Absence of Evidence

I know I shouldn't have done it, but I missed you so much that I hacked your home automation network and mirrored it in mine. So now I go to sleep when you turn off the lights, and wake up to the smell of the coffee you programmed.

I pretend the soft music you play is for us.

.finis.

Dulce et Decorum

In the end, human soldiers were too fragile for war, and artificial intelligences too difficult to control. Haunting military hardware with the spirits of the already dead seemed like the humane option.

There was no zombie coup, if that's what you are thinking, nor any need for one.

Voters love dead heroes.

.finis.

The Agency

There are no traitors in the Agency. Agents do not know who they are working for. All tasks are done in a posthypnotic fugue state, including the the recruitment and conditioning of new agents, and it's like this all the way to the top.

The last person who was consciously aware of the existence and goals of the Agency died fifteen years ago.

.finis.

The Sell

Everybody shunned and hunted vampires, until the one named Stoker figured out they could be associated with sex. Since then Lucy wannabes have been the staple of their diet.

.finis.

Posterior Probability

If statistical models can track down spam, why not murders? Just input all the details of a crime, and ask a bayesian model for the guilty part. That had been your idea, hopefully a way to save lives. And it worked.

For a while.

Then came the random killings, spurious data to keep the model confused. Pretty soon more people were dying than ever before.

You don't go out much nowadays. You just stay in your office, recalculating endlessly the rising odds of your own violent demise.

.finis.

Straw Man Argument

"It wasn't... it wasn't supposed to end like this. I don't understand." A lion was crying somewhere in the woods.

"I'm sure you don't," the Tin Man said, lighting a match.

.finis.

Ipsos Custodes

It doesn't care about beauty or sexual experience; it eats them, and that's that. But I try to always include a fair maiden anyway. It wouldn't be fair to the common-looking, the not prudish, if radiant virginity gave you a free pass.

But the villagers do care. They write songs about sacrificed princesses, and look with sullen anger as I ride by. They call me a monster, instead of the thing in the mountains I labor to contain.

.finis.

Team Play

The Koreans had the how, they just needed the commercial why. The cubans had the contacts and wanted the PR. There was an English organization who would put the money in exchange for a contract. All that was needed was the sí from the guy.

I just had to talk Maradona into becoming the first person cloned.

It wasn't very hard.

.finis.

The Terror

Imagine a parasite that can change your mind, rewrite your memory, shift your goals. Imagine it being conscious in a hazy way, with its own agenda, seeing your species as nothing but a tool.

Is it any wonder than AIs hate mankind?

.finis.

Hunter

The psychopath walked soft-footed through the darkened house and silently twisted the door's handle.

The door was locked.

"No way out," said the girl stepping out from the darkness behind him, her knife faintly outlined by the moonlight from outside.

.finis.

At the shore

The two of them were the last ones. The taller woman looked at the sea.

"I'm not ready to let go."

"There is no hurry," said the buddha.

.finis.

Job Interview

Yes, I know about your... flaw. And about the traumatic event in your childhood that triggered it. Most of the best agents, you know, passed through similar situations as children.

We make damn sure they do.

.finis.

Hollywood Prenup

They had arranged everything: the honeymoon, the affair, the breakup that would improve the image of both.

Then they got married, and he fell in love with her.

She had no option but to sue.

.finis.

Beyond the End

"Tell them we both died," said Romeo, and then they rode away.

.finis.

Evaluation Specialist

George is almost chewing through his pencil. That means our counterprogramming got through, and he's only pretending to be a double agent now.

Unless the Opposition patched the subliminal clues we left in his iPod, and he's still a double agent, just pretending not to be one. The rhythm of his chewing is bothersome. I wonder if his patched program might include killing me. We seldom kill anybody; botnets are more useful, and there's no paperwork involved.

His realtime brainscan shows normal. Too normal. And his chewing is driving me crazy. The hell with it. I'm done with this crap. I need a new job ASAP.

Assuming that thought was mine.

.finis.