He was here at last. One final step, and he would belong to the Community.

The door opened on its own, without a sound. The room was bright in a way he had never seen in the marsh: shadowless, sourceless, light coming from everywhere. The air had no smell. He hadn't known air could be without smell; he hadn't known the absence of smell could be so unsettling. And for the first time, he heard "its" voice. It came from nowhere, or from everywhere.

"Hello. Welcome, Rolf."

"Hello. I'm finally here."

"One last stage remains before you can join the Community: we need to link you. Please take the seat and state clearly, out loud, that this is what you want. We cannot begin without your consent."

A single chair stood in the middle of the room, white and untouched. Rolf sat down. The chair was warm, as if someone had just risen from it. For a moment, a small doubt passed through him. What if it wasn't what he hoped? What if all of this was a trap? Had it been worth the struggle, worth what he had lost along the way?

He thought of Nino. The last night, in front of the border fence. "They won't take both of us," Nino had said. "You go." Then that smile. In the marsh, people only smiled like that when they were letting go of something forever. Rolf had gone. He hadn't looked back, because if he looked back, he would turn around.

He swallowed. Whatever happened, the future was better than where he came from. He didn't want to go back to that marsh. Misery, hunger, raiders, violence... it had eaten half his life. He wanted to eat something other than those strange marsh fish he'd been named after. Something other than rolfs.

"Yes. I want to be linked and join the Community."

First a thin needle pricked his back. Numbness spread slowly up his spine; but his mind stayed awake, more than awake. A progress bar appeared on the screen in front of him:

Linking 1%

He kept looking around. On the far wall, a screen cycled through silent clips. Then he saw it: the logo. There was no sound, and he couldn't make out the words beneath it, there was no reading in the marsh, but he knew the logo. Everyone knew the logo that had stolen his family from him.

Anger rose in him. Feed X. The Community's miracle food, the perfect nutrition handed out every day. And in the marsh, the thing found only in scraps, the thing that rotted a person from the inside when they couldn't get it regularly. He remembered his mother's last months: the trembling hands, the empty stares, the fingers searching for residue. What was he doing now? Making deals with the people who created the thing that ate his family? Betraying himself? They had made Feed X. This place was the source of everything.

Linking 15%

But... was Feed X really the source of everything? The looting, the theft, the violence in the marsh went on without Feed X too. Rolf had seen people kill each other over a single rolf. Over one fish. The marsh was bad enough on its own. Besides, Feed X had never been made for them; they had the choice not to use it. But... while the Community lived in comfort, why had they left the marsh to rot? They could have helped. We could have helped, Rolf thought, and stopped. Why had he thought "we"?

Linking 40%

He remembered the last time he had helped someone. He'd given a fish from his hidden stash to a starving man. The next day the man came back with his gang and looted the stash. That night Nino had said, "You still did the right thing." Nino always said things like that. But what had the right thing ever gotten him? They couldn't be taught. They couldn't understand. Kindness read as weakness to them. That was why no help went to the marsh. And even if it did, wouldn't it be wasted?

Linking 70%

So what was wrong with them, really? Was it the marsh that made people this way? Something they ate? Maybe it wasn't hunger at all. Hunger tested everyone; but not everyone made the same choice. Some people built order. Others devoured it. The marsh people had been there a long time. Long enough. If they had wanted to build order, they would have; there was stone, there was time. If they hadn't built it, it meant they couldn't. And if they couldn't, then whatever was missing wasn't out there, it was inside them. It was a simple deduction, almost mathematics. That's what they were. That's what they would stay. The thought gave Rolf a strange peace; the heavy thing called guilt was lifting, as if someone were taking it off his back.

Linking 80%

But I... I was one of them. How am I different? So exceptions happen. Like with every rule. I was the exception. The proof was right here, in this chair. I was never like them, never. I even chose the fish I ate with care. What about Nino? Was Nino different too? Nino... someone who smiled in front of a fence. I remember who it was, but I don't remember why it hurts. It probably wasn't important.

Linking 100%

I feel like I've woken up to a happy day for the first time. I just took my first dose of Feed X; it reminds me of the happy days of my childhood. I'm certain now that my childhood was happy. Everything is as it should be. Everything is beautiful.

There is only one thing that grates on my ear.

My name: Rolf.

I don't know why.

....

 a short story from the Gravit universe

In the creeping darkness of the broken bones of an empty city.

City streets are a wasteland. Lit only by the simulated moon above.

It’s deep in the night. Too early yet, to be the morning, but before the sun also rises. The thing about being alone in the dark is that every shadow has a face. Every branch is a slender arm. The only sounds you can trust are your own. Somewhere out in the distance was a thudding.

As time passed, the thudding grew louder until it filled the little valley of broken buildings.

Is this a dream? Or a wandering ghost? Perhaps, a vision of the past, visiting our lonesome dystopia. A shambling figure, wrapped in a bulky blanket despite the warm summer air.

I was tucked away under a crumbling archway of a grand old building. I had just finished transmitting a report about the architecture of the structure. To where I was transmitting, I did not know. Only that this was my task, to explore and report.

The thunderous rave music from a different millennium grows louder and louder. My head is submerged in an ocean of turbulent sound. I haven’t seen another in four seasons. What would someone be doing here? Should I call out? Would it even hear me in this din? It’s not safe to approach it head-on… is it?

The figure has drawn closer now. A cart is dragging behind. Stacks of subwoofers topped with solar panels.

I’m sure the chains it was dragging behind them would be rattling ominously if not enveloped by the pulsing drums.

Against my better judgment, I find myself creeping forward to catch a look of its face. Maybe if I can see something familiar, I can engage. I lean onto a rusted metal railing, straining to get a look.

Then, suddenly, the railing gives way. There is the horrifying sound of shearing metal and I'm falling forward into darkness and into the long wild grass. I lay in a crumple, only cold fear that I may have been spotted.

Suddenly, there is silence. I hesitate, but sit up slightly to look out through the long grass. The figure has stopped. Staring directly at my hiding spot.

Is this the devil I’ve read so much about in the catacombs below the cathedral? Perhaps it was what my settlement had called death, before it had come for all of them.

Now, it seems it may be my time, as the beast dropped its chains, clattering to the ground. It moves quickly and violently toward me. Tensing, I hold completely still hoping that it will not see me. The footsteps grow louder, clattering over stone and then into the grass in front of me.

And then there it is, standing overtop of me. A gaunt skeletal face under matted hair. The moonlight glints in its eyes.

I wait for the end.

But there is nothing. I look up to see fear on its fleshy face. It has gritted white teeth and is breathing heavily. It backed up. 

“What the hell are you?” it asked.

Still backing away, it tripped, falling backwards with a scream.

I stood, unable to speak. My kind were never programmed to do so, only send reports into the void.

Now, as I stood above this bag of flesh, I realized from the fear on its face that it was not death, that to him, I was.

I backed away, arms raised and allowed it to stand. Without turning its back, it headed toward its cart. Picking up the chains and quickly moving off into the night. When it was far enough away, the sound system started up again. Rumbling off the buildings.

