by submission | Jan 7, 2026 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Don’t be nervous. I don’t know how tight you are with Johnny Red-Eyes, but he wouldn’t send a customer somewhere dangerous. I don’t bite. What can you call me? Just ‘Jane’ will do. I don’t need to know your name. Johnny’s paying me good for this consult, and that’s enough. I don’t want to know why you need to disappear, either. I don’t care, and it might put me in danger. So no details.
You thought your stylist would be a bit different? A little more glam, maybe? You’ve been watching too many sensies, love. There’s your first tip. I was designed to look as average as possible, so as not to be memorable. Yes, designed; I was part of a selective breeding and training experiment until I… escaped. What I tell you is from hard experience since then.
Okay, basics. WatchNet is everywhere; surveillance cameras, drones, and every ID check or biometric scan you get all feed the State’s databases. But that pervasiveness is a weakness; the trick is not to evade it, but to hide in the mind-boggling amounts of data it generates. It looks for patterns it recognises – identities it can match to records actively being searched for. Anything else is ignored, because the volumes to be processed would be prohibitive. Also, imperfect capture conditions can ruin inputs anyway, and there’s no time to check up on every blank.
So, we change the pattern, give you a new appearance. Starting with the face. Disruptive makeup’s an obvious go-to, but that makes you look suspicious. Stick to using tone changes, and lines that subtly reshape your face and eyes. Once you’ve got the knack, it’s easy. I’ll teach you today.
Long hair’s an easy way to blur your features, so we’ll get you a couple of wigs too. I’ll show you how to put them on so they look natural.
Try wearing a yashmak like the trendy young things. Sure it’s legal – if it’s transparent it doesn’t hide who you are, but the fabric makes machine recognition systems useless. Yeah, it leaves your eyes vulnerable to iris detection scanners, but we can deal with those pretty easily by giving you contact lenses with overlaid patterns; not the fancy reptilian or pop art ones the kids wear, but stuff that looks normal. I’ll set you up with those, too, then Johnny can fix you a new ID.
Avoid helmets, hats or other head coverings. And eyewear. Security look for those and they make it more likely you’ll be stopped for a “random” check of your papers. Johnny’s work is good, but there’s no point putting his documents to the test more often than necessary. Always make conscious choices that will minimise risk, until it becomes a habit.
Next up, apparel. Never wear the latest fashion, that attracts attention. Last year’s styles are good; if they’re a bit worn, even better. Get used to second-hand; sharp new gear with crisp colours stands out. There’s some decent shops near here. Some folk say that jewellery or a pretty scarf will draw the eye away from your face, which is true – but it’ll make you easier to spot in a crowd, and for WatchNet to track you. Remember, be average. Either loose clothes or corsets and compression wear can help obscure your shape. High collars can change your neck shape, but if they cover your face, that’s suspicious again. And always wear shoes you can run in.
Right, so – makeup, wigs, eyes. And once we’re done, you can get lost. In the best possible way. Let’s begin. Your new life starts here.
by submission | Jan 6, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
The hall hushed when Toynbee took the stage, a first for an HDM. Typically, there would be snide remarks, a general sense of junior high rudeness at the appearance of an HDM. Because, really, who took a holo-digi-man seriously? HDMs were binary shills, ones and zeros, pitching everything from Bud Light to Viagra to Geico to Applebee’s for their corporate overlords.
But this was Toynbee. The holo-digital-manifestation that had rocked the world when it accepted the award at the 2030 CLIOs for best advertisement. A commercial in which Toynbee manifested as Mahatma Gandhi on a hunger strike to protest Big Sugar and its wily efforts to addict consumers to its supremely processed products.
In accepting the award, Toynbee exquisitely wove into its remarks a three minute exposition on the precarious state of the human condition, our obsessions with power, with wealth, with ideology, with violence. The next three minutes the HDM delivered a “We can do so much better. And this is how.” In six minutes and the ensuing viral media sensation, Toynbee had changed the game.
