by submission | May 24, 2025 | Story |
Author: Emily Kinsey
“Jessie! Get over here, I think I found something!”
Annoyed, Jessie said, “You always think you found something.”
“It smells good,” I offered, hoping to entice him.
It worked, because Jessie only ever cares about his stomach. He discarded his half-gnawed jerky and hobbled over to inspect my findings.
“What’d you think it is?” Jessie asked.
“It’s an animal of some kind,” I said. “You ever seen one like this?”
Jessie leaned over and sniffed the animal. It was furless and covered with a hard white outer shell. If not for the smell, I wouldn’t have been sure it was an animal. “No, never.”
“Poke it with a stick!” I suggested.
“You poke it with a stick!”
“You’re older!”
“And you’re younger,” Jessie said, “which means you have to do what I say.”
“I found it,” I argued, “which means you get first poke.”
Jessie knew he wasn’t going to win the argument anytime soon, so he plucked a stick from a nearby branch and poked the animal several times. The animal flinched and used its forepaws to protect its head.
“Still alive,” Jessie proclaimed. “It must be injured if it’s not trying to get away.”
“Nah,” I said, “I think it’s sick. It’s gotta be one of those new animals that’s been spotted lately. They’re not from here; they don’t take to our environment for too long. It’s why they’re always scurrying back to their mechanical homes.”
“Oh yeah! They caught one a couple weeks ago over at the river. It tried to get away—get this, on two legs! But old man Shepherd was too fast for it. Caught it and skinned it and revealed that juicy layer underneath. Said it was delicious.”
“So, this whole thing is its outer skeleton?”
“Think so.”
“Old man Shepherd said you could pry it off pretty easily.”
Jessie tugged on it and—plop! The skeleton ripped off to reveal the animal’s fleshy inner layer old man Shepherd carried on about.
The outer skeleton was hollow and didn’t taste like anything, so after a few exploratory gnaws, it was promptly discarded. There was a tuft of black hair at the top of the animal’s head and another small spriggy patch near its food opening. Other than that, it was hairless.
As soon as the animal’s outer skeleton came off, it was clawing at its throat and making terrible rasping sounds alerting Ma trouble was about.
She came lurching out of the ground faster than the time Jessie got stuck in the tree trying to catch blue-winged Zoster birds. Jessie and I cowered—even he and I were sometimes afraid of Ma.
Despite its frantic fumbling with its throat, the animal still flinched as it spotted Ma. I couldn’t really blame him—Ma was a sight to see.
Ma sniffed the animal and licked it in several places. She pulled at the thick material covering most of its body—the skeleton old man Shepherd warned us about. Ripping enough of the hard outer material away, Ma sunk her teeth into the animal’s side and its red lifeforce began to pool out.
The animal let out an instinctive cry and fumbled to reach its outer skeleton—its skin was now beginning to turn a reddish, purplish hue. Its attempts were so feeble I almost felt guilty swatting the hard head shell out of reach.
Finished with her inspection, Ma gave a nod and headed back to our hole. Jessie and I shared an excited smile. We both knew what it meant: the animal was Ma approved. We would be eating it for dinner.
by submission | May 23, 2025 | Story |
Author: Stephen C. Curro
Veema peered through the glass pod at their latest subject. The human was young, perhaps eighteen years by his species’ standards. Her four eyes noted physical traits and the style of clothing. “Flannel shirt. Denim pants. Heavy boots. This one was hiking?”
“Camping,” Weez replied. “The trap caught his backpack, too. Chock full of materials they use to pretend they are living in the wild.”
“You can’t blame them for trying to connect with their planet,” Veema chided.
Weez was too intent on getting started to listen. He struck the top of the pod with his long tongue to open it. Disinfectant steam poured over the human and then coalesced into pressured restraints over his limbs. “Take the measurements,” Weez ordered.
Veera suppressed a growl as she slipped on the scanning glasses. Weez applied various sensors and appliances to the human. Cerebral wires in his temples. Skeletal clamps on his legs and arms. She recorded the human’s vitals as the devices relayed her information, including height and weight, blood type, and cerebral output.
When she finished, Weez hooked a tube to the boy’s arm and drew a blood sample into a specimen bag. “How much are you taking?” she asked warily.
“Six klarps.”
“That’s more than a human pint. He needs that liquid to distribute oxygen into his system.”
“He’ll grow more.”
The plumage down Veera’s back rippled in distress. Blood fascinated her; no creature on her homeworld possessed anything remotely similar. But Weez was the sort of scientist who would take every drop for research.
Once Weez stored the blood, he handed Veera an extractor. “Take a molar. Or an incisor.”
