Data Drop One, A Short Story Collection

By The Numbered Entity Project

Status updating...Time and Space breached...Data leak detected...

The archives of The Numbered Entity Project have opened in this membrane of existence for the very first time. Inside the, at once both infinitesimal and infinity-spanning, data stores wait the tales of rogues, outcasts and 'others,' from undead entrepreneurs to genetically enhanced assassins. Those whose time was numbered but refused to 'know their place.' Those who tried, for better or worse, to change their respective worlds of swords and magic, steam and musket, or nanotechnology.

Data Drop One includes the original six stories from the Numbered Entity Project and an additional two tales siphoned from the depths of imagination and the void. The Project records all, in tribute to Time and Space.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Numbered Entity Project
• Release date: Jul 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301442423

The Numbered Entity Project

Always there on the fringes, in the margins. The corrupted file nibbling at pristine zeroes and ones. The hairline fracture in an otherwise flawless blade. A scratched nose and an 'I love you.' Waiting...Until you can find it and download it.

Book preview

Data Drop One

Short Story Collection

by

The Numbered Entity Project

Text copyright © 2013 The Numbered Entity Project

Smashwords Edition

Future books in The Numbered Entity Project coming soon. Search for

'the numbered entity project'

If you have any queries or wish to contact the author please email: [e-mail]

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Transcendental Error

Something about Her Face

Curving Line

Green Fingers and Broken Mirrors

Major Indigestion

Everywhere a Battlefield

Empathising with Spiders

The Angry Lich

Prologue

Status updating…Time and Space breached…Data leak detected…

The archives of The Numbered Entity Project have opened in this membrane of existence for the very first time. Inside the, at once both infinitesimal and infinity-spanning, data stores wait the tales of rogues, outcasts and 'others,' from undead entrepreneurs to genetically enhanced assassins. Those whose time was numbered but refused to 'know their place.' Those who tried, for better or worse, to change their respective worlds of swords and magic, steam and musket, or nanotechnology.

Data Drop One includes the original six stories from the Numbered Entity Project and an additional two tales siphoned from the depths of imagination and the void. The Project records all, in tribute to Time and Space.

Transcendental Error

Silhouettes loomed and spread in the light-flicker snatches let in by the unlocked cell door. Dark hands clutched fistfuls of Mastroon's tattered clothes and dragged his waif-form across the floor, angular nubs of bone scraping against ill-set screws and nails.

Have I failed? What am I here for? Mastroon croaked, his voice sounding distant as if it belonged to somebody else. But the silhouettes didn't answer immediately. Gas lamps caught over shadowy faces clenched with spite and hatred, but something else too. They shared furtive glances, tried to avoid looking Mastroon directly in his eyes. A touch of fear, perhaps? When they pulled Mastroon further away from the stink of damp and sewer that he knew so well, his patchy beard ruffled into a smile and he positively laughed.

Men and women, dressed in the leather motely of the Militia, closed around and yanked him to his feet. With iron pikes they directed him forward, anxious to keep him at more than arm's length. General Mastroon, said a man with a face of deep-etched lines. The Militia are now in charge of Rechi City. We will soon join the Idlelands. You cease to be of any value even as a hostage and must now face sentence for Luddite war crimes. You are to be executed in the furnaces which enslave us.

A tide of tics writhed across the General's face, looking like some rebel-graffiti portrait in the popular style of mismatched jigsaw pieces. This clearly disturbed Mastroon's Militia judges. He heard snippets of their whispers, 'Not what I expected.' 'Aint no legend.' 'Just a crazy, sick man.' But Mastroon was only reacting to the sensations that teased his psyche, to the voices nobody else admitted to hearing. The voices he first heard on that day, unknown years ago, when he died.

For the briefest of moments he again saw his purpose...

A.I. called to him from outside Rechi City, the City of Steam. Mastroon's neurons buzzed, tried to cope with the hive of data energy by ‘thinking.’ But ‘thinking’ lacked something. It wasn’t efficient enough to…process information, but was the only option available since, after his death, he failed to reach the place of transcendence.

