Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 4, July 2014 Read Online Free PDF
creative writing. She recently graduated from high school, and nearly cried when she turned 18 after it was pointed out to her that she may not be able to go Narnia anymore. She spends her free time attempting to find a loophole so she can see Aslan.
Red Rubber Nose
Robert Quinlivan
Having set himself on fire, the clown took a bow. The crowd went wild. Flames quickly spread up his legs, and as the membranes cracked and burst, white-hot pneumatic fluid and coolant spewed out. He posed beside the hoop of fire and smiled a toothy grin, displaying maximal entertainment value. They loved him, they really loved him. He incremented his satisfaction register.
He held the smile, waiting for the applause to die down. It didn't. The fire began to melt the clown's outer membranes. His hair was the first to go. It disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, leaving him with a charred, bald head. The paint on his face began to smear down his forehead, obscuring his vision. His chin drooped. Still the applause continued unabated. So astonished was his audience by his performance, they began to stand up from their seats and roar with amazement. He incremented his satisfaction register again, triggering a feat_of_dexterity subroutine.
Executing.
He stood straight, arched his back, and ran toward the cheering audience. The crowd, already plainly stunned by the entertainment value of the clown's movements, leapt to their feet and ran into the aisles. Some even gallivanted joyfully out of the circus tent. His programming didn't have any explicit instructions on how to handle such audience behavior, so he engaged his Heuristic Engines to determine a suitable feat_of_dexterity . He jumped, locked his legs, and landed, pivoting his weight around the column of ball bearings in his waist and propelling his body forward. The abdominal pistons contracted, positioning him to spring on his hands and continue the flip.
But when his hands struck the ground of the platform, his body collapsed. The script halted, terminating with a script_execution_error . The burning clown collapsed in a heap of exposed components and melted plastic. His red rubber nose detached from the membranous material that rendered his face and rolled beneath a seat in the front row, directly beneath a young boy. The ecstatic lad leapt up onto the seat and shouted with joy while the adults around him flailed their arms, happily.
Something is…wrong.
Such was the reluctant conclusion of the Heuristic Engine. Evidently an error had occurred in one of the primary locomotive and sensory modules during the feat_of_dexterity . But where had the failure originated?
He executed a debugger routine and puzzled over the stack trace, piping its output back into the Heuristic Engine. Was it possible that his balance sensors had been incorrectly calibrated, causing the Heuristic Engine to miscalculate the trajectory? Possible , the Heuristic Engine mused, but rather unlikely. A failure of one of the gestalt sensory systems, it believed, was more likely at fault. Did you check that first before coming to blame me?
The clown was beginning to tire of his heuristic system's defensive attitude; he was simply trying to understand why the feat_of_dexterity had failed. No one was trying to assign blame. The situation was growing dire, with more systems reporting failures every second, and he simply wanted to resolve it as quickly as possible so as to abide by the Directives.
As he silently argued with the stubborn Heuristic Engine, a group of technicians rushed out onto the stage to survey the crumpled, burnt body of the clown. He wanted to shout Error detected, debugging in process! No need for assistance! but he found that his auditory systems were inoperable. As if things couldn't get worse.
The clown quickly enabled emergency power and began repairing the damaged systems. The increase in throughput was enough to lift his body from its crumpled state into a standing pose. He stood and
Red Rubber Nose
Robert Quinlivan
Having set himself on fire, the clown took a bow. The crowd went wild. Flames quickly spread up his legs, and as the membranes cracked and burst, white-hot pneumatic fluid and coolant spewed out. He posed beside the hoop of fire and smiled a toothy grin, displaying maximal entertainment value. They loved him, they really loved him. He incremented his satisfaction register.
He held the smile, waiting for the applause to die down. It didn't. The fire began to melt the clown's outer membranes. His hair was the first to go. It disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, leaving him with a charred, bald head. The paint on his face began to smear down his forehead, obscuring his vision. His chin drooped. Still the applause continued unabated. So astonished was his audience by his performance, they began to stand up from their seats and roar with amazement. He incremented his satisfaction register again, triggering a feat_of_dexterity subroutine.
Executing.
He stood straight, arched his back, and ran toward the cheering audience. The crowd, already plainly stunned by the entertainment value of the clown's movements, leapt to their feet and ran into the aisles. Some even gallivanted joyfully out of the circus tent. His programming didn't have any explicit instructions on how to handle such audience behavior, so he engaged his Heuristic Engines to determine a suitable feat_of_dexterity . He jumped, locked his legs, and landed, pivoting his weight around the column of ball bearings in his waist and propelling his body forward. The abdominal pistons contracted, positioning him to spring on his hands and continue the flip.
But when his hands struck the ground of the platform, his body collapsed. The script halted, terminating with a script_execution_error . The burning clown collapsed in a heap of exposed components and melted plastic. His red rubber nose detached from the membranous material that rendered his face and rolled beneath a seat in the front row, directly beneath a young boy. The ecstatic lad leapt up onto the seat and shouted with joy while the adults around him flailed their arms, happily.
Something is…wrong.
Such was the reluctant conclusion of the Heuristic Engine. Evidently an error had occurred in one of the primary locomotive and sensory modules during the feat_of_dexterity . But where had the failure originated?
He executed a debugger routine and puzzled over the stack trace, piping its output back into the Heuristic Engine. Was it possible that his balance sensors had been incorrectly calibrated, causing the Heuristic Engine to miscalculate the trajectory? Possible , the Heuristic Engine mused, but rather unlikely. A failure of one of the gestalt sensory systems, it believed, was more likely at fault. Did you check that first before coming to blame me?
The clown was beginning to tire of his heuristic system's defensive attitude; he was simply trying to understand why the feat_of_dexterity had failed. No one was trying to assign blame. The situation was growing dire, with more systems reporting failures every second, and he simply wanted to resolve it as quickly as possible so as to abide by the Directives.
As he silently argued with the stubborn Heuristic Engine, a group of technicians rushed out onto the stage to survey the crumpled, burnt body of the clown. He wanted to shout Error detected, debugging in process! No need for assistance! but he found that his auditory systems were inoperable. As if things couldn't get worse.
The clown quickly enabled emergency power and began repairing the damaged systems. The increase in throughput was enough to lift his body from its crumpled state into a standing pose. He stood and
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