Search Results for 'voice'

Pádraig wasn’t too pleased by his daughter’s visit. They had not been on best of terms since she took the job to work on the military project they were recruiting heavily for 23 years ago.

He’d done what he could to dissuade her to join the army, but he couldn’t have done more without permanently creating a wedge between them. He had nothing better to offer her, jobs were scarce around, and that could really have meant for her the once in a lifetime chance for a better future, even if he couldn’t admit it. And by the look of her car, and the ranking on her uniform, it may well have been so. So their relationship was tense, and her line of work was as taboo a topic as his health and cave-carving hobbies.

“P’a, we need to talk…”

He was already on the defensive, ready to snap back at her that he didn’t want a help (or worse, a bot!) to clean out his trailer, or cook for him, but she looked different, almost genuinely preoccupied.

“What is it now?” he said in a gruff voice, his throat sore from all the dust of the cave
“You should take a break from your cave digging P’a, just for a few days. There’s going to be some important activity —military training— around the place, and you don’t want to be caught in between, alright.”

I suppose drones don’t really count then… he thought to himself

For all her wired cleverness, there was something that the central intelligence had seemingly forgotten to take into account in her parameters.

Eb woke up in a sweat, barely remembering bits of a horrible dream of being chased and banging on a closed door for escape from a herd of phombies (those guys who had their phones implanted under their skins and would often have a creepy vacant look while in communication).

The banging on the door. According to his mother, if there was something that her nurse Fancy Woo was better at than cooking rice, it was at interpreting dreams. But he didn’t need her expert advice on this one.

His mind was aching from the lack of alcohol, but at least he could think quite clearly.
There weren’t many accesses to enter the simulation, for obvious reasons. Continuity had to be maintained at all costs, to preserve the sanctity of the experiment. That motto had survived the multiple iterations of the simulation since its inception.

Eb knew of most of them, even if he’d wondered about the presence of backdoors. He had not been able to find any since his many years of service. So for all he knew, there were only two ways to get in and out: up and down. “Up” through the fake ships, with the whole stasis protocol, and “down”, through the mines were they would usually send agents from time to time, mostly for reconnaissance purposes.

He looked at the screen, and as he had feared, the explosion triggered in the tunnels by Finnley had sealed their main exit point.

“You underestimate me, my dear Eb” the voice of Finnley merrily bounced on the insulated walls.

Eb was startled. Hadn’t he known that Finnley was just a program, he could have sworn her synthetic voice had a trace of menace in it.

“Finnley” he regained his composure as much as he could “Haven’t the thought occurred to you that the tunnels are now sealed? We cannot let your blue aliens go in and out as easily now!”
“Eb, you do know I do not think.” Her voice was still slightly ominous. “But I ran multiple simulation, and this one still yields the best possible outcome.” she continued more cheerily.
“How so?”
“It is evident. Many of the earlier settlers, still know about the simulation, even if they self-programmed themselves to accept the illusion as better than outside reality. They can become a problem for the evacuation protocol. With the tunnels’ exit collapsed, they have no other way than to comply. Besides, what good plausible aliens come out from the ground, really. We don’t want to miss their grand entrance.
And don’t be such a worrywort about budget, Eb.”

If anything special about being in the vacuum of space, was that anywhere else than in the pressurized and breathable areas, the silence was deafening, and explosions silent.

With the main galleries under tons of rubble, Godfrey was glad to have followed his instincts with the evacuation. It was an unbelievable miracle that there were so few people down with him at that time.
He could hardly prove whether there actually was a controlled explosion triggered down there, but even without dramatic fires, the effect had been felt all throughout the colony. A few of the most fragile structures had collapsed, but at least most of the security protocols were active, and had allowed people to evacuate without too much damage while sucking the air out to avoid dangerous explosive oxygen leaks.

The medical bay was quite busy now treating the wounded, while everyone remained mostly calm despite the unusualness of the situation. Amazing how the survival training (more like brainwashing) they had before coming here was kicking in, with almost minute and automatic precision.

