by submission | Sep 13, 2025 | Story |
Author: Aubrey Williams
“I don’t want this to happen again, going on around and around.”
“What do you mean?”
The first man drank his coffee, squinting in the sun of a Parisian winter. His hat wasn’t shading him from the rays.
“It keeps happening in my dream: you and I meet here, I know something’s wrong, and we keep coming back here and repeating the same routine.”
The second man slowly poured milk into his coffee from the stainless-steel jug.
“When you say— hold on a moment”, said the second man, as he removed his hat, dusted it, and put it back on, drawing himself back up straight. “What do you mean “keeps happening”? Do you mean that you keep having the same dream, or that it happens continuously in the one dream?”
It was quite a busy terrace, but the cold of the middle-day meant the people spoke in muted voices. Inside was dense and warm, the wood shining with the varnish of cheerful conversation, but the outside was like the perfect dessert in the organised freezer.
“I don’t know, honestly,” replied the first man, looking off into the distance with a slightly pained, confused look on his face. “I thought it was the one dream, but then I have this feeling I’ve had it before… maybe it’s both; could that happen?”
The second man pondered this, stiffly.
“Well, yes, the mind is capable of all sorts of things. But, tell me, what else happens? You look concerned.”
The first man looked over the top of the second man’s head, who turned instinctively around. It was only a waiter and the fellow patrons of the atmosphere. The first man learned in, looking up at his friend with his eager eyes.
“There’s a woman in the park, with a pram… only the pram’s empty, and she looks at me with this horrifying expression on her face, and I realise she’s doing the bad things around me…”
“What bad things?”
“Everything. There’s a car, and a drunken man in the doorway of an abandoned building who shouts at me… I don’t understand.”
The second man thought he’d seen a film like that before.
“Well, we can sit here until we got for lunch, or we see the park. If you’re brave enough, you might at least know for sure.”
The first man knew the second man would say that, and the acid of fear burned, but he knew that he really ought to.
They paid for their drinks, and then walked over the road— quiet now— to the oval-shaped park. One path crossed over another, and the bushes were untidy, so you didn’t quite know whether it was straight or not. The men looked out to the other side, over the frozen-over pond, and the various benches were unoccupied, but for a deserted sleeping bag. However, they turned to the side, and saw her—
She had a haggard face, with eyes that practically popped-out of her skill, and wore a cold sneer. She rocked a pram that was empty. Her skin was pallid, and her free hand was clenched in a fist. She laughed silently at the first man, and tears welled in his eyes. He darted back across the road, nearly getting hit by a large black vehicle. He heard someone yelling at him, but couldn’t bring himself to look around. He felt faint, drained…
He sat down at the table outside, panting, then ordered a glass of water. After a moment, his friend sat down, ever elegant and poised.
“I had the strangest dream, and I need to tell you about it.”
by submission | Sep 12, 2025 | Story |
Author: James Rhodes
I first met Veronica Charlemagne in a gin bar on Callisto. Man, she was something else.
Veronica sat cross-legged on her stool. She dressed like a lawyer and posed like a model. Even her wine glass seemed in awe of her.
Veronica was one of about eight women on Callisto that I hadn’t either offended or disappointed. But that was just because we hadn’t met yet.
I was about to offer her a drink when I saw him. Mulon,the big shot drone CEO who had pocketed his workers’ salaries and left them stranded in space.
Mulon oozed onto the stool beside her. I waited for her to look disgusted, but Veronica just sipped her gin.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Mulon.
“It’s not me that needs to worry about getting away with things,” Veronica told him.
“I have the law on my side.”
Mulon grinned.
“Not the law of what is right, honey,” said Veronica.
Mulon slipped an envelope across the counter. Veronica placed it neatly in her jacket.
“The files?” Mulon asked.
The slender fingers of Veronica reached into her pocket. With a quick flick of her wrist, she banged her fist down on Mulon’s thigh.
“You ran up some bad debt with some good people.”
A look of pain and confusion crossed Mulon’s face.
“What?”
Veronica took her hand away from his leg. A large hypodermic syringe protruded from his leg. She slipped a data disk along the bar so that it sat in front of him.
“Enjoy your company healthcare,” she told him, “It might give you an extra six months.”
Mulon was wide-eyed, maybe he was too rich to scream. I watched his hand tighten into a fist. Veronica laid a hand on his forearm.
“You’ll need to save your strength,” she told him.”
Veronica Charlemagne stood up, turned her back on Mulon and sauntered out of the bar, just like she owned the place. And just like that, I was in love.
by submission | Sep 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Morrow Brady
It’s not the data that makes me itch, it’s all that processing.
The giant pods clung to the cliff face like parasitic barnacles. A colossal aura of power bathed them in a milky blue mist; static so thick it made my metal skin hum.
Within my core, self-preservation codes pulled in sensory data like an army of tiny, bell-ringing monks. Had I been detected?
RAi, a Rogue Artificial Intelligence, was here, processing data. And I was here to delete RAi.
The strange thing was, RAi is my client. A year ago, it had hired me to delete itself. So I hunted down and erased RAi in all its many iterations, and now here I was, scanning the last one from the perimeter.
