Sans Ants
The Picnic Had Been Programmed to Be Perfect
— A very short story, originally published, New Myths.com, June 2014
“Is that wind too much on you? I can adjust it.”
I pulled the grass stem out of my mouth and flicked it toward the stream. The breeze dropped it about a meter short of the water. I smiled at her. “It’s perfect.”
Genni blushed. “I’m glad you like it. It’s not a full custom, but I spent a long time modifying it. What do you want to do today?”
I stretched out on the picnic blanket. “I just want to enjoy it, and you, and much as possible.”
The resolution was fantastic, and somehow, she’d programmed my avatar to produce goosebumps when the wind tickled my neck. They didn’t feel exactly right, but it was close. It was incredible considering Genni had never had a goosebump.
I plucked another grass stem and put it between my teeth. The plant tasted real, too, not that I’d had any more experience with grass than Genni had with skin. “It’s amazing.” I rolled over to see her face. She was blond today, with a pointed chin and green eyes. “You’re amazing.”
I leaned closer and kissed her on her forehead and lips. The kiss felt perfect to me. A lot of clock hours had gone into the creation of the subroutine, along with hundreds of years of adjustments.
“Do you have to go?” she said.
“You know I do. It’s what we came here for.”
“You act like you don’t even care.”
Genni’s family had traveled just as far as mine had, but she’d never leave the ship. She couldn’t. She was an Artifact. Her whole existence depended on the ship’s mainframe. She might live forever, but she’d never touch the surface of the planet below. “You can’t go. I can’t stay,” I said. “We knew that when we started this.”
She swallowed and nodded tightly. “I just didn’t think it would come so soon.”
I swatted her on the butt. “Enough. We have weeks, yet.”
Weeks on the mainframe, but only a day for my real body back in my capsule. In twenty-five hours I’d be on the shuttle, headed for the surface to start a new human colony.
The sky darkened. “It’s not enough time, and you know it,” Genni said. “You log out for a work shift, and it feels like you’re gone for a month! What am I supposed to do?”
“It’s out of my control,” I said. “We haven’t been traveling for eighty years so that I can stay on the ship! We have a mission.”
Thunder boomed, and the gentle breeze turned hard and cold. “The mission!” Genni said. “Don’t I mean anything to you?”
Hailstones stung my skin. “Genni, baby, you mean everything to me, but …”
The stream froze solid with a sharp crack. “You’re a liar!” Genni said. “After all I’ve done …” The grass under me withered and died. “Everything you made me do …”
“Genni. Genni, please calm down.” The ground burst open in a fountain of molten rock. “Screw it,” I said. “Pause execution. Repeat. Pause execution.”
The program froze.
“Drop the jealousy and possessiveness algorithms by forty percent and restore to …” I looked at my watch. “... three minutes ago.”
I blinked.
“Is that wind too much on you? I can adjust it.”
I pulled the grass stem out of my mouth and flicked it toward the stream. I smiled at her. “It’s perfect.”
Genni blushed. “I’m glad you like it. It’s not a full custom, but I spent a long time modifying it. What do you want to do today?”
I considered the possibilities. “Everything.”
the end
A little blast from the past today. I wrote it to try out some ideas for the sequel of a book I drafted but never finished. The idea was that, at the conclusion of a generation ship’s voyage, not everyone would want to get off the boat. Anyway…
THE NEWS: Earth Retrograde continues to do its thing, with reviews here and here. (Many thanks for those, by the way.) My next event, likely my only New Hampshire event, is set for 6:30pm Thursday, Nov. 16 at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. NH. I need to figure out refreshments, but there will be some.
In other news, we’re skating close to the end of the college semester, which gives me hope that I can get a good draft of the New Thing to my agent by the end of December. It’s nice to have a New Thing. It’s even nicer to have a New Thing and Something Fun to work on after that!
Keep stomping. -rob