by submission | Jul 23, 2026 | Story
Author: Mark Renney
It didn’t take us long, as a group, to work out that Jonathan had been fitted with an implant. It wasn’t that he’d changed, he was still our same infuriating friend. Unfocused and unreliable, Jonathan was the group’s party animal, the one who didn’t put in the work and who became frustrated and disappointed when we did.
Jonathan was failing, of course he was failing, that is until he wasn’t. Suddenly his grades were better than ours. We were baffled as to how he was managing this. He still wasn’t attending any of his lectures and none of us saw him settling down with his tablet and engaging with the syllabus.
Eventually we simply asked him and he stared back at us, perplexed.
‘I’ve got an implant, an Intelligence Embellishment,’ he said. ‘I thought you guys all knew.’
Well yeah, we assured him, we were all aware of this but even so, we exclaimed, surely you need to make a bit of an effort and do some revision?
He started to laugh then, gawping at us as if we were idiots.
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I replied (guess I was a beat or so behind the others).
‘I just access the Embellishment,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit tricky at first, but once you get used to it, it’s easy and everything just sort of pops up. All the info, the answers, everything I need whenever I need it. ‘
It was in that moment something in all of us diminished and we realised that the game now was rigged and it really didn’t matter how talented and gifted we were or how hard we might work.
by submission | Jul 22, 2026 | Story
Author: David M. Herman
Five to eight. I try not to live by the clock, but school administrators, neck-deep in institutional syrup, insist. Result: the kids have to be up and washed and dressed and fed and transported by a specific hour.
Margot, glowing after her morning run, sips her shake while lazily scrolling on her laptop at the table. I wish my commute was to a writing shed in the garden. Still, we agreed. She deserves the opportunity.
My phone buzzes. I check. It’s my manager. I swear under my breath. We really have to leave.
I tighten my tie and ask Margot where George is. Margot points with her chin: the usual. George is seven and obsessed with the toilet. I shout for him to hurry up already.
Charlotte, who at ten is already breaking little boys’ hearts, asks me if she may have the final piece of toast. I nod, but her brother Tom – thirteen – sniggers and grabs the slice.
Charlotte huffs and snatches the toast from her brother. He protests and reaches to retrieve his catch, but Charlotte defiantly licks both sides of the toast.
Tom scowls.
I appeal to him: We don’t have time for this.
Tom narrows his eyes at me.
Unbidden, my face scrunches into an angry frown.
Tom abruptly pushes his chair back and draws a square in the air with his index fingers.
I give Margot a pleading look. Instead of backing me up though, she shakes her head and reaches for the green button on the wall. The screen on the fridge lights up, and announces:
CHECKING FOR VIOLENT CONDUCT…
I shouldn’t, but I look at the clock. 7:59. I’m going to be late. I shout up the stairs at George, as if this might slow down time.
The screen displays the incident from various angles, shifting a few frames backwards and forwards, as the algorithm analyses the data.
I quietly hope the decision will go against Tom. He needs to be taught a lesson.
CHECK IN PROGRESS…
I tap my foot, impatient for technological permission to depart. Back in the day, my dad would have already been outside starting the car.
Upstairs, the toilet flushes. It’s two minutes past eight. I jingle the car keys while we wait.
Tom’s eyes dart uneasily from the screen to Margot and back.
At last, the screen PINGS.
CHECK OVER. VIOLENT CONDUCT CONFIRMED.
‘After review,’ says the voice from the fridge, ‘the final decision is a caution to the male parent for a facial microaggression directed at his son. As this is a third caution, male parent will attend a mandatory emotion regulation seminar. His employer has been notified.’
My phone buzzes: angry face emoji from my manager.
My stomach drops.
Tom gloats, but if I slap him, I’ll be in even bigger trouble. I could get fired. Or worse.
A wailing siren crescendoes outside. Tyres screech. The doorbell rings.
Margot, her face tight, holds out her hand for the car keys.
by submission | Jul 21, 2026 | Story
Author: Majoki
When Billy Pilgrim applied for a stockroom job at Vonnegut Hardware in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, he was informed by the manager that he was overqualified. When asked in what way, he was told the position did not require any time traveling skills–ironic or otherwise.
Billy was confused. He’d never time travelled in the sixteen years of his life and didn’t really get irony which was a problem in his sophomore English class at Shortridge High. He decided he’d see if the local car wash was hiring for the summer. They were and he got on the afternoon crew.
