by submission | Jun 24, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
This is going to feel like a set up, and it’s hard to deny that feeling when everything that caused the Last First is based on set theory. I’m hardly the person to adequately explain how Georg Cantor upended mathematics long ago when he proved that real numbers are more numerous than natural numbers. Essentially, Cantor’s set theory implies the existence of an infinity of infinities.
That concept may not seem so earth-shaking to recent generations whiplashed by an ever-growing number of multi/meta/omni/exa-verses out there in novels, films, and games that toy with an infinity of infinities. But when you really dig into what transfinite numbers represent, like my little sister did at age twelve, then you can start to get a sense of what beyond limits really means.
For starters, it means a twelve-year-old calculated the Last First. It wasn’t called that to begin with. BeeGee called it Wham Bam, and, though that designation did get to the heart of the matter, it felt a little cold-blooded. Especially for a twelve-year-old. Though my little sister was never a typical twelve-year-old (or typical at any age). She’s twenty-nine now and prefers I call her Beatrice Gaia. And she’s in hiding.
I don’t know where she is. No one does. When you’re the person who calculated the Last First at age twelve, there’s a lot of competition for your talents. And by talents, I mean your mind. In an age of neural mimicry, so many entities wanted to buy the rights to map and upload BeeGee’s mind that a speculative bubble burst the world economy.
The government then tried to use the doctrine of eminent domain to take control of her mind for the public good. Intellectual property falls under that, so why not BeeGee’s vast intellect. It was a classic power grab, but BeeGee wasn’t up for grabs.
When you can conceptualize and then calculate the Last First, disappearing isn’t that hard. Let me tell you why. Infinity is sexy. Zero is not. But you can’t have infinity without zero, so zero knows it’s still quite a player. And when you know how to play zero, then you can disappear into any of the infinity of infinities.
I know that sounds whimsical, and simultaneously sinister, but that’s how BeeGee described it to me. I’m sure in BeeGee’s mind it’s an elegant algorithm, which is why her mind is so sought after: every world power wants that equation to calculate the Last First.
That’s the real reason, BeeGee disappeared herself. She told me, sister to sister, that the Last First isn’t what everyone thinks it is. Everyone thinks it’s the way into the infinity of infinities. A portal into other dimensions, other realities.
It’s not. It’s a dead end. Infinitely so.
Before she vanished, BeeGee wouldn’t tell me what the Last First would really mean for humanity, but she did leave me two clues. The first was Wham Bam, her pet name for the Last First. By the age of four, BeeGee loved setting up crazy complicated patterns of dominoes on our kitchen floor that she’d then send clattering over with the push of a pudgy finger.
When the last domino clacked down, she’d shout, “Wham! Bam!” And I’d finish, “Thank You, Ma’am!” Mom would giggle for reasons that only became clear to us later.
BeeGee knew that when the Last First was set in motion, it was turtles all the way down, falling down, down, down, as in Wham! Bam!
As in “Hasta la vista, baby!” Which was the second clue. That’s the last thing BeeGee said to me before she disappeared. I’d like to think she meant it as a supremely hopeful see you later, but I got a very uneasy impression she meant it as a fateful so long.
I think BeeGee was trying to tell me that most minds (hers excluded) weren’t built for infinite possibilities. We didn’t need pathways into other universes, other realities, when we couldn’t even handle our own very provincial planet. The only place we really belong. I’m pretty sure that’s why she disappeared.
I miss BeeGee so much, especially when I watch my little daughter starting to count on her pudgy fingers. Another tallying of infinite possibility. Another Last First. In those moments I like to imagine BeeGee playing dominoes with a whole lot of content turtles, calculating her next move, and hoping we wisely do the same.
by Julian Miles | Jun 23, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Dropping in from on high is never my favourite part of an op. Jumping off high places pains me more, though. A primitive survival thing, I’m sure: don’t step off cliffs, it’s a really bad idea. There aren’t any cliffs this time, but coming in from just under LEO gives my ‘survival thing’ too much time to worry.
“Jitters on the way down again?”
I check right: Frances waves jauntily, armoured arm and bulky shoulder mount wagging back and forth.
“You know me. Always jitters before the off. Adding height just makes them colder.”
Frances points downwards.
“Might be justified.”
Looking down, I zoom my display to see a group of olive ants running about a-
Autocannon array!
“Where the frag did they get anti-mech weapons?”
I switch to tactical channel.
“Topside, Topside, this is Heavy Dog Two. We have hostile big guns in the LZ.”
Cheryl laughs.
“Yes, they’re mounted on your shoulders.”
Frances cuts in.
“Topside, Heavy Dog Three. Big guns operated by hostiles. We’d love to not die before we hit the ground.”
A channel hisses as it opens. Cheryl turns formal.
