Recent Stories
I'd been working at the T-Port station for three weeks before I saw a glitch.
It was a lousy job: no benefits, long hours, and as boring as weather channel reruns. The station, which was conveniently located between the airport, the Amtrak station, and a 7-11, was two bus transfers from my apartment, but my old bandmate-turned-"responsible adult"-roommate had threatened to kick me out if I didn't start pulling my weight, so... there I was.
"You said the sequel was still in its first draft, right?"
"Yes," I said, nodding.
The war was over, at least for the afternoon, and the streets were jammed with rowdy undergraduates, doing their best to get as drunk as possible as fast as possible, and doing a good job at it, staggering from bar to bar in the rain, singing and fighting and feeling each other up, splashing through puddles and feeding crackers to the wet pigeons.
The war would start up again in the morning, of course, and probably half of them would need a shot of focus from the combat nurse unit to get unbent enough to put on their force-feedback gloves and their helmets and start the serious business of blowing shit up in some godforsaken place ten thousand miles away. A shot in the arm wouldn't cure the hangover, of course--the army didn't care whether a soldier's head hurt. But a shot of focus would make sure that the undergraduates could steer the robot fighters in a straight line and designate targets for the pop-up drones to take out, without seeing double or vomiting inside the teleoperation headsets.
"Hey there, hope you don't mind if I take this seat. Thanks." A woman you've never met pulls out the chair opposite you and sits down like she's going to talk to an old friend. "Fancy restaurant, huh? Good for you. Oh, don't worry 'bout the dress, I know it's a little torn up but I didn't have time to change. Name's Shirley." The woman extends her hand. Her eyes are mystery and grin mischief. Her brown hair traces her collarbone and sashays above her breasts as she reclines back into the chair.
"Listen, I gotta be honest with you, I didn't sit down here 'cause I like the way you look. Well, not just because of that. I wanted to let you know something."
You are not the only android at your husband's funeral.
Adrian, one of Jack's friends from work, has a new wife, short and dark-haired and delicate, the Clockwork Wives logo on her wrist half-concealed by a stack of silver bangles. She sits three pews behind you, but you hear the ticking of her heart, too soft for human ears. It's a soothing sound, and you focus on it throughout the course of the service. Not the glaring eyes around you. Not the fact that you have no idea what happened to Adrian's previous two wives.
by Tina Connolly
NotSoEvilQueen: Magic Mirror for sale, $200 OBO
Pros: Identifies potential supermodels, could be useful to someone operating a business. Cons: Beauty is a construct, reinforces the problematic status quo (PATRIARCHY). I'll definitely say I've had enough therapy by now that I know this mirror needs to leave my house!!!
Published on Oct 27, 2020
by Wendy Nikel
Published on Oct 26, 2020
by Marcus Vance
Published on Oct 23, 2020
by Geoffrey A. Landis
Published on Oct 22, 2020
by Philip Gerwer
Published on Oct 21, 2020
by Caroline Diorio
Published on Oct 20, 2020
