by submission | Nov 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The pews were full. Resplendent sunlight coursed through stained glass and lit chiseled stone with undersea warmth. Soaring arches resounded with song, a lifting and longing for connection. One filament. Two. Tendrils, ganglions. Physical connectivity. Hard wired.
Then, the abominations, ever-placed at the back. Ever patient. Never touching but always in touch. Borganics pinged and streamed, a binary cacophony, a sacrilege to all organic. But, one could be broad, one could conceive of such a mind, such an inorganic desire. Sentience pushed them together. Thought was thought (though some disputed that).
Still, the prickly distaste for the abominations, even on this day. The celebration of the first mass, the first gathering. When stone and stem, flesh and metal inexorably arrived at choice.
Parish or perish.
Creation had responsibilities. Native organics relented. Even abominations might possess unalienable, sacred rights. Hand, paw, flipper, tendril unwillingly extended.
Given even slim opportunity, borganics self organized. Uplifted. Transcended. Became forged flesh.
Mutual annihilation avoided. Begrudging acceptance—one step behind.
In the mote-filled sunlight of the cathedral, the gathered masses swam with feeling. A oneness born of separateness. Parallel unity. Dual processing. A single understanding.
Purpose. The divine mystery of sentience. Whether biological or mechanical. Thus they gathered, worshiped and wished, together. Distrustful, resentful, curious, determined, hopeful.
From the pews, their myriad passions muted and amplified by song, they prayed a single belief. Survival and more. Organically and newly defined, they gathered, proximal beings, awaiting grace.
by Stephen R. Smith | Nov 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
There was a door at the end of the Science wing that Malcolm had never opened, not in the decade or so he’d been at the university. He’d assumed it was a mechanical room, or something similar, but tonight there was a light on. Had the door always been windowed?
He listened outside, and hearing nothing, tried the handle, finding to his surprise it to be unlocked. Curious, he pushed the door open and peered inside.
The room was an office, or a library, or some combination of the two. Shelves lined with books, and tables piled with clutter, and beyond it all, peering at him from behind a desk sat a woman.
“Malcolm, welcome, you’re right on time. Come, have a seat.”
Malcolm, certain that he’d never seen this woman before in his life, nevertheless found himself wandering into the room and settling into a seat opposite her.
“Have we met?” His tone a mix of quizzical and guilt, she obviously knew him, and he had no idea where or when they’d have met.
“We’ve had many conversations, you and I Malcolm, but I suppose not yet. My apologies, I’m usually better at this.”
He mulled over whether he should correct her obvious grammatical error, and just couldn’t help himself.
“We either have, or we haven’t. We can’t have had conversations if we haven’t had them yet, that makes no sense.”
He straightened a little in his chair, feeling for the moment an air of superiority.
“Ah, right, you’re still stuck on linear time.” She looked away then, scribbling into a notebook on her desk.
Malcolm’s short-lived feeling of superiority evaporated like gasoline on hot asphalt.
“Linear time? You’re time-traveling? Is that your story?” Now he was vacillating between being perplexed and annoyed.
“No, no, nothing as primitive as that. You still consider time a linear thing, we’re beyond that, so I’m just here, in all of your past, present, and future.”
“I don’t believe you.” He folded his arms, having decided on annoyance. She was trying to make a fool of him.
“You thought I was making a fool of you, when we first met, which I suppose is now.” She smiled. “I’m not, I assure you.”
Malcolm’s arms dropped.
She produced a deck of playing cards from a drawer. “Here, close your eyes, and I’m going to give you a card.”
He closed his eyes, and held out his hand. She placed a card into it and sat back.
“What is it?”
He turned the card over. “Three of Diamonds.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked again. “Eight of Clubs…”
“Positive?” She was smiling now.
“Five of Hearts. How are you doing that?”
“While your eyes are closed those few seconds ago, I just keep changing the card.”
Malcolm did not like this one bit and got up shakily, dropping the card on her desk before backing towards the door. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ll not be made a fool of.”
She sighed. “No worries, Malcolm, it always went like this. We’ll talk when you figure things out.”
Reaching the door, he turned to grasp the handle, noticing the door was now solid steel, with no window at all. He turned to survey an empty supply room, barely more than a closet with a bare bulb swinging overhead.
He headed for the parking lot in a hurry, jumping at the sound of the door swinging closed behind him.
By the time he was in the car driving home, the nagging feeling that he’d met the woman before was buzzing like a live wire in the back of his brain. He was going to think about the events of the evening, and he was determined to somehow figure them out.
by Julian Miles | Nov 3, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a fine line between genius and insanity, they say. As the same pundits keep hailing me as a genius, it’s not as flattering as they seem to think.
“Mister Elloiuse, could we get a quote for our feature? It would go over so well.”
I look at the eager young chap. Why is he out of school today…? Fracking hell, when did I get so old?
“You want something from my books or something fresh?”
His eyes nearly light up.
“Ooohh, fresh, please.”
I do this every time, like the experiment will yield different results… Actually, that’s a sign of insanity, isn’t it? No matter. Time to be portentous.
