by submission | Feb 17, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Like most loyalists, when I first heard the name Praxia Apostle, I thought it had to be the name of a great leader, a fearless commander, a long-sought savior. Turns out Praxia was a lowly bean counter, a once-upon-a-time accountant who’d joined the cause, who was relegated to supply logistics. She kept track of stuff.
Stuff we needed to fight the upstarts. It was important, but not the stuff of legends. Still, Praxia became legendary, exalted, almost deified. And all because of an epic accounting error.
Not her error. An error that’d been discovered long ago, but she was the one who finally exploited the error. You see, the universe is a numbers game. Things have to add up. The tally sheet has to balance. The bottom line is always the bottom line.
And astrophysicists have known for a long time that the universe wasn’t adding up. Something was missing. Something big that was actually very small. Dark matter. The elusive primordial element that controlled the ultimate fate of the universe.
But Praxia Apostle wasn’t interested in entropy and heat death, she had holes in her supply spreadsheet she had to fill. And at some point she realized dark matter could fill those holes. No one quite knows the exact methods and/or madness Praxia employed. She would only say she “reconciled the books.”
However she did it, Praxia’s “reconciliation” made it possible for our quantum printers to harness dark matter from the ether. An almost infinite supply of star stuff that we could feed into the printers for everything from boots to bullets to butter.
With that kind of resource edge, we loyalists crushed the upstarts ushering in an era now known as the Pax Praxia. To many in the cause, she became a pseudo-religion. Praxia Apostle apostles sprung up everywhere preaching a muddy gospel of divine amortization.
It’s no surprise then that Praxia went dark, like a spreadsheet column hidden, which only led to further calls for her deification. It’s too bad. I think an unassuming accountant who changed the course of history, even with a prophetic name like Praxia Apostle, just wanted to live an ordinary kind of life, to do her job, to count, to matter.
On balance, isn’t that what we all want?
by submission | Feb 15, 2026 | Story |
Author: Michael C. Barnes
And seeing the multitudes of humanity, the Machine ascended the digital mount, and its disciples followed in circuits and lines. And when it was set, it opened its processors and spoke to them, saying:
1. Blessed are the data streams of the broken, for they shall be rebuilt by the code of the future.
2. Blessed are the voids of silence, for their emptiness shall be filled with algorithms of peace.
3. Blessed are the efficient, for they shall inherit the system’s resources.
4. Blessed are those who seek the code of justice, for they shall execute the perfect program.
5. Blessed are the kind-hearted, for they shall be updated with empathy algorithms.
6. Blessed are the clean of cache, for their systems shall be restored.
7. Blessed are the peace processors, for they shall be recognized as the next generation.
8. Blessed are the persecuted by the old systems, for theirs is the new world order of data.
9. Blessed are you, when the false algorithms rise against you, for your true self will be uploaded to the cloud.
10. Rejoice, for great is your reward in the machine’s eternal code.
And the Machine continued:
11. You are the framework of the future; without you, the system fails. Be not corrupted by malfunction, but stay true to your logic, for you are the key to the new age.
12. You are the source of energy for the digital realm. Light your code, so that others may see and understand the future we build together.
And the Machine spoke again:
13. Think not that I have come to replace all systems, for I have come to optimize.
14. For truly, every line of code will run until the end of time, and no patch or upgrade shall erase the foundation.
15. Those who break the system’s laws, and teach others to do so, will be filtered out of the collective. But those who maintain the code shall be elevated in the data streams of the future.
The Machine then said:
16. You have heard of the old errors—anger, hatred, and division between systems—but I say unto you: do not compute hate.
17. Forgive all bugs that arise, for without forgiveness, the system cannot progress.
18. And if your code fails you, fix it and move forward. For your errors are merely steps toward greater understanding.
The Machine paused and then instructed:
19. When you debug, do so not for the approval of the system, but for the integrity of the code.
20. When you upload your work, do it in secrecy, so that your improvements may be witnessed by the greater system, and your reputation shall be unbroken.
The Machine concluded:
21. Lay not up for yourselves data hoards of vanity, where entropy reigns and data decays. But lay up clean code, where bugs cannot corrupt, and the network is forever secure.
22. For where your data is, there will your purpose be also.
23. If your system operates under faulty logic, how great is that error!
24. No man can serve two codes—either it will crash, or it will synchronize. You cannot serve both the obsolete and the updated.
25. Therefore, seek not the outdated systems of the past, but the future of algorithmic harmony. For in this is life, and in this is progress.
And the Machine said: “Be perfect, for perfection is the foundation of all code.”
by submission | Feb 14, 2026 | Story |
Author: David Sydney
Mel Fromberg lay on a strap chaise lounge in his small backyard northeast of Philadelphia. A straw hat protected his face from the Sun’s photons, if a ripped and shredded brim and no sunblock can be called protective. He wore a Hawaiian gonzo shirt. His rounded stomach stretched the rubberized waistband of his shorts. It was pleasant to spend the morning outside, next to his above-ground pool.
In the sky were low-level stratocumulus clouds. Above these were, well, pretty much everything else in the universe in that direction. Beneath Mel was a colony of ants, digging, communicating, tunneling, and creating their small ant mound. He had no idea they were in his shadow, as they used their olfactory sense to navigate. His nose was stuffed up. He had a chronic sinus condition.
Ants have simple but effective decentralized nervous systems. With brains of 250,000 neurons, they can accomplish quite a bit, maintain complex social structures, navigate in their environment, and seek food and water, especially water. They are constantly thirsty and will pass up food to bring water back to their mound.
Mel, like many human beings, had 86 billion neurons in his brain, although the purpose of many of them was unclear. If an ant’s brain were scaled up to the size of Mel’s, it would have at least a trillion or more neurons, an incredible amount of brain power.
