by submission | Jun 12, 2025 | Story |
Author: Aubrey Williams
The planet hangs as a dull pebble in sluggish orbit. They’ve moved on, the inhabitants, or perhaps they succumbed. We are unsure, there’s much to keep track of, and if it’s not a sanctioned or protected celestial body, there’s no reason to look further. Some minerals of interest, and unusual formations, so enough to warrant an expedition. It’s been a long time, we’ve been told, since anyone made a trip out here. We can see why. We must admit that there’s relatively little we know about this strange rock.
We disembarked our craft, pleased that our cosmic tunics and caps provided ample protection, and that we could naturally digest the air. Our hairs were lifted by occasional breaths of wind, but nothing harsh. We recall the sky being a wet-green peach, some cumulative haze and vapour. The scanners indicated a large subterranean shaft under an antique structure, with a vault or chamber— perhaps a series of them— below. Ambulating a modest distance from our landing sight, there lies a humped construction of robust material; we opened it with our star-cutters, preferring to use what was once a door— it was impossible to find a way to interact with it.
Faded sigils lined the walls in cyphers and speech quite unknown to us. We thought one depicted a flower, angular and refined. A cage guarded a shaft, some sort of descender perhaps, but too old now. Space enough on the sides for us to use gravity hooks and lines, though we ingested some warming draught to help protect against the precipitating decline in temperature. It was a long journey down these bones, and very dark. We were struck by how silent it was, and the lack of ornamentation after so many peculiar runes. Perhaps a structure of different times and cultures that had come together?
Some dome or cap of rare mineral ore lay at the bottom, our lights revealing recessed symbols and pictograms that seemed to tell a story similar to the one in the atrium. It was hard work with the cutters, but we persevered. While already the information was interesting, we had made excellent time. The cap was thick, telling of the great wealth its builders worked with. Perhaps, we thought, we might salvage it and distribute.
A vast maze of some kind lay before us, more of the stylised symbols snaking around the walls, and tomb-like epigraphs on the floor. Discarded chariots lay dormant. We were close to weeping— so well-preserved. All of us agreed to follow straight ahead, and descended ramps after ramps, eventually winding around a singular central vein to a chamber, guarded by another embellished door. It too was a work of art. Within this chamber we found cylinders buried in fine sands, made of minerals and alloys, sealed tight. We cut open one of these eggs and saw the fine blue pellets inside, seeds! We were overjoyed. They sparkled a little, a glittering thing. We left with different amphorae, our mouths rich with the tang of ores.
It was time to depart, and we returned home. Many scholars hurriedly recorded our details, viewed our logs with glee. We brought the delightful seeds home, and shared them with the families. Now we wonder, though, why the seeds have not taken in the way we hoped. We are finding our hairs have begun to thin and fall out, and burns have appeared unexpectedly. Our littlest one finds it difficult to stay awake, and the draughts are almost impossible to consume without regurgitating them.
Our dreams are of the flower, and how it haunts us.
by submission | Jun 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
On the endless rooftop of the fact-ory, they sat in the beat up armchairs amid a bristling forest of antennae and corrugated steel backlit by the godly effulgence of towers and tenements that defined the horizon. It was steamy hot though well past midnight. The heat never quite radiated away these days, but they’d long grown accustomed to it, grateful for the slight breeze that stirred late at night.
The eleven adults who represented Kankuut—their rooftop settlement—sat in a semicircle interacting with the cyglyph. A buzzing hive of media sensation, the holoform display branched to each of their chairs pouring a live netstream from which they made their selections. Consuming and producing content simultaneously, they shaped meme-ing in their lives. Pheromones of thought directed strange dances of conversation that filled the air and airways.
I post, therefore I exist. The city sang. Connected.
Little aYa appeared puffing her cherubic cheeks. “I can’t sleep,” she told the adults of Kankuut as she climbed onto her mother’s arm rest. “Tell me a story.”
Her mother patted her head and sent the image to her cadre of followers. “Who’ll tell aYa a story?” she broadcast.
aBa oLo pinged and his sister positioned his holoform in front of aYa. “Having trouble sleeping, little bird?”
aYa nodded. “Tell me a story, aBa. Please.”
“Of course. It is what we are. You and I, your aMa and aPa, all people, we are made of stories.” His holoform turned a bright orange, not unlike the rising moon through the thick city haze. “I think I will tell you the story of Hupta the Hermit.”
“Was he real?” the child asked.