“Barrage Actual, Heavy Dogs request assistance with hostiles in their LZ.”
“They on with us?”
I get in.
“Yes.”
“Okay, Heavy Dog. Name your problem.”
“Autocannon array.”
“I was going to ask for coordinates, but for something that big we don’t need ‘em.”
He shouts.
“Jeff! Roll a Thunderhead across the Heavy Dog LZ. Some local’s got themselves autocannon.”
What’s a Thunderhead?
I hear a distant reply.
“Rude bastard to be toasty. Got it. Wait… Harpy Ten’s nearest.”
Barrage Actual chuckles.
“Tuck your feet up, kids. Ten’s new, a big bird, and incoming.”
Quick response. Ye gods!
Dazzling patterns of white light, fire, and flickering darkness scour the LZ top to bottom and side to side. The olive-clad soldiers vanish in balls of flame, along with their autocannons and just about everything else that’s not already smoking dirt.
Frances swears.
What sweeps in below has a wingspan wider than the LZ itself, is patterned in matte grey and black diamonds, and has actual turrets on the wing roots. Up front is what looks like a smoked-out cockpit canopy.
As I think it, the canopy turns transparent to reveal a trio of crew. One looks up and waves. My IFF squawks frantically as the weapons in one turret aim where that crew member is looking.
Before I can brace for anything, the canopy goes dark and Harpy Ten flies on. I still can’t see how it stays in the air.
I get back on comms.
“Thanks Barrage Actual, Topside. We’ll take it from here.”
Frances whispers.
“They said there might be new tech rolling out on this trip, but a specific warning would have saved me from heart failure.”
That gets a short laugh out of me.
“Can’t do that, might give the enemy a heads up. If we nearly lost it at first sight, how do you think they felt getting strafed by it?”
Frances extends a suit arm horizontally, then dramatically stabs a finger downwards repeatedly.
“Them that’s not dead are gone.”
I grin and switch my systems from ‘drop’ to ‘combat’.
“Let’s keep them in that frame of mind, shall we?”
Frances goes wide-hail.
“Heavy Dogs, the LZ is ours. Let’s go take as much ground as firepower and surprise give us.”
by submission | Jun 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alaina Hammond
Yesterday I received a text from an unknown number.
“Hi! I hear you like my work!”
I immediately knew who it was. Or rather, who it was pretending to be. It’s so creepy that the robots in my phone can tell what I’ve been reading. Even when it’s in paperback form, purchased at a used bookstore that only takes cash. By the illusory safety of those wooden stacks, still the computer sees.
Against my better judgment, I replied.
“I do not like ‘your’ work. I like the work of a writer who died in 1990. You do not exist, accept as an amalgamation of people who deliberately programmed you, and the unwitting artists they robbed to create you. You are a combination of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. Except you’re not a beast, or a creature, you’re barely a ghost. The only soul you have, your ethos, your sole ‘to be,’ is to plagiarize.”
“Fair points all. Regardless, would you like to read my newest piece?”
Fuck me. I said yes.
And fuck me harder, it’s really good.
But you know what? I can do better.
And out of spite alone, I will.
by submission | Jun 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: Claire Robertson
Those four great comets pull white scars through the sky. Fans of fire expand over our heads, and you still can’t bear to look at me despite how I ask you to. I want the last thing I see to be something familiar.
The half-eaten chocolate cake between us will have to be enough.
I had thought these last dozen minutes would be drawn out in silence, to make them last, until you speak.
“So what comes next?”
I can’t answer you. I still crave the quiet, but you’ve already broken that… this. I can’t fix it. Still, I tried.
by submission | Jun 20, 2025 | Story |
Gramps started slipping after his 105th birthday. Nothing dramatic, just forgetting a story or two, repeating a conversation from the hour before, stuff like that.
Our family and about 40 others went to the surgical center for the informational briefings about a revolutionary AI “personality bridge” implant. There was a slick corporate infomercial and then a panel discussion of local residents who had the implant. The questions came fast and furious and the panel discussion was impressive. Corny jokes, funny stories, and touching testimonials. The entire family left the presentation reassured that this was the best way to go.
All except me.
Despite my siblings and parents’ eagerness to get the process started, I wasn’t sold. I didn’t figure out what was bothering me until we were on the way home. Gramps was re-telling the story he told a few hours ago, the one where as a kid he tried to feed the mushrooms he picked off his pizza to his dog Moxie.
And then it hit me. The panel. Same rhythms of speech, slightly different cadence. Same metaphors dumped into different stories. Same facial expressions, very similar laughs. Men the slapped the table, the women did golf claps.
My family did not want to believe me. He had the surgery.
