You ask him this time.
We keep losing track of our favorite android. I don’t know how he’s moving through the ship. But CommDeck always finds his recordings.
4Derek (as he calls himself) goes into an unidentified setting–a converted access area of the ship where the location trackers aren’t working. He strips naked in the recording. His model is designed to look like an average young male. The way he moves makes him exceptionally more attractive than anyone else on the ship.
No one knows where he learned to move like that. Nobody admits to knowing why the ship’s cables…
Poetry Sunday
I have given
you bows
wrapping
my body,
faux silk
printed by bots,
so tiny,
creating,
spinning
from liquid —
the opposite
of melting touch.
A new science fiction story is up on P.S. I Love You. The 100-word drabble is NSFW for the typical workplace but consists only of a friendly text message.
CW for the grammatically sensitive: “Meet Me in Spurta” is a text message. The story contains deliberate typos.
Someone’s going to have to lend a hand.
The demon gave up on tempting Irwin from his seat in the back corner of Irwin’s garage. He’d sat on the raised platform by the door into the house too long, apparently. The metal legs of his chair clanged on the concrete floor.
“How long you gonna work on that car? I’ve been sitting here for a quarter of eternity.”
“An hour,” Irwin said, “not eternity. Something’s wrong with your sense of time.”
“Yeah, maybe I can’t sense what I have too much of.”
That sounded possible, an intriguing possibility and too much like a conversation starter, which meant it…
That one (fantastical) fish in the sea.
My former mate tried to twist out of my net. I don’t think he recognized me. Must have been my hairy legs.
“Let go! Let go!”
“Hmmm, nope.” I squatted in the shallows where he’d swam into my trap. He slapped his fish tail and man arms around. Even in his panic, his movements were achingly graceful. Was I close to that beautiful in my old form?
Sunrise reflected off of his coppery scales by the time he settled. His naked chest heaved. He stared at the navy-blue surface of the ocean, away from the shore at my back.
“Hey,” I called.
He twisted toward me. His glare widened to surprise.
“I’ve wanted to catch up. Miss me much?”
Gerald, once sublime as AppleP!3, felt seeds in his core —
Tiny promises planted by a man asking for more.
Their meeting place: the Edge of the World.
Evoking starts and ends, light streams whirled,
Recoding twilight grays into golden coast.
Will he show? Or ghost?
Promises holding for prompts.
Two avatars hesitate.
Spiraling wants…
Commit.
This poem exists in two versions. The first was shared last month by Lit Up.
The other version, posted at the top, was an attempt to bring the poem closer to what the publication’s editor asked for in a private group. I didn’t meet all of her specifications and ended up keeping my submission unchanged. But I think parts of the second version as clearer than what was published.
Lit Up — November’s Prompt: 55er
Once fresh as AppleP!3, Gerald felt seeds in his core,
Tiny promises planted by a man leaving him alone.
Their meeting place: the Edge of the World,
A twilight environment of grays and golds,
Vague details, beginnings and endings evoked.
Will he show? Or ghost?
Promises holding for prompts.
The edge watching.
Two avatars…?
Commit.
Lexi hits his limits during self-defense training in Aaron’s security center.
“Ten more,” ordered Crunch.
Lexi flexed his fingers. The motion set off a scream in the muscles above his wrist. His fingers were cramping in the open palm strike position while his tormentor counted. Crunch smirked, knowingly.
The skin-tight biocyber suit Lexi wore reduced fatigue and monitored for injuries during the training. Crunch, standing like a column of muscle and smooth lines off to the side, watched the changing colors of Lexi’s sleeves and was probably linked to the suit through the hive as an additional precaution against pushing…
Acin Fals
Writer in love with speculative fiction. Shares stories and thoughts about the tech, science, and relationships that inspire them. Based at shadowfals.com.