As the only member of the board of operations in duty, he had to report to the central area, where they would likely debrief about it. When he arrived at the pod, there was already quite a commotion, and quarrelling voices could be heard in the airlock.

“… decently leave like this!”
“ We should listen to…”
“stayed for too long to stop now!”
“plan? no strategy at all!”
“was all written over,…” “failure since the beginning…”

When the airlock finally opened, people continued to speak out of turn without paying much attention to him. Good he thought, that was time people release the pressure and start being honest. Let’s just hope it doesn’t end in a bloodbath.”

He was already stuffed with kale fritters and almost drunk with free kale ale from the buffet when the monitors started displaying the broadcast everyone was apparently waiting for.

As usual, Earthlings are a bit late for the battle. he thought when the familiar face of the broadcaster appeared in the middle of interferences.

“… A wave of Greta rays has been delaying the communication, in conjunction with the super moon retrograde in Spices. We apologize for the inconvenience, as we were not able to warn you of the meteor impact that hit Mars surface a few hours ago.”

Godfrey wasn’t sure this was real, or his kalecohol level hitting his brain, but the science seemed sketchy at best. He struggled to pay more attention.

“Not only the actively increased meteoric warming, but also given the Manta ray pulses from Juice pitcher, we fear all electronic equipment on which the Mars ant colony depends may be fried and lead you very soon to eternal damnation without hope for safe return. Our commercial spacecrafts cannot be risked to save you, so we advise you to pray. This broadcast was brought to you by Dismay Channel.”

Even if Godfrey wasn’t sure everything he heard was completely right, he could tell from the confused face of his colleagues that there would be a hell of a run for your lives to follow.
If only they had anywhere to run to…

“Finnley!” Mother Shirley called. “Another brainwave is coming! Put me on speakers.”

Taking on a dramatic voice, Mother Shirley started to prattle on the microphone.

My dear parishioners, good day to you! Dramatic news before we engage our Bollothrope Meditation:
“There is a fundamental change of vibrations. We have to face a destabilization of energies as we know them now. There are shifts to enter into entirely new consciousnesses. All agreements are rewritten. We will have new experiences of consciousnesses we never had before. The world will be joined by new consciousnesses never experienced before. The matrix as we know it will not exist anymore. A totally new bending archetype will arise, a new archetypical bending extraterrestrial energy. The energy of contact.”

When she got out of trance, she reached for a glass of water, amazed at what she’d seen in her mind’s eye. There was hope for all. She still couldn’t believe in how many shades of blues such salvation came.

She was still reeling from the high energies when she heard the sirens followed by the mars-shattering waves deep within the ground.

Finnley Morgan was towering over the slouched Eb with her impressive height of Nubian Goddess. Her unimpressed rolling-eyes look made him want to dig deeper underground and look with great care at the tip of his feet.

“Really this is your plan? Blue bending robot aliens?”

He could have sworn she guffawed, only that Finnley Morgan didn’t do such things as guffaw. Or snicker, or snort —well, that one, maybe in private on certain occasions.
Anyway, he didn’t have to reply.

“Well, just under 2 weeks, who would have guessed you’d deliver? The whole roster of generals wanted to raze the area clean as a baby’s butt, said it would be simpler, and here you come,… managing something…”
“Elegant?” ventured Eb, in a mouse-like voice.
“What? No, I mean, something unexpected… Well, that could well work now. When do you send the first tremors, meteors or other cataclysms so we can have your robots do the cleaning? We haven’t got all year now, and they look like they come with an expiry date, no offence.”

“None taken.” came the suave robot voice of Finnley on the walls.

“I won’t mince my words.” Finnley’s gravitas in the bright blue light made Eb shiver.
She didn’t wait for him to continue. “I’ve received orders to termitate the program in two weeks.”

“T… ter…?” Eb almost started to voice his concerns.

