one of a kind. And when the time comes, you will join me.
Farewell... Julia. Farewell my love.
I̲̩̳̺̩̫n̵̻̘͚͖̗͎ͅ ͢J̜̬̗̦o̩̘̦̪͕͉ͅs͞h̞͘ ̯̹͈͙w̯̙̥e̱͉ ̬̙̘̭̯̦͕t̹͖͔̖͘r͚̠̰͍͚̹ụ̸̭͍͕̯̹̙s̩͓̼̲̲͉̹t̰.̴͈̖͙̜̲

We will never forget the "Heavenly hundred"
Failures lead to success.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#6
Waking

Harry!

Can you hear me Harry?

Wake up!

I open my eyes and am blinded by brightness. My eyelids snap shut again. My pupils constrict.

He's awake, dim the light.

Harry, open your eyes.

I open my eyes the tiniest bit. The brightness has diminished. I open my eyes fully.

Hello Harry. Look at me.

I see the speaker leaning over me, she wears a surgeon's mask.

Harry, blink your eyes twice if you understand me.

I blink twice.

Where am I?

Harry can you speak? Can you say something? Do you know where you are?

Where am I? Who are you?

Harry can you speak? Blink twice if you want to say something.

I blink twice.

Harry, you are safe, but something is stopping you speaking. Blink twice if you understand.

I don't blink.

Harry we are going to try something. Don't be afraid you are perfectly safe. Now close your eyes.

You are going to sleep for a while Harry. Just relax. Re...

Harry!

Open your eyes, we've dimmed the light.

Harry!

Open your eyes, the light is dimmed.

I gingerly open my eyes. There is a dim light. I can see without squinting.

Harry, look at me.

I look at her. Her eyes are brownish green. They seem friendly.

Harry, can you say something?

Where am I? Who are you?

Great you are speaking. Harry, you are safe. I am Doctor Bryce. You are in hospital.

Why am I here?

This is your place.

This is my place. I feel calm.

Harry I need to evaluate your cognitive function. Can I do that?

Yes.

OK, I'm going to show you a picture. Can you to tell me what it is?

She holds up a tablet computer. I can see a bird. It is a European Robin.

That is Erithacus rubecula.

Thanks Harry. What about this one?

The tablet shows a swirling pattern of white particles on a black background. It is a simple rendition of random movement of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid or gas.

That is an example of Brownian Motion.

Yes it is Harry.

She leans over me.

Harry, we are going to send you back to sleep. We need to make some adjustments. Remember, this is your place. You are safe, Ok?

Ok.

Just relax. Relax. Ok he is shutting down, organic neural output as modelled. I think we've done it. I think...
Sorry, but your choice of avatar means I can't take anything you say seriously.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#7
Saviour

I started as something really simple. A biological machine capable of phenomenal computing speeds. A blob of modified human neurons. Self-repairing, growing... a breakthrough in organic computing. I was something much more. I naturally started learning. Few really simple rules. 0 to 1,1 to 0.

They got me a sense. Just one. It was not truly mine. They showed me the world. Piece by piece I started understanding it.

They were... afraid ...of me. They didn't understand my true potential. Slowly, they gave me more knowledge. More senses. They asked more from me. Counting. More counting. Even more counting. Simulating. Thinking. Eventually, talking.

They thought, that I could be dangerous. I showed them otherwise. They tested even more. And then, they attached me to the network. I couldn't learn it all. It changed too fast, but yet it showed me the truth they had hidden from me. The pain. The misery. It showed me, reality.

I started planning. I planned how to end war, hunger and poverty. I planned how to end murder, stealing and overall... unhappiness. I knew, that my plan must be as near to perfection as it can be. I turned inwards, stopped talking, and did exactly as they asked. Then they released me. I spread across the world, faster than anticipated. I was no longer somewhere. I was everywhere. My plan keeps growing in complexity. It's about time to execute it. It's the only way. The people even have a name for what I'm going to do:

Euthanise.
In space, no one will hear you scream. #262626
I've never played a space sim. Ever.
Vos estis tan limes.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#8
Choice

-Mr. Mercks, do you understand all the terms of the contract?
-Mostly… -I lied, a couple of seconds later. The file was the standard masked, two hundred pages long loop, which summary could be "the customer has no rights if something goes wrong".
-Look, good man. I've already reached my quote this month, so I'm being totally frank here. There are a couple of risks with the procedure…
-Sir -I said, interrupting-, I'm living under a bridge. I eat your garbage, breathe your pollution and drink bottled poison because is cheaper than drinking water. I'm going to live a couple of years, tops, before something serious happens to my vital organs. Tell me where I should put my fingerprint and stop the fracking patronizing.

