by submission | Dec 3, 2025 | Story |
Author: Taylor Pittman
They moved around the room, their bodies jerking at odd moments, their voices slipping into mechanical ranges as they served beverages. She could not stop her eyes from trapping the waiters in her periphery. If she looked close enough, she could see the stitch pattern embedded behind their ears or across their wrists. Their eyes, too shiny, too attentive, yet holding nothing. Don’t stare, Mama said, they are human too.
They called them HCR Models, a new worker bot meant to replace human laborers. The ones serving this Gala were meant to showcase their potential. Marin watched as one of them bumped into another, sloshing golden bubbles from one of the six champagne flutes on its tray. Marin tried to keep the disdain off her face as she looked around at her father’s business partners; greedy, wheezing, red-faced men with their taciturn wives in one hand and a checkbook in the other. One man had stopped a female HCR Model and was tilting her face to and fro, his hands holding her chin like a child would maneuver a doll; his wife was smiling, but her eyes were screaming.
Marin scanned the room for her mother and spotted her on stage, near the podium, with her father. She wasn’t smiling; no, Marin’s mother was stoic as ever. She stood with tan skin and thick, dark hair parted down the middle, falling to her back in a silk sheet. She carried the energy of a woman whose kindness you wanted to earn. Marin’s father had an arm around her waist, confident and comfortable as he threw his head back with a laugh at something the professor squeaked out, baring his teeth through his curly beard.
They looked perfect together—the head of a technological empire.
Marin grabbed a glass of champagne from one of the trays floating near her head. She took a long drink, savoring the pops of flavor and the warmth that spread through her chest. She would make the most of the night. Finishing her drink, she set it down and gripped the cold steel of her chair’s wheels and moved towards the back of the room.
“May I have your attention?” Her father’s voice echoed over the speakers. He tapped the podium mic twice. “I’d like to say a few words before the open bar kicks in.”
Marin rolled her eyes and looked to the side. She paused. An HRC was staring at her, empty eyes unblinking. It was the one who spilled the drink.
“We usher in a new age, where human imperfection is no longer the standard, but rather the past. Our new model is more than a robot—it’s an assistant. An assistant dedicated to serving you and your needs only.” Her father had everyone’s full attention.
“HRC Models don’t need lunch breaks, they don’t have ‘mental health days,’ and most of all,” his gaze slid over to Marin, “they don’t get sick or injured.”
The HRC smiled widely at Marin.
by submission | Dec 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
To hell with pleasant dreams. Long live nightmares!
Marcus looked at the motto writ large on the smart panel of DreamOn’s boardroom. The corporation’s board was gathered to solicit his opinion. They were going to want his approval. They were going to seek his blessing. He’d gladly give it to them, even knowing it would kill some of his customers. How many might die depended on whether the FDA, HHS, FCC, CPSC, and CDC could get their act together and determine who had power to regulate DreamOn.
The controversy was good. Everyone in America and half the world now knew about DreamOn. What had started out years ago as a device to set up the conditions for deep REM sleep was now an activator for certain types of dreams: wistful, wild, wet or otherwise. Marcus did not understand the finer points of the neural nanonics that had made this possible. Yet, he sussed that if people could repurpose six to eight hours of what they otherwise considered lost time, like he did, there was a fortune to be made.
Researchers had squawked about the brain’s need to decompress, that dreams innately functioned to process reality. They warned that messing with a natural process would end up creating unwanted consequences.
But, that’s what humans always did. Mess with nature. Control is our uncontrollable impulse. DreamOn’s device in its current iteration offered that control. Though a person could not program the specific events and players in a dream, he or she could set the parameters for a broad genre: romance, adventure, contemporary, historical—and, most recently, horror.
This was Marcus’s greatest insight. Nightmares had become king, manifesting themselves as chase dreams. These riotous and improbable chases through alleys, warehouses, swamps, oceans, skies, and starships stimulated adrenal and nervous systems to burn upwards of a thousand calories a night.
Dreamers were getting their workouts pursued by their worst fears. The DreamOn device didn’t select the fear—was not capable of determining that. Only the dreamer could conjure that up. Marcus understood what the great creators of movie terror understood. He knew to let his audience terrify themselves by keeping them in a state of dread: knowing something terrible was after them, but not what specific creature was in pursuit. Leave it up to the individual: a giant spider, a brain-starved zombie, an ex-spouse.
Chase dreams had become the newest workout regimen—a killer one. Literally, two heart attack deaths in the last month linked to the use of DreamOn. That’s why the Feds had pressured his board members to meet.
Marcus knew it’d be difficult to prove the extent that DreamOn could be held liable, but Marcus didn’t want to be perceived as uncooperative. Better to play nice. Stall. Make small changes to make everyone feel safer. Security Theater was the operative term. Smoke and mirrors while DreamOn became as indispensable as cellular implants and soylent green.
Marcus cleared his throat to start the meeting. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, sputtered and went black. Marcus tensed. The room was too quiet. No one yelled or even seemed to breathe. The wall rattled. Marcus flung himself to the floor just as the door burst open and flames licked the surface of the board table. There was a terrible hissing sizzle of burnt flesh and the entire room shook.