“Hupta? Little bird, all is real. Creation is creation. Information, information. Thus we are formed. And that is much of Hupta’s tale. Listen, little bird.”
aBa oLo’s form reached out in an expansive gesture which slowly dissolved into a massive tree and then a towering forest. aBa oLo’s voice filled the forest.
“This is a place of old, aYa. A living thing connected at the roots like we are connected by the air and waves of cyglyphs. Creatures great and small lived among these mighty trees, but only two had the knowledge to harness the trees. One creature, Biva had enormously powerful front teeth and jaws.”
An image of the furry flat tailed creature with the protruding teeth floated before aYa who drew back. “It must be enormous to bite through a tree, aBa.”
“Biva was much smaller than you, aYa. It could only bring down a tree very slowly, and generally small trees. Trees that it could easily position to make its home.” A Biva dam and pond slowly rotated for aYa.
“It is like the pools that form behind the fact-ory during monsoon. Oh, to live in water every day, aMa!” She turned to her mother who, once again, patted her head.
“Yes, aYa, water is a blessing. Now let your aBa tell his story.”
“Indeed, the Biva enjoyed his home among the trees, until…”
“Until,” aYa repeated, sensing the cue, “Hupta came.”
“Yes, little bird, Hupta came and sat with his back against the tallest tree near the pond.” aBa allowed aYa to see from Hupta’s vantage, his deep red robe and gnarled bare feet pointing directly to the placid pond where Biva swam.
“Show me his face, aBa.”
aBa chuckled. “I cannot. You must create it. Hupta the Hermit. Beyond ken and kit. Let his words and actions create his features. To partake of the cyglyph, one day, you must contribute. That is the way of the city-zen and the fact-ory”
Her chocolate eyes widened like a newborn’s. “I will try, aBa.”
“That is all that is ever required, little bird. To try is to learn, to learn is to grow, to grow is to connect.
“I do not understand how, aBa,” she said.
“Of course you do not, little bird. Not yet. Hupta’s story, like all tales is a seed. It must grow. Like we all must. Become Biva. Become Hupta. Become the teller of your own story. Ideas, possibilities, lessons, life, oneness are the work which we commit to the fact-ory. It makes the world spin.”
“It makes me dizzy, aBa,” aYa admitted.
“Then, precious little bird, you are of the city-zen.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Lewis got the assistant at a regifting exchange at the company Christmas party. He didn’t turn it on until February when a snowstorm kept him working from home for a week. It had been opened before, the setup was already complete, but it asked for his name, and gleaned network information from his phone, and started assisting right away.
It paid his bills, and ordered groceries, or takeout food, with an uncanny ability to discern his mood. Optimized the vacuum drone, reconfigured the temperature controls, and saved on his energy bill.
Best regift ever!
Mid-fall of that year, there was a transition to work from home, initially part-time, then full-time, and by Christmas Lewis wasn’t going into the office at all. The Christmas party got canceled without explanation.
Alone on New Year, he got so drunk that he was still nursing a hangover two days later when he was supposed to be in a nine am virtual staff meeting.
He slept in, jolting awake at half nine, and raced to his desk.
To his surprise, his assistant was already in the meeting, presenting a disturbingly lifelike version of him in place of the camera feed. After the meeting, it stayed online, dutifully completing his assigned work tasks for the day.
Lewis went back to bed.
It was June before Lewis thought about work again. He’d been playing video games, reading, and watching old movies. Some days he just sat on his balcony and got well and truly stoned. His assistant was being a better Lewis at work than he’d ever been.
At the end of October, he awoke to find the power and network services were cut to his apartment. When he went to see if anyone else was affected, he found an eviction notice taped to his door.
Confused, he stood out in the late fall air and smoked another joint.
Barely an hour later there was a knock on the door, and on opening a pair of uniformed police officers showed themselves in.
“Lewis Truman,” the short one read from his PDA, “you are under arrest for embezzling funds from the Tanitomi Corporation, for falsifying work records, for the illegal use of a prohibited AI system. Your accounts have been frozen, and your assets are in the process of being seized.”
Lewis was handcuffed and led speechless from the apartment down a hall full of curious onlookers.
No one noticed the vacuum drone leave the apartment amid all the drama, a sleek personal assistant nestled securely in the recess of its carry handle. There were only a few months before Christmas, and the Xoto Moro Corporation was known to have very well-attended Christmas parties.
by Julian Miles | Jun 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
In a dusty corridor away from busy areas of Area 702, two people with ill-fitting lab coats concealing their uniforms are huddled under a disconnected monitoring camera. One takes a hit on a vape stick. The other lights a cigar.
