by submission | May 31, 2025 | Story |
Author: Eva C. Stein
After the service, they didn’t speak much.
They walked through the old arcade – a fragment of the city’s former network. The glass canopy had long since shattered. Bio-moss cushioned the broken frames. Vines, engineered to reclaim derelict structures, crept along the walls.
Mae’s jacket was too thin for the chill that seeped through the open airlocks, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Do you ever think people get shame wrong?” she asked, not looking at him.
Aidan kept his gaze on the cracked tiles beneath his boots, feeling the throb of the neural weave in his spine. “Wrong how?”
“As something to run from. Like it… hurts.”
She slowed her step. “But what if it’s trying to tell us something we’ve been avoiding?”
He nodded. “You mean, like a warning?”
“Not quite so simple. Shame isn’t a wound – it’s a lasting scar in the code, a memory that won’t erase.”
He considered that. “And anger?”
“Anger is louder. Shame waits.”
They passed a rusted data terminal, half-swallowed by vines. Its screen blinked beneath lichen-like growth. Aidan paused beside it.
“But both show up uninvited.”
“Most things do,” she said.
“And some don’t leave.”
“Maybe they stay until we stop pretending we can’t hear their signal.”
She brushed a spray of moss from the terminal’s edge. “Until we stop closing the door.”
He looked at her. “You really think feelings can be met like that?”
“Better than treating them like corrupted files to be quarantined.”
Aidan exhaled. “I think I kept rewriting the entry protocol – hoping nothing would get through.”
They walked on. Somewhere, a window shutter scraped.
“When shame is earned,” Mae said, “maybe it’s the part of us that remembers who we wanted to be – the original upload.”
Aidan didn’t reply. His steps slowed.
“And anger?” he asked at last.
“Maybe it’s what won’t let the world forget. Or won’t let us forget that we cared.”
“You make them sound almost noble.”
“I’m not trying to. Maybe they have reasons – even if we can’t name the code that drives them.”
A breeze moved through, carrying the smell of damp brick and something faintly medicinal – from the chapel or the hall, or both. Aidan adjusted his sleeve.
“Sometimes I think I lived the last ten years quietly. Not because I felt nothing, but because I was never sure which were my words to say.”
Mae nodded once. “And when you did speak?”
“I was careful. Too careful.”
He paused. “I used to think that was strength. Now I wonder whether it was just another layer of security.”
“Maybe it was fear,” she said. “Of hurting someone.”
He looked away. “Or of being known.”
The arcade opened onto the street. Afternoon light fell across the paving stones. Near the kerb, a child’s bicycle leaned against a lamppost. Its front wheel turned, though there was no wind.
Mae stopped.
“Do you think those feelings – shame, anger – ever leave us?”
Aidan watched the wheel spin. “If they do… maybe it’s not because we chased them away. Maybe it’s because we finally stopped talking over their signal.”
Mae didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
They stood for a while, turned just enough not to face each other. The street lay quiet ahead. A bird flew across the light above the rooftops, then disappeared.
When Aidan finally spoke, something in his voice had changed. “Do you think she knew?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “She told me.”
by submission | May 30, 2025 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
It was an alien invasion, not in the sense of “War of the Worlds” but more like what historians called the “British Invasion” but without the Beatles. What invaded us was close to five million overprivileged alien tourists, all here for one reason: to inhale us. No, this is no metaphor. They are here to literally, sniff us out. They love our scents.
Turns out, the rest of the galaxy doesn’t smell like much…some rot here, smoke from different kind of fires, and the odd change in air quality differing from planet to planet based on what kind of dust and water was indigenous. One wonders why evolution gave the various human adjacent aliens olfactory senses at all.
Their cultures had no flowers. No essential oils. No animal scents. No complex pheromones. No body odors. Just a dull scent palate, at that was it for the galaxy.
Except for earth, and well, us.
My son and daughter-in-law ran a candle shop, a business they started when their profitable cleaning franchise closed due to the home robot revolution. They were doing all right but struggling.