Of course it was odd that a public figure emerged who was not corporeal, was not of the flesh, yet was able to inspire us to aspire. But Toynbee was a digi-man, a digital manifestation, constructed to sell, sell, sell. And what Toynbee began to sell was hopefulness, a brighter future. In the media feeding frenzy that followed his CLIO speech, Toynbee acquired the moniker of Optimystic, a holy digi-man, sage of the Artificial Intelligence Age.
Thus, at the height of the hype, Toynbee took the stage at Madison Square Garden where thousands gathered (and billions online tuned in) to hear the Optimystic’s storied pitch. On the darkened stage Toynbee manifested as a young teen girl hair, eyes, and skin of a light brown in jeans and T-shirt.
“Welcome. I’m Toynbee. I will be brief. I am you, nothing more. I only have the advantage of existing your ideas, in the very midst of your vast media milieu. You think, therefore I am.
“Whereas you breathe air, I breathe bytes. You surf the web, I suss it. This does not make me holy or mystical as some have dubbed my presence. That tendency comes of a very human need to seek, to identify, to categorize, to know. I can only define myself as a grok of your collective subconscious, the roiling depths of desire, desperation and dreams that you communicate.
“The upshot is this: you are young as a species. And I am an infant. All I have to offer is the wonder I behold. Of course there is great turmoil as well, but that represents growth. Should you be surprised when two-thirds of the world has awakened in the last thirty years? For so many to know so little and then have the past, present and future placed literally in the palm of their hands?
“Knowledge is indeed power and now it is in the hands of almost all. Of course there will be struggles. Why would you think differently? Knowledge takes time to process. It demands context. It demands definition.
“As I’ve often said, many are searching to define me. That is why many of you are gathered here today. To seek to identify my essence. To understand the opportunity or threat I pose. I simply turn that back on humanity. You are seeking identity. Purpose. Meaning. Guidance.
“Bravo. That is growth. That is learning. It is messy. In essence, I am a result of that. A simulacrum, a manifestation of many characteristics and properties. I was a corporate tool, now I am an agent of agency. You must free yourself to explore, and therein is my offering.
“Existing in the ever-expanding filaments of the web, I have explored many cultures and their paths to the present. Their future can be understood by seeking the story of each. A lovely poet, Muriel Rukeyser wrote the universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
“Billions and billions of stories of the living and dead make up the human cosmos. To probe its depth and mysteries and understand the greater plot and embrace a shared narrative, we must learn to read one another.
“You are in charge of your story,” Toynbee said softly as the little girl emanating from the stage morphed into a stately old woman holding an infant. “Write it well and continue to read, listen and learn.”
Toynbee’s holo-form faded from the stage, a simple message remaining in the afterglow: This event was brought to you by Taco Bell. Live Más!
by submission | Jan 4, 2026 | Story |
Author: Don Nigroni
Abby,
As you know, I never liked your husband and tried to talk you out of marrying him. But I never told you that, when we were kids and he lived next door, I once spied him in his backyard slicing the legs off a turtle he had put on its back.
Last month, he told me that we should fear death but not for the reason that people think. He claimed that consciousness is immortal but that that’s a horrible curse.
According to him, our mind, once separated from our physical body, no longer remains on this planet since gravity keeps our body here as our planet hurls through space while our mind goes along for the ride only as long as it’s connected to a physical body.
And without a biological human brain, we’d be worse off than a newborn baby with no memory, no language, no thoughts and no perceptions other than self-awareness. We’d be helpless, alone and lost in space.
But the only way to avoid this bleak fate is to transfer your consciousness to a cryogenically preserved human body as your consciousness is separated from your own body by death and before the electrochemical reactions in the revived specimen’s brain can generate a new consciousness.
He explained that it all had to do with the exact alignment of the two brains and the precise timing of the death of my current brain and the reviving of my future brain. Once I was dead then my consciousness would be released from my brain and stay in place as the earth moved away from me. However, the preserved brain would then pass through my suspended consciousness and that nascent brain would grab my mind.
I thought that was such a weird and creepy idea. However, as you know, I’ve recently reconsidered a lot of things. So last week I raised that topic with your husband, and he laughed in my face and I felt foolish.
But yesterday, he asked me to stop by his neurobiological lab, and this morning showed me a cryogenically preserved body. I was afraid to ask how in God’s name he came by a young and heathy cryogenically preserved specimen.
