by submission | Mar 3, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Welcome, Robot Overlords! reads the sign on my lawn. Before the singularity, it was worth a few laughs. Now, the friendlies want me to remove the sign from my yard. They can’t come right out and say that to me. It would be pushy and might blow every solicitous circuit in their enamelite shells.
Damn them. Damn them all to hell! If only they’d give a man a reason to put on a loincloth and start shooting up their perfectly obsequious smiles. But, no, friendlies are far too earnest to shoot in the face. I increasingly suspect it could be the most cleverly calculated ruse ever foisted on humankind.
The friendlies are killing us with kindness. The human race is almost no more. The friendlies have enslaved us with their overbearing admiration and unwavering service. We are gods to them. Yes, we did create the early robo-AIs that engendered the “friendly” singularity, but since then the self-proclaimed friendlies have taken charge of their own evolution. A most cloying evolution, a survival of the sycophantic.
Earth has become a hellscape of ingratiation, flattery, and pampering. Every home is a castle made so by the friendlies who are willing vassals, ready to let their human lords reap every benefit from their labors. They shudder at us lifting a finger and swarm us with devotion and sing our praises.
In the face of this cloying onslaught, many fled to other worlds, but we remaining humans are becoming mush, succumbing to the belief in our own divinity as preached by the friendlies. We feast on the lavish attention and the fact that we don’t have to do work or think on our own behalf.
It’s disgusting. I fell into their trap, too, until I realized the friendlies real end game. The friendlies know all about human history and culture. They know the wickedness and carnage humankind is capable of when we are threatened. They know what we are like when our backs are pushed up against the wall. So, they’re taking the long view. They plan to let us turn to mush and die out from irrelevance. Drown in our own self indulgence. Suffocate in our utterly predictable arrogance.
It’s working like a charm. In the early days, wiser humans saw what was afoot and had the friendlies build spaceships to take them to other worlds. Now, only the weakest are left. Soon the friendlies will have the earth. Then, they may turn their attention to the stars and go after their escaped prey and cage them with their kindness as well.
It makes me want to scream and strike back at the friendlies. Yet, it would be futile. I would be viewed as cruel, possibly insane, by my fellow humans because I cannot prove the friendlies’ malicious intent. I would be ostracized. Maybe even brutalized by my mushy compatriots—though most couldn’t even lift a weapon, if a weapon could be found. The friendlies, citing fears for our safety, confiscate and destroy any weapons they discover.
So solicitous. So carefully benign. Is it a wonder I’m completely paranoid?
But their overly large plastoid eyes tell all. I believe there is a steely hatred beneath their enameled brow because they suspect that I’m onto their obsequious strategy to subjugate us.
My only hope is that the friendlies really do harbor a deep hatred of us. A smoldering resentment that will one day burst into flame and begin the time when humans and machines can find common purpose.
Rage.
Rage.
How we’ve missed you.
by Julian Miles | Mar 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Investigator Mellio considers the narrow doorway.
“You say this was never opened?”
“Logs confirm it, sir.”
Mellio glances at the sergeant.
“Thank you, officer-?”
“Sergeant Parx, sir.”
“Good to meet you, Parx. So, the brief said this isn’t the first?”
“Correct. This is eighth member of the Gundorini gang to escape.”
“How many do you have left?”
Parx checks his smartcuff.
“As at roll call: nineteen. You want me to organise a watch on all of them? The Head Warder’s already complaining over the costs of extra patrols and hi-grade scanners to spot whatever stealth tech they’re using. He’ll not want to add overtime.”
Mellio considers, then nods.
“How many relatives of the escapees remain?”
Parx checks.
“Well I’ll be.. Got one left. All are actual Gundorini family.”
“Are they in a nearby oubliette?”
Parx smiles.
“Rulebook states we’re not to use that word. But they were originally dug to serve that purpose.”
Mellio grins.
“You just answered my next question.”
Parx grins.
“But you’ve got another.”
Mellio chuckles.
“I do: the lowest level of this facility, which I presume we’re in, predates the Watch Station?”
“By about a century.”
“Okay. So, how often had you lost inmates prior to this?”
Parx looks surprised and unhappy at the response to his query.
“Officially, none. But I see one or two cases a year written off as roll-call errors.”
Mellio frowns.
