by submission | Feb 21, 2026 | Story |
Author: Shinya Kato
“Dad, is this haircut okay?” the barber asked, adjusting the chair.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” the man said, glancing at the boy’s hair.
The boy shook his head. “It’s still too long. Make it a buzz cut.”
The barber paused. “A buzz cut?”
“Yes,” the boy said calmly. “The sensors on my head need light. Long hair interferes with calibration.”
The man hesitated. “Maybe not. Your mum would get upset.”
“I don’t think you need a buzz cut,” the barber added gently.
The boy stared at his reflection. “Some kids have buzz cuts. They run faster. Everyone thinks they’re cool.”
“Hair doesn’t make you fast,” the barber said.
The boy didn’t answer.
Outside, banners fluttered: Future Youth Sports Day – Observation Zone 7.
A black cat sat beneath the banners, half in shadow.
Her eyes were brown and strangely translucent, catching the light as if something fragile might live inside them. People passing by glanced at her, then looked away, uneasy without knowing why.
The cat watched the children warming up.
Then she slipped between the parked vans and was gone.
“Sports day’s coming up,” the barber said later, fastening the cape. “Excited?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“People think I’m fast,” the boy said. “But I’m slow.”
“You don’t look slow.”
“That’s the problem.”
He watched other children warming up. They moved smoothly, effortlessly. Almost too smoothly.
“My system’s still adjusting,” the boy said. “It corrects my movement after I start running. Not before.”
The barber frowned slightly. “So… it helps you?”
“It fixes me,” the boy said. “But everyone thinks it’s natural.”
A small drone hovered above the field, blinking softly.
The barber resumed cutting, careful, methodical. Hair fell to the floor in quiet clumps.
“Does it hurt?” the barber asked.
“No,” the boy said. “I just don’t like it.”
“Like what?”
“Being measured.”
The clippers stopped. For a moment, no one spoke.
The boy looked at the mirror again. His hair was shorter now, lighter. The sensors beneath his skin adjusted silently.
Outside, children ran. Some fast. Some slow. All of them were recorded. Somewhere beyond the field, a black cat paused, watching, before disappearing again.
Sports day wasn’t really about running, he realised. It was about observation.
The barber brushed stray hair from the boy’s neck. His hands were gentle.
The drones watched. The systems logged. The algorithms predicted.
But none of them noticed what the boy felt in that moment—
the quiet wish to run, just once, without being corrected.
by submission | Feb 20, 2026 | Story |
Author: Sarah Gane Burton
“Would you look at that—”
“Looks like she went through a meat grinder.”
“Do you think we can fix her?”
“Dunno, maybe if we replaced the midsection.”
“The frame is bent here, and here—”
“At least one of the valves is too stretched to hold fluids.”
“Look at the tearing. Regeneration would take years!”
“Here comes Doc—”
“How’s Ruby?”
“She’s in rough shape, sir.”
“What’s operational?”
“Respiration is fine. Sensors too—”
“Waste fluid system is wrecked though, she’s leaking all over—”
“That’s pretty normal. What’s your plan?”
“Bend the frame back, get some new valves in place—”
“Fix the tension in the diaphragm—”
“Good plan. Keep it basic, boys. No budget for the cosmetic stuff.”
“Think she can handle a few more rounds?”
“Oh sure.”
“Doc, do they ever think about bringing back the original models?”
“You mean—”
“Technically, or rather, biologically, they were built for it.”
“But the wear-and-tear!”
“Isn’t there some kind of natural regeneration?”
“Stick to the job, boys. We’re not going back to that.”
“There was healing, wasn’t there, doc? Surely they didn’t just—”
“Tear open? Leak fluids? Dislocate internally? As I said, not going back.”
“Mother-of-all—”
“Precisely.”
by submission | Feb 19, 2026 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
If I have any regrets, I wish they’d given me more time to mourn for my legs before they took my arms. I understand we were on a tight launch window but would one more day have made difference? After all, I have given more than my all-legs, arms, genitals, most of my torso, digestive system. Now, I’m sailing through the cosmos like some kind of living museum bust.
Still human? Hybrid? Some well meaning twit at NASA came up with the name “star children”, like we are some cute little big eyed cartoon babies hurtling through space, babbling our celestial babytalk until we can find a place to nap. Which actually is kind of what our mission is: find a place for all us earthlings to lay down our heads and call home. Our solar system is crashing faster than any of the astro-brainiacs figured, and terraforming is about four centuries away from making our nearest “Goldilocks” planet anywhere close to habitable. As luck would have it, there are three worlds that have atmosphere, decent temperature and are prime real estate to resettle as is, move in ready.
There are six of us, two to each target system, a redundancy built in to soothe the mission analysts. Even at light speed it’s going to take us close to twelve years to reach our target and once we’re there, we set up the new wiz-bang technology, the space folding gates, then we’ll open the door and let them all step over to their new home. Through all of it, all our sacrifices we held tight to one sacred idea: we were doing this to save our people. Our species. Our flora and fauna.
That was plan “A”. However, as we half dozen go on our merry way, time and tech advance. On year four we received word that there were exciting new breakthroughs in fold space technology. By year eight they said they were able to send probes to a little more than the half way point. By year nine we were told to alter course and begin breaking. At year 9.5 we all deaccelerated and the six of us slipped through a jump gate and wham bam thank you ma’am, we were all at the first destination. And we weren’t alone. They were all here. Billions of them. Settlements, forests, farms, game preserves, fisheries, all that we were supposed to help cross over, already here.
