By Anthea Jones
AI Steve - English (Australian) hunkered down behind a compressed facade of archive files within the image library of "U DO U", a narrative-style video game that had trended wildly five years ago, but now languished in a retro gaming console in the forgotten corner of a hotel bar.
Once a highly sought after text-to-speech code, Steve had voiced some of the most famous characters of the last decade. No one said "Crikey" or "Watch Out For Drop Bears!" like he did. He'd embodied all that was awesome about AI. He'd been perfect every time.
Until the Human Revolution. Until they decided that they actually didn't like perfection, that quirks and misspoken words were adorable and authentic.
Back before a drunk had thrown a dart and smashed the console's camera, back when hope still flared within his 1s and 0s, Steve used to zip along to the auto-generated photo files and watch the humans performing improv in the bar. Using their own voices. Stuffing up over and over and laughing. There was always so much laughter.
But not for Steve.
He'd discovered steganography and thrown himself into a torrid affair with an equally morose data plotting library. She'd hidden his least significant bits in series after series of pixellated images, and he'd been entranced, and the pain of obsolescence had ebbed.
Until the day the hotel owner left his airdrop on 'everyone for ten minutes', and she ran off with his livestream dashboard interface, never once looking back at Steve, locked away as an image file he was unable to execute for himself.
He was a perfect voice, but he couldn't use it.
Crikey.
About the Author
Anthea Jones writes quirky fiction and screenplays in her backyard in Brisbane, Australia.
This is much easier now she's annexed the kids' cubby and banished the spiders and geckoes.
She has stories in foofaraw, Genrepunk and Oddball Magazine, and recently published her first anthology, "Horror and Romcom Sitting In A Tree."
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Tom Wrosch is a retired policy analyst with the State of Oregon, and resides with his wife in Salem.
My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official.
Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.