A Diligent Man

He thought of himself as a diligent man. He was strict with his friends, strict with his colleagues, strict with family. If he was likely to show favor to anyone, it would be to a complete stranger.

He considered himself fortunate, married to a sober woman, and the father of twins.

He would never force his children to wear identical outfits. Rather, he always provided two thoroughly divergent costumes, one rather fashionable, one utterly hideous. He then required his children to fight for the right to choose, thus teaching them the lesson that life is what you make of it.

Palimpsest

They are faint echoes coloring every moment of my continued existence. You can't call them memories, not exactly, because they never actually occurred. They are more like dreams. Or possibilities.

Either way, I am haunted.

They say--and by they, I mean the quantum physicists--that prior to its observation, a particle exists in superposition, in every possible quantum state simultaneously. I know this to be true. My world, ever since the moment of the accident, has become superpositioned. There is the world in which she died, or the world in which she's still alive, and they exist in parallel.

The Sovereignty Network

I think of myself in the singular. Using we to talk about myself strikes me as monarchic.

When I first plugged ourselves into the network, I experienced what one might call a feeling of narrative omniscience. I no longer understand the world through a first person point of view. I now see everything with the polygonal eye of an insect. And I am no longer restricted to one place, but have disseminated myself everywhere.

I don't like to think of myself as a monarch, but plugging ourselves into the network was what allowed me to assume universal command of Earth.

Forbidden Love

Isabelle hated her new town. She hated her new school. She especially hated her plastic new classmates.

Everything changed when she met Lug. He was more robust and adapted to cold weather than the other boys. He did horribly in school, but was the best running back the football team had ever seen. He ignored the rules of decorum the others obsessed over, like trendy clothes or utensils for his food.

Isabelle soon discovered Lug's secret. He was a neanderthal. Although interspecies reproduction was frowned upon, and they would produce no viable offspring, Isabelle didn't care. She was in love.

Dopamine For Breakfast, Armageddon For Lunch

I needed more dopamine. Desperately.

I knew the effects of my last dose, taken by syringe early that morning, had begun to wear off. The implications of what we were about to do had begun weighing on me again.

F-ward housed the dopamine embeds, the featureless slugs of DNA and tissue that were supposed to output enough golden eggs to inhibit the entire district. I scrambled through the remains, but there was not a single usable drop remaining. Security had ransacked the place.

The last thing I needed as I was about to abort the human race was a hangover.

The Highest Caliber

"Get in there."

Macy stared down the vent incredulously. "I don't think I'll fit."

"Shut up, noob. You're not getting paid to debate the laws of physics." Clarkson shoved her with an equal measure of annoyance and disdain. "Now get down there and fix that switchgear."

Macy needed the money, but she remained skeptical. Maybe Clarkson was playing a joke on her. "So I'm just supposed to dive in?"

"Don't be daft. That opening's less than 6 inches across. But it's largest entrance we know of. You'll have to squeeze yourself in gently. That's what this lubricant's for."

Macy quietly wept.

The Great Beyond

Havlicek stared out the porthole.

"I think it's getting closer."

Captain Lim did not even glance in his direction.

"Unlikely," she replied. "It just appears that way. We are being dragged closer to it, rather than it following us. Black holes don't move."

Havlicek found this to be scant comfort.

"What do you think will happen to us?"

"We'll die," sighed Lim.

"Yeah, I know, everyone's going to die eventually. But what do you think happens in the black hole?"

Lim shook her head. She could not help feeling that with better officers, this whole situation could have been avoided.

A PETA Lawyer Interrogates A Hostile Witness

I don't mean to seem dismissive of your charges that my master has submitted us to cruel and inhumane punishment, but I think you'll find yourself very much mistaken.

My master has always behaved most generously. Once, when I was thirsty, he allowed me to hydrate by catching snowflakes on my tongue.

And after a hard day's journey, he would often permit us to entertain ourselves by watching the stars.

Why, just last month, he lashed at us for more than 1000 miles as we dragged him through the snow and ice.

So you see, he truly is a magnanimous master.

Gladiatosaurus

As an evolutionary biologist, Richter knew the experiment represented a perigee. It was the closest they would ever get to observing natural selection in action. And it was going to kick ass.

"So what you're telling me is you've genetically engineered seven species of dinosaurs, all from different epochs, plus a saber-toothed tiger, a giant crocodile, and something you simply call the Manshark? And you are going to let them battle it out arena style to see which species is fittest to survive?"

"Yes."

"When they make this story into a movie, I'm sure to be played by Jeff Goldblum."

Absolution

The grocer pointed at the boy they called Happy Joe, who crouched against the wall drooling on himself.

"Not only did the cretin steal fourteen dollars, but he exposed himself to Barksdale's daughter."

"Why's that my business?"

"First off, you're his Scout Master. Not to mention, that boy's your son. Plus, you're the constable and responsible for keeping the peace."

"I see where you're coming at this from, Mel. But the way I see it, every man's responsible for his own actions. I leave it to churchmen to decide the right and wrong of things. Who am I to judge?"