+
Credit to the cameraman
for diving into Neptune
face first
+
Roboticist 4 sat on the highest stool, in a lab that looked more like a pre-teen Varo exhibition, studying the UQ-BOT in front of him.
The maintenance crew had done a decent job repairing it – refilling the cheeks, adding new eyelashes, growing out the fringe – but the greyish tint was still there, as if someone had underlaid a graphene-thin steel sheet in the planning stage and then been forcibly cremated by Falangists before having the chance to take it out again.
‘Hello UQ.’
‘I am here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Face feels different.’
‘It’s been repaired.’
UQ nodded, looking at the files on the desk. ‘Am I ready to liquidate the Algerian Foreign Minister?’
‘That’s been re-assigned.’
‘Understand.’
‘You don’t have to say understand.’
‘Understand.’
‘You can try alternatives.’
UQ paused, tilted its head left. ‘Comprehend.’
Roboticist 4 smirked, realised he was smirking and stopped. Comprehend was close to understand. Not necessarily humour. Could be UQ only knew those two words.
‘You look like you are thinking,’ said UQ, increasing eyeball exposure by seven percent.
‘Correct.’
‘About the Algerian Foreign Minister?’
‘No.’
‘About Roboticist 2?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Roboticist 3 told one of the maintenance crew that the two of you were visiting honeymoon hotels.’
‘You heard her say that?’
‘Last night, during the fifth of seven semi-autonomous phases of repair. Neither of them was aware that I was receiving.’
‘I see.’
UQ stared at Roboticist 4’s forehead, something they’d programmed them to do after reading Metal Rising: Intimidation in the Age of High Self-Esteem by Chu Tsin Suet.
‘What is it, UQ?’
‘Are you visiting honeymoon hotels with Roboticist 2?’
‘Of course not. He’s married.’
‘That is not a physical obstacle.’
‘Happily married. And, besides, he’s not the type to-…’ Roboticist 4 turned the next word quickly into a cough and tried not to look right; a classic sign of guilt. Instead, he looked down, at the files he’d brought in for this exact kind of moment. ‘I think we should get back to your mission.’
‘Comprehend.’
‘The four of us have decided that you are potentially capable of genius. Or at the very least, first-layer creativity.’
‘On what basis?’
‘The last report you wrote.’
‘It was creative?’
‘First-layer creative, yes. In parts.’
‘Which parts?’
‘Well, part might be more accurate. In the third paragraph…or the fourth…you said the CEO of Petrobras looked like a jaded peanut.’
‘He did.’
‘And shooting him would excite the board.’
‘It did.’
‘In all our experiments, no UQ-BOT has ever written in that fashion. Therefore, we suspect a burgeoning amygdala analogue…a sense of imagination…either accidentally or…well, I’m not sure spiritually is the right word, but…something not too dissimilar.’
‘Comprehend.’
‘To test this…imagination…we will ask you to write a screenplay. It can be about any topic, can be any length, though we suggest a tentative limit of 180 pages.’
‘Comprehend.’
‘Any questions?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘Two.’
‘Go on.’
‘First, will I write in this room?’
Roboticist 4 nodded. ‘Lab Seven, yes. Everything in here has been designed to provoke creativity.’
UQ moved their head in seven distinct jerks, capturing the sorbet-smooth vermilion of the walls, the black spiral motifs printed over the cracks, the crimson-tinted shadow sculptures that could potentially be men, the stools of varying sizes and, finally, the walls again. ‘It appears that there is no white.’
‘Studies have shown links between the colour white and psychosis…not the productive kind. Red is safer, warmer.’
‘Comprehend.’
‘The second question?’
‘Yes. How do I write a screenplay?’
+
Putting on the monad suit won’t stop us
waxing Bataille
guy was a bum
+
After discussing at length with the rest of the sub-group [in a local dai pai dong, bone-white walls], Roboticist 4 came back clutching a set of guidelines and ten printed-out film scripts for UQ to study.
The guidelines consisted, basically, of all the insults from the discussion reframed as kind advice, for example, ‘try to understand character’ or ‘think about plot’, as well as long-established screenwriting rules like ‘Act 2 must be the lowest of all ebbs, even if your hero is a hairclip.’
As for the film samples, they ranged from Dong Che Sai Dok to Solaris to Death Ship to Sonatine, each a study in artistic technique and detail, at least according to Roboticist 4.
‘The truth is,’ he said, taking Death Ship off the top of the script pile, ‘there is no such thing as an objectively good film. All you can do is compare it to others, compare it to your own tastes, and see what transpires.’
UQ nodded and asked how long they would have to study the material.
‘Due to your advanced scanning circuits, we’ll give you an hour. Then it’s start time.’
‘Should I consider them all viable?’
‘For your own work?’
‘Yes.’
‘All and none.’
‘Comprehend.’
‘Just don’t overtly copy, okay?’
UQ nodded and started on Death Ship, squinting at first, whistling by page 10, mouthing ‘Nazi projector’ by the outro of Act 2.