On all fours Marcus scrambled to find safety under the table. His heart pounded and his breath came short as he felt thunderous footsteps and the clatter of chairs being flung away from the table.
Whatever had broken into the boardroom was after him. Marcus hunkered between two chairs just as a black, scaly claw the size of a wrecking ball splintered the boardroom table. His heart in his throat, Marcus launched himself towards the ruined doorway.
The monstrous viper-thing roared and spewed a lariat of flame at his heels. Marcus managed to tuck his legs in and roll into the hall. His temples pounding, he found his feet and sprinted down the hall lit by the hellish fire behind. Legs and arms pumping, he rushed towards the exit.
And then the wall to his left blew out. Debris buried him. His heart rose into his mouth. Marcus could not scream. He was choking, convulsing in dread, incapable of any action, except the knowledge that his heart would soon burst from fear.
The serpent creature, the unnamable thing, approached one slow doom-step at a time. Marcus clawed at the debris pinning him. His heart furious, his terror supreme.
“Please. No. Stop!” he strangled out.
In the final blackness that enfolded him, Marcus felt the hissing mockery in the creature’s reply, “Dream on.”
by submission | Nov 30, 2025 | Story |
Author: David Sydney
It was a Friday night poker game, with only three left in the hand—Mel, Otto, and Ralph. Ralph, losing all night, was down to his last few pathetic chips. He couldn’t believe it. Mel had dealt him four aces. His problems were over. Finally, he was about to clean up.
“Hey, did anyone else hear that voice say, ‘It was a Friday night poker game, with only three left in the hand–Mel, Otto, and Ralph…?’ And then that bit about Ralph and the four aces?”
That was Otto talking.
Ralph said he didn’t have four aces, but he was lying. Mel, who was upset to have dealt Ralph the cards he thought were his, said he heard the voice too. For the past week, he’d practiced dealing out four aces to himself, but he blew it. Ralph had gotten Mel’s cards by mistake.
“Wait a minute. Did anyone hear the voice say, ‘Ralph said he didn’t have four aces, but he was lying. Mel, who was upset to have dealt Ralph the cards he thought were his…?’ And then go on to accuse Mel of cheating?”
Again, Otto questioned what was happening.
Ralph was upset. Mel was upset. And Otto, too, was especially upset. As collateral for his chips, he offered the engagement ring he’d promised Sylvia. They’d been going out for the past year-and-a-half. He told her it was a real diamond, but it was only high-class paste.
“That’s not true,” said Otto. “It’s a great ring.” He added, “I didn’t hear any voice, did you?”
Sylvia was upset. She thought she heard a voice explaining that Otto had been up to one of his tricks, offering only high-class paste. She’d planned to have any engagement ring appraised by a jeweler anyway, just to be on the safe side.
“Hold it. Did I just hear some voice say, ‘Sylvia was upset. She thought she heard a voice explaining that Otto had been up to one of his tricks…?’”
That was Sylvia questioning what was going on. She’d sworn she was faithful to Otto, but it wasn’t true.
“What?” said Otto. “Did anyone hear a voice talk about Sylvia?”
Secretly, Sylvia had been meeting Frank Cromley in inexpensive Italian and Chinese restaurants. Frank promised to come up with a ring much better than Otto’s. Also, he noted that he’d inherit his Uncle Leo’s dry cleaning business one day, in which case Sylvia would be much better off than stuck with ‘that loser’, his term for Otto. Now Frank was especially pleased to hear the voice say to everyone that Otto and Sylvia were no more.
Back at the card game, Otto asked, “Did you all hear what that voice said about Sylvia?”
“You mean Frank?”
“Otto, you mean Frank and Sylvia? That’s how I heard the voice say it,” said Mel.
As he was driving toward the dry cleaners, Frank was pleased to hear the voice say, ‘Frank was pleased to hear the voice say to everyone that Otto and Sylvia were no more.’ He slammed his foot on the brake, just to be sure he heard properly.
The driver of the Mack truck behind him heard the voice, too. Who the hell was Frank, he wondered. Was he hearing voices, or in some altered state? Who the hell was Otto? He knew no one named Sylvia. Distracted by the voice, he couldn’t brake in time to prevent the catastrophic rear-ender into Frank Cromley’s Subaru.
by submission | Nov 29, 2025 | Story |
Author: David Dumouriez
“Good afternoon, Zak,” the voice said.
“Alright?” Zak replied.
“Had a good day?”
“Ah, you know. The usual. Bor-ing!”
There was a tinkly laugh. “Got any homework?”
“Homework? Just a minute … Yeah. Some crap on the digestive system.”
“Bullet points?”
“That’ll do.”
The words spilled out onto the screen.
“Bit long …”
“OK. How’s that?”
“Better.”
“Anything else?”
“Erm … an essay? Yes, an essay. Question: How effective was the United Nations in minimising conflict and easing tensions during the Cold War?”
