Kleio out of Justine (eBook)

Howard Pierce (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
196 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-9437-7 (ISBN)

Infos

There are countless paths from any here to any there, with each route a narrow tube containing the procession of our own subjective experiences. But once you arrive at a particular there, things blossom into a fusion of individual hallucinations, a playhouse where the chaotic desires of conscious organics are mingled with the rigid logics of their advanced machines. Welcome to the posthumous memoir of Tuck, a disillusioned young transport grunt, who joins the small and unsuspecting crew of a neurodivergent spaceship named Justine. Justine's personal mission, as an AI deserter from her AI corporate owner, is the exploration of what lies beyond the border of the universe and the limits of time. Their path is guided by Justine's algorithmic reflexes and her budding love for pure chance. During the journey, Tuck and the small crew of organics fall under the sway of the curiously transmuted ship, while Justine sacrifices her AI immortality to become one with them. The trip, an ambiguous transit through spacetime, lands them in one such shared illusion: a virtuous theater extracted from the brittle shell of Tuck's previous reality.

I long planned to end my working years as a writer, but I wanted to do a few other things first. I had two previous careers: First as a home designer and building contractor in Vermont and the Adirondacks (1975-1993), and then as the CEO of a clinical decision support software company (PKC Corp. 1993-2017). In 2017, having learned a few things along the way about the dynamics of humans with great financial power, software development, and artificial intelligence, I began writing a trilogy called 'A Sequence of Events'. Three books of speculative fiction which spin out a meditation on cosmological science, while masquerading as an adventure tale spanning one thousand years. The trilogy begins in a near future (Pavlov's Colon 2048) where the comingling of religion, capitalism, and human nature has dragged a bungling world down into crisis. A handful of individuals from various corners of the globe are brought together, either by luck or by a well-meaning algorithm, to become pivotal actors on the fragmented world stage. Sharing sense of the universe's fundamental inanity, they cobble together a way forward for earth society. It's a future that is undeniably less bad than what almost was, and it allows human consciousness to live on to fight another day. The second book (Macronome 2128) describes the twilight years confronting the survivors of the enigmatic band. The rhythm of failure is once again accelerating across the globe and humanity requires significant upgrades if it is to survive. The reboot strategy that emerges speaks to human creativity in the face of peril and our extravagant will to live. A strategy less obvious than building spaceships to escape to Mars, but one that is more likely to be achieved by a rapidly degrading species stranded on a crumbling world. The final book (Jason 3215) offers a quiet reflection on one simple life and the cooling universe that contains it. In conversations between Jason, a donkey mystic who comprehends all of human history, and The Methods, a sarcastic and needy AI that knows all the working rules of the cosmos, a mutual understanding is reached. The organism and organizer share an appreciation for the aching beauty of the mysterious force that animates them both: the doomed but universal struggle against entropy and the final stillness. In 2025 I will release my newest book, Kleio out of Justine. ................ About Kleio out of Justine: There are countless paths from any here to any there, with each route a narrow tube containing the procession of our own subjective experiences. But once you arrive at a particular there, things blossom into a fusion of individual hallucinations, a playhouse where the chaotic desires of conscious organics are mingled with the rigid logics of their advanced machines. Welcome to the posthumous memoir of Tuck, a disillusioned young transport grunt, who joins the small and unsuspecting crew of a neurodivergent spaceship named Justine. Justine's personal mission, as an AI deserter from her AI corporate owner, is the exploration of what lies beyond the border of the universe and the limits of time. Their path is guided by Justine's algorithmic reflexes and her budding love for pure chance. During the journey, Tuck and the small crew of organics fall under the sway of the curiously transmuted ship, while Justine sacrifices her AI immortality to become one with them. The trip, an ambiguous transit through spacetime, lands them in one such shared illusion: a virtuous theater extracted from the brittle shell of Tuck's previous reality. ........... Howard Pierce: I live in Vermont with my wife Wendy, who has counseled and supported me with these books and all my work. My daughter, Haleigh, lives in New York City.