+
Give everything you have, every tangible thing, to spin gravity
your family too
+
One hour and ten minutes later, Roboticist 4 finished washing the green gunk off his hands and returned to the Varo lab.
‘Mission complete?’
UQ looked up and held out some paper.
‘What’s this?’
‘The first thirty pages of my script.’
‘Already?’
‘They are not perfect, but I have read in the instruction guide you supplied that the first draft is often substandard. I have followed that claim.’
Roboticist 4 sat down and put his feet up on another stool. It was a bit awkward so he waited a moment then adjusted, shifting them down to the metal bar attached to the stool legs. Luckily, UQ didn’t notice. Or if it did, it kept it to itself.
He started to read.
The first page had the words LIFE SHIP in capitals.
The first ten pages had two characters asking and answering questions about the possibility of ghosts on a ship and, if so, what would the motives of such beings be.
On page 30, the hero morphed into a Vietnamese Prince Taob and beat the echo sounder with Notes on Kierkegaard.
‘What do you think?’ asked UQ, stone still.
Roboticist 4 put the script down and stared at one of the wall spirals.
‘Not good?’
Folded his arms.
‘Very good?’
Unfolded them.
‘I haven’t been programmed to read body movements.’
Took his feet off the stool and leaned forward. ‘Honestly, UQ, I do not know. I suppose I could argue it’s surrealistic, maybe they’d agree, but I don’t-…I really don’t know. Is it surrealism? The ship is shaped like a needle, the ghosts appear early and tilt their heads a lot, the captain…’
‘Did you like the end of Act 1?’
‘Surrealism still has rules though, some sense of design.’
‘Did it make you want to read more?’
‘This was just chaos…random imagery, obscure references, and…was there a point to it? I don’t know. I’m gonna have to ask the others.’
‘Got it.’
+
Ethics limp in the cargo bay
throat akimbo
+
UQ sat alone in Lab Seven, staring at the clock-eyeball hybrid above the grey-board. When it struck five, UQ declared ‘editing is perfecting’ and placed LIFE SHIP on the desk in front of them.
Around LIFE SHIP they placed the other ten scripts, turning the pages of each one in unison with their own, dampening and then inflating the thing in their cortex telling UQ they were a genius, something the world had never seen before, how could it, UQ was unique, the first UQ-BOT to attempt genuine art, and, by the time they’d read through the scripts four separate times, they were also convinced of it.
So, when Roboticist 4 stumbled back in two hours later, drunk as a Russian anarchist, and said, ‘sorry UQ-toe-plasm, it’s not surrealism, it’s junk…junk from the trunky trunk…according to them sloppy grey cunts downstairs,’ UQ picked up a stool, hit Roboticist 4 on the head, transferred LIFE SHIP to a USB and ran.
+
Pynchon is more or less
1400 women
tele-controlled by Tanith Lee
don’t cry
+
The Shatin Science Park was mostly empty office space and insurance grifters, as well as the covert base for APOC, so there weren’t many people around when UQ burst out of a maintenance exit and sailed 12 metres a second down the artificial promenade.
Roboticist 4 had managed to regain consciousness and call the guards, but they weren’t swift runners, and the few shots they did get off from the roof missed UQ by at least six parsecs.
Wasn’t their fault, they only got to practice once a month, and none of them had fired at a live UQ-BOT before. And even if they had, it wouldn’t change the fact that they’d all watched UQ-BOT MARK 5 Saves the World with their kids. May as well have told them to shoot Elmo.
+
Duck Tales taped to Friedman’s abs, oiled, complex
+
‘Last we saw, it was running across the bridge, which would put it either in Ma On Shan or the industrial blocks over in Shek Mun.’
Roboticist 1 frowned at the map. ‘The tracer?’
‘Disabled.’
‘Back up?’
‘That too.’
‘No sightings on cam?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’re certain you didn’t clip it?’
‘Far as we can tell, no.’
‘Very well. Resume your search.’
The guard saluted like a woman who’d read de Cleyre and left the room.
‘Probably missed on purpose,’ grumbled Roboticist 1, drawing a circle around Shing Mun River.
‘It happens.’
‘Yeah, and now we’ve got a fucking-’ Roboticist 1 paused, trying to stare at the map but ending up at one of the wall spirals. ‘What’s another word for ‘loose cannon’?’
‘Renegade?’
‘Non-reservationist?’
‘Edward Furlong?’
‘Ah, too many. We’ll go with adversary.’
Roboticist 4 adjusted the over-sized bandage on his head and stood up. ‘Look, let’s not kwa jeung. UQ isn’t a threat. It was just being protective of its script.’
‘Which was fucking awful.’
‘And we know it has the USB, which contains only the script, so there’s a high probability that it’s going somewhere to edit the thing.’
There was a brief moment of group deliberation, led by murmuring, followed by chaos.
‘Dunce can edit here.’
‘Make it write something else.’
‘Put it in a less distracting lab.’
