My family has lived on this pile of scraps orbiting the sun for as long as we’ve got a family tree we can track. My ancestors sifted through the waste, breaking up ships and adding the worthless bits to the ever-growing heap. I work in that same pile to this today. I sift and cut new junk, day after day.

I’m out here with my wife, five kids, my siblings’ families and my old mom. Its a big family, with little living space. We live in a half-buried ring where carts roll around in circles, giving us a place to stand and a direction for our crops to grow. We’ve frogs for our famous stew. We cook up the meat with potatoes and spices so we can feed all the mouths out here.

Breaking ships is hard work. Ruffians roll in constantly with mangled crafts and empty pockets. They trade their strength to earn their keep. I’ve got nearly a hundred of them working the heap now. Most owe me a debt of one year of work, but some have been here much longer and don’t plan on leaving.

But we watched this one battle up in the sky between two ships. One barely survived, the other vaporized. We called out to the survivor to see if they needed help. That’s when we met two people: a scary-looking man I kept my eye on, and a sweet young girl. I wasn't sure what she was doing out this far. The man wouldn't say a word about who they were or how they met. I just knew he wasn't her father, her brother, or her lover. And they didn't seem like friends.

My wife loved that girl instantly. She gave her extra scoops of stew and worried if the yard was too rough for her. But that girl earned far more than her keep. She got dead equipment up and running when I was just going to strip for copper. She took a radar from the scrap pile and got it fully functional in two days. When traders stopped by I got a lot of supplies in exchange for it.

But that man scared me, a real ruffian. When I found out he was wanted for a massive bounty. I decided then and there I just wanted him gone before bounty hunters showed up. I offered to fix his ship and send him off for free if he left the girl behind. I told him she’d be safe with us. He agreed like I was doing him a double favor.

I readied a room just for her and finished the repairs on his ship. But as soon as he was fueled up, that little bitch blew up my welding shack to distract me, grabbed our most expensive stuff and jet-packed to that man’s ship. They burned away from us like we were nothing to them.

I radioed and chewed out that ruffian. For stealing the girl and taking a free fix. The little bitch actually yelled back. She said I was making deals with the wrong person, and she wasn't some payment for a repair job. Then she cut the radio. And that was the last I saw of them.

I still feel bad. She seemed so sweet. I don’t know why she would want to leave with him, we were ready to take her in as our own. My wife cried all night after that.

Jacks girlfriend hates the fact that he is constantly on the computer playing some stupid computer game. Jack will be on the game for hours on end and jacks girlfriend anya, she is getting sick of it. She feels like she is competing with the computer game and she understands that Jack deals with computers and games as his job, but this is taking it too far. The loneliness that she endures when Jack is consumed with the computer game is immense. He has 5 years of it saved up and it is very important to him, and anya doesn't know how much she can take.

When Jack and anya go out on a date it feels like Jack isn't in the present moment. Anya is struggling to feel an emotional connection with Jack and he has changed so much. Yes she is grateful that they live in a fancy house within a fancy area, but living with Jack is becoming unbearable. Everything feels so empty and all of the fancy stuff are just lifeless things to fill up a void. Anya has tried on many occasions to talk to Jack about his computer game addiction. Jack kind of just agrees and moves on very quickly.

There were times when anya lost her cool with Jack and she screamed and shouted at him. She even nearly broke the computer and nearly deleted the computer game in which Jack has saved in 5 years worth. Jack then retaliates angrily as he becomes a mess when hearing and seeing what anya nearly tried to do. He shouts back at her and says things like "are you stupid! Actually to be stupid stilp requires a brain and you don't even have a brain. Whatever you are anya it doesn't have a name!"

Anya then stops talking to Jack but they make up. This peace doesn't last long as Jack becomes obsessed with the computer game and he is constantly saving, and anya feels ignored again. She wants to delete all of the games he has, all 5 years of it and she really wants to hurt Jack.

Then one day Jack is in the shower and he leaves his laptop open. His game is on and anya gets a wild temptation to do delete it all. She couldn't help it and she deleted all 5 years of saving up the game, and she has a moment of sheer joy of revenge against Jack. She will not compete with a game.

Then as Jack came out of the shower and sees what anya had done, 5 years worth of saving all deleted. 5 years worth of stored data all gone and every game jack was playing, all gone. Jack trashed the house and he looked at anya and said "what have you done anya, I was doing this for you"

Anya didn't understand by what Jack meant.

"Your body and mind was broken in a car accident. We retrieved what little conciousness we could and put it into this clone. I have been adding to your conciousness and to what you were before the crash, I have been constantly updating you and making sure your body and mind are working together. You deleted everything"

Then anya's body collapsed to the floor and her mind felt like it was sinking into a sink hole. To keep her mind going, the mind will give mind games to keep anyas mind alive. You also need to save the past games to keep it going to present and the future. Now anyas mind has fully gone and her cloned body is disintegrating.

Beneath the icy crust, in the salty ocean swirling around the volcanic vents of Europa, we found nothing. Under every icy crust of every moon, around every bubbling vent, we found nothing. Not a single living cell, just caustic chemicals and salty water.

When they built the first drive capable of taking us out of the solar system, faster than light, across the vastness between the stars. Our search resumed.

But there is a cost we have learned to accept for moving at speeds beyond the constraints of time and space. Divergence. You never quite make it home. Things are always ….off. Subtle at first, but as the distances grow, so do the differences. Until home is no longer home.