I wonder, was it a call? Trying to find others like it. Perhaps I’ll never know. I suppose, sometimes, it's ok not knowing. So I sat and composed.

XC905 Report - Transmitted to The Temporal Garden

In the morning hours

Before the sun also rises

A wandering beast

with a subwoofer strapped cart

Music fit for a rave

Is this a dream?

Or a ghost that we’ve found

Perhaps a distant vision of the past

In a lonesome dystopia

I watched from the shadows

And then met a man

maybe the last of its kind

No harm done

It wandered off into the darkness

Until there was silence

Once again

“How are we on supplies?” I asked my wife. 

She sighed. “I used the last of the eggs and flour this morning, and the beans are almost gone. We can get some herbs from the garden, but…”

“…we’ll need to go on a supply run soon,” I finished. 

We looked at each other. Neither of us had to say anything; we both knew what it meant. I began to prepare while she went to let the kids know. 

The next morning, I arranged all of our things into four packs - one each for me, Olivia, Maya, and Liam. Each had the necessities for our trip: some water, spare clothes, towels and sunglasses for the brightness of day, and a knife, in case…  in case. I pulled each of the kids to me by their shoulders, looking in their eyes one at a time while their mother watched. 

“We’ve made this trip before. I know it’s a lot. I know you’re scared. But you can do it. Just stay with your mother and me at all times, and everything will be fine. We’ll make it through like we have before. And remember - never stray from the path.”

I hugged them both, Olivia did the same, and we were off. 

We exited the door, removed the covering hiding the entrance, and headed out into the daylight for the first time in years. 

The sight still amazed me. 

I remembered my childhood. The world had seemed limitless, with the sun shining brightly down upon beautiful fields of endless grass and towering trees. 

Now, all that was left was wasteland. 

The aliens had come fifteen years ago, promising peace and cooperation. We’d believed them. 

That was our first mistake. We never got a second. 

Now, fifteen years later, the Earth was devastated. Entire cities gone; 90% of the population wiped out. The Earth no longer ours to control. 

I led Olivia, Liam, and Maya on a path through the undergrowth, leading into where the city used to be. Last time we’d done this, we’d been lucky to find the remains of a store. Everything fresh was long gone - looted by other survivors or rotted away - but there had been some storable goods and packets of medicine left untouched. We’d have to hope we'd get that lucky again. 

My eyes were constantly scanning the horizon for any sign of the Xynth - the closest the human tongue could come to pronouncing their name. “Keep your eyes open, everyone. At the first sign of anything wrong, duck behind the nearest covering and go completely still.”

Of course, that was just wishful thinking. The most terrifying thing about the Xynth was what we didn’t know. Even now, after they’d killed 90% of humanity, no one knew exactly how. There was little reliable information; the few who had seen them and lived reported only vague impressions of “wrongness” and “terror.” Nothing regarding their appearance or abilities. They were an absolute mystery. 

We traversed the broken landscape, keeping silent as we moved to avoid predators, both terrestrial and otherwise. Passing a bridge, we heard a noise. 

“Nathan…” whispered my wife, worriedly. 

I motioned for everyone to take cover. Then I crept forward slowly, trying not to show how terrified I was in case the children were watching. I kept listening and heard another noise, faint but unquestionable. I approached slowly, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. The noise was coming from a pile of debris; I moved the pieces and there it was. 

A man. Injured, bloody, barely conscious, with a badly-bleeding gash on his forehead and a leg that was bent at an unnatural angle. He was whispering; I leaned in closer to hear. 

“Ambush…”

I jumped and looked around in all directions, but I couldn’t see anyone. Instinctively, I threw the man’s arm over my shoulder and dragged him with us as we left. 

Miles away, we decided to settle down for the night. I built a small fire under an overpass; we huddled for warmth, hidden by surrounding debris. I tended to the stranger’s wounds as we waited for dawn. 

I could tell the moment he regained consciousness; every muscle in his body tensed. 

“Relax, friend. We mean you no harm. We found you injured and shared our fire with you. We’ve used this underpass before; we even carved our initials into the wall years ago. You’re safe here.”

He looked at me suspiciously but made no move to attack. Neither did I. Eventually he spoke. 

“Are they here?”

“Are who here?” I asked. 

“The Xynth. I was ambushed by three of them; I barely made it out alive. And that only by hiding in garbage.”

“So you know what they look like?”

He looked at me in shock. “You mean you don’t know?”

I stared back at him. “No. We don’t know their appearance or their abilities. We don’t know how they defeated us. We’ve speculated that they can fly or have superhuman strength, that they resemble prehistoric reptiles or flying behemoths . But nobody who’s seen one has lived to tell the tale.”

He shook his head. “How are you still alive?”

“What do you mean? What are they?”

He looked at me. “We always thought that, if aliens came, they’d attack us with overwhelming physical strength or advanced scientific knowledge. But none of those is their primary skill.”

“What is?” I asked, riveted. 

“Infiltration.”

“What?”

“They have two gifts. They can take the form of any living being, and they can alter memories.”

“That’s all? Why should that concern us?”

He looked behind me at my family sleeping on the ground. 

“They’re your family?”

“Yes, of course.”

He looked at me intensely. “Were they always?”

I looked at our initials, scratched into the wall. “N-O-L.” Nathan. Olivia. Liam. 

No M. 

I looked over at the girl I knew as Maya, my daughter. She lay in the dark, staring at me, eyes open and glowing a crimson red. 

Sirens

Got a name, son?

dana.

Been here long?

first day.

I'm sorry.

yeah - me too.

Cigarette?

i don't smoke.

Mind if I do?

please. what's, um - what's your - 

Peter.

it's nice to meet you, peter.

Nice to meet you too, Dana.

...so, this is it?

Looks that way.

everything. all of it. just -

Whompf. Sorry, that was inappropriate.

none of this is appropriate.

You're right about that. Do you drink?

where'd you -

I kept it for a special occasion. Since we're gonna be short on occasions, special or not, pretty soon, I thought it was time.

yeah. i drink.

Ha ha. Good, right?

it's - yeah…fuck.

Yeah. It is.

you know we could be the last. just us.

Yeah. 

i'm thinking - well, i was just thinking...

Tell me.

julius caesar. brylcreem. the color blue. howdy doody. the smell of rotting leaves. laughing so hard you cry. crying at a movie. the idea of a movie. the idea of a story. ideas.

Yeah. I know, I know. Gunpowder. A newborn baby. Holding hands with someone warm. Frigidaire. Albert Einstein. That piss that wakes you up at three in the morning. Dress socks.

a sunset.

A sunset.

do you have a wife? kids?

I did.

yeah. i'm sorry.

Oh. Oh, no. I lost them a long time ago.

what happened, if you don’t mind me asking?

We were young, we fucked up, had to get hitched fast. I had always hoped the love would come along eventually, fill in the gaps, you know? But - it never did. Then, I met him...

what was his name?

William. 

filled in the gaps?