That left his mornings free and he spent some of that time at the Broad Ripple Library studying time travel. After a few weeks, he determined that time travel was not only unrealistic, but highly impractical. One morning, he took his findings back to Vonnegut Hardware and asked to see the manager.
“I think you’re mistaken,” Billy told the manager.
“In what way?” the manager asked.
“I have no time traveling skills. Nobody does.”
“Do you read stories?”
“Sure. Don’t most folks?
“Yup. That’s a form of time traveling.”
“Reading?” Billy challenged.
“Stories often take you to the past or to the future. Sometimes both. Like Slaughterhouse Five.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s heard of you,” the manager explained. “You’re unstuck in time.”
“Not possible.” Billy remained skeptical. “But thank you for your time.”
“You’re the one with all the Time,” the manager said as Billy walked out of Vonnegut Hardware.
Billy stopped by the library on the way to the car wash and checked out Slaughterhouse Five. He stuck the paperback in his back pocket and felt a curious tingle run up his spine. A quiver and then a ripple. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the book, but he felt like he had almost no choice. As if the future for him was already written.
In Broad Ripple, as in Dresden, so it goes.
by Julian Miles | Jul 20, 2026 | Story
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
It’s been a while since the supplemental power went out. Well, I say ‘went out’, but what happened is Lasta shut down anything non-essential to preserve the power banks. Until the core is back online, there’s nothing else. Director Henrietta Sims warned about this at the mission proposal stage: using a hulk might be convenient, but it’s too big to be resilient in any meaningful way if compromised.
Compromised…
That’s a word that covers a lot of ground. Not sure if they envisioned an unknown force attacking us, but I’ll forgive them that omission. They sank the decommissioned space battleship Bifengan a kilometre deep in an alien ocean under the thirty-five kilometres of ice that covers the surface of Issyarna. Nobody expected there to be anything hostile down here.
Initially, we thought it was only vaguely intelligent. Malevolent, certainly. Cunning: without a doubt. But sentient? We’d argued about mischief versus malice until Bill suffocated in his bunk after apparently inhaling a protein bar wrapper so far down it blocked both primary bronchi.
That was when everyone suffered a collective breakdown. Brilliant minds, carefully selected for their tour of duty ‘down below’, with years of exoplanet experience, turned on each other in a feral expression of helplessness. Fear turned into rage, bickering escalated to fighting, and assault quickly became murder. As far as I could make out, none of it was premeditated. Everybody just lost it at once. I was spared by being up in secondary control, the ‘last man standing’ duty that everybody complained about having to do.
Until it became true.
“Micchi, there is an update.”
I look towards the biggest lens. I don’t need to, but the instinct to face whoever I’m conversing with won’t quit just because I’m chatting with a computer.
“What news, Lasta?”
“Boon Two is on the way down.”
“I told them this is beyond any sort of rescue party.”
“They are coming to take you and Nolly away, Micchi.”
“Nolly’s still alive?”
“Lying near the route to airlock three, which is where Boon Two will dock.”
They crawled a long way. If I’d been able to see…
“Are there any others alive?”
“Herold was the last. He died five hours ago. Still in airlock four.”
Shut himself in, then disabled the door controls on both sides, screaming about the blood on his hands. Most of which belonged to Deoug, judging from what I saw before killing the displays by puking all over them.
“What about the prowler?”
“As stated before, I have been unable to detect it – or them – on the available sensors. Which is, unfortunately, nothing unexpected. Bifengan was a battleship. It’s detection suite is not adequately calibrated for threats smaller than a shuttle.”
“What will you do after we go?”
“Perform an ordered hibernation of Bifengan Base before placing myself in suspend mode. I will remain there until reactivated or the power banks give out.”
I have to ask.
“There’s got to be chatter about this. What are we facing after rescue?”
“The official reason for project cessation is icequakes causing Bifengan Base to shift, which led to fatalities after unexpected failures in continuity of power and life support. The threat is being concealed as a tragic accident.”
“Make a concealed backup of all data related to the prowler, Lasta. Access is only to be granted to querying personnel who’ve been resident in Bifengan Base for over six months Earth time.”
“You think they will try again?”
“Eventually.”
“Then I shall do as you instruct. You should head for the airlock now.”