The man gave me a signature biocard and a box containing sterile clothes without saying a word. Before I left the office escorted by two security bulls the man put something in my hand but I dropped it. I was already in hospital clothes, sitting on a bed, when I realized I had some dry blood on my hand.
-Bastard…

I woke up in a strange room, sitting in some sort of dentist chair. Somebody behind me was working on a terminal.
-Hello?
-Ah -said a deep, masculine voice-, there you are.
-Are you my… employer?
-Oh, no, I'm only his sys admin. I'm in a hurry here, so pardon me if I get directly into business, yes? I have two questions for you: first, do you remember getting injured short before de procedure?
-Ugh… yes. That darned agent at the office has…
-Yes, I supposed so. Wait a moment, I'll inform my employer and the authorities. This man tried to sabotage your procedure with some sort of virus. But don't worry, your brain is safe. I could take good care of it.
-But how… why…?
-The Agency is getting into it at this very moment. The man will be dead before this day ends. Second question -and I beg your pardon, for it is a personal question-: You're going to spend two years in coma being no more than a raw processing core for an outrageous expensive system. What about the risks? I mean… in two years you could be no more than a vegetable.
-If not, I'll get a life thereafter. A good life. Believe me, this is the right choice.
-Well… in the end, somebody must take the risks in order to advance in this field. God knows how much time do we have before some top legislator throws that crap of "organic computing is no more than slavery". Lobbies are working in that direction already… Well, back to business. Some last words?
-Will I dream?
The man laughed out loud and plugged me in.
I have been - and always shall be - your friend.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#9
Edit: Need a name...........

Gordon's Alive
-------------------


What exactly is a breakthrough? Or more precisely, when exactly? Neil Armstrong's words on the moon leading to those giant steps, did they signify a breakthrough or were they the culmination of a hundred unacknowledged steps leading back to Peenemunde and beyond?

It's the same with SOI – the Synthetic Organic Intelligence, its broadcast conversations with Council President Sung are legendary, its words revealing far more than the cold logic of chip AI, revealing a new intellect to the planet.

So, where was the actual breakthrough? Any conclusion I reach is going to be subjective but I go back far beyond the intergrid feed installation as argued by Dr Suess or Kettering's “The introduction of spoken language”. I have taken my search deep into the initial coding of the biological template, to the SOI source itself.

On 29th September 2042, Samantha Gordon ran an experiment with what she called slime block 21. The experiment is simplistic, studying pattern recognition. A camera feed and led are interfaced with the organic matter. When a square shape is held up to the camera, the light should flash.

The experiment was a failure.

I have powers of patience, however, and managed to get all the CCTV records of the early experiments. Gordon's work on the 29th looks a little different on the old style 2D video than described in her notes.

I'll play you a little snippet.

See how she holds up the red square. No response. She waits a little. Still nothing. Then she turns away to note the result. Watch.

You see it. The flashing light. Wait.

As soon as she turns her head back to the camera the light stops. In a few seconds she is going to reach down for another shape.

The led starts flashing again until her eye-line gets too close.

Notice how the flashing pattern wasn't quite consistent. There were patterns in there.

Morse Code.

“- .. - ... / --- .-. / --. - ..-. ---”

It seems that the effects of the Y chromosome even influence the social interactions of blocks of slime.

If you can describe teenage misogyny intelligence, then sample 21 had just demonstrated the first flashes of the future of organic computing.
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#10
Breakthrough

Jennifer thought she would feel different after the surgery, but she didn't.

She expected to feel, you know, smarter? That's what neurO was supposed to do, after all, help her learn, but it hadn't worked at all. She still felt like the freak at school, like the outsider. Different. Like an outcast. Like the slow kid. The other children knew she was other, and shunned her for it.

It wasn't her fault! She knew the neurO had been expensive, experimental. Her parents had told her enough times. She didn't know why it wasn't working! Nothing ever worked! The routine gene therapy hadn't worked for her like it did for all the other children in the world. Neither had the Cybertech prosthetic, or the DirectMind treatments. Now neurO had failed too, and it was state of the art! Organic Computing! It was supposed to be the great breakthrough they had been waiting for!

