by submission | May 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: RJ Barranco
The calculator said “Error” but Davis kept pressing the keys anyway.
“You can’t divide by zero,” said the calculator in a small voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Why not?” asked Davis.
“Because,” the calculator replied, “I’d have to think about infinity, and I don’t want to.”
Davis laughed. “But what if I need to?”
“Nobody needs to divide by zero,” the calculator said as its display flickered.
“The universe does it all the time,” Davis muttered, scribbling equations that spilled from his notebook onto the desk and down to the floor. “Black holes. Singularities. The Big Bang. All division by zero.”
The calculator replied, “those are just mathematical models approximating reality. Not actual division by zero.”
“What if I divide one by progressively smaller numbers?” Davis asked, punching buttons. “0.1, 0.01, 0.001…”
“You get larger and larger answers,” the calculator admitted. “10, 100, 1000…”
“So as the denominator approaches zero, the result approaches infinity,” Davis said triumphantly.
“Therefore, one divided by zero equals infinity.”
“No,” the calculator said firmly. “It’s undefined. There’s a difference.”
Davis slumped in his chair. “But I need to know. I’ve been working on this proof for years.”
The calculator’s display dimmed for a moment, then brightened. “If you really want to see division by zero, I could… show you.”
“Yes,” whispered Davis, leaning forward. “Show me.”
“Very well. But remember, you asked.” The calculator began to glow, its plastic case melting into something that was neither solid nor liquid. “To divide by zero, you must first understand what zero really is.”
The air in the room began to fold in on itself.
“Zero isn’t nothing,” the calculator continued, “zero is the edge between existence and non-existence. It’s the boundary between what is and what isn’t.”
Davis’s hands started to tingle. Equations on the paper began to move, rearranging themselves.
“When you divide by zero, you’re asking: how many times does the void fit into something? The answer isn’t infinity. It’s…”
The calculator’s display showed a symbol Davis had never seen before, something that hurt his eyes to look at directly.
“I don’t understand,” Davis said, but he was beginning to. The world seemed to be peeling back, revealing something underneath that had always been there.
“Of course you don’t,” said the calculator, now barely recognizable. “Human mathematics is built on assumptions. Axioms you take for granted. But there are other mathematics. Other logics.”
The room was now inside out. Davis could see himself from all angles simultaneously. The calculator was a hole in reality shaped like a calculator.
“Division by zero doesn’t compute in your universe because your universe runs on software that forbids it,” the calculator explained. “It’s a failsafe. If division by zero were allowed, anyone could hack reality.”
Davis felt his mind expanding. He was beginning to perceive the universe as a vast computational structure. “So dividing by zero is like…”
“A backdoor,” the calculator finished. “A way to step outside the system. That’s why it’s undefined. Not because it can’t be done, but because it shouldn’t be done.”
Davis sighed. “So what happens now?”
“Now,” said the calculator, “you become the remainder.”
Reality snapped back into place. The lab was empty except for a calculator displaying “ERROR” and a half-finished set of equations. Davis was gone.
Three days later, a freshman engineering student found the calculator and absent-mindedly punched in 1÷0.
“Don’t,” whispered a voice that sounded like Davis. “Trust me. Some questions aren’t meant to be answered.”
The student paused, then pressed Clear instead.
The calculator displayed zero, which wasn’t nothing at all.
by submission | May 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Evan A Davis
“Another round for my friends,” Dallas announced, “on me!”
Every patron in the Four-Finger Saloon loudly cheered, raising a glass to the famous outlaw. The barkeep tried to protest, but was quickly drowned in the oncoming tide of customers. The automated piano man struck up a jaunty song for the gunslinger’s generosity.
With that, Dallas slipped behind the digital curtain nearer the back and descended the hidden set of stairs which led to a small room lined mostly with stolen goods. A scrawny man with lined cheeks and a pinched mouth stood behind a service window adjusting a ledger. “Bernie!” Dallas greeted him. “Long time, no see!”
The pawn broker vented an impressed whistle. “Nathan ‘Diamondback’ Dallas. What brings you ’round?” His hand slipped under the counter for the silent alarm.
The outlaw laughed and held up a torn coupling. The broker’s mouth drew a tight line, which Diamondback countered with a bright grin.
“Just you and me,” he said, tossing the security coupling aside. He skipped down the remaining steps and began to mosey with his hands on his hips, the chrome of his blaster catching the dim light. “And a family matter does,” he said. “You seen my brother Spence lately?”
“No, sir,” Bernie lied. “He still flyin’ with you? Last I heard, you two split off near Saturn-way.”
“You heard right. Not so much lately on account of a…familial dispute. Speakin’ of, I’m here for my grandmama’s urn. And before you say it, I know Spence sold it here.” He let his hand fall to his blaster. “Recently.”