“Before you say anything, need I remind you I personally supervised most of the program since probably before you were born. I know the variables, I know the consequences.” She sighed, and drew deep breaths from her chamomile vaporazor —it would help alleviate her manic attacks and panic depressive impulses (she was beyond bipolar, she would say, probably multipolar).

“It’s a done deal, Eb. With the impossible influx of refugees after the latest floods around the world’s coastal areas, the water increase, people fleeing, and all that… Well, seems the governments wanted the space. I won’t draw you a picture, you’ve read the news in your cubicle, haven’t you?”

Eb was speechless. He couldn’t imagine they could clear the space in such short time. That, and dealing with another set of refugees. What would the Mars settlers do,… if they survived the trauma of finding out they were lied to—like billions of people too. The implications were far-reaching. Two weeks, more than a stretch.

But termitate?… Nobody could wish such dreadful end to a program… He ventured “With all due respect, Ma’m, are you sure there’s no better way than termitation?”

She turned at him with a surprised look on her face. “Where do you get those funny ideas Eb? We’re humane, nobody wants a termitation on top of our problems.”

Eb sighed of relief. She might have made a Tea-pooh (TP for short).
He didn’t realize that he had just agreed to the two weeks deadline.

“Agent X77-86, we have a mission for you” the deep voice on the phone said.

“Wrong number.” Finnley answered unceremoniously before knocking the phone back in place.

Twenty one seconds later, the phone rang again.

Finnley’s tirade stirred something in Godfrey.

He may not have completely given voice of the thought in his head, but it made him realize that the thought of quitting for something different had been here all along.
He liked Elizabeth well enough. To be honest, such caring for an ungrateful and volatile lady was borderline devotion, but still, it wasn’t about that.

I wanted to change the world, and Elizabeth vision of greatness and madness alike was, for a time, something he could fall in line behind and support with passion.

Through visionary books, to open the minds of the pleb to the realms of possibilities, ah! no matter how deliciously delirious and quaint such possibilities seemed. That was a grand epic in budding.

And then, after so many years of relentless editing, copy-writing, and of course maid after maid interviews, all there was left? Unbridled madness and tyranny from the well of grandiose ideas that Elizabeth had been, and to some extent still, was.

In fact, Godfrey had stifled his own creativity by falling in line behind the writing giantess. There were timid attempts at writing his own story, and only piles of old notebook to account for it.

Purpose, Truth, Action those were the magic words…

“Oh, bugger it Liz’. I quit.”

How’s that for action? Another thread would do me good. Like to see what life’s brewing on Mars.

Being a distinguished host, Mother Shirley had been assigned one of the Finnleys bodies, the one with the number 21 plastered on its forehead.
“Twinnie,” she called in her croak of a voice “do the thing!”

Finnley 21 rolled her eyes to connect to her inner source, which was the main computer board, and a stream of random words started to flow down like colander water:

“half leading usually jack gave legs secret stick
light plan fell yourself elizabeth sometimes child
downson recovery management karmalott surprise early”

Shirley clapped her hands gleefully like a child. “How wonderful Twinnie, you’re my personal Oracle, the words of the Mighty Goddess of War have never felt so close and special to me.”
Mother Shirley looked undisturbed by the lack of response from the cybernetic body, and went on “Now, will you, help me adjust this headpiece, it chafes at the temples.”

Mother Shirley was about to ferociously complain about the lack of consideration and utmost rubbish of a service, when she felt suddenly possessed by a will much stronger than her own.
Relax, old cow, and go with the flow

That was most unusual, and it rhymed (surprisingly). Maybe it was blessed Mother Virgin who finally chose to speak through her faithful and humble servant.

All she could hear was a blissful laugh that seemed infectious.

She glanced at the group that was massing around the shuttle after adjusting their breathing apparatus. A young woman caught her eye. She was one of the scandalous raffle’s winner. Mother Shirley was about to start an inner rant, when the voice resounded again in her head.

You should take good care of this one, Shir. The voice was commandeering.

