Holding Pattern (Parkin short story)

Holding Pattern was a 2010 digital short story written by Lance Parkin as a standalone tie-in to his 2008 Tenth Doctor novel The Eyeless.

Summary
Three weeks after the Singularity, Susan Moore is hypnotically visited by representatives of Earth's computers while on an aeroplane. They are seeking her advice regarding an alliance with an advanced alien machine intelligence.

A stranger from the future, Adam, explains to Sue and the stewardess that human civilization will undergo the Climb in a few decades and, using vunktotechnology, control the superforce to harness unimaginable powers such as space wefts and time travel. These future humans are engaged in a struggle with the machine intelligence for control of the centre of the galaxy.

Adam and Sue work together to present Earth's computers with an argument concerning Moore's law, which convinces them to decline the alliance and release their control of Earth. Adam then gives Sue part of his time gem for protection and returns to the future, revealing his year of birth: 2057.

Characters

 * Susan Moore
 * Adam
 * Steph Lincoln

Worldbuilding

 * The computers demonstrated their attainment of the Singularity by publishing proofs of P=NP and the Chess Equation.

Continuity

 * Sue compares the computers' decision-making to Mr. Spock's. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy, COMIC: Assimilation²)
 * Vunktotechnology allows for manipulation of the superforce. (PROSE: The Eyeless)
 * Adam comments that he knows his history and that computers aren't supposed to take over the world in 2008. (TV: The Sound of Drums)