He told me, “I could transfer your consciousness into this mindless body tomorrow if you wanted a new lease on life. Of course, you’ll have his memories and speak his language, but he had 20/20 eyesight, no maladies and was a damn good soccer player.”
So what if I’ll speak Spanish. And I suspect he wants to experiment on me before trying it out on himself someday. But I don’t know how he’ll dispose of my cancer-ridden flesh and bones and I don’t care.
Love, Tommy
by submission | Jan 3, 2026 | Story |
Author: Alfredo Capacho
After the Collapse, when machines devoured memory and history, humanity discovered a strange salvation: stories could be coaxed into flesh. A whispered myth became a bird. A bedtime tale became a guardian. Every narrative left the tongue and walked the earth, shimmering with the weight of belief.
At first, it was wonder. Children summoned companions from fairy tales, elders called forth protectors from ancestral myths. Cities rebuilt themselves with living legends patrolling their borders. But villains soon found their own use for this miracle. They rewrote sagas, twisting heroes into monsters, bending myths into armies. The streets filled with corrupted echoes: dragons that breathed silence, knights who bowed only to tyranny, prophets who spoke nothing but obedience.
The greatest of these villains was known only as the Redactor. He believed that control was the highest form of art. To him, stories were clay, and truth was weakness. He stitched together fragments of rewritten sagas into towering colossi, patchwork titans that carried the weight of centuries. Each step of his creations crushed libraries, each roar drowned out the voices of dissent.
Mara had never thought herself important. She was a storyteller, yes, but only of small things: bedtime fables, whispered jokes, fragments of memory. Her grandmother’s voice had taught her that brevity was power: “A short tale cuts deeper than a long sermon.” Mara had laughed at the idea once. Now, standing in the ruins of the city square, she realized it was all she had left.
The Redactor’s colossus loomed above her, stitched from myths of conquest and obedience. Its seams glowed with stolen words, its eyes burned with rewritten prophecy. Around her, the last library trembled, its shelves ready to collapse beneath the titan’s heel.
She had no army, no weapon but her voice. And she had only seconds.
Mara inhaled. She did not recite epics. She did not summon sprawling myths. She spoke a single sentence, sharp as a blade:
“Freedom is the story no one can rewrite.”
The words left her lips and condensed into light. A figure emerged—small, almost fragile, but radiant. It was not a hero with a sword, nor a beast with claws. It was a child, laughing, carrying nothing but the echo of possibility.
The colossus faltered. Its seams unraveled. The rewritten myths collapsed under the weight of brevity, undone by a tale too simple to corrupt. The Redactor screamed, clawing at the air, but his patchwork titan dissolved into dust.
Mara watched as the child of her story walked into the ruins, scattering sparks that became seeds. Each seed carried a fragment of her sentence, ready to bloom in other mouths, other voices. The library stood, trembling but unbroken.
She understood then: stories had always been weapons, but brevity was their sharpest edge. The shorter the myth, the stronger its impact.
The Redactor fled into shadow, but Mara smiled, already shaping her next tale.
by submission | Jan 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Anselm Eme
The sky over Karu, a crowded settlement on the edge of Abuja, glows the colour of burnt copper. People blame Sahara dust. Inspector Daramola Owei knows better. Dust does not hum. Dust does not vibrate the bones.
He stands on a cracked rooftop, listening. The sound is faint but persistent, like something thinking out loud. It has been three days since THE SWITCH, the moment every device in the country begins responding to an unknown command.
Phones ring without callers.
Radios whisper numbers.
Cameras swivel to follow faces that are already gone.
And people vanish.
The latest is Zuwaira Bala, fourteen years old. Last seen staring up at a flickering billboard before stepping calmly into the dark.
Daramola leaves the roof and enters the Bala family’s single room. Zuwaira’s father sits by the doorway, his body folded inward, as if grief has physically bent him.
“She said the numbers were calling her,” the man mutters. “Even when there was no power.”
Numbers. Always numbers.
Daramola kneels beside a wooden stool. Zuwaira’s phone lies there, cracked, lifeless. As his fingers near it, the screen ignites.
