A.I.

Twitch Stream Story: The Glitch in Car Seven

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: In a world with integrated A.I., a badass female detective tracks down a brutal serial killer.

The lights flickered in Car Seven, causing two of the five passengers to glance up. Each and every car had its own intelligence, they proliferated like mad these days, and it apologized to the passengers with a soft voice through its speakers. The apology was appropriate, as even minor disturbances like that were out of character for any programs in that line. They ran a tight ship when it came to the public transport lines of Old Guard City. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: The Seven-Star Cheater

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: Your goal is to create and protect a network of planetary colonies and defeat a computer adversary trying to do the same.

There didn’t seem like much reason to guard it. It was just the last experiment of the mad genius who’d spilled his mess across the entire galaxy and expected the rest of humanity to clean it up. The ship inside the launch facility, just under its exoglass dome, was the government’s final attempt to make him clean it up himself. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Rosetinted.exe

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: your eye has been twitching all morning, suddenly the vision goes black and a message displays “error, maintenance required.”

She, we’ll call her Rose because it’s the simplest name to use, awoke in a tangle of blankets sucking her thumb. The habit had reared its head, adorable or ugly depending on who you ask, about eight months ago. She slept alone, so she didn’t see the harm. On that morning her thumb tasted like pancakes and dark amber syrup with smashed blackberries. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Bitter is Lighter than Sweet

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

It was such a wonderful thing that it wasn’t raining that evening. The sun was gone, off to bed, but the streetlights did its work and then some. Things had been crazy in Baros City since the new A.I. had taken over. He was excitable, and always turned the lights up too bright; they shined aggressively against the blue spires of the city. He was good at managing the denizens’ hangups though, much better than his predecessor.

Since he’d taken over suicides were down, homicides were down, rape and theft were down. Everything was down. People moved about the streets mutely, staring at the grain of the sidewalk and forgetting the hats on their heads. They didn’t shout. They didn’t push. They didn’t complain. Continue reading →