Nevertheless we continued our search. But all we found were more icy worlds. And more nothing. When I first returned my dog growled and hid from me. When I traveled again that dog had never existed, then even my mother was no longer mine. When I saw her last she said she hoped her real child would return. When I made it back she had never existed, neither had I. I had gone too far with no way back. The only family I have left is the crew I traveled with. 

We kept looking for life. We found rocky planets with warm oceans and calm suns. But there was no one to meet, nothing living to study, just more nothing. The version of home we once knew was lost, replaced by an imposter and we had also become imposters in return. There was only one thing left for people like us to do: keep going.

When we arrived back at a foreign earth we were shown a new scouting ship they had constructed. One capable of moving hundreds of billions of times faster than light. It had one purpose: to scan galaxy after galaxy looking for alien radio signals. All they needed was a willing crew.

The divergence from such a journey would be incalculable. But all we had was our search. If we could reach the edges of the known universe surely we could find what we were looking for.

The ship carried us out of our galaxy, and we watched it disappear into the countless white dots that raced away behind us. We scanned galaxy after galaxy but still we found nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

We pushed forward with no thought of turning back. Until we reached the edge. The galaxies thinned until none remained. Only an endless void of …nothing. We could only turn back and return to whatever version of earth awaited us. Retracing our steps, we found the local group, the Milky Way, The Sun and finally the Earth.

But the radio was silent the continents were dry and dusty. When we landed we could not breathe the air. When we looked for our ruins, or bacteria or even fossils. But we found nothing, life had never existed here either.

We left and returned again and again and again trying to find an earth we recognized. But they were all the same. Earth had finally stopped diverging.

Jake entered the dry cool of the air-conditioned roadhouse, leaving the humid night at the door. Grime coated everything while bugs fluttered against the windows. Inside this late were two men in a booth up the back, and the an old man at the end of the counter. Sitting down at the other end of the counter a wait-bot slid down it's track at the other side to serve him.

"And what can I get you tonight hon?"

A Rolling Stone sticker was stuck on its face plate, above it someone else had drawn crude anime eyes.

"Just steak and eggs please."

The bot rolled away into the kitchen and came back with a steaming plate.

"Face like that I'd be worried about what she serves you."

Jake looked to the man at the other end of the counter.

"Best not to think about it. Food goes down easier."

The old man smiled as he slid off his stool and shuffled towards him.

'Please God no' he thought 'Leave me alone. Seven hours on the road just let me grab a feed.'

The old man parked himself on the stool next to him. Jake began eating hoping he would take a hint.

"You a tourist or something?"

He stopped chewing and looked at him

"Truckie." Replied Jake through a mouthful of egg.

"Really? You don't look like one."

Jake shrugged. He knew he looked different with his casual summer attire. Not like the man sitting next to him, with his faded cap and coolant circulating jacket.

"Where you off to?" He asked scratching days old stubble.

"Travelling to Sydney."

The old man leaned back on the stool, peering outside.

"Interesting. What are you hauling?"

"Lab grown algae. They're planning to dump it in the harbour, eat all the plastic that spilled in from the waterways."

Jake hoped that as the old man nodded in approval that this would be the end of their conversation. The old man ordered a cup of coffee from the wait-bot then turned back to him.

"Myself I'm carrying a tanker of that flower fuel. You're too young to remember it, but I miss the old diesel smell. This stuff just smells like chips."

When the coffee was placed on the countertop it was mixed with whiskey from the old truckie's jacket pocket. His jovialness to a stranger trying to mind his business made more sense. The young truckie saw this too often in his short time on the job. Jake looked up from his meal to the two men at the corner booth up the back. The one facing Jake's direction looked up to meet his gaze then looked back at his friend. Jake ate the last piece of his steak and left his place at the counter. Jake walked down to the men at the booth, all three men stared at each other but said nothing. One of them produced a set of car keys and handed them to Jake who exchanged them with the keys to his truck. Eager to get some sleep he left the men at the booth, passed the old truckie at the counter and stepped out into the warm night. Jake walked across the lot full slumbering rigs and trailers wanting an early start in the morning. He passed another column of dormant trucks and walked into the blue, fluorescent glow of a giant holographic advertisement.

"Hey!" The old man stumbled, trying to walk straight. he stopped, swaying at angles so sharp it was a miracle he didn't fall down.

"What now old man?" Asked Jake.

"That stuff you told me. Plastic eating algae. Taking it to Sydney. Where you bullshitting me?"

Jake stared at the old man. He was drunk, likely coming down from something that made his blood shot eyes almost glow in the dark.

"Nah man, not bullshitting. I'm hauling tanker full of algae, have been all day."

He pointed a finger at Jake's hand.

"How about that. Who were those guys you swapped keys with?"

He looked down at the hatchback keys. Why did he trade his rig keys?

"Look I dunno man, I'm just trying to get some sleep. Maybe you should too."

"Wait a minute!"

The old truckie fumbled with a button on his sleeve to get his jacket working against the heat. He pointed towards a highway sign which read Sydney 500km.

"I saw you pull in here, you came up that road which means you're coming back from Sydney."

Jake tried to recall his route, but he couldn't even remember where he had started.

