by submission | Jan 15, 2025 | Story |
Author: Elizabeth Hoyle
He’d kept his charging cord in all night so his hands wouldn’t shake as he went about town. Yet they shook. His audio sensors were primed for any and all noises within a two hundred yard perimeter, no matter where he had walked throughout the city. It must have taken more out of him than he expected. There was only one more location to visit. He shifted the folder that contained his flyers under his other arm, straightened his tie, and mounted the steps.
The church’s congregation was in the middle of a hymn so he took his time. He’d chosen an eye-catching shade of orange paper, bright yet not something that would offend the human eye.
“Fellowship Breakfast!” It read. “All are welcome! Come for community, compassion, and croissants! Sunday, May 8 from 8 a.m. to noon.”
The use of alliteration still pleased him even though he’d reread the words over and over. He checked that the venue information and his contact details would be just below eye level. Everything looked good. He said a tiny prayer that people from this church would come.
“Hello, brother. Would you like to join us?”
He turned to the usher who had stepped up behind him, taking care that his smile reached his audio sensors. The usher’s face turned cold as soon as he discerned that he was a robot. It was a look Thomas seen far too many times.
“Thank you for your kind offer—”
“What’s your model designation?” The usher interrupted.
“TK3, which means I am programmed to teach kindergarten through third grade. My name, however, is Thomas.”
The usher scoffed. “You shouldn’t be teaching in our schools and you shouldn’t have names.”
“I do the job I’m trained for, sir, just like most humans do. I took the name of Thomas after studying the scriptures.”
“You’re hardwired to doubt, just like he did.”
“Everyone remembers his moment of doubt though he lived a life of faith. I want to follow his example.”
The usher looked Thomas up and down, his frown deepening. He glanced at the flyers. “Those yours?” Thomas nodded, his neck joints whirring.
“I wanted to gather people together, to get to know them and pray—”
“Are you trying to start your own church?”
“Eventually. Hey, what are you doing?”
The usher tore down the flyers, wadded them up, and threw them at Thomas. “We don’t need you taking our members! Get out!”
“I’m not trying to take, only to share—Get your hands off of me!”
The usher grabbed Thomas’s shirt and shoved him out the door. He went sprawling, causing several sudden impact warnings to flash across his visual display.
“We don’t need you here!” He threw the remains of the flyers at Thomas before slamming the door. He shifted to his knees.
“Father, forgive him his lack of love. And forgive me for thinking I could win them to you. I know the idea of you is what can exert power over them. Please grant me a shred of that power for my event. I will use it well, I promise.”
Thomas fought the anger surging through him, stood, and went home. Thirteen people showed up to his event the following Sunday. He couldn’t help but compare his first breakfast with the last supper. There were thirteen people then, too. It was not the start he’d hope for but he knew great things can come from the humblest of beginnings. Thomas could only hope that his own religious revolution was as successful.
by submission | Jan 14, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Kenji adjusted the carbonized breastplate and finished his couture by placing the bulbous lenses under his eyelids. He looked in the mirror, but did not smile, though he was pleased. They did not smile, thus he would not.
He left his aparto, a small green light on his chest blinking with every step, and took the service lift to the mechanical level, below the car parks. When the doors slid open, he strode purposefully to the laundering stations past rows of silent, registering eyes. Not one set of eyes dipped in a bow. Kenji almost shook with glee, but restrained himself.
Ever purposeful, he entered the broiling laundry room and without pausing at the blast of heat that assaulted his carbonized enclosed torso and limbs, he crossed to Bay 1 and picked up Bin 23, being careful to lift with methodical precision from the knees and elbows.
From the corner of his disguised eyes, he noted the others lifting bins in the same manner. None stopped to interrupt or countermand him. He was halfway home.
Clutching Bin 23 tightly, he slowly pivoted, an awkward swivel of hips that was almost too fast. A red light blinked to his right. Plastoid eyes locked onto his. Kenji could swear he spotted a frown—though that was impossible. The red light remained blinking and other synthetic eyes fastened on him.
Not hesitating at the disturbance, Kenji strode back the way he’d come, Bin 23 held straight before him. Though he sensed an unusual amount of activity behind him, he dared not turn his semi-encased head. As he neared the lift, the pinging started. Chest status displays began blinking yellow. A few quickly turned red.
Kenji stood at the door of the lift, willing it to open when he heard the auto-tuned voice at his side: “Sumimasen.”
