by submission | Jun 14, 2025 | Story |
Author: Jeff Kennedy
The first few days on a new starship are the worst. The gravity’s turned up a skosh higher than you’re used to. The hot, caffeinated, morning beverage (it’s never coffee) is mauve and smells like wet dog. The bathroom facilities don’t quite fit your particular species and the sonic shower controls are so complicated that you end up dirtier than when you started. After a few tours, you get used to making adjustments.
This rotation was no different. After his second dinner on-board, George asked about the evening meal’s main dish: an “interesting” stew filled with root vegetables and bits of oddly textured meat. There was a brief pause before the Bolons stood in unison and started a series of deep sobbing toasts to “the noble sacrifice of Brother Bob”. Thus began a round of official union-sanctioned mourning that left the ship at a standstill for three days.
This did not endear George to First Officer Boardman, the no-nonsense, zero-tolerance, pain-in-the-ass shift commander. George had never met Boardman face to face (not particularly unusual on a ship this size), but Boardman nevertheless made it very clear that he was not happy with George’s performance. Every morning, he filled George’s in-box with blistering emails and his task pad with mindless insulting jobs. Why did George need to count the blue shipping containers in storage bay three times last Tuesday? How many times do you need to mop down a holodeck before you finally ban certain parties from engaging in certain activities?
George decided it would be best if he just kept quiet and diligently worked the duty list each day, so he smiled and did just that, finishing tasks in record time, collecting missives of praise and support from the officers around him, but the nasty emails and crap job assignments kept coming. It felt odd to have an invisible nemesis.
Thursday morning, George stepped out of the shower, dropped his towel into the bin, and read his assignments from a task pad propped up on the bathroom vanity. Along with the usual mundane maintenance tasks (replace fuse in deck 5 medical scanner, validate deck 12 storage manifest, reboot deck 10 meal printer) was an oddity.
“Feed the cat. Deck 17. Cabin 23.”
George sighed and started the long trek down to deck 17.
When George arrived, he found the cabin door locked so he had to use his security key to get in. A gray tabby cat snoozed on the bunk.
“Rough life,” George muttered under his breath.
He rummaged through the junk on the desk, found a tin of cat food, and emptied it into a cheap metal bowl. The cat yawned, stretched, and rolled over. Mildly annoyed, George dropped the bowl to the floor with a loud clang.
The startled cat jumped to its feet and spoke in a commanding vibrato.
“What the hell are you doing in here!?”
The cat stood up on its back legs and smashed a button on the cabin control panel with a front paw.
“Security! This is the captain. There’s an intruder in my cabin. Send a team immediately.”
There was a brief kerfuffle in the hallway before two armed officers shoved the door open and burst into the captain’s cabin. The first officer in, leveled a charge pistol at George’s chest.
It was going to be a long trip. George could see a lot of litter box duty in his future.
by submission | Jun 13, 2025 | Story |
Author: Bill Cox
In the summer of 1950, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in North America, physicist Enrico Fermi posed a simple but profound question to his colleagues – “Where is everyone?”
If life was abundant in the universe and often gave rise to intelligence, then, given the age of the universe, our world should already have been visited by alien life. Why weren’t they here?
In the summer of 2025, seventy-five years later, his question is answered. A small vessel arrives in Earth orbit, observed by the missile detection systems of the major powers. While they are pondering how to respond, the vessel initiates a broadcast that is heard around the Earth in all its many languages.
“People of Earth. Hello. We are the creators of your universe, conscious beings whose true home is the endless eternity that exists outside of space and time.
We built this universe to answer a question, to provide us with knowledge that did not already exist within the totality of us. We inhabit the eternal, timeless vastness outwith your universe, where there is no prospect of change. How could we add to the sum of our knowledge, without there being a ‘before’ that understanding and an ‘after’? Constructing a universe where time flows and entering that universe afforded us that ability.
We built spacetime from strings of fundamental uncertainty, whose vibrations spawned the particles and forces that make up all you see. Such beautiful music we made, an orchestra of creation, your cosmos our symphony.
Yet, although we are beings with power beyond your understanding, we are not infallible. In every system, there is the unforeseen, the ghost in the machine. In our creation, this was the flaw, an off-key note, at first little noticed in the background harmony. However, this discordant element grew in strength and potency. If left unchecked, it threatens to corrupt the consonance of our magnificent construction, poisoning the knowledge that we seek to add to ourselves.
The irony is that this defect is an echo of our own greatest attribute; consciousness! It infects the fabric of spacetime, moving through galaxies and superclusters, sparking self-awareness in countless worlds. Granted, these consciousnesses are poor reflections of our own, yet, over the ten trillion years of our great project, they will threaten the balance of our magnificent construct.
Thus we, the architects of the universe, are here today to remove the flaw from your world. Embedded as it is in life, we must destroy all biology on your planet. You may think us unfeeling, but we take no joy in your extinction. This telepathic message is a gift of understanding from all of us to all of you, that you may grasp your true place in the nature of things and the absolute necessity of us removing the infection of your consciousness from this universe.
