Plasma Frequency Magazine: Issue 13 by Milo James

Author:Milo James [James, Milo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Plasma Spyglass Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Krystal Claxton writes speculative fiction in the sliver of time between raising a four-year old with her unreasonably awesome husband and being a full-time computer technician. She enjoys attending Dragon*Con in costume, science magazines, and feverishly researching whichever random topic has just piqued her interest. Keep up with her at krystalclaxton.com or @krystalclaxton on Twitter.

Maker, Oppressor, Memory

By Blaize M. Kaye

Maker

Today Mama took me to the botanical gardens. She let me see through the vid stream in her glasses. There were loads of people walking around, eating ice cream, or baking away in the sun on their big blankets. She said she must have looked a sight, like a crazy old woman talking and laughing to herself. And she did get a few looks, yes, but I don't think she minded very much because she just giggled when I told her people were staring at us. It makes me feel good when she laughs at something I say.

It's a funny thing that there can be something so beautiful as the gardens in the middle of the city. The city is beautiful too, but different. When I look at it through blueprints in the municipality data-banks, at the street-maps, or the bus-line diagrams, or if I follow the pipes that deliver water and electricity, my heart aches, in a good way, to see that this very complicated thing is laid out so that it makes sense, that it follows some bigger plan. That's all beautiful to me. It's beautiful, and complicated but I can still understand it. The garden is different. It grows without plans. There’s something scary about that.

My favourite bit of the day was the alien plant exhibit. It was all about intruder species that come in from somewhere outside the local ecosystem. I made Mama stay there longer than I think she wanted to. She said it was too hot. The posters said that there's a fine for anyone who's caught keeping alien plants. Another poster said that species that come from somewhere else don't have anything -- like a bird, or a goat, or cow, or anything -- to stop them from growing and growing until they just choke out all the other plants. They couldn't actually show us any real live alien plants, they burn any that they find. There were only the pictures on the posters. They were very pretty.

Oppressor

“Now that the trial is over ... and congratulations again ...”

[Thank you]

“... now that it's over, you must feel some measure of relief.”

[I wouldn't say relief, exactly, more like some measure of release.]

“Indeed ... Earlier today, in his op-ed piece, David Spurret averred that Judge Visser's landmark decision represents a significant shift in the relationship between man and ... non-biological persons. Would you agree with his assessment?”

[For the moment the situation, that is to say, my situation, is sui generis; There are, as far as I'm aware, no other non-biological information patterns claiming emancipation from their owner, seeking political franchise, or, more fundamentally, demanding recognition as self-conscious beings.

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