by Julian Miles | Oct 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Why thank you, Susan. Happy to be here. You’re very kind, and one of the few to express my troubles so gently.”
“Yes, I can see the reply streams. There’s some lag, but I’m not one for quick banter at the best of times, so it’s no hindrance.”
“By all means go ahead, Susan. Let’s not waste our brief window in idle chat.”
“The Provost Initiative came about from a government contract that was expanded by military interest. However, what caused the havoc at Terminal Ninety was far beyond what I designed. I would characterise it as a mutation built upon my original work. Obviously I can’t be sure as the whole affair is now classified, but from what media I’ve been able to access, my opinion is unchanged.”
“Yes, it came as a significant shock. I had for a very long time been accused of being naïve. Terminal Ninety was what made me admit it to be true. Safe to say it changed me. In the subsequent twenty months Earth time, I’ve had to make some painful decisions about a lot of my ongoing projects, as well as deal with a series of professional and personal attacks. Some of them struck me as being ways of passing the blame to me rather than leaving it on the still-unrevealed organisation behind the biodrone, but I can’t prove anything. Confronted with an absence of effective response options, I’ve decided to move on.”
“Well, Susan, that’s one of the reasons I chose to come on your podcast tonight. I’ve been aware of some of the wild rumours regarding what I’ve been up to. So, when I came to my most recent decision, I thought I’d join you afterwards to talk about it.”
“No, I’m not quitting bioengineering. However, there has been a significant change. If I can just get enough time before our launch window, I’ll explain.”
“Thank you. Okay, this started the weekend after Terminal Ninety. I’d been struggling with the ramifications of it, and finally realised my work had been hijacked just like I’d always been warned about. It seems that how I create is a gift few possess, but many can imitate once they analyse some of my creations.
“I became obsessed with making amends: of creating a miracle cure or similar. Something so staggeringly beneficial my grievous blunder would be overlooked. That obsession is why I’ve been so quiet on the technical front. Indeed, it’s turned out to be the reason why I’m going to need to be quiet for a while longer.
“Two months ago I confirmed resounding success in curing Stage 4 Sarcoma, effective against all the bone subtypes and sixty of the soft tissue subtypes. A month later I finished reviewing the first and second tier possible applications of that cure if there were no constraints placed upon those using it. A fortnight ago I reluctantly conceded that my cure can be used to create monsters that will make the biodrone that tore through Terminal Ninety look like a puppy at play. After consideration, I spent last week completely erasing twenty months of my work to prevent that ever happening.”
“Yes, I’m expecting to be called a liar. It doesn’t change anything.”
“What now? I’m going back to developing an uncompromisable Three Laws equivalent for biodrones along with working to improve routine biodrone repair abilities at the Reguluna Four exploration hub. Now, as we’re about to lose comms for a few hours while accelerating, thank you for having me on your show.”
by Julian Miles | Oct 13, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He doesn’t see me coming: hardly a surprise. Who expects a random victim chosen from a crowd leaving a club to have a bodyguard?
I punch him in the side of the head to get him away from the target, then kick him in the ribs to pre-empt any arguments he might make. Bones break. He staggers off. These streets will be safe from him for a while.
Crouching down by the woman he was terrorising, I smile. Hopefully reassuring, but possibly not. I’m not up on the niceties of social interaction for this world.
“Who are you?”
“Just a passerby who dislikes those who prey on innocents.”
She looks over my militaristic attire, then grins.
“The police might call that ‘going prepared’, you know.”
Oh, I know.
“It’s not the police I’m prepared for. Anyway, you’re safe and I’m not, so this is where we part ways. I have a principal to look after, and I’m late meeting her.”
Always drop a clue.
Before she can follow up on it, I leap up onto a wall, then onto a fire escape, and am on the roof and away in moments.
Activating camouflage and countermeasures, I scale an old building with lots of architectural features: gives me more places to hide. That done, I settle to wait. The alleyway is visible in the middle distance. I grin. Start the clock…
Eight minutes to first contact: two police officers accompanying the woman. I see her pantomiming my exit while pointing up at the building I scaled. They’re reporting in. Here we go.
Twenty minutes more until plainclothes officers, presumably police, arrive. The woman is interviewed again, then escorted away by the uniformed officers.
Thirty minutes after, a lone operative in a suit arrives and talks to the plainclothes officers. They depart together. I bet they’re having a thrilling conversation involving more guesswork than any of them are happy about.
It’s barely a half-hour before dawn when the main show begins. A pinnace with visibility suppression and more sensors than this world could ever dream of parks itself above the scene of the attack. From that effortlessly hovering baby warship a six-being team drops onto the dirty pavement. With the smooth precision of an often-practised routine, they check the area for traces of me, confirm it, search the near range, then pack it up. I watch them. Looks like Dogan is off duty tonight, and they’ve got a new member. He’s about the same size, but not as graceful.
With the team rising towards their ship, the petite lead agent looks about the scene one final time. As she rises, she taps two fingers against her neck.