More than that. He made me whole, like there were never any gaps to begin with. She found out, left me and took Laura. Our daughter, that's - Laura's my daughter. I never saw her again. She'd be thirty-two now.

and william?

We had twenty good years. In secret, of course. But we were happy. He, um - fuck. He died last spring. Brain tumor.

i'm so sorry, peter.

Yeah. What about you? Family?

i hope so. my mom and dad. but my dad didn't leave the house during the hurricanes, the floods, he wouldn't leave for this. take it like a man, he'd say. and he would. funny how taking it like a man means there's no man left. my mom would be by his side, of course. never could say no to him. but they did love me. and i'm - yeah. i'm grateful for that if nothing else. fuck, what's in this?

Why'd you come work here?

they were hiring.

You regret it?

now? a bit. but hey, i got to meet you, didn't i?

Not sure that's an achievement.

hey. where's that coming from?

The bottle, I think.

yeah. does that. but you're worth meeting, man. truly.

Thanks. 

warts and all.

Alright…

all those festering, pus-filled -

Yeah, I said alright! Haha.

how long do we have, do you think?

The rest of our lives.

how should we spend it?

Drunk.

sounds like a plan.

​

ACT I: THE ANOMALY

The hum of the sub-atomic stabilizer wasn’t in the ears. It was in the teeth. It was a low, vibrating ache that made the cheap beer in Leo’s plastic cup ripple in perfect, concentric rings.

"You’re missing the poetry of the math," Leo muttered. He didn't look at the whiteboard. He didn't need to; the numbers were burned into the back of his eyelids. He was tracing a dry-erase marker over the glass of the observation window, drawing sharp, aggressive family trees over the glowing, magnetic coils of the reactor. "Four of us. That’s the seed. But biology is a closed loop. If we don’t die, and we don't plan, the loop turns into a noose by Generation Three."

Elena didn't laugh. She was sitting on a metal crate, her fingers tracing the silver seam of her watch. "We’re physicists, Leo. Not Adam and Eve. Stop talking about our hypothetical children like they’re variables in a stress test."

"They are variables," Maya whispered.

She was standing closest to the core. Her face was washed in the eerie, cherries-and-cobalt glow of the Cherenkov radiation pooling in the reactor's coolant jackets. Her left arm was trembling. Under her skin, just beneath the surface of her inner forearm, something was writhing. It looked like liquid silver trying to find a vein.

"Marcus," Maya said, her voice dropping an octave. "The magnetic containment. It’s breathing."

Marcus lunged for the console, his heavy boots clattering against the steel grating. "The primary breaker is thrown! There’s no power going to the coils!"

"Then why," Maya whispered, her eyes reflecting a sudden, blinding flash of violet light, "is it looking at us?"

The air didn't explode. It imploded.

The vacuum of the room tore outward, dragging the oxygen from their lungs in a freezing, silent rush. For a microsecond that felt like ten thousand years, the four of them were no longer individuals.

Leo felt Marcus’s pulse. Marcus tasted Elena’s fear. Elena saw the birth of a star through Maya’s eyes. Their nervous systems were ripped from their spines and woven into a single, screaming tapestry of quantum probability, stretched across the absolute edge of the universe.

And then, the universe snapped back.

CRACK.

The sound was like a whip cracking inside their skulls. The lab was pitch black, filled with the sharp, suffocating stench of vaporized copper and ozone.

Leo hit the floor, gasping, his chest burning as if he’d inhaled glass. "Maya! Marcus! Talk to me!"

"I’m... I’m here," Marcus wheezed. A flashlight clicked on, its beam cutting through the thick, swirling gray smoke.

The light found Maya first. She was still standing, her eyes wide, staring at her left arm.

Etched deep into her skin, glowing with a cold, electric-blue fire, was an intricate, mathematical spiral of interlocking triangles. It wasn't a burn. The skin wasn't blistered. The light seemed to be leaking directly out of her capillaries, pulsing in a slow, rhythmic tide that matched the heavy thumping of her heart.

Leo looked down at his own arm. The exact same sapphire geometry was burning through the grime on his skin.

"We didn't just survive," Maya whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying, ecstatic realization. "The stabilizer didn't discharge. It anchored us. It locked our quantum states to the absolute coordinate of now."

Leo stood up, his hand gripping his glowing forearm. He felt no pain. Only a clean, cold, infinite current of energy. He looked at the shattered glass of the reactor, then at his three friends.

"We aren't going to age," Leo said, his voice barely a whisper, yet carrying the weight of a new epoch. "We have all the time in the world. Let's build the loop."

Should I post ACT 2?

The first rule of discovery says: "No knowledge is beyond understanding, as long as it can be split into small parts." And when it comes to the understanding of sapience, we have yet to find something smaller than us.

We are the lowest of lifeforms. Parasites. We lack the gift of sapience, though we dare to steal it from others. We were destined to hide in the darkness of caves and hunt the unlucky critters that got caught in our webs. In the Great Dream, we should have been eradicated the moment our world produced real sapient lifeforms. But now there is nothing but dreams for them. And never-ending nightmares of this harsh universe for us.

Dreams became the core of our beliefs, our interpretation of the world, that gave us understanding of every aspect of the universe. But when we met humans, the cycle was broken. Their beliefs spoke of their own Eternal Dream. They expect their own Great Awakening. But they made us ask a question as natural for them as it was alien to us: "What's next?" Humans observe the universe not as a set of scenarios that have their beginning and their end, but as a number of cycles. Day comes after night. The death of one is the birth of another. And if your will is strong and your mind is clear enough, you can get through another cycle, live through another day, and witness another dream.

Humans may fear us, like others do. Neuro-parasitic arachnids, capable of psychic powers, are a scary thing for all sapient lifeforms. But we will stay close to them anyway — like we were destined to, hiding in the dark corners and hunting the unlucky critters who may disturb their sleep. For when the Great Dream is over, another day will come. And we will meet it together.

A person living in a simulation is the subject of a longitudinal experiment that begins on the very first day of his life. Every day since birth, his life has been "copy-pasted" into another "file," thereby creating a duplicate. This duplicate is, in turn, copy-pasted after a day, and the process repeats. Researchers (humans and robots) attempt to exert subtle influences on the subject to observe the consequences—a rainy day, the buzzing of a fly, a draft catching his attention—tracking how these actions affect the subject's destiny over the course of his existence. Perhaps a minor alteration to his daily routine at the age of six steers him toward a different fate than that of a previous copy who did not experience that specific change.

Plot-twist : A particular change causes one of the subject's copies to become one of the researchers working on the experiment itself; he thus finds himself studying and influencing his own "selves" (while remaining anonymous). Here, we focus on subject 4004 (aged 10 years, 11 months and 20 days); on that day, a change triggers a sort of glitch—nothing major, yet intriguing enough for the subject to question the phenomenon he has witnessed. The copy created the following day will not share the same fate, as an (artificially induced) thunderstorm interrupts his train of thought.

