Bit Storm

by Lancer Kind, Shelli Kind

Awarded Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest.War is as natural as breathing to a society. To be unskilled at war is to cease to exist. Compassion is exercised only when risk is minimal. You wouldn't put yourself at risk to save another because that would be irrational.Successful societies are skilled at war rather than compassion.Diff admires and is annoyed by SickDevil, a skilled nanotechnology engineer who crashes game servers and pickets peace rallies for fun. SickDevil claims an AI (Artificially Intelligent machine) would concur with his philosophy. Diff agrees to let his employer's AI run a simulation to prove SickDevil wrong so he can knock SickDevil down a peg and trash SickDevil's internet reputation.But SickDevil pulls a fast the simulation transforms into a virus that reprograms nano-technology to produce warlike societies that turn Diff's Halloween party into a fight for survival.Lancer Kind writes of a future society with blazing network speeds, nano cosmetics, and lonely AI machines in a novelette length tale (roughly 33 paperback pages) which explores what characteristic is most important in a successful culture. The story's inspired by Seattle's high-tech lifestyle and Lancer's experience at the Bush era RNC protests where he met the Protest Warriors in real time.

36 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 7, 2013

About the author

Although Lancer Kind lives in the Seattle area, he spends much of his time traveling to India, China, and Thailand. He's a 2003 graduate of the Clarion writer's workshop and a 2006 graduate of the Odyssey writer's workshop. As an active member of the science fiction community, he's spoken at NorwesCon, CascadiaCon, Foolscap, ReaderCon, and WorldCon (Denvention). When not writing, he's skateboarding, plotting how to make the world a better place, and studying Mandarin.