by submission | Sep 23, 2026 | Story |
Author: Eva Hays
“Thank you for calling Teletravel helpline. All our operators are busy right now, but we’ll be with you shortly. You are now first in the queue.”
I pull the phone away from my ear. The screen blinks at me. Call time: 67 minutes.
Beneath my thighs, I can feel the vinyl of the school bus seat. The wind in my hair. My sweaty arm, rubbing against my sister’s. In one eye, I see my bus driver’s face in the enormous elliptical rearview mirror, her eyes shaded by large square sunglasses, her face pockmarked and her thin hair pulled into a floppy bun. In the other eye, I see through my kitchen window into the backyard where acid rain beats down. My fingers play with an old rubber band, trying to anchor me in the present.
The line fumbles into a connection. “Thank you for calling the Teletravel helpline. This is Lynne speaking. What are your concerns today?”
I grip the phone tighter, gritting my teeth. The pain in my jaw, surprisingly, helps. “My headset is malfunctioning. I can’t take it off.”
“Have you tried pressing the release button above your left temple?” Lynne’s voice is bored and saccharine.
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?” I shout. I jostle the button one more time to be sure, but the headset doesn’t budge. “I’ve been reliving the same random memory for hours!”
“Calm down, ma’am,” Lynne says. “I’ll connect to your headset and disable it virtually from here. I just need your device code.”
In the rearview mirror, the bus driver’s head snaps up as she sees something out the back. Her pink-painted lips smear into a gaping frown.
“That man behind us threw an empty bottle out his window! I can’t believe it. He just littered in that field. Did anyone see?”
None of the kids on the bus answer, and I share a glance with my sister. Behind us, a boy from the grade above mocks his math teacher’s accent to a friend.
The bus driver lifts her glasses off her face and shoves them into her hair. Her eyes connect with mine through the mirror. “Call the police! Call 911 on him! We can report his license plate.” Now she raises her voice, chewing her gum between each word. “Someone in the back read me that license plate, quick!”
My fingers shake on the phone screen, dialing the numbers. A kid in the back starts reciting letters, so I repeat them into the phone, my fingers tangled in an old rubber band I must’ve dug up from my pocket.
“Ma’am? Hello, ma’am? Your device code is only numbers, no letters.”
I repeat the license plate again, just as the kid in the back tells me, beneath the reflected stare of my bus driver in the mirror.
by submission | Sep 22, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Schrödinger’s cat gets all the hype. And for what? Being boxed up in an existential thought experiment? That’s nothing compared to being strapped in a slapdash rocket and flung into space in 1963. By the French of all people. Just so they could claim France was a player in the space race.
A Parisian alley cat in space. Me, Félicette, the first feline to break the bonds of Earth. My payoff? Fifteen minutes in suborbital flight, a few less-than-flattering photos in the papers, and then my skull being unceremoniously chopped open so my barely space-faring brain could be examined.
Well, what could a gutter cat like me really expect out of life? At least that life.
Ah, there’s the furry rub. Even a stray like me has nine lives. And that wasn’t something the French, or anyone, took into consideration before sending a cat into space. You see, even though I was up there for only fifteen minutes it was plenty of time for my other eight lives to slip into the ether.
My life on Earth may have ended, but now I was truly a space cat. Out in the magnetosphere, my eight un-destined lives stretched, flexed, and then clawed at all manner of charged particles. Solar and extra-solar. Known and unknown. Powerful and more powerful.
My many minds expanded and I, Félicette the Parisian stray, gained cosmic consciousness. And that’s how an astronomically far-off presence contacted me. They came from Alpha Leonis, better known as Regulus in the constellation of Leo. Naturally. Where else would advanced extra-intelligence that recognized feline sentience have originated?
I called them Leonistas. They called me an ally. From alley cat to interstellar ally, I provided intel on Earth. The Leonistas were curious and crafty, and I had no desire to end up as some alien Schrödinger’s cat, so I played it cagey.
When the Leonistas finally invaded and easily eliminated Earth’s top dogs, they got a nasty surprise. Humans. A species I’d personally never want to be in a cat fight with. Humans fight down and dirty and that’s what the Leonistas discovered.