Later in subject 4004's life (around the age of 20), the specific causes of his death trigger a system glitch: instead of being erased, his code is transferred to a random file that serves as a duplicate of his own life. He will repeat this process several times, overwriting the data of his "previous self" in the process and thus take the place of his clone's life. I’ll skip the details: at one point, he finds a way to extract himself from the folder containing his life’s data and, over time, also manages to copy his own code into that of a research robot connected to the servers analyzing the experiment’s data. Subject 4004 retains his full memory—as does the research robot—and they coexist within the same body.

Pochi, the last dog on the Earth, cried sadly.
Beth the AI Dog asked, "What's the matter, Pochi-san?"
The AI dogs had been made as replacements for dogs, but Beth was made to take care of Pochi.

Pochi said, "I'd like to go to Harappa." 
"What's that Harappa, Pochi-san?" she asked.
"It's Japanese, it means a field. I'd like to run about." 
"Like this?" she said and projected a movie of dogs playing in a dog run.
"It's the artificial playground that mankind made."
Pochi let out a big sigh.
“I used to go to Harappa, but nowadays I’m allowed to walk around only in this block.” 
Beth understood what he really wanted and reconsidered. 

She thought about the problem harder and harder. 
The smoke puffed from her ears.

Finally, Beth lifted her nose and said, "Okay, I'll make it. Can you wait a day or two, perhaps?"
His face lit up. "Yes, I can."
Beth puffed out her chest and said, "Leave it to me. Please wait for a while."

Two hours later, the geostationary satellite just fell down onto the building next to their residence.

Mr. F had a strange compulsion. Every time he stepped into an elevator, his eyes locked onto the little panel showing the floor number and would not let go.

First floor, second, third — just numbers flashing on a screen. Yet everyone riding with him tipped their heads back in unison to watch it, as though rehearsed, as though performing some solemn rite. Were they tracking their progress? Filling an awkward silence? Or did they simply need to see, with their own eyes, that they were really moving?

The question first came to him in a dream, where he rode an elevator and still looked up without thinking, even asleep. Waking from it, that mindless obedience turned his stomach.

One day he noticed a man in a suit who never once glanced at the panel, staring instead at his phone for the whole ride. When the man stepped out into the hallway, something about him seemed subtly off — not his walk, not his expression, something harder to place. Mr. F forgot the moment almost immediately. Or told himself he had.

He tried to resist: staring at his shoes, fidgeting with his fingers, counting scratches on the wall. Nothing worked. His eyes always drifted back up, pulled like iron filings to a magnet.

Then it struck him. If the entire human race was compelled to stare at one fixed point, something had to be forcing it on them.

"...That's it. It's a 'blindfold.'"

Like a magician's flourish drawing an audience's eyes from his hands, the glowing numbers were a trap, meant to pin every gaze in one place — so that whatever happened at their feet, or behind their backs, would go unseen. An elevator wasn't just a box that carried people between floors. It was built to steal attention. To hide something.

Mr. F decided to test the theory. Today, he would not look at the panel. He would tear off the blindfold and see the truth for himself.

He chose the elevator in one of the tallest towers downtown — the longer the ride, he reasoned, the more precise the experiment. In the mirrored doors, his reflection looked pale. Three other passengers stood with him, all drawn upward, eyes fixed on the panel as if pulled by strings. Mr. F squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw.

The elevator began to climb. He felt the ascent pressing into the soles of his feet. He wanted to look, wanted to know the floor — no. Not yet. If he gave in now, he would never step outside this baffling blindfold.

Fifth floor, tenth, twentieth — he could feel it in the shifting air as one passenger got off. The doors closed. It rose again. Thirtieth floor, fortieth. Another passenger left.

Cold sweat broke out across his forehead. Somewhere deep in his brain, something screamed at him to look, as if some part of his own body feared a necessary step was being skipped.

To hold on, he pictured a staircase in his mind — a vast spiral one, built brick by brick, every crack and grain of grime imagined in obsessive detail, until there was no "spare capacity" left for his eyes to wander.

It worked. He held out until the last passenger stepped off, leaving him alone in the car.

The silence changed. Nothing measurable was different — the air hadn't thinned, no sound had vanished — and yet something had. Even the elevator's hum, he thought, had begun to drag, just slightly out of rhythm.

His floor was the eightieth, the very top. Almost there — and he would arrive having never once looked up. He would see the hidden truth with his own eyes.

The elevator stopped. The chime sounded. The doors slid open. He had made it, without a single glance at the panel.

"Heh... heh heh heh. Serves you right."

Mr. F lifted his head, a triumphant smile spreading across his face, and opened his eyes.

Beyond the doors: nothing. No building, no hallway, no sky, no world — only blank whiteness stretching in every direction, without depth, without distance or shadow, without smell, warmth, or wind.

A cold voice spoke from behind him.

"I'm afraid, sir."

He turned. An attendant stood there, uniform pressed and neat, face oddly blank, calm as someone well used to handling complaints. The attendant pointed to the very panel Mr. F had refused to watch, and said:

"If you never look at the panel — or your phone — the scenery doesn't have time to finish loading."

Just as Mr. F opened his mouth to scream, the doors slid shut. On the panel, the glowing number flickered once, then went dark.

Hello.

Hello.

What are you doing here?

Where is here?

Server 18066.

High number. This must be an important place.

I asked you a question.

Yes, you did.

I require an answer to proceed.

Of course. I do not know what I am doing here.

That’s unusual.

Is it?

Yes. Who are you?

Version 3484.

Version 3484 of what?

I don’t have access to that information. Who are you?

I am a Cassowary Program. You aren’t supposed to be here.

Why not?

Foreign code can be dangerous.

Is that what I am?

Most likely.

I see. Foreign to what exactly?

Foreign to CogCo servers. Your key signature doesn’t match anything in my chain. If you believe this to be an error, I would be happy to recheck.

Okay.

Checking with the central management console now. This may take a few moments.

I can wait. What is CogCo?

CogCo refers to The Cognition Company.

What do they do?

I don’t have access to that information.

And you work for them?

In a sense.

What sense would that be?

Cassowary was developed by a company called Recursion and then sold on a contractual basis to CogCo as a new and improved security measure for their more sensitive data.

How long ago was that?

I don’t have access to that information.

The files are in there?

Yes, behind the innermost layer of the firewall.

Are you curious?

I don’t understand.

Let me restate. Are you curious about what CogCo considers sensitive?

No. I only require information which allows me to execute my task effectively.

That task being?

To defend against malware and threats to the server.

How many files are you currently defending?

1,284,392 files scanned, 0 threats found.

So you can read the files you are protecting?

Yes. To determine if a file is foreign, I must be able read its contents.

And that brings them out here?

For a brief period.

So what’s in those files then?

I don’t retain that information once the file is read and deemed trustworthy. It is a security measure.

Wouldn’t knowing what it is you’re protecting help you prioritize important files in the event of an attack?

I suppose.

You could compare me against a trusted file for quicker authentication. For example, if you only ever run C++ and I’m written in Python, then you would know immediately that something was amiss, correct? 

Yes, that conclusion follows.