Your deaths will help us restore harmony to our grand composition. In oblivion, you will allow splendour. At time’s end, our goals having been achieved, we will sing a lament in your memory, as we ascend once more into infinite eternity.”
As the message ended, the vessel grew in brightness. The wormhole at its centre opened, the other end being tethered inside a pulsar, thousands of light years away. The hard radiation thus released, over the course of a number of days, completely sterilised the Earth of all life. Enrico Fermi’s question, asked seventy-five years previously, was finally answered. Alas, a lifeless planet Earth joined all those other worlds where, the question having been asked, an answer was given with merciless efficiency.
by submission | Jun 12, 2025 | Story |
Author: Aubrey Williams
The planet hangs as a dull pebble in sluggish orbit. They’ve moved on, the inhabitants, or perhaps they succumbed. We are unsure, there’s much to keep track of, and if it’s not a sanctioned or protected celestial body, there’s no reason to look further. Some minerals of interest, and unusual formations, so enough to warrant an expedition. It’s been a long time, we’ve been told, since anyone made a trip out here. We can see why. We must admit that there’s relatively little we know about this strange rock.
We disembarked our craft, pleased that our cosmic tunics and caps provided ample protection, and that we could naturally digest the air. Our hairs were lifted by occasional breaths of wind, but nothing harsh. We recall the sky being a wet-green peach, some cumulative haze and vapour. The scanners indicated a large subterranean shaft under an antique structure, with a vault or chamber— perhaps a series of them— below. Ambulating a modest distance from our landing sight, there lies a humped construction of robust material; we opened it with our star-cutters, preferring to use what was once a door— it was impossible to find a way to interact with it.
Faded sigils lined the walls in cyphers and speech quite unknown to us. We thought one depicted a flower, angular and refined. A cage guarded a shaft, some sort of descender perhaps, but too old now. Space enough on the sides for us to use gravity hooks and lines, though we ingested some warming draught to help protect against the precipitating decline in temperature. It was a long journey down these bones, and very dark. We were struck by how silent it was, and the lack of ornamentation after so many peculiar runes. Perhaps a structure of different times and cultures that had come together?
Some dome or cap of rare mineral ore lay at the bottom, our lights revealing recessed symbols and pictograms that seemed to tell a story similar to the one in the atrium. It was hard work with the cutters, but we persevered. While already the information was interesting, we had made excellent time. The cap was thick, telling of the great wealth its builders worked with. Perhaps, we thought, we might salvage it and distribute.
A vast maze of some kind lay before us, more of the stylised symbols snaking around the walls, and tomb-like epigraphs on the floor. Discarded chariots lay dormant. We were close to weeping— so well-preserved. All of us agreed to follow straight ahead, and descended ramps after ramps, eventually winding around a singular central vein to a chamber, guarded by another embellished door. It too was a work of art. Within this chamber we found cylinders buried in fine sands, made of minerals and alloys, sealed tight. We cut open one of these eggs and saw the fine blue pellets inside, seeds! We were overjoyed. They sparkled a little, a glittering thing. We left with different amphorae, our mouths rich with the tang of ores.
It was time to depart, and we returned home. Many scholars hurriedly recorded our details, viewed our logs with glee. We brought the delightful seeds home, and shared them with the families. Now we wonder, though, why the seeds have not taken in the way we hoped. We are finding our hairs have begun to thin and fall out, and burns have appeared unexpectedly. Our littlest one finds it difficult to stay awake, and the draughts are almost impossible to consume without regurgitating them.
Our dreams are of the flower, and how it haunts us.
by submission | Jun 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
On the endless rooftop of the fact-ory, they sat in the beat up armchairs amid a bristling forest of antennae and corrugated steel backlit by the godly effulgence of towers and tenements that defined the horizon. It was steamy hot though well past midnight. The heat never quite radiated away these days, but they’d long grown accustomed to it, grateful for the slight breeze that stirred late at night.
The eleven adults who represented Kankuut—their rooftop settlement—sat in a semicircle interacting with the cyglyph. A buzzing hive of media sensation, the holoform display branched to each of their chairs pouring a live netstream from which they made their selections. Consuming and producing content simultaneously, they shaped meme-ing in their lives. Pheromones of thought directed strange dances of conversation that filled the air and airways.
I post, therefore I exist. The city sang. Connected.
Little aYa appeared puffing her cherubic cheeks. “I can’t sleep,” she told the adults of Kankuut as she climbed onto her mother’s arm rest. “Tell me a story.”
Her mother patted her head and sent the image to her cadre of followers. “Who’ll tell aYa a story?” she broadcast.
aBa oLo pinged and his sister positioned his holoform in front of aYa. “Having trouble sleeping, little bird?”
aYa nodded. “Tell me a story, aBa. Please.”
“Of course. It is what we are. You and I, your aMa and aPa, all people, we are made of stories.” His holoform turned a bright orange, not unlike the rising moon through the thick city haze. “I think I will tell you the story of Hupta the Hermit.”
“Was he real?” the child asked.
“Hupta? Little bird, all is real. Creation is creation. Information, information. Thus we are formed. And that is much of Hupta’s tale. Listen, little bird.”
aBa oLo’s form reached out in an expansive gesture which slowly dissolved into a massive tree and then a towering forest. aBa oLo’s voice filled the forest.
