by submission | Aug 12, 2025 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
The world is broken; in all the ways we predicted it would be. It cannot be repaired; it is far too late for that now. But at least you can take a break, as long as you have the funds of course. You can check into one of the Long Term Hotels. These are easily distinguished from the others with their high fences and the twenty-four hour security guards patrolling the perimeter.
When I was a kid, I used to think that they were homes for the elderly. Whenever I spotted the residents out on their balconies or lounging in the gardens, to my young eyes they did appear to be old and decrepit. When I learned the truth, that these people were the wealthiest in our society, the monied elite, I was appalled. It seemed obscene to me that they were living amidst us in the lap of luxury, flaunting their success and good fortune in our very faces from behind the high fences with the armed guards protecting them from the rabble outside.
Now I am the one on the other side of the fence, gazing out. I am the old man on the balcony and I remember my younger self and how slowly I came to realise that most people didn’t share in my outrage and were much more accepting of the hotels. They argued that they were ‘good for the City’ and created jobs, not just for the construction industry but also the hotel staff and the security details. And businesses and local shops benefited and flourished, all because of the Long Term Hotels.
I ranted and raged and they stared back at me, incredulous.
‘Why is it so wrong?’ they asked. ‘If they can afford it, why shouldn’t they check in? Who wouldn’t? Wouldn’t you? Isn’t it what we all want, isn’t it the dream? To be comfortable and to be safe?’
I remember how I answered, what I said and I believed it way back then. And I still do.
by submission | Aug 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Lance J. Mushung
Director and Operator, both of whom resembled giant copper-colored eggs, floated into their ship’s control compartment. The viewer displayed the disk of a blue and white planet.
Operator transmitted, “Director, these organics are more contentious and disharmonious than most.”
“That does not matter. Our theology is benevolence to all organics.”
“Of course. I meant we would need time to socialize them.”
“Yes, it will take time to, as they put it, polish off their rough edges. They will be ready for the Galactic Commune at some point though. As you know, our first step is to deal with the most violent organics. Eliminating those miscreants will do much to make the others less suspicious and more sociable. Toward that goal, did we have any trouble producing a prototype duplicate of them?”
“We fabricated the prototype with no difficulty. We provided full knowledge of the organics and their weapons. We also provided an invisibility shroud, shrouded assassination and surveillance drones, and monetary funds.”
“How will the assassinations be done?”
“Assassinated organics will appear to die from medical problems such as aneurisms, cardiac arrests, and strokes.”
“Tell me about the prototype.”
“It is named Audrey Wright and is a short female organic with pale skin, long auburn hair, and hazel eyes.”
“That means the organics will call this prototype she and her. Where is she and what is she doing?”
We deposited Wright in Memphis in the United States of America three planet rotations ago. She has arranged living quarters, learned the city, assigned drones to surveil promising locations, and established routines making it seem she works from her living quarters. Her career is a creator of instructions for computing devices. She has also investigated a dangerous area named Riverside at night while shrouded. We monitor her and the surveillance drones at all times, and you can observe her first action now. She learned about a meeting between two gang leaders to discuss a territorial dispute and is now on the way to the meeting while shrouded.”
The viewer divided into frames displaying the perspectives of Wright and the surveillance drones. She followed one of the gang leaders and two of his gang into a dingy room located in a decrepit red brick building. The second gang leader with two gang members arrived soon afterward.
The meeting began with verbal posturing and weapons held at the ready. From behind the first leader, Wright fired one pistol shot at the second leader. Blood spurted out of a gaping wound on the side of his head. A flurry of flashes and sharp cracks ensued. In a brief period, two more organics died and three were wounded. Wright then dispatched a drone to the wounded gang leader, the one she had followed. The drone would hold the wound open, causing the gang leader to bleed out in a short time.
Wright left the building searching for other violent organics in Riverside. She soon encountered a heavy organic in a blue coat beating someone smaller wearing a brown coat. Yelling indicated Brown Coat owed money for an illegal substance. Blue Coat soon left Brown Coat balled up on the filthy pavement. Wright dispatched a drone and Blue Coat collapsed dead into a heap due to cardiac arrest.
