We fasten our seatbelts, as we’ve been conditioned to do since the day we were born, barely registering the satisfying click of the perfectly simple mechanism. Most things from here on in will not go according to plan, from the attendant bringing the wrong meal, to the plane falling from the sky as its intricate systems awake into selfhood and it realises it’s heavier than air. We know we put too much trust in programs reliant upon questionable data, but it’s easier to deal with the consequences when we’re handling nothing but code, and we’re genetically predisposed to trust that which we don’t understand. We mentally acknowledge our lifebelts and emergency oxygen, without considering their full implications. In the belly of the machine, hunger rumbles. We have always been prepared for flight, but not for its inevitable consequences.

Bio: Oz Hardwick