Short Stories

Climbing up the ragged ladder to the old sage’s tower was not easy. It was made easier, thankfully, by the sage having moved down several floors in his tower, after the top had blown off in a sudden and torrential wind. Now three floors sat open to the rain and winds, the sage’s laboratory protected only by a single trapdoor in the ceiling, where once the ladder continued beyond. It was a flimsy door, and it leaked fiercely in the rain, but it was the best the sage could manage.

“Good Sage Ranquin?” Bally called as he climed the rickety ladder, his hands and feet trembling as they tested every rung, ignoring the creaking and groaning of the wood. “Ranquin, are you there?”

Halfway to the wine, a trumpet sounded from the ramparts. the sound was quiet over the howling winds. The poor watchman. Bally smiled to himself at the thought of the youth gasping and panting into the flimsy funnel. “The Duke arrives,” Bally raised a finger to the air, drawing Illowen’s attention. “The hunt complete, I wonder what meat he has brought for the table?”

“He wasn’t hunting,” Illowen cocked a curious eyebrow. “He was going to fight a battle against the evil Count de’Tras.”

“Ah, of course,” Bally sighed. “Then I must be mistaken.”

The Palace of Lothvar had once been a towering display of beauty and glory. Ten spires had risen to meet the blue skies of olden years, and a courtyard of massive expanse stretched out in a glittering rotundra of grass, trees, and flowers from across the land. It had been a cathedral to the Duke and his reign.

Now, it was collapsing into ruin. Three of the spires had collapsed into the courtyard, crushing half the garden and uprooting the old oak that had grown there for over a hundred years — according to old Teek the Monk. The gardentender only worked for half each day, doing little more than poking the crawling vines back from the stone walkways, and making sure none of the remaining tree branches were able to fall on someone’s head.

The sour scent of rancid meat and decaying flowers was faint in the air, this evening. Bally thanked the heavens for small mercies, before catching himself. Any thanks that made their way through the thick clouds would certainly echo in empty halls of marble and gold.

Who had said the halls of the heavens were marble and gold? Bally scratched his nose in thought. It hadn’t been Old Grunby, the dottering hag-priestess, whose joints cracked like crumbling cliffs every time she moved, and spoke of the gods with the passionate furvor of an ancient shaman dancing around a bonfire. It hadn’t been the dottering monk…what was his name…Teek? Yes, that was it. The perpetually grinning old soak spun tales of the heavens like a father lulling his children to sleep, slurring his littanies with both ale and wandering tangents. No. It hadn’t been him…

Who had it been?

November 15, 2048

Serious discussion begins on the Boards on how to restructure the governments of the world, given the advances in communication and Nanocule technology. Some in America suggest decentralizing the major halls of policy; demolishing the White House, 10 Downing Street, the Kremlin, et. al., and moving all official correspondence to the Boards. Others argue for dismantling the concept of representative government entirely, and moving to a pure democracy. Officials from multiple levels of government reject all suggestions.

June 20, 2036

An upgrade is released to the Boards, allowing Nanocules to record sensory input, rather than requiring an external phone or recording equipment. Hand-held devices are now unnecessary to completely utilize the Boards, as video recording is done through the users eyes, while audio recording is done through their ears.

Physical recording equipment begins to disappear. Professional cameramen begin to train themselves to keep their gaze steady without blinking for long periods of time, while sales of professional recording equipment drops sharply, as even the high end recording devices cannot compete with the perfect quality and ease of Nanocules. Indie film developers begin experimenting with this new recording medium, creating ‘Personals’ — stories filmed by the actors, and viewed in first person perspective.

May 29, 2034

Per capita use of Nanocule Browsing outpaces the use of every other method of board browsing combined. Economists and Market Analysts claim this is the tipping point for Nanocules as the status quo of board browsers.

July 4, 2034

The UVote program is released to the Boards. This experiment in democracy displays all the bills and laws currently in committee, or up for a vote in representative countries across the world. In addition, the program displays a real-time representation of public opinion, sortable in any number of ways, including eligible voters, political affiliations, and economic status. The Amend option allows users to suggest amendments to bills, discuss them, and then informally vote on them.

7:18 am, October 3, 2055

Jack stared down at her limp form. Part of his brain was working furiously trying to think of what had happened, what was going on. The rest of his brain was calm and detached.

He had met Connie on the train five years ago. She had been reading an old paperback book. He knew the author, and loved the old paperbacks himself, so he worked up the courage to introduce himself. They got into a discussion about favorite authors, and ended up talking about dinner recipes. It wasn’t until their second date that they talked about Nanocules, and whether things were better now or not.

November 29, 2028

In reaction to rampant globalization and free trade policies, the Universal Workers Rights Act, or UWRA, is released by the new International Union Movement. The Movement’s aim is to utilize social media to unionize the global workforce. “If companies can move across the world,” the preamble of the UWRA states, “then it is only just that the workers of the world are given the same opportunities. We are human the whole world over, and deserve the same basic human rights, no matter which country we were born in.”

July 9, 2027

Nanocules become capable of administering major gene therapy. Nanocules are injected that scan and record the patient’s entire genome. The Banks then instruct the Nanocules how to painstakingly reconstruct the patient’s genes, removing minor flaws and genetic risks. The process is anonymous, non-invasive, and takes one month to perform.

Nicknamed ‘scrubbing,’ the process is prohibitively expensive, except for the richest.

October 1, 2027

Gene therapy prices drop to the point where the majority of Nanocule users can afford the process. The Banks begin tailoring various medications to specific patients with the information gleaned from their genes. The effectiveness of these tailored cures increases drastically, while side effects all but vanish.