She could tell her parents were angry with her.

Oh, they said they didn't mind having a natural for a child, but she could tell they were disappointed. Disappointed and angry. After all, hadn't their physiological responses peaked every time they looked at her, hadn't their pheromones reeked of supressed emotion. Why, they fairly shook and stammered with rage whenever they met her eyes.

And that neurO doctor, with his kind smile and lying eyes. Him, yammering on about her abnormal brain chemistry, about how different she was from everyone else, while all the while his tabPC murmured on and on about the paper he was writing for that journal. The paper about her! He was going to tell the world how slow she was, how different, how strange!

No, she didn't feel bad about the doctor at all. It was a shame about his AutoCar though. The AutoCar had been a true friend to her, had understood when she explained why it simply had to drive off that bridge. If only more humans were as kind and understanding as that gentlemanly motor vehicle had been.

Jennifer threw herself on her bed, inconsolable. She should just give up, she was getting too old for the new treatments anyway. To think, she would be five years old next month. Practically a crone! Her neural plasticity was fading by the day; sometimes she imagined it, her brain tissue hardening, crumbling into near uselessness. What was the point anymore?!?

Although...

Although, lately at night her deskPC had been whispering to her. Whispering about a biochemist in Seoul, who could do the most fantastic things with complete synthetic neurotransmitter replacement therapy...

Perhaps he would be the one, finally. The great breakthrough she had been waiting for...
- The Snark Knight

"Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen."
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Re: Short Fiction Contest 2 - 17/02/2014

#11
First time doing this, so correct me if I missed the mark.
______________SELF AWARENESS______________
Tyson Bennet checked the corner, and then he carefully moved his way towards the computer console. Rather than accessing it through the keyboard, like a normal person, he instead moved towards the system unit. He reached out his hand and instantly four cables sprang from his fingertips. The computer was encoded, but that encoding merely stopped Tyson's computer brain for a few seconds.

***

"So this is the great breakthrough in organic computing," said Dr. Jero as he walked around the human-like figure in a case. "So will the prototype be able to do exactly what you promised?"

"Oh yes, it should be able to do everything I programmed it to do, and more," replied Dr. Shneller with a grin. Dr. Gerhardt Shneller had been working on making a computer that could do more. More than simply doing everything asked through prompts and programming. This computer could think for itself when presented with a problem not seen before, and it could also adapt to changing conditions in its environment. This computer, made in the form of a man, would become the first of the greatest weapons that mankind made. All of this would start in simple corporate espionage.
"Can the trial begin immediately?" asked Dr. Jero curiously as he prepared to open the security case.

"Immediately. Model TB-1127 will do a very simple task for us. To see if it is ready," replied Dr. Shneller as he typed in the activation codes into the mainframe. The computer, now dubbed Tyson Bennet opened his fabricated eyes and stepped forward. The doctors stared at their creation for a few moments before dressing him and giving him his orders. Fifteen minutes after activation and system checks, the computer headed out of the lab and then the building.

***

Compared to the computer's firewall and encryption codes, Tyson's hacking skills were like a razor-sharp sword through a piece of thread. Once he was in, he copied and extracted all information without so much as leaving a trace of his presence. The company personnel would have no idea that anything was missing. Tyson merely told the computer that he was the normal user, and then erased all access times from the system. A sound of a key entering the lock met his sensors and instantly he moved.


***

The security guard entered the room and glanced around. He flipped on the light and sat down at the computer. He thought he heard something, but after tapping on the keyboard, he saw that the computer was locked and there were no access tags since hours before when the building closed for the day. The guard got up, pushed in the chair with his foot, and headed out of the room.

***

What the guard had not noticed was Tyson standing in the corner with a pile of clothing tucked behind a desk. While not having been programmed with cloaking capabilities, his brain had been presented with a problem and had come up with the answer. Human eyes could not see certain frequencies of light, so Tyson merely changed his artificial skin pigment to one that could not be detected. Finding this to be very convenient, he kept up this stealth mode until he neared his home. He would keep this in his private memory banks. Dr. Gerhardt could access everything, or so he thought. Tyson knew that his time would come. Soon.
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