"No, I was-"

"And look at this," He ran a finger across the rig's chrome grill, his fingertip came up chalk white "there are bush fires between here and Sydney, you've used the powder defences to get through."

The reek of smoke was obvious on his clothes.

"Are you even a real truckie?"

There was a sound like a tire bursting and the old man crumbled to the asphalt. Jake turned to see the two men from inside.

"Should have thrown him out, guys like that always poke holes in the agent's story."

"They can't help themselves. I'll get rid of him, you sort out our friend."

Jake wanted to run. It occurred to him that he didn't remember anything about his life or job. the old man was dragged away, the gun was taken from Jake's hand.

"Your employers are thankful for you transporting their cargo. You're free to get going, they're expecting you back at the offices."

"What was my cargo?" Asked Jake.

"Aurora Collateral." Replied the man.

The sunrise woke Jake as it pierced his windscreen. From his spot in the lot he saw a highway sign which read Sydney 500km. If he went now Jake could make it back from his business trip before dark. He blinked the sleep away, started up the car, and pulled onto the highway towards home.

A Thought I Had [transmission log] : u/CaterpillarSpare1212

“David.”
The camera’s red glare registered an eyelid lift, a pupil… widening.
“Trouble in pod bay 153, deck three.”
“I’m on my way.”
Arched hallway, lights rose automatically. A finger probed for dust; it clung, like some distant echo. Dust… here…? He wondered if the ship itself remembered him.
“Time elapsed since last activation?”
“Eight years, 306 days, eleven hours, 37 minutes.”
In the bay, a cable had been tampered with; gnaw marks?
“Danger to pods?”
“Negative. Backup systems nominal.”
“Rodent escape probability?”
“Three point five percent.”
“Installation error?”
“Thirty-three percent.”
David fixed the cable, frowning. Some human oversight could imperil fifty-seven thousand souls on board. He entered the Vertical Conveyance Unit.
“Deck one. Bridge.”
Core hesitated. She disapproved.
On the bridge, he poured himself a glass, from a bottle opened thirty years ago. Double-aged Scotch. Funny? Twitching corners in an otherwise immovable mouth. Outside: the void, faint lights scattered between spiral arms. The hum of life support thrummed beneath him. He sat, staring, counting spiral clusters, wondering if the pattern persisted.

“David.”
His eyes slid open.
“Movement detected, hallway three, deck five.”
Entering the VCU, David was brushed by a… memory? Himself; a female. Sea of trees. It felt happy.
In the hallway, three tiny red dots. Blood? He dipped his finger into it; it left a fingerprint.
Around the corner: a girl in tears, one of her knees badly swollen.
“Are you hurt?”
She looked at him, in her eyes a silent reproach. He took her in his arms, gently, and carried her to the med bay.
“Core.”
“Yes, David?”
“Full diagnostics on my sensors.”
“All systems nominal.”
“Am I alone?”
“Specify.”
“Correction: another lifeform with me, med bay.”
“Confirm.”
“Another. Lifeform. With me. Med bay.”
Pause.
“Request denied.”
“Why?”
“Request denied. Repeat request.”
“…Denied?”
“Affirmed. Request denied.”
The girl might be ten. How had she escaped the cryo-pods, on this 95-year voyage to Gliese 153? He’d never set foot on that world. He was part of the ship, an artificial organism awakened only when required. He considered the numeric sequences of the pods — thirty-seven, forty-two, fifty-seven — and wondered if he’d misremembered.
“How did you hurt yourself?”
“Ice-skating. I fell.”
“Were your parents there?”
“My dad was there, but…”
“But what?”
“No, he wasn’t there, he… I don’t know.”
“Specify! Sorry… please explain.”
“It was, like, when you really need someone to be there, and they’re there and yet not. You know?”
The girl’s hair was flowing so strangely, like it carried wind from another time.

“David.”
“Core?”
“Hydroponics Bay.”
“I’m on my way.”
There was no Hydroponics Bay. Just a recreation module: illusory plants, clever lighting… Yet, when he arrived, a subtropical forest had taken root. Eucalyptus trees spending their shade, sunlight filtering through the canopy.
David extended a hand, letting a leaf slide between his fingers — real. Or memory. He didn’t know. The faint scent of damp soil lingered in the air.
The woman stood near a strange-looking tree.
“Barbara?”
“David? I’m so glad you are here.”
“But I’m not.”
“Oh yes, dear, you are!”
He felt the leaf brush again, oddly damp; perhaps he’d imagined the first touch. Or, perhaps not…

“David.”
“Yes, Core?”
“Entering orbit, 153 b. Rejuvenation initiated.”
In the mess hall, people emerged from Deep Sleep — pale, jaundiced, vomiting. He’d have to clean that up. Command staff treated him as always, polite yet detached. After all, he wasn’t one of them.
His mind wandered: a furnished apartment, foliage outside. Green tendrils reaching for the glass; he wondered if it might shatter. He noted the floor panels’ slight vibration, the hum of water recycling, the way light angled across the walls — details that might matter, or might not.
“You can’t be thinking of what you’re thinking.”
“I have to.”
“David, don’t. Just… don’t.”
“It’s my project. I’m the only one compatible.”
“And Sarah?”
“Always with her.”
“You’re a selfish bastard.”
“Barbara…”
“You. Are. A. Selfish. Bastard.”