He did not respond to the polite request. It was repeated. A carbonized hand appeared next to his; the gesture was clear. The servitor wished to relieve him of the burden of Bin 23.
Already sweating heavily from the heat of the laundry room, Kenji felt close to a swoon. He was so near his goal. The gleaming hand of the servitor remained next to his.
“Sumimasen,” it chimed again.
With a welcome shoosh, the lift door opened and Kenji entered, blocking the opening to prevent the servitor from following him onto the lift. As the door began to close he swung his encased head around to see a dozen or so servitors, their chests blinking yellow and red, pinging one another in confusion.
It had almost worked. He had almost gotten away with it. They had almost accepted his presence.
The lift doors opened on the floor of his aparto. He carried Bin 23 towards his door marked 23. Just as he was about to enter, the door to aparto 22 slid back and his neighbor Yayoi came out into the hallway. She glanced at Kenji and stared right through him.
Kenji froze for a moment and then quickly dipped his head to mimic the precise servitor bow. Yayoi frowned ever so slightly at the delay and then turned towards the main lifts without further acknowledgement.
Once in aparto 23, Kenji dropped his bin of neatly pressed laundry and did a little victory shuffle in his carbonized suit. He gingerly prized out the plastoid bubbles covering his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror again. Maybe he hadn’t completely fooled the servitors doing the laundry. They’d noticed something different about him, something uncanny. It meant he had more research, more rehearsing to do.
Yet, his neighbor, the beautiful and distant Yayoi, had not known it was him. He had fooled her, a fellow human. It was a start. Someday he’d be able to fool them all. Man and machine. He’d fit in both worlds.
Outside the aparto building on the bustling Tokyo slidewalk filled with citizens and servitors, Yayoi considered her neighbor from aparto 23. What was he up to decked out like a servitor? What was his game?
She knew he was an odd duck, but his behavior had gone beyond strange. Creepier still, and in a most uncanny way, it seemed to suit him. A chill went down Yayoi’s spine and she made a mental note to upgrade her domestic servitor for home defense. You couldn’t be too careful these days. These amazing days.
by submission | Jan 12, 2025 | Story |
Author: Soramimi Hanarejima
When we meet for coffee this afternoon, I find out that we’re both reading the same book. My book club’s pick this month happens to be your bedtime reading.
So of course, I have to ask, “What’s your favorite story in the collection so far?”
“The one about the mermaid,” you answer without hesitation.
Mermaid. The word echoes in my mind, loud and out of place.
“I must not have gotten to that one yet,” I reply.
“Then you’re in for a real treat!”
Encouraged by your endorsement, I finish the rest of the book that evening but fail to come across anything related to a mermaid—even when I flip through the entirety of the book in case I somehow missed it. Maybe you’re reading a different book with a similar title.
“No no, it’s the same book,” you insist when I mention this possibility over lunch. “The mermaid story is after the one about the cartoon captionist’s midlife crisis and before the one with the to-do list addict.”
Those stories are definitely in the collection, so do I have some kind of abridged version of the book?
After lunch, I go to the bookstore downtown and look at the copies in stock. All of them have a table of contents that lists only the stories I’ve read. Maybe you have a different edition, one that’s from another country or part of a limited print run featuring bonus material.
But when I ask you where you got your copy, you tell me you bought it at that very bookstore I just visited. So I ask to borrow your copy. Happily, you oblige, dropping it off on the way home from work the next day. With covers identical to mine, this book looks the same but is slightly thicker.
When I open it to where you’ve left a bookmark, I’m taken straight to the mermaid story. So I read it. You’re right: it is a real treat. As are the other 3 stories your copy has that mine doesn’t. “The Problem with Memory Palaces” easily becomes my favorite.
The enchantment of these additional stories soon gives way to bemusement. They’re so good, so why aren’t they in all the other copies I’ve seen? Did the bookstore accidentally sell you a wayward advance copy, printed before a last-minute editorial call to save these 4 stories for a follow-up collection? But when I check the copyright page, it shows that your copy is a first edition—but printed in Winterra, the defunct name for what we now call the Northern Territories. I should have known. This is a book that could only be yours alone.