Love you too. Stay safe.
The pinnace takes off. Wait for it…
It returns from a different direction a few minutes later, lingers for a moment, then departs at speed.
Give them a couple of days to get thoroughly engrossed in trying to find my principal and I’ll take one of the regular stealth flights out of here.
It’s been seven years since Carrie and I parted ways. The Hegemony don’t know what she looks like, but they know me. So they track what they know, reasoning she’ll always be nearby. What they don’t know is she’s been part of their ranks since creche. Her parents were brilliant like that. Body doubled from birth, while enrolling her as an orphan recruit.
Now the heiress the Hegemony wants dead leads the hunt for herself. One day we’ll meet and talk again. Until then – two fingers to the neck, checking for a pulse: still alive.
by Julian Miles | Oct 6, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He sits there like some statue against the rising full moon, hook nose and narrow chin in profile, eyes lost in shadow beneath tousled curly hair from which wisps of smoke rise, describing silver trails in the moonlight.
“You’re burning.”
“It’s residual slipcharge. Nothing I can do. Pour water on it and I’ll just bubble and steam as well as smoking.”
Which brings us neatly to the important question.
“How are you even here?”
The profile lifts for long enough for a sigh and a cough to escape, then drops back.
“Professor Tifuro told me it’s a confirming anomaly. It means that what we achieved with the Daggerbolt Mission is without precedent in the temporal history of this reality.”
Mission? I thought it wasn’t official?
“So you succeeded?”
“When did Shanghai fall?”
It what? I check my datapad.
“It’s not even under attack. Do I need to alert anyone?”
He shakes his head and smiles at me.
“No… No, you never will. Not now.”
I’m missing something.
“Reo, what happened? You and the Professor disregarded safety guidelines and legal challenges, setting off on an experimental temporal journey to prove time travel was possible, despite it being called reckless, dangerous, and impossible. That was three months ago! Then I come up here tonight to raise a glass in your brother’s memory – and yours – to find you here like it’s our usual memorial night.”
“Three months…”
He closes his eyes and nods his head, then stares at me.
“In the original timeline, a nameless race invaded Earth two years ago. Humanity had lost a horrific war, marked only by the increasingly desperate measures we used while trying to defeat them. By the time the Professor proposed his crazy plan, the Earth was a toxic wasteland. Ninety-nine percent of humanity were dead. He said he’d run projections, and the only way to save ourselves was for the original scouting mission from the nameless race to not find Earth. In fact, he confided in me that alternate timeline versions of himself had left notes telling him the only sure way was a paradox inversion.”
“Paradox what?”
“To rearrange the timelines so this peaceful world is the primary and all versions of the invaded Earth become aberrant realities that dead end in the catastrophic backlash of our temporal meddling.”
Hold on –
“Then how are you here?”
“Slipcharge, again. I can be anywhere because I don’t exist or belong in this reality. So I chose here. To see you. To share a last memorial night.”
I poke his arm.
“You’re pretty solid for a ghost.”
He frowns.
“Don’t know how it works. Tifuro wasn’t sure. Reckoned I’d be good until the residual charge dropped past a certain threshold. He couldn’t even say if you’ll remember me being here.”
“Unlikely to forget this.”
“Purely because you’re confronting the paradox. When that’s over, amnesia is the easiest way for causality to fix things.”
I raise a glass to him, then towards the sky.
“One part of me thinks you’re mad, another thinks I’m mad and hallucinating. So, on balance, here’s to you two for saving the world. I think your brother would be proud.”
“I th-”
There’s sudden cold breeze. Looking round, there’s nothing up here with me. Must have been a bat or something.
by Julian Miles | Sep 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Someone’s coughing hard within the cloud of smoke and dust that conceals the aftermath of this epic confrontation.
A hoarse voice shouts.
“Hey, Storm Queen, blow this crud away. I can’t see.”
The coughing stops and a guttural voice replies.
“She’s gone.”
The first voice swears low and hard, then both return to coughing. The dense cloud slowly thins until something thunders by above, tearing it apart in the slipstream.
Shawn ‘Captain Impervious’ Smithson of Team Explosive Fix straightens up slowly, peering through the remaining strands of blown smoke.
His eyes widen.
“You!”
Dust has dimmed the sheen of their green-blue scales, but the twisted horns rising above a crest that runs from brow to tail-tip are unmistakeable: the alien warlord nicknamed Scaleon has survived yet another attempt to kill them.
Scaleon looks up from where they’re wiping blood from their claws. Without stopping, they gesture to the surroundings with the swing of a long snout.
“As ever, I am impressed by what you’re prepared to destroy to prevent us peacefully interacting with you. I am less impressed by the sheer number of your own you seem happy to sacrifice while doing so. Before you launch another attack at me, tell me why you’re so scared of peaceful visitors from another world?”
Shawn balls his fists and runs a status check across his gear. Comms are offline, but he’s got access to an Executioner drone that’s reporting as viable. It’ll take a few minutes to get here, but a nuclear blast will deal with this alien scum, just like it did the ones in Chicago, London, and Madrid. His best play is to stall for time.