“I heard old Kendrix panicked after Prof Devensor collapsed. Nobody told me why, though. Except that Kendrix was shouting about DEFCON 1 before a security patrol got him with a tranquiliser.”
The vaping one chuckles.
“True enough. Shot him in the ass, neat as you like. Then the dipshit folded down and sat on it. He’s face down in the infirmary with a dressing on his butt. Pantroben has taken over for now.”
The cigar waves for emphasis.
“What on Earth could cause Devensor to faint? The man’s been cutting up things nobody else would touch for decades.”
“Terror. The most fundamental fear of brutal regimes: the opposition finally being able to do to you what you’ve done to them. Doesn’t matter if they’re unlikely to. The fear of getting a dose of ‘do unto others’ is enough. After all, it’s why the bad ones don’t let up until forced: too scared to consider other options.”
“Not fanaticism?”
“To an extent. But lurking under that is the fear. Bullies always fear.”
“We’re drifting off topic.”
The vaper takes another hit, then continues.
“True. Anyway, Dirry-”
“Who?”
“Dirrikillid. Prefers to be called Dirry.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“As you know, Dirry’s dying. Wants to go home. Was promised that when it stayed on voluntarily after Roswell. Which is something the current Administration wasn’t interested in honouring.”
“Am I right in getting a bad feeling?”
“Absolutely. When Dirry got told ‘no’, it just smiled, then told us the other side of why it stayed.”
“Other side? Russia?”
The one with the vape snorts.
“No. I’m sure they’ve got their own visitors hidden away, though.”
“What, then?”
“Back in ’47 Dirry was in contact with what it said was the headquarters for the portion of space that include Earth. Anyway, our Administration figured dismantling the ships put an end to that. Turns out Dirry is in direct communication with the headquarters, and always has been.”
“Bet that reveal didn’t go down well.”
“You’d win. Oh my God did it not.”
“Okay, I’m beginning to understand why you asked for a meet. Give me the rest.”
“If we don’t send Dirry home, then ‘home’ will come for Dirry. In force. With representatives from all the races involved in keeping watch over Earth. Turns out several of the ‘alien beasts’ Devensor vivisected were actually dignitaries from interstellar superpowers. Those superpowers haven’t been given the gory details of the ‘unfortunate deaths while on confidential missions’ – otherwise we’d already have been reduced to surviving in bunkers and internment camps.”
“If we don’t co-operate, they’ll be informed?”
The vaping man turns his vape off.
“Yes.”
The cigar gets stubbed out on a wall.
“The president will announce a new age of space exploration within a week. How long do we have?”
“Dirry estimates it has less than a year to live, but reassures us that we only need to get it out beyond Mars. Any vessel we send past there will be met.”
“That’s doable. Using an unmanned shuttle for the last stage, of course. Leave it with me.”
“Thanks. Good to see you again, old friend.”
“Been a while, true enough. Stay clean. I’ll be in touch.”
The vaping man reaches up and reconnects the monitoring camera. As it pans left, he walks quickly to the right. When it pans back, his old friend strides off leftwards.
by submission | Jun 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Simon Read
To: All staff
RE: Causality Protocol De-prioritisation
Null/null/null, 00:00
This communication serves as formal notice. Treisman Industries no longer operates under linear temporal constraints. All protocols reliant upon fixed sequencing have been deprecated.
Causality is to be regarded as a legacy framework, maintained only where local perception demands continuity. Departments previously dependent on chronological ordering have been advised to migrate to event-independent processing with immediate effect.
Language reflecting ordered progression, such as “before,” “after,” or “next” should be eliminated from internal correspondence. Refer instead to approved temporal-neutral lexicon entries, as outlined in Bulletin 3.3: Simultaneity and the Compliance Mindset.
Where staff report confusion, disorientation, or disassociation, note that these responses are consistent with initial recalibration. Instances of dissociative temporal memory, such as contradictory recollections, echo encounters, or recursive dialogue, do not require escalation unless they disrupt quota flow.
Adjustment periods vary. Some employees may experience brief intervals of perceptual slippage, including the sensation of non-assigned timelines or the awareness of alternate task outcomes. These are not considered detrimental. Do not attempt to realign. Resolution is typically spontaneous and requires no administrative intervention.
It is not uncommon, during this phase, for personnel to report impressions of presence in rooms believed to be unoccupied, or the recurrence of speech fragments prior to verbalisation. While disconcerting, such events have been classified as alignment echoes and should not interfere with standard operational output.
