Quinton Zondervan December 5, 2003

Tags: sci-fi , technology

A micro story

href="/tag/suicide">suicide by now. The other was a young maverick named Mr. Jackal, whose activities in the real world bordered on the criminal. He repeatedly told us that our stories were the only thing preventing him from “going over the deep end.”

Despite such strong customer loyalty, the publishing company executives had decided, after stumbling upon our tiny, rapidly shrinking, and yet still profitable operation in their enormously complex accounting files, to shut down our daily science fiction story subscription business. We were the last outfit still publishing literary science fiction stories.

“Well,” Mr. Randolph, our editor in chief, thought, giving us all a meaningful mental look, “today’s selection will be our final story. Naturally, I’m deeply saddened by our demise, but I’m afraid the higher-ups are right. Our business is dead, and we might as well just acknowledge it and move on.”

“Could it be because we haven’t paid a single writer for a new story in over fifty years?” I thought, provocatively.

“A very provocative and oft repeated accusation Ms. Gendall, but you are barking up the wrong tree. We have enough original story ideas stored in our company memory to last us another two centuries. Why in the world would we pay another penny for more regurgitated ideas?”

“Yes, that is exactly the same question our erstwhile customers must have asked themselves before they un-subscribed!” I remarked bitterly.

“As I said, Ms. Gendall, you are barking up the wrong tree,” Mr. Randolph thought sternly. “The problem is not that people do not like our computer generated stories based on creative and original ideas penned half a century ago. The problem is that science fiction has become science fact! Consumers in search of entertainment can at a fraction of the cost of our subscription immerse their brains in virtual reality scenarios complete with eye-popping visual cortex effects and regular pulses to their pleasure centers. Whether it is 21st century barbaric violence or a quiet game of golf in the countryside of old, they can instantly enjoy hours of stimulating pleasure in the comfort of their VR chairs. Why then would they pay good money for our old-fashioned art of beaming words into their brains?”

I sighed, and sent Mr. Randolph a nervous smile. He was right of course, and I was desperately trying to hang on to an art form whose time had simply passed. The world we had predicted had now come into existence, and I guiltily had to admit to myself that I spent more time in virtual reality scenarios then “reading” science fiction stories at this point.

“Anyway, back to the business at hand,” Mr. Randolph interrupted. “We still have one more story to produce.”

And with that the computer began to beam the first of the two stories it had produced for us today. We would pick one, and send it to our last paying customers, along with a notice informing them that regrettably the service would seize. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to Mr. Geiser and Mr. Jackal. Perhaps the former was due for some eternal peace, and I hoped to avoid the latter for the rest of my life.

But I put these thoughts out of my head, and tried to focus instead on the job of selecting the final science fiction story to be published. If it was to be the last, the least I could do was ensure that it would be good.