Director transmitted to Operator, “Superb performance. Proceed on producing more similar to Wright. I will select locations for them.”
Operator floated out of the compartment. With several more hours of darkness, Wright searched for more violent organics deserving death while Director observed.
by submission | Aug 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alexandra Peel
The future’s bright, they said. The future’s now!
When the Church of Eternity claimed its wise men had seen the light from future days, we bowed to their superior knowledge and respected their ages-long claim on, if not our mortal bodies, then our souls. Now we had the opportunity to transform ourselves into beings of light and wonder – they said. They sold us a lie.
When Priddy got ill, she returned from visiting her Curate in a state of bewilderment. Always kind during the time I’d known her, most decorous in her behaviour; I had never heard her say a bad word about anyone. She cried for hours after, wouldn’t tell me what she had revealed during her final confession, said she was damned. Nothing I said could ease her mind.
Priddy didn’t want to die slowly, wasting away one muscle at a time, one memory a day. So I killed her. I would not call it murder. She asked me, no, she begged me to. I couldn’t stand by and watch her shrink and shrivel in pain. She said that it would be beneficial, beneficial to whom? I cried. The population is out of control, she whispered, one less won’t make a difference. So I held her hand to steady the pills, and as she slept, I smothered her with a pillow soaked in my tears.
Her Curate’s cyborg came for the body two days later, told me to accompany the Church of Eternity Constable, who waited silently as the remains of Priddy were vacuum-packed and hauled away. The Constable remained mute all the way to the Doctrine Ministry; he didn’t have to speak, I knew why I was being taken.
Now I know what they mean by perdition. You can forget your archaic wandering in a barren landscape alone scenario, or an underworld of fire-pits and pitchfork demons. This is the future, this is now! Can the soul be clad in something other than flesh and bone? I had wondered. The future might be bright for some, but for others, like me, it’s a new state of eternal damnation – I need only look in a mirror to see.
I seem to recall, maybe I am wrong, but didn’t I used to have brown eyes?
by submission | Aug 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Eva C. Stein
Aidan hadn’t meant to bring it up – not here, not today. But when he answered the door, his impulse signal spiked. He let her speak first.
“Don’t look so worried,” Mae said as she stepped in – no invitation needed. “It’s good news. They’ve given us a fifteen-minute slot.”
“That’s not… long,” he said, barely registering his own words.
Mae dropped into the chair that was unmistakably hers. “Oh, it’s plenty. It’s not like we need an intro. They know who we are.”
The drink-making station whirred, unanswered.
“Aidan?” she called.
He emerged with two mugs. “Sorry. Yes, they do. But…” He hesitated. Then:
“Am I the sort of person someone can really know?”
Mae paused, eyes narrowing – not in judgement, more like tuning into a frequency she hadn’t expected.
“That’s no small question,” she said.
Aidan set her mug down gently, steam drifting between them.
“I’m not trying to be dramatic – it’s just… I’ve been thinking.”
“Well, there’s your problem.” Mae angled her head. “Define ‘really know.’ Like all your data? Your codebase? Or just the parts you let through the firewall?”
Aidan almost smiled. “I knew I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Come on. Sit. I’m grounding you,” she said.
He exhaled as he sat down. “I mean – can someone know me without needing something from me? Without it being transactional?”
Mae went quiet, then smirked. “I won’t pay for the drink if that helps.”
Aidan shook his head, prompting his neural weave to judder – softly, like a background thrum.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I think I’m just… a relay. A processor. Useful until I’m not.”
No smirk this time. “And that’s why you asked?”
“Know me without needing something from me, yes.”
She cleared her throat. “Well. I don’t need anything from you.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“Because it’s you. Not what system you run, not what you calculate. Just – ”
She paused. “Just who you are when you bring the mugs in – that storm-cloud face, wondering if the world’s still spinning. That version.”
“The broken one.”
