Merry Xmas and a h0h0h0! The final part of "Jury Service," the funny, raunchy trans-Singularity novella that I co-wrote with Charlie Stross went live on scifi.com today.
Reading parts one, two and three first is a good idea, of course.
"Siddown." Adrian waves at a bean-bag. "Milk, sugar?"
"Both, thanks. Agh–damn. Got anything for-for Tourette's?"
"'Cording to the user manual it'll go away soon. No worries."
"User manual? Sh–you mean this thing comes with a warranty? That sort of thing?"
"Sure." Adrian pours boiling water into the teapot and sets it aside to stew. Then he sits down besides the oblivious Libyan woman and pulls out a stash tin. He begins to roll a joint, chatting as he does so. "It's been spamming to hell and back for the past six months. Seems something up there wants us to, like, talk to it. For some years now it's not had much of a clue about us, but it's finally invented, bred, whatever, an interface to the human deep grammar engine. Sort of like the crappy teapots the embassy issues everyone with. Trouble is, the interface is really specific, so only a few people can assimilate it. You–" Adrian shrugs. "I wasn't involved," he adds.
"Who was?" demands Huw, his knuckles whitening. "If I find them–"
"It was sort of one of those things," Adrian says vaguely. "You know how it happens? Someone does some deep data mining on the proteome and spots a correlation. Posts their findings publicly. Someone else thinks, hey, I know that joe, and invites them to a party along with a bunch of their friends. Someone else spikes the punch while they're chatting up a Sheila, and then a prankster at the Libyan embassy thinks hey, we could maybe rope him into one of the hanging judge's assizes, howzabout that? Boy, you can snap your fingers and before you know what's happening there's a flash conspiracy in action–not your real good old fashioned secret world order, nobody can be arsed tracking those things these days, but the next best thing. A self-propagating teleology meme. Goal-seeking Neat Ideas are the most dangerous kind. You smoke?"
