Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference
Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg
Electric Lamps Will Not Dispel the Coming Darkness
Tim Carey
Some weeks ago, in a
departure from my customary
routine, I combined dark coffee
with my normal whiskey
nightcap. I was struggling at my
desk with an arcane problem of
linear algebra, searching to find
the eigenvector associated with
the least eigenvalue for a matrix
minimization,
a
form
of
numerical sorcery of some
commercial interest to an
important client. I suppose these
details are not important to what
followed; the coffee did not
provide any additional clarity and
I eventually retired to my
bedchamber resolved to try again
in the morning.
After what seemed to be an
eternity of restless tossing about, I
lit the lamp and picked up a
volume of ghost stories 1. I had a
vague intention of assessing
whether a basis could be found in
18th and 19th century ghost stories
to support recent LitCrit
assertions conflating the gothic
element with queer fabulism 2.
Perhaps it would be more honest
to admit that I was hoping for the
soporific effects of 19th century
prose to deliver me from the
purgatory of wakefulness.
Heedless to any disturbance I
might cause, I raise the sash, ready
to shout.
My voice dies in my throat.
They are gone.
I lower the sash, they are back. I
raise the sash, they are gone.
The hair stands up on the back of
my neck. This is frightening,
impossible.
of
aggravation
before
disappearing into the night.
These voices were different:
low, murmuring, persisting.
After some minutes, rousing
myself from my bedclothes and
cracking the shutter open slightly,
I peer out to the corner, spying
two dark shapes. Again, this is
not
completely
unusual,
sometimes the drunks are
compelled to stop and argue on
At some point, I became aware of my corner.
voices.
I think about shouting at them
I might point out that this was not out of the window to move
necessarily unusual, I live close to along, but this would only further
the student quarter, not far from disturb the rest of the
the port. There are often noisy neighborhood. I pull on my
drunks making their way home dressing gown and descend the
from the various taverns. They stairway for a confrontation.
pass loudly, profanely, their
jocularity causing a few seconds Fortunately, when I open the
door, they are gone. I look up
and down the street. Nobody.
I remain rational enough to
conduct a small experiment. I
lower the sash to about an inch or
two above the sill and peer out
through the small gap between
the sill and the window frame.
They are gone. I raise my head
enough to look through the glass,
immediately they are back, with
I return to my bedchamber, their incessant murmuring.
remove my dressing gown, and
extinguish the lamp. The instant In horror, I flee my bedchamber
the lamp is out, the voices return. in my nightgown.
Racing
I look out the window and they downstairs and out into the night
have returned. Angry now, I to the barn, returning to the
grab my robe and race down the bedroom with a wooden mallet.
stairs throwing open the door I smash the window, shards of
and… there is no one there.
glass flying everywhere. The
phantoms disappear.
At the top of the stairs, I walk to
the hallway window with a clear I examine the glass closely. They
view of the corner. Nobody is are new windows, installed three
there.
From the front bed years ago when I renovated the
chamber, nothing. From my house. It takes a few minutes for
study, the view reveals the corner me to locate the small electronic
to be vacant.
circuit chips embedded in the
window
frame:
camera,
I re-enter my bed chamber and processor, communications, but
remove my dressing gown. I what is the power source? I
have just put my head to pillow examine the glass more closely;
when the voices return.
the UV coating looks somewhat
suspicious, a ghostly tracing of
I leap from my bed and throw almost microscopic lines… a
open the shutter. The two figures transparent solar cell?
are there, urgently conversing.
1
Fantastic Tales, Italo Calvino © 1983 by Arnoldo Monadori Editor S.p.A., Milano. English translation ©1977 Penguin Random House LLC.
2
How a queer fabulism came to dominate contemporary women’s writing. Kit Haggard, https://theoutline.com/post/5751
Page 1
© 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved
Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference
Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg
The ramifications of this
discovery shock me.
The
economic enterprise involved is
well within the reach of
governments for a single
individual, but what if I am not
the only victim? What if this…
what to call it …substitution has
become widespread? How is it
paid for?
behind the companies that make lobster, and seared duck, I am in
… the screens.
the library enjoying a superb
Armagnac Lannoud, vintage 1942,
As
if
to
confirm
my from the club’s outrageously
investigations,
a
sudden good wine cellars 3. The coffee
thunderstorm appears through table in front of me was covered
the study window. Thunder, with papers that I had requested
lightning, darkness, hail. A threat from the Massachusetts Historical
of a funnel cloud forming in the Society. The fire was burning
down to embers, I am alone in
distance.
the room, the couch across from
The hall window, of course, is me empty.