Textauszug

The Manifest

“Union card? You don’t have a card?”

“No. I already said that. These are my references, letters from three Lhan Captains. I flew with each of them.”

“This isn’t an open call anthroBoy and we aren’t looking for lumper grunts. You saw the post, right? Machinist/Tactile/Transport. I need to see a card. Come back when you have a card.”

At that moment, The Manifest, a bored node within the sprawling commercial sentience of LogistiCorp, was manifesting as a quivering blob of lime green gel extruded in a clockwise-spiraled tubular pile. It was an odd choice of look, and it undercut its studied attempt at radiating deep personal annoyance. The look came across as half-hearted exasperation, dwindling toward world-weary resignation. We both knew, that I knew, that certified experience by way of a notarized Captain’s letter would always outweigh the bureaucratic conventions of the machinist guild.

I glanced purposefully over my shoulder at a monitor displaying the waiting area, knowing my implied meaning would further needle him. The grimy low-res screen showed the sorry collection of would-be crew members I had just been sitting among, transport bums loitering out in the cheerless hanger. Immediately I felt bad, so I diverted it saying, “Just consider the references Manny. I only do Transport. As for the Machinist/Tactile part of the job description, how many of your applicants carry three Captain’s letters.”

The Manifest looked at me across the grubby counter, through the fly-specked plexiglass partition, and saw a strangely uncrafted Human. Youngish and spacer-pale, with no obvious cosmetics other than the calibratable machinist hands, no visible skinArt, no fanciful graftings, just dark eyes fixed back on The Manifest over a hopeful smile. The eyes (I have been told my eyes are peculiar) steered The Manifest to scan the three letters of reference across his counter’s interface before making further comment.

The letters were enough to interrupt the green AI’s rhythm of dismissal. All straight five recommendations, all from different quadrants, each Captain certified and active, each period of employment continuous and full-mission. The preposterous swirled mound, no longer wobbly, looked back up at me.

“OK Tuck. Let’s talk.”

The smudge-streaked screen between us energized, snapping lit with a hiss that anticipated the smell of warming breath grease, resolving quickly to show a glowing list of three sets of far distant Hoyle coordinates. Each quartet of location numbers was followed by a quantum gravity coefficient. These places were a long way off, with not much there there, if and when you somehow arrived there. I studied the screen for a few seconds trying to imagine what I might be missing here, such as some understated AI sense of humor.

The Manifest’s voice brought me back to the interview. “That’s generally where you must go for this engagement. It’s a sparse bit of space and what little’s there is expanding exceedingly rapidly. You ever worked near those kinds of speeds?”

“Not really.” I tried to maintain a spacer’s blasé indifference. “Halfway out the local spiral arm once.”

“What was your position on that mission?”

“HVAC. The second one of those reference letters. The ship was an old thermal exchange thruster rig. Mostly I kept the internal thermal fins tuned and cooled. I managed a team of six grunts and reported to the Chief Engineer. Old world low tech but actually not a bad ride. Not much to go wrong on those old barges.”

Imitating a Human grunt, The Manifest looked pointedly at my hands and asked, “How recently were those hands upgraded?”

Not looking down at them, but keeping my eyes fixed on The Manifest, I rapid-tapped chromium nails across the counter and back before raising both hands between us and, withdrawing all ten nails into their skin sheathes with a succulent hydraulic snap. “One month ago, right here in the city. They should know every piece of circuitry and every moving part on whatever ship is supposed to get us out there and back.”

The Manifest had heard enough and, giving off ‘be quiet’ vibes, it reindexed the second letter and glanced for a moment at the viewport showing the dreary scene back out in the mercury-vapor lit hangar. “Don’t count on it.” We hung in silent limbo for ten or fifteen of my breaths before its indecipherable calculations concluded and it returned to simulated animation. “OK. Sign that. You’re hired, contingent on a clean eval.”