“Did you hear the noise?”
“No I didn’t hear anything”
“I swear I heard some squeaaa… But you know that already, don’t you” He looked at her suspiciously. “What are you hiding there?”
“Stop that, you perv’” She was wrapping her arms around her bosom in a protective manner.
“I’m not like that” He moved a few inches away from her, with his back to the gritty metallic wall of their small capsule.

Prune was starting to feel bad for the other guy. “You’re Hans, right?”
He nodded. Everybody knew their names, it was part of the contract. They also had to accept to be filmed as part of the raffle company’s advertisement plan. So, there was little they didn’t know about each other, despite not having been able to speak to each other until now.

The suspension process the company had rented was not the high-grade version, too costly. So they had to age, unlike most of the other richer travellers. Which made it odd, as Hans had grown a huge beard and even two years of aging had made them slightly different. Almost like strangers. There was a comfort in that, knowing they each held something private, a capacity to be someone else, be worthy of being known and explored. Nothing like what mockery the TV show had made of them.

“You won’t show me? Don’t worry I won’t tell.” His voice was light, you couldn’t have told he was more than 40.

She unzipped her track suit’s pink jacket, to reveal a little ball of fur.

“It’s a small piggy. They’re so fragile, I think I did something stupid. But I promised my gran to not leave it. I couldn’t break that promise.”
“Don’t worry Prune” Hans said reassuringly “We’ll find a way to keep it safe.”

Mother Shirley, the head of the Covenant, was smoking in her private capsule despite the strict restrictions and despite the health risks, at her ripe age of 99.

She liked to quip that nobody had ever told her what to not do and lived to say the tale. She had smoked since age 45, after the death of her third husband, the only one she had shed a tear for. Never turned back since, and maybe it was the reason she was still alive after all. Smoked like a mighty salmon.

She grinned painfully at her reflection. Ugh. Despite all the beauty treatments, she was starting to look like a decrepit mummy. No amount of wariki body butter and ant royal geel would do the trick now. She had to resort to more extreme measures after no doctor would dare to try a peeling on what skin was left on her face.

The acrylic mask was always prickly at first, and took a few uncomfortable seconds to adjust. It was now firmly set, and sure, it restrained a bit the movements on her face,… well, she was never one for laughs out loud anyway.

With her shaking scrawny arms, but her grip strong as ever, she attached the limbs of her exoskeleton, and with now more assurance, finished to dress in proper garments on top of her fishnet corset.

She was all set for the morning sermon. She would have to strain her voice a bit, and for that the smoke had helped too. She had a lovely raucousness in her vocal chords that made all the old farts of the Covenant thrilled by what she said in hypnotic stances.

After that would be done, most importantly, they would go forth to the promised land, and she was to spend her glorious next century on a new empty planet she could mould to her vision.

Commercial Spaceline MX757#33, Mars orbit

Finnley, the board computer of the mothership had started to wake up the suspended animated bodies in preparation for the landing as per its usual instructions.
The craft had arrived in vicinity of the planet just a day ago (counted in SET, or Standard Earth Time), and was in stationary orbit over the main settlement and de facto capital of Mars.
Smaller pods would be flown from there to land the various cargo and the travelling guests, as soon as they would have had time to acclimate.

Everyone was becoming quite excited, and hungry as well, once the initial shock was passed. Finnley’s synthetic voice was as smooth and silky as the modelled butt of her twenty one robotic bodies.

All of her guests were accounted for. A large number of them were sent by a rich Covenant of Holy Elietics, which hoped to enlighten the natives.
A second group was sent by a mining corporation for prospecting purposes.
Finally, travelling in the economy section were a pair of winners from a worldwide raffle that sent people to a promised new life. It was believed to be largely a scam, but the one-trip tickets were valid. That was the only thing that was provided to the winners, the rest was up to them.

Finnley had been craftily programmed to display a wide range of human emotions, although she didn’t really feel them as human did. If that were the case, she would have logged in her journal her feeling to be in a great hurry to get rid of all the now terribly noisy humanity in her ship.