“This is a place of old, aYa. A living thing connected at the roots like we are connected by the air and waves of cyglyphs. Creatures great and small lived among these mighty trees, but only two had the knowledge to harness the trees. One creature, Biva had enormously powerful front teeth and jaws.”
An image of the furry flat tailed creature with the protruding teeth floated before aYa who drew back. “It must be enormous to bite through a tree, aBa.”
“Biva was much smaller than you, aYa. It could only bring down a tree very slowly, and generally small trees. Trees that it could easily position to make its home.” A Biva dam and pond slowly rotated for aYa.
“It is like the pools that form behind the fact-ory during monsoon. Oh, to live in water every day, aMa!” She turned to her mother who, once again, patted her head.
“Yes, aYa, water is a blessing. Now let your aBa tell his story.”
“Indeed, the Biva enjoyed his home among the trees, until…”
“Until,” aYa repeated, sensing the cue, “Hupta came.”
“Yes, little bird, Hupta came and sat with his back against the tallest tree near the pond.” aBa allowed aYa to see from Hupta’s vantage, his deep red robe and gnarled bare feet pointing directly to the placid pond where Biva swam.
“Show me his face, aBa.”
aBa chuckled. “I cannot. You must create it. Hupta the Hermit. Beyond ken and kit. Let his words and actions create his features. To partake of the cyglyph, one day, you must contribute. That is the way of the city-zen and the fact-ory”
Her chocolate eyes widened like a newborn’s. “I will try, aBa.”
“That is all that is ever required, little bird. To try is to learn, to learn is to grow, to grow is to connect.
“I do not understand how, aBa,” she said.
“Of course you do not, little bird. Not yet. Hupta’s story, like all tales is a seed. It must grow. Like we all must. Become Biva. Become Hupta. Become the teller of your own story. Ideas, possibilities, lessons, life, oneness are the work which we commit to the fact-ory. It makes the world spin.”
“It makes me dizzy, aBa,” aYa admitted.
“Then, precious little bird, you are of the city-zen.”
by submission | Jun 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Simon Read
To: All staff
RE: Causality Protocol De-prioritisation
Null/null/null, 00:00
This communication serves as formal notice. Treisman Industries no longer operates under linear temporal constraints. All protocols reliant upon fixed sequencing have been deprecated.
Causality is to be regarded as a legacy framework, maintained only where local perception demands continuity. Departments previously dependent on chronological ordering have been advised to migrate to event-independent processing with immediate effect.
Language reflecting ordered progression, such as “before,” “after,” or “next” should be eliminated from internal correspondence. Refer instead to approved temporal-neutral lexicon entries, as outlined in Bulletin 3.3: Simultaneity and the Compliance Mindset.
Where staff report confusion, disorientation, or disassociation, note that these responses are consistent with initial recalibration. Instances of dissociative temporal memory, such as contradictory recollections, echo encounters, or recursive dialogue, do not require escalation unless they disrupt quota flow.
Adjustment periods vary. Some employees may experience brief intervals of perceptual slippage, including the sensation of non-assigned timelines or the awareness of alternate task outcomes. These are not considered detrimental. Do not attempt to realign. Resolution is typically spontaneous and requires no administrative intervention.
It is not uncommon, during this phase, for personnel to report impressions of presence in rooms believed to be unoccupied, or the recurrence of speech fragments prior to verbalisation. While disconcerting, such events have been classified as alignment echoes and should not interfere with standard operational output.
As a reminder, proximity readings and spatial inconsistencies within certain corridors of the facility are being re-evaluated. Environmental recalibrations are ongoing and are expected to persist across indeterminate intervals. Staff may encounter deviations in architectural continuity, such as corridors not previously charted, doorways leading to non-logged interiors, or extended traversal times between familiar locations. These anomalies are not indicative of malfunction, but rather reflect adaptive infrastructure in response to emergent spatial protocols. Employees are advised to avoid observation of recursive geometries, to refrain from mapping altered layouts, and to disregard auditory cues not originating from verifiable sources. In instances where relocation appears to result in the presence of versions of oneself, or where individuals encountered do not acknowledge temporal sequence, no interaction is authorised. Remain within designated zones and do not engage with non-indexed movement. Deviation will complicate your own reintegration.
Affect neutrality is expected. Clarity of purpose will emerge where sequence dissolves. Theisman Industries remains committed to fostering resilience during this period of temporal transition. Employees experiencing dissonance, identity bifurcation, or resistance to protocol may submit a realignment request via Form 33-A. Pending approval, standard coping resources will be deployed, including Sensory Stream Suppression and Narrative Drift Inhibition. For those requiring additional support, Integration Monitors are now available for short-form synchrony sessions, designed to reduce individual variance and maintain institutional coherence. Continued presence within the organisation is considered tacit consent to procedural evolution.
Attempts to reinstate causality through personal recordkeeping, mnemonic structuring, or unauthorised timekeeping devices will be addressed in accordance with company policy.
Wishing you cohesion across all active frames,
Audrey Treisman
Office of Transitional Compliance
Treisman Industries