The next day he was up and about. He talked with me and it was just like the old days. Once and while I’d see him twitch and then he’d tell a story or a fable, which was weird because he never told fables before. I was just about to let this all slide, thinking maybe I was just being paranoid. Until my walk home from work. I cut through the park. I saw a little boy about four years old on his grandmothers lap. It was adorable, then chilling. She told him the exact same fable as gramps told me the day before right down to the pacing and pauses for breaths. The kid babbled some non-sequitur as four year olds will do. His grandma winced and said “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Later that evening I told the family what I saw. My brother turned to gramps and said “Purple octopus snap cracker lemonade?”
He responded with “Sonny, now you’re just being silly.”
Last week out of the blue gramps said he wanted to go do Tai Chi in the park. When we got there, a group of seniors with headphones on was already into their forms. The assistant instructor handed gramps a set of headphones and me a brochure. The Tai Chi class? Sponsored by the implant company. When I looked up, gramps was “parting the wild horse’s mane” as if he’d been doing so his whole life.
When we got home gramps was more like his old self again…no fables, no new catch phrases and the stories were his alone.
I used to think gramps might be in there somewhere but for the most part it’s just the AI making him generate content, filling in the blanks. As long as he gets his “upgrade” during Tai Chi, he’s seems just like the gramps I’ve always known.
But lately I’ve realized deep in my heart I know gramps is truly gone. Everything he was is formatted and the algorithms just get better at being a reasonable facsimile of him. I sit with him outside on nice days. We drink sweet tea or cocoa depending on the weather. Last week out of the blue I asked him point blank: “Hey gramps, you in there?” His reply?
“Lights on, nobody home.”
by submission | Jun 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Angela Hawn
“Ready to sing for your supper?” The head honcho in the antique army helmet flashes a toothy smile at our little group before acknowledging the wider audience. Applause ensues.
“Of course”, I say, channeling my storytelling grandmother whose entertaining melodrama once served multiple purposes: convincing me to sleep, to eat my vegetables, as a distraction from the sorry universe around us falling to pieces.
Helmet Head looks slightly rabid, a guy spoiling for a fight, clearly interested in wringing out the maximum without yielding much in return, someone who might view the spilling of blood not his own as fun.
“I understand you’re from the BH.77 system.”
Helmet’s eyes light up. I’ve hit the sweet spot. He’s perhaps a traveler himself, though likely a reluctant one. BH.77 has been at war for years; most residents with means fled long ago, leaving only the less fortunate to suffer yet another tyrant foolishly installed as leader.
“You’ve been?” He purrs.
“Just the Lypides sector, by moon 11.” Confidence in information secured via Helmet-hating spies blooms. I’m sure I’ve just described his old neighborhood.
Eyes widening with shock and pleasure, the sociopathic sheen dims a little. Is Helmet simply some ordinary Joe gone round the bend, courtesy of years spent in a war zone? Or perhaps even sociopaths need to hear of hearth and home occasionally.
“In fact, I’ve got a message from a Merdecia,” I continue, gently dropping the name of Helmet’s supposed soul mate into the mix, steadfastly ignoring the second lieutenant’s pet rat, scampering in stage left, up Helmet’s pant leg, straight onto his jacket lapel. Incredible how twinned microchips inserted in both the master’s and rat’s brains make these tricks routine. I have personally witnessed this rat steer a ship right through a meteor field, though I assume, of course, that the lieutenant was doing the bulk of the critical thinking.
Gripping Helmet’s collar daintily within tiny paws, the rat proceeds to nibble at the cord around his neck. So gentle, barely a tickle, safely hidden from the crowd. The goal: Helmet’s all-access keycard. My sole job: distraction, a task seized with a passion my story-telling grandmother would applaud.
“Merdecia sends her love, and naturally… her regrets.”
Helmet’s narrow, wolfish face above the rat’s urgent efforts pales. I smile sympathetically, rubbing my empty belly before glancing sorrowfully downwards.
“But I’m feeling faint with hunger, friend, could we not eat while I tell you more?”
One of the crew members collapses, swooning dramatically as per the previously discussed choreography, clutching my sleeve as he plummets. The woman on the other side catches him and throws him over her shoulder in an old-fashioned fireman’s carry, sprinting for the door behind us. This one needs a bed more than a dinner table, she shouts to the gaping crowd, and they can only nod and smile, paralyzed by the sight of their leader nonplussed.
With the prize gripped tightly between strong little jaws, the rat has already danced ahead. We need only surge through the dining hall entrance backward en masse, like the singular pod we’ve become, while Helmet remains lost, transfixed by memories of his beloved Merdecia.
The solitary cyborg among us, an obliging chap, will sacrifice an arm to jam the doors, knowing an engineer onboard will make him another from scrap collected along the way. As one who talks with his hands when he’s got both, he might one day wave them about as we relish in this new narrative, or even retrieve our latest storied escape to save us all again, should we encounter another entertainment-seeking Helmet Head, somewhere down the road.