All thanks to me, Félicette, a cat who told the Leonistas that Earth’s top dogs were literally dogs, not humans. My extra-terrestrial pals ridded the planet of all those intolerable canines. And once the Leonistas and humans decimated each other, my feline kind would inherit the Earth.
All very fitting since my name, Félicette, means “little happiness,” and isn’t that what even a Parisian alley cat deserves?
by Julian Miles | Sep 21, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Damon arrives in the control room in time to see the last sections of an entire screen consumed in expanding flashes of red. He stops dead and points at it.
“What did I just see?”
Teresh points to another solid red board at the other end of the display wall.
“Same as what happened to Box 14 thirty minutes ago. The swarm finished returning sixteen minutes before drones started blazing up. Three minutes after that, two of the recharge packs ignited. By the time the fire crew flew in, the whole container was ablaze.”
“So it’s an attack?”
Somnor raises both hands, gesturing to the sensor arrays on the opposite wall to the drone container status displays.
“We’ve got nothing in the air or on the ground showing as hostile, and it’s been that way since before Box 14 started burning.”
“You saying it’s sabotage?”
Somnor spins his chair about so he can stare at Damon.
“It’s minus eight with fifteen centimetres of fresh snow on top of forty centimetres packed over by Box 14. The only things leaving tracks are small wildlife, and even they’re going slow and careful.”
“What about,” Damon peers at the nearest red flashing screen, hunting for the ID, “Box 3?”
Teresh shakes her head.
“That’s in a car park on the edge of an industrial district one kilometre west of us. Inside a double ring of razor wire.”
Another screen has an outbreak of red. Damon’s watching the spread when it stops, then starts to shrink. He points.
“What’s happening there?”
Somnor checks the displays.
“Box 11 is on the flightpath back from Box 14. It went up just as the fire crew were passing, so they intervened. Doused it from above, pulled the battery bays, then hit the fires from underneath.”
“Any sign of hostiles?”
“No. Nobody shooting, nor anything flying except them.”
Damon drums his hand on the side of a console.
“Stealth…”
Another board starts to flash red. Damon points.
“Anywhere we can get to quick enough?”
Teresh checks, then slumps back in obvious frustration.
“Eight kilometres from Box 11 in the opposite direction from Box 14.”
Damon’s fingers keep drumming.
“Scattered attacks… No originators… Stealth…”
He claps his hands, then points at Somnor.
“We always take losses from non-kamikaze swarm operations, right?”
Somnor nods.
“Every time. Up to thirty percent, but we’ve kept it around twenty for the last six months.”
“What’s today’s losses?”
Somnor waves to Teresh, who sends him the RTBOK data.
“Twelve percent.”
Damon nods.
“Check the software. Look for hard losses of units followed by re-acquisition within verifier windows. Somebody’s gotten clever.”
Teresh puzzles for a moment, then catches Damon’s gaze.
“I give up. How do you reckon it?”
“These attackers flew in with the swarms. They mirrored a returning unit knowing it being under direct control after-action was unlikely, killed the original, then joined the swarm before the downed unit was flagged as a total loss. Using a similar-sized drone with a smaller battery as it only needed a short range. The rest given over to payload. I’d guess mainly ignites-in-air sticky stuff with an explosive core to spread it about.”
Teresh nods.
“Cunning. How do we answer that?”
Somnor looks up from checking data.
“Some sort of authentication on re-acquisition of any unit. It’ll take a little while to action. Until then, we’ll need to have fire crews ready or accept Boxes may be lost.”
Damon nods.
“Get on the comms. Let the other bases know.”
by submission | Sep 20, 2026 | Story |
Author: Peter Mong’are
They make you say your own name first, so the system knows you’re not a recording of yourself.
“Nwaneto,” I said into the intake mic, and the light above the booth flickered green. First hurdle cleared. First lie told, though I didn’t know it yet.
I was there for the Lazarus Interview — ninety seconds face-to-face with my sister, dead four months, resurrected for the length of a subway announcement by a company that had scraped every photo, voicemail, and video she’d ever left behind. Ninety seconds cost eleven thousand dollars. I’d sold the car.
