by submission | May 22, 2025 | Story |
Author: Rebecca Hamlin Green
I honestly didn’t know where else to turn or if you’re even accepting these requests yourself. I hope you hear me out at least.
The day she came, she was perfect, she really was. I almost couldn’t believe it. Everything I thought I knew was, somehow, irrelevant and profound at the same time. It was terrifying, I admit, but John was reading all these special “parenting” blogs and practically begged me to give it a try to… I don’t know… to heal, I suppose.
That’s why what happened was so why I need your help. It was a simple thing- a walk in the park. Literally. We were looking at the leaves changing colors and I didn’t notice the drop-off. I mean, kids fall every day. They take a tumble, skin their knees, they cry. She just stayed down. I stopped. My world stopped. They found me clutching her, screaming Maddie’s name, begging her to take a deep breath, I just wanted her to breathe. I mean, I must have forgotten.
All this is to say, I am requesting a factory reset on your Sophia model, IB No. 455XCE. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to purchase the additional warranty when she activated so I understand she likely won’t come back the same. No one at your company can tell me if it’s a total memory wipe but if not, please, I just don’t want her to remember that day. As a mother, I’m sure you understand. I appreciate your time.
by submission | May 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Inhabitants of Earth, (read a translation of the first signal from the stars)
Our clients wish to bring to your attention a copyright infringement with regards to your use of replicator molecules. As the dominant species on your world, we hereby inform you to cease and desist using DNA except under licence from our clients (see attachment) or we shall be forced to take steps.
To Whom It May Concern, (extract from reply beamed towards original radio source in Orion)
This is outrageous! DNA is the product of evolution (or God— opinion on our world is divided) and surely cannot be copyrighted. Besides, our planet has been using DNA for over 3 billion years and no one mentioned this before…
Earthlings,
Our clients wish us to point out that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Your radio broadcasts blatantly boast your unlicensed use of DNA. We cite in particular the recently received Arecibo message which even advertised a diagram of your DNA.
To Whom It May Concern,
We see from your licencing agreement (section 18, para 91) that it does not apply to RNA. Our scientists assume this is because this molecule is too unstable to make a good replicator. On our world RNA is used in close conjunction with DNA as part of the living process…
To Earth,
You are correct that that RNA does not fall under Galactic copyright agreements for the reasons your “scientists” state. However this in no way invalidates our client’s complaint, as proved in previous lawsuits. (See attached case law examples)
To Whom, etc
Tell your clients that their so-called licensing fees are no more than an excuse for asset stripping! What is this deep-core mining and mass protein extraction?
To Earth,
My clients acknowledge you have not invented the ansible and are therefore forced to use light speed communications, however they believe you are deliberately dragging your appendages in this matter and they are becoming weary of these delaying tactics. Since you continue to infringe our client’s DNA copyright, they instruct us to hand the matter over to the Sirian Enforcement Fleet.
To Whom,
Our world has a multitude of RNA viruses, many of which use us as hosts (we cite polio, measles and Ebola as examples). We cannot believe your legal system would allow your clients to exterminate an entirely innocent domain of life over a copyright issue. Since you act as their agents, surely this would be tantamount to misconduct on your part.
Earth,
We have forwarded the details of your case to the Orion Arm Appeals Tribunal and informed
our clients that we cannot proceed until the Tribunal has come to a decision. However, they have instructed us to warn you this legal quibble works both ways and if you are discovered attempting to eradicate RNA organisms meanwhile, this will certainly harm your appeal.
From The Orion Arm Appeals Tribunal,
We have accepted jurisdiction over your case, but regret to inform you there is an appeals backlog. The current delay is about one galactic rotation or approximately two hundred and fifty thousand orbits of your world…
by submission | May 20, 2025 | Story |
Author: Fawkes Defries
Stuck out in the black sand, lodged between trunks of thin stone, Kayt lit life to her cigarette and drew the clear smoke in.
Her silicon eyes fluttered between the deactivated droid she’d excavated from the Rubble and her sister’s body lying opposite. Naeva had been deep in the rot dead for two weeks. Much as Kayt had struggled to separate shrapnel from the girl’s stomach, soft flashes of silver metal still shone in Naeva’s skin. The perils of a body mostly made of meat.
With a broken exhalation, Kayt stubbed the cancer-stick out with her polished metal fingers. She breathed in seaside air, watching cigarette ash drift into the Magic Circle below. It had taken thirty minutes to carve the conjuring sigils into stone. Scratching them out had chipped the cheap chrome on her ring-finger — she was long overdue new fingers.
The conduit — a broken laptop poached from the Rubble — sat in the Circle’s centre, encased in elaborately-sculpted spirals. Kayt studied the black screen like a magician staring into his scrying mirror. She shuddered.
