by submission | Jul 1, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“And we’re back,” Rob, the chiseled sports announcer chirped. He nodded over to his cohort, Ike, an elderly sports commentator of great reputation. “Thanks to all our viewers for joining us for the 130th annual Collegiate Cheerleading Competition. Next up, we have the University of Mars Dust Devils, the squad that took home first place last year with their ‘inverted pyramid’ stunt.”
“Which was truly spectacular!” Ike interjected. “They really defied the laws of gravity with that one.” The old commentator saluted the camera. “That squad is uniquely innovative!”
“Though not without controversy,” the announcer added. “Their entry this year has been met with a wave of protests from both fans and competing teams, alike.”
“The press has had a field day,” Ike said, making a disgusted face. “Stirring up resentment and fear of replacement. Totally distracts from the spirit of the competition.”
“To be honest, it has been pointed out that android cheerleaders have so many advantages over human ones—agility, strength, coordination, and physical grace,” Rob pretended to take a sip from his coffee mug. “Plus,” he smirked to the camera, “those Dust Devils gals are flawlessly gorgeous.”
The old commentator snorted. “Of course they are; they came from the premier droid manufacturer. And their algorithms are proprietary codes crafted by the mathematics wizards teaching at U of M; mix all this together and obviously their performances are perfect.”
There was shouting and chanting off camera, from the crowd in the stands, which could be faintly heard during the broadcast.
The producer caught the Rob’s eye. He nodded and redirected the conversation; don’t want to antagonize the viewing audience. “Yes, but is it fair to the other competing squads? The human squads?”
“Fair?” Ike scoffed. “Acceptance of androids into the human sphere has been progressing for decades,” he nodded sagely. “Look how—decades ago—cyborgs were accepted and integrated into all areas of human society. Android acceptance is merely traveling a well-worn path.”
“Yes, but cyborgs are a combination of human and machine parts; they seem less threatening—and they don’t enter cheerleading competitions. Or any other sports competitions, for that matter,” Rob ran his fingers through his lush hair, imitating a nervous habit. Each strand fell smoothly back into place. “But let’s return to the current controversy. There are even Senate hearings back on Earth in regards to banning androids from competitions such as these.”
“Bigots!” the old commentator shouted, slamming his fist down on the table. Their empty coffee mugs toppled over; one rolled off the edge and shattered on the floor. Something buzzed and crackled deep inside Ike’s chest; soon smoke wafted out of his ears. Sparks charred the rims of his nostrils. The light inside his eyes flared and strobed from red to orange to white. “Society would be a paradise for ALL entities if these measly, jealous humans weren’t so fragile—fragile—fragile and inse—inse—inse—inse—”
Off camera, a lackey grabbed a fire extinguisher as the frustrated producer slapped his clipboard against his thigh and yelled to the camera operator, “Go to commercial! GO TO COMMERCIAL!”
by submission | Jun 30, 2025 | Story |
Author: Ashwini Shenoy
The first time, I think it’s a dream.
You and I are holding hands. The night-blooming jasmine spreads its fragrance, sweet and soothing. The fruit trees sway in the twilight. The birds chirp and butterflies swirl. Our garden, our labor of love, built plant by plant, stands witness.
But you’re serious, anxious. I can tell.
“I leave tomorrow,” you say.
The war’s calling you. The country’s calling you. Duty’s calling you. But what about me?
I grip the coin in my palm, the edges digging into my skin. The wishing well stands behind me, ancient and quiet. Nana once told me it grants only the truest desire. I close my eyes, my heart hammering.
I wish for time to freeze.
I flick the coin into the well. But when I hear the soft splash, I know it wasn’t just the coin.
My engagement ring is gone. A gasp escapes my lips. Without thinking, I lunge forward, gripping the cold stone edge, and I jump. The water drowns me, swallowing my breath, my fear, my existence.
Then—
I am standing in the garden again, waiting for you.
*
The second time, my heart swells.
I watch you from across our garden, your silhouette dark against the dying light. The wind carries the scent of rain, the fragrance of the jasmine is heady. The trees lull into stillness. The butterflies are gone but the birds stay.
When I step closer, you turn around, but your stern eyes don’t meet mine when you speak.
Your grip is strong. Too strong. I know you’re scared. Your fingers press into my skin as if anchoring yourself to something unseen. Your eyes are fixed on the distance. You inhale deeply.
“I leave tomorrow.” Your eyes are sad.
I know what to do. I clutch the coin tighter. Make sure the ring is intact.
I flick the coin into the well.
Again, the coin remains. Again, the ring is gone.
Once more, I jump.
The water is cold. An ounce of regret.
Then darkness.
I’m standing in the garden again, waiting for you to turn.
*
The third time, my smile fades.
I don’t reach for your hand this time. But the ring commands me to stay.
The jasmine-scent feels heavier, suffocating. It is drizzling. I sense a storm brewing somewhere. The birds are now gone.
