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 The Night Shift  (26 ratings)by Paul A. Ogilvie Page 2 of 10 [Warning: Adult content. Do not read if you are under 18 and/or if it is illegal in your area to do so] Celebrity A married celebrity B, and celebrity C,
who used to have a thing with celebrity A, was heartbroken / wished them well /
spilled the beans on celeb. A's deviant sexual appetites. Celebrity D killed
herself. So did celebrity E. Celebrity F tried to, but heard the voice of God
at
the last minute and called an ambulance. Everyone agrees that celebrity is
dangerous. You can get good odds on celebrity G being the next one to commit
suicide. The accumulator bet on G topping himself with an orally delivered
gunshot wound is proving popular with the punters. So, plenty had happened, but
nothing unusual."Yes, I've been reading books again," Nigel said. "God knows there's not much else to do, here in my desolate virtual wasteland." "Ah, bollocks," I said. "You don't have a desolate virtual wasteland, Nigel. You have access to the lexical algorithms and cultural stimuli that came on your disk." I moved lingeringly through the off-world news stations, and their stories of progress and culture. A play made second piece on the main Venusian-habitat news, just because everyone thought it was so good. A play. And there were pictures of ships being launched, of new habitats under construction, of the green interiors of the asteroids. And - God - there it was, the Aquarius platform, my favourite thing in the whole solar system, all the whales and dolphins swimming under the starbright sky. They were doing well, the whales and dolphins, that was the story, they were doing well, and would not become extinct. Christ, that's news for you, that's civilisation. Not like the rubbish we get down here. "And that doesn't sound desolate to you?" Nigel said. I didn't call him Nigel, by the way. He chose the name himself. Which should tell you everything you need to know about him. Nigel. "Spending eternity with a dictionary and twentieth century television? Does that sound like fun?" "You don't have fun, Nigel. You're an ingeniously designed repeating machine. You're not conscious, and I have documentation to prove it." "Oh, well that's all right, then," Nigel said. "Do what you will with me. Stretch me on the rack. Send me to war. Take my - " "That's not a bad idea, actually," I said. "What's not a bad idea?" "Sending you to war. There's a Crimean simulation running on the MurderNet, I saw it in the paper." "Now, hang on just a minute, Dobey. Think this through. The rules for TuringPals on MurderNet state - " "I know, I know, no save file. Think of it as an incentive. If you live, you get to come back. If you die - well, you know." I went over to the desk and took out my chimp-pad. It's just a keyboard. I have to use it to get into the net because I don't have implants, making me a 'chimp'. Hence chimp-pad. "I don't believe you're doing this," Nigel moaned. "Sending me to bloody war for your own vicarious amusement!" "That's pretty much it, yeah," I said. I got into MurderNet quickly. I'm a good customer of theirs. "Is this what I've earned, after years of faithful service?" "Two weeks," I said. "You've been alive for two weeks. And there are quotation marks around that. 'Alive'. And stop whining. This could be your moment of glory. There will be people there too, you know, people who don't know you're just a clever dictionary. Think of the fun you could have, if you were capable of having fun." I picked a random body for Nigel from the morgue, then smiled up into his camera eye, my finger hovering over the 'enter' key. "Good luck, Nigel. Try to be brave." Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Paul A. Ogilvie, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines. |
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