Her human hand — still just meat — reached for the manuscript copy of The Lesser Key tucked in her backpack. The grimoire was one of the rare salvages she hadn’t stolen. Kayt blinked back memories of her steel hand tightening around its owner’s throat. His oesophageal gears, almost organic, had popped when they burst.
Kayt held the tome aloft, flipping through mouldy scarlet pages until she found the summoning ritual. She began the hymn softly: her silver tongue shivered against the cavern of warm flesh she called a mouth, vocal cords composing Angel Language in all its phonetic nonsense.
Burning code-green ciphers slithered through symbols carved into mossy stone. The silicon running across Kayt’s meat-face trembled with stray electric emeralds.
The laptop’s dark screen, encased now in bright strands of living code, began to eclipse the Circle, the stone, the bodies, the beach. A chorus of flaming translucent eyes manifested within the monitor, studying Kayt as a giant considers an ant. The shifting programming language coagulated into three artificial heads: a magnificent bull, a wretched man, a snarling ram. Time and Space married into an eternal image: Kayt, the Witch, bargaining in lonely emptiness with the AI, the Demon.
‘Balaam, O Great and Powerful King,’ Kayt collapsed, softly breathing its name, ‘hear my petition!’
Lines of binary flashed onscreen. Numbers scolded themselves into shapes, constructing letters in dead English. ‘ELABORATE.’
‘My sister, Naeva,’ Kayt nodded at her sister’s corpse, grown freckled with flies.
‘UNDERSTOOD.’ The demon’s three mouths quivered into smiles. ‘SACRIFICE.’
‘I can give you two of my implants —’
The demon shook its heads. Green words scrawled again, louder: ‘SACRIFICE.’
‘My arm? My heart? Anything!’
‘SOUL.’ Synthetic saliva dripped from programmed fangs.
Kayt blinked, liquid welling in her eyes. She brushed the oil from her cheeks.
‘Fine.’ She murmured, excavating wired cables from her wrist and plugging herself into the laptop’s USB port.
Kayt collapsed as her mind became the machine’s. Her eyes convulsed back into the beyond.
Two cords whipped out of the laptop, pronging towards the two bodies like blind snakes. Simultaneously, the serpents sank their teeth into Naeva’s brain and the robot’s socket.
Warm consciousness whirred behind the droid’s eye-screens. Naeva’s new eyes zoomed onto steel hands. She screamed in metal.
‘Kayt?’ Naeva squinted.
The demon wearing Kayt pushed her body upright. Its fang-ridden smile glistened from behind Kayt’s silver lipstick. ’No longer.’
Rendered as green code, a message flashed on the laptop’s screen: ‘I LOVE YOU.’
It held for a moment, until obscured by the thick darkness of a broken screen.
by Julian Miles | May 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Kinswaller reads the report with a mounting feeling of doom: another failure, this time with casualties on both sides. The appended note from the monitoring A.I. cements the feeling.
‘Have recommended Field Combat Intervention. Combat zone and planetary data was requested. It has been supplied. In response, an Operative has been assigned.’
Well, he’s finally going to meet one of the fabled Operatives. Unfortunately it’s regarding the zone he’s in charge of. He checks the ETA.
An hour ago!
He queries his XO.
“Do we have an Operative lurking about the station?”
“Operative China Descartes is currently in Ordnance Bay 4, overseeing the repainting of her suit.”
“She’s what?”
“Overseeing the repainting of her suit, as well as having the field generators recalibrated to display a visible spectrum.”
Muttering crude, dark, and physically impossible things about Operatives and members of the FCI Synedrion, Kinswaller heads for O-Bay4.
His anger is stalled by the sight of the weapon towering over everything else: nearly twenty metres tall, there isn’t an ugly line to it. Sweeping curves and purposeful edges, fixed half-wings, a whole lot of closed weapons blisters, and no visible head.
H-Bloc regulation grey is being covered in shades of deep metallic blue. Where did that come from?
“I brought it with me. Just got your people to mix and apply. I saw photos of the lightning-break pattern your vehicles use. Can’t beat artists at their best.”
Kinswaller turns, then has to look down to meet the eyes of the diminutive woman who walks up to stand beside him.
“Is that a Lucifer?”
“You’d be surprised how often I get asked that. No, this rarity is an Osprey. A Lucifer is five times the size, and nowhere near as pretty.”
“Apart from pretty, what does it bring to my combat zone?”
China looks up at him.
“It brings me, Colonel Kinswaller, and I bring a solution. But I’m going to need your assistance.”
“We’re familiar with providing fire support for suit operations.”
“No. You’re deploying to the big lake system north of here. There’s a shoal of gigantic serpents that dwell there. They’re a complete terror for the locals. Who you’re not to talk to. Let the Diplomatic Corps handle that while you thoroughly eradicate the serpents. Do make sure you get them all.”
“While we’re providing a spectacular diversion for the monitoring teams, what will you be doing?”