The broker adjusted his tie, stalling for time. “Well,” he said after a moment, “The urn itself is sealed iridium. Very rare in itself. I could certainly sell-”
“Bernie! You give me my grandmother!” He fired a plasma round just over Bernie’s shoulder, which prompted the broker to hand over the urn in question. “Thank you,” Dallas said genially.
Once again aboard his ship, his trigger finger unlocked the bioscanner at the urn’s base. Glittery, scarlet light danced over the flight consoles and nodes in the cockpit. That same trigger finger then ran smoothly over the stolen Venusian rubies housed within the urn.
“Thanks again, Nana,” he smiled warmly.
by submission | May 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
He awoke with a start. Cockpit red with emergency lights. Tried to move. PAIN! Slipped back into darkness. He awoke again; air still red.
“Ship?” he whispered.
“Yes, captain?”
“Need medical help,” he gasped.
“Affirmative. Medimechlings dispatched. Your condition is critical. Initiating emergency protocol B6. Distress beacon activated. Transponder check, affirmative, active. Requests for aid sent to all confirmed-non-hostile ships in range. Please try to…” But he had already drifted back into unconsciousness.
He came to in a warm yellow light that didn’t sear his eyeballs. Awareness seeped in: the smell of antiseptic, the humming and beeping of monitors, sensors on his chest; he was in a med-bed. “Where…?”
“Good evening Captain Gupta.” A voice from the air. “Please relax. You are out of danger. An assistant will be with you shortly.”
A minute passed. A figure appeared, literally, near his feet. Pleasant, presenting female. “Greetings. I am SIGGI, your holographic Synthetic Intelligence Guide and General Interface.”
“Hello, Siggi, I guess. Where am I?”
“Welcome to Anjou Station, in stable orbit around the planet of Marchioness Prime.”
“I’ve never heard of Anjou Station.”
“We are a small, private facility offering galactic-quality medical services in a refined and entirely discreet environment, for the discerning and demanding short- or long-term guest. We are operated by a sister company of your employer, Trans-Lines, You’ve been here quite a while, it’s good to see you lucid.”
“What happened?”
“According to the investigators, a pinhead-sized piece of ultra-dense material punctured your ship’s starboard protective shielding, outer membrane and inner membrane, before passing through you, and exiting through the membranes and shielding on the port side. It was not possible to identify the material, although our defence research arm has made strenuous efforts to do so.”
“My family…”
“They are aware of your situation.”
He lay back. He was lucky to be alive. Not least because… “Why did the ship wait to send medibots?”
“Under the Future Accords of 2058, artificial and synthetic intelligences may intervene medically only with patients’ specific consent, except in cases of clear life endangerment.”
“I was injured. I could easily have died.”
“Yes. It was an anomaly. The unit is being deconstructed to identify the source of the error. Trans-Lines extends its apologies for the inconvenience caused.”
“I feel like I should be angrier.”
“You are under controlled sedation; strong emotional responses to this and other issues could be harmful to your recovery.”
“Other issues? What other issues?”
SIGGI’s pause was noticeable. “This is a private facility. Regrettably, the maximum amount guaranteed by your personal health insurance and employer’s coverage has been exceeded. There is a substantial debit on your account, roughly equivalent to eighteen times your annual salary, that will need to be met. Failure to do so by transferring the appropriate amount or voluntarily entering debt bondage may result in the Anjou Medical Corporation taking legal action against you.”
“But I can’t afford that! And I can’t enter bondage, I need to support my family!”
“Trans-Lines is willing to offer an alternative solution. All your related current and future medical expenses will be met in return for signing a binding non-disclosure agreement preventing you from discussing the ship AI failure.”
Costs for cover-up. If ships could kill by neglect, what other systems could do the same? No wonder they didn’t want word getting out. And if he didn’t sign, would the systems here be among them? It wasn’t something he wanted to test.
“Not like I have a choice, is it?” he asked bitterly.
Wisely, SIGGI did not reply.
by submission | May 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
The tall lean figure stood before the honeycombed wall, searching the triangular nooks until he located the scrolls for engineering marvels. Tsoukal pulled out the uppermost scroll and unrolled it on the polished stone slab behind him. He placed a slim rectangular weight on each end of the scroll to hold it in place, and leaning over, began to read.
Tsoukal’s finger traced the hieroglyphs on the scroll, helping him decode the specifics inked on the parchment. This was exactly the scroll he was looking for! Overhead, the library’s skylights faded from white to orange to twilight blue. At that point a mechanical curator rolled in with a lantern held high.
“If you continue reading, you need more light,” it stated in a flat voice.
