I rarely write fiction, but, after a ‘bracing’ walk on Ilkley Moor this afternoon, I decided to upload this old piece. It was originally written in 2010 and published in the first issue of the Wyrd Daze zine in 2013. Obviously technology moves on apace, but some things that influenced the story were the then nascent Google Glass project, and Blaise Agüera y Arcas’ presentation on augmented reality mapping. I’d also been reading too many old Moorcock-era New Worlds anthologies at the time. So, even though the Internet probably doesn’t need any more bad fiction posted to it, here it is regardless.
Only the Pulsing Void
Christine strode through the long grass, regularly glancing up at the path ahead and down at GPS locator on her mobile phone. “Nearly there,” she thought, “I just need to head a little bit to the west.” A couple of minutes later, as she came to the edge of a small stream where the first golden rays of the rising sun caught the spray, her phone buzzed. The correct latitude/longitude coordinates had been reached.
She took off her backpack and began to configure the system. The bipod was extended two-and-a-half feet from each shoulder-strap of the pack and the spherical camera screwed on to the top. She booted the computer, logged in with her user-name ‘Xine1981’ and began the session. This one was going to be straightforward. The unrecorded terrain was all relatively flat, the occasional hill, but no steep gradients or other geographical headaches to contend with. Christine had worked out that if she started at the centre of the moor and then progressed outward in aa spiral then she could hit about 90% of the required nodes. She could drive within a reasonable distance of the remainder, mainly on the north-western periphery, and photograph them on a subsequent day.