Scaleon waves a cleaned hand about.
“Come now. None of your little watchers remain, and your communications web is down. There’s no-one to report you. Tell me, Captain. Why do you fear us so?”
Shawn puts fists on hips and nods towards the undamaged sections of the city, far in the distance.
“It’s not fear. It’s defending our way of life. About a century ago, immigrants nearly ruined us. Luckily a visionary president took power in time to save us from our forefather’s misguided generosity. Since then, we’ve liberated half the world from the lesser races. The last thing we need is an invasion by Goddamn giant lizards from outer space. We’re so close to realising that president’s ‘One God, One Planet’ vision.”
Scaleon pauses for a moment, then shakes their head.
“Hear me, Captain. Long ago, we nearly lost our civilisation to a combination of xenophobic beliefs and tyranny. Since avoiding that at great cost, we’ve deliberately and rigorously kept religion and governance apart. Life is better for all because of it. As for this ‘invasion’? We came to trade with our closest neighbours. Unfortunately, we arrived at a bad time. The problem you cannot see is something you must work out among yourselves. We’ll leave. Eventually, we’ll meet again.”
Shawn watches in amazement as Scaleon rises into a formerly empty sky, where a sizeable spacecraft has appeared. When the creature is aboard, the craft disappears upwards at incredible speed, leaving nothing but a shimmering contrail.
He sets the drone to linger. Comms crackle to life. The shouting on all channels is jubilant. The scaly invaders have retreated, driven back by the super-powered teams and their supporting forces.
Shawn calls the Redline.
“Smithson here. Alien withdrawal stated to be temporary. They also explicitly stated opposition to the ‘One God, One Planet’ objective. Smithson out.”
In a darkened oval office, someone chuckles quietly.
“Alien re-invasion? Excellent. Something real for the people to hate.”
by Julian Miles | Sep 15, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It’s so quiet. Even after blasting clouds of dust out through the skylight and dormer window using drone downdraft, it’s like something muffles sound. The noises of removers outside and below, the clanging as Chan works on the decrepit old truck, it’s all muted. I’m grateful for it persisting. Muted, but never cold…
Like Tona, like Calliyanne. Living quietly, not going out, shopping via drone delivery. How difficult must it have been at the start, or did they do it naturally?
Naturally, of course. Like they accomplished everything else, from bringing down the Canguras Empire to leaving London before fomented prejudices turned to violence, it would have been like they’d rehearsed it a hundred times, every action calm and composed.
How do I pack without knowing the reasons for stuff being up here? In a house – and lives – so effortlessly organised, nothing would be simply dumped. What’s up here arrived by conscious decision, not a flighty urge to declutter below. Why did I insist I’d clear the attic?
I can almost hear them laughing as they gently chide me. “Because you felt it the right thing to do. Now pack it as it needs to be, not for why it was.”
Wiping a tear before it has a chance to escape my eye, I set to once again. Today’s been a series of stop/starts, even after instructing the removal crew. The stops are when I get overwhelmed, the starts almost resentful at having to carry on. For all that life down here seems indifferent to their passing, the messages from across former Empire space reassure me there’s been proper respects paid in many, many places.
Another tarnished tin. I tilt it to read the label: ‘Ted Recali’… That’s me!
I turn it back and forth. Looks like old metal, doesn’t rattle, can’t feel anything shifting about inside. I check my hands: clean. The tarnishing is cunning art. I try to crush it a little with my enhanced arm. Servos whine, my fingers hurt, but the box doesn’t deform.
Labelled for me, disguised as junk, made of some space-side alloy.
Naturally…
I press my thumb to the label. A hologram bust of Tona appears in the air in front of me! The resolution is insanely high; it’s like he’s actually here. As I marvel, the hologram expands to include Calliyanne. They speak together, the disturbing-but-comforting synchrony all Cangurassi lifepairs have.
“H’lo, Ted. Chances are you’re sitting in a nearly empty attic, just staring. Before you worry, this is nothing momentous. Simply a little gift. Sorry to have passed on so suddenly, but our travels about the galaxy took an invisible toll we only became aware of very recently. Shame, really. We’d have done things differently a couple of times, if we’d been warned.
“Knowing you like we do, there’s an itinerary of the contents of our home, complete with background information if noteworthy, on the SSD in the lock box that should still be under this.”
Looking down, I see it is.
“You always commented about the quiet here. What you’re holding is the source: a Quietbox. There aren’t many. It’s mainly a multi-purpose shielding device. There’s a rough guide in the notebook, also in the lockbox.”
I check. One notebook, one SSD.
“You just checked, didn’t you?”
They even paused for me to do it. They’re laughing. Crying, I still can’t help joining in.
“Live well, dear friend. Go and see some of the wonders we’ve spoken of.”
The hologram vanishes.
Go and see…
Yes. I might just do that.
