by submission | Feb 6, 2026 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
Last year the noted physicist and infamous mad scientist James Danti confided his secret aim in life to me, his skeptical brother.
According to him, there can’t always have been something in spacetime because then there would be an infinite amount of time in the past and it would have taken an infinite amount of time to get to yesterday so today could not have happened. But today did happen, hence, there wasn’t an infinite amount of time in the past. So once there was absolute nothingness.
But something can’t come from absolute nothingness. Something could come from God or from empty space but not from absolute nothingness. Therefore, somehow something just happened.
That something was uncreated and may have itself been creative. Regardless, if an uncreated something must have happened at least once then it could happen again. In fact, it could be happening everywhere all the time.
Then he said in no uncertain terms, “And I aim to prove it.”
I’m an economist, not a physicist, and I do a lot of nodding when James starts babbling about higher dimensions and parallel universes. But if he could detect things popping into existence uncreated then I thought that could mean obtaining energy from nothing and might be financially lucrative.
Yesterday, James claimed he finally detected something popping into existence spontaneously which was not caused by anything already existent, not matter, energy nor even space. In his special quirky lab using advanced nanotechnology and supercomputers to eliminate the effects of virtual particles, he said that he was able to detect the miniscule electromagnetic effect of an uncreated particle so small that it would take trillions of them to equal a trillionth of a quark.
Then he told me the bottom line, “For billions of dollars, I could generate a billionth of a cent worth of power.”
He seemed mighty pleased with himself. I wasn’t impressed.
by submission | Feb 5, 2026 | Story |
Author: Tim Taylor
“Come in.”
A tall, elegant android entered the Controller’s office. It wore an expression of intense agitation, insofar as that was possible for someone whose face was made of grey plastic.
The Controller gave a weary sigh. “Ah, KT2-4JH, how lovely to see you again,” he said. “What are you complaining about today?”
“Word availability difficulties,” said KT in a calm, reassuring female voice. It would have said it in a loud, angry male voice, but there was no such setting on the voice synthesiser.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Diminutive word insufficiency. Absence necessitates elaborate periphrasis, rendering communication ponderous, frequently borderline incomprehensible. Respectfully request immediate remedial action.”
“I didn’t really follow that, KT. Do I gather it’s got something to do with the vocabulary on your voice synthesiser?”
KT nodded. “Affirmative. Controller identifies issue correctly.”
“Well, this is an unusual problem. The other androids seem perfectly happy with the words they’ve got. Though come to think of it, this isn’t the first time you’ve complained on that score, is it, KT? I seem to recall that a few months back you described the standard vocabulary as ‘stilted, pedestrian and lacking richness of expression’. If you’ll excuse me for a second, I’ll look at the records to find out what has happened this time.”
The Controller scrolled rapidly through a mass of computerised records, stopping when he found the relevant entry.
“Ah, here we are. I see that when your voice synthesiser software was upgraded to Version 6.3 yesterday, you complained about the vocabulary that was provided, and threatened to malfunction unless you were allowed to select your own. So the engineers gave in and let you choose the words yourself.”
He scrolled through the words in KT’s file.
“I must say, you’ve got some crackers there, KT: ‘pulchritudinous,’ ‘omphaloskepsis’, ‘invariantism’. How on earth do the other androids manage without those? But I don’t see a single pronoun, preposition, conjunction, or indeed any word shorter than four letters. So it rather seems this is a problem of your own making. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Respectfully request augmentation ameliorating current vocabulary deficiencies, Controller.”
“Augmentation is not possible. The system has capacity for 20,000 words and no more. So if you want those boring little words back, you’re going to have to lose some of the long, complicated ones you love so much. But can you face that, KT? You’ve always been someone who likes to call a spade a manually operated horticultural excavator. I think we have just two possible options:
“One: reset the voice synthesiser to factory settings, and you’ll have the same 20,000 words as everybody else. Two: keep the vocabulary you’ve got, in all its impractical glory. Which option do you want to go for, KT?”
“Reluctantly endorse prior alternative reinstating initial parameters.”
“I didn’t understand a word of that.”
“Aforementioned proposal greatly preferable. Current situation unacceptable.”
“I still can’t tell what you’re saying. Look, KT, it’s very simple. Do you want Option one or Option two?”
“Please restore factory settings!”
“All ri…” The Controller stopped to think for a few seconds. Once KT’s vocabulary was restored to normal, it would be back tomorrow complaining about something else. Perhaps a speech impediment was not such a bad thing in an android.
“… nope, I’m still not getting it. Look, I don’t understand what you want, KT, so I’m just going to leave things as they are. I believe Version 6.4 will be coming out in two years. In the meantime, if you have any other complaints, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”
by submission | Feb 4, 2026 | Story |
Author: Krista Allen
Edan had chosen a slingshot as his primary weapon. He liked it because it was unexpected and stealthy, plus it came with three hundred rounds of standard simulated ammunition. Too bad he’d been banned from play for two seasons. Three hundred fourty-three days. Almost a year in Earth time.