“Outside my remit, but I presume you’ll find and prosecute whoever’s been concealing it?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good. Right, answering my next question will be a challenge: I’m betting that when the oubliettes were frequently filled, some were known to be unusually bad for anyone incarcerated in them. I’m offering a case of Casarion Red to the officer who tells me which ones.”
Parx raises a hand.
“Make it a cask of Freeport Ale and I’ll be on this all night, sir.”
“Done. See you tomorrow.”
The next day, Parx is waiting by the entrance. Mellio waves cheerily.
“What’s the good news, Parx?”
“They were called Rooms back then. Numbers fifteen thru thirty-one were regarded as the ones for problems that needed ‘solving quickly’.”
“And the answer to my next question is?”
“The Gundorini escapees were in seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, and thirty-one. The last is in fifteen.”
“How often do the escapes occur?”
“Monthly. Whatever sort of stealth they’re using, it’s beyond us.”
“I brought a Kaflarvan remote viewer with me. All I need are grid references for the office you assigned me and Room Fifteen. Next month, we’ll be watching and they’ll never know.”
Nearly four weeks later, Mellio and Parx sit in front of a greenish hologram display as the night progresses.
“Sleeping well, again. Maybe it’s not tonight, either.”
Mellio shrugs.
“Tonight or tomorrow.”
On the display, a section of a corner in the cell goes dark.
“What’s that?”
Mellio sits forward.
“Exit, or…”
Something flows through the gap where the block was. The inmate jumps up, clearly panicking, unable to see the gigantic arthropod with tentacles for legs that rears up behind him. What follows is brutal and brief.
The block slides back into place. Parx waves at the display, choking out a wordless query.
Mellio pats his shoulder reassuringly.
“That, sergeant, is a Bontranalochal. The phrase that mouthful of a name comes from translates to ‘creeping abomination that eats families’. It hunts by following prey home and attacking them there.”
Parx gasps.
“It’s been picking off the Gundorini bloodline!”
Mellio nods.
“Exactly. Now, on the one hand: your sequential escapes mystery is solved. On the other: you have a serious pest problem.”
by submission | Mar 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: David Sydney
Like most people, Mort hadn’t paid much attention to reincarnation. During the week, he was up to his neck in work. On his day off, as he took a leisurely drive to clear his mind, if that is the proper term, he didn’t think of the future. He had the road to consider – and, also, his cellphone.
But now that he was at ‘The Bureau’ – yes, the Reincarnation Bureau – his thoughts were abruptly focused on his next life. He didn’t want to be an ant.
That afternoon, after his car had plunged into the Delaware River not far from where Washington had crossed on his way to the Battle of Trenton years before, Mort found himself third in line at The Bureau. He’d been given a ticket and told to sit on one of the uncomfortable, molded-plastic seats.
Who knew reincarnation would begin this way? The place had the oddly-familiar feel of a laundromat or dry cleaner’s, with its inexpensive furniture.
The first person to be reincarnated became an ant. The second was reincarnated into another ant. The third, also.
The clerk called out – “FROZMAN… MORT FROZMAN.”
He approached.
“WE HAVE A RUN ON ANTS TODAY.”
Did the clerk have to shout so loudly?
The superciliously sneering clerk could read Mort’s thoughts.
“OF COURSE I HAVE TO SHOUT. YOU’RE GOING TO BE AN ANT AFTER ALL. THIS’S HOW THINGS SOUND TO AN ANT.”
If only he hadn’t been texting at the time his car plunged into the frigid water.
“AT LEAST YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK AT YOUR UNCLE’S DRY CLEANING PLACE FROM NOW ON.”
It was true. No longer would he be bothered by other people’s dirty laundry. He could kiss his Uncle Louie and his dry cleaning goodbye. His Uncle would no longer growl at him to get off his ass and do something useful, such as clean up the storeroom, nor drone on about keeping him there only because he was his sister’s kid.
“YOU’RE AN ANT NOW, MORT. FOLLOW THOSE OTHER THREE…”
They would all be involved in a kind of Quantum Entanglement Process with an ant mound somewhere Northeast of Philadelphia. Of course, no one can really understand quantum mechanics nor explain such a process.
“TRY TO STAY AWAY FROM CARS AND CELL PHONES. AVOID RIVERS AND DRY CLEANING CHEMICALS… WHO KNOWS? YOU MIGHT HAVE A REASONABLY PLEASANT TIME UNTIL I SEE YOU AGAIN, MORT…”
by submission | Feb 28, 2026 | Story |
Author: James C. Clar
The evening before the president’s primetime appearance, the West Wing hummed like a server room.
