It would be Pat’s fault
Author: Clare Strahan
Pat had to turn the drone over, to get to the metal hatch door and unscrew the screws that fixed it to the body. What did the drone think of, when Pat wasn’t there? Did it remember the battlefield, the shrapnel and wounding, the fall into the ocean, the washing up on a strange shore? Should he show it the articles and reports? Could it read offline?
Do you think of home? Pat asked.
The drone rolled its eye towards him. Do you mean homing?
Don’t worry about it.
Am I incorrect?
Could a machine feel shame? Patrick recognised the shadow of it in the drone’s question. The hot-cold flush of embarrassment – like in spelling tests or comprehension questions. The sticky sweat and chill of failure. There was something he wasn’t understanding, and everyone would laugh as soon as they knew it. He was sure he saw it in the drone’s searching eye and couldn’t tell if the recognition made him happy or sad.
I hated school, Pat said. I spent lunchtimes hiding in the toilets or behind the library.
The drone swivelled its eye again. Didn’t anybody notice you were gone?
No.
Partially untethered, the drone’s leg flopped out, on the ground. Looking closer, Pat saw it wasn’t a leg it was a weapon. Some kind of gun. This was definitely the war drone Jeb had been talking about. The one that briefly blipped on the radar. That blip was Pat’s fault. A quick blip between waking it up and getting it offline. If the drone killed them all, that would be Pat’s fault too.
The air around the drone was buzzing. You weren’t very good at school. You weren’t very good at school.
But it wasn’t the drone speaking at all. It was Pat’s brother, Jeb, at dinner. Pat was still living at home with his parents and Jeb had just graduated as a doctor. You weren’t very good at school.
It wasn’t pity, exactly.
It was justification.

The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.

Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member

Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.

Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com