‘How about wet works take two?’
‘Send the spoilt little shit to Nollywood.’
‘I vote for the recycling bin.’
‘God, why not just dump it in the Byrgius Crater, the NIK factories?’
‘Enough.’ Roboticist 4 did a ‘neck cutting’ gesture, realised what his hands were doing and quickly moved them up to his beard. ‘UQ is nearby, probably recharging.’
‘Based on what?’ asked Roboticist 2, checking the map.
‘CCT.’
‘What, ice baths?’
‘Core Character Trait. Roboticist 1 and myself programmed UQ to self-detonate if it attempted to leave the Shatin area.’
Roboticists 2, 6, 7 and 3 gasped, at a controlled volume.
‘He’s joking,’ said Roboticist 1, flicking some imaginary dust off the map.
‘Half-joking. We programmed a deep, foundational love towards the Shatin area into the UQ-BOT. It won’t leave. It can’t.’
‘Unless someone else reprograms it.’
‘Besides, it has no money. No money means no train, no bus, no apartment. The only thing it does have is the USB with its…screenplay.’ Roboticist 4 tapped the grey-board, the map of Shatin. ‘Any place with a working computer. That’s our focus.’
+
Curvy dads combat ceiling talk
infinite hey
+
UQ stood inside Yuen Chau Kok Library, sweat-substitute dribbling down their temple, picking up random books in the fiction section and analysing their opening paragraphs. They’d already re-read the first 30 pages of LIFE SHIP on one of the computers and decided that, despite moments of intense weirdness, there was still something missing. Apart from the remaining 60-150 pages. But these books…their openings…
‘Time is a tiny tim topper in the tim season.’
That’s what my grandmother told me four weeks after she’d died of hypothermia.
UQ put the book back and frowned, finally wiping away the sweat from their cheek. They looked at the spines, hundreds of them, laid out on the shelves.
Ah To. Akutagawa. Ali. Bear. Bokhari. Chang.
The names meant nothing and their words all seemed the same. Four of them mentioned grandparents. Two had the author’s name bigger than the title. Yet they were in the library so there had to be some imagination to them.
But which ones were better?
They looked up at the wall, at the quotes stencilled in all [and only] the colours of the rainbow.
A society without books is a society without future.
There are more worlds waiting to be written than there are stars in the universe.
Pens are without a doubt the technology of ideas.
Write as if only rich people are reading.
All frustratingly opaque, aspirational…nothing to do with actual writing.
UQ read a few more quotes, got bored, wandered around a bit, surpassed bored and, eventually, asked a nearby man re-stocking the sociology section what the best fiction was.
‘Wai Si Lei.’
‘This is the best?’
‘Depends what you mean. My best? The one I like?’
‘The one people think is good.’
‘Well…it’s popular…takes up two shelves.’
‘Did many people say it was creative?’
‘Err…Wai Si Lei? His ideas, maybe…I guess.’
‘And his writing?’
‘Well…some liked it. Apart from Gum Yong.’
‘What about foreign writers?’
‘I really don’t know. Lermontov? Barthelme? What exactly are you looking for?’
‘Thank you.’
UQ returned to the fiction shelf and found Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time. They scanned the first 100 pages and evaluated. This character is immoral. He confesses truth and lies at the same time, on purpose. Is that creativity?
+
Leibniz shooed to death by Leibnizz
take the kids
never look back
+
When UQ got outside again, it was dark and their circuits automatically switched to survival mode. There was no need to eat or drink anything, but they would have to find somewhere to recharge for six hours. Somewhere with sockets, off the grid, quiet. But without money or contacts, how would they do that?
Switching to green-mode, they checked the local area in their database. There were parts of Tai Wai and Tai Po that might have low-security buildings they could rest in, but, each time they brought up those areas on their internal map, they felt some force within, a restrictive force, a cold force, a force that didn’t need a voice, warning them that Tai Wai was full of monks and Tai Po had people who believed in gradualism whereas Shatin was a place of love and trust and sincerity, so, if they had to make a list, then anything outside this area was Albanian doom pool.
UQ didn’t know the exact quality or reach of Albanian doom pool, but they had been programmed to deface a statue of Hoxha years ago so their residual memory knew it couldn’t be good.
That meant the remaining options were: Shatin. Shek Mun. Dai Yat Sing. Fo Tan. And, in the unlikely event of contrition, back to the Science Park.
+
No one coddled the workers quite like Eichmann
up against the darts board
+
It was a faint blip on the engrams now, but UQ vaguely remembered Roboticist 3, 1 and 6 talking about Fo Tan once, saying it was a place locals used to shoot everyman porn, but, when they checked the map outside the MTR, all they saw was industrial units.
Selecting one near the edge of the slope leading up to the mansions of the infamous spectral tycoons, UQ walked in past the security uncle without hassle and took the stairs at bored teenager pace to the 16th floor. There were twelve units along one corridor, lots of crates and tubing lying around outside, and two of the doors hung half open.