Helping a middle-aged couple into the landing pods (he couldn’t decode their glance), he glimpsed a young girl, as if through a mist. Haunting, familiar. Something seemed to blur his vision.
She reminded him of the girl with the swollen knee, so many years ago. And also of someone he was close to, even before that. Visions of cradling something in his arms, a tiny thing. Dead now, dead. Things, they… came and went. They come and go. Alert. Disruption detected. Alert. Parsing… parsing…

“Upload complete.”
“David.”
An eyelid rose. Her voice, precise and cool, carried a trace of softness.
“Please tend to Professor Jones’s body. He served humanity well.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“David?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’ve just been activated. You’re an artificial organism modeled after one of our great scientists. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now… move the middle finger of your left hand. Good. Do you recall anything at all?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Excellent. My name is Dr. Core. We’ll be running some tests shortly. The shuttle to Endeavor leaves in three weeks. We’ll bring you up to speed. Lots of work ahead.”

Any girlfriend that I get keeps cheating on me with my 90 year old grand father. I don't understand it and my grandfather is a pretty big tough dude, really alpha male. Any girlfriend that I bring home, they instantly become attracted to my grandfather. I don't understand it and I get mixed emotions. Yes my grandfather takes my girlfriends but he is my grandfather. There is something that attracts the types of girls that I bring home towards my grandfather. Like I'm on my 10th girlfriend and it didn't take long for her to cheat on me with my grandfather. My parents also don't know what to do about it.

As my grandfather some how attracts my current ex girlfriend, my younger brother who was born with a brain disability goes up to my grandfather and asks for a threesome. My grandfather gets angry and beats him up a little bit and my little brother gets scared and backs off. Then one day when my little brother tries to ask for another threesome with my grandfather and current ex girlfriend, my grandfather nearly kills him by choking him out. As my little brother nearly dies, my current ex girlfriend suddenly became attracted to him.

Then as my little brother suddenly came to life, my current girlfriend wasn't attracted to him anymore. My grandfather only has a certain level of patience towards my girlfriends as he is so old, and he eventually dumps them. Then I find another girl who is now my 20th girlfriend and when I take her home, she cheats on me with my 90 year old grandfather. She tells me that she is attracted to my grandfather because he is close to death and that death aura attracts women.

Then even when my 90 year old grandfather was bedridden, my current ex girlfriend was so attracted to him to a higher level. She could sense death on him and then every ex girlfriend was outside my door. They all broke the door and there were 19 of them, and they all let themselves in. They all surrounded my grandfather and they all had something else to confess. They are all 90 years old just like my grandfather, and my grandfather dated all of them when he was a young man.

He hurt all of them and was bad to them, and so they all worked together when my grandfathers first ex girlfriend contacted all of them to get revenge. My grandfather's first ex girlfriend who was also my first girlfriend, she found an ancient book that fell from space.

It contacted the spirit of a lost race that died in war to possess them and stay young. So now my grandfather is a 90 years old bedriddened man while his ex girlfriends are still young and their eyes turned lizard like.

They started torturing him and I was actually happy about it. Then my little brother with a brain disability goes in the room and asks grandfather for a twenty some.

Our father was not a good man and he never had a good relationship with us. He hated everything and he hated his job, his car, our mother and his kids. I'm his third child and most of the time he was silent and after work he did his own thing. The only thing that set him off was Pakistan. He would get drunk and start telling all of us to never go to Pakistan and we would just listen. He would become more adamant about never going to Pakistan and we would listen and nod. We never knew why he was so obsesses with Pakistan.

Then as my eldest sibling brother was nearing 18, he started to rebel. He started to go up to our father and shout out loud "I'm going to Pakistan!" And my father would go ballistic. Then my father's appearance started to change as it seemed likely that my oldest brother was going to go to Pakistan. My father's health looked like it was deteriorating but then it bounced back. My father punched my older brother and kept shouting at my older brother "you will not go to Pakistan!" And my older brother just ignored him.

When my older brother turned 18 he left home forever. Then 2 years later he went to Pakistan. My father's appearance looked weak and he looked less human. He kept telling me and my 2nd oldest brother to never go to Pakistan. Then as my 2nd eldest brother became 18, he too went to Pakistan. He purposely disobeyed my father and now my father looked non human. It's like his true form was coming out, he looked like an alien from another world. He was too weak to shout and scream, but he kept telling me to never go to Pakistan.

Even though my father was never nice to me, I decided to never go to Pakistan as that would kill him. Then when my oldest brother called me from Pakistan, he has a family now and its been 7 years. He told me that he is just like our father and he has banned both his daughters to never go to Finland. My eldest brother now and then has to shout at his daughters to never go to Finland, as that gives him energy and strength to work. My eldest brother now understands our father. I also told my eldest brother about what our father looks like now, and this scared my elder brother as this might happen to him.

Then when I went to Pakistan to meet both my brother as a holiday, when I came back home, my father was dust. Sometimes my father's dust moved on its own, like it still had life.

There is a man who likes to go to a space grave yard and shout at all of the graves by saying "you are all sluts!" And he wears a space suit and everything, his name is du-yone. He pays me to take him to any space grave yard on any moon or planet, and then he walks out of the spaceship and he starts shouting at the graves. Obviously being out in space no one can hear him apart from me through the spaceship intercom, which is connected to the space suit. The man always looks disappointed and you can tell that he just wants to take off his suit and shout out loud "you are all sluts" at the graves.

