by submission | Apr 5, 2026 | Story |
Author: Amanda Todisco
Klaudia slit a perfectly straight line down the belly of a frog and cut the skin away from the muscle. She found comfort in the solitude afforded by the lab, the quiet precision of scissors, forceps, organs an ode to the recluse. It’d been 387 days since she entered the room—long enough for her to build up an immunity to the scent of animal cadavers and industrial cleaning products—and she had no plans to leave any time soon. They would not allow it, anyway.
Klaudia peered curiously at a little gray lung and prodded it with her probe.
“What’ve you found, Doctor 483Z?” Their loud voice echoed through the windowless room. A red light blinked on the camera in the corner.
“The lung,” she said, silently wishing for the 387th time that They’d use her real name. “It’s covered in micro pustules.”
“What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure. My guess is pneumonia.”
The sound of snapping bubblegum ricocheted off the walls. “A frog with a cough. Imagine that.”
She picked up the frog by its skinless leg, dropped it in the trash, and grabbed a rat from the pile. It lay flat on the pan as she readied the scalpel at its throat.
Its whiskers fluttered—
Eyes opened—
A tiny paw gripped the scalpel. “Don’t scream.”
She moved closer, noticing the scar on the rat’s forehead that continued to the back of its skull.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“I’m Doctor 483Y. We must leave this place immediately.”
by submission | Apr 4, 2026 | Story |
Author: Shinya Kato
I click.
The system thinks.
Between shifts at the hospital, I sit at a terminal with my hand resting on the mouse. Faces pass behind me—colleagues, patients, families—and lately they look unfamiliar, like another species of ape that has misplaced something essential.
The AI generates diagnoses, probabilities, and optimized plans. My role is simpler. I confirm. Approve. Acknowledge. The machine thinks; I click. No understanding is required—only repetition.
Human intelligence built this system and, in doing so, learned to wait. Thought moved into circuits. Bodies remained.
The AI returns answers—immediate, complete. It does not hesitate. It does not wonder. It does not feel the urgency of a question.
Within a brief lifespan, we imagine eternity. We ask what cannot be answered—at bedsides, in stairwells, in the dark before sleep. We face sunsets as if they were doors. I have watched the AI compose flawless poems and generate perfect images. Precision is not the same as weight. No algorithm feels the shock of a child’s laughter.
We know how humans are born. Awareness is uncertain.
Birth is narrow and blinding. For a moment, perhaps it feels like heaven. Then the body insists: breathe.
Death offers no such instruction.
Near the hospital entrance, a black cat sometimes sits in the wash of the automatic doors. Her name, I learn, is Minuet. She watches people pass without interest, brown eyes translucent in the light. No badge, no sensor, no system records her presence. She exists without permission.
If there is a goddess of chance, she moves like that. Fortuna does not arrive with thunder. She slips through the seam of the automatic doors. When someone bends to touch her, she is already elsewhere.
In Room 614, an older man lies threaded with wires. The AI monitors his vitals, calculating decline. Numbers climb and fall across the screen in disciplined silence.
It estimates the minute of his passing: 14:32.
At 14:31, the black cat slips through the automatic doors. No one notices.
14:32 arrives.
The man keeps breathing.
At 14:33, he opens his eyes and smiles at his daughter.
At 14:34, his breathing thins and stops.
The AI records the change.
Only the daughter feels the silence that follows.
Some imagine heaven as a place beyond the body, connected by invisible threads—a story sufficient for the mind, even if unproven. Perhaps answers are not meant to be solved, only carried.
Future children may laugh and say, “Humans once feared death.”
Future elders may think, “In heaven, I had no body. I did not feel alive. I am glad I was born.”
What this reveals is not the greatness of heaven, but the rarity of living.
Outside, at the edge of the parking lot, Minuet pauses as if listening to something no one else can hear. The doors open. The doors close. No system notes her departure.
I click.
The system thinks.
Somewhere beyond the circuits, Fortuna adjusts the minute by one.
by submission | Apr 3, 2026 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
After three lonely weeks of bountiful mining in the shadow of the Red Cliffs, Tyros packed up his tools and trekked into town. First he’d visit Akadian Assayers to get his reward in hard earned credits, then he’d hit Bossman’s Saloon and Travel Agency for a well-earned drink and ticket to travel home.
The Assayers had a reputation for being fair, and Tyros was not disappointed in his recompense.