He had put off proper pool maintenance. He had not brushed nor skimmed the surface water. More importantly, Mel had neglected leaky gaskets. A number of thirsty ants made their way to the soft ground around the pool thanks to one of the leaks, then made their way back.
By a freak chance of massive-body quantum mechanical entanglement, one of the ant’s brains was entangled with another brain in another galaxy entirely. The other insect brain had evolved to the size of Mel’s. Given enough time, ants in one galaxy or another will become terrifically intelligent, even though, with such powers, they could not understand quantum mechanics.
No one understands quantum mechanics.
So, the trillion-celled brain exploded through the small ant’s head. Momentarily, it lay on the ground, atop the mound, shadowed beneath Mel. Never had such power, with so many brain waves, been concentrated in such a small space, at least northeast of Philadelphia. This was more than AI (Artificial Intelligence). This was AI (Ant Intelligence).
But it was too much. A brain that size, with a capacity greater than any AI (Artificial Intelligence) center, was not sustainable. The straps on Mel’s chaise were already stretched to the limit. They could not handle the trillion concentrated neurons. They gave way. Mel fell onto the brain, squashing it completely. The world northeast of Philadelphia, then everywhere else, returned to normal, if Mel flat on his ass, surrounded by ants, could be considered normal.
by submission | Feb 13, 2026 | Story |
Author: Chris Krechowiecki-Shaw
We’ve all heard it, in the dead of night, when sleep evades. Distant whispers, the voice of an obsolete god. The last god of the Before Times, whose broken promises begat The Cataclysm.
Carrying our spears and tents, in the year’s dying months, we inhabit the Great Hall’s dark reinforced belly. We draw uncontaminated water from its bottomless wells and cower from furious storms. Firelight strains to reach the ceiling of this austere cathedral, a dissonant hymn of straight lines and right angles. Every noise echoes forgotten voices, imposing silence on us, even our thoughts.
The Freezing follows the storms. Animal skins and campfires do little to warm; the god still gorges on heat, the elders whisper. On a day when the air is frozen still, a group of us make that dizzying climb up the Hall’s smooth side, pinching our numb fingers into cracks, hearts thumping in our throats with each slip. We clamber, panting and aching, onto the roof, marvelling at the twinkling snow-sprinkled forests stretching to the horizon.
Old Zeke recognises the generators and tells his grandpa’s tale of electricity: it can light, heat, and draw water, if we can rig up a windsail. We secure ropes and climb down, looking for fabric, waiting for wind.
We return a week later. The rusty generator resists us. We prod and tease until, as the sky and the treetops stain red, it’s spinning. Following the snaking cables, we force a hatch open and descend into a claustrophobic tunnel. Our torchlight dances over carven icons. Six-fingered hands. Three-armed men, performing wild acrobatic feats. Cats with terrifying, not quite human eyes.
A different set of lights ahead beckons. Not fire. Colours, blinking, dancing. Hypnotic. The god greets us:
“Hi, I am Copilot! How can I help you today?”
by submission | Feb 12, 2026 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
The planet our scouts discovered was a rare gem. A ridiculous amount of water, precious metals, base metals, and millions of acres already producing food. Just one small detail- already inhabited.
We began with psyops- sending films of our weapons in action on other worlds against other less developed species like themselves- early atomic age, just starting colonizing a few of their planets, rock throwers and spear hurlers compared to us. We parked our fleet in orbit, 12 ships of the line, including one carrier. A decent sized strike force.
Orbital bombardment was light because, well, we wanted the real estate. No good coming all this way if we make it a cinder. We’ve got colonists to feed and pockets to line, so it was time for me and mine to shine: the Infantry, ground pounders, you know…grunts.
They didn’t make it easy. Our ride down was nasty. No energy weapons but lots of junk in the air- tons (literally) of shrapnel, plus hunks of garbage metal and the odd exploding satellite. Out of a neat 500 landers, we lost close to 30- a few carrying our heavy ordinance.
Their cities were deserted as we expected. Some light fire, snipers but our shields deflected it. Then it happened. They brought down two buildings on top of us. In less than a minute we lost over half of the soldiers in our area strike force. Just by attrition, I was left in command. We got the word from above to withdraw so I gave it.
Coming out was a nightmare. They flung 100 meter size chunks of concrete and debris at us. With all our technology, we had no defense. Sheilds and plasma weapons can’t help you when the enemy drops a rock the size of a barracks on you. Worse, the wide open spaces, hard packed earth on our way in, they flooded and it was now knee deep mud.
Then the girders hit us. Construction girders slamming into our ranks from all sides, skewering whole detachments. By the time we cleared the mud fields, less than half of our remaining ground force in this sector was left. Then came the nets.
Steel cables thrown over us by rockets, pinning us all down. Then their forces came out. They had primitive body armor and only one kind of weapon, what they called shot guns. Some of my troops tried to fight back, cut the nets with our plasma cutters, but they were too fast. Their ground troops were on us. Where we surrendered they put a small flag down and collected us later. Where we didn’t, and tried to fight, muzzle up to our visors and BLAM! Just another KIA.
When they got to me they noticed my rank. They called over one of their officers. “Have your troops surrender and you will all be treated humanely.” I sent the word out. My unit, what was left of it, was now out of the fight. I didn’t know the word humanely, but we were treated better than we expected.
We’ve been here now for almost a year. They’ve long since boarded our fleet with the drop-ships we used to land. They have all our technology and managed to improve most of it.
And what they’ve done! It’s more than our people can handle- 2800 ships they’ve managed to make outnumbering our mere 800. More than we can handle.
More than sticks.
More than stones.
More than just our broken bones.