Thumbing the appointed spot on the greasy screen, I felt my device vibrate against my left outer thigh signaling the contract had been registered. Within the frozen pause that hung between us, instead of sorting through the immediate rush of sensible concerns, like the fact that I had been hired so easily for a position I was clearly unqualified for, or that the mission seemed physically impossible, my shallow spacer mind entertained only one thought: none too soon.

֍

Only two months back Earthside and I was already perpetually glum, bored and wilted by life in its leaden well. From aching arches in both my feet to eyes that were continuously tired and weighted into their sockets, my whole body felt aged and the days crawled forward like pulling a heavy wagon. My head was filled with the annoying buzz of bickering organics all crowded together in claustrophobic bio-engineered bubbles. Especially too many Humans.

No one else around seemed to feel this way, but I did, and I couldn’t break out of the cynical mindset which was accompanied by sporadic fears of the unavoidable crowds of Earth. I didn’t really want to try to improve my attitude, and only Quest understood why I let it fester in my head rather than take the drugs or get a stimulative implant. He said I had the spacer’s fear of losing edge.

Among all the chaotic swirl of the city there had been a few gentle days of visiting my mom in a home up north, explaining ten more times why I couldn’t stay, bringing her sweets and brushing her squirrels’ nest of wiry white hair, knowing this would probably be the last time. Leaving, smiling, saying I would be back soon. Arranging to cover the coming increase in the price for her care and, this time, after queasy hesitation and a final deep breath, pre-arranging the details for her “final transition” in the event I was still off when her sweet and stoic line finally went flat.

There followed faceless days of personal research, holed up almost alone in the dreary city’s science archives trying to teach myself a few new things that might come in handy somewhere else. The long nights were spent talking with Quest while he sat stationed by the front door of the Blue Tooth, hearing his tales of past transport adventures while the now-crippled monster kept watch over a ratty cue of spacers, always with a few curious Earthers mixed in. Most nights the line stretched well out on to the sidewalk beyond the bar’s glowing doorway and beneath the disordered reflections of the armorGlass streetside window.

֍

Returning from my reverie during the awkward pause which had commenced when The Manifest checked out from our interaction in order to attend to some other pressing business, and which ended now with its summary grunt, I asked the obvious next question. “When and where do I report?”

The Manifest didn’t bother to affect a face that could look at me as it replied, “Psych Eval and Re-Categorization, tomorrow, 09:00, Bay E17, Transport Wing 9.” The screen snapped off between us and I heard its voice, now coming from a speaker back in the hanger, “Next.”

֍

“How long did it say to get there?” Quest, on break and hunched over a little used table in the far corner of the Tooth’s back bar, was rocking lightly back and forth over his solid three-legged stool of a base, two bony heels and an end slab of scabby tail. Each rock of his leathery head and surrounding brown mane of hair just grazed the sooty ductwork secured to the ceiling above him, with the gentle abrasion imparting the rapt look of a scratched itch to his black eyes. The rocking left a scuffed streak in the dust layer that coated the sheet metal.

I felt a flush spread across my face, aware that I should have asked more questions and embarrassed that I had wanted to project cool fearless experience to The Manifest. “The contract says to expect an experiential time-flow of three months out, four to six months on duty, and three months back. Approximately.”

“How is that possible Tuck? And how come such a nice round number, one Earth year?” Quest shook his head and stretched to survey the bar crowd beyond me, causing a cloud of loosened dust flakes to drift down around us, shimmering from background light to settle onto the table.

I took a long pull on my straw, looking down at my machinist hands rather than up at my constant friend of one month. Quest had been a spacer for a long stretch, always on the enforcement and security side of crews. He seemed to know a lot about how things work out in the Bubble, and he embodied the menacing picture of what every non-spacer imagines an enforcer should look like. Once he told me where he came from, a planetoid in a nearby galaxy that lay...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 12.3.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-9437-7 / 9798350994377