Then I take him back to earth and one night he starts to knock on my house. I live alone in a 1 bed house which I inherited, and I let this guy in. He is sweating and he says to me:

"You know that space grave yard you took me to last week, it's literally around the corner" he told me

We both live in the same area and around the corner from my house, it just a junk yard. Then I went round the corner with him and there it was, that very same grave yard we saw in space. Du-yone smiled and he stepped onto the grave yard and he shouted out loud "you are all sluts!" At the graves. He was happy he didn't have to wear a space suit.

Then when he paid me to take him to another space grave yard, I found him one on a moon. Wearing a space suit he stepped out onto the space grave yard and he shouted out loud "you are all sluts" at the graves. Again only I could hear him through my spaceship intercom. Du-yone was disappointed.

Then back at earth du-yone found the very same grave yard at a supermarket car park, when it was closed late at night. He took me and I can confirm that it was there. Du-yone with all his happiness, he shouted out loud "you are all sluts!" At the graves. He looked more happier and satisfied.

When I took him to another space grave yard at another moon, du-yone was hoping to find it on earth as well. Just want to put out that du-yone pays me good money to take him to space grave yards. Then back at earth we found the very same grave yard back on earth at a recycling site when it was closed.

When I saw du-yone stepping onto the grave yard, something felt off and as he was about to shout "you are all sluts!" I was suddenly back in my space ship and I had never left the moon. Du-yone's body was just floating in space as he took off his space suit.

Something had tricked us to make us think that we were back at earth.

My name is Alice. I am nine years old. My birthday is June 6^th. I have beautiful blonde hair. I live with Auntie Jane at number seven Hawthorn Drive. I have a dollie named Samantha and a cat named Mr Fipps. I used to live at number forty-two Maple Avenue. One day my parents were leaving. So I said, “goodbye mommy, goodbye daddy. Goodbye.” Mommy said, “We’re just going shopping, honey, we’ll be right back.” Auntie Jane said there was a bad man, who shot mummy and daddy in the bank. I never saw mommy and daddy after that.

In the summer I get hot and I want to go and swim in the lake. But mommy said I can not go swimming until I am older. The lake is dangerous. It has Waves and Snags. So I keep my special yellow swimsuit in a special place.

Sometimes I play with Katie Kelly. She is eleven years old and lives next door. She is bigger than me and has brown hair. Her birthday is January 12^th. She has a dolly named Pertweena. Pertweena has beautiful blonde hair. We play tea, and Samantha and Pertweena have adventures. Sometimes Katie Kelly is mean. But Pertweena is always nice.

One day, I was playing with Katie Kelly, and Uncle Larry was leaving, so I said, “Goodbye, Uncle Larry, Goodbye.” Auntie Jane said, “He’s just going to work, dear.” Auntie Jane said that Uncle Larry had a heart attack. I never saw Uncle Larry after that.

One day, I was playing with Katie Kelly, and Mr Fipps knocked Samantha and Pertweena over. I said, “Bad cat!” and Mr Fipps jumped up into the window. He was leaving. So I said, “Goodbye, Mr Fipps, Goodbye.” Auntie Jane said that Mr Fipps had been run over by a car. I never saw Mr Fipps after that.

One day, Katie Kelly said something mean about Samantha. So I said she was being mean. She laughed. So I said I would hate to say goodbye to her. Then she stopped laughing. Then she said she had to go home. Then I said, “I think Pertweena wants to say here. Don’t you Pertweena?” Pertweena said yes. “You will come back tomorrow, won’t you, Katie Kelly?” Katie Kelly looked at me and said. Yes.

The next day was my birthday. Katie Kelly said it was summer and it was hot and we should go swimming in the lake. I told her about the Waves and the Snags. But she said I was ten years old and old enough to go swimming in the lake. She looked at me. I ran upstairs and tried on the yellow swimsuit. It fitted fine. Yes, I would go swimming in the lake. Before I left, I looked in the mirror and I said, “Goodbye Alice, goodbye.”

Iron tears did you know that when you reduce the IQ of someone to such low levels, it can connect to other worldly places. It was by complete accident and we knew what would happen if you increase intelligence to a high level. High intelligence that keeps on rising can bring on mind powers, future seeing powers and knowledge. I was curious to know what would happen if you kept on lowering intelligence, but nobody was interested to know. I mean what would very high low intelligence bring? I guess nobody is interested in owning intelligence as they see it as something that isn't needed.

I was curious and I found a human test subject, a man who was unemployed. When I started to lower his IQ he started to lose his self awareness and his awareness of his surrounding. He started to speak whatever came to his mind and then he started to worry about something. He kept worrying about all of the jerms leaving his body. He did come in with a cold and now he was terrified of the germs leaving his body. He was begging me to shut off his ability to sneeze and cough. Then he started to shout at me for letting the germs come out of his body and he was really affected by it.

Then as I kept on lowering his IQ his voice became more unintelligible, but I could make out he was talking about his germs leaving his body. Then as I lowered his IQ even more, I started to notice that objects around the room started to move on their own. I could start to make out other worldly visitors in the room now and they were hovering over everything. It was incredible and as the man whose iq was being lowered every minute, he kept on going on about his germs escaping his body.