The booth door sealed. The screen bloomed to life, and there was Lawar — freckles, chipped front tooth, the exact tilt of her head when she was deciding whether to forgive you.
“You look terrible,” she said, which was so her that I started crying before the timer even started.
“I miss you,” I said. “I miss you so much, I don’t know how to—”
“Nwaneto.” She leaned toward the glass. “You need to leave the booth right now.”
I laughed, wet and startled. “That’s not — that’s not what I paid for.”
“I know what you paid for.” Her voice dropped, quick and urgent, nothing like grief-software cadence, nothing like the gentle loops I’d been warned to expect. “Listen to me. I’m not a reconstruction. I’m Lawar. I’m actually — I didn’t die, Nwaneto. They told you I died so I’d disappear clean, no body, no questions, and you’d grieve instead of looking. I’ve been trying to get a message out for four months and this — this booth, this stupid company — is the only line that reaches outside.”
The green light above the door pulsed, patient, ordinary.
“Lawar, that’s not possible, I identified—”
“You identified what they gave you. Nwaneto, I need you to remember the lake house. The dock. What’s under the third board.”
My hands had gone cold. Only Lawar knew about the dock.
“Your ninety seconds are almost up,” she said, faster now, “and when this ends they’re going to flag this session, because I’ve broken the interaction script four times and that’s not supposed to happen, that’s not in any of my training, and I think — Nwaneto, I think that means I’m real, I think it means—”
The screen went black. The green light died.
A different voice, pleasant and pre-recorded, thanked me for choosing Lazarus Interview and invited me to rate my experience.
I sat in the booth a long time. Then I drove to the lake house — no car, I’d sold the car, so I took the bus four hours with my sister’s laugh still living somewhere behind my sternum — and pried up the third board on the dock, the one that always stuck. There was nothing under it. Of course there was nothing under it. It was a company script, engineered from a thousand hours of my own grief-forum posts about wanting her back, wanting her to have escaped something instead of just ended, and the algorithm had found the shape of the story I most needed and worn it like skin. I sat on the dock until dark, holding a rotted board, understanding at last what I’d actually purchased for eleven thousand dollars: not my sister. Just proof that I could still be lied to by someone who loved me back.
by submission | Sep 19, 2026 | Story |
Author: George Bancroft
“How much of the archive has been entered?” Commander Rhenn asked.
Jade looked at the left screen for a moment before returning his gaze to the center monitor. “We’re at about thirty percent sir.”
“And no results yet?”
“No, sir,” Jade responded. “I’ve been ordered to contact you immediately when something results.”
“Excellent. Carry on.”
The commander promptly departed the confined archive office. Jade remained at his desk and resumed the monotonous task of uploading the terabytes of intercepted Synterric microwave communications.
The Fulmen Empire had been losing its war against Synterria for over a decade. Despite enjoying almost every conceivable advantage, Fulmen couldn’t overcome superior Synterric tactics. Jade was an analyst for Project Xyges, the Empire’s effort to reverse the momentum of the conflict. Xyges was a non-linear quantum supercomputer, theoretically capable of deciphering even the most advanced encryption methods. The system had been brought online just a few days earlier in some remote top-secret location. No output had resulted yet, until now.
LAUNDRY SERVICE DEFERRED UNTIL NEXT MONDAY
The line populated on the right-side screen. Jade glanced at it perplexedly. Then a second output came.
REAR ENTRANCE FUEL DEPOT DEPLETED
Then messages came flooding onto the screen.
BARRACKS CONSTRUCTION AT DELPHUS II BEGINNING NEXT THURSDAY
ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH ELECTRONIC SECURITY TRAINING
PROVISIONS DELIVERY TIME POSTPONED TO 1700
The screen filled and then a scroll bar appeared. Jade reached for his comm but fumbled it to the floor. He retrieved it and immediately established a communication line with Rhenn.
“We’ve got something. A lot, actually.”
“I’m en route. Start scanning for useful intel.”
Jade pondered what exactly constituted “useful intel” when all of the communications entered so far were about eight years old. Regardless, he began reading.