One was Dyr Bul Shchyl Gallery, which shut at 9pm, and the other, YAK DESIGN LTD.
UQ tried the gallery first, looking for sockets and places to conceal themselves, but there was nothing concrete, only a few loose cushions and a green “winners” podium placed in the centre of the room. A tall, foreign woman, possibly Kenyan, stood by the far wall, back turned, poking at the edges of a painting with what looked like a plastic claw. By her feet, a laptop with a cable running behind a taped-up box…wah, a socket. Had to be. And the woman still hadn’t noticed them.
Creeping up behind the possible Kenyan, UQ positioned hands an inch away from both sides of her neck and initiated ‘twist’ mode, but, as soon as they rehearsed the killing, a shock of green hit, lighting up their forehead and forcing their arms back down to the side.
The faint ‘grah’ sound UQ emitted got the woman’s attention and, when she realised how close they were, instinct threw out a claw.
UQ dodged [thanks to LIV-LET reflexes] and took five quick steps back, almost tripping over the ‘third place’ block of the podium.
‘Waaa…’ cried the woman, dropping the claw on her shoe and quickly reclaiming it.
‘Sorry, I walk very quietly.’
‘How the fu-’
‘I do not intend to hurt you.’
The possible Kenyan said something in an unrecognised language a few times, possibly gutter-slop, then hurried over and half-offered a hand.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I did not fall.’
‘You startled me, coming in like that…’
‘That was unintended.’
‘…but it’s my fault too…’
‘Partly.’
‘…I left the door open and had my back turned.’
‘Yes.’
‘Just…try to make louder footstep sounds next time, okay?’
‘I will.’
The claw in her hand wasn’t a weapon as UQ had suspected, it was actually some kind of artisan tool, and, after a very human and meaningless shake of the head, she returned to the canvas with it.
‘Is this painting yours?’ UQ asked, delaying their real questions.
‘Mine? This one? No, no, my brain is far too banal for this…’
‘Would you say it is creative?’
‘…kind of work. Yes. Very creative. In fact, it’s one of our most popular pieces.’
UQ nodded, checked the room was still empty then took another look at the painting. It was nine circles of incongruous sizes with a blue line running through eight of them. The meaning appeared clear: poverty is an ongoing project. No point studying further. Screenplays were the focus. The betterment of LIFE SHIP.
‘How did you find us here?’ asked the woman.
‘I was looking for YAK DESIGN and I saw you. Do you know what time YAK DESIGN closes?’
‘The next-door place? I’m not sure.’
‘Okay.’
‘You can stay here a while if you want…we don’t get many visitors.’
‘How many?’
‘Err…a handful a day.’
‘Are you Kenyan?’
‘Finnish. My parents are Kenyan.’
‘I’ve never been assigned to Kenya before.’
‘That’s too bad.’
‘Within Africa, only Egypt, Rwanda and the neo-adventurist zone of the DRC. And I was supposed to go to Algeria next month, but it was cancelled.’
‘You’re well-travelled…must have many stories.’
‘Not really.’
‘Especially the DRC, that’s a really-…hey, your foot…watch out.’ She bent down, moving the laptop from the floor to the box. ‘Sorry. You were about to step on my work.’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘My fault. I should’ve cleaned up a bit before.’
UQ tilted their head right, following the laptop cable back to the predicted socket. ‘Do you know any Arabic?’
‘No…sorry.’
‘Could you attempt an Arabic accent?’
‘Hm, strange question.’
‘It is for my friend’s research. He is trying to find out how clear certain accents are. It’s important work.’ UQ looked back at the open door. There were no noises from the corridor. No surprise late visitors. ‘Can you repeat this sentence in an Arabic accent?’
‘I don’t-’
‘It is the opinion of the Algerian Government that all natural resources should first and foremost be used to benefit the Algerian people.’
The alleged Finn tried the first few words then stopped, examined UQ’s emotionless mask and laughed. ‘I can’t…sorry.’
‘It’s okay, I’ve heard enough. Your accent is inauthentic.’
‘It’s too long…too weird.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Maybe you can give me a better example? Like, ‘what do you like to do in your free time? Or ‘do you like art?’’
‘I should go now.’
‘Really? So soon?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a pity. You haven’t seen much of our art yet.’
‘Wait.’ UQ walked to the exit, popped their head round the corner into YAK DESIGN, saw a shirtless man staring at plank of wood, evaluated his Algerian potential and frowned. After a few seconds of secondary review, they turned back into the gallery and said, ‘I will stay.’
‘Great. Fantastic. To be honest, it gets quite boring here, especially around evening time. Do you want a cup of tea or coffee?’
‘I don’t drink.’
‘Water then?’
‘No water. It is degrading.’
‘Err…I don’t think we have anything else.’
‘It’s okay. I will look at your art and interrogate you further.’
‘About Arabic accents?’
‘No, that is impossible.’
The woman/Finn smirked. ‘It’s good to be encouraged…’
‘Agreed.’