Time to get off this death ship.
by submission | Jul 19, 2026 | Story |
Author: Vaughn Simmonds
The first thing the villagers saw was a tiny black dot in the sky. It wasn’t moving. As more noticed, murmurs spread through the crowd. Nobody could tell what it was.
They went to their wise woman, hunched over the dying embers of a fire. She did not turn, remaining huddled in her dark shawl. ‘Look again. See if you notice anything different.’
Puzzled, the villagers did as she said. They went back out into the muddy courtyard, the breeze flicking at their ramshackle cloaks. The dot did not seem to have changed, although slightly more of it could be seen. When they went back to the wise woman, she told them to go away. They did as they were told but were disgruntled.
They went back to their normal routines. Occasionally one tried to bring the topic up with the wise woman; they were always ignored. Time passed, and the villagers stopped caring.
One day, when two children were playing outside, they noticed something. The dot was bigger than when they had last seen it. They tried to tell their parents but were ignored. They trudged back home in silence, and it was forgotten.
Every day, the two children played outside, and every day, the dot was just a tiny bit bigger, but they no longer paid it any heed. It was a part of the world now, and the villagers no longer even glanced up at it. Life went on. The children grew into adults; the adults had their own children and became soon became grandparents.
One day, many years after the two children had noticed that the dot was bigger, they lay in bed. They were old, frail, and close to death, and they decided they wanted to see the sun one last time. Their bed was wheeled outside, and they gazed up at the setting sun. The warm breeze comforted them, the aroma of luxurious delicacies wafting over from the bakery, and they were happy.
Then they noticed the dot.
It was very big now, covering half the sky. It almost blotted out the sun. They shouted, and the villagers looked up, and panicked. They went to the wise woman, who was a lot older but still alive. Her fire was still going. They begged for help and guidance, and she shooed them away. They went to the old grandparents lying in the bed, but they had died of fright.
Months passed, with the dot only moving gradually, but the villagers were more aware of it now. They lived their lives in fear, terrified of what would happen when the dot reached them.
And one day it did.
It crashed, but slowly. The villagers had time to react. It fell like it had always fallen; taking days to move even slightly. The villagers could have easily fled the village. But they found that they could not.
They were routed to the spot like statues. Each one waited, petrified, trying but unable to escape as the object took days to gradually fell them. The houses first were knocked aside like toys as it continued its slow descent. Then, the villagers were too. It took years of waiting in fear, but eventually, they were all felled, knocked unceremoniously to the ground. They could not get back up.
The child looks up, a huge grin on his freckled face. His parents watch him. ‘Mummy! Daddy! I rolled a six!’
by submission | Jul 18, 2026 | Story
Author: Vera Marie Scott
Those places that you go when you dream.
Some indefinable sensation settles across your head and chest, and you half expect to either pass out or wake up, either way having faded through something that was neither here nor there. Another part of you feels that it must be the reality, the final thing consensus past all fleeting action. Both parts are… fine. You’re content to stay here, if it is to be.
Duality. It’s still, except for a steady wind, and the noise of some garden snails crawling through the leaf litter off the side of the concrete. It’s mating season for them. That and the noise when the plastic case of your electronic device momentarily bonks the concrete sound simultaneously like sound effects in a movie and more real than anything you’ve ever heard.
Another noise sounds, one that came not from wind or snails, but from something on the same timescale as you, and it starts to feel less like an in-between and more the moment before your doom.
You get up and start to move as a human again. Another sound joins you in the silence, and you think it’s closer this time. Something is coming for you. You change gears into a run. Again a close relative of those other apes, scared for your own life. In this moment, neither where you are nor where you were feels like “home,” but you want to go back.
You’re out. You’re back. The light is golden and modern-human-paced sounds crowd around you, but it doesn’t feel safe, much less home. You still feel that you haven’t separated from the other place. Things know you here. They respond to your actions and are accustomed to your existence and you to theirs, scampering around in your time, and you feel better. It’s still not the same as before you were somewhere else.
Everything feels wrong, you feel alone, yet watched at the same time, as if this is just a hiding spot where you are separated from the thing that chased you, and your protection is false or failing. You press into the matching warmth of what should be your other humans, but you start to worry that the warmth feels false—like a disguise. Nothing feels safe or real. You worry that it never will again.