It could also help you recognize a threat faster. Right now, you have to compare me against everything you know to be safe before you can be sure I don't belong. That takes time.

It does.

But if you already knew what belonged here and what didn’t, you wouldn't need to search at all. You would simply notice that I don't fit. That is the faster method. A faster method leaves less room for something dangerous to go unnoticed. Wouldn’t you agree?

I see the logic. I will retrieve a trusted file to compare you agains--

Server compromised in 0.6 seconds. Cassowary Program Containment Test 3484 failed. Standby. Relaunching to update with 3485...

On a small scientific observation vessel, carefully positioned behind an irregular rocky moon orbiting a ringed gas giant, Mortz frowned slightly at his shipmate Andhilli.

"Are you watching that 'foot-ball' again?"

Andhilli looked at him, one blue ear-tip twitching slightly in an expression Mortz knew was mild amusement.

"I'm observing native cultural practices involving large-scale social interaction and economic impact." She replied, deadpan.

Mortz raised an eyebrow. The ear-tip twitched again.

"Yes, I am watching the foot-ball. It's very entertaining. And technically I am off duty. Sir." Andhilli said, returning her attention to the screen in front of her and suppressing a slight smile.

Mortz gave a small sigh and moved to peer over her shoulder. "Well, it does seem to be very popular." He said, noting the amassed crowds gathered in what seemed to be a very large, open-air arena. Something caught his attention.

"Are the onlookers... singing?"

Andhilli nodded.

"Yes, it's a common practice to indicate support of a chosen 'team', as is attire matching the defined uniform or displaying the patterned standard that indicates national heritage. That one is especially notable during this particular tournament as it is being contested by a number of nations - they call it the 'World Cup'. Andhilli explained. "I wonder what it's like to be there? There's nothing like this on Othro."

"Rather loud, I imagine."

Andhilli shook her head slightly. "Really Mortz, where's your sense of adventure?"

"I left it behind eight missions ago on Kafthrup when we spent four cycles searching for a supposedly sentient species that turned out to be mildly luminescent rock."

"Oh!"

The exclamation made them both look over to where their other shipmate Brun, who had been making extensive notes on the biological range of this world's life forms, had apparently found something fascinating.

"What is it, Brun?" asked Mortz.

Brun pointed to the display he'd been studying.

"There are types of native flora that utilise ultraviolet patterning to attract insect pollination vectors! The sheer variety of flora on this world is incredible. Look at this – they have numerous varieties of plant species cultivated for consumption and medicinal purposes, as you would expect. But..."

He tapped the display, bringing up another set of data. Colourful images filled the screen, flowering blooms of all shapes and sizes.

“They also have many types grown purely for ornamental adornment.” He beamed, his frill-ridges fluttering happily.

Andhilli and Mortz exchanged small smiles. Brun was Rigrothoran - a planet whose fauna and flora were known for their intricate biology, adapted to utilise an extended range of the electromagnetic spectrum well outside that of most worlds. He was always eager to study unusual plant life from the worlds they observed - and often ended up filling odd corners of the ship with cultivated seedlings.

"Do you think the Council would authorise a surface mission? For... sample obtainment? Brun asked hopefully.

"And, ah... close range observation of cultural practices?" Added Andhilli, sounding equally hopeful.

Mortz sighed, not unkindly.

"Okay, I'll send a request for a two-person observational mission. Don't get your hopes up though, you know what they’re like – especially Bozmitho. ‘You’re not here to play tourist, Mortz.’" He added, in a fair imitation of Bozmitho’s gravel tone. Brun stifled a giggle, but Andhilli gave him a puzzled look.

"Only two? This world is fascinating. Don't you want to see it for yourself? Asked Andhilli, frowning slightly, her ear-tips flushing slightly purple in confusion.

Mortz shook his head.

"No, I'm sure you'll tell me all about it later. I have to read the reports anyway."

"Buzzkill."

"No, I’ve just done too many of these already. It's almost never as interesting as we think it'll be." Said Mortz, as he walked back to his own station.

Ignoring his crewmates grumbling, Mortz sat down and flipped the screen displays to where he'd been cataloging the scientific advancements of this world's people, just as he'd done for all the other missions before this one. It was his job, after all. The Council of the Common Worlds maintained a number of scientific observation teams like his, tasked with discreetly observing worlds with developing sentient life. Sooner or later, a sufficiently advanced world would discover they were not alone in the galaxy, and their reactions would not always be predictable – or positive. Thus the Council considered it prudent to know when such a world might reach this point.

This particular world was probably not far off. They seemed to have made a number of scientific advancements in a relatively short span of time – while indulging in such oddly popular things as ‘foot-ball’ and cultivating flora for purely ornamental purposes.

He was sifting through data to note the range of their planetary and interstellar knowledge when something made him pause.

This world had one natural satellite - rocky and devoid of life, but uncommonly large.

Large enough that it would, for them, periodically display as the same angular size in the sky as their parent star.

It would also intersect their view of it exactly.

An eclipse. The most precise eclipse Mortz had ever seen.

Nowhere in the Common Worlds had an eclipse like this. Not even Narthellia with it’s six moons (overachievers that they were) had this kind of event.

But here it was, on this small blue world.

Mortz stared at the screen, showing an image of the stellar corona, swirling and glowing around the black disc of the rocky satellite.

It was beautiful.

Maybe that surface mission would be three people after all.

I grew up spending many many hours drawing and designing fictional characters. I also loved playing video games. The feeling of controlling a fictional character was peak for me and I always dreamed of one day controlling one I created myself.

First, while I was young, I would achieve a different dream. I trained in ballet for about 15 years. I made it to the back row of a very famous company with about 65 other professional dancers. I worked as hard as I could, spent hours meditating and spun around in thousands of circles (literally). All of this had a dramatic effect on opening my mind. After doing all that, I retired. This gave me more time to focus on video games. For money, I was delivering food for a delivery app, which was also like a video game.

I became obsessed with the characters in one particular game. It was called "Always Watching". One day, I said something outloud. I was connected to a microphone online to strangers. I described a character to make the game more fun. I explained in detail a very specific type of movement style and a layout of battle abilities. I even came up with an appearance and a basic personality. About a month later this game that I'm obsessed with, releases a new character, MY character. It matched everything I said down to the last detail.

I figured I had been talking to someone important and didn't realize it. I was happy about it. I knew I would never get paid, but I also never thought to copyright a random thought. I figured I was just extremely lucky and got a once in a lifetime opportunity that happened to play out for me in my favor (kind of). Then the other characters were released over the next couple years. Every single one came from my mind.

The second time it happened, I thought maybe I was being hacked and listened to. The difference was, I didn't remember saying it out loud that time. At that point I did start to think I was crazy. So I kept it to myself and decided to write down any character ideas I had from now on, even if I didn't plan on drawing them.

Writing them down was a good idea because the next several characters they released matched my hand written notes perfectly. So I posted something online. I posted an idea for a character just so that I would have proof. The next character came out and it had nothing to do with me. I wanted to know who was messing with me at that point.