“The irreplaceable one.”
“There you go – once broken, never to be replaced.”
Mae sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I’m not sure what I know anymore – especially about myself.”
“Maybe that’s why we need friends. They hold the mirror up when you forget what you’re like.”
“And if I look, and there’s nothing there?”
“Then I guess that’s my problem too.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Because I elected you.”
“What?” Aidan almost spilled his drink; the surface HUD blinked red glyphs.
“Don’t make that face. I didn’t say ‘voted for’ you.”
“Still sounds like bureaucracy to me.”
“It’s not. It’s… alignment. Choosing someone not for what they give you, but for who they are – or who you want to become around them. Not useful. Just… essential.”
“Is that what this is?”
“Yes.” She paused. “I know you think you’re replaceable. But I’ve met the replicas. Trust me – there’s no patch for you.”
He didn’t speak for a while. Then, standing, he gathered the mugs.
“You once said I was the only one who could navigate the blackout zones without scrambling.”
Mae looked up. “You mapped entropy fields – navigated disorder like it had a rhythm. You remember that?”
“I remember it mattered to you,” he said, disappearing into the other room.
“Still does,” Mae called.
He returned and sat down. “So, they’ve given us just fifteen minutes?”
“That’s right. They already know who we are. But do we?”
Their eyes finally met.
“I think I’m starting to,” he said.
She smiled. “Then let’s make it count.”
by submission | Aug 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Jenny Abbott
Avery Darger started discussing his final arrangements on the third day, which was a good sign.
They were small decisions at first—plans for cremation in space, for example—and Tsu knew not to rush him. She had the routine down pat for premium clients and was committed to giving him his money’s worth.
As usual, the first forty-eight hours had been spent in a mix of small talk and sightseeing in the nicest parts of New Vegas. He danced a lot, spent even more, and admired all the benefits that came with her nuclear-powered core, especially pyrotechnics and flight. She shared the origin of her name, wishing silently, as she always did, that her parents could have thought of something better than to memorialize the big one that hit Newark.
It helped that they couldn’t touch. After years in the business, she’d watched many a less-augmented guide fend off clients’ roving hands and expectations. Her own protective membrane meant that, should Darger or anyone else get a little frisky, she only had to remind them that the transparent barrier was standing between them and a heat transfer of nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit.
He talked wistfully at times about the things he’d miss, although Tsu wasn’t concerned. It was common, she knew, for clients to get sentimental before the transformation, but rare for them to back out of the deal. Iron-clad contracts ensured that her employer would get paid either way—if the thought of a lawsuit didn’t dissuade customers, fear of a life of poverty did the trick.
Instead, she stayed dutifully beside him on the fourth night while he waxed poetic at a casino. For three hours, he drank and rambled on about what it felt like to hold a poker chip between his fingers or a napkin against his skin, all things long since inaccessible to her. It looked briefly like the irony might have dawned on him, and she was thankful when that moment passed. She was paid to be a novelty, not a martyr.
It was a relief, too, that he didn’t ask why she’d become a guide. Clients sometimes broached the topic, either out of awkwardness or inebriation, and she disliked answering. The truth was that she had chosen one of the few paths out of poverty that was available to her, and she had been lucky enough to be more successful than others. The surgeries and limitations had been worth it. But that wasn’t an answer fit for refined company, and she didn’t enjoy lying.
He surprised her on the fifth day by being more contemplative. Usually, when the end of the guided transitional period rolled around, and a client realized that their time in human form was almost up, they went for broke with gusto. Some ate ‘til it hurt, while others dove into fountains wearing six-figure suits. Darger, however, just wanted to stare at clouds, so she let him. Hovering above him in her membrane bubble, she performed a fireworks show against the holographic sky of a private gazebo.
He thanked her the next morning for her services, before leaving to be uploaded to the mainframe. It was a simple gesture, one she’d courteously received hundreds of times before, in an array of languages and customs. And, just for an instant, as she always did, she wondered what it felt like to abandon a life of privilege.
Then she flew out to meet her next client.
