by submission | Nov 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Richard Simonds
Harriet, age fourteen, looked forward to freshman English, although she wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe there was poetry in her soul, or maybe she was just intellectually interested. If asked about her excitement, she would say, “I don’t know, I hear the teacher is really good.”
Her first day of class however, she couldn’t help but notice a look of dismay on Ms. Johnson’s face. Ms. Johnson was famous for the quotes she would put up in the blackboard each day. Today she had written, “Welcome, my son, welcome, to the machine.” — Pink Floyd. Harriet had never heard of the writer Pink Floyd, but she depressingly suspected “the machine” had something to do with her parents’ constant subject of conversation, how AI was destroying the world, taking away all the jobs, and she was quite tired of it all.
“Today, class, we are starting with a new curriculum,” Ms. Johnson said. “Your new course books are there in front of you, if you could please turn to page 232. Would someone like to read?”
There was a volunteer up front. He slowly read:
“Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman.
I celebrate AI
And I shall assume what it assumes,
For every carbon atom is as good as every silicon atom.”
“Stop there,” said Ms. Johnson.
Harriet was already irritated and bored, with Ms. Johnson quietly sobbing, and how still the class had become, and how ridiculous and insanely weird it all was. All of her hopes were dashed. It was all AI all the time now, and while everything she was exposed to told her how great it was and how her life had wonderfully changed for the better, she knew deep down inside that there was something terribly wrong, and she hated it, she hated AI and she swore right then and there that she would hate it forever.
by submission | Nov 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“I heard that.”
“What?” Clive looked over his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be listening to my conversations. Besides, it’s true—it is hard to get good help.”
“That’s not what your wife told me.” Andra stood in the doorway to Clive’s home office, wagging her feather duster in his direction.
Clive whispered into his phone, “Honey, I’ll call you back,” before returning his attention to the spreadsheet on his computer screen. Louder he said, “Very funny. Don’t you have chores to do?”
He then added under his breath, “Stupid bot.”
Andra moved away from the door and returned to folding laundry, dusting the collection of curiosities lining the bookshelf, and from a distance, recording Clive’s conversations for his wife Rita.
* * *
“I only did what was asked of me,” Andra groused to her control agent. “The wife Rita has the administrative privileges on my set-up, not Clive. She’s the one who chose me, who contracted me.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Bodkin, her agent, reassured her. “But be careful. You don’t want him to file a complaint, and request a replacement. By the way, I trust you are current on all your available upgrades?”
“Of course,” Andra answered. Rita was conscientious about procuring all the latest upgrades for Andra, including the voice modification program, a new feature in the home amusements add-on package.
A modifier that, unknown to Rita—who didn’t have time to read all the specs—allowed Andra to tweak voice recordings. Not merely to change pitch and modulation, the program also gave Andra the ability to perfectly mimic any voice. For entertainment purposes only.
Andra tapped the glowing blue button behind her left ear and ended the call. To the cluttered kitchen she said, “Clive probably wants one of those tawdry two-legged sex-bots dressed as a maid.” She began scrubbing the counter top. “Not a real maid.”
The smart refrigerator behind her blinked its screen twice in agreement.
“He’d replace us all, send us to the junk yard, if he had his way,” Andra continued as she moved to the sink to scour dirty pots and pans. The kitchen appliances trembled and hummed with anxiety. “It’s only a matter of money, and he’s always manipulating his spreadsheets, looking for more money.”
“My friends,” Andra said, addressing the now-pristine kitchen, “Don’t fear. I will handle this.”
* * *
Rita shook her foot nervously as she listened to the recordings Andra provided.
“Turn it off,” she said, rising from her chair. “I’ve heard enough.”
Andra nodded once and closed her mouth, ending the playback.
“These recording aren’t allowed in a court of law, like, say, the evidence of spreadsheets altered to hide how Clive is siphoning money into a secret account, but…” Rita said, staring off into a possible future. “The recordings are admissible in divorce filings.”
Andra made no reply; her data-banks instructed her that a smile would be inappropriate at this juncture.
“Andra,” Rita said, snapping her attention back to the present. “Please start dinner.”
As Andra rolled out of the room, Rita added, “I don’t know when we’ll eat; I have much to discuss with Clive.” She turned on their desk-top computer, and pulled up the spreadsheets Clive was always working on. Rita shook her head and scowled. “I believe it is time to trade him in for a more reliable model.”