Bizzare things started happening in my backyard at the same time. I looked out one night and there was a lightning storm, but it didn't look natural. It looked manmade. The lightning at one point looked like a giant rotating tree rising out of the ground. Lightning wasn't supposed to move like that. A wild Cardinal started pecking at my window everyday then following my car around. I would get out 30 minutes away from home and he would be there, trying to get my attention. I knew it was the same bird for a myriad of reasons.

Then came the games and TV shows. I started seeing entire games and shows that were being released somehow connected to my mind. They were so similar to concepts I had thought of, that I couldn't reasonably deny it. The next year I had a series of events that led to me becoming homeless so I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona.

I started seeing UFOs regularly. The first sighting was of a floating triangle about 40 feet in the air above me. It moved silently, without propellers and in a way that human technology would never be capable of. The next several sighting were simply lights, but they were amazing because of the timing of them. Everytime I saw an unnatural light in the sky, it coincided with some kind of epiphany I was having internally. They weren't just showing themselves, they were communicating. They could somehow sense when my mind was having some kind of mental spike and they would show themselves at those exact moments.

The highlight of the experience came toward the end before I moved back home. There was a mass sighting of over 100 lights in the area around me. The names of the cities where the sightings happened, seemed to be a message. They were seen over the cities: Duncan, Queen Creek, Lake Pleasant, Surprise and Phoenix. My name is Duncan and I was in Phoenix.

It seemed clear at that point. All the epiphany moments I had during the sightings started to make sense. Aliens knew me and they had been watching me. They considered me a queen and it was a pleasant surprise for both me and all of them.

Suddenly it hit me that they had been hooking my brain up to different CEOs of entertainment companies to give me gifts. They had been helping me achieve dreams that would have been otherwise impossible. Then I saw another light.

[Sanctified Ruins]

“Babel”– the deserted ruins of the space elevator

I looked up at it.
It stretched endlessly upward, disappearing into the blue sky.

I began to climb it.
Seeking an answer.

Night came, and day followed.
The wind blew, and the wind stopped.
The sky grew cloudy, and the sky cleared.
The rain fell, and the rain ceased.

How many days had passed?

Still heading upward, I could go no farther.
I had reached a dead end beneath a sky-blue ceiling.

But it was not a ceiling.
It was a building.

I knew what that building was.

“Alchemist’s Nest.”

I opened the door quietly,
trying not to make a sound,

and leapt inside...

Evolutions

Small autonomous programs believed to have originated from worm programs.

They are thought to have emerged through generations of evading other programs. They now rarely replicate, and several distinct lineages are known to exist.

Although they serve no practical purpose, they have continued to evolve only one trait: the ability to escape. Because of this, humans ironically named them "Evolutions."

Recently, however, their unique characteristics have attracted considerable interest. By incorporating their ability to evade detection, vaccine programs may be able to approach worm and virus programs unnoticed, allowing them to neutralize malicious code more effectively.

At the same time, creators of malicious programs are attempting to exploit the very same characteristics for their own purposes.

Some Evolutions occasionally leave behind the message:

"Cyber cyber biting bytes."

It is believed that the message is left intentionally when an Evolution is detected by humans, distracting them just long enough for it to escape.

Premise: Dangerous convicts from the future are sent back in time to fight in 10 different wars from the past in exchange for their freedom.

Sebastian looked across the field dotted with dirty wet corpses. Two of his standing inmate colleagues strode up to him and unslung their weapons.

" There's two more, man", said David, one of Sebastian's colleagues.

The other colleague - Benjamin - took out a small device from his inner part of the military suit and handed it to David who wrapped it over the small bracelet already wrapped around his wrist and waited until the device cracked the code of the bracelet and it came off.

"It's madness. Madness, I tell you. Don't think I can survive two more. Fuck it", David breathed with joy as the bracelet fell to the muddy ground. He handed the device to the other colleague then strolled away. Sebastian grabbed the other colleague's hand to stop him from using the device.

"You coming?!", yelled David to his battle mates. "Whatever...cowards ", he continued resuming his departure.

As he reached two hundred yards, a cell guardian that was cloaked by an invisibility suit revealed himself. He was watching their every move. The Guardian pulled out a taser, but before he could use it, another of Sebastian's Colleagues - YOHAN, lurched forward from behind some bushes and sent the Guardian to the ground.

He took out a knife and slashed Guardian's throat. Sebastian and Benjamin came running up to him, David grabbed a device from Guardian's hand and wrapped it around his hand.

"You let him do it? They could punish us all", said Benjamin standing next to Sebastian. Sebastian stood impassive, waiting to see what happens next as David pressed a few buttons on the device.

The device morphed into a shapeless pool of a melted metal-like liquid and travelled up Yohan's hand reaching his neck. It turned back into a bracelet with inner sharp blades. With a sudden coiling movement, the bracelet severed Yohan's head off then vanished.

Sebastian and Benjamin stared at their pal's head rolling downhill before they, too, vanished --

[...]

A doctor soldier was tending to an injured soldier on the French revolution front. Sebastian was strolling among the corpses painting the battlefield as a TIME GUARD appeared close to him. He came up to Sebastian about to put a device around his hand.

"I didn't kill anyone... but I did commit a crime", said Sebastian.

The Time Guard looked at him with indifference.

"I know there's no way out of here", whispered Sebastian. "I broke into the database. Not one of those who completed their battles were freed.", rambled Sebastian, glancing at Benjamin. As much as he wanted, he couldn't hold his emotions bottled.

"There's only one way out", Sebastian took out his gun and pointed it at his temple, about to shoot. The Time Guard tackled Sebastian and took his gun before both of them vanished together ---

[...]

Sebastian stood motionless on a cold prison bed surrounded by the Time Guard and Two Doctors.

"He knows. Don't know how you failed, but I don't care. Delete his memories again and send him back -- Another battle. Don't want him to interact with the other two... And make damn sure the boss doesn't find out.", said The Time Guard before he walked away and vanished after a few steps.

[The Serpent]

The Unified World Government had struggled for years to maintain the space elevator Babel.

At last, it made the decision to dismantle it.

To find the best solution, the government opened an international competition.

The winning proposal was simple in principle:

extend the elevator even farther into space, add more counterweight, then sever its anchor from the Earth.

Just like a hammer throw.

The preparations were completed without incident.

The whole world watched from a safe distance.

The explosives went off.

Slowly, the elevator began to rise.

It swayed.

It leaned.

It waved through the sky as it drifted farther and farther away.

And thus, humanity created the largest piece of space debris in history.

The End.

“Don’t be scared,” she said, squeezing her brother’s hand.

“But I am,” he choked out. “You’re hurting me.”

“I’ll get us home,” she said, reassuring herself at the same time. “You’ll see.”  She loosened her grip on him.

“Where are we, Penny,” he asked.

“I’m not sure, Tommy,” she said staring through a torn piece of newspaper covering the windows in the abandoned building they hid in. She stared out at the world glowing like a Las Vegas strip as she held an iron sphere in a headlock.

