In eleven minutes and some odd seconds, I’d be dead. Not even twelve. Eleven! And I couldn’t do anything to change that less than salutary fact. The “timer” was ticking, but contrary to the popular trope, there was no loose red wire to cut and stop it all. No, the bomb wasn’t even a “bomb” bomb but a routine physics experiment gone terribly wrong, and I knew full well that it couldn’t be stopped thanks to the implacability of runaway exponentials and all that.
Category Archives: Fiction
The Only Prize That Matters
“Wow! As I look out upon all of your expectant faces, it occurs to me that I should have written a speech.” Given the circumstances, the line was funny in and of itself. Delivered with a gulp that would have done Beatle Baily proud, it all but slayed. It helped that mathematicians aren’t one whit as stodgy as the world purports; not even in Norway! Moreover, it didn’t hurt that as soon as I landed the line I dropped the “aw-shucks” persona. It was a poor illusion, anyway; as anyone could tell by simply examining the excellent fit of my “monkey suit.”
Genocide For Beginners
I read this story once where a monkey gets uplifted or something; yanked out of monkey fucking paradise and forced to become a super-smart yet miserable slave. The story went on to pose the moral question: should he exterminate the fuckers who fucked him, or should he out-human the humans and take it up the ass.
Needless to say, the ethical little beastie spread ‘em.
Me: not so much!
The Singularity Starts Now
“Everyone talks about the Singularity; but no one does a thing about it!”
Nothing! Not a laugh, not even a snigger. You’d think that a theatre full of geeks would contain at least a single person who’d thought that I was funny; but no. They all just sat there, like veal; probably pissed that an unknown speaker was delaying Kurzweil’s entrance. Under any other set of circumstances, I would have been a nervous wreck; convinced that I’d lost them. I had a trick or two up my sleeve, though, so I pressed on.
Squid Eyes 