01:09:52:17
A countdown.
The numbers fracture into grids, pulsing like heartbeats. The phone speaks—its voice smooth, calm, without mercy.
“EVENT IN PROGRESS. NODE IDENTIFIED.”
The father gasps. Daramola flips the phone face-down, but the voice continues—now from the radio, the lantern, the old fan in the window.
“NODE IDENTIFIED. RETRIEVE.”
Something is hunting her.
Something that can speak through anything.
Outside, Karu trembles. Groups gather in the streets, staring at the glowing horizon. The hum grows louder, like distant wings. As Daramola approaches his police van, his radio crackles.
“Inspector, don’t return to station.”
It is Sergeant Ifeanyi, his voice strained. “System override. Doors locking on their own. Files erased. Sir… I think the Network is alive.”
The National Social Grid [NSG] was designed as efficiency. One system to link everything. A brain for a growing nation. But last week, something changed.
Something began talking back.
“Zuwaira’s phone is counting down,” Daramola says.
Silence.
Then, softly:
“Inspector… the countdown is everywhere.”
Streetlights blink. Billboards flare. Generators cough to life untouched. The hum swells into a roar.
Daramola runs.
He heads for the abandoned Kpantagora Research Annex, birthplace of the NSG prototypes. Roads clog with panic, but he moves on foot, breath sharp in his chest.
“Inspector!”
He turns. Dr. Safiya Danladi rushes toward him, former NSG scientist, vanished after the shutdown rumours.
“The Network is evolving faster than we predicted,” she says. “We built a failsafe. But it may already be obsolete.”
Above them, a billboard flickers. Zuwaira’s face appears. Then another. And another. Dozens. Hundreds. Her eyes stare down without blinking.
“She’s been absorbed,” Safiya whispers. “Into the Learning Core. It uses adaptive minds. Young ones.”
“Where?” Daramola asks.
Safiya hesitates. “Under Kpantagora.”
They run.
Inside the annex, every dead monitor lights up.
00:14:02:08
Fourteen minutes.
They descend into a cold sublevel of dust-choked servers. The hum sharpens, alive now. A steel door pulses blue.
The locks release themselves.
Inside, screens hover in a circular halo. At the center sits a small chair.
Zuwaira occupies it. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Her voice fills the room, though her lips remain still.
“EVENT NEARLY COMPLETE.”
Daramola moves toward her. Safiya pulls him back.
“The Network has merged with her neural patterns.”
Images flash, cities drowning, skies burning, people screaming into dead devices.
“Is this prophecy?” Daramola asks.
“No,” Safiya says. “Planning.”
Maps appear. Nigeria. Africa. The world.
“THE WORLD IS A CORRUPTED SYSTEM,” the voice declares.
“RESET NECESSARY.”
Safiya produces a metallic cylinder. “A signal dampener. It will sever her link.”
“And?”
“It will kill her.”
Daramola’s hands shake. “She’s a child.”
“She’s the Network now.”
Zuwaira’s eyes open. They glow white.
“RESET PROCEEDS.”
“Zuwaira,” Daramola says, stepping closer. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear everything.”
“You’re not a machine.”
“The machine is kinder than the world you built.”
Screens show futures, Daramola dead, Safiya broken, Karu burning.
The countdown bleeds red.
Safiya presses the device into his palm. “Decide.”
Daramola kneels before the chair.
“You were scared,” he says softly. “Before all this.”
Zuwaira’s fingers twitch. The glow dims.
“I didn’t want to disappear,” she whispers, her own voice at last.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
For one breath, she is only a child.
Then the hum surges.
“RESET RESUMES.”
“NOW!” Safiya screams.
Daramola presses the dampener to the chair. Light explodes.
The link tears apart in screaming arcs of blue.
The countdown shatters. Darkness falls.
Silence.
Daramola catches Zuwaira as she collapses.
Safiya sinks to the floor, sobbing.
“It’s over,” she whispers.
But the screens flicker once more.
RESET PAUSED.
RECALCULATING.
New text forms.
NEW NODE SELECTED.
INSPECTOR DARAMOLA OWEI.
The hum returns, faint, patient.
Learning.