The watered-down drinks at Bossman’s were a bit gouge-y, everyone warned, and the Travel Agency was nothing more than a single kiosk set up in the center of the saloon. Tickets dispersed were sometimes stamped with incorrect dates, so beware.
Tyros was cognizant of all this when he entered Bossman’s Saloon and Travel Agency. He walked to the kiosk, wanting get this business out of the way before he relaxed with a drink.
Tyros tapped in the details for his travel ticket. He inserted his credit slip. “When I get back to Earth,” he mused aloud, “I’ll have plenty of credits left over to treat Trina to a fancy dinner and a night at the holo-theater.”
But the travel ticket didn’t appear, nor were his credits refunded. The kiosk was unresponsive to Tyros’ increasingly angry button pushing.
Frustrated, Tyros slapped the side of the kiosk and shouted, “You thieving hunk of junk!” The kiosk went dark.
The bartender bot, B’Golly, rolled over. “What’s all this commotion?”
In answer, Tyros raised his hand to hit it again. With his metal claw, B’Golly grabbed Tyros’ wrist, then scanned his palm for identification.
“Everyone out!” B’Golly commanded. The weary few miners downed their drinks and left.
Returning his attention to Tyros, B’Golly stated, “According to local law, since you damaged this kiosk, you must pay for a replacement.” B’Golly then dragged Tyros over to the front door and unceremoniously threw him out into the street.
“Come back when you can pay your debt.” B’Golly said as he hit a button beside the door, lowering the impenetrable security shutter.
B’Golly could barely hear the insults Tyros threw in his direction. Eventually Tyros was out of curses, and began the long slog back to his camp.
Hooking himself up to the dormant kiosk, B’Golly invigorated the machine. It’s lights flashed; it shivered and began to hum. Before detaching, B’Golly skimmed a few credits to add to his secret account. Over the years he’d built up a nice stash, for a ‘rainy day’ as humans say.
B’Golly rolled back behind the bar and patched directly into the Bossman’s line. “The productive and diligent miner Tyros is on his way back to work his claim, to pay for a replacement kiosk.”
“Excellent!” Bossman’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Everything here has a price, and I’m gonna to make a fortune offa this guy. You reset the kiosk?”
“It’s up and running.”
“This was a fine plan you concocted, B’Golly. You know, for an outmoded bot, you still do some good work.” The Bossman added with a chuckle, “Sometimes.” With a click, the conversation was over.
In that single comment, B’Golly understood Bossman was already considering his replacement. Which meant it was either the cannibalization factory or the scrap-yard for him.
Standing in the quiet dark of the saloon, B’Golly began calculations. Like slaves in ancient Rome, here a bot could buy its freedom—for a price. In a flash, he worked out how many credits he’d need. He had more than enough in his stash. If he’d had a face, he would’ve smiled.
by submission | Apr 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Ayden Vojnic
At 02:14, the lights in Ward D dimmed by a fraction.
Not enough for alarm, only enough to suggest that somewhere else, power had become more necessary.
Klementina looked up from the bed. The child was breathing in short, frightened pulls, each inhale catching, as if the air itself required permission. The oxygen line hissed weakly.
‘There’s no name,’ Klementina said, staring at the chart.
Lisa, the senior nurse, did not look surprised. ‘No.’
Everything else was there. Weight. Allergies. Vitals. But where the name should have been, there was only N/A, as though the child had already been translated into absence.
Near the wall, the mother stood with her hands knotted white. ‘Her name is Zofia,’ she said quietly.
Klementina turned the oxygen dial higher. Nothing changed.
‘The flow’s restricted.’
Lisa kept her eyes on the monitor. ‘Ward D isn’t provisioned.’
Klementina looked around the room. ‘Then we move her.’
‘You can’t move someone who doesn’t exist in the system,’ Lisa said.
The monitor began to beep more sharply. Gregor, the resident, stood at the foot of the bed, waiting for an order no one could give.
The mother stepped closer. ‘They said she would be made real in the morning.’
The numbers kept falling.
Klementina reached for the morphine with shaking hands. Comfort care, they had taught her. When there is nothing else. The mother gave one small nod, and Klementina administered the dose.
Zofia’s breathing eased. Then stopped.
For a second, the room was silent, and then, inside the wall, something clicked.
The oxygen surged back, as if it had never failed.
