Consensus - Warren Ellis' Challenge
This is a piece of flash fiction for mistersleepless' Futurity thingie. I probagly ought to correspond with this brilliant man at some point. Enjoy if you would like. It's supposed to be a 200-word piece on the way the future will be. The shape of things to come. Being a devout futurist and a crazy writer, I couldn't pass up this chance. Thanks to people like mossneko, americanbadass and autumnsfire for turning me on to this.
Consensus
“Echo?”
”Yes?”
Her thoughts were a warm rustle in my mind.
“Can you hear me?”
The receiver was working. I could hear, sense, know what she was thinking.
I was groggy and heavy-lidded, and the harsh fluorescent lights made my eyes ache. I struggled for words, and realized with a fluttering surprise that I didn’t have to try and verbalize. It was all right there. In my mind.
I sent my first tentative telepathic whisper into that uncertain space. “Did it really work?”
A woman’s face shimmered into view. The holo-image resolved into a series of delicate features and a pair of warm brown eyes. She seemed so real. If not for the striations of light and the occasional flicker, I would never have known.
But now--now I could feel that she wasn’t really there. She had no mind. She was a complex array of lights, nothing more.
Her mental projection was coming from somewhere else.
“Where are you?”
“Look to your right.”
I turned my head. Behind a series of plexiglass panels sat a row of people, regarding me expectantly.
Abruptly, a rush of sensation flooded into me. I gasped and choked, flailing against the psychic onslaught of foreign thoughts.
I was newborn.
“Welcome.”
Consensus
“Echo?”
”Yes?”
Her thoughts were a warm rustle in my mind.
“Can you hear me?”
The receiver was working. I could hear, sense, know what she was thinking.
I was groggy and heavy-lidded, and the harsh fluorescent lights made my eyes ache. I struggled for words, and realized with a fluttering surprise that I didn’t have to try and verbalize. It was all right there. In my mind.
I sent my first tentative telepathic whisper into that uncertain space. “Did it really work?”
A woman’s face shimmered into view. The holo-image resolved into a series of delicate features and a pair of warm brown eyes. She seemed so real. If not for the striations of light and the occasional flicker, I would never have known.
But now--now I could feel that she wasn’t really there. She had no mind. She was a complex array of lights, nothing more.
Her mental projection was coming from somewhere else.
“Where are you?”
“Look to your right.”
I turned my head. Behind a series of plexiglass panels sat a row of people, regarding me expectantly.
Abruptly, a rush of sensation flooded into me. I gasped and choked, flailing against the psychic onslaught of foreign thoughts.
I was newborn.
“Welcome.”