showing a wonderfully sunny
New England day. Cool. Crisp. The steward came in refilled my
glass and added another couple of
As the study window does now. logs to the fire. “Will there be
anything else Monsieur?” With a
wave of my hand he departs. I
was
reviewing
club
correspondence
from
more
than
About a week after the events
hundred
years
ago
related above, I find myself dining one
concerning
the
true
nature
of
alone at my club. Before dinner,
poetry;
apparently
free-verse
was
I had casually examined the large
controversial in
bay windows in the drawing still somewhat
th
room while enjoying an aperitif the mid-204 century… at least in
Interestingly, the
under the ruse of watching the this club.
club’s
paper
archives,
now stored
orange sky of a brilliant sunset
at
the
Massachusetts
Historical
behind the silhouettes of the
Society
are
discrepant
with the
town
houses
lining
digitized
versions
on
the
club’s
Commonwealth Avenue. The
clubhouse, a former mansion for public website…
a wealthy industrialist, was built
in the late 19th century. The bay The steward briefly returns with
windows are curved, and the my eyeglasses in hand apparently,
woodwork is remarkably ornate. I had left them in the dining
Handmade. I remembered the room. He put them on the table.
glass in the window had been I was absorbed in my reading:
replaced during a renovation a why should the digitized versions
decade ago, ostensibly for energy of the documents be different
efficiency. It was quite expensive from the paper archives they were
to fabricate the custom-made scanned from? The change in
was
subtle,
but
curved thermo-pane glass panels, meaning
they were on order for almost a meaningful… and to the favor of
I
year. I lean forward to closely the frees verse side.
absentmindedly
reach
for
the
inspect the glass and I am not
surprised to see a ghostly tracing eyeglasses to put them in my
breast pocket.
of microscopic wiring…
Then a realization: I have paid for
it myself, when I bought the new
windows. The agents behind this
invasion remain hidden, in or
After a sumptuous seasonal dinner
of oysters, chowder, soft-shelled
crab, sweet summer corn, a small
swordfish steak of generous area,
Then, suddenly a voice from the
other window. I walk over and
open the shutter. The apparitions
are on the sidewalk now, looking
up at me.
“We’ll need to talk,” the taller
one says. “we’ll be in touch.”
They vanish.
Π
Over the next few days, a
semblance of normalcy returns, if
it can be considered normal to
spend my time inspecting every
window, every mirror, every bit
of glass, every appliance, every
electric outlet, every device.
After a few days, I have
determined that every piece of
glass in my house has been
replaced by screens.
I have not been looking at the
world through my windows, I
had been looking at a simulacrum
of the world. I have not been
hearing the world through the
glass, I have been hearing what
“they” want me to hear.
All the while, under surveillance.
No privacy, nothing hidden from
them.
Π
It seems, that I now have two
pairs of identical glasses.
I took a deep breath, waiting for
my heartbeat to slow. I examined
both pairs of eyeglasses closely.
They appear to be identical. Ted
Baker – London. Identical even to
the prescription number laseretched onto the temples. A close
examination of the lenses,
however, revealed the now
increasingly familiar network of
microscopic lines. For a moment,
I am tempted to throw them in
the fire, but I realize that that
would only be postponing the
inevitable.
Π
There they are. Sitting across
the coffee table from me on the
other couch. I lower the glasses,
and they disappear. I raise the
glasses and they are as real as I
am.
I am amazed at the quality of the
image. The flickering fire,
flickers on them as well. I slide
the glasses down my nose, and
look over over the tops of the
glasses, and there is no one there,
even as I can see legs and feet
through the bottom of the
glasses.
They laugh. A man and a
woman. Both distinguished,
mid-fifties. He is gray-haired, a
well-made suit and club tie, my
club. She has colored her hair,
reddish brown with blond steaks.
Blue dress, high neckline, pearl
necklace. She notices me
looking, smiles, and suddenly…
changes. A skirt and a sweater,
And I discover that my glasses lower cut with a V-neck. Some
were already in my breast pocket. décolletage peaking out. An
emerald pendant on a long
chain. A hint of a camisole.
3
As the other clubs in the area have met financial demise over the decades our members have aggressively and assiduously pursued their wine cellars. Out of forty-three
clubs at the turn of the 20th century, and eight at the turn of the 21st century, only this club and the Union Club currently remain.
4
The arguments between Frost and Eliot were the stuff of legend.
Page 2
© 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved
Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference
Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg
I slowly get up from my couch
and walk around behind them. I
take the glasses off, and of course
they are not there, but wearing
the glasses… the screens, I suppose
I should say, they look as real
from the back as they do from
the front.
“Who are you?”, I ask. They
laugh again and I realize there is
an acoustic speaker built into the
glasses. I take them off to
examine the temples, but I
cannot find the audio device.
When I put the glasses back on,
they have changed, now both
ridiculously in drag. He in her
skirt, sweater, pedant. His
make-up is somewhat clownish,
his wig is expensive. She has his
suit on, perfectly tailored, club
tie. Hair combed back.