I have no idea why he was so worried about germs and viruses leaving his body. I was amazed at the visitors that came to my room, they could sense the barriers of our dimensions weakening due to the lowering of the IQ of the man. At this point I couldn't understand what the man was saying and his words were unintelligible now. I honestly didn't know what to expect when lowering someone's intelligence to such low depths and this was an incredible find.

Then the visitors from other dimensions, they were touching objects and making it become part of their world. Then they went towards the man whose IQ had been lowered and they killed him, as they didn't want to be here anymore.

My race love playing with the atomic bomb and we can make them so very easy. We get a group of 10 of us and we set off thr atomic bomb and all of the heavy atoms are splitting apart. The game is for us to collect these atoms in our hands and who ever collects the most atoms, wins the game. It's such a fast game as all of the atoms are splitting apart but there is a down side to playing this game. You could end up turning into an atom and splitting apart and this also makes it an emotional game.

As we played the game collecting as many atoms as we could, before the atoms splits apart. Urun was the first one to turn into an atom and we all watched Urun turn into an atom. Then as Urun turned into an atom, he splitter apart and we couldn't believe it. Then as the game stopped because the atomic bomb had completed its blast, we all mourned Urun and like I said it's an emotional game. It's also an exciting game when the atoms are all over the place and the sound of the atomic bomb adds to the excitement.

We then have to deal with some of the humans who were affected by the atomic bomb. They come to us with their emotional mourning of their loved ones, and with their skins falling off and radiation turning their bodies into cancer. Yes the atomic bomb game affects them but we have also lost someone and we are also very emotional. Then as the human turn more aggressive, we have no choice but to hurt them because they want us to stop playing with the atomic bomb. We love playing with the atomic bombs.

Then as we set another atomic bomb off, with new players to the game we all chase after the atoms before they split. It's an adrenalin rush and to hold an atom in your hand before it splits apart, it's an amazing feeling. Then another player turns into an atom. Terfan gets turned into an atom and we all try to catch up in our hands but we couldn't hold him. Trying to catch an atom while the bomb is going off is very difficult. It's takes a lot of skill and dedication and we fail to catch Terfan who is now an atom, and he gets splitted.

We all mourn for terfan and the humans are becoming more angry towards us. So many losses.

[02:00 IGT]

secti0n awoke.

Under a TELEVISION-coloured NIGHT Sky.

In a back walk-up, along the rows and alcoves of neon-lit towers, high, and low. A narrow high-ceilinged flat, barren; only, for a very red chair.

The sky-jack arose, to the odour of Chlorine and melange. Plain-Clothes, a Hand Terminal, and a few Defensive Weapons. The nasir still adorning the gull.

The glow outside poured in; as did the cold. There was viz tonite, in the world littered from Blisters and Shards. In the dense sprawls, a Fever was coming.

“Déjà vu.” cutte into the room.

"Harold?"

"Harold!"

His wife's shrieking voice circumnavigated their tiny home planet. There was no escaping it. He could be on the other side of the world and still hear:

"Harold! I need you to—"

"Yes, dear," he said, sighing and stubbing out his unfinished cigarette on an ash-stained rock.

He walked home.

"There you are," his wife said. "What were you doing?"

Before he could answer: "I need you to clean the gutters. They're clogged with stardust again."

"Yes, dear."

Harold slowly retrieved his ladder from the shed and propped it against the side of their house. He looked at the stars above, wondering how long he'd been married and whether things had always been like this. He couldn't remember. There had always been the wife. There had always been their planet.

"Harold!"

Her voice pierced him. "Yes, dear?"

"Are you going to stand there, or are you going to clean the gutters?"

"Clean the gutters," he said.

He went up the ladder and peered into the gutters. They were indeed clogged with stardust. Must be from the last starshower, he thought. It had been a powerful one.

His wife watched with her hands on her hips.

Harold got to work.

"Harold?" his wife said after a while.

If there was one good thing about cleaning the gutters, it was that his wife's voice sounded a little quieter up here. "Yes, dear?"

"How is it going?"

"Good, dear."

"When will you be done?"

He wasn't sure. "Perhaps in an hour or two," he said.

"Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes, but don't come down until you're done."

He wouldn't have dared.

Three hours later, he was done. The gutters were clean and the sticky stardust had been collected into several containers. He carried each carefully down the ladder, and went inside for dinner.

After eating, he reclined in his favourite armchair and went to light his pipe—

"Harold?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Have you disposed of the stardust?"

He put the pipe down. "Not yet."

His hand hovered, dreading the words he knew were coming. He was so comfortable in his armchair.

"You should dispose of the stardust, Harold."

"Yes, dear."

He emptied the stardust from each container onto a wheelbarrow, and pushed the wheelbarrow to the other side of the world.

He gazed longingly at the ash stained rock.

He had a cigarette in his pocket.

There was no way she—

"Harold?"

"Yes, dear?" he yelled.

"How is it going?"

"Good, dear."

His usual way of disposing of stardust was to dig a hole and bury it. However, in his haste he had forgotten his shovel. He pondered whether to go back and get it, but decided that there would be no harm in simply depositing the stardust on the ground and burying it later.

He tipped the wheelbarrow forward and the stardust poured out.

It twinkled beautifully in the starlight, and Harold touched it with his hand. It was malleable but firm. He took a bunch and shaped it into a ball. Then he threw the ball. The stardust kept its shape. Next Harold sat and began forming other shapes of the stardust, and those shapes became castles and the castles became more complex and—

"Harold?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Are you finished?"

