Story Excerpt - Artificial Daemons

The hubbub of the crowd dies down, all attention focusing on the battle below. Two armoured figures rush across the sand and tackle each other, sending them to the ground, which elects a cheer from the horde of onlookers. During the battle, one of the gladiators flickers with a bright, fluorescent blue glow from a marker-light, and the auto-targeting guns swivel to focus on the tagged fighter. The marked man realizes his impending doom and breaks free from his opponent. The riot guns track the fleeing gladiator, and a flare bursts from their muzzles, superheating their target into ash. In response, the crowd rises to its feet and roars its approval, cheering on the remaining gladiator.

Four of the onlookers turn away from the bloodshed, sullen looks adorning their faces. Two of the group shake their heads, one of the others cursing.
“It never seems to work, does it?”

“Not fer as long as they can detect the connection.”

“So we need a passive system in place?”

“That’s not possible.”

The group stops and stares at the last member of the group, a girl in jeans and a pink t-shirt, carrying a laptop bag.

The guy in the wide-brimmed hat and black duster frowns. “Why’s that, Jen?”

Jen looks up at the cowboy. “Well, consider their detection system. It looks for any active connections to any other system. We need external systems to run the prediction engines, because no discreet ‘can could ever handle the processing power required. Oh, and before you bring it up, any larger of a ‘can would be easily noticed.”

The leader of the group speaks. “So you’re saying that it’s impossible then.”

Jen pulls her mouth back to a severe line. “Yes, Matthias. I’m pretty sure that’s what the phrase ‘Not possible’ means.”