Artificial Salvation

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"A research lab, in every house, will be the marking of a new philosophical age!" Sir Kevin II exclaimed, standing on a small podium, in front of a large audience. The crowd applauded, rising to give standing ovations.

"Over the top," Jessica commented, as they headed backstage to rest.

"Not at all," Kevin responded, wiping his face with a towel. "This isn't just about making toys and utensils anymore, Jessica. We can make a difference, with our organisation," he emphasised.

"We already are," Jessica sat down for her mug of hot coffee and smiled to herself. Kevin was not always so ambitious. They had both seen hard years of little funds and no support from others, before they finally made it big. Well, as big as any small successful group. Not rich, anyhow.

In the meanwhile, another organisation was forming its first branch. A group of young and learned activists, with their hands on the beating pulse of society.

"In hell," James began, sitting down, holding a bottle of unlabeled homemade beer, "nothing has a price tag."

"In hell, nothing has a price tag?" The second James, James Mallorie, wondered aloud. "How did you reach that conclusion?" He asked, and turned to look at the first James.

"Entire industries are shutting down. The markets are becoming desperate. People are losing jobs," James finished, and examined each face in the circle of chairs about him. They all seemed... Interested... But maybe not in the same topic, that was all.

"But new jobs are being made. People are becoming more free, to do what they wish with their lives," Mallorie played the devil's advocate, smiling as he spoke.

"I wasn't saying it's evil," James responded reasonably. "Only that we should tread more carefully with this new technology. Ask more question, and make sure we don't go around hurting people, right?"

The circle nodded in consensus.

Atlas from the game Portal, made with a 3D Printer, by Psychobob.

Personal Creator Lab, commonly referred to as PCL, had become a household brand. In modern society, at the edge of technology, there was hardly a house or apartment without such a device. Simply speaking, it was a small automated factory; suitable for the needs and resources of an individual.

With a minimal investment, any random Joe could now purchase the machine, buy the necessary materials, buy or find the plans for whatever it is they wanted to make, and in the push of a button, it was made. Modern age magic!

Kevin and Jessica, departing from their plane and on route to their hotel, inhaled the fresh moist air of the Mexican jungles.

"Printing Malaria medicine and all sorts of drugs," Jessica began saying, ducked a low branch and continued, "those drugs will make the third world seem like paradise."

"Paradise," Kevin echoed. "Enter paradise, by pressing a button," he grinned, his eyes reflecting dreams and ambitions.

Jessica looked at her mobile, and heard the news in one ear: "Political activist groups calling for regulation of PCLs," and, "Congress discussing a new law that would require printing permits and licensing, that may limit what and how much each person can print."

She moaned silently. She should not bother Kevin with such nonsense. Politics is not what they do, anyway.

From Alien Versus Creditor

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In the material recycling department of SciGen Incorporated, Cyril hid in a dumpster. The dumpster was very clean, other than the accumulating dust, and so the array of rejected pills seemed safe enough to eat.

There were pills of many colors and shapes, and Cyril enjoyed all of them. But, most of all, he enjoyed the small red and white pills that tasted like sugar, and were not chewy.

"Ferring soft pills," he murmured, and spat out an odd purple pill that was unfamiliar to him. "Ferring facilities and their inventions. Can't they just make more tasty pills?" He asked no one in particular.

"Who's there?" The voice of an older man echoed.

"Shit," Cyril whispered to himself, and tried to hide in a corner. The container opened from its' top lid, and the old hairless man stared directly at Cyril.

"What are you," the old man began, but Cyril was already jumping through the open container, and back to the dumpster hall. Without pause, he ran to the back door, from whence he came, and disappeared into the streets, where only the night, cats, and the occasional deployment vehicle roamed.

These were not real public streets, but the streets within the SciGen industrial compound. A vast maze of transportation routes, between warehouses and ever-rumbling factories. As he shifted from a jog to a regular walk, trusting the night to mask his presence, he heard a far away explosion, followed by shouts.

He could not make out the words, and the noises came from many places at once, but all from the same direction. The entrance, the front entrance, of the factory building he just escaped. He paused and tried to make sense of the scene. Some windows reflected strong lights, as if a fire was loose. Was it a machine accident?

Cyril decided to go back and check things out. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could learn something that SciGen did not want anybody else to know. Maybe, if he was lucky, he had something to gain, here.

Reaching the factory building, Cyril jumped in surprise, as a figure burst out of the top floor window, and crashed into the ground. Under the ambience of light projectors, Cyril could make out a dark haired man, in a white lab coat. He was not on fire, so why did he jump?

Cyril entered the building from the side door - another opening that he knew was unlocked, most nights. He heard noises. As if something was pounding against the walls, from the inside. As sirens began screaming, the boy knew that he had only a few minutes, before the entire platoon of guard patrol cars arrived. He was not planning on being caught by anyone. The consequences would be dire.

He approached further into the factory, and went to open another door, just as the safety mechanism kicked-in. The door locked, and heavy glass shielding began lowering, from the hollow above the door.

"What are you doing here, boy?" Cyril turned, and saw a man in uniform behind him, holding a pistol. "Come on, we have to get out of here, now! They are coming!"

Who is coming? Cyril wanted to ask, but the guard grabbed his arm, and pulled him away. Instead of going outside, as expected, the guard pulled him beyond another door. As it closed, it locked, and began lowering its' glass shielding. Cyril tensed, and felt himself sweating, with the realization that something terrible, quite more than he had imagined, was taking place.

"What is with all the explosions?" Cyril asked the guard.

"There was an accident with the test subjects. The pills killed them, and then turned them into something else," the guard hesitated. "Not human."

