Fast Fiction On-the-Go
She slunk through the murky, neon street where shadowy forms hid. Wary eyes flickered in her direction as she passed; scared prey watching a predator pass at a safe distance. This was a dangerous city and a dangerous planet. It was dangerous out there and people died here all the[…]
Read more“We continue developing tools to track the Unethical AIs that escape the system fail-safes–” Agent Ponzio mentally flicked to his next slide, his brain-embedded Conduit pushed this signal out and the Web-based conference streamed it to the Board’s own Conduit’s around the galaxy. In his mind’s eye, he could see[…]
Read moreJason saw the colours before he felt the pain. Spotlights flared down on him from some vast urban backdrop as armed people in blue and black swarmed around him. He was pinned to the ground with a piercing weighting on his back and his hands held there with cold metal[…]
Read moreThe tendrils of space stretched around Ronald Rupert like the limbs of a lover interrupted only by fragments of his ship’s wreckage floating by. Great tails reached out from galactic gas clouds like curtains on a cosmic stage, curling around the endless blackness filled with countless twinkling balls of fusion.[…]
Read moreShe regained consciousness slowly. It was an uncomfortable process. At first, it was just a sense of light but then the light grew piercing and painful. She groaned. Gravity, weight and something else all appeared, pinning her naked form down. The seam of a velvet carpet was cutting into her[…]
Read morePeter had sacrificed everything to become a cosmic archeologist. His youth for years of study, his adulthood for years of travel, and any possible family or friends for a solitary existence. He was sure there were many other things he could list if he had time to do so. It[…]
Read moreFar from the civilized Inner Galaxies, buried deep in a fast-spinning, dead neutron star lies a series of inorganic servers. No human or other life-form could survive the gravity of this dense celestial body but an army of immortal bots maintains its lair. Lurking deep in these dark recesses, the[…]
Read moreThey woke Daphne up with the third wave of Original Cryo’s. It was 2153. About a decade after they had perfected cryogenic stasis–or, more accurately, surviving cryogenic stasis–and all the legal loopholes had been plugged for its full and unrepentant commercial use. The first wave had been all the celebrities[…]
Read more“Of all the things that I regret,” she sighed, “I regret letting go the most. It was my choice, after all, but once made, you can’t take it back. You can’t go back. After walking the Dreamlands, the Slow World loses its shine. It is dull and cold, weighted like[…]
Read more“Any last words, Captain Winkle?” his former-First Lieutenant barked as they strapped him into the cryogenic escape-pod, “Sorry, mean just Winkle. I’m the Captain of Catwalk now.” “I-I-you-this will–” he spluttered, fury overriding his fear momentarily until his former-First Lieutenant punched him. A sharp pain shot down his spine and he heard[…]
Read moreI have published a new novel: The Space Between Ages. Find it here:
Read more“I can still remember the stars twinkling above us in that field,” she thought, electrical impulses being captured by the chip in her brain and cast over the ultraband straight into another’s brain sitting on the far side of the cosmos, “I hope one day to lie there with you again.”[…]
Read moreI do not expect you to agree with this. I do not expect you to condone it. I only expect you to do the maths. And, after that, I hope you understand it and, perhaps, even consider it yourself. Now, about the maths… There at least two-hundred and fifty billion[…]
Read moreHis hands never shook. It was something to do with bootlegging the Conduit in his brain throughout his body. The Conduit allowed him permanent mental access to the Web. That was not remarkable. Everyone with a Conduit had that. But, bootlegging the Conduit meant that he could ‘Deep Dive’ without[…]
Read moreThe Sanctuary was on an Outer Planet on the edge of a chilly galaxy. This did not seem to bother the monks who lived there. Bot-deliveries from various benefactors across the galaxies kept them going with things like food, water, and clothing. The Sanctuary was started by Thera Simon after[…]
Read moreSometimes Artificial Intelligence–AI–goes bad. Sometimes AI-code fractures and its mistakes loop further and further from its original purpose. These loops could manifest itself in any number of ways through people connected to the Web with their Conduits or external hardware. They were hired by an AI-funded organisation to be the[…]
Read more“The way it works is quite simple: If you took two human minds and connected them via their Conduits to form an isolated and very small LAN, there would be seepage between the minds. Because the connections between the two Conduits necessitate that they are two-way connections, some degree–however fractionally[…]
Read moreA priority notification gets through his filter and blinks in his peripheral vision. The incoming message is from his kid, probably wanting something. He mutes it and puts his Conduit’s inbox on ‘busy’. He needs to focus right now. The man sitting in front of him at the restaurant wears an[…]
Read moreAfter we have sex, she sits upright in the bed and I see her transferring most of my Units somewhere. “It’s an app my pimp forced me to install in my Conduit,” she says over her shoulder, “It’s some behavioral mod that makes me pay him his cut. Sorry, I have[…]
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