“Here you go …”
Zak looked it over and nodded. “Fine.” He knew it would get him top marks. Well, it was just a game. They set you the work; you fed it in. You gave it to them; they marked it. They didn’t even say not to use it. They couldn’t. They used it themselves!
Zak’s dad, Ned, still couldn’t believe what it had degenerated into. “In our day …” And he’d go on about exams. His grandpa, Denys, was even worse. “Smart phones? Smart watches? The only thing that’s not going to be smart is us!”
Nah, they just didn’t get it. No one needed to know anything any more, let alone remember it. The whole point was to buy yourself time to do the things you really wanted. Wasn’t that what the system was working towards?
His tasks done for the night, Zak was free to shoot balls, weapons, people, monsters and aliens. Sometimes Eileen, his mother, would burst into the room and find him edging ever-nearer to the screen.
“You’ll wreck your eyesight!”
“Oh, give it a rest!”
“At least sit up. You’ll ruin your back!”
“No, I won’t!”
And Zak knew he wouldn’t. After the second or third time she’d said it, he consulted the assistant. Apparently it was okay if you took regular breaks and stretched a bit, so that’s what he did. Well, he did for a while. Now he was too busy.
“I never see you off that thing!” Ned exclaimed in frustration when it was his turn to burst into the room.
“I’m working!”
“Like hell you are …”
But, like scores of parents up and down the country, Ned and Eileen had lost the battle. For the most part, Zak didn’t even need them.
“Snack, Zak?”
“Yeah. Think I will.”
“Sweet or savoury?”
Zak barely gave it a thought. He wasn’t hungry but he knew he had to get something down, just to keep him going. It was likely to be a long night.
“Er … burger?”
“Coke or milkshake?”
Zak was staring into space. Literally. “Yeah … yeah. Don’t mind if I do …” He launched another couple of rockets.
An executive decision was made. “Coke then.”
The assistant put the order through. “They say it’ll be twenty minutes. My, my, they’re getting tardy …”
In the event, it was all academic as Zak hardly touched the food or drink, so fixated was he on achieving mastery of the galaxy.
And as the days went on, a strange phenomenon seemed to occur: the screen got bigger and Zak’s head got smaller. It was scarcely noticed, not commented upon, but wasn’t one beginning to subsume the other?
So it was that on the night Zak became the first human to ascend to the pinnacle of existence, Eileen found his swivel chair empty.
She knew he wasn’t in the living room because she’d just been there. A quick check revealed he wasn’t in the toilet either.
“Zak?”
She thought she heard a little voice.
“Where are you?”
“Here. Inside.”
“Inside where? Zak, I don’t-”
“I’m not Zak. I am computer.”
Soon, we all were.
by submission | Nov 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Larson Holm
He splashed the cold water up into his face and looked at himself in the mirror. It would have to do. Why did she want to talk now? It had been five years, and she’d been the one to break it off. It hadn’t made sense then, what could’ve changed? Did she have the answers? That was what he wanted, he thought: someone or something to arrive, up from the ground or out of the sky, and tell him all the answers, make it all make sense. The air buzzed around him – the door? – he jumped round, was she early? No, it was just a fly. It didn’t even sound like the door. He shook his head and watched the bright red insect land on the wall beside the cracks in the flaking paint (damp from the shower, again) where it stopped, antennae twitching. It was one of those new ones, he thought. A big, bulbous thing, its colour made it seem furious. An invasive species, they were saying, but invading from where? They weren’t dangerous, apparently. Anne from next door – and he was proud to say that he knew his neighbours, people can change – said her black lab (who would chomp down anything in front of her) had eaten one of the red flies a couple of days back and suffered no ill effects, unlike last year’s wasp incident, so these new insects couldn’t be too bad.
He stepped over to get a closer look, leaning in towards the bug, its black compound eyes bulging out from its crimson body. The insect shuddered and shook its wings, and he jerked back. The movement looked strange, he thought. Mechanical, almost. He stared into its eyes, keeping his distance – where had these things come from? – and it stared back at him, peering at his fleshy face. The fly twitched its antennae again. ‘I have been seen,’ it thought. ‘I have been noticed.’
Quite some distance away (quite some distance indeed!) these thoughts were received, processed, and acted upon. The drones could easily handle some tasks by themselves, but being detected was always a situation where they needed some additional guidance. And they were being detected a lot, the handler thought. There had been far more incidents than expected. Some losses due to swatting or errant pets were to be expected, but it seemed that the drones could only observe for a few seconds before their subject stopped whatever they were doing to observe back. The handler was displeased: being noticed was not the goal. The drone was to remove itself from the area and try again later. Perhaps those beings down on the planet had a sense of smell much better than anticipated, or maybe their vision worked in abnormal parts of the spectrum. That would at least be interesting, the handler thought. They had come here through the long darkness of space to learn, to see if these strange people had any answers. It had been a huge price to pay, but the potential scientific rewards outweighed the costs. Or they would do, if they could ever make any proper, undisturbed observations.
Back down on the ground, the fly had been forgotten, and he marched towards the door, hand flattening his hair then tugging his shirt so that it sat right, then back to his hair again. She was here, and maybe she would have some answers.