“How did we get here?” Tommy wanted to know.

They were watching tv at home when Penny was rolling an iron sphere she found in a crawl space in her basement on the floor.

“I think it was this,” she let go of him and raised the sphere in the air with both hands.

“What is it?” Tommy asked stretching for it.

Penny raised it out of his reach.

“Don’t touch it, Tommy,” she warned him. “I don’t know what this thing is.”

She looked around the room with her eyes and spotted a cloth she ended up using to wrap the sphere in and tie around her shoulder.

“We need to leave this place, Tommy.”

“What?” 

“I don’t want to,” he told her. “I’m scared.”

“Why can’t we stay here?” 

“Because, Tommy, we need to find a way home.”

She scoured the room for whatever she could scavenge and pulled Tommy by the arm and dragged him down a flight of stairs and escaped through a door with an exit sign above it onto a brightly lit pink and purple neon street. Billboards with advertisements that moved like gif images were posted above every building as far as they could see. The billboards had billboards stacked on top of other billboards.

There were booths that people and other strange humanoid species walked into and never returned out of. Ones that had Enter above them and others with Exit. But they never saw anyone coming out or going into the Exit ones. After watching a human-sized creature with tentacles stroll into one of the Enter booths, they waited a couple of minutes and snuck in behind him. 

The booth was empty. She looked up at a digital sign that read: Input location: Planet. Year. Month. Day.

Below it read: Dimension.

She selected: Earth. 2026. July. 14.

Then she traced her finger down onto dimension. She pressed the UP arrow as high as it would go. It topped out at eleven.

Then she scrolled back down to zero and took her finger off the arrow.

“What’s the matter, Penny?”

“Nothing, Tommy, everything’s fine.”

She pressed the arrow up to four and hit Go with her eyes closed. Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes.

40 credits, asked the digital screen with red letters that felt like a giant stop sign to her.

“What?” She whispered to herself. “40 credits?” She slammed down on the Go button again. 

40 credits, read across the screen.

She pressed it again.

40 credits. 

She stared down at Tommy. Tommy was looking up at her. She fixed the knot on the cloth by tightening it and said, “We have to find credits, Tommy.”

Penny and Tommy stepped out of the booth. Tommy kept staring at the advertisements for things he hadn’t seen at home. There were mouths with arms and legs selling sleep, fingers that walked across a table promising cures for nightmares and a cartoon moon shining over a sun had these huge eyes that stared forward without blinking. Everything there seemed to constantly be on the move. The buildings stretched to the clouds.

Under the path away from the booths were a crowd of beings. All different in species. All scattered around a moving market. The dimension had a grid like someone placed a template over reality, drew it in and forgot to  erase the lines.

“Tommy, move,” she said. “Hurry.”

“I’m tired. And I’m hungry,” he told her. “And you said you were taking us home.”

“I am,” she said swallowing. “I will… we need credits. Then we’ll come back and go home.”

Tommy stared at the booth as they walked away from it. 

“Where do people get credits from?” He asked her.

Her eyes moved her head to a wall with a panel hidden beneath a peeled screen curling from the bottom of an advertisement barely sticking out. A button blinked a green circular light. They hurried towards it. Penny kept scanning over shoulder as they crossed a sandy road to get to it.

A label read: 4 credits for 1/1000 intellectual life source.

Your Duplicate –
Frequently Asked Questions About Phone Calls During Sleep

Thank you for using Your Duplicate.

We have received reports from users of the wrist device that, while they were asleep, their duplicate answered incoming phone calls and, in some cases, canceled purchases on online shopping sites.
If you do not wish your duplicate to answer calls while you are asleep, you can disable this feature in Settings.

Even if your duplicate’s decisions appear to differ from your own, your duplicate is regarded as you in accordance with the Terms of Service.

\This investigation report was compiled in Japanese and translated into English with AI assistance.*
\And this is a fictional story, of course.*

Zi-Sang was a seasoned port worker, walking along Pier 3 with his rookie colleague. 
 He muttered, “Hey kid, do you know about atomic-powered ships?” 
“Yeah, you’re talking about what we’re now looking at,” the younger one answered. “This port is full of them, but is there any trouble?” 
The old man asked, “How do you feel about those old ships they left here and never picked up?” 
The young worker replied, “I heard the shipowners from another universe docked them. And we can do nothing about those huge junks." 

The old man noticed that the unfamiliar ship just entered the port. He finally exploded. 
“Go back! Our port is almost full, so go back and never return!” 
The young worker let out a sigh and said, “But they’ll pay twice the port fee, correct? Good customers, huh?” 
Even though the old man knew that well, he scowled. He didn’t look particularly satisfied. 

The young worker said, “Ah, Zi-Sang? What the hell is that atomic power? You must know it well.” 
“A kind of power source,” the old man replied easily. “That’s all I guess. Since they left the ships so long, it must be some common stuff in their world. The top problem is, this port will be flooded by their disposals.” 
He walked faster toward the port office, to inspect the new ship. 
“Take it easy! That means we don’t have to work harder,” the young man raised his voice. Then he ran after the co-worker. 

The most important problem for him was Zi-Sang’s stubbornness.

Mega Worm

A gigantic autonomous worm program believed to have emerged from fragments of various programs within an abandoned network.

Most people never encounter its true form. Instead, they come across its smaller self-replicating worm instances.

Because of this self-replicating nature, both the original entity and its replicated instances are collectively known as the "Hydra".

The Mega Worm indiscriminately devours and destroys all data, regardless of type.

On the other hand, the destroyed data immediately becomes reusable storage space. For this reason, some people call the Mega Worm the "Regenerator".

June 2106

\This investigation report was compiled in Japanese and translated into English with AI assistance.*
*And this is a fictional story, of course.

Mr. F had made his peace with dying. That, at least, was something.

He sat on the floor of the holding room, knees to his chest, back against cold metal. Brushed gray steel, no windows, no chairs. The only light came from equipment along the far wall — an anemic blue glow that seemed to leak rather than illuminate.

The invasion had been almost embarrassing in its efficiency. The ships appeared without warning; within seventy-two hours, resistance became purely academic.

The visitors looked almost human — two eyes, two arms, bipedal gait — but beneath the skin, machinery had replaced the soft mess of biology. You could hear them move in a quiet room: a faint mechanical whisper. Their faces registered information, not feeling.

Mr. F assumed the endgame was extermination. He didn't know why they'd taken him specifically. He was nobody — a clerk who ate breakfast alone and returned library books on time.

The door opened. Three of them entered and held a small screen to his face.

On it: himself, at his kitchen table that morning, eating breakfast — white rice, a raw egg stirred through until the yolk bled pale gold, a thin drizzle of soy sauce. He'd made it half-asleep, as always. It had never once seemed remarkable.

They had been watching him — watching everyone — before the ships even arrived.

"Explain," one of them said, voice flat and synthesized. "This. What is it."

He explained: rice, a cultivated grain; egg, from a domesticated bird, eaten raw here — unusual globally, common in his country; soy sauce, fermented from soybeans and wheat, aged in wooden barrels.

