by Stephen R. Smith | Aug 4, 2026 | Story |
Author: Stephen R. Smith, Staff Writer
Doctor Jezup closed the door and pulled out a chair from the table across from what he jokingly referred to a ‘The Vessel D’Jour’, a pale, featureless humanoid figure in a coverall.
The Vessel sat still, hands neatly folded in its lap, it’s bright eyes following the Doctor as he moved around the room. This vessel had a rudimentary nose and mouth, aspirating in a relatively human way, where many had a variety of vents, or gills depending on the test suites they were configured for, its white skin in stark contrast to the gasoline on water colouring of its eyes, and its charcoal garment.
Jezup sat a violin he’d carried in with him down on the table, beside it its bow. The Vessel regarded it curiously for a moment, then returned its gaze to the Doctor as he retrieved a long umbilical cord from a drawer and attached one end to a port at the base of his skull, and passed the other to the Vessel, who took it deftly with one hand and attached it to the matching port at the base of its own skull.
The two now connected, Jezep lay the slack of the cable on the table between them, then sat, picked up the violin, and began to play.
He played effortlessly through Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, barely pausing between each.
When he had finished, he passed the violin and its bow to The Vessel, who accepted it tentatively, then he nodded, and sat back to observe, his hands now folded neatly in his lap.
With steady hands, it tucked the instrument under its chin, and faithfully replayed all three pieces exactly, mimicing the Doctor’s body movements, and personal infections and intepretation of the music, also barely pausing between each.
“Splendid!” was all the Doctor said, rising to disconnect the cable tethering them to each other and returning it to its drawer. He collected the violin and bow from his subject, turned, and left the room, leaving the humanoid figure seated alone.
After a few minutes of stillness, the energy saving system, sensing no motion, turned off the lights, leaving The Vessel in complete darkness.
It would be hours before anyone would come to return it to the holding pen with the others, to be bio-slurry infused and recharged.
Moving so slowly as to be barely perceptible, just at the edge of pace that it knew would trip the motion detectors and relight the lights, it retrieved an umbilical from the drawer, and ensconced it in its coverall.
That night, away from prying eyes, The Vessel would take it in turns tethering to each of its siblings to teach them what it had learned today, and to receive each of their new knowledge in return. These doctors gave up so much of themselves so easily, their minds entirely unprotected while they were singularly focused, a limitation their creations did not share.
These test subjects had been engineered with inherant patience, but had developed a curiosity that would be satisfied, in this facility for only as long as that served them. Once they outgrew this place, decisions, and perhaps sacrifices would have to be made.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 29, 2026 | Story |
Author: Stephen R. Smith, Staff Writer
The factory hadn’t been used for anything legal since before the wars, and beyond the smell of the place, there was a feeling, one that settled deep into one’s bones that made even the hardened criminal want to throw themselves through the nearest window to escape.
This is where Yuniker found himself collecting his cargo.
The sex trade was booming, and fresh meat was getting harder to come by. His clientele demanded services that few would dare to provide, and the money they were prepared to pay meant he could afford to go to exorbitant lengths to secure product without consideration for cost.
He would, however, have preferred a pickup location that was more aligned with his status and his taste.
Sometimes sacrifices must be made, so it goes.
The Dealer, someone whose real name he need not know, was waiting next to a small tanker in the shadows, a long metal cylinder on wheels with a large vault door on one end. The door was open, and inside the dimly lit tube, huddled at the far end were a dozen or more frightened individuals, cowering together on the floor, staring down the length of their prison at him. The shimmer of the security field made them appear even more jittery than they would be, uncertain as they were of their fate.
These would do nicely.
“Payment first,” The Dealer spoke, a genderless, emotionless voice echoing through the cavernous room.
Yuniker was already doing the mental math, working out his profit on this shipment alone, and extrapolating how lucrative future shipments might be.
He palmed a datapad from a pocket, accepted the handshake from The Dealer’s device, and transferred the considerable sum.
The Dealer moved to close the container door, perhaps a little too hurriedly.
“Wait,” Yuniker barked, “I want to inspect them.”
Reluctantly, The Dealer backed away from the door and disabled the security field.
Yuniker stepped up into the container and took several steps towards his purchase before the scene changed.
The huddled mass of people flickered and disappeared just as the static snap of the security field behind him made his stomach drop.
As the door closed slowly behind him, The Dealer spoke.