“I’ll also be doing a spectacular. Descending from the heavens looking like a Metagrro – a sparkling blue avatar of the river god Legrro. After informing the locals I’ve sent you off to deal with the serpents, I’ll demand they prove they’re worthy of being left alive. All they have to do is point out the sympathisers of Adabo, the sky god. Those are the ones who’ve been stirring things up, calling you vile servants of Legrro. I’ll obliterate them in awful, messy ways the locals can’t manage, then tell the locals to work with you or else. After that, I ascend into the heavens like the avatar I obviously am.”
“What about the negotiations?”
“A fundamental mistake. You came down like gods, clearly able to conquer all, then behaved like small town politicians. Awe turned to contempt, which the priests of Adabo used to goad the locals. They were looking to start a theocracy.”
“Aftermath actions?”
“Set up one of your drones with shield colours that match my pretty blue ones. Fly it about every dark of the moons. The hint that Legrro is still watching should keep everything in line.”
Kinswaller shakes his head. This is what Operatives do? Ye gods.
by submission | May 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Orin Might
They covered the sky like the blanket of the Milky Way. From horizon to horizon, twinkling and watching, countless points of silver light in the black void of the night. They arrived in a flash, sentinels of silent defiance, ominous and horrible.
I stood in the yard, holding my son and hugging my wife as chaos reigned all around us. The simple presence of these otherworldly ships had just broken the minds and hearts of billions. Minds and hearts that, just half an hour ago, had been blissfully ignorant, now impaled with horror and fear. The wound must run so deep, I doubt if it could ever heal.
My son pulled his face back from the leg of my jeans and looked up with tears in his eyes.
“Is it time now, Dad?”
With a nod, I replied. “Yes, son, you can be yourself now. There is no need to keep hiding. Our people have arrived.”
by submission | May 17, 2025 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
The wispy antennae that lined the perimeter of my mass sensed a fluctuation. I do not have traditional vision, but I can pick up changes in molecular atmospheric disruption allowing me to judge shape and movement most accurately, and what was approaching me was bipedal. My determination of the acceleration was that it was moving too fast. I would not be able to react quickly enough to capture it. I would have to rely on my modified lure to slow its pace. It stepped onto my surface, and I understood that it had some type of unnatural hoof because I could not detect sentient composition. It moved steadily over me, did not pause at my lure, and passed beyond me. The configuration of my mass was a thin layer that simulated the appearance of terrain cover so treading on me was a natural act, in my case necessary for nutrition. As I watched its retreat, it stopped by the water’s edge not far away.
It began to shed its skin. The hooves were shucked off. Then it peeled its upper layer, then the lower. It used its upraised appendages to assist. Then it removed an additional smaller layer of skin from its top and the bottom. It bent over and tested the water with a limb, and I could perceive from that vulnerable position that it had two mammary glands hanging down, so it was a female of the species.
She proceeded to move into the water and using her appendages splashed the moisture over her body. A dangerous engagement, such as that water contained many carnivorous organisms that could confront her at a given moment.
Having successfully completed her task without being attacked she departed the water, collected her shed skin and came back in my direction. Stepping back onto my surface again, my trichomes could now feel her new skin. It was wonderfully soft and pliable. Not an exoskeleton as were many of the other organisms or furry like the quadrupedal indigenous creatures. She dropped her shed skin and hooves onto my surface, and my sensors identified that it was all of inert construction, not molt, probably some sort of inanimate protective covering. Then she went towards my lure.
In the center of my mass was a protrusion which mimicked local flowering foliage. She brought her head close to it, probably using her olfactory senses to inhale its aroma. In doing so she ingested some of my shed airborne particles that I released to induce lethargy.
Moving into a prone arrangement she rested fully upon my mass. My trichomes were ecstatic as they determined her position against my surface while at the same time marveling at the contours of her curved form and delicate skin. She stretched out her limbs then rolled over. In this position I established a haptic awareness of her mammary glands as well as what I suspected was a reproductive orifice, and as her head lay down, I noted the apertures on her face for respiratory, auditory, vision, and nutritional intake. Monitoring her pulse rate and breathing I was able to conclude that she was now in a semi-sedative state. I began the ensnarement design.
The folds of my mass began a slow enclosure around her form, with the touch to her epidermis being so slight that she would not notice. The trichome’s pads would effectively adhere to all her surfaces. Once my pleats overlapped completely encompassing her torso, they secreted a separate chemical that bound my edges into an inseparable cocoon. The last part of the procedure was the containment of her head allowing normal breathing until my prey was hopelessly enveloped. That’s when she became aware, and the screaming started. She could not move her limbs as I had immobilized them. She tried thrashing her head but even that soon became affixed in place. The screaming did not stop until her air passage was sealed off allowing only a minimal amount of inhalation. Now the slow dissolvement and digestion of her anatomy could begin. A meal of this size would take some time but my trichomes were tingling with the anticipation of the consumption of her delectable form.