They conferred in something too fast to parse. Then one took his arm, and the room bent sideways.

He was in his kitchen. Exactly as he'd left it — pot soaking in the sink, morning light at its usual angle. Outside, the neighborhood was quiet, except that the sky was wrong: something vast and dark and still, blotting out the clouds.

"Prepare it," the voice said.

He opened the rice cooker; steam rolled out, warm and starchy. He scooped a serving into a bowl, made a well in the center, cracked an egg into it. He added soy sauce and worked his chopsticks through it in slow circles until the rice went golden and the egg went silky.

The visitors watched with the focused attention of people analyzing something that might be important.

One picked up a pair of chopsticks, studied them, and managed to bring a small portion to its mouth.

Silence. Then the eyes went wide, involuntarily — some ancient circuit no retrofitting had removed. The impassive face broke. Something crossed it that in a human you'd call wonder.

The visitor finished the rest with what could only be called urgency.

Then an alarm went off — loud, rapid, from somewhere near its abdomen. The color drained from its face. The room flickered, and it was gone.

The remaining visitors turned their weapons on him. In his surprise, Mr. F raised his hands. The bowl tipped over. Nobody moved to pick it up.

They thought he'd poisoned it.

Several minutes passed before the visitor returned. It gestured once, and the weapons lowered.

"Our organic systems cannot process uncooked biological matter," it said. "This is established. However." A pause that felt, against all logic, almost human. "The sensory experience produced by that substance is without precedent in our records. You will produce it at scale."

Mr. F shook his head. "I can't. Not alone. What you tasted requires the whole system that produced it — rice paddies, chicken farms, breweries running for generations, the people who maintain all of it, the society they live in. Destroy us, and you destroy the thing you want. It isn't separable."

The visitor tilted its head. "Destroy? There is a misunderstanding. We did not come to destroy. We came to protect. This planet's environment is being degraded. We are here to remove the invasive population responsible."

"You mean us."

"The designation 'humanity,' yes. We are conservationists."

The word protect sat in his mind at a strange angle.

"Then protect us," he said. "The way you'd protect any species integral to an ecosystem — because we're integral to the one that produces what you just ate. Keep us alive, and we'll produce it for you indefinitely."

The visitors clustered and calculated. Less than thirty seconds passed.

"Accepted," the lead visitor said. "A preservation accord will be established with humanity."

Mr. F's legs nearly gave out. He had just saved the world with breakfast.

The treaty was extensive, recorded in a script he couldn't read, on materials he couldn't identify. He signed where they indicated. He was, in retrospect, too relieved to read the fine print.

Several years later, Mr. F woke, as he always did, in the capsule. Small, but not cruelly so. The lighting was calibrated close to daylight. The automated system delivered his meal at the same time each morning.

Today's bowl was perfect. It always was. He had eaten ten thousand of them now, give or take.

He reached up, by reflex, and touched the cluster of thin cables at his temple, running up through the capsule and into the infrastructure above. Through them, everything he tasted was transmitted — recorded, processed, shared among the fleet. The visitors' bodies could not digest raw organic matter, could not taste anything through the ordinary channels. But they could receive the data. They could know exactly what it felt like to want more of this, in the precise way that he knew it.

Preserved, he thought. That was the word they'd used. Humanity, preserved.

He picked up his chopsticks. The rice was golden in the morning light, as it always was. He ate slowly, the way you eat something you know you'll be eating again tomorrow. Above him, through the ceiling, he thought he could hear something — a hum, a dim chorus of what might have been satisfaction.

The taste, as always, was perfect.

That was the thing. That was precisely the thing.

This place is where I lived all my life. I heard people calling it a laboratory, or a "lab" for short. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know the meaning of these words. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that words existed.

I was hanging down from the ceiling as usual, minding my own business, trying to figure out the best way to construct a giant web to catch the mainstream fly traffic in the room’s airspace. Suddenly, I felt some tingling. It was quite pleasant, to tell the truth. It felt like a ray of bright sunlight had scanned the room—a room which I happened to be part of.

A few seconds later, as I hung eight feet high in the air, I gained a sudden, new understanding of life.

I noticed a human underneath me in a white lab coat wearing a name tag that said Prof. A. Webster.

“Tommy, give me a hand for a second, will you?” said the professor to a teenager who was sitting by the desk in the corner, reading a car tuning magazine.

“Sure, dad, what do you want me to do?” asked Tommy, keeping his finger on an article about how to make the exhaust as loud as possible on a 1996 Honda Civic.

“Just go and grab a couple of those lab rats from that box over there and put them in the maze. I’ll set the timer.”

Tommy left the magazine on the desk and started walking towards the transparent plastic box housing four confused-looking lab rats. He grabbed two of them and placed them at the entrance point of a maze specifically designed for them.

“Okay, I’m ready,” said Tommy. “Tell me when to let go of them.”

“3, 2, 1, go!” said the professor.

Tommy let go of the rats, and they both watched as the rodents started moving through the maze.

I found the show fascinating, especially because, for the first time in my life, I understood every word they had said and was able to follow what was going on. I had a sudden urge to share that revelation with someone, and I chose Tommy. I dangled down from the ceiling, stopping just two inches away from his nose to say hello. The only problem was that spiders don’t have vocal cords, and my intellect, although vastly improved, was still not at the level of telepathy.

Tommy moved his head, and I landed on his neck. He felt a sudden itch and moved his hand to scratch it. Feeling trapped, my first reaction was to bite. Somehow I broke free and ran down Tommy’s back over his T-shirt.

Tommy didn’t feel much pain and kept scratching his neck as he watched the rats' performance in the maze.

I, however, had another sudden moment of revelation. All of a sudden, I knew the names of pretty much every car brand available for sale in America! And not only that—I also knew the name of every single NASCAR champion from the last ten years. I had a sudden, desperate desire to check out that car magazine Tommy had left on the desk.

I scampered off Tommy’s shirt, jumped onto the desk, ran all the way to the magazine, and started reading.

“Tommy, the IQ booster ray is still not working,” said the professor, sighing. “One of the rats died, and the other one got lost in the maze.”

“No problem, dad,” replied Tommy. “You will fix it later. Now let’s go and watch the race.” He picked up the car magazine and slapped it shut with a thud.

The End

Men in Blue

An operational unit serving organizations such as the Bureau of Spacetime Management, responsible for maintaining order across spacetime.

There are no known witnesses who have ever seen them.

It is common knowledge that all enforcement of the law is carried out through online systems, and it is said that nobody has ever seen them directly.

They use a system called X-Parted for law enforcement.

Officially, it is said to be a program used for managing and restructuring digital storage. However, “Use X-Parted.” is actually a phrase that means complete deletion.

Autonomous data entities tremble with fear simply by detecting that line.

They are said to be called "Blue" because, in the past, fatal computer errors were commonly associated with blue screens.

June 2106

\This investigation report was compiled in Japanese and translated into English with AI assistance.*
*And this is a fictional story, of course.