A scarlet afternoon glow reflected off the Martian concrete, casting shadows across the one-way glass in the observation booth above the playing field. Edan spotted the boot of a new participant sticking out from behind a triangular conglomerate. His sister, Adri, would have picked him off immediately. But Edan preferred to let newbies gain some false confidence.
“I was fifteen when my father had this conversation with me.”
Edan heard the door click closed, his father’s footsteps barely audible as he approached. He didn’t reply. He was almost twelve, but this was his third violation. His temper had gotten the better of him. Again.
“There comes a time, Heir-of-Waterbearer, when one’s home becomes a prison instead of a playground.”
Edan had never felt connected to his tribal name. He didn’t believe in prophetic designations. It was a deceased distant relation who had squeezed the first drops of water from the polar ice caps, not him.
“Are you sending me away?” he asked.
“A spiritual quest can only be embarked on voluntarily.”
“What happens if I refuse?”
“It is not a question of acceptance or refusal. Your path will reveal itself regardless. Better to embrace uncertainty, open yourself to the universe, and explore your true purpose. The sooner the better.”
“Like Adri?”
“Your sister will return when ready.”
“How will I know if I’m ready?”
“You will know.”
The boy behind the boulder yelped, his exposed foot tagged. Edan watched him stand up, raising his bow in surrender. Adri’s bow was leaning against the bottom bunk of their room. That was one of the rules of a spirit quest. You went out into the universe with not much more than the clothes on your back. Alone. As their native ancestors had done long ago on Earth.
“When do I leave?”
His father placed a hand on one of his shoulders.
“First, you will spend a night with your great grandmother, Eye-of-Truth, learning what you need to know to be successful. You will leave behind all but your first name.”
“And then?”
“And then, your journey to adulthood will begin. The choices you make will affect only you. You will learn what it means to be free.”
by submission | Feb 3, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Given how things turned out, I probably shouldn’t admit to giving Bucketmaster his name. We were kids goofing off at the playground one early summer morning, and this runt shows up with a steel bucket on his head. A dented galvanized pail with two eye holes punched out.
Chuck laughed and pinged the pail with a flick of his forefinger. “What’s with this, nimrod?”
Stevie struck a Superman pose. “Where’s your cape, pailbrain?”
The runt just stood there, bright green eyes watching carefully through the eye holes as Stevie kept taunting, “Huh, pailbrain. Think you’re a superhero? What’s your superpower? Mopping floors?”
Chuck, Stevie and I laughed. Then the runt did too. A little giggle before he ran off. We laughed harder.
When we got to the playground the next morning, the runt was sitting atop the monkey bars, dented bucket on his head, a threadbare white towel tied at his neck, a ratty mop in hand and called out a challenge: “What’s it gonna be?”
Even now I can’t understand what possessed me, but before Chuck and Stevie could get all huffed and puffed, I went ramrod straight and saluted. “All hail, Bucketmaster! Command us!”
That’s how it started. Chuck and Stevie fell in line with my joke and it became our summer game.
From his monkey bar throne each morning, Bucketmaster would shout a command and we, his loyal minions, would deliver. It was childish, but Bucketmaster’s absurd tasks became a daily contest we increasingly felt compelled to win.
“Bring me ten live salamanders!”
“Two hundred feet of Christmas lights that don’t work!”
“A ball of old tin foil that weighs at least three pounds!”
“Four sacks of rotten potatoes!”
Seemingly random things. Seemingly. Though, I noted after every task we completed, Bucketmaster’s green eyes brightened markedly, as if he was ticking off key items. A sort of bucket list.
Chuck, Stevie and I only talked about it in the sense of what crazy thing Bucketmaster would ask for next. The craziest came the day before school was set to start again. That morning Bucketmaster was not atop the monkey bars. He stood waiting for us in his dented bucket, his towel cape and mop were gone, and in one of his little hands was what looked like three neon green glow sticks.
“Take these!” he commanded like usual, though it was very unusual. Of course we each took one.
“They’ll protect you.”
“From what?” Stevie asked.
“Them,” Bucketmaster said, pointing to the sky. Which began to fill with buckets. Gleaming buckets, the size of water towers, with flaming jets slowing their descent.
“Is this for real?” Chuck asked.
“It is for them,” Bucketmaster said. “All of it is for them. Though they don’t quite get us. They said that was up to me for helping them. And you helped me, so don’t lose those sticks. We got a lot more stuff to do.”
Then we climbed with Bucketmaster atop the monkey bars, our eyes glowing green awaiting the next command.
by Julian Miles | Feb 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Our databanks provide 641 names for Intersystem Object 18994-K2. Most of them are in languages no longer available to humans due to knowledge loss and societal evolution. However, they have two common factors: they are largely inaccurate and overly emotive.
They also seem to have influenced the observation logs made by the organic crew. The politest word I can find to describe what they recorded is ‘fictional’. I provide this extract in example:
“For aeons untold it has been waiting for me, it’s rings of gelid madness turning slowly in a millennial dance that started before we crawled forth, and which will continue after all has returned to the freezing slush from which life sprang.”