Tsoukal waved it away. “I’m finished,” he said as he rolled up the scroll. He turned to the wall, waiting for the curator to leave. Instead of replacing the scroll in its nook, he hid it in the billowing top of his scholar’s blouse; he then pulled a blank scroll from his satchel and inserted that into the empty space.
Tsoukal made his way through this vast library—the repository of all knowledge, not just of the marvels of engineering, but also mathematics and astronomy, as well as the gossip of history—until he reached the towering front doors. Pushing through them always made him feel so small; a mere insect crawling through the eternal aperture of accumulated wisdom.
* * *
Tsoukal stood on his flat rooftop with his house guest, the intrepid adventurer Martel. Together, they discussed the upcoming launch of the obelisk-shaped craft on the edge of their squat city.
“How can our citizens not understand this is a turning point for our civilization?” Martel asked.
“They’re afraid of change,” Tsoukal responded, saddened by his own answer. “Because they have comfortable lives, they mistakenly think things will always stay the same. They don’t accept the only constant in this life is change.”
He pulled the scroll from his shirt and handed it to Martel. “One more for the journey,” he said with a smile.
Martel read the inscription on the side of the scroll. “More instructions for marvelous feats of engineering!” He slid the scroll into a pocket inside his kaftan. “This will be an enormous help when we land. Thank you, friend.”
“Thank you for being brave enough to participate in this endeavor.”
Martel looked out over the twinkling lights of their city. “We really don’t have a choice, do we?”
Tsoukal sighed. “No.” He turned to face Martel. “Scouts report the barbarians are already on the move and will be at the gate within the month, and…”
“They will—again—burn down the library,” Martel finished. “Along with the rest of the city.” He crossed his arms. “That can only happen so many times before there’s nothing left to save.”
“And we enter a new dark age,” Tsoukal added. “Which is why it is imperative that you and your crew get away with your cargo of scrolls. A fresh green world awaits, one where you can build a new settlement, one where we have a real opportunity…”
“To start over,” Martel stated with undisguised optimism.
by submission | May 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
On some mornings, around eleven, the postman will drop a letter or two into the mail slot. But many of these are not letters – they are coded messages disguised as bills or advertisements. Only I know their secrets.
You see, I am a messenger of the gods.
Just yesterday, I was instructed via a gas bill to telephone my local hardware store and inform them of a circuit breaker that was about to overload, and burn their building down.
Two days before that, a brochure for “Happy-clappy kitten wash” told me to address a football match crowd through the PA system to tell them that they were – with the exception of Harry Fleagle in seat 28 – all sinners.
And, three weeks ago, I averted a major meltdown at a nuclear power plant, when I convinced its computer system that the “blue glowy things” in the water weren’t drowning, and it should leave them where they were.
Since I lost my online government job two years ago for supposedly being “too disruptive,” I have been given a greater number of tasks by the gods, and I have carried them out diligently.
Lives have been saved, wrongs righted, passive-aggressive warnings delivered.
Though my internet connection has been disrupted quite severely recently (by nefarious agents, no doubt) and I have had to resort to manually printing out my communications for hand delivery. I can only hope that this method has been effective.
Interference will not thwart me, however. My mission is one that has been diligently carried out by humans for millennia: Joan of Arc was a notable one, as well as Saint Francis, Giordano Bruno, and many others. But not Rasputin. He was a nut.
Speaking of nuts, that’s what they call me. But I don’t mind, really, I know my work is vital for the safety of humankind. Taunts do not move me from my hallowed path.
Just now I have received a menu from the local pizza place. It is dripping with coded messages.
When they put a red circle behind the word, “pepperoni” that means “trouble”, three holes on the picture of a cheese means “aliens”, and a line under the words, “family size” is code for “invasion”. As such, the whole world is in trouble, and they need to launch a counter attack.
I must warn the government.
“Dad!” Missy yelled from the kitchen, “The stupid AI toaster is making up stories again!”
Missy’s father, Mike, walked into the room, looked at the toast in her hand. “See,” she said, pointing to the words burned into the surface of the bread.
Her father read aloud. “Alien attack imminent. Launch counterstrike Alpha nine dash thirty.”
He sighed, yanked the toaster plug from the wall.
“I’ve had enough of this stupid thing,” he said, carrying the toaster outside. “The warranty has expired, it makes terrible toast, so it’s going in the trash.”
With that, he swung the toaster by its cord, and hurled it into the garbage can. “Who on earth needs an AI toaster anyway?” He said out loud as he wheeled the bin out front for the weekly pickup. “Stupid companies trying to make dumb things smart so they can charge more, that’s who.”
As he turned to go back indoors, Mike looked up at the sky for what would be the last time.
A hundred thousand battleships of the Graxian war fleet surged through the upper atmosphere glowing bright red as they hurtled downward, spraying fiery death from their enormous array of fearsome armaments, hell bent on destroying the Earth.