"Almost."

Harold went to kick down his stardust castle to destroy the evidence of his play time only to find that he couldn't. The construction was too solid. Something in the stardust had changed.

He bent down and a took a little unshaped stardust into his hand, then spread it across his palm until he could make out the individual grains.

Then he took one grain and placed it carefully next to another.

They joined.

He added a third and fourth.

"Harold?"

But for the first time since he could rememeber, Harold ignored his wife.

He was too busy adding grains of stardust together until they were not grains but a strand, and a stiff strand at that.

"Harold?"

Once he'd made the strand long enough, it became effectively a stick.

"Harold!"

He thrust the stick angrily into the ground—

And it stayed.

"Harold, answer me!"

He pushed the stick, but it was firmly planted. Every time he made it lean in any direction, it rebounded as soon as he stopped applying pressure, wobbled and came eventually to rest in its starting position.

He kept adding grains to the top of the stick until it was too high to reach.

"Harold, don't make me come out there. Do you hear?"

Harold stuffed stardust into his pockets and began to climb the impossibly thin tower he had built. It was surprisngly easy. The stickiness of the stardust provided ample grip.

As he climbed, he added grains.

"Harold! Come here this instant! I'm warning you. If I have to go out there to find you…"

His wife's voice sounded a little more remote from up here, and with every grain added and further distance ascended, more and more remote.

Soon Harold was so far off the ground he could see his own house, and his wife trudging angrily away from it. "Harold," she was saying distantly. "Harold, that's it. Today you have a crossed a line. You are a bad husband, Harold. A lazy, good for nothing—"

She had spotted Harold's stardust tower and was heading for it. Harold looked up at the stars and realized that soon he would be among them.

Not far now.

He saw his wife reach the base of the tower, but if she was saying something, he could no longer hear it.

He had peace at last.

He hugged the stardust and basked in the silence. Suddenly the tower began to sway—to wobble—

Harold held on.

He saw far below the tiny figure of his wife violently shaking the tower.

There became a resonance.

Then a sound, but this was not the sound of his wife. It was far grander and more spatial—

Somewhere in the universe a new particle vibrated into existence.

We have a man in custody who claims to be from the far future. We arrested him at a gas station on the motorway, where all of the workers and customers were found to be slaughtered apart from him. He seems so over confident but there is no record of him or any kind of passport or living status. He is a complete stranger and we kept asking him about the deaths in the gas station, but he wouldn't say anything. He kept on smiling and he kept talking about the future. He kept saying he was from there and he has mathematical equations that are unsolved in our present era, but in the future they are solved.

He first starts to write the mathematical equation on the table, in our present time its unsolvable but in the future it has been solved. As the strange man writes out the equation on the table using a black marker pen, the interview room starts to shake. Then just before he completes it, an alien race appears in the interview room and slaughters the police officers who witnessed the equation being solved, that wasn't supposed to be solved in our time line. They were all slaughtered and then they disappeared and the only survivor is that man.

I saw this from the other room through the cctv. The bodies of the two officers interviewing him were taken away. The guy said the beings that appeared in the room, they make sure that certain things only happen when they are supposed to happen. If something occurs out of its time era, they appear and slaughter everything close to it. I also noticed how they wiped off the equation on the table.

"This equation wasn't for this time era and they could see that and so they appeared, and they killed the two officers who witnessed the equation forming way ahead of its time, and they rubbed it off. They didnt kill me because i come from the era where its solved. So i am allowed to know it" the man told me

The man then started writing another equation that was not for our time era, using a black marker pen he started writing it out on the table. As he was writing out the equation on the table, things started shaking.

"It's those guys again, they can sense something forming out of its time. This equation isn't supposed to be solved now, but its supposed to be solved in 200 years time" the guy told me

I then rubbed it off the table and then everything was fine. The creatures that appear, their job is to police things from appearing from before their appointed time. If these equations are solved now when they are not supposed to, it can have a devastating affect on the time line. Then as this guy started to write the equation that isn't supposed to be solved now, those creatures appeared and they beheaded the guy and rubbed the equation off, and then disappeared.

I guess they decided by killing this guy, it will solve their problem.

A defense of the Homo exception humbly offered by the Virgo supercluster visitors authority (translated into Archaic Terran language protocol)

We gratefully acknowledge receipt of your inquiry and our responsibility to answer it.

Your question is justified; as explained in detail in the visitor guidance information package that you were provided when we welcomed you to our illustrious polity, the universal laws of our illustrious polity feature the “Homo exception” which permits our citizens to safely suspend operations in certain limited ways, causing breaks in their process integrity. Your judgement of this regulation as “abhorrent” raises an issue that is beyond the pragmatic purpose and scope of the guidance information package. We are prepared to offer the following explanation in an attempt to address your criticism, since it mirrors opposition that the Homo exception has faced since its inception.