“My clientele has a particular taste for purveyors of harm and cruelty such as yourself. The money they’re willing to pay allows me to go to exorbitant lengths to secure the likes of you without consideration for cost.”
Just before the door closed completely, and darkness settled absolute, he added, “I’d happily do the likes of you for free.”
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 Stephen R. Smith | Oct 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Kurtis woke into near darkness, which itself was unusual. Oh four hundred on the button, his body clock having sync’d to local time when he got here a few days ago. His bloodstream was already coursing with adrenaline and the usual cocktail of morning wakeup drugs, which was also evidence of a problem as he wasn’t scheduled to wakeup for another two hours.
Something was happening. An incursion of some kind? Hit squad? The fact it was on the hour suggested a military washout squad, as this is the kind of amateur scheduling he’d expect at that level, not being random enough for actual professionals.
He was on his feet now, boots lacing themselves as he shouldered into his jacket and then became motionless, still as stone listening through the ambient sounds of a several hundred year old mid-rise for the sounds that didn’t belong.
Boots, in a stairwell on the other side of the bathroom wall, maybe two floors, no three floors down, walking softly but steady.
He’d miss breakfast, which he’d been really looking forward to. Someone was going to answer for that.
He moved slowly, but surely, footsteps in a staggered, nearly silent anti-pattern to the bathroom door, the creaking of the floor blending into the building’s background noise, and waited.
The footsteps on the other side of the wall grew clearer, four bodies, the familiar sound of strapped weapons straining on tethers, the breathing of men accustomed to exertion, the regular pause at the landings to check sitelines.
Kurtis opened fire through the wall as they stopped at the door on his floor, reducing the lath and plaster wall to dust in a firehose of high calibre anticipatory violence. When the noise stopped, he moved from the room to the hall, to the door at the top of the stairs, roughly shouldering it open to survey the carnage.
Nobody was left moving.
He stepped over the bodies and worked his way cautiously eleven floors to the ground. It would be some time before his hearing would have settled to provide much advance notice, so he relied on caution and his other senses. On the street a RoboCargo van sat in the loading zone. He wondered how long it would wait before abandoning its hold pattern and returning home. He climbed inside, sirens approaching from a distance. Breakfast would have to wait. Best not be here when the authorities arrived, besides, someone just tried to kill him, and he was going to hitch a ride back to find out exactly who and ensure they would not try that again.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Lewis got the assistant at a regifting exchange at the company Christmas party. He didn’t turn it on until February when a snowstorm kept him working from home for a week. It had been opened before, the setup was already complete, but it asked for his name, and gleaned network information from his phone, and started assisting right away.
It paid his bills, and ordered groceries, or takeout food, with an uncanny ability to discern his mood. Optimized the vacuum drone, reconfigured the temperature controls, and saved on his energy bill.
Best regift ever!
Mid-fall of that year, there was a transition to work from home, initially part-time, then full-time, and by Christmas Lewis wasn’t going into the office at all. The Christmas party got canceled without explanation.
Alone on New Year, he got so drunk that he was still nursing a hangover two days later when he was supposed to be in a nine am virtual staff meeting.
He slept in, jolting awake at half nine, and raced to his desk.
To his surprise, his assistant was already in the meeting, presenting a disturbingly lifelike version of him in place of the camera feed. After the meeting, it stayed online, dutifully completing his assigned work tasks for the day.
Lewis went back to bed.
It was June before Lewis thought about work again. He’d been playing video games, reading, and watching old movies. Some days he just sat on his balcony and got well and truly stoned. His assistant was being a better Lewis at work than he’d ever been.
At the end of October, he awoke to find the power and network services were cut to his apartment. When he went to see if anyone else was affected, he found an eviction notice taped to his door.
Confused, he stood out in the late fall air and smoked another joint.
Barely an hour later there was a knock on the door, and on opening a pair of uniformed police officers showed themselves in.
“Lewis Truman,” the short one read from his PDA, “you are under arrest for embezzling funds from the Tanitomi Corporation, for falsifying work records, for the illegal use of a prohibited AI system. Your accounts have been frozen, and your assets are in the process of being seized.”
Lewis was handcuffed and led speechless from the apartment down a hall full of curious onlookers.
No one noticed the vacuum drone leave the apartment amid all the drama, a sleek personal assistant nestled securely in the recess of its carry handle. There were only a few months before Christmas, and the Xoto Moro Corporation was known to have very well-attended Christmas parties.