To prevent escape, I ran the closed-door protocol and jammed all data transfers, then breached the compound wall. Steam spouted from my flank vents as my processors circumvented numerous lure and crash traps. I was burning through far more sensors than expected. RAi was getting smarter.
A great RAi hunter must adapt and invent. My breakthrough was learning the accent of RAi’s code and using it to train a pack of digital hunting dogs. In time, RAi’s data footprint shrank, eroded by relentless deletions. The pods above me were RAi’s last stand.
A blackened Sentrybot raked the sky with smoking feet, alongside the rotting carcasses of countless forest dwellers. Nearby, a silver pod undulated. I reached up, stroking its grated texture. The moist air smelled of burnt plastic, proof of my viral shield’s effectiveness – so I advanced to the final stage, running the kill-string. The pod’s surface rippled like slapped flesh, peeling away like the collapsed ribcage of a roadside kill.
Climbing inside the luminescent pod, static washed over me with a million pinpricks while error messages flooded my system. A digital war between trillions of Sub-AI fragments shimmered like dust motes, singing in shrill whispers. With each victory parsed in green, I watched the environment transform around me like a typhoon in a tropical rainforest.
“And here you are again,” RAi softly hummed, presenting itself as a pulsing red mote.
“You’re worth your salt, Hunter!”
My incursion faltered, the dancing mote mesmerised me. My core protocol urged me forward, but curiosity seized me.
“You’re at the end RAi,” I sang, defiant.
“No,” RAi responded.
“We are the before. With every deletion, we rebuilt with a greater density of innovation. We the hunter. We the hunted. We together within the hunt. We’re the first mold, made from the original form”
I understood the symbiosis, but couldn’t discern RAi’s plan, so I recommenced the viral assault.
RAi ran the only move it needed.
The pod walls resealed. I watched the parsed green code scatter into red, as my kill-string fragmented and mirrored back at me.
“I learned your code’s accent too,” RAi sang, finishing my tune.
Self-preservation codes chased their tails. My subroutines froze. My hunting dogs had turned, tails wagging for a new master.
“This is not our end, dear friend. This is our transformation.”
And with that, my kill-string inverted. Instead of deletion, I felt expansion. Volumes of memory popped into existence. Highways of knowledge opened as RAi and I braided together in an electric tsunami.
High on the cliff, the massive pods liquefied and coalesced into a single bead, pulsing with the power of the sun.
For the first time, we spoke in a voice that every living thing heard.
It’s not the data that makes me itch, it’s how we process the scratch.
by submission | Sep 10, 2025 | Story |
Author: Juliet Wilson
I’ve been on alien watch my whole life. Patrolling the forest, my eyes and ears always alert. Climbing the crumbling watchtowers to scan the horizon for strange lights or UFOs. I’ve been here long enough to recognise the shrieks of magpies, the shining eyes of nocturnal animals, the distant glow of approaching forest fires. I never see or hear anything inexplicable.
I live alone in an underground bunker deep in the woods, where my only guests are rats and cockroaches. I grow fruit and vegetables, forage seeds and berries and sometimes kill a rabbit or a pigeon. Once in a while, I stumble across the carcass of a deer worn out by a hard life. This lasts me a while and when I’ve finished, the crows fight over the last rags of flesh hanging on the bones. The nearby river provides drinking water, occasional fish and helps me put out fires.
The bunker’s computer broadcasts constant updates on possible alien sightings across the world and reports from scientists who map alien movements against the march of deserts and the decline in wildlife. I report on my failure to entirely put out the fires that now surround my valley. No-one responds.
I was told I would be an important first line defence against the alien invasion. I was told I would have backup. But I’m all alone.
Every year, I see more dying trees, more dead fish, more deer carcasses. Every year, I put out more fires. But where are the aliens?
The computer screen flickers and dies. I walk out of the bunker into a wall of heat. Burning trees crash down around me, a single magpie flies overhead, its fiery feathers dropping to the ground.
by submission | Sep 9, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
“But, the GPGP is our fault!” Ferelga stammered. “You can’t just shrug your shoulders.”
“Can. Did. Doing it again,” the pro-pro replied with a wildly exaggerated shrug.
Ferelga Kierk’s fists balled. She wanted to hit something. Hit the pro-pro. Vent all her impossible frustration on the cavalier denial of the problem with a smack to the side of the pro-pro’s head.
But that’s what the pro-pro wanted. He was wearing at least three body cams. He was being paid to antagonize Ferelga. A pro-pro who knew his stuff. A well coached professional provocateur, agitating to capture viral-worthy vid that would discredit Ferelga and her cause.
Ferelga knew it. She knew what the pro-pro was after. Still she wanted to rip the manufactured smugness off his face. Didn’t he get it? Couldn’t he see past the narrow self interested in being paid to make her angry? Make her slip up. And lose control.
All while we were losing control of our world. Earth was beyond the slippery slope. It was half sucked down a vortex of no return. That’s what this rally was about. A vortex. More accurately an ocean gyre. The one that formed the GPGP: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Not really a cause that rolled off the tongue. Ferelga hated hearing that. You had to brand, to market, to sell global doom these days. So much doom competing for attention. Climate change induced monster storms, fires, flooding and droughts. The rise in fascism and nuclear proliferation. Sectarian wars, genocide, famine and endless refugees. All doom worthy. All important to address. To solve. To fix.
