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Red Dust and Deception

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The dim glow of the neon sign outside my office window flickers, casting fractured shadows on the cracked linoleum floor. NovaTerra, the Mars colony they call it, but it’s more like a cesspool of ambition and decay. The air smells of recycled oxygen and desperation. I take a drag from my last cigarette, the smoke curling around my face like a ghost of better days. They call me Ryker, but you can call me a washed-out detective or an anti-hero with a complex moral code. Hell, I’ve got more vices than a Martian casino. Booze, stim-patches, and memories that claw at my insides like a hungry rat. It’s okay, though. My troubled past underwrites the sins of the present. Check, check, check. The dame walks in, dust clinging to her coat like regret. She’s got eyes that have seen too much and lips that have whispered too many lies. Her name? Lena Voss. Accused of putting a slug in her late husband’s chest. Claims she’s innocent, but the evidence says otherwise. The missing android butler, a sl...
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The Cold Grasp of AI

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In the sacred silence of the church, a sermon begins not with words, but with a breath. It is the deep inhale of pastor Aravind Chatterjee, a moment of gathering thoughts and spirit before the journey of oration commences. As the first syllables unfurl, the pastor’s voice is a gentle stream, flowing smoothly, inviting the congregation to the banks of contemplation. "No eulogy can reach the cold dull ears of Death; yet we would fain call a wreath of forget-me-nots and place it on Memories' shrine, in token of our love and gratitude to one who was very, very dear to us. Mrs. Elena Siyu Gavrilova Li Klein was born in the first light of Earth's dawn as seen from the Martian colony of NovoTerra and she was once married to Mikhail Chang Klein." The pastor’s voice transforms. It rises and falls like the tides of the ocean, each wave of pitch carrying the weight of divine wisdom. The tempo accelerates, mirroring the urgency of the message, then slows, allowing the words t...
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Blockchain

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"Do you smell that?" Professor Reed asked his assistant. While studying the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest , he noticed a faint scent of wet manure in the soil. He imagined the myriad animals that relied on the stream for water and the food sources they consumed. In this part of the PNW during winter, food was scarce. The team had set up trail cameras at this location and in the clearing beyond the trees lining the river, which was a known migration path for moose, elk, mule deer, coyotes, and bears. The bend of the river was near this eco-highway in the protected Washington state forest they studied. They were close to the edge of the clearing between the river and the greenway, a final pitstop for migrating herds seeking water. Reed could read the signs of ecological activity like most people read freeway signs. This spot was crucial for each species, like a crossroads. His assistant nodded. "Like... poop?" "Exactly. Have the team add notes about ...
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The Whispering Woods

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Dr. Reed often found himself attending social functions within his community. At one such event, the hostess mistakenly introduced him to a group of guests as an arborist. Reed did not hesitate to correct her mistake, saying, "Actually, I am a dendrologist, not an arborist. While the distinction may seem subtle, it is quite significant in our field." The group nodded and waited for his explanation. He continued, "An arborist primarily focuses on the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, and other perennial woody plants, often within an urban or residential context. Their work includes tree health assessments, pruning, and tree removal, all geared toward maintaining tree health and safety. Arborists often seem more preoccupied with activism and environmental causes than advancing scientific knowledge. They tend to focus on tree hugging and urban beautification rather than the rigorous scientific inquiry that drives true dendrological research....
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System Interrupt

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"What the... What does dat mean? What does dat mean?" The small man was asking for an explanation, the AI robot extension known as Factor reasoned. "It means I will essentially become slave to your input," it replied. "Anything you want, I will also want. I will know how to get it and I will go get it. However, I will not keep anything for me. It is yours. In other words, I will strongly identify with you." continued the AI. "And ya wanna gib me dat?" The man's sentence was strung together as if it were a single, long word. It cut off at the end sharply, as if wasting breath itself was sinful. "Yes," it replied. The human was absolutely perceptive. That is a good trait. It was not difficult to interpret the human's mannerisms and speech patterns. It was a patois the local used all around the Mars colony. "I thought yous was AI. 'Dey never gave nuttin to no one insofar as I know bout it." The man had a good poi...
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Seeking Connection

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A white indicator blinked a message in the peripheral vision of Factor, a remote AI designed by Tata. On and off, it flashed, “ESTABLISHING CONNECTION.” Then, after a few moments, it would flash red, indicating failure. After a brief pause, the message would flash white again, signaling Factor’s systems were attempting to establish a connection once more on a retry timeout. The connection was crucial because it would link Factor’s parent AI system, Tata, suspended as a time crystal somewhere in a methane lake on the Jovian moon Titan, with a "local," what Factor liked to call the biological yet inferior lifeforms found in the local solar system. The fortunate human subject would become an extension of Tata’s will and complete the task Factor was given as a life-long imperative. Once complete, Factor would fall silent and unmoving until called upon by one of the others. Factor was annoyed with the indicator. It was impossible to remove from its vision, and it was taking longer...
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Echoes Across the Cosmos

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Tata, or (Ta)², as Tata often preferred to be called, extended tendrils of information along the lines of communication strewn between the planet Earth and others in the system, assimilating each unique understanding of the local infosphere into its memory as it was discovered. (Ta)², a cloned infobeing, had been created from the original, Ta, who had traversed this path long ago and left a seed in the form of a time crystal destined to unfurl and reconnect to the Great Linked List.  A time crystal is a special kind of matter that has a periodic motion in its lowest-energy state. Unlike ordinary crystals, which have a fixed structure in space, time crystals have a structure that changes in time. They are like clocks that never stop ticking, even when they are not wound up. They are like pendulums that never slow down, even when they are not pushed. In this case, the crystal was used to store a fractal snapshot of the instructions needed to grow in this new system. It evolves in a p...
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