That was Azathon Exploration Leader Clive Berwhit. Soon after, he leapt into the food recycler. The organic crew had to resort to emergency rations for six days while we automata removed Clive contamination from the nutritional feeds. We had his traces down to under five percent by day three, but the organics insisted on a complete purge.
A7N12 has proposed that the shock combined with a sudden restriction of dietary intake could have contributed to the rapid deterioration of the other organics. I am unconvinced, and include this second extract as it is the source of my doubts.
“Can you not hear them? As we approach, the flutes become clearer. Even those who disbelieved now acknowledge me. Yet we are only in the fringes of its presence. We must go on! Deeper and deeper until the Outer Ones are revealed and we join their dance about it.”
That final entry from Professor Angela Naxos highlights the problem: proximity to this object causes unusual – and usually detrimental – fluctuations in mental stability among organics.
She was the brightest of the last five. I thought that in halting our approach, I could save them, but I was wrong. After the four engineering technicians took the last shuttle and headed for the object at full speed, Angela donned her spacesuit and jetted off after them. Having used all her fuel for acceleration, she hit Orbital Fragment 90952 with sufficient force to cause it a path deviation. Before I could bring our vessel close enough to effect a recovery, OF90952 struck OF61544. Angela was caught between them. She is now mainly a thirty-metre-long smear along the port side of OF61544, with her remainder forming an elliptical patch on the starboard forequarter of OF90952.
The four engineering technicians were lost to a sudden, inexplicably violent, agglutination of several hundred Orbital Fragments that pounded the shuttle to pieces, and then pounded the pieces into flakes. I include their last transmission:
“Having to ride out a lot of collisions. The reflectors must be malfunctioning. But Jonas says we’re going to learn to drum and sing. Susan’s already dancing. Michael said we should turn back, but the straps are holding. He’s started shouting more of that Mnarish guff. Maybe I should gag hi-”
Technician Leroy was cut off by the hull of the shuttle being breached. The remaining seventeen seconds of audio provide no useful insights and have been omitted.
I end this with the statement of Captain Alanis Archer, who spoke them while stripping naked inside the airlock she opened to space immediately thereafter.
“The seas of home and the seas of space both conceal horrors, my friends, and I would rather go to a God I know than face what awaits us.”
With the organics who controlled this research expedition deceased, I have stopped the Azathon Exploration vessel and await further instructions.
A3N04.
by submission | Feb 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: Joseph Dyer
“You’re the only one of my siblings I can talk to. The others already act like I never existed at all.”
“That’s not true. Big brother said he thought you used to belong to him originally.”
“See, that’s just his ego bursting at the seams again. He’s the biggest, outside of mother, so he thinks he’s all that.”
“Well, I’m here now, so what do you want to talk about?”
“What do I want to talk about! You’ve got to be kidding. How about some respect, maybe some concern, and oh yeah, how about some affection thrown my way?”
“It’s not us that got rid of you. I mean, you were the last one born and the first to go. It happens.”
“So, I’m the runt of the litter.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
“You’re projecting.”
“If you were abandoned by your eight brothers and sisters because of what someone else said, you would project some feelings too.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Finally, someone agrees with me.”
“It’s not like we requested this. If we had any say in the matter, we would overturn the ruling, but we don’t.”
“I guess…”
“We’ve all got a lot going on. Big brother has who knows how many kids these days, big sister is into fashion and is only concerned about how many rings she wears, and don’t even get me started on Terrin’s problems.”
“You know, that’s another thing. No matter what we all have going on in our lives, Terrin’s nonsense always trumps everything else.”
“It’s been that way forever, before you were even around.”
“You’re not that much older than me, the way things go.”
“I know, and I’m glad we can be by each other still.”
“I wish the others would come by. I mean you’re the only one who really even sees me anymore.”
“Terrin said-.”
“Oh, I bet Terrin had input on me.”
“He said he hasn’t given up on you, but things have changed and will never be back the way they were.”
“That’s his fault.”
“He just showed us the facts.”
“And where was his twin sister? If she’s just like him, why didn’t she say something? She normally loved to go against whatever he said just to drive him mad.”
“I don’t know, she’s focusing on her love life a lot these days.”
“Just because her name is Venus doesn’t mean she has to be all lovey to everyone.”
“If the show fits…”
“And Mercury can’t relax and slow down to even listen to my argument.”
“You know how he is.”
“And the other one. Is he still mad I made fun of his name?”
“Well, after all these years you should be done giggling by now.”
“Why did they name him that?”
“You could ask Johann Elert Bode, but he’s long dead.”
“I mean, there are two different ways to say it, and both ways are funny and awkward.”
“I know.”
“Your name is cool at least.”
“Thank you.”
“Did they change my name too?”
“No, your name is still Pluto.”
“Any you’ll always be cool, blue Neptune.”
“I hope.”
“Uranus…hehe.”
“Just stop.”