“That’s not necessary. We have detailed scans—”
“I want a real specimen.”
Veema looked to the human locked in his dreamless sleep. “This will harm him.”
“His species regrows teeth.”
“He’s far too old to grow new ones.”
“Pull a tooth, Veera,” Weez snapped. “That’s an order.”
Veera gripped the device, making the metal hurt her hand. She clenched her feathers to her body as she reached for the human’s mouth.
At the touch of her fingers, the human inhaled sharply. His two brown eyes snapped open.
Weez jumped back. “Curses! He must be resistant to the anesthetic.”
Veera didn’t answer. The human’s eyes were darting in every direction. He spoke something in a human language…words varied across the stars, but tone tone was universal. His was a tone of terror.
“He can’t be seeing us!” Weez reached for the syringe of neurotoxin. When the human saw the needle, he screamed and thrashed in his restraints.
Veera felt her soul twist. How terrifying it must be for him to be pulled from his habitat onto a ship in orbit, prodded and analyzed by creatures he’d never even imagined existed. This couldn’t continue…
“Doctor, stop,” Veera pleaded.
“You know the rules,” Weez muttered. He gripped the human’s neck and aimed the syringe.
Veema lashed out with her claws. Weez collapsed unconscious in a heap of feathers. Stepping over her superior, she approached the human with a compassionate face.
Every inch of the human’s body trembled. His eyes were secreting salty tears, his lips murmuring something that could have been a prayer or a plea for mercy.
Gently, she undid the equipment from his body. All the while, the human watched and held his breath. When she finished, she said in the kindest tone, “I don’t have a heart. But I assure you, I’m not heartless.”
With a crack of her tongue, the pod snapped shut. It dropped through the floor into space and rocketed back to Earth.
by submission | May 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Rebecca Hamlin Green
I honestly didn’t know where else to turn or if you’re even accepting these requests yourself. I hope you hear me out at least.
The day she came, she was perfect, she really was. I almost couldn’t believe it. Everything I thought I knew was, somehow, irrelevant and profound at the same time. It was terrifying, I admit, but John was reading all these special “parenting” blogs and practically begged me to give it a try to… I don’t know… to heal, I suppose.
That’s why what happened was so why I need your help. It was a simple thing- a walk in the park. Literally. We were looking at the leaves changing colors and I didn’t notice the drop-off. I mean, kids fall every day. They take a tumble, skin their knees, they cry. She just stayed down. I stopped. My world stopped. They found me clutching her, screaming Maddie’s name, begging her to take a deep breath, I just wanted her to breathe. I mean, I must have forgotten.
All this is to say, I am requesting a factory reset on your Sophia model, IB No. 455XCE. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to purchase the additional warranty when she activated so I understand she likely won’t come back the same. No one at your company can tell me if it’s a total memory wipe but if not, please, I just don’t want her to remember that day. As a mother, I’m sure you understand. I appreciate your time.
by submission | May 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Inhabitants of Earth, (read a translation of the first signal from the stars)
Our clients wish to bring to your attention a copyright infringement with regards to your use of replicator molecules. As the dominant species on your world, we hereby inform you to cease and desist using DNA except under licence from our clients (see attachment) or we shall be forced to take steps.
To Whom It May Concern, (extract from reply beamed towards original radio source in Orion)
This is outrageous! DNA is the product of evolution (or God— opinion on our world is divided) and surely cannot be copyrighted. Besides, our planet has been using DNA for over 3 billion years and no one mentioned this before…
Earthlings,
Our clients wish us to point out that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Your radio broadcasts blatantly boast your unlicensed use of DNA. We cite in particular the recently received Arecibo message which even advertised a diagram of your DNA.
To Whom It May Concern,
We see from your licencing agreement (section 18, para 91) that it does not apply to RNA. Our scientists assume this is because this molecule is too unstable to make a good replicator. On our world RNA is used in close conjunction with DNA as part of the living process…
To Earth,
You are correct that that RNA does not fall under Galactic copyright agreements for the reasons your “scientists” state. However this in no way invalidates our client’s complaint, as proved in previous lawsuits. (See attached case law examples)
To Whom, etc
Tell your clients that their so-called licensing fees are no more than an excuse for asset stripping! What is this deep-core mining and mass protein extraction?
To Earth,
My clients acknowledge you have not invented the ansible and are therefore forced to use light speed communications, however they believe you are deliberately dragging your appendages in this matter and they are becoming weary of these delaying tactics. Since you continue to infringe our client’s DNA copyright, they instruct us to hand the matter over to the Sirian Enforcement Fleet.