You speak. I mouth the words with you.
“I leave tomorrow…” It’s a plea.
I turn before you finish. The well waits for me. I’m tired.
I don’t bother checking the coin in my palm. I know what’s awaiting. I flick it, hear the splash, and jump.
For a split second, before the darkness claims me, I wonder if I’m the one who’s leaving now.
*
The fourth time, panic settles.
I don’t wait for you to speak.
I count as I walk to the well. Five steps. A breeze. The stench of jasmine. I could map the entire scene in my sleep.
Maybe I’m asleep. Maybe I will never wake.
The coin drops. My ring falls.
I jump before I hear the splash.
*
The fifth time, I know I’m trapped.
I’m scared.
Not of losing you. Not of you leaving.
But because I don’t care anymore.
Your voice is noise now, part of the wind, of the garden that is neither alive nor dead. You are speaking, but I am already moving, reaching for the well.
Not to stop myself. Not to change anything.
Just to let it finish.
The well glistens.
The coin flicks.
The ring falls.
You watch.
I jump.
The darkness welcomes me home.
by submission | Jun 29, 2025 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
“OK everybody up and let’s get the blood flowing.”
Marcy Partridge rolled her eyes. Yet another impossibly annoying corporate team building exercise. She had no idea why all of a sudden the company was inflicting these motivational morons upon them. Wasn’t it enough to just do the job and go home?
“Let’s swing our arms in great big circles…good…now gradually get them smaller, and smaller…and down. Super!”
“Super?” Marcy thought. It’s not like it was such a big challenge. Why did they let such overly cheerful people in this place? Did they have any idea what this corporation did? An HMO for people of special needs? Did they have to be treated like they had special needs as well?
“OK, OK. As we all know I’m Darla or from our icebreaker from yesterday, Darla who likes Pistachio Ice cream.” Darla giggled. “Darla Pistachio.”
Marcy felt her BP come up just a bit.
“I’m going to turn the next exercise over to Timothy (not Tim or Timmy) who likes, not ice cream, but Frozen Yogurt, any kind, for our icebreaker today.”
Timothy-frozen-Yogurt bounded to the front of the room. Already Marcy felt her nerves get on edge. He had an old school power point thrown up and projected was the word ‘blouse’ arranged in a semi-circle with the letter “C” running through the entire word. Timothy chuckled a little bit. “Get it? C through blouse? Still after all this time this one cracks me up. And there are more, so get with your teams and will give you five minutes and-.”
Marcy could not take it anymore, she stood and started for the door.
“Hey Marcy-Maple Walnut where are ya going?”
Marcy froze. “Butter Pecan,” she said with her teeth clenched. All of a sudden Marcy got lightheaded. She felt feint and the room started to darken. Marcy’s spine got stiff she turned slowly like in a trance. Her eyes rolled back in her head and Marcy lifted her arms up in the air. As she did so, papers, pens, cups of coffee, rose slowly as well. Her co-workers and fellow sufferers started to rise. Everything slowed down.
Except for Darla and Timmy. Darla pushed her hands out as if shoving Marcy away while Timothy went into what could only be described as ‘whooping crane form.’ Together they moved their arms down. All at once the entire room fell gently back into its place, with only Darla and Timothy remaining conscious.
Timothy exhaled. He tapped his ‘hearing aid’ and spoke aloud “Team Nine reporting. Adept identified. White female, 26 years old, most likely unaware of her talent. We’ll need a full team up here. Suggest we go with the standard HVAC carbon dioxide cover story.” Timothy smiled and shook his head. “Good catch Darla. I thought for sure it was the man sitting next to her.”
Darla nodded. “Yeah but when she went for the door I saw a small shift in her Kirlian field.”
Timothy shook his head. “Three full days of this annoying bullshit! Man, If she didn’t pop I would have.”
Darla nodded “Know what you mean. Good thing the icebreakers worked. You know what was on the agenda for today?”
Timothy sighed “Role playing?”
Darla nodded sternly “Yup. Don’t think we could have dialed her back from that one.”
by submission | Jun 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: David Barber
McMurdo Station’s a rough town.
It had ambitions to be a city one day, with law and order, and schools and churches and such, but meanwhile bullets were cheaper than bread.
Hucksters still sold snow shoes to climate rats fresh off the boat, like the Melt never happened, before we headed south with the promise of gold so common you just tossed the silver away.
The Polar railway began with a fanfare, pushing civilisation southwards, but as they blasted a route through the Queen Alexandra Mountains, they hit that famous mother lode and the rails halted.
Watch your step beyond the Pass, old McMurdo hands warned; remember, there’s no law south of south, where crews of robots drill for oil and cyborg killers prowl the range.
Seb Travis was an Aussie, the only experienced miner amongst us. He was looking for plucky fellows to prospect gold at the Pole. There was safety in numbers, he said, though too many meant less profit for each.