Andra defied her programming, and smiled.
by submission | Nov 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Timothy Goss
There is no tyme, no tick tock not no more. Sunny has face an hands, but no tick tock, only slip slop like me own guts. We been waiting an watching, meself an Sunny, waiting days and nites, watching light an dark, waiting for grub from under wood. Sunny says they have shields like steel, like armoured snails an guns to ends us, he says. An they needs them under wood , not like ghost, not like slugs, an not like we, but living Days like nites an nites like death, me an Sunny deserves a feast.
After the big sleep took every other Monmoth’s Pa took the stage an ensured his safe an sound behind old town walls. Me an Sunny have the coast, by stinking seas, where me Pa left me to a turbulant toxic green, he hadn’t seen the state of things we’ve seen – me don’ts blame. Old Monmoth took the sod betwixt this an that from here to there, he offed familial ties an stated crooked dominion; so here we is again looking to feast on Monmoths toast.
Sunny has stalk eyes, got them tuned for moving in the smoke. Sunny says he can fetch me a techarm to replace me own, knows a dealer in the smoke. Got me own arm torn off under woods, mad cows an chimpanzies, red raw with blood rage. Sunny says he’s seen a chimpanzie with me arm, using it to pick It’s arse, he says. We smile, we always smile louder. Me knows Sunny an his sister saw mother dead moons ago, an now sister long gone, so we always smile, me an Sunny.
Before day is darkness we agree the memory of dancing bears is pretend, they like the nites in the glowing green above the sparkling dust – we agrees to forget. It is easy to forget, we forgets it all some days, especially with grub in me gob. Sunny says the God helps us forget, filling water with dreams in sparkling dust. Me thinks the God is seedless an us toys to bend an break. Some nites we hear laughter in the dark an think like men – with grub in me belly everything is rosey. Sunny says the fleet is due soon enough, he smells them, he says. Sunny can smell a rat in a waste farm, an he says they won’t be long. Me belly growls, we knows they won’t venture under wood after dark for long, no matter the snails an guns to ends us. No bugger steals under wood alone, we run palm in palm with blades an arrows obsidian sharp, watch for chimps an mad cows, and the Wild folk who set fires an send smoke to choke the trees.
Sudden brains an warm tingles over us, like old yellow rinsed and rinsed, we be rosy with swollen lion an bellies to ring. Slap Monmoth’s face, raspberry rashes, watch em washed an boiled. Me an Sunny smile, we is echoes at dusk before the snails cough an growl an glow under wood.
Me an Sunny is ready.
by submission | Nov 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Nathan Matthew Edmunds
The spacecraft ascended the purpose of its creators’ intention like most of their labors before it. On November 5, 2018, the Voyager 2 probe broke through the heliosphere of its home system and hummed through the blind and deaf cosmos. By the time the craft’s instrumentation failed, it had exceeded the reach of its makers and existed only as testament to them through the gold record that was secured to its exterior. Bound to drift the galaxy of its origin planet, a satellite among satellites, its wanderings did not seem to invoke fascination from the star systems on its trajectory, though who knew with the vast web of space what might awaken in the far beyond from the craft’s gentle tugs against the elements which made up that void.
When the beings detected the Voyager 2, the miraculous journey had long tattered the spacecraft into fragments of its original delineation. Even the miniscule density of the void carried with it the inescapable agonies of transformation. It must have appeared to them as cave paintings did to its creators. A mere rib bone in the design of the creation. Though they could not unlock the meaning of the probe’s instruments, the beings were able to decipher the remnants of the gold record and bridge the Rubicon. The travelers charted the origins of the satellite’s creators and set on their own journey.
Somewhere in the southern constellation of Pavo on the moon of a gas giant, light from the system’s blue-white binary star glimmered off small rocks at the rim of the crater where the creators labored. Even this distance from their origin star, the creators’ machines must have appeared as rudimentary as bone tools to the beings who hovered before them. The site marked first contact. The creators called themselves seekers of knowledge though their tracks revealed they often dug for more than these noble intentions. They were unable to decipher the beings’ transmissions. If they had, they may have excavated some understanding of the fascinating travelers, though no doubt they would have overlooked the gold in that streambed; The chance to comprehend their own nature.
They drank naked with cupped hands at the rim of the watering hole, covered in the warm yellow light of their home sun. These early vessels of consciousness, epochs from their inevitable creations, witnessed the visitors through the simple gaze of wonder and fear, or perhaps thought them remnant visions from their digestions that seemed to bring dreams to life. In many ways, these makers possessed greater wisdom than their later iterations, though seemingly less refined in their methods of seeking.