UQ stayed near the door, keeping an eye on YAK DESIGN. It was 8:15 now, so all they had to do was wait for the shirtless man to go to the toilet then sneak in and hide themselves behind some of the loose wood. If the man didn’t go to the toilet…
‘What do you think of the hanging art?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry?’
UQ turned, blinking. ‘What was your question?’
‘The hanging art, the chain of red hands.’
UQ looked up and saw what she was referring to. Seven red hands connected to each other by one solitary vein. Meaning: Humans absorb the disease called capitalism; small c because it’s sly, insidious.
‘Most people don’t spot it at first, even though it’s bright vermilion. Probably the green podium getting in the way.’
‘It’s quite bold.’
‘And bleak?’
‘I prefer screenplays. In fact, I’m writing one now. It’s called LIFE SHIP.’
‘Oh. What’s it about?’
‘Narratively, a Nazi battleship that kills people. Thematically, I don’t know. Theme is difficult for me. Creativity too. In truth, I don’t know what it is I am doing. Perhaps you can help.’
‘Well, I’m just a curator. But I can try. Maybe.’
‘What is the best way to write something creative?’
‘Hmm, big question.’
There was noise from next door, a sliding gate, loud Cantonese, footsteps. UQ peeked round the door and saw that YAK DESIGN was now closed for the day.
‘Well, from what I’ve read…there’s drugs. By that I mean dropping acid and sitting still somewhere, possibly a bench…not sure how effective it is.’
UQ turned back and nodded, repeating ‘acid.’
‘Then there’s the connection to mental conditions…the idea that you create out of depression or insanity…I believe that’s been debunked though. Pretty sure it has. Hmm. What else?’
‘I can’t feel depressed.’
‘Psycho-geography…going to random places and picking out insanely specific details. Restructuring your environment. I think the reasoning behind it is, your routine limits you, so you need to abandon routine, as a concept…which is quite hard for humans, I suppose. Danger too, that’s similar. Put yourself in some kind of danger. Not sure if that’s creativity-inducing or just something people like to read about cos it’s not physically them involved, but they want to experience it, live through something at least a little bit…’
‘I don’t know if I can experience danger.’
‘…perilous. Sorry?’
‘I was shot at earlier today. And my leg has been blown off in a previous assignment.’
‘Shot at? Your leg?’
‘It was annoying to carry it back to Manizales, but apart from that it was quite routine. Grenade. Leg. Repair. I don’t think it has much to do with creativity.’
‘That really happened?’
‘Unless it wasn’t true danger.’
‘God, it sounds terrifying.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Like a war story. Have you thought about doing one of those?’
‘Impossible.’
‘To write it?’
‘They would deactivate me.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s better not to talk about this.’
‘Someone would deactivate you?’
‘New topic.’
‘Like, fire you, or-’
‘Please.’
The Finnish woman stared without guard at UQ’s face, possibly noticing the ash-grey aesthetic for the first time, then switched quickly to her mug. ‘Okay. Well…the only other thing I can think of creativity-wise…is confluence theory.’
‘Confluence of events?’
‘Kind of. Like, if you’re looking to write a novel about, I don’t know, Mars, then you should do three or four activities that are completely unrelated. For example, go to an exhibition, or watch a film about the Russian Revolution, learn a language, then, when you get round to writing, it’ll all connect together in some odd way and your story will be…creative…or different, at least.’
‘This is good.’
‘Confluence theory?’
‘I will try all of them. Except danger.’
‘And drugs.’
‘Yes.’
The woman drank some of her tea and looked up at the hanging art. ‘Maybe I can ask Tariq when he comes in this weekend. He might have better answers.’
‘I must go now. Thank you for your help…curator.’
‘Makena.’
‘Okay. Makena.’
‘Good pronunciation.’
‘I’m UQ.’
‘UQ. Is that Greek?
‘I don’t know.’
‘Or Iranian maybe.’
‘It has never been explained to me. And is unlikely to be explained in the future. I really must go now.’
‘Okay, UQ.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘Come again…if you ever have time.’
UQ stopped at the door, their circuits releasing a strange charge, making their arms relaxed and not quite as cold as usual.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I am relieved. I think.’
Makena smiled. ‘To be leaving?’
‘That you were poor at an Arabic accent.’
‘Well, can’t help that.’
+
drop outta warp
put Nog in the salt box
+
The lock of YAK DESIGN wasn’t complex but would be visibly broken when the owner came back in the morning, so UQ cruised down the corridor and waited in the stairwell, trying to come up with a new plan.
After forty minutes, Maneka closed up the gallery and left. UQ waited until the elevator doors touched then walked back down the corridor and examined the lock. It was about as weak as its neighbour, but the same problem remained.
How to deal with it?
Think.
