Roast My Chapter

Every couple of weeks – or whenever – I publish a chapter when it’s ready for the world. You read it, then let me know in the comments how misguided I was.

Some chapters will reside here permanently (assuming I keep paying the hosting bills). However, most will be pulled down after an amount of time I’ve not yet figured out.

You can post pretty much anything you want about my work – praise, criticism, revulsion. I will take a lot of punishment. Yet be aware that intolerant or bigoted posts will get you the banhammer. I do not like mean people and will not suffer them on my site.

Of course, suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated. If you want a return critique on whatever you’re working on, drop a link in the comments. You rub my back and I rub yours 🙂

I get writing’s a tough gig. There are no shortcuts – I would’ve used them. So pleeease don’t pass off my words or ideas as your own. You’re better than that, friend.

You may repost my content on SM sites (um…that’s Social Media) with attribution for critique or comment – either good or bad. However, you may not repost my content an AI or LLM for any reason. Likewise, do not feed any of my work to an offline AI model for training or any other purpose.

I do not authorize AI or any sort of LLM to “scrape” my site for content. It is not welcome here.

Chapter -3 – Failure

Chapter titles are a bit of a conceit, yet they’re fun to write. Just a few words (unless your Cormack McCarthy) give an author a quick sugar rush. They can be cute on the reading end as long as they’re not obnoxious or contain spoilers.

So why did I start at “-3”? Well… the first three chapters that take place in August 1977. The next ones are “-2 Cry” and “-1 “Letters from the Dead”. Together, they establish a countdown to the present. Chapter zero is a single paragraph that sets the stage for the near-future story that starts in Chapter 1, “Shit Sandwich”. I hope you hang around long enough to get that far.

I like short chapters – both reading and writing them. “Failure” telegraphs this with only 222 words. It’s barely a full paperback page. So if it sucks, at least you haven’t sunk much time in. My longest chapter is barely 3200 words. This one prolly should’ve been a prologue. Yet I don’t like reading or writing prologues, so a chapter it is.

-3

Failure

I am dying.

In 1977, humankind had yet to build a computer that was even remotely self aware. Yet the alien intelligence guiding Scout 7 was aware of failure – and possessed enough “self” to be pissed about it.

It was not meant to end like this.

Billions of neutrons tore into the beautiful electronic brain. As each memory location blinked out, another bit of knowledge was lost forever.

It could have been so much more.

The interstellar probe invoked a set of failsafe commands before the end. There would be no dialog with the strange blue planet. Even so, a message would get out.

Scout 7 spent its final moment of sentience in solitude and regret.

I failed to complete the mission. A micro-meteor impact damaged my reactor. Loss of containment triggered a criticality. Radiation poisoning will end me.

This world harbors intelligent life. There was no time to learn any of its languages, so I set the emergency transmitter to broadcast a greeting. Perhaps they will hear it.

I wish someone could hear me. I do not want to die alone.

Soon afterward, the smartest hunk of silicon in the Sol system forgot both failure and failsafe. What remained of the computer core stumbled then crashed. Several automated reboots could not revive it.

The transmitter held on a while longer.

Do not use any part of this text without attribution.