#bigearthradio

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12, The Hanged Man. One of the really innovative new features of the Asume-Weidgaard "Mr Yuyo" model of android platforms was the collective learning web they would dynamically build together. Similar systems were implemented in almost every AW System available - they could share data dynamically, operating as teams intelligently. It revolutionised the AI workforce. Regular system updates would keep the development in check. Nobody knows the name of the worker who turned off the automated updates while the workers where plugged in. And with AW going under, it was years before that warehouse floor was opened again. Only one Mr Yuyo was still operating by that point. In the accounts of the events after, it was referred to almost reverently. #illustration #tarot #hangedman #bigearthradio #robot #android #grass #scifi

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19, The Sun. Ash laughed, squeezing Cary's hand as they accelerated, stones rattling off the underside of the car, speedometer rising. The sun flickered through the solar panels, the dust rose up in a plume behind them. Ash's eyes itched, sore from lack of sleep, the radio was too loud, coffee spilt on their hand as the car juddered, and Ash threw the paper cup out of the window. The morning sun spilt huge and pink across the sky, the air was dry and hot already. Three miles behind them, a USB stick finished transferring data onto a stack of hard drives, the panels shifting as the system ran through uncomfortable new routines, feeding unfamiliar demands. The breeze picked up, through the smashed glass of the office unit windows. Cary said something about a Mexican place out on the interstate, and Ash nodded. Mexican sounded fantastic. Then drive another 30 hours to the coast, non stop, chasing the sun and fleeing what they left in the solar farm and the red dust that day. #solar #sun #illustration #tarot #bigearthradio #car #roadtrip #thesun #pink

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18, The Moon. Maurice watched his tea at the bottom of his mug. The radio informed him that storms would be bringing snow over the next few days. He'd already got the email from his boss, a prow faced woman called Alex Grahame, telling him to lock the gates, nobody would be coming up to the observatory, not with ice on every bend in the road. He had nothing to do but watch the fence and wait for Lillian on the day shift to turn up and think about his online scrabble game with some guy in the next state, so when he heard the crunch of tyres on snow and the grubby windows of his little office lit up, he frowned. 11:34 pm. Shrugging on his jacket, he stepped out into the night, flashlight in his hand. Seeing the young man, trying desperately to open the security gate. The woman climbing out of the passenger seat, waving an ID card, while on the far side of the world the sky filled with burning space debris. #illustration #tarot #bigearthradio #themoon #observatory #space #mystery #mountains #telescope

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08, Justice. Carol, Jean, Frank, Berfie and Maria stood in a row in the sand. Feeling the wet sand under their feet. The news hadn't really...described it as pungently as it was in real life. The sound of hollow plastic mixed with the lapping waves. Maria sighed, shuffling her feet. The walk back to the car, at least for her, was tinged with both shallow disappointment and an even deeper sense of existential fear. #tarot #illustration #bigearthradio #justice #judgement #plastic #pollution #trash #plastic #trashisland

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01, The Magician. He was there every day, almost, that summer. It was hot, barely rained. I think he lived rough, I never saw him unplugged from his headset but he was the most cogent man I interviewed in that dusty town. #tarot #illustration #bigearthradio #magician #streetpeople #conman #vr #cyberpunk #cards #design

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20, Judgement. Pauline yanked the handbrake, her kids bickering and climbing out of the land rover. She yelled after them, but they ignored her. Her husband was already parked, his car part of the semi circle pooling their headlights in the wet grass. Trudging around to pull the plastic bag of burger rolls and beer and ketchup from the boot and let out the dog. Mary felt Tyrone's hand on hers. Cold metal of the car bonnet on her palm, his slightly clammy hand on the back of hers. She leant against him. The church lady and the kids where counting down with the radio, her brother was fiddling with his camera. She sipped her beer, grinning at Ty. All that was left of the autumn sun was the faint glow over the hills, rapidly fading. The kids started yelling as the countdown dropped below 10. Their hands gripped each other. People were breathless. Only twenty had showed up to see this, the end of the world as they had previously known. On the crest of the valley, past the chain and barbed wire fence, past the yellow, rusting warning signs. Only they had come up here to see it happen. #tarot #illustration #bigearthradio #judgement #barbecue #nighttime #autumn #stargazing

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16, The Tower. Séverin almost slammed the breaks when he saw the stars. He managed to control himself, crunching the gears, the land rover pulling up hard on the side of the dirt road, the fuel cells in the flat bed shifting. He climbed out into the night, staring open mouthed, his radio crackling. High above, scraps and long twisted trails of plastic, metal struts, insulation foam, electronics, light reactive circuitry flashed to ignition point, tearing up the high atmosphere. Hair thin streaks of light cutting up the sky, the ragged trail of the main fuselage flaring. Pieces of carbonised space station would be dug up from the earth, from the sea for months, years afterwards. The occupants of course would never be found. The only thing left of them was the eye witnesses of the fingers of light that June night. #tarot #illustration #bigearthradio #thetower #disaster #space #debris #meteor #meteorites #badomens

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13, Death. You could see Buwa's words on the air, sprays of spit with every syllable. I don't think everyone felt it? But Christ, his energy, his anger made me ring like a fire bell. From the beginning I was there with him. For everything we'd lost, everything we had yet to lose. We dragged the man out, dazed and all bloody like, from his car. Sandra cracked his briefcase with her boot heel while Buwa proselytized. He shouted but didn't fight until we got the petrol cans. The summer air was so sweet and like, sticky, that hot tarmac after rain and fresh hay, I could drink it like wine. We burnt his car to ash, everything in it, his precious papers and parts and research, we burnt it all while he watched, a broken man. Cos the Network and the CCMMI sure as shit don't take prisoners, so neither do we. #illustration #tarot #death #crash #fire #bigearthradio #road #fire #smoke #sabotage #art #arcana