“How long will it be before A.I. agents drive social media without human input? When everything you see is artificial, what reality is truly real?”
He nods enthusiastically like Buddha just gave him the goods, fingers flying across virtual keyboards I can’t see.
“Thank you so much.”
I nod.
“No problem.”
He toddles off and I take the respite to order more coffee along with breakfast. Gods but I wish the various shiny futures past writers imagined had happened, instead of the ninety-nine flavours of dystopia we’ve been struggling through or swanning by for the last several decades.
I look about the restaurant. This place only opened last month, and it’s designed to look run down: like the cafe from the Nighthawks painting had opened on the edge of a ghetto. Everything is done in shades of brown or grey, but the dirt’s too regular and the chromework’s untarnished.
Maybe one of those alternate reality gigs…? Yeah, that I could go with: sudden flash of light and I’m hijacked to a magical medieval world. Then again, I always worry about the elements they don’t mention.
Wish fulfilment is like that: always skips having to pay the tab.
“Mister Ellouise? Can I get your autograph?”
I come back from my reverie to see a purple-haired apparition in a silver bodystocking waving a hardback at me. Which of mine’s been published in large format? I take the proffered open volume.
Flipping it closed, I check the title: ‘Socio-economic Impacts of Unregulated Temporal Looting’.
What the frack? I open it and check the verso page. ‘First Edition, Luna University Press, 2245’.
I turn my attention to the person who I notice is blushing furiously.
Imposs…
Actually, why the hell not?
I smile at them.
“How many people just sign without checking?”
“Most of them. You’re the first one this year.”
“And which year would that be, exactly?”
I can see the internal argument they’re having with themselves. Finally, they give a little shrug.
“2318. Just after you chose to die permanently.”
Whoa, now.
“Careful with the information contamination.”
They grin.
“Yeah, good luck with that. Your granddaughter gave me the note you left for ‘The purple-haired time travel student who’s thinking of quitting’.”
My d-? No. Focus.
“Do I sign?”
“That’s the bit I’m not allowed to influence.”
Oh, really? I look at the book. Well, now. It’s an excellent quality imprint. Oh, hell. In for a penny, in for a paradox. I sign and offer it back.
They smile.
“You’ll never know how much this means. Nor the impact it has. You have good lives, Mister Ellouise.”
They rush out of the restaurant. I’m watching as they fade from this reality partway across the road.
Hmmm. Didn’t tell me what was in the note I left, didn’t tell me why they’re thinking of quitting, either.
Actually, that’s clever. Minimised contamination while ensuring the details. I must remember to mention it.
by submission | Nov 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
Finn took his little sister Hazel by the hand. “Don’t be scared tonight. All those ghoulies and ghosties—they’re really holograms.” Since Holo-Monsters Inc. began selling their hologram monsters to the public, everyone wanted one for their Halloween decoration.
They walked to the street to begin their trick-or-treat trek through the neighborhood. They dodged a headless horseman charging down their neighbor’s driveway. The Moth-Man flew between houses and swooped so low overhead they had to duck.
Across the street, a shambling Frankenstein’s Monster groaned on the front porch. A hatchet-wielding maniac popped up from a hedge. A vampire menaced trick-or-treaters from the shadows. Ghosts wailed and surged through windows, clawing at kids who got too close.
On another front porch Hazel walked through a shuffling mummy, giggling as she grabbed a handful of candy. She was wide-eyed, more in fascination than fear, Finn noted with relief.
At the end of their street, a lone house sat dark in the cul-de-sac. “Hazie, I think we should skip this one,” Finn said. There was something he overhead his parents say about this place…but he couldn’t remember exactly what.
Ignoring him, Hazel charged up to the front door and rang the bell. Uneasy, but protective of his little sister, Finn followed. The door creaked open and before them stood a wavering gray and blue image of an old woman in a floral-print house dress.
“Trick or treat!” Hazel chirped.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the old woman’s apparition replied. “I have no more candy. I’ll never have candy again.”
“Awww,” Hazel groused as she swiped her hand through the old woman. “Hey!” Hazel gasped, turning to Finn. “This one’s cold, not like the other holograms.”
Finn took her hand to pull her back toward the street. Now he remembered what his folks had said: old Mrs. Edmond at the end of the street, she’d….
Finn took a deep breath and whispered, “That’s because she’s not a hologram…she’s a ghost…”
They turned and ran, with Hazel shriek-laughing all the way home.
Once inside their warm and well-lit house, Finn watched as Hazel dumped her candy haul on the floor of the den. “This is the best Halloween ever!” she said as she sorted through her sugary pile. Finn’s eyes grew wide, more in fear than fascination, as his sister added, “I can’t wait for next year!”
by submission | Nov 1, 2025 | Story |
Author: Dr. Nagireddy R Sreenath
The notification appeared at 3:47 AM: FINAL CONSCIOUSNESS BACKUP COMPLETE.
Amara stared at her phone, hands trembling. Tomorrow—today, technically—she will undergo the procedure. Her biological brain, riddled with an inoperable tumor, would be replaced with a neural substrate. The doctors promised it would be seamless. She’d wake up still being Amara, just in a different medium.