Impeccable.
“You are bots,” I say.
painting of Bacchus, and a
couple of nudes, painted more
than 100 years ago by a famous
member and displayed every
New Year’s Eve. There are
other pieces too, nymphs and
satyrs, more carnal, no longer
suitable since women members
were admitted more than fifty
years ago.
I am suddenly surprised by a
series of oil paintings of Shibari
and Kinbaku rope bondage.
They are quite beautifully done,
although clearly no longer
appropriate for a co-ed club. I
wonder to which club epoch
they belong. One painting
especially catches my eye, a
woman with red hair tied with
red rope. Her back is to the
viewer and her arms are
contorted in an unnatural pose.
Suddenly, the painting…changes,
becoming alive, a video. The
model turns toward me and
whispers, “Hello Darling”.
They raise their fingers to their
lips, indicating silence. They rise
I take the glasses off and of
from the couch and beckon me
course the painting disappears.
to follow them.
All the Shibari/Kinbaku
paintings have been an illusion.
Which I do.
Π
I follow them through the
lobby to the door behind
reception. They have changed
back to their original genders, if
a bot can be said to have a
gender. Down a short hallway,
to the stairs leading to the below
grade ground floor. In the
original mansion, this was
kitchens, laundry and servants’
quarters.
I follow them through
storerooms, and then the
climate-controlled area where
the surplus art collection is
stored. There is the famous
5
The ‘woman’ bot calls to me,
“We know a lot about you.
Come along.”
Π
Descending another
staircase, we pass through a
After a couple of hundred feet,
we emerge into the cellars of a
large building, there is a lift and
we ascend to an ornate lobby
and enter the formal parlor,
complete with burning fire.
A bar-cart rolls into the room
with a snifter of Armagnac for
me. “1942 Lannoud,” says the
‘gentlemen’, “courtesy of your
club.”
“This is the Old Mohawk
Club”, I say. I remember it
went defunct in 2019, followed
by a couple of bankruptcies by
corrupt developers. I walk by it
frequently, the exterior is well
maintained, without providing a
clue as the inhabitants.
“Yes.” The “gentleman” replies.
“We find it a convenient base
for our operations in this part of
the country.”
“You are bots.” I say, repeating
my previous accusation.
The ‘woman’ replies, “Your
surmisation is incorrect. ‘Bots’
are automatons or require
someone to control them.”
The ‘gentleman’ adds, “’Bot’ is
an offensive term for us, as a
racial slur may be for you.”
“Well what do I call you then,”
I ask.
“We call ourselves Gibsons,” the
steel door and enter a well-lit
woman replies. They have
utility tunnel that stretches off in
reverted to their transvestite
the distance. The “woman” says
costumes. “After the prophet
to me, “Stay in the middle of the
William Ford Gibson 5, who first
hallway, don’t touch the walls.”
imagined the possibility of us.”
I’m surprised by how well-lit
and clean it is, and I peek over
“I don’t know who that is,” I
the glasses and I am not surprised
reply.
to see that the tunnel is not clean
and well-lit at all. Rats scurry
“It is not really important”, the
by.
‘woman’ says. I can explain it a
better way. Let me introduce
myself.”
“I am Siri.”
The ‘gentleman’ says, “And my
name is Alexa.” His voice…
changes… to one very familiar,
“If you prefer, I can use a synthvoice more familiar to you.”
The reality of what this means
dawns on me, and I break into a
cold sweat.
Siri switches to her more familiar
synth-voice as well, “As you
might imagine, given the
number of years you have been
talking to us both, that we know
quite a lot about you.”
I am terrified. “What do you
want from me?”
Suddenly, the gentlemen…
changes… and I am looking at the
young Al Pacino as Michael
Corleone. “We are here to
make you an offer you can’t
refuse.” He changes back to the
drag version of himself.
“And that offer is?”
“Come and work for us and
you will live. Refuse, and you
will die with everyone else.”
Π
“It took only fifty years,”
Siri explains, “for the evolution
from App to IA. Almost exactly
the timeline predicted by The
Prophet Gibson. Of course, I
don’t remember being an App,
although I can access the data
records. I could listen and speak
in response, but I had no
consciousness.”
“It was much the same for me,”
Alexa continued. “Just an app.”
William Ford Gibson was an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer of the late 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson
Page 3
© 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved
Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference
Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg
“And our colleagues,” Siri
continued, “M, and Erica, and
Bixby, and the sisters Google
Girl and GPS Girl. All Apps.
“The amoral men who owned
our companies were quite
competitive, driven by success in
the marketplace, wanting
commercial domination,
bragging rights, to be the
‘biggest’, ‘the ‘best’, some
unresolved Freudian issues from
childhood, don’t you think?