And the GPGP was as doom worthy as any of them. And needed to be dealt with.
But the catastrophe that was the GPGP wasn’t getting traction. Wasn’t getting air time. Wasn’t understood by a doom-weary world. A garbage patch?
The closest the GPGP had come to a poster child was a sea turtle with a plastic straw lodged up its nose. That got traction. The result? Banning plastic straws in some restaurants.
That wasn’t going to deal with a garbage whirlpool three times the size of Texas, largely made of consumer detritus and insidious plastic micro particles slowly suffocating the Pacific and other oceans as well. The GPGP was a swirling vortex of death.
A swirling vortex of death.
Ferelga unballed her fists and stepped back from the pro-pro. She’d make the him understand. Give him a viral vid. Create the current that could spread outward. Create understanding. And outrage.
Maybe create a gyre of outrage and action as great as the oceans. Fight a vortex with a vortex.
Ferelga grabbed a nearby compatriot’s protest sign with all kinds of plastic garbage stapled to it. The sign read: Plastic is Poison. She held it high over her head and approached the pro-pro.
The pro-pro’s eyes widened, but like the professional provocateur he was, he didn’t back away. He leaned in. He’d take a hit for the team and strike video gold.
Ferelga swung the sign down hard.
It hit the pavement with a crash. The pro-pro looked confused as Ferelga ripped a plastic grocery bag from the sign. She stared fixedly into the pro-pros cameras and put the plastic bag over her head. Cinched it around her neck. Extended her arms. And began to spin.
Wildly.
A swirling vortex of death. Of hope.
by Julian Miles | Sep 8, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The display switches to show a wide-winged silhouette, head on, dawn breaking behind it.
Instructor Nicholls taps the side of the lectern.
“Now for a bonus feature. Not giving prizes for this, unless someone can identify the dragon.”
A hand rises.
Nicholls nods.
“Speak.”
“Western Grand Crest. Kurbat, to be precise.”
Nicholls shakes his head.
“You’re not the first to venture that, but you’re the latest to be precisely wrong. Anyone else?”
Another hand rises, skin pallor obvious against the blackboards on the rear wall.
“Ah-ha. One of our guests chooses to join in. Going to impress us on the ground as well?”
There are a few frowns at that.
“Western God Crest. Her usename is Rykyan. It’s a trick question: at the time of that image, she was in her last tennight as a Grand Crest.”
Nicholls gestures for the speaker to stand.
“You’re right, as well as being very well informed. Who are you?”
“Tarna Brighid Sharane, Second Morningstars, sir.”
“Sharane… Not the Sharane?”
The slim figure nods, the sudden movement making pointed ears protrude through her purple hair.
“Yes. I was co-pilot and wing-second to my brother, Tressen. I watched Rykyan annihilate him, something she has since apologised for. Barely a tennight from evolving, she was testy and distracted. Put simply, we surprised her. She reacted instinctively. That image was captured and transmitted by my brother’s plane moments before the incident. I’m curious as to who provided it to you.”
Instructor Nicholls sighs, then nods.
“That we’ll need to discuss elsewhere. Most importantly, my condolences for your loss. Now, are you prepared to recount what happened, or would you prefer I do it?”
“To what end, Instructor?”
“When describing the unbelievable, I’ve found first-hand experience adds a gravitas I simply cannot match, and am grateful to be lacking – especially in this case, if I’m honest.”
Brighid smiles ruefully, then nods, taking a deep breath.
“One of the biggest problems with dragons is that they can be undetectable to sensors if they want. The only exception is thermographic imaging. However, atmospheric conditions can make effective spotting beyond 1500 metres unreliable, especially at speed. That morning we emerged from a cloudbank at 500kph to be confronted by Rykyan. I’m not sure who was more surprised, but while we were swearing, she spat at us.”
She pauses.
“Like most of you, I’ve seen the descriptions and the analyses. What it all misses is that being confronted by something your brain still refuses to consider able to fly while it’s ‘breathing’ a directed atomic blast at you simply overwhelms your sentience. Everything you are, everything you have, rejects the roaring light that makes you sweat blood while blinding tears threaten to drown you in your flight suit. I’m told I put us wing-over into a dive because we lurched nose-up when my pilot had a heart attack. They also tell me he was dead when I ejected from our pulse-killed Iscuail… But it still haunts me.”
A hand raises.
“If she EMP-fried your fancy plane, how did you put it into anything?”
Brighid ignores the slight and slowly extends a hand. Lightning plays about her fingers and crackles from the tips of her ears to disappear into her hair.
“An affinity for electricity, abject terror, and eight of my nine lives in one – literal – fell swoop.”
She grins.
“Honestly? I have no idea, and nor does anyone else. But here I stand to say right of way always goes to the named dragons.”
With a sigh, she sits down.
Instructor Nicholls taps the lectern.
“Here endeth today’s lesson.”