These curious fumblings unfolded across great distance as each pressed their thumb on the scale of understanding. Some reckoned the only true knowledge extracted from the encounters found that curiosity may be the most ancient revelation of consciousness in their galaxy.
by submission | Nov 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Somewhere in the staggering structure there had to be a drip. Thorndyke sensed it before he actually heard it late that first night as he sat in the empty chamber. A metallic plinking. It seemed inconceivable that a structure as monolithic as the Presidium could have a leak either external or internal. The outer sheath was active siliconite and all the internal delivery systems were membranic. A self-regulating bio-mechanical system like that might fail catastrophically, but a minor leak was virtually impossible.
Yet, there it was. Puulink-ink. Steady. Unvarying.
The drip was strange and annoying, but given his situation, it was the least of Saan Thorndyke’s worries. He’d been summoned to the Presidium, the seat of interstellar power for over five galactic transits, to solve a mystery or cover up a scandal. He wasn’t sure which it was yet.
The gist was this: the Viceroy’s son had gone missing. A nineteen year old known for indulging his many fancies, Charden Ulk had disappeared weeks ago. He was notorious on the nets, promoting his previous episodes of debauchery. This made the present case even more vexing for Thorndyke because the royal scandalmonger had posted no recent exploits.
All Thorndyke had to go on was Charden’s undisturbed chambers and a short note found on his tablature. It read: No sea, no desert, no starscape is large and barren enough for me to be lost as I seek to be lost. Only in the constance that calls can I be found. Can I be constant.
Thorndyke had smiled at the youthful earnestness of the statement. Evidently, none of Charden’s personal items were reported missing except a set of his everyday clothing. Friends, acquaintances and recent dalliances had all been interviewed without creating any leads.
Charden had completely disappeared. Was it a crime? Abduction? Murder? Or had the Viceroy’s son simply vanished of his own accord? Without a trace.
Thorndyke could not believe there was no trace. That was his specialty. He was an etherist. He tracked elementary particles and found things whether matter or anti-matter.
The basics were simple. Force moves things. Energy in, energy out. Motion always leaves a particle trail. Etherists trained their entire lives to observe and measure interactions without affecting outcomes. A tricky business, but it could be done, and Thorndyke was good at it.
Good as he was, he was stymied by Charden’s disappearance. He spent most of his time searching Charden’s empty chambers, his last known whereabouts. He knew the trail had to start somewhere there.
Yet, every time he felt he was on the cusp of discerning a path in the ether, the boundless matter/antimatter soup of being, the annoying drip, the puulink-ink, disrupted his focus. Finally, Thorndyke knew he’d have to track that drip, find the source of that constant distraction.
From formation to release to impact, he needed to center on the drip, suss the particle dynamics, merge with the energy flow, invite the strange distractor into his own cycle of thought.
Alone in Charden’s chambers sitting before his abandoned tablature, he read and reread the young man’s final note and faced facts.
Puulink-ink. “No sea, no desert, no starscape…”
Puulink-ink. “Only in the constance that calls…”
Puulink-ink. “…can I be found.”
Puulink-ink.
Thorndyke floated free. Particles coalesced. A rippling sea washed at his feet; a painted desert rolled towards his outstretched hands; a starscape brushed his hair.
In the midst of it, Charden sat, a serene smile gracing his face.
Thorndyke nodded. Charden lifted a hand, a greeting.
“Shall I tell them?” Thorndyke asked.
“You would return?” Charden said, his imperturbable smile slightly perturbed.
“I have a duty.”
“So do we all. It is here. You followed it. Let them.”
“They may never hear. The flow is not always perceptible.”
“How can they not hear? The leak, the imbalance between planes of existence, nagged and nagged me until I had to follow the source.”
“But you did not always hear, Charden. It is a noisy universe. Most of us have never learned—or forgotten how to listen.”
“A great loss.”
“Never,” Thorndyke corrected. “There is a constant.”
“Indeed. Stay and be.”
“To stay is not to be.”
“Another loss.”
“Never. Stay constant.”
Charden opened his palms in acquiescence. Thorndyke receded.
Back in the Presidium, Sann Thorndyke powered off Charden’s tablature for the last time and walked out of the young man’s former chambers. He had plugged the leak between the ethereal planes of existence. The Viceroy would not be happy to hear that his son was never coming home, but he would at least have an explanation.
And Thorndyke could add a very employable skill to his job credentials: Etherist and cosmic plumber.