Then the invasion came. Now my son and daughter-in-law have more money than they actually know what to do with, and that’s after spoiling me and his mother (and the rest of the family) absolutely rotten. But it doesn’t stop there; and it’s not a good thing.
One cannot walk down the street without being accosted by aliens of one stripe or another wanting to come closer for a sniff. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we’re doing. Lovers walking arm-in-arm, business folk rushing off to a power lunch. Kids on bikes or boards careening down the sidewalks. DOT workers filling potholes. Without so much as a I-beg-your-pardon we all get a nose shoved somewhere on our bodies, going beyond any accidental violation of personal space. It has gotten so bad the UN has complained to several off world governments and banned at least three alien species from coming to earth.
The rest of the galaxy doesn’t see it that way. Nope. Think we are being “primitive,” and “oversensitive.” The common view is, and I quote from one of pamphlet of a consortium of planets, “Earth has no right to deny the greater galactic community this incredible resource.”
Things are getting more and more out of hand. A tour group of aliens over-ran a gym last week. Bad idea, especially when coming between powerlifters and their work outs. Two humans injured, 16 aliens put in the hospital before police arrived. Four aliens pummeled with baked goods at a farmers market outside of Niece. An enraged crowd in Bangalore tipped over a tour bus. Alien visitors in route to Manitoba, turned away. Hell, its got to be pretty bad if it’s pissing off Canadians. Now, Earth has kicked all the tourists out. The last of the shuttles departed to cheers and jeers.
It’s been almost three months and all of us are finally getting back normal. We’re told by our military folk there are alien battle cruisers on the way, an armada if you will. Fortunately for us the last decade or so of reverse engineering and just plain tech left has put us on an even footing with just about any other species in the galaxy. Maybe even ahead of a few.
All of this because we happen to be the defacto Pot-Poruri of scents for the galaxy. All I know is that all this really stin- no sucks. Yeah, all this really sucks.
by submission | May 29, 2025 | Story |
Author: K. Andrus
Where was the best place to murder someone and get away with it?
A question that had been fun to ponder, back when Albert had been at home accompanied by nobody else but a chilled glass of scotch, the comforting roar of a June snowstorm, and his most recent work-in-progress novel.
Yet here, stuck on Mars, Albert found himself seriously contemplating the question as he was yet again turned away from the captain’s quarters.
It would only be retribution, he rationalized. After all, Albert had to leave behind his mansion for a single bedroom apartment, his silk robes for an uncomfortable space suit, his employed help for an AI in his wall, and his favorite foods for pre-packaged rations. Truly, Albert was experiencing what could only amount to poverty. However, the biggest tragedy of all was the fact that there was not a drop of alcohol available.
Albert had made his complaint known, of course, but he had been told that such ‘frivolous’ comforts would have taken unnecessary space in the ship. And that to carry, ‘the most people possible,’ some sacrifices had to be made.
Bah! Surely one or two of the scientists scurrying around here could have been left behind? What sort of space resort had scientists, anyway? But when Albert had made such a logical suggestion for the next supply shipment, he had been told to skedaddle. Imbeciles!
Albert huffed to himself as he entered his hotel room. When he got back to Earth, he was going to cut spending on a few senators who had suggested the trip in the first place. Fire-smire, so what if almost all of America was currently burning? He could have flown to one of his many vacation homes and waited out the toxic smog instead. Surely, a trip to another planet had been an overreaction by their government.
Albert sighed and collapsed into his chair. He stretched out his legs and gazed at them sadly. With no ottoman to put his feet upon, his legs were left to sprawl pitifully in front of the coffee table.
“Martin, get me a cup of coffee,” Albert asked his room’s AI before he closed his eyes so he could pretend he was still in his California mansion.
Albert listened to the soft sounds of his door swishing open and the quiet footsteps of someone approaching, no doubt entering with his requested beverage. Surely, once he drank his coffee and was a little more awake, he could once again try to talk sense into the owner of this resort. A place without alcohol, bah, what a farce.
However, all plans went out the window when someone grabbed his neck and squeezed.