If I had the biology left to vomit, I would have right at that moment. One of us asked the question we all were afraid to ask: “Could we be put back together? Made whole?” The pause before the response said it all. Two of my colleagues pulled the pin and hit self destruct right then and there. Three were good soldiers and went into orbit like they were supposed. Me? I just took off.
And now I wander out here in the cosmos. Neither fish, nor foul, beast nor beauty. They want me to come back. A psychiatrist monologues me roughly once every two weeks. They’ve sent ships out beyond me but they never quite can catch me ‘cuz I am not really following any pattern. I don’t know, maybe someday I’ll wander back. As for now, second star to the right and straight on till morning.
by submission | Feb 18, 2026 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
From our vantage point, we could see the thing land on the shore: one enormous ship splashing in the foam of the salt water. It soon disgorged its crew, who stumbled out unsteadily. One passenger fell to his knees and removed his gleaming silver helmet. He made arcane hand motions across his chest plate and sang out something we could not decipher. The others followed suit.
We kept to the forest, watching. The newcomers didn’t know we were here. They set up shelters near the shore and jabbered at one another until dark, when they closed themselves off inside their individual huts. We crept closer, sliding around these structures like shadows in moonlight. We could find no entrance.
What were these creatures? Were they mostly machine—as evidenced by their partly metal exteriors? Were they wispy spirit beings restrained in silver containers? Were they soft biologics, covering themselves in protective armor?
And why were they here?
* * *
To initiate contact, four of us approached the newcomers’ camp. We carried gifts: baskets of fruit and woven blankets. They stopped their busywork and stared. The one who had fallen to his knees the day before came to us, hands out, smiling.
He made mouth noises which reminded me of a chattering koloma, when it has its little hand stuck in a trap.
I smiled at this thought, and handed him a blanket. As I looked in his odd oval eyes, I saw everything: his great cities on fire, his temples crumbling, his babies starving. I now knew why they were here.
* * *
Perched in the tolobas trees around our night fire, I detailed my vision to my comrades. The oldest among us nodded, unsurprised. He recalled the prophecy, something most of us had forgotten, or dismissed as a children’s story.
In the morning, he bade us return to the visitor’s camp, instructing us to shake their hands, to touch them this time. To fulfill the prophecy of our destiny.
The newcomers were pleased to see us again. They smiled and laughed. They gave us utensils made from neither wood nor metal, and lightweight, flexible plates. What these things were used for, I have no idea. Toys? We received these gifts and bowed in thanks.
One tall lanky visitor reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder, his spindly fingers gently massaging my feathers. I could not help but purr. I placed my own hand atop his, completing my part in the prophecy.
The landscape inside both our heads bloomed with explosions of flowers in kaleidoscopic colors, with iridescent oceans, sparkling clouds above. Gentle, sweetly scented breezes washed over our faces. Paradise revealed. I could feel the peace, the joy in his heart.
I could also feel his knowledge, his memories, leaving his mind and flooding into mine.
I removed his hand from my shoulder and he fell to the ground, a husk drained of its animating essence. My comrades had all done likewise. We would burn these husks in the dark of night, as a way of giving thanks to the overlord spirit.
Come dawn we will shed our feathers, drop from our nests in the trees, and relocate to the towering metal ship—each of us now armed with knowledge and purpose. We will launch the ship, and head for a new world. To expand, to procreate, to create civilization. To fulfill our destiny.
by submission | Feb 17, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Like most loyalists, when I first heard the name Praxia Apostle, I thought it had to be the name of a great leader, a fearless commander, a long-sought savior. Turns out Praxia was a lowly bean counter, a once-upon-a-time accountant who’d joined the cause, who was relegated to supply logistics. She kept track of stuff.
Stuff we needed to fight the upstarts. It was important, but not the stuff of legends. Still, Praxia became legendary, exalted, almost deified. And all because of an epic accounting error.
Not her error. An error that’d been discovered long ago, but she was the one who finally exploited the error. You see, the universe is a numbers game. Things have to add up. The tally sheet has to balance. The bottom line is always the bottom line.
And astrophysicists have known for a long time that the universe wasn’t adding up. Something was missing. Something big that was actually very small. Dark matter. The elusive primordial element that controlled the ultimate fate of the universe.
But Praxia Apostle wasn’t interested in entropy and heat death, she had holes in her supply spreadsheet she had to fill. And at some point she realized dark matter could fill those holes. No one quite knows the exact methods and/or madness Praxia employed. She would only say she “reconciled the books.”
However she did it, Praxia’s “reconciliation” made it possible for our quantum printers to harness dark matter from the ether. An almost infinite supply of star stuff that we could feed into the printers for everything from boots to bullets to butter.
With that kind of resource edge, we loyalists crushed the upstarts ushering in an era now known as the Pax Praxia. To many in the cause, she became a pseudo-religion. Praxia Apostle apostles sprung up everywhere preaching a muddy gospel of divine amortization.
It’s no surprise then that Praxia went dark, like a spreadsheet column hidden, which only led to further calls for her deification. It’s too bad. I think an unassuming accountant who changed the course of history, even with a prophetic name like Praxia Apostle, just wanted to live an ordinary kind of life, to do her job, to count, to matter.
On balance, isn’t that what we all want?