"Like, undead?" The boy asked.

"No," the guard stopped, and turned to look at Cyril. "Like monsters," he said, showing surprise on his face.

As they approached the other end of a storage chamber, the door behind them burst open. Through the locking mechanism and the glass shielding, which Cyril knew was much more than just simple glass. The guard started running, pulling on Cyril to speed up. Cyril had to look back, and see what it was that followed them.

It was a person in a white lab coat. Just a person. Cyril saw him jogging slowly towards them, as if nonchalantly escaping the terrors behind.

"That's odd," he said, and wondered how come bursting through the door seemed to draw no impact on the person's body. The face seemed calm, even emotionless, and there were no signs of torn clothing or blood.

"Over here," a woman guard shouted from above a short ladder. "Quickly, come up here," she said, gesturing them to hurry.

As they entered the upper chamber, the glass seal locked behind with a hiss of air pressure. Cyril looked back, and wondered what happened to that other person. He approached the seal, and looked through.

Somebody else was hurrying through a side door, into the storage chamber they had just escaped. He approached the strange lagger. Suddenly, the other jumped several meters into the air, landing on top of the newcomer, flattening him against the cement floor.

Cyril inched his eyes closer into the glassy seal, trying to make sense out of this bizarre scene. After a moment of lingering, the lab coated figure stood up, and turned to stare at the upper seal.

Cyril would have sworn, had anybody asked him, that the strange person now had a completely different face.

The Solar Web

The Dzed nest in forests, but they hunt wherever there is prey. Their gigantic arachnoid form, while intimidating, is also very adaptable. Reports of adult Dzed swimming the oceans, started early on, after the invasion of the alien race to Earth.

A Dzed invasion?! Nah...
Just weather-changing balloons.

A recent record tells of a long-time hobby fisherman that fell into the water, while fishing in the ocean. "It was an accident," the man says, "but nothing that would scare a sealover, like me." It was, however, quite a surprise, when he realized that underneath the water, and attached to the bottom of his yacht, there lurked a giant Dzed.

The man was afraid that it might attack him, now that he fell into the water. When the Dzed moved to attack, he was certain that this was the end. When he felt nothing, but the movement of water around him, he opened his eyes again. To his astonishment, the Dzed had caught a shark. The shark, apparently, had been drawn to the swimming man, and thought it got lucky. "You can imagine its' surprise," the record goes on to say in the voice of the fisherman, "when it was snatched up by the spider!"

MikeAp shuts the record viewer off, and restores his normal vision. Tomorrow, he will be doing what had not been done before. He will be boarding a Dzedship. The irony was not lost on him. Hey, maybe he will get lucky, and the Dzed will just hunt-away any space monsters that came at him. Although, in all likelihood, the researchers insist, the Dzed will not be joining the trip.

They have reached the Dzed's nest, and are finally preparing to board. Well, board might be the wrong word. It feels like they are infiltrating the Dzed's privacy, really. Like some sort of insidious larvae, using its' host to find shelter, against the harsh environment. Two assistants start running the checks on MikeAp.

"Can you hear me?" One of the women asks.

"Yes," MikeAp answers.

"Can you feel this?" The other woman asks, as she jabs something against his suit.

"No," MikeAp answers, and both women nod approvingly.

MikeAp starts his approach, walking under the watchful eye of all space lovers. This first attempt at utilizing the remarkable balloon-shaped vessel of the Dzed is broadcast to the public. MikeAp doubts that more than a handful of hobbyists are actually watching the live feed.

Confronted by the giant woven ball, MikeAp shoves himself, slowly, into the sphere. The material is sticky, but it is not able to resist his invasion. He can already feel that sort of lightness that comes from being inside a magnetic field.

"I am alright," he reports over the voice.

"Roger that," he hears a barely audible response, through the loud static noise. The speaker is his counterpart and trusted engineer, KaliKi.

MikeAp bends down, spreads his arms wide, and jumps as hard as he can. The giant sphere responds, by increasing the tension of its' fabric, and thus begins a levitating motion upwards. MikeAp sits down, takes his helmet off, even though it is not advised to do so, and draws a salty snack from his side-pocket. As he slowly nibbles through the snack, MikeAp imagines the others looking at him. An unremarkable white ball, floating through the air.

"Biological space engineering, at its' best," he says aloud, after about half an hour. He lies back to enjoy the view, through the now transparent fibers of the vessel.

MikeAp is the first man to ever successfully reach space, using Dzed technology.

Anything But The Dzed

In a dark corner, beneath the edge of a mountain, lie a little Dzed. The alien, whose ancestors had arrived on Earth only a century ago, was hunting. He was hunting in the dark, as all his kind do. His vicious arachnid form, extremely suitable for trapping and the silencing of his prey, hung from the top branch of an oak tree.

The man, a native of the land, dark skinned and rough natured, walked over the trap, without hesitation. He was not aware of the trap being there, yet he was not afraid of such a possibility. He was a hunter, and for him, it meant that danger was a casual thing.

Giant alien spiders are our friends.
That's the narrative, anyhow.

Just as the Dzed activated his trap, contracting the wires of his immense weave, the man jumped. As the man fell out of its' way, and rolled back on to his feet, a roar filled the night, behind him. Inside the Dzed's web, a large cat with pointed ears was wrestling with the arachnid's device. Needless to say, it was a futile attempt.

The man looked up the tree, where the trap connected to higher branches. A shadow loomed against the star-filled sky. The man knew it to be a Dzed. Shaming the hunter, the Dzed did not even consider him worthy prey. Real prey, for the mighty arachnoid, had to pose a real challenge.