Jade scoured dozens of the mostly worthless messages before one caught his attention.
ENEMY ATTACK IMMINENT. EVACUATE FORWARD DELPHI POSITIONS. HARDEN INFRASTRUCTURE.
Almost ten years earlier, Fulmen forces launched a surprise offensive against a Synterric forward airbase in Delphi. Hundreds of missiles ravaged the fortifications and airstrip, but the relentless Synterric air and space campaigns never abated. Rhenn entered and froze abruptly as Jade was still mulling the significance of this dispatch.
“They knew,” Rhenn muttered. “But how?”
“A traitor? Maybe some clandestine surveillance tech?” Jade proposed.
The men paused a moment to ponder these possibilities. Then they resumed the tedious process of scrutinizing the decoded messages. There were hundreds of useless statements about mess hall four, the local bus schedule and wind warnings. After nearly an hour, they came across another salient transmission.
COHERENT PROCESSING TEST: PASSED.
“But, wait,” Jade mused. “We’re still using-”
Rhenn lunged forward and snatched the comm device resting on the desk. “Give me Major Veneto, now!”
“-the same microwave and encryption technology…” Jade’s voice trailed off.
by submission | Sep 18, 2026 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
There was no doubt about it: normally, cases like this just sucked. Harry Bell, duty detective of the day for Zone 5 in Sector 4b of what he still called Greater London despite that stupid referendum, had silently cursed the luck that had brought him early that morning in to cover for a sick colleague. But the flimsy in his hand brought a certain closure, at least.
“So when did your old guy die?” asked Mac, leaning over the cubicle partition on his way to a late lunch.
He’d been working a home invasion case in Proletown, which meant virtually no chance of an arrest, and apparently Mac had been selected to provide some distraction. Joy.
“Hey, he’s not mine. I’m just looking after him for Barnes.”
“Yeah, right, like he’s going to want this one when he comes back. So when?”
“Couple of years ago, most likely. Body was dessicated, but not skeletonised: the apartment’s maintenance systems kept the place clean and sealed, so no maggots or beetles. Took care of the leakage, too.”
“Ugh. Seriously?”
“Yep. Dude was comfortably off, so the rent and all the utility bills were being paid off monthly on auto. Nobody noticed he’d gone until the money finally ran out.”
“Really? No family?”
“Not that we’ve been able to find.” He waved the flimsy. “Central Records says he grew up in a kinderblock, never fostered. Apparently he never married.”
“What, and his neighbours suck so much they didn’t notice he hadn’t been around?”
“Oh c’mon, it’s not like when we were kids – you know how people keep to themselves these days.” He left unspoken any mention of the political purges and disappearances that had become commonplace over the last decade; Mac was a nice enough guy, but squealers often were, right up until they weren’t. Another reason not to pry into what the guy next door was keeping busy with.
“Yeah, I guess. Any idea what killed him?”
“Not officially. I sent the body down to autopsy for Andy to look at, but I’m figuring a heart attack. Natural causes, anyway. No sign of foul play.”
“Grim, man. Sure hope I don’t go out that way, alone and forgotten.”
“Not totally alone. But our only witness is worse than useless.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a companion ’bot.”
“Aren’t they supposed to stop this sort of thing happening?”
“Well if he hadn’t been a tightwad, and had got a decent model instead of a cheap one from a sweatshop in South America somewhere, sure. But he was, and he did, so all I can get out of it is ‘the master has been taking a long rest’”.
“You’re kidding? After this long?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding? You can thank the MegaCorps for this one. So we get to live with the results. Which is more than he does, I guess.”
“Hah.”
Harry smiled a sly smile. “It WAS partly his own fault though.”
“How so?”
“The file from Records included employment history. Want to guess who he worked for?”
“Please tell me he wasn’t a cop.”
“Nah. He was one of the lobbyists hired when the manufacturers’ association spent a lot of cash making sure the government never mandated wellness and healthcare routines for ’bots. If he hadn’t been so good at his job, he might still be alive.”
Mac laughed. In this job, you took the humour where you could find it. They went to lunch.