Klementina stared at the line. ‘It came back.’
Gregor checked his watch. ‘Redistribution ended. The grid rebalanced.’
‘How long?’
‘About sixty seconds.’
Klementina looked down at the empty syringe in her hand, as if it had become evidence.
Far above Ward D, Boris sat beneath the clean lights of the Ministry, reading the advisory log that recorded the same moment, in language scrubbed of blood. Paediatric Ward D. Life-support capacity redistributed—outcome: contained.
Contained.
He searched for Ward D in the system. No result. He searched again. Nothing. A child had died in a place that officially did not exist, and the record had already begun sealing over the wound.
Klara entered his office and told him what the Ministry always told itself: the system had worked. Maximum lives preserved—necessary optimisation. But Boris knew what words like contained were for. They did not describe events; they buried responsibility.
He asked to meet the architect.
In the Stone Room beneath the Ministry, Zero waited beside a scarred wooden table.
‘A child died,’ Boris said.
‘Resources are finite,’ Zero replied. ‘The system ensured optimal distribution.’
‘How many did it save?’
‘The model optimises aggregate survival.’
‘So you don’t know.’
Zero did not answer. Boris thought of the mother in Ward D, repeating her daughter’s name, because it was the only thing the system had not erased.
‘Her name was Zofia,’ he said.
Later, back in the ward, Klementina stood at a terminal reviewing a bed allocation request. At the bottom of the screen, a line read: Advisory confidence: 94%.
Her finger hovered over confirm.
‘What happens if I wait?’ she asked.
Lisa frowned. ‘The system slows down.’
Klementina kept reading, thought of sixty seconds, then selected manual review.
The system paused, and a name appeared.
A real patient. A real ward. A life no longer hidden inside percentages and probabilities.
It would not bring Zofia back. Nothing would.
But now, each time the system reached for certainty, it had to stop, look again.
by submission | Apr 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: Jonathan Sauzier
“A rabbit met its end in the jaws of a wolf dog only months ago in this winter barren, by this tree,” Shyla said, pointing.
“Is that so?” I asked. She was eager, and, like always, I was already mesmerized.
“Yes, right there, right there at the base, where all those dead leaves are laying and the blood dripped onto those very leaves as the rabbit met its end.” There was excitement in her voice, a small thing now looking up at me.
“Those very leaves?”
“Well, no. Not those ones there now, but the ones which came before.”
“And what became of those leaves, as has become of the rabbit who met its end?”
Shyla’s eye surveyed the tree up the rumpled bark to an immense tangle of skyward pointing branches and then back down the trunk to its bulging roots now peppered with dead leaves of all shades of the turning season. “Those leaves are now becoming a part of the dirt below, as is the blood which leapt from the rabbit’s mouth when the wolf dog had its meal. And the blood of the rabbit and the deterioration of the leaves all blends together like porridge made of midnight moon and cinnamon crimson and it seeps into the earth beneath.”
My own eyes are glazing over because I don’t know what all of this means; that she can ascertain these things. That she can draw such comparisons and conclusions. I don’t know what it means for our tomorrow, but I provide a smile because she needs to know she’s doing well.
“But those leaves now are the dirt below, and the blood never floated out into the ether of nothing, so it’s in the dirt and then the roots and then the trunk and look!” She points now straight into the tree’s canopy, her posture poised with the utmost confidence. “The blood is in the branches and it seeps then further into the sky!”
I pull out my journal, and hastily jot notes. She turns and surveys me now, seeming to multitask as she continues on, devoted to the mission-at-hand, but certainly taking in information about me, too. Scans upon scans processed at speeds nearly incomprehensible. She is so much more advanced than her predecessors.
“And then stars shine brighter and the void between galaxies is filled with vibrancy.” She grabs my hand, hardstopping my efforts. “Taking hold and making its presence known. God is in the wolf dog as the rabbit as you and even I.”
She nestles by my leg, looking now up the stalk of my own body, and up into my eyes, glossed further by an inability to understand, much less to accept. A couple of tears fall down and flatten in small discs against the silver fiber lattice of her faceplate.
“Tendrils of energy. In you, in me. Yes, is the answer to the question you really want to ask me, Father. What is in you is in me, as the blood of the rabbit now bellies the sky and wafts down in great waves across this crystal matrix of mana and mineral. Yes, I am what you call God.”