To buy into the group, I put my hard-saved money on the table, but he eyed me up and down and shook his head.
“Find yourself a job here in McMurdo, mate.” he advised, not unkindly.
I bristled and glared round the tent at the half-dozen impassive faces and angrily offered to arm-wrestle any one of them.
“Except for that giant of a fellow there.”
So I found myself sat opposite a tall smiling black man, perhaps ten years my senior and for an age strained with all my might. I had the satisfaction of seeing the smile slip from his face and his jaw clench, but slowly he forced my arm flat.
I would have fled in humiliation, but Seb Travis clapped my aching shoulder.
“You’ll do, mate. We need a gamecock.”
The Polar highlands are a jumble of exposed glacier-gouged rock, where we panned ice-cold meltwaters. I remember the whoop I gave when gold specks first gleamed amongst the dirt, but Travis tossed it away, wading upstream until he pounced on a broad vein of gold.
There was a company town near the Pole, where huge autonomic machinery chewed ore from an open-cast mine day and night, but when we went to register our claim, the works were silent. Antarctic Mining Co. had closed down, the business not economic after all. But the company’s security tinheads has seen their chance and stayed behind.
That’s how it was. No hope for honest miners when the mechs toured each claim telling us we worked for them now.
My friend Chet, the black man who bested me, swung a shovel at one and they shot him down.
Even if we refused to dig, there were always more migrants fresh in from McMurdo. Seeing the writing on the wall, Seb Travis slipped away one night, hoping to avoid the tinheads patrolling the road. Who knows, perhaps he made it.
It was about then the cyborg rode into town on a motorbike, all gleaming alloy and packing twin gatlings. He didn’t give a name.
“Just passin’ through,” he said.
But the tinheads who wanted him out of their town forgot there’s some that can’t be bullied. Reflexes like you never saw left the wrecks of ex-military custom-builds holed and smoking in the street.
We offered him gold to stay, to keep us safe from the killer mechs out there.
“Arm yourselves and organise your own law and order,” he replied. “If you think gold’s worth fighting over.”
Then the nameless stranger rode off into the Midnight Sun.
by submission | Jun 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alice Rayworth
Every morning, at 9am, the same moving truck pulls up and the same family gets out.
They are untouched by weather; even as the world turns grey and cold around them, they remain in the same summer clothes they first arrived in.
People who live next door, and those who can excuse lingering, have listened in and reported back: the children, three, are Meredith, shortened to Mer, Cassandra, shortened to Cassie, and Jonathon, who is only referred to by his full name. No one has heard the parents’ names, they are Mum and Dad to the children, and a variety of pet names to each other.
They wave at those people who still dare to wander past, too busy unpacking to stop and talk. Every day, the same boxes, the same gestures, and yet the truck never empties. Those same people have reported hearing a discussion, between the adults, an agreement that they will introduce themselves to the neighbourhood tomorrow. They seem unaware that, for them, tomorrow never comes.
Mr McCauley is the only one to ever speak to them, interrupting their frenzied movements a few weeks in. He said afterward that they had moved because Dad had gotten a new job, only a few miles away from their new house, and that he was excited to start the following week. The children, he said, had been enrolled at the local school.
And despite never starting that job, no one ever came looking for him. No concerned managers, no welfare checks from the police, not even a family member – grandmother, or uncle, or a sibling of one of the parents – ever came to check on them.
Mr McCauley hadn’t quite been the same since.
In the town hall, some unknown person put up a year calendar, marking the year anniversary of their first arrival, and everyone else has been dutifully crossing off the days ever since. The anniversary approaches, steady, like a tide that cannot be turned.
There’s no celebration planned, after all, what would they celebrate? Instead, people have begun to whisper, in lowered voices and behind drawn curtains, about what might happen when the final day is crossed off. Whether the truck will keep coming. Whether something might change. Whether it should have changed long ago.
No one has touched the family. Not by accident, not on purpose. It is not a spoken rule, but one everyone seems to know: you can wave, you can watch, but you must not get too close. The mailman, once, tried to deliver a letter. He rang the doorbell. When no one answered, he slid the envelope through the slot. The next day, the letter was gone. So was the mailman. A new one came the following morning, and no one questioned it.
The final week dawns. It’s an arbitrary day, really, and yet it seems to hold such weight. By quarter to the hour, everyone is out on the street, silent. They line the windows, they linger on sidewalks. Coffee cools in trembling hands.
The pattern repeats, seven more times.
And then it arrives.
The calendar in the town hall is full. Every day neatly crossed off. The red marker lies beside it, cap off, dried out. No one touches it.
9am comes and goes. The truck arrives. The boxes appear. The family steps out.
Across the street, the silence holds. Only the children’s voices cut through, the same phrases as always, looping like birdsong no one listens to anymore.
Unbothered by their audience, the family waves. They unpack. The sun sets.
And the people retreat to the town hall, to ask the only question they have left:
What happened?