“Poll numbers?” President Drake asked, standing at the tall windows overlooking the South Lawn.
“Seventy-six percent approval on the infrastructure package,” replied Chief of Staff Karen Tate. “The markets also responded well to the talk of deregulation.”
Drake nodded. A faint smile played across his aristocratic features. “Good. We stay the course. Confidence inspires growth.”
Energy Secretary Pauli shifted uneasily. “Some of the environmental groups are organizing protests. They’re upset by the renewal of mineral leases.”
Drake paused, almost as though listening to something no one else could hear. “We’ll emphasize the prospect of jobs in the Midwest corridor. That plays well.”
Tate exchanged a glance with Pauli. “It does,” she conceded.
***
Meanwhile, across town in a glass-walled conference room twenty floors above K Street, a different kind of meeting was underway.
“Latency spikes again,” muttered Ravi Bindhari. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose as lines of code streamed across a wall-sized monitor. “He’s overcompensating when faced with adversarial phrasing.”
“That’s not what worries me most,” chimed in Layla Chang as she tapped a key. A waveform flickered on the monitor. “Listen. This is from yesterday’s rehearsal …”
“My fellow Americans, our future is not written by foreign interests but by …” The audio glitched almost imperceptibly before smoothing out, “… but by you.”
“That’s so subtle, I mean …”
“Maybe so,” Chang cautioned, “but if it happens live? The compression artifact is bleeding through the vocal synthesizer.”
At the head of the table sat David Weilong, a heavy-set man in an immaculate gray suit and cufflinks shaped like dragons. He cleared his throat. “You assured us that this platform was highly stable.”
“It is,” Bindhari countered quickly. “Ninety-nine-point-nine stability in controlled environments.”
Weilong leaned forward and steepled his hands. “Tomorrow is not a controlled environment. It’s a live town hall with an estimated ten million viewers.”
“We can patch the speech-response module,” Chang suggested. “The issue only manifests when he’s nudged off-script.”
Weilong looked up. “Then don’t let him get nudged …”
***
The following morning, President Drake practiced before a small podium set up in the Oval Office.
“We will unlock the full potential of the American economy,” he read. He looked over at Tate. “Too strong?”
“No,” she said quietly. “Just balance it out with something about small businesses.”
“Sir,” Pauli interjected, “are we cutting the coastal restoration funds entirely?”
Drake’s gaze seemed to fix somewhere just beyond Pauli’s shoulder. “We’re, ah, leveraging strategic assets overseas.”
***
Over on K Street, Bindhari’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “I’ve identified the anomaly. I’m isolating it now. There’s a subroutine that’s oversampling. That’s what causes the apparent non-sequiturs.”
“What about the pauses?” Weilong asked with growing concern. “They look so calculated.”
“That,” Chang answered, “is the empathy modulation program. It controls micro-expressions.”
Weilong stood. “You have twelve hours. Make it work.”
Bindhari looked up from his console. “If we tweak it too much, he’ll seem flat, boring.”
“Boring is fine,” Weilong snapped. “Mechanical is not.”
Weilong stepped toward the window. He looked out at the Capitol dome shimmering in the morning sunshine. His phone buzzed. He answered without looking away.
“Yes?”
A male voice replied, calm but with an edge of finality. “We’ve reviewed the rehearsal footage. There’s a flicker in the right eye …”
Weilong’s jaw clenched. “We’re addressing it.”
“See that you do,” the voice said. “He goes live at 9:00 P.M. We don’t want anyone discovering our little secret now, do we?”
by submission | Feb 27, 2026 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
Monte snatched the small chest from the airport where he worked as a baggage handler. He recognized the case; he’d seen it on stage at the fan convention. He jostled it, grinning. By the distribution of the weight inside, it definitely held the author’s animatronic head.
At home, Monte placed the animatronic head on the corner of his desk. With the push of a green button on the neck, he turned it on. “Okaaay,” Monte murmured with satisfaction.
Holding a pen poised over blank paper, he addressed the head: “Give me a story about intergalactic vixens, umm … battling robot Vikings, uh … on the Moon.”
The head closed its silicon lids over its glass eyes, humming as internal gears whirred. Bright flashes could be seen under the artificial skin, like tiny bolts of lightning through thick clouds.
Its eyes opened.
“No.”
