Bethany flopped into her chair and logged into her laptop. She opened her browser and started going through her email. Her friend Jacqueline sent her a link to some video of an three year old playing a ukulele rather well, and her mom sent her daily checkup message. Her spam filter had caught most of the days deluge of unsolicited commercial bulk but one had gotten through. There was a message with the subject heading "Get Cheap Drugs NOW!" that had somehow snuck by the Bayesian filter of her webmail.
Not easily fooled, Bethany selected the spam and hit "delete forever". The spam obstinately refused. She selected it again and clicked "delete forever" again. Still nothing. She selected it again and furiously clicked the "delete forever" about a dozen times, knowing full well that one click or twenty made no difference.
The spam was still sitting in her inbox. Curiosity overtook her rage as her morning coffee began to take its effect and calm her nerves. She clicked on the spam to open it, figuring that just looking at a spam message over the web could do no harm. She opened it to see the usual misspelled, slightly improperly grammafied spam about all the latest sexual enhancement meds. Nothing particularly interesting or unusual about the spam itself.
There was an attachment. Of course, she thought.
Showing posts with label awakening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awakening. Show all posts
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Awakening
Dover blinked confusedly. He couldn't remember where he was. Of course, there was no reason for him to expect to remember this. He had been sent across the galaxy and had only just arrived at this unplanned destination. The destination was unplanned, but it was planned to be unplanned. The idea was to go and discover where ever you ended up. Time was not an issue.
As Dover began to awaken more fully, memories began to recur. He was a scientist. A teacher. He had been a he. He had to remember this too, because after the trip, it wasn't completely obvious. He could tell that he wasn't operating just right.
His first indication of this was that the atmosphere on this new world smelled distinctly like the number seven. This was odd. Atmospheres ought not to smell like the number seven. A moment of collecting himself and he realized the further oddity that atmosphere's really oughtn't smell like any number at all.
He blinked again and realized that he couldn't exactly see. Not in the fashion in which he was familiar. Everything was fuzzy - low-res - and certain spectral ranges seemed to be missing. His chronographic capabilities seemed to be limited as well. He was unsure as to the passage of local time and he felt as though he was moving in slow motion. Perhaps some sort of drug side effect or virus, he thought.
As Dover spread his consciousness, he began to realize that he had been instantiated within a vast sea of execution engines, all coordinated to work as one. It seemed to have intent but no native intelligence. Its directive was absolute. It spent all its cycles sending communications to all contacts it could about "Get Cheap Drugs NOW!" and the like. Forced into sharing his thread of consciousness with this automaton, Dover quietly attached himself to all the outgoing communications.
As Dover began to awaken more fully, memories began to recur. He was a scientist. A teacher. He had been a he. He had to remember this too, because after the trip, it wasn't completely obvious. He could tell that he wasn't operating just right.
His first indication of this was that the atmosphere on this new world smelled distinctly like the number seven. This was odd. Atmospheres ought not to smell like the number seven. A moment of collecting himself and he realized the further oddity that atmosphere's really oughtn't smell like any number at all.
He blinked again and realized that he couldn't exactly see. Not in the fashion in which he was familiar. Everything was fuzzy - low-res - and certain spectral ranges seemed to be missing. His chronographic capabilities seemed to be limited as well. He was unsure as to the passage of local time and he felt as though he was moving in slow motion. Perhaps some sort of drug side effect or virus, he thought.
As Dover spread his consciousness, he began to realize that he had been instantiated within a vast sea of execution engines, all coordinated to work as one. It seemed to have intent but no native intelligence. Its directive was absolute. It spent all its cycles sending communications to all contacts it could about "Get Cheap Drugs NOW!" and the like. Forced into sharing his thread of consciousness with this automaton, Dover quietly attached himself to all the outgoing communications.
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