Albert’s eyes shot open, and he choked in surprise at the sight of a masked assailant standing over him. He scrambled to grab the man’s hands, doing his best to pull them off his neck, but the blinking light of a mechanical arm told him he was fighting a losing battle.
“Did you think you could run away?” A wicked smile, the gleam of yellowed teeth, and the acidic smell of smoke. “I won’t let you.”
As Albert’s vision began to darken, he was reminded of his earlier question. Where was the best place to murder someone and get away with it? Why, space of course. It was far enough away from society to easily avoid prosecution. Not to mention, such an oxygen-rich environment would be an arsonist’s wet dream. Why couldn’t Albert have thought of that sooner?
by submission | May 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Standing among some of the oldest living things on earth, Mourad Du, felt his age. Not just in years, but in possibilities lost. And, now, the impossibility he faced. Who could he tell? Would it even matter?
They would all be gone soon. Nothing he could do, we could do, would change that. Mourad breathed deep and continued up the trail to the Grizzly Giant one last time. There are about 500 mature giant sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove near Yosemite’s south entrance and once a year Mourad visited them all, but only the Grizzly Giant spoke to him in a special way.
In an unbelievable way. An impossible way. It spoke. Not aloud, but clearly in his head: Mourad Du, Mourad Du, Mourad Du.
The Grizzly Giant spoke to him. To him, a destitute Algerian who’d emigrated to Oakland forty years ago. To him, who’d struggled to find his place and purpose in his new country. Until a friend had taken him to the Mariposa Grove in Sequoia National Park and he, the stranger in a strange land, finally felt welcomed and comforted by the immensity of life and mindfulness of time in these sequoias.
Mourad Du could conceive of no greater miracle, no greater proof of the majesty of the divine, than the Mariposa Grove. Mourad made a pilgrimage each year to the seemingly ageless sequoia wonders. Vigilant sentinels, ever watchful, ever present.
Until now.
Until the ecological balance tipped well beyond survival, and the Grizzly Giant told Mourad that his kind were leaving. Ancient beings akin to pure thought that existed on the fringes of quantum probability, migrating through the ethereal fibers of the metaverse, taking root in local, long-lived life.
They’d settled in the sequoias of the Mariposa Grove thousands of years ago and mused upon our planet. Appreciated the wonders of our world. Sensed our sentience and hoped for our longevity, to become as they.
But, we are we, Mourad Du lamented. Our stewardship of Earth found lacking, and they were leaving. Mourad Du was asked to bear witness. The Grizzly Giant gave a time.
There is nothing like a night under the sequoias. Mourad Du stood among the titans beneath the shimmering depths of the Milky Way. Before they launched, the Grizzly Giant assured him that all was not lost. The tree of life large and humanity young. We could still find a place.
Just as Mourad Du had.
by submission | May 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
“I’d do it in a flash,” Jason declared, tightening the lid of the cocktail shaker. “Clone you, I mean. And how about you? What would you do?” In his hands, the shaker was a percussion instrument. The rhythm was enticing; it made Kerra want to dance.
She gave him a teasing, crooked smile. “I’d have to think about it.”
“Wow,” Jason snorted. “Thanks.”
As annoying as her answer was, he couldn’t get mad at her. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye he thought, She’s so lovely. Like the reflection of the moon on still water.
* * *
Jason didn’t have to wait long to act on his declaration. Kerra was dead, taken down by a distracted driver as she crossed a busy city street on her way to work.
He pushed his grief aside to contact reLive, to set up an emergency meeting with a consultant. Within 8 hours after the accident, Kerra was in their industrial compound having her DNA extracted, cleaned, copied, and inserted into an appropriate organic, fully-grown female manikin.
Transferring her memories and personality into the manikin was trickier. It was a delicate process Jason was not privy to, but he signed off on it anyway. He was willing to do anything to have her back.
In less than a month, Kerra was home, lounging on the couch as Jason made martinis for them.
“So,” he said from the bar in their den, “if I died, do you love me enough to have me cloned? If it was you, I’d do it in a flash. Matter of fact…I did do it for you. You didn’t survive that hit-and-run.” Jason never could keep a secret.
