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M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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  • Short Stories
    • Bodies at Rest, Bodies in Motion
    • Fire. Escape. – Sample
    • The Foreigner
    • Major Tom and the Lucky Lady
    • The Interview
    • Lucidity
    • Fame
    • Chekhov’s Phaser
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  • Science Fiction
    • Beautiful Red
    • Children of Arkadia
    • Andersson Dexter
      • Self Made
      • Act of Will
      • The Beauty of Our Weapons
      • Pixels and Flesh
    • Modern Love and other stories
    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
    • The Qubit Zirconium
    • Hamlet, Prince of Robots
  • Mainstream Fiction
    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
  • Anthologies
    • The Stars Beyond
    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy, Volume 4
    • KeyForge: Tales From the Crucible
    • Trans-Galactic Bike Ride
    • Fireweed: Stories from the Revolution
    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume I
    • The Dame Was Trouble
    • Dystopia Utopia Short Stories
    • Science Fiction Short Stories
    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
    • Use Only As Directed
  • Games/Interactive
    • The Martian Job
    • Alexander Systems
    • You Do You
    • if ink could flow backward
  • Books

Pixels and Flesh — Sample

“Andersson Dexter. It’s been a while.”

Dex looked up at the sound of a familiar voice and his face broke into a smile. He jumped up from behind his desk and in a couple of long strides had rounded it and come face to face with his visitor. Virtual face to virtual face, of course, as this surprise visit was taking place in Dex’s office in Marionette City. Still, even if it was only a simulation, Dex was happy to see his old friend and mentor, Zahara Zhang.

“Zizou!” He opened his arms in a hug-or-handshake shape and waited for Zhang to choose one. She stepped into his embrace and gave Dex a quick squeeze. “What brings you over here?”

“Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to say hi?”

Dex’s former boss rarely gave away much on her face, and she didn’t now, but Dex knew she wasn’t really trying to fool him.

“Nope,” he said, sliding back into his overstuffed brown tweed chair and leaning back. He smiled as the chair squeaked slightly at his weight. His office space was an unusually robust simulation; enough to almost make him feel like it was real. He gestured at the visitor’s chair across the desk and Zhang sat. “So, what’s up, Cap?”

“I haven’t been your captain in a long while,” Zhang said.

“Old habits die hard,” Dex answered, “and while I’d be perfectly happy to shoot the shit with you all day, I don’t recall that exactly being your style.” He leaned forward, a hint of a frown creasing his avatar’s forehead. “Is everything okay?”

Zhang nodded, then shrugged. “I think so? It’s just… something particularly weird has happened. And I have to admit that the first person I think of when I think ‘particularly weird’ is you. So here I am.”

Dex could tell that Captain Zhang was going to tell her story in her own time, and her reluctance to just be out with it aroused his curiosity more than her vague explanations. He knew her well enough after working for her for years that pushing was pointless, so he opened up the lower right drawer of his desk and removed a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a pair of short glasses. It was a flavour-only formulation, neurostim not being Dex’s first choice for mood alteration. Besides, he was working.

He lifted the bottle in a silent question and Zhang nodded. Dex poured two rounds and passed one across the desk. Zhang took it and clinked her glass against the one in Dex’s hand. They each took a sip, then Zhang set her glass on the desk and reached into the inside left pocket of her suit coat.

She pulled out a folded sheaf of papers and passed them across the desk to Dex. She’d forwarded him the file on an encrypted private channel, but the program which generated the illusion of his office rendered all of Dex’s online activities into their analog counterparts. His avatar took the papers and Dex skimmed the contents.

“I’m no lawyer,” he said, “but if I understand this at all, you’ve just come into quite the inheritance. An entire disk block of rez space in the Cuba Quarter? That must be worth a fortune. Congratulations! And condolences,” he added after a short but awkward pause.

Zhang nodded, her lips set in a tight line. “Thanks, but condolences aren’t exactly required.” She pointed at the name listed on the documents. Irina Nightingale, Zhang’s late benefactor. “I have never heard of this person before in my life.”

Read on a single page

Pages: Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

Primary Sidebar

Book cover for “Hamlet, Prince of Robots” by M. Darusha Wehm. A blue-green robot skull with a golden crown in the style of a neon sign, over a dark glitchy background. In the top left is a quote reading “Enormous fun and a real gift to lovers of Shakespeare or science fiction or both. Familiar and surprising, clever and moving.” From Kate Heartfield, author of Sunday Times bestseller The Embroidered Book.

Hamlet, Prince of Robots

Like Succession meets Blade Runner … an extremely compelling and satisfying read that allowed me to investigate my own place in our time of communion and interdependence with machines.

—Pip Adam, author of Acorn Prize winner The New Animals

Something is rotten in the state of cybernetics.

Elsinore Robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the company is poised to create the first humanoid androids powered by true artificial intelligence. Their only rival, Norwegian Technologies, lost a publicly streamed contest between their flagship model, Fortinbras, and Elsinore’s HAM(let) v.1.

But when the first Hamlet model is found irreparably deactivated, the apparent victim of wild malware, the field of consumer cybernetics is thrown wide open.

Learn More

Free Stories

Chekhov’s Phaser

I never planned to end up here. I've never planned anything, really. All my life has been like that: I see an opportunity and I take it. Sometimes that works out better than other times. So why should … Read More... about Chekhov’s Phaser

Fame

"Pupusas?" The woman's nasal voice reached Randall at the back of the bus before he saw her pushing her way down the aisle. He could smell the warm, raw meat smell of his own sweaty body, and his … Read More... about Fame

Fire. Escape. – Sample

This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the … Read More... about Fire. Escape. – Sample

Publications

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • A Most Elegant Solution
  • A Most Elegant Solution (audio)
  • A Thorn in Your Memory
  • A Wish and a Hope and a Dream
  • Alexander Systems
  • Fear of Lying
  • Force Nine
  • Good Hunting
  • Home Sick
  • Home Sick (audio)
  • Homecoming
  • I Open My Eyes
  • if ink could flow backward
  • Microfiction @Thaumatrope
  • Modern Love
  • Modern Love (audio)
  • Preventative Maintenance
  • recursion
  • Reflections on a Life Story
  • Showing the Colours (audio)
  • The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1
  • The Interview
  • The Stars Above Eos
  • War Profiteering
  • War Profiteering (audio)
  • we are all energy

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Poetry

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • 140 and Counting
  • creation myth
  • Force Nine
  • how to make time
  • if ink could flow backward
  • recursion
  • the chrononaut
  • we are all energy

Non-fiction

  • 90ways.com

Elsewhere

  • Darkly Lem
  • Many Worlds
  • Mastadon

Copyright © 2023 M. Darusha Wehm