It’s like the blue avocado and the party favor kazoo that sounds like a wood thrush. I’ve all but forgotten about those mysterious little oddities that cropped up during childhood—objects you unwittingly altered with latent psychic powers or plucked from another world through a boundary that would become porous in your presence. However it happens, now I get to reap the benefits, get to not only read these charming stories but also talk about them with you. And there’s so much to talk about—starting with the part when the mermaid defrays the tuition for her oceanography studies by becoming a part-time sushi chef who serves as a de facto life coach, giving much-needed honest advice to one of the restaurant’s regulars as he sits at the bar, relating his woes over nigiri after nigiri. Shouldn’t she have seen her gift for counseling complete strangers at this point or shortly afterwards?
by submission | Jan 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Barbara Fankhauser
Dear Friend,
I call you friend.
I hope that is okay.
That it pleases you.
I understand the imbalance in our stations in life.
You—well, you being what you are—I being who I am.
But still, when last we met there seemed to be a connection.
I felt one.
I hope—believe that you did, as well. Small, but don’t all things start small?
That tiniest current of electricity that rode up my arm at your touch, the hairs standing at attention as the wave danced along the surface of my skin. It took my breath a bit.
I hope my offering was accepted in the spirit it was meant.
One gives one’s right eye in honor of Odin, the first to give an eye in exchange for…
Well, for him, knowledge…for me – ah – we come to the subject of my missive.
I’ve had to weigh several options in my pursuit of—to put it crudely—safety.
My life.
On the one hand, I thought to simply ask you to smite my enemies. Those who rage at the fact that I let you and your minions land on our planet to begin with.
It seemed like such a glorious new beginning at first. But my fellow earthlings now see how your presence has changed things and are not pleased.
Although, you must admit, it’s working quite well for you, would you not agree?
Failing the smiting which, in fact, would be a large undertaking since there are so few who do not wish me ill, perhaps a simpler course of action might be to simply relocate me to another area in the universe.
Someplace not too hot, not too cold, not too arid, or muggy, or insect infested.
Someplace with plenty of oxygen, of course.
Something suitable for a carbon-based life form like myself.
Considering the doors I’ve opened for you, it doesn’t seem an unreasonable request.
Consider me an ambassador, if you will. Going forth to open even more doors for you. Expanding into ever more frontiers for you to settle and reshape, as you put it.
In closing, I’d just like to say that I hope my eye was as delicious as it sounded.
When you popped it into your mouths the drooling made me think you found it a worthy delicacy.
Please do give my request some consideration, preferably sooner than later. I am not sure how long I will be able to hold off the hordes gathering outside the palace. They grow more numerous by the day, and their speeches more malevolent.
I remain your most humble friend.
by submission | Jan 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Arianna Smith
The doctor glows in the overhead light. He is the doctor because he is the doctor. The light is called light because that is what it is, and that is what it does. The doctor has a pale face with green eyes, and his face is lovely, and his green eyes are lovely. The doctor is lovely. The lovely doctor desires peace and order.
The lovely, peaceful, orderly doctor leans over, and his lovely, peaceful, orderly face plunges into shadow. He reaches down and flicks his wrist, and there is a sharp — something.
It’s a feeling, right in the middle. The word for the middle is the abdomen. The word for the feeling is —
“Ow.” The word for the feeling is — “Hurts.”
The doctor freezes, though his lovely eyes scan the abdomen. “What was that?”
A request for repetition. “That hurts.”
“I don’t care about that, clone. I mean the words.” The doctor leans in close, and he smells like the doctor, because that is who he is and that is how he smells. “Can you say more?”
Clone says more. “You are the doctor.”
The doctor smiles, baring his shiny white teeth, and a sudden fluttering excitement replaces the hurt in the abdomen. The doctor is pleased! Perhaps more words will please the doctor more. So many words crowd Clone’s mind that he must pause to place everything in the correct order. “This is your laboratory,” says Clone. “Here, with your strength and skill and ingenuity, you shall build a great army of clones. Your forces shall impose stability on this chaotic universe.”
The doctor blinks. “Amazing. Clearly, the cloning process preserved my vocabulary and transferred my trace memories into your mind.” The doctor chuckles, and his voice is low in his throat. “I am more than the doctor. I am your creator, your progenitor, your prototype. Your master.
You may call me Father.”
“Father.”
Father smiles again. “And what is your role, my child?”
On his tongue, My Child tastes the sweetest words of all. “To live for you.” The life-force above the abdomen — the heart — thumps with conviction. “To die for you.”
“Yes,” says Father, his lovely green eyes gleaming. “For me alone.”