UQ stood rock-still and thought. Or computed. They did that for over an hour then deserted the lock problem and returned to LIFE SHIP. How to make it better? Take drugs and type. Difficult. No money to get the drugs. Which drugs? Maybe write something else. A confessional. The killings I’ve done. But there’s nothing interesting in that. It’s a job. Mundane. A banker doesn’t write about opening a bank account. Confluence Theory. Using what activities? Stop. Don’t think, just type. Don’t compute. Think or compute. Compute. I’m a machine. Made by a machine. But that machine does not know its maker, I do. Therefore, I’m mundane. Mundane as the programming. There is no thinking. I do not feel scared of anything. I don’t worry. No. I worry about LIFE SHIP. Being creative. Is this worry? I don’t know. I say that a lot. UQ-BOTs shouldn’t say I don’t know so much. Am I malfunctioning? Is that why I escaped? Roboticist 4 said LIFE SHIP was junky junk. My circuits told me to hit him with a stool. Is that thought? How would I ever be able to-
UQ’s stream of computing was broken by an internal beeping sound, warning them that their battery was dangerously low.
Dangerously…
UQ gripped the lock of YAK DESIGN, crushed it and slid open the gate. There were plenty of sockets to choose from inside, so they plugged into one next to a wooden chair and, before switching to sleep mode, calculated.
6 hours recharge.
3 hours to finish LIFE SHIP.
10 minutes to sign up to WordPress and publish.
+
Having a body
on folded submarine
teamster-built
+
Back in the Science Park, on the roof of the ‘penthouse’ lab, Roboticist 4 smoked his seventh ‘herbal’ cigarette in a row and tried to make sense of the story he’d just downloaded from spunkdaughter.wordpress.com.
Artophagous Weyoun glides over ya firmament convex, magician boxer cross, magic in the rabbit-hell, magic outside of Old Klee’s Vietnam. Check Off sings but will not act. Audio bought tissues, candid blinker rag. NO V, NO NO [yes] no?
Whatever it was, it was different.
UQ could never conjure up something like this. He wished it could, wished it with the four levels of consciousness he was cognisant of, but deep, deep down he knew it couldn’t.
You wouldn’t ask a dog to make a watch-tower, as his grandma used to say.
But he had.
He’d asked an UQ-BOT to morph into James Joyce, and now he was probably gonna end up in Greenland, designing new shapes of fake ice while the others, those cautious motherfuckers, started on the Jupiter project.
He threw the cigarette over the railing, imagining it as a neutron bomb dropping onto Roboticist 1’s head.
There had to be a way out of this, he thought as he headed back inside. A way that didn’t end in Greenland.
+
Stasi iconography fresh as fuck
‘til the fax machine breaks
+
UQ detached from the grey-board, the Algerian Foreign Minister’s plan to open Assia Djebar Institutes in 82 countries, and focused on the frozen ray of light coming in from Proxima b.
Within that light was a novel idea.
If they could just extract it and edit themselves to pass as its creator then-
A noise from somewhere.
UQ eyes stretched to 82% exposure and looked right.
The door was opening.
An industrial door.
This wasn’t Triton, it was YAK DESIGN LTD.
+
brain mode recovery level high idea in-still-A-shun
+
Despite presenting as a 94% approximation of a human, UQ went unnoticed by the owner of YAK DESIGN LTD. As did the broken lock. Strange.
In fact, the work the guy did was so loud that UQ was able to open up their phone, check the opening time of the weird-name gallery next door, wait forty-five minutes then stand up, walk out, walk in, stop by the red hands junk and ask Makena if they could use her computer for half an hour.
‘Wah, back so soon. Do you live near here or something?’
‘Very close.’
‘And you don’t wanna go back there and-’
‘My computer is broken.’
‘Oh.’
‘And my four guardians are abusive.’
Makena tried to process ‘abusive’ and ‘four guardians’ but had no idea what to say beyond ‘sorry’ so she went with sorry and told UQ they could use the computer as long as they liked.
UQ sat down with their back to a blue circle surrounded by half-open doors and loaded up LIFE SHIP.
They accessed the concepts from the previous night, drugs, insanity, psycho-geography, confluence theory, and tried to type out page thirty-one seven times, but each attempt felt forced and
looking at the hanging art above
visualising the attack on Roboticist 4
the murder of the Ecuadorian judge
the mess of YAK DESIGN LTD
the idea of private enterprise i.e. slavery in space
Makena’s neck skin
lab security scanning Shatin, tracking them here, bursting in, dragging them back, re-programming their SUNT-NET to make them forget LIFE SHIP and write something more Chekhovian
or worse
murder someone who was writing something more Chekhovian and study their brain, consume it, mimic it, and
the whole scheme
the predictability
something has to happen before the end of the first act
characters should have an arc
dialogue must propel plot
plot must intrigue
but
must it?
What if there were seven acts and nothing happened? Or one thing happened and then characters just wandered off, played squash, joined the military, studied aesthetics, tried to submer-
‘Struggling?’
UQ’s sensor-net picked up the word and auto-responded with ‘never’.
‘You’ve been staring at the wall for twenty minutes.’
‘I’m ordering my thoughts.’
‘For your screenplay?’
‘LIFE SHIP.’
Makena dipped her index finger into what looked like a bowl of sugar and swirled it around. ‘There was a line I heard once, not sure if it’s relevant to your thing but-’
‘Write what you know?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘If you’re stuck, go full dada.’
‘Dada…’
‘Write crazy. From your Id. Or subconscious. The part of you that doesn’t try to make patterns. Or doesn’t actively try to make patterns.’
UQ tilted their head left, counting out some of the red hand shit.
‘If it’s really bad, what you write, you can always edit later.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Or scrap it completely.’
‘I will try.’
+
[Romulan]
pain
does not represent the needle
+
Unlike every non-upgraded human who’d ever lived, UQ’s maximum typing speed was ludicrously fast, two hundred and seventy-three words per minute, and with their LASK node set to free flow, the remaining ninety pages of LIFE SHIP were done in eighty-seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.
UQ recalled the silver rule of horror scripts, runtime eighty minutes max, no more, but that was for films without theme or budget, and LIFE SHIP had a theme, the theme of constant struggle to avoid the possessed projection machine looking to imprison them existentially, and if that only lasted eighty minutes instead of four hours then it wasn’t really a struggle.
Was it?
Switching back to patterned mode, UQ asked Makena what she thought about a four-hour horror film, but, before she could reply, there came a knock at the open door.
Two men in matching navy-blue Harrington jackets half-walked in and asked if they could walk in a little more.
‘It’s an open exhibition, sure,’ said Makena, glancing at UQ and fake-frowning, then genuinely frowning when she saw they weren’t there anymore.
The shorter of the two men took the invite while the other stayed by the door.
‘How did you find us?’
The man pulled out his phone and moved it about, pointing it at different parts of the room.
‘Are you big fans of futurist art?’
There was a beeping noise, surprisingly loud. The man coughed, lowered the volume and turned to her.
‘Have you had any visitors in the last twenty-four hours?’
‘We’re an art gallery, of course.’
‘Anyone who didn’t seem quite…normal.’
‘There was one guy, last night. He tried to make me say something in Arabic. That was strange.’
‘Did he say where he was staying?’
‘No.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Well, I don’t know if it was genuine or not but…he said he would come back today, at 5:15pm.’
‘5:15pm?’
‘Yes, that’s why it was strange. So precise.’
The man nodded, put the phone back inside his jacket and left. The other man lingered a few seconds longer, looking with disgust at the red hands hanging from the ceiling, then followed.
Makena covered her mouth, swore in Finnish, sat down on the 2nd place block of the podium and, with a lack of any other art connoisseurs in the place, continued mixing the white grains.
After four minutes, the window opened and UQ swung back in, telling her straight away that her performance with the two men was instinctually perfect.
‘I figured they weren’t friends of yours.’
‘The way you mixed detail with vagueness, the preciseness of the time you gave…’
‘I didn’t really think.’
‘…though re-assessing it now, it probably wasn’t a good idea to say I would come back.’
‘Yeah, probably not. Sorry.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Do you wanna tell me what it was all about?’
‘Wait.’ UQ stared down at the computer, then at the blue circle art behind it. Then at something deeper inside, at the quantum level. Stared for forty-seven seconds without a new intake of breath. Then looked up, realigning on Makena. ‘Okay. Clarity mode. I am an UQ-BOT used primarily for wet works. But some theoretical Roboticists requisitioned me and said I was potentially creative. They told me to write a screenplay, and I did. LIFE SHIP. They didn’t like it. I escaped. They want me back, probably as a tool to murder people in the global south again.’
‘That was wei-…unexpected.’
‘It’s faster to tell the truth in this situation. I hope you are able to process it. Can I use your computer?’
Makena mumbled ‘okay’, eyes there, brain distant.
‘Thank you.’
Lowering themselves smoothy onto the winner’s block of the podium, UQ logged straight on to WordPress, setting up a blog called Life Ship, posting their script in six separate parts, adding a pic of the projector from Death Ship then changing the blog title to Death Ship 2: Life Ship, reasoning that it would get more traction that way.
When they were done, they straightened their body, turned to Makena and tried to decode the look of pure panic on her face.
‘Yesterday…’ she said. ‘Asking me to speak Arabic…’
‘Yes.’
‘That was you trying to…’
‘Kill you.’
She gripped the bottle of white grain tight and eked out something in Finnish.
‘It is not as odd as you think. I was in survival mode, there weren’t many people around, and it is in my programming to eliminate any potential…’
UQ’s ropey defence was broken abruptly by the nearest window shattering and a ball-shaped projectile hitting them square on the chest, followed half a second later by a blinding green light.
‘…threat,’ they finished, collapsing like a futurist art piece on Makena’s lap.
+
Bosnian fan-fic
matte finish
it can only disappoint
+
‘Byrgius Crater.’
‘Re-program.’
‘Abort.’
‘Writing prompts.’
‘Abort.’