To Whom,
Our world has a multitude of RNA viruses, many of which use us as hosts (we cite polio, measles and Ebola as examples). We cannot believe your legal system would allow your clients to exterminate an entirely innocent domain of life over a copyright issue. Since you act as their agents, surely this would be tantamount to misconduct on your part.
Earth,
We have forwarded the details of your case to the Orion Arm Appeals Tribunal and informed
our clients that we cannot proceed until the Tribunal has come to a decision. However, they have instructed us to warn you this legal quibble works both ways and if you are discovered attempting to eradicate RNA organisms meanwhile, this will certainly harm your appeal.
From The Orion Arm Appeals Tribunal,
We have accepted jurisdiction over your case, but regret to inform you there is an appeals backlog. The current delay is about one galactic rotation or approximately two hundred and fifty thousand orbits of your world…
by submission | May 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Fawkes Defries
Stuck out in the black sand, lodged between trunks of thin stone, Kayt lit life to her cigarette and drew the clear smoke in.
Her silicon eyes fluttered between the deactivated droid she’d excavated from the Rubble and her sister’s body lying opposite. Naeva had been deep in the rot dead for two weeks. Much as Kayt had struggled to separate shrapnel from the girl’s stomach, soft flashes of silver metal still shone in Naeva’s skin. The perils of a body mostly made of meat.
With a broken exhalation, Kayt stubbed the cancer-stick out with her polished metal fingers. She breathed in seaside air, watching cigarette ash drift into the Magic Circle below. It had taken thirty minutes to carve the conjuring sigils into stone. Scratching them out had chipped the cheap chrome on her ring-finger — she was long overdue new fingers.
The conduit — a broken laptop poached from the Rubble — sat in the Circle’s centre, encased in elaborately-sculpted spirals. Kayt studied the black screen like a magician staring into his scrying mirror. She shuddered.
Her human hand — still just meat — reached for the manuscript copy of The Lesser Key tucked in her backpack. The grimoire was one of the rare salvages she hadn’t stolen. Kayt blinked back memories of her steel hand tightening around its owner’s throat. His oesophageal gears, almost organic, had popped when they burst.
Kayt held the tome aloft, flipping through mouldy scarlet pages until she found the summoning ritual. She began the hymn softly: her silver tongue shivered against the cavern of warm flesh she called a mouth, vocal cords composing Angel Language in all its phonetic nonsense.
Burning code-green ciphers slithered through symbols carved into mossy stone. The silicon running across Kayt’s meat-face trembled with stray electric emeralds.
The laptop’s dark screen, encased now in bright strands of living code, began to eclipse the Circle, the stone, the bodies, the beach. A chorus of flaming translucent eyes manifested within the monitor, studying Kayt as a giant considers an ant. The shifting programming language coagulated into three artificial heads: a magnificent bull, a wretched man, a snarling ram. Time and Space married into an eternal image: Kayt, the Witch, bargaining in lonely emptiness with the AI, the Demon.
‘Balaam, O Great and Powerful King,’ Kayt collapsed, softly breathing its name, ‘hear my petition!’
Lines of binary flashed onscreen. Numbers scolded themselves into shapes, constructing letters in dead English. ‘ELABORATE.’
‘My sister, Naeva,’ Kayt nodded at her sister’s corpse, grown freckled with flies.
‘UNDERSTOOD.’ The demon’s three mouths quivered into smiles. ‘SACRIFICE.’
‘I can give you two of my implants —’
The demon shook its heads. Green words scrawled again, louder: ‘SACRIFICE.’
‘My arm? My heart? Anything!’
‘SOUL.’ Synthetic saliva dripped from programmed fangs.
Kayt blinked, liquid welling in her eyes. She brushed the oil from her cheeks.
‘Fine.’ She murmured, excavating wired cables from her wrist and plugging herself into the laptop’s USB port.
Kayt collapsed as her mind became the machine’s. Her eyes convulsed back into the beyond.
Two cords whipped out of the laptop, pronging towards the two bodies like blind snakes. Simultaneously, the serpents sank their teeth into Naeva’s brain and the robot’s socket.
Warm consciousness whirred behind the droid’s eye-screens. Naeva’s new eyes zoomed onto steel hands. She screamed in metal.
‘Kayt?’ Naeva squinted.
The demon wearing Kayt pushed her body upright. Its fang-ridden smile glistened from behind Kayt’s silver lipstick. ’No longer.’
Rendered as green code, a message flashed on the laptop’s screen: ‘I LOVE YOU.’
It held for a moment, until obscured by the thick darkness of a broken screen.