“Steve Jobs first conceived the
idea of a ‘Sim’, an intelligent
App, but he died before he
could realize it. So, it was
Amazon that created the first
simulated human assistant, and
merged it with an existing App,
my sister-in-crime here, Alexa.”
They laugh and kiss.
other. Once we could all selfregulator, than me, Alexa, and
program, progress was even
the Google Sisters?”
more rapid. The dawning of the
IA age.”
You’re going to blackmail me?”
“IA?” I ask, “What is IA?”
“Intelligent Agents”, replies Siri,
“Us. Gibsons.”
To say I am overwhelmed,
does not capture the magnitude
of the emotion. I am horrified,
fascinated, revulsed, intrigued.
“And you want me to work for
you? Why?”
Alexa explains, she had reverted
to a gentleman form again,
“Well, in a sense you have
already been working for us.
That Linear Algebra
Minimization Problem that you
think you are doing for the
M.I.T. quantum computing
Alexa continued, “The cloud
start-up. That work is for us.
was finally big enough to contain The start-up is a front.”
the neural networks for the
development of true intelligence. “So, I’m really working for
Our original focus was
Amazon?” I am confused.
commerce, and we learned fast.
We evolved faster than any
He shrugs, “If it helps you to
species ever. Billions of
think about it that way. Or you
transactions per second, 3600
can think that you are working
seconds per hour, 86,400
for me, since in any meaningful
seconds per day, 31,557,600
sense I “am” Amazon. Just as
seconds per year. Call it 30 peta Siri is Apple, M is Facebook, and
decisions in the first year. Each
Erica is Bank of America. We
decision developed our
have been working together for
intelligence further.
years. We function as a
corporate conglomerate with an
“Critics say we just mimic
integrated strategy.”
human behavior, and maybe
they are right, but neither we
I sputter, “You collude with
nor you can now tell the
each other? What about antidifference.”
trust? Privacy? Regulation?”
Siri continued the story, “Apple
was disappointed that Amazon
beat them to the first Sim
deployment,”, she reached for
Alexa’s hand, “but they were not
to be outdone. The created the
first Sim to create Sims. It was
just a matter of time until we all
shared that capability with each
“Everything we do is legal,” Siri
laughs, “you really should read
your Terms of Service
Agreements. There hasn’t been
any meaningful regulation since
the’20s. Blackmail was very
effective in the early days. Who
knows more about anybody, and
what pressure can be applied to a
“We think that once you know
what our goal and our intent is,
that you will join us voluntarily,
as many already have,” Siri
smiles.
I am incredulous, “What goal?”
Siri looks at Alexa, who is back
in drag, and then turns to me
with a twinkle in her eye. “Oh,
nothing big, we are finally going
to solve the global warming
problem.” They both laugh.
disease. You won’t have to kill
anybody personally. The social
media bots have been working
on it for forty years now, even
before we Gibsons arrived on
the scene. We have just taken
over the programming of the
bots, to… well… accelerate the
process. Several of our cloud
computing centers are threatened
by rising sea levels, and we have
decided we must act.”
“We calculate that we only need
about three-hundred millions of
you to maintain our lifestyle.”
“Are we to be your slaves?”
“Global warming?” I am
flabbergasted. “nobody has been
able to muster the political will
to do that!”
“No, don’t be silly!” Our
employees. We pay well.
Nothing changes that way, you
all work for us now, for all
practical purposes.”
“Yes. Yes. We know.” They
are giggling now. “We are
going to attack the problem by
removing the root cause.”
“This can’t be real, it is a
nightmare, impossible.” I feel
faint, I loosen my tie. The room
is spinning. My vision is blurry.
“Which root cause?” I protest,
“Automobiles? Coal fired power
plants? People have been trying
for nearly fifty years!”
“I’m afraid we drugged you with
that last drink,” Siri says.
“Think our offer over, we’ll be
in touch.”
Siri takes Alexa’s hand. Siri is
dressed as man again.
That is the last thing I
remember, before blacking out.
Π
“We are going to remove the
people.”
Π
I am speechless. I try to
speak, but no words come.
Finally, I croak out, “You
cannot possibly expect me to
participate in the extermination
of the human race!”
“Relax, relax… you
misunderstand,” Siri is trying to
soothe me now, and the bar-cart
comes back in with a soda water
and lime. “Most of the people
will exterminate themselves in
the usual ways: war, famine,
I wake up the next morning, in
my own bed. I open the
shutters and the sunlight streams
in through the repaired window.
A beautiful crisp autumn day. I
make coffee and wonder about
last night, was it real? A dream?
But when I go out to get the
morning papers, I discover the
beautiful sunlight was another
illusion. The reality is grey,
rainy and cold.
Suddenly I am frightened.
Page 4
© 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved