SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

At the terminus of the ribbon was a counterbalancing weight: balloons filled with oxygen produced by bacteria that the ants had cultivated, and alcohol made by yeast.

When they received the proper signal from inside the load, with their dying strength, the ants pierced some of the balloons with their mandibles, allowing the oxygen and alcohol to explosively mix, rocketing the payload away.

And the queen of queens was gone.

There were no sad goodbyes, no thank-yous.

The ants felt nothing. They had no chemicals to express sadness.

The ants at the base of the pillar had completed their task and were now free from her commands.

They simply stopped whatever they were doing and turned to start their long journey home.

For a little long time, the load spun and circled, before falling to its destination.

The Moon.

It crashed violently into the soft lunar surface, exploding the remaining balloon cushioning, and kicking up a geyser of powdery white sand, finer than any in Australia.

Disturbed by the impact, several insectoid beings came out of hiding, emerging from a small crater capped with a crystalline window. Two guards held a single spear between them and sucked on bubbles of air produced by bacteria deep in their nest. They were shaped like large bipedal ants, with round, multi-faceted eyes and spiked helmets.

Linking themselves together, they carried the load into the mound and disappeared from the surface.

Deep underground, the guards cautiously split open their prize, tearing away the cushion of fine tendrils, rich in sugars, saturated in oxygen.

Under this packaging was a single occupant, dormant but slowly awakening. Should they kill her? They licked her to test her nest odor. Some smells were unknown to them. But a few sparked a celebration that spread quickly through the colony.

Nearby was the wreckage of the nursery, destroyed by a comet, which had flung her, when she was but an egg, off this world and to a timeless land. Her long journey from there was now complete.

And because an eremophilous myrmecologist, who could have destroyed her, had instead let her go:

The queen of queens had returned home, to take her place on the throne of the Selenites.

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction

Upon command, the squad members inject the H and begin the final check of helmets, armor, ammo, guns, grenades, knives—not once, but twice, three times, again, and again—waiting for the H to kick in… I think it’s …so they can storm and swarm yes, we’re coming on-line the bunker-cave-fortress as one writhing, flailing, shooting lock and load, we’re going in , cutting, chopping, tearing mass of warrior drones we smell them because the H subsumes the human and connects soldier to soldier with a cocktail of virus and microbe devolving them evolving us to the level of ant soldier swarms and they we strike shoot, tear, cut, kill as one multi-body human-hydra of death and I we am are here to observe shoot, tear, cut, kill and they we are baptized in their our unholy bond with blood, and bile, and worse and as we yes are slowing down our frenzy for we are victorious and they are dead, dead, dead I wonder try not to think about …how any of us… how do I …carry the guilt and responsibility of an ant-swarm-like human-hydra when the H is gone and we are I am staring at our my ceiling…alone.

Originally published by Fireside Fiction

“Wake up, Tyrone.”

Kelee’s voice rouses him from his last dreams. She isn’t beside him, having uploaded in the first wave, but she’s come to talk every day since, and today she means to claim his promise to join her.

Giving up the comfort of bed and blankets is harder than ever, but he does it, eventually.

“What did you have for your last breakfast?” he asks the empty room.

“Cereal. I didn’t give it much thought,” Kelee answers.

“Of course you didn’t.” He thinks a moment, then laughs. “Well, fuck it. I don’t need to worry about my health, right?” And so he sets about making the biggest hungry-man-lumberjack-breakfast he can create.

Kelee doesn’t talk, but Tyrone imagines her looking at the watch she’d be wearing if she still had a body.

The watch is sitting in her nightstand drawer. He put everything away after she uploaded.

“Are you ready now?” she asks when he calls a truce with the ridiculous breakfast.

“What’s the hurry, Kelee?”

“You promised you’d come.”

“I will. But I’m going to take my time getting there.”

“You’ve been taking your time…I miss you.”

Tyrone doesn’t understand why. They’ve been able to talk, and he doesn’t see how they’d be any closer in Uploaded Existence.

“I am going today, love, but I’ve got to go at my own pace.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

Tyrone will make his way to the conversion center, but he plans to relish every step along the way. He wants a clear memory of every little pleasure of the physical world. If the upload is forever, then the memories will be too.

He enjoys his shower, shave, walk, and the fresh autumn air. He kicks some fallen leaves.

Periodically, Kelee pops in to talk.

“Please don’t dawdle, love,” she says.

“Kelee, I won’t rush my final day.”

“You aren’t dying, Tyrone. You’ll have all the days to come. And we’ve decided on humanity’s second great project of this new era.”

She talks just a bit different now. More specific than before. UE itself must be project number 1.

“And what’ll it be?”

“The stars, Tyrone. We can finally go to the stars. We’ll build bases stretching outward like rungs of a ladder. Mars, Io, Titan, Uranus, and beyond. Our colonies of consciousness will spread The Network to the limits of our imagination.”

“Apply now for our free brochure,” Tyrone says.

“Tyrone.”

“I’m coming Kelee. I really am.”

The conversion center for this part of Ontario seems very much like an unimaginatively designed modern bank.

Billions of minds are enjoying the early days of the eternal existence of the uploaded because of buildings like this. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen faster than anyone anticipated, much faster. Speed is the great hallmark of uploaded existence. The combination of immortal consciousness and speed of thought living are the pillars of promise that humanity has bought into.

Fast and Forever. That’s UE’s nutshell.

Tyrone has no particular qualms with this, but he decided to hold off on joining the new existence as long as possible. Forever, he thought, could wait.

To Kelee, his family and friends he’d said, “If you want to upload, go for it. I’ll be with you soon enough.”

And while he’d waited, they’d all gone on before him. There were serious advantages to being a part of the new order, after all. Freedom from poverty, hunger, inequality, disease, frailty. And the collective has brought a kind of true democracy to its members. Holdouts like Tyrone were not the ones planning this new leap into space, but anyone uploaded could be.

“Tyrone…” Kelee breaks in on his thoughts again through his earpiece, but he quickly pulls it out to cut her off.

“I’m coming now,” he says to the air around him. “But I’ll have five minutes of unconnected existence first.”