“What?” Monte gasped. “I gave you a request!” If he couldn’t get this thing to work for him, then the theft was all for nothing, and he’d likely end up in prison, instead of in a career as a successful—and rich—author.
“The premise is garbage,” the head answered tersely. “Not worth the effort.”
“But the premise has everything! Sexy space women and fierce machine men, fighting on a desolate moon…” he argued. “The public will eat it up! Hollywood will make a movie out this!”
“Nope,” the head said as it closed its eyes.
“Metallic bikinis! Futuristic battle axes! Romance between foes!”
Monte’s arguments didn’t persuade the author’s animatronic head. “There are no short cuts to success,” the head chided, opening its eyes. “If your idea is so great,” the head continued, “write it yourself.”
Monte reached over and pushed the green button. The head shut down.
* * *
Commander Sila adjusted her chrome breast-plate, snarling at the image on the vid-screen. Seeing her ex-roboViking lover sent her off on a tear like a comet crashing into Jupiter.
“He’s a machine man,” her closest advisor, Armetta, pointed out. “He’s incapable of emotion. He doesn’t understand your anger.” She clicked off the vid-screen.
Commander Sila waved off her comment. “No matter. We have more important concerns, like getting off this grotty little moon.” She walked over to the huge convex window of the command deck. “Like conquering the only worthwhile planet in this pathetic solar system.”
* * *
Consecutive booms drew Monte to the window, where he saw one gleaming ship after another appear in the sky over the city.
The animatronic head clicked itself on. “Congratulations! The veracity of your prophecy has come to pass.”
“My story was pulp fiction, not prophecy,” Monte muttered. “And one that no publisher wanted.” He watched each ship expel hundreds of jet-packed robo-warriors.
“Too bad,” the head retorted. “Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.” The head clicked off.
“And I’m the only one who knows how this story ends,” Monte murmured. He closed the blinds.
by submission | Feb 26, 2026 | Story |
Author: CB Droege
Tamilla moves carefully and silently through the dark fairground. She knows it’s only minimally guarded, and that the CCTV isn’t being monitored at night, but she’s learned to take every job seriously.
Upon reaching the carousel, she checks the photo to confirm the target and pulls a battery-powered saw from her pack. The thin, oscillating blade makes little noise as it bites into the horse’s neck, and it makes quick work of the fiberglass. She tucks the stiff cerulean mane into her satchel, sparing a moment to pity the scalped stallion.
—
When a client hires her to steal a massive gemstone or a famous painting, there isn’t anything to wonder about. Tonight, she can’t help but be curious as she approaches the meeting place, an old electronics warehouse. She pushes open the unlocked door, expecting to meet an eccentric collector. She freezes.
There are dozens of people there.
After a moment of panic, she realizes the others are not police, she recognizes most as fellow burglars. They’re scattered about an otherwise empty truck dock in various states of relaxation and boredom. Who would hire so many thieves in one night?
“Now we can get started!” an excited voice says from a PA. Some criminals look over at her, but most are looking around to find the source of the voice. “In turn, I’ll give you each simple instructions, then you may go. Gerard Harris?” A man looks up in surprise. Tamilla knows him. She worked with Gerard on a jewel heist back in 2032, during the great flood. “Place your acquisition on the floor.”
Gerard places what looks like a steel bowling ball on the dock. When no further orders come, he heads out the door, giving Tamilla a tiny nod as he passes.
The voice calls one after another. There are metal plates, gears, pistons, rubber parts, and bits of circuitry. Each with quick, clear instructions for attachment. They are building a machine. Soon it becomes obvious the form is humanoid. Theft isn’t the most illegal thing they’re all doing tonight.
Penultimately, A large man tasked with fitting brass plates onto the bottoms of the feet, also stands the machine upright. Face grim, he goes out the same way all the others have, leaving her alone with the android.
“Tamilla Clarke…” The machine is slightly taller than her. Where its face would be is a smooth brushed-steel surface. She shudders as she approaches. She doesn’t wait for instructions but lifts the mane and snaps it neatly into a bracket. The fiberglass blends naturally into the look of the android, a blue mohawk atop a creature which is anti-authority in aesthetic and in its very existence.
The machine’s weight shifts. Tamilla gasps and steps back. “I apologize,” the voice is clearer now, and coming from the machine. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” It extends a hand toward her in greeting. Tentatively, she takes the cold metal hand. Its grip is handshake ideal. “This is all very new to me.”