For years, while locked in his cell, he had questioned everything. Perhaps the spirits of the next life couldn't reach through the city's network of dissonance-creating metal walls, designed to rebound aggressive date-energy. But then, why could he sometimes hear the A.I. whisper to him now when he couldn't before the Militia bullet had killed him?

He suspected that at least half of his transcended-self existed as an intangible presence outside, a binary-filled ghost watching the blocky carapace of Rechi City crawl through snowfields. The other half festered inside this man-body, trapped within the sweltering corridors of the city.

But, no matter how incapable his organic mind, he could still twist snippets of algorithm, invisibly plucked from the air, into some sort of meaning. If rendered into simple human thought and emotional output, Mastroon could feel that the binary-ghost part of him was afraid, just like the Militia who worshipped all things A.I. They were afraid of the low-technology of' Rechi City, a dangerously unpredictable and blasphemous place. A place Mastroon had once fought for, long ago, during a time when he had called the A.I. 'demons.' Maybe I am being punished? Maybe the A.I. are gods after all, and this is some type of hell?

I can feel you, Mastroon said. And, like that, he released a burst of acceptance, opened some sort of logic gate which allowed him to receive the briefest awareness of an A.I.'s vigil. Billions of binary things all scrambled together in gathering around a weak point outside the city, a high-up balcony where a red-cloaked man sat chewing on a knuckle; Prince Grantham.

I know how to free this place. I understand now, said Mastroon.

A clunk of iron against iron redirected General Mastroon’s attention. Armoured militia fidgeted in their scratchy undershirts, knocked pikes on walls. Move, you mad sod one of the men said, nudging the butt of his pike into Mastroon’s back.

Ah yes. You wish to execute me don’t you? Best not keep me in suspense.

During the short escort from his cell General Mastroon observed the changes wrought by the most recent uprising, demonstratively more successful than the one he had once quashed in service to the King. Metal innards gloomed under gas lamps just as they did in his memory, but the patchwork of polish and rust merged with other brown-red stains of organic composition. Charcoal scrawls declared ‘Blessed are the Idlemen" across sections of corridor-street.

Whirling clockwork punctuated the hiss of boilers and pumps of pistons; the sounds of hard labour. But new noises too. Pained cries and cracking gunshot echoed through the hollow corridors. Stinking death and gunpowder mingled with scents of grease and coke. Even the dry blast of furnace heat felt different, no longer serving the King and fed on whining revolutionaries along with the usual excreta that passed for fuel, but instead serving the purpose of malcontent Militia.

Cornered on the lip of a street above a furnace, Mastroon awaited his end. Yet it was the Militia who stared with wide eyes at the condemned man, maintaining steady grip on their weapons, careful not to let their attention deviate for but a second.

Blasts of air spat black embers into a vortex around Mastroon as he swayed on the cusp of immolation. The crackles of flames whispered secrets even as the braying heat choked his breath. Far from acknowledging the pain, Mastroon widened his smile and moaned. His head rolled on his shoulders demented to all that witnessed.

Unnerved Militia twitched and perspired. Except for their head-man who spoke with a determination that could not be ignored. You know better than to be fearful, brothers. Madness and superstition are one, and both had the King’s ear. This general’s poisonous words seek only to pollute against our labour freeing technology. His arms waved in dramatic arcs, undoubtedly well versed at rousing the rabble from the lower-level distilleries and manufactories or from the basements where mushrooms and potatoes grew in dark, earth-filled, tanks.

But the militia had no time to incite this rally into action. Thudding boots came from behind, cracks of gunshots rung against metal. A splatter of blood whipped over Mastroon’s back, the droplets instantly baking to a crust against the furnace beaten walls.

In seconds it was done, the storm brought to an end by a soft and respectful voice. General Mastroon, the King wishes for your company and advice.

A contemptuous dally of a spin, camp in its showmanship, Mastroon faced his liberators. He opened his hands to the