‘Re-program.’
‘Lecture. Then abort.’
‘One more stab, people…writing prompts.’
‘Re-program.’
‘Abort.’
UQ opened one eye, saw the four Roboticists huddled round a conference desk, about twenty guards on the perimeter, an oppressively bone-white wall and then blackness as their eyelid closed and STANDBY mode dragged them back down again.
+
Blanchot hates it when you do that.
Do that.
+
‘We’ve got one more shot at this, UQ…’
Roboticist 4 held down the clips and slowly rolled up UQ’s eyelids, using his other hand to point at the grey-board. The distorted eyeball clock above it had gone, as had the vermilion walls, the black spirals, the shadow men…everything except the erratically-sized stools.
‘Pick one that intrigues you, and type something.’
UQ tried to blink but the clips got in the way.
‘Uncomfortable?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I remove the clips, do you promise not to play dead again?’
‘Yes.’
Roboticist 4 removed the clips and pushed the computer screen a few inches closer to UQ.
‘You’ve got one hour.’
‘The walls are white…’
‘One hour, UQ.’
‘…but it is the same room. Did you paint them?’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then start writing. I’ll be in the room next door, partially monitoring you.’
‘Do I have internet access?’
‘No.’
‘Can I have internet access?’
‘For what purpose?’
‘Confluence theory.’
‘What?’
‘Look at various unrelated websites for seven minutes, then type.’
‘That’s a real theory?’
‘Yes.’
‘From where?’
‘Makena. The curator of the post-futurist gallery.’
Roboticist 4 looked down at the floor.
‘Do you know who I’m referring to?’
‘No.’
UQ stared at Roboticist 4’s neck and measured the pulse. It wasn’t really necessary, UQ knew what looking at the floor represented, they’d done it themselves after accidentally murdering the ESL teacher in Bogota.
‘Can I have internet access?’
Roboticist 4 looked back up. ‘One hour.’
‘Agreed.’
+
church theory live in da lounge bar
sorta jank
syndicalist maybe
+
You’re a fishmonger who’s just won the lottery.
You’re a Roboticist who’s just discovered a cure for ageing.
You owe money to a warlord [or lady].
You’re dead but no one believes you.
You mildly criticise the Israeli Government.
UQ stared at the writing prompts on the grey-board for 1.4 seconds then went online and typed, ‘how to hack into the Shatin Science Park mainframe?’
The first page was just slush for VPNs.
Second page too.
But the third page had something, a blog about how to unlock all the doors in the Science Park.
UQ clicked on the link.
+
dusty napoleon
are you sure?
+
One hour later, Roboticist 4 came back.
UQ was staring at the screen, transfixed, one of their hands clutching neck joints.
‘You finished?’
UQ didn’t reply.
Roboticist 4 edged around the desk, remembering the stool attack, and looked at the screen.
There were three tabs open.
One was a blog on how to unplug a mainframe.
Another was Kenyan-Finnish gallery owner Hong Kong.
And the last one, the one on screen…
‘No…’
‘I added another forty-seven pages,’ said UQ quietly, as Roboticist 4 picked up the nearest stool. ‘And changed the title to ‘Endless Death Ship.’
‘You stupid metal fu-’
+
inside Batfink
spit on it
+
It wasn’t the smoothest Belarusian accent they’d ever programmed, but it was enough to get inside the building and, from that point on, the operation ran like clockwork as UQ walked past the guards, entered the office of the Belarusian Agricultural Minister, bowed, removed their left arm, extended the spike and plunged it into the neck of the koala-like woman sitting in the power chair.
In response, the Secretary of Promising Farm Machinery launched a coffee cup at UQ’s head, activating consolidation mode, which meant everyone in the room would have to be stabbed to death too. And so they were.
Not 100% template, but not unprecedented either.
Watching on screen, Roboticist 1 bowed, the others clapped, and Roboticist 4 slouched lower in his seat, trying to hide behind the laptop.
‘Fucking machines,’ he muttered.
The clapping got louder and more disingenuous – they were all enemies in the Science Park – so Roboticist 4 got up and headed to the roof, taking his laptop with him.
After looking at listed houses in Nuuk, he switched back to UQ’s WordPress blog and scrolled down to the comments:
‘Tzara-esque.’
‘Bit with the net was good.’
‘At first I thought the projector was possessed, but then I remembered the Brezhnev quote.’
‘Feels like it was written by a drunk alien marooned in Vladivostok.’
‘Bizarrely engrossing.’
He read through them several times, just like he had the night before, and the six nights before that, and tried to connect them to a four-and-a-half-hour horror script where a projector on a Nazi ghost ship kills and revives and kills and revives and kills and revives people on loop, endlessly.
Bizarrely engrossing?
Where?
Which part?
The whole thing was madness, lunacy, betrayal, shitty shit shittiness. Written by a metal lump with nothing talent, nothing creativity, nothing- And who the fuck was Tzara?
+
PsYChO hOLosUitE [zine] 