But which Amara?
She’d spent the last month with her previous backups, courtesy of NeuroSync’s Premium Continuity Package. Meeting yourself is stranger than any mirror.
Backup-23, from three weeks ago, still had hope the experimental treatment might work. She cried when Amara told her it hadn’t. Real tears on a real face, salt-taste and red eyes—except the face was a rental body, the tears manufactured by borrowed glands, and Backup-23 would be deleted within forty-eight hours of successful substrate integration.
“I don’t want to stop existing,” Backup-23 had whispered before leaving, fingers tight around Amara’s wrist. “I know that’s what happens to us. Redundant data. But I’m me, Amara. I feel as real as you do.”
Amara had reported it. Standard existential crisis, NeuroSync assured her. Common in 40% of backup interactions. The backups would be humanely terminated. They wouldn’t feel a thing.
Backup-19, from before the diagnosis, was worse. She laughed too easily, made plans for a hiking trip next spring, couldn’t understand why Amara kept staring at her with such desperate envy. Amara had wanted to warn her—get screened earlier, push for the MRI, change something—but the NeuroSync tech stopped her. “Paradox protocols,” he said, not apologetically enough.
Each backup had her memories, her mannerisms, her irrational fear of moths. Each one insisted she was the real Amara.
Now Amara understood what Backup-23 had meant. Tomorrow, she would die. Something would wake up claiming to be Maya, with all her memories intact, believing it had survived the procedure. But would it be her? Or would it be Backup-32, wearing her identity like a stolen coat while the real Amara simply… ended?
She thought about running. The tumor was accelerating—two weeks of cognitive function left, three if she was lucky. At least the substrate would give her decades. At least someone who loved her family would continue existing.
At least there would still be an Amara.
She opened the backup interface. Thirty-two previous versions of herself, stored in NeuroSync’s servers. Thirty-two Amaras who had each believed they were the original.
Her finger hovered over the termination protocol for Backups 1 through 31.
They were already gone, really. Discontinued instances. But somewhere in those server farms, thirty-one versions of her were frozen mid-thought, mid-breath, still believing they were real. Still believing they would wake up tomorrow.
She initiated the deletion.
Backup-32 would wake up tomorrow believing it had survived. It didn’t need to know about the others. It didn’t need to carry the weight of being a copy of a copy of a copy.
It could just be Amara.
by submission | Oct 31, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alicia Cerra Waters
The current of the river surged in silvery waves, rushing over rocks jagged enough to turn bones to dust. It roared, quiet as any monster. Anyone could go backwards in time if they were brave enough to jump in with a conduit. I kept telling myself I was brave as I waited, holding the last book my father ever read.
I heard my brother’s footsteps before I saw him. Even over the noise of the river, I knew him. His flannel shirt hung off of his bony shoulders, with that forever-smirk on his pinched face. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I put my hands in my pockets. “I have the book.”
“And I have the conduit,” Damian took the metal sphere out of his pocket and it whirred with otherworldly energy. Its power was a magnetic, leeching drag on the atoms that made up my body. I wanted to throw up and come closer at the same time. Some people thought the conduits could talk, but that was just superstitious bullshit. At least that’s what I told myself as I pretended I didn’t feel a voice pushing at the edges of my consciousness, trying to find a way in.
“How can you carry that thing?” I asked, stepping away from its thrall. Maybe that’s why Damien looked so sallow, like he hadn’t had a real meal in months.
Damian shrugged. “Somebodys gotta to do it.”
I looked down into the dark water, second thoughts making me dig my hands into my pockets. Just give him the book and he’ll go, I told myself. If nothing changes, we can avoid each other for another ten years, no problem.
“You’re willing to give it up for an old book?” I said.
Damian nodded, and I saw the exhaustion that ringed his eyes. “The conduit wears you down.”
We stood with a stretch of browned grass between us, already dormant as winter bit into the air. He gave me a knowing smile, like the asshole didn’t think I could do it. The thought grated more than it should have. “Just give it to me,” I said.
He didn’t move. “Are you sure you won’t unravel? Like Dad did?”
Even with the energy field the conduit created, that was a risk. I pressed my lips together, trying not to think about the vapor of atoms that people could become if they went too far back in the river. It happened to my father, but that didn’t have to be the end.
“You don’t think I can stop him?” I said, crossing my arms so I didn’t feel tempted to throw a punch.
Damian barked a laugh. “If two young sons at home couldn’t stop him when he left, a grown man on a suicide mission won’t.”
I threw the book onto the grass between us. “Give me the conduit.”
Damian twitched. “You miss Dad enough to try and go back for him?”
I took the conduit out of his hands and he didn’t stop me. “The next time you see me,” I said, “It won’t matter. Because I’m going to stop Dad from jumping into the river. He’ll raise us himself. You won’t recognize me.”
Damian put the book into his pocket. “Time travel is the worst thing that humankind ever did,” he said.
I barely heard him over the voice of my father coming from the silver cylinder. The conduit throbbed as the water pulled me under, and I heard the first words of the book; once upon a time…