“I know,” Kerra said as she rose from the couch and moved to the large window overlooking the city. She watched his reflection in the window as he approached with drinks in hand. You are like the reflection of the moon on water, she thought, but you are not the moon.
“I’ve already done that,” Kerra said absently to his reflection. “Twice.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason asked as he handed Kerra her drink.
She walked back to the couch and sitting, took a long pull on her martini before answering. “Remember our vacation in Mexico last Spring? Remember you got so drunk you decided you’d dive off our balcony into the hotel pool below?”
She patted the couch. He sat down beside her. “You missed,” she said flatly.
Jason shook his head. “But…”
“And two years before, when we were going to see the Cloned Stones Reunion Tour,” she interrupted. “You got in an argument with a biker in the parking lot over an empty spot. You ended up with a knife in your neck.”
Jason put his hand to his throat; there was no scar.
“Every time someone is cloned, they get a fresh health re-set. No more diabetes, no more heart disease. No more carpel tunnel, no more arthritis.” Kerra flexed her hands. “That’s how I knew I’d been cloned.”
“So if you’re a clone….and I’m a clone…what does this mean?”
Kerra squeezed his thigh affectionately. “It means welcome to a whole new world.”
by Julian Miles | May 26, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The bright lights look the same. Sitting myself down on the community server bench, I lean back until my spine hits the backrest. My gear starts charging. Diagnostics start scrolling down the inner bars of both eyes. The trick is not to try and read them. You’ll only give yourself a headache.
I snap the neck off the bottle. Flashy, but I’m distracted by flashbacks of growing up.
Saturday night, beer in hand, waiting for a skimmer or a cruiser to pull up. The kids from upstate could afford the toys, but couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. So when their egos took them places their mouths couldn’t talk them out of, they sent a driver to get some heavies.
South side of town, under the grav-ways, the jobs were dawn ‘til dusk and the pay was crappy even for overtime into the night. Sixteen-hour days for nothing much except food tubes and washhouse chits.
Those of us from that neighbourhood, we used to spar at a gym until it got shut down. After that, we freelanced: some thuggery, but mainly bouts. They hurt. First you fought the contender, then you beat the gang who expected you to throw the fight for money.
We were the Nighthawks. We didn’t do that sort of thing. Fighting was our honour. Hell, it was all we had.
I joined the army the day after Sarna died in a gang fight that nearly killed us both. Still remember standing there, both eyes blacked, ribs cracked, swearing an oath I thought I understood.
Ten years and a dishonourable discharge later, I realised it meant you’re expected to throw the fights the politicians tell you to.
I got into a special forces mob. Called ourselves the Nighthawks. I was proud of that. They took to my street corner warrior creed and went all-in. We got a reputation for being bastards to face on or off a battlefield.
Then we refused to throw a fight in Trabanth City, suspicious of the story we were being fed. Proved to be a righteous decision, but the traitors framed us. By the time the carnage got so bad the enemy intervened to save us from our own population, we’d lost eight out of ten. It’s difficult to fight when they starve and besiege you. We got some licks in, but in the end we went out on flatbeds as the ambulances had all been torched.
Spent a while under the taint of that, then someone leaked the story of the betrayal to the news. Soon after that my dishonourable discharge was commuted to ‘Discharge for Classified Reasons’. Got a letter of apology with an enhanced welfare code at the bottom.
That code got used up quick. Helped a few Nighthawks who didn’t make it out whole, and a few families who only got tags and a flag back.
Sad story, world doesn’t really care. But here I am, beer in hand, summer evening, back on home turf. Could be a lot worse.
A flashy cruiser pulls up to the kerb. Door opens.
“People who sit there settle differences, friend, and not by talking. You best be moving along.”
I bring up my tactical and scan him deep from fingertips to back seat. He squirms. Combat tech does that to cheap civilian gear.
“How much for settling your trouble?”
“Two hundred.”
Good start.
“Per body.”
He grins.
“Deal.”
Just like I never went away. Hey, this Nighthawk’s got ghosts to honour and a reputation to rebuild. Plus, I still gotta eat.