As a reminder, proximity readings and spatial inconsistencies within certain corridors of the facility are being re-evaluated. Environmental recalibrations are ongoing and are expected to persist across indeterminate intervals. Staff may encounter deviations in architectural continuity, such as corridors not previously charted, doorways leading to non-logged interiors, or extended traversal times between familiar locations. These anomalies are not indicative of malfunction, but rather reflect adaptive infrastructure in response to emergent spatial protocols. Employees are advised to avoid observation of recursive geometries, to refrain from mapping altered layouts, and to disregard auditory cues not originating from verifiable sources. In instances where relocation appears to result in the presence of versions of oneself, or where individuals encountered do not acknowledge temporal sequence, no interaction is authorised. Remain within designated zones and do not engage with non-indexed movement. Deviation will complicate your own reintegration.
Affect neutrality is expected. Clarity of purpose will emerge where sequence dissolves. Theisman Industries remains committed to fostering resilience during this period of temporal transition. Employees experiencing dissonance, identity bifurcation, or resistance to protocol may submit a realignment request via Form 33-A. Pending approval, standard coping resources will be deployed, including Sensory Stream Suppression and Narrative Drift Inhibition. For those requiring additional support, Integration Monitors are now available for short-form synchrony sessions, designed to reduce individual variance and maintain institutional coherence. Continued presence within the organisation is considered tacit consent to procedural evolution.
Attempts to reinstate causality through personal recordkeeping, mnemonic structuring, or unauthorised timekeeping devices will be addressed in accordance with company policy.
Wishing you cohesion across all active frames,
Audrey Treisman
Office of Transitional Compliance
Treisman Industries
by submission | Jun 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Colin Jeffrey
As the sentient slime mould squelched slowly across the asteroid it lived on, it found its mind – such as it was – occupied by a single thought:
Ludwig van Beethoven.
This was strange for several reasons, most obvious being that slime moulds are not renowned for their thoughts on music. Or thoughts. However, this particular slime mould was not your average gelatinous lifeform.
It had achieved sentience via a spurt of just the right stray radiation, the absorption of just the right mineral dust, and possessing genes agreeable to change. Eventually, it developed awareness and a tendency toward introspection. Its favourite pastime was pondering the nature of Beethoven’s music.
This behaviour had started when its mutated body – acting like a biological radio receiver – absorbed signals from a satellite circling the closest star. Among the data traffic was a faint rendition of “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,” occasionally accompanied by the composer’s name. This information lodged itself in the slime mould’s not-quite-a-brain.
For years onward, it waited each day for the satellite’s alignment to return.
Eventually, though, the signals stopped. This upset the creature terribly. It had never been upset before, so its pain was new and all-encompassing. So much so that it determined, somehow, to get those sounds back.
So, it built a transmitter. Of sorts.
What it really did was think furiously about replicating the signal and sending its own. This caused the metallic particles within its body to realign and – in one of those one-in-a-trillion coincidences – created a crude radio transmitter. As improbable as this was, the slime mould then managed to more improbably summon its collected solar energy to produce one short, weak transmission:
“Da-da-da-DAAA.”
Exhausted, it settled down to wait, not knowing if it had been heard, but satisfied in a job well done.
Some 24 hours later, a human scientist conducting radio telescope studies of the Oort cloud from Mars’ moon, Deimos, saw a brief – but clearly aligned – set of data in her readings.
Brimming with excitement, she isolated the section, cleaned it, amplified it, and played it through her console’s speakers.
She recognised it immediately – the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.
In the years that followed, people all over the world argued furiously about the signal’s origins, who had sent it, and whether they should make a Korean reality TV show about it.
Eventually, space agencies collaborated on a mission to locate the source, then promptly sent individual spacecraft, racing to be first.
Three hundred years later, the first missions arrived. They found a single gelatinous green mass sunning itself on a rock.
It felt their presence, lifted a pseudo-limb to taste their vibrations. It quivered with anticipation. Not knowing how to communicate, the astronauts simply stood around it at first, taking selfies.
After some time, the slime mould decided to see if they knew of the Beethoven it had heard so much about.
A simple four-note melody played through the radio headsets in their helmets.
Amazed – but already prepared – one of the astronauts played a reply through his radio. It was the entirety of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
The slime mould, enraptured, sent scintillating ripples across its surface. The dim light of the distant sun played along its edges, dancing and writhing in time with the music.
The visitors from Earth could feel the joy rebounding through their bodies as the creature sent wave upon wave of emotion in rolling electrical barrages.
When the music finished and the entity slowly stopped pulsating, one unmistakable sound came through their headsets.
Laughter.
Wet, wobbly, joyous laughter.
