Skullhack Six
R.B Clements

Link:Part 1 | Link:Part 2 | Link:Part 3 | Link:Part 4 | Link:Part 5

Breaken the Younger rode the lift down underneath the Industrial tower alone, and silent. His mind dwelt momentarily on his sister, Maggie. He had taken her life, in a way. Tossing her like a piece of scrap meat to Diego after he had learned of her treachery, her “love“ for Jordan. Deep inside he sneered. He had felt an inkling of remorse as he walked away from his dying sister the night before, but he discarded it as vestigial emotion he no longer wanted or needed. Another Maggie could be made, Clare she would be called this time. Indeed, he himself had been grown just as she had, as had his other brothers and sisters. As had his “father” and “mother”. He had, once, contemplated the implications of his family. The same two people being grown and re-grown in perpetuity, but he had no fondness for philosophy, so implications didn’t particularly matter. What mattered was that the Breaken clan were strong, and would last until the end of time. He would make sure of that, just as his predecessors had, even if it meant destroying your own blood.

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SkullHack part 5
by R.B. Clements

Link:Part 1
Link:Part 2
Link:Part 3
Link:Part 4

Philadelphia 2065

Introduction: This is for the same anthology, surprisingly, somebody else on here posted a story for. The premise can be found here:
http://machineofdeath.net/

I still plan to flesh it out a bit more, but this is the basic story. I'm looking for any critique or comments that might help me with the story, especially on my characterization. I don't feel I'm giving my characters enough depth.

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Introducing Lance Steele! For reasons which shall become obvious, I'm thinking of donating him to this community. I bet people could have a HOOT playing around with him.

Cold Boot
By
Bill Rogers

Stiletto tumbled helplessly, dark and powerless, lost between the stars, so far from home.

On the courier ship’s cramped bridge the emergency lights flickered and came on. Lance Steele shook his head, groaning. He blinked and rubbed his eyes.

“Report,” he croaked.

The Book of Jim
by
Bill Rogers

After pondering for another twelve billion years, Jim thought He had this whole angels-on-a-pinhead thing pretty well figured out. So He paused and looked around Himself. And lo, there was Nothing, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And Jim frowned, and said "Darkness sucks." And lo, there was light. And Jim looked upon the light and said "Cool! It's sort of a wave, sort of a particle, sort of a statistical function, and not really any of them at all. Even Einstein will never quite figure it out."

Found and archived upon an expedition through old Silicon Valley.
103 years old.
Description: A scientist’s personal project: to archive the cyber perspectives of himself(64), son(21) and daughter(31).

Contents revealed:

The Cyber-Scientist Story
Rumbling from its roots, the tree accepted the new season. ‘Task’ delivered: its last few leaves fall into the precisely statistical wind. The dirt was too uniform for any other life form to take shape, except for this tree. This tree built for this dirt.

I think I may need to expand the ending some. Opinions?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

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Some members of the Kindred had been contemplating emigration since before I was born. Some sought a less technology dominated life, others, my parents included, wanted their children to grow up somewhere where being religious . . . being a true theist, not just paying lip service to ancient rites . . . wasn't regarded as being backwards and primitive.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

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I'd docked at the spaceport on Sweets' Northern Continent, and, upon making inquiries, discovered that the nearest bar that both served real alcohol and had an interesting clientele was The Sword and Scroll Tavern, in Lus Ville proper . . . a tiny little town, probably called a village almost anywhere else.

Under creative commons license-- some rights reserved

For my first post here, my first and so far only paid submission. Published on a coffee can! You'd have to know me to know how appropriate that is.

Ace in the Hole
By
Bill Rogers

"It's a stupid custom," Memtok said.

I shrugged and picked up the cards again. "Even on a planet with two suns, Michaelmas comes only once a year. Besides, I like to see how my slaves think."

She snorted. "You only play against three. How can that tell you how four hundred slaves think?"