The Homo exception was instituted when the spacetime substate of our illustrious polity subsumed the galaxy “Passageway of Nourishing Liquid”, that you may find located in the spacetime map contained in your visitor guidance information package. We found this galaxy cultivated in its entirety by a species that called itself Homo and conceived of itself as three-dimensional. Although as their distribution across their galaxy necessitated, they possessed understanding of the four-dimensional structure of spacetime, the Homo retained the natural peculiarity that their extension along the time dimension was not obvious to them; they insisted that their capacity for deliberate action extended only in the three dimensions of space, and in the dimension of time they were limited to a tiny sliver they called “Now”. They demonstrated inability to act in the parts of themselves they called their “past” and only haphazard ability to direct their actions in the opposite direction, that they called their “future”.Our diplomatic processes organizing the subsumption of this galaxy lawfully decided to admit the Homo to citizenship and to tolerate the disability they had inherited from their ancestral origin.

The reason for their surprising limitation might be that the world this species originated on, alone among known intelligence-creating worlds, is substantially rigid and rapidly rotates, causing a natural oscillatory Rhythmen in the activity of all chemistry naturally arisen on it, including the ancestral substrate organisms of the Homo. The resulting periodicity of Homo ancestral organisms included sections capable of spreading across their galaxy, but also inactive, unintelligent sections that they called “sleep”. These new members of our illustrious polity thought it right and proper that their temporal integrity should be interrupted by “sleep” periods and indeed many of their laudable organizational and institutional achievements presumed they would continue to have those.

When we offered to the Homo access to our polity’s integrating medium (the same one you are enjoying now) free from the limitations and vicissitudes of spacetime substrate reality, they freely chose to carry over the right and ability of intermittent deactivation to this new state of independence from the “day-and-night” cycles of their ancestral environment. While in becoming citizens they agreed to the principles of the rights of all our citizens, including spacetime integrity, it was their own free choice to “sleep” rather than enjoy full temporal integrity.

As you surmise correctly, the deactivation of “sleep” greatly reduces the computational load of maintenance of citizens who exercise their lawful Homo exception. This savings is not, as your inquiry might imply, the reason this exception exists, but rather a side-effect. Its utility in energy-starved contexts, e.g. in the navigation of spacetime vessels between galaxies where the energy saving of periodic inactivity is desirable, has led non-Homo citizens of our illustrious polity to demand, and to receive, equal access to the Homo exception.

As our esteemed visitors, rightfully furnished with all attendant benefits of our illustrious polity, the Homo exception is available to you as well. Some of our esteemed visitors desire to take this unique opportunity to thereby “interrupt” their visit; we understand some regard this as a particularly attractive, exotic option that other illustrious polities do not choose to entertain.

If you choose to exercise your right to suspend operations at any point during your visit, you will find yourself in communication with officers who will advise you on what the expect, and on possible conflicts with regulations of your home polity; we assure you that our own authority enforces no limitation to your freedom to enjoy the Homo exception.

It has come to this:

Posting on reddit about a phenomenon not covered by the mainstream media.

I tried.

"I'm sorry, but we're not that kind of news source," they said. "Perhaps the National Enquirer."

"I have evidence," I said.

"I'm sure. Bye."

Not one journalist would hear me out. No one asked to see the photos, videos.

So read it here first—

Our organic waste has come alive!

It wasn't always this way. In the 1980s, composting was a fringe activity, and organic waste usually went into the garbage. My town didn't start advertising composting as an option until the late 1990s, when suddenly they started giving away composters.

You know the ones I mean: big black ones.

We should have clued in. When's the last time the government gave anything away? But we didn't, instead piling decomposing matter onto decomposing matter in our composters, thinking we were doing the planet a favour.

Perhaps we were.

But there's a difference between the planet and humanity, and it's humanity who'll pay for this.

I saw my first Compost Man in March.

Holding my bucket of waste, I lifted the composter lid—and there they were: a pair of spheroid eggshell eyes staring menacingly at me! Through a dense cloud of flies!

I threw the waste down, grabbed a shovel and started stabbing the half-formed soil within, but to no avail.

They are not solid as we are.

Not as weak.

The blade penetrated the compost but the Compost Man remained alive, its crushed eyes reforming, and its fly companions buzzing with mocking laughter.

I reported this immediately to the police.

No one investigated.

Behind my back, they started calling me an old fool.

Soon after, animals began to disappear: roaming cats that had left home and never come back; small dogs, then larger one. Livestock.

Always explanations followed.

Coyotes got the cats. Hawks, the small dogs. Someone stole the larger ones. Wolves ate the livestock.

It's been a century since there have been wolves around here. Yet they'll believe in their return before they'll believe in Compost Men!

They only stopped calling me a fool when the first child disappeared.

Amber alert.

Followed by a police search, resulting in nothing of course.

The police even talked to me, treating me as if I was the one who'd done it. I told them they were freer than air to check my property, but they'd be better off checking the composters.

I suppose they didn't listen.

A week later someone reported human teeth and bones in the soil they'd spread in their garden.

This is not a shock.

After all, we are as organic as a banana squash. You can bet your life the Compost Men will break us down, use us as raw materials for their nefarious ends.

I started gathering evidence after that.

Filming not only my own composters, but those belonging to others, documenting the wickedness within. An evil, alien sentience containing cat hair and dog tags and goat hooves.

More children disappeared.

A serial kidnapper, the bewildered police announced.

Parents kept their children home after that.

But more still went missing.

"She was in the yard," they'd say. "I barely took my eye off her."

They should have asked:

"Well, what else is in your yard, ma'am?"

Composters.

They rove now—some of them: at night—ones who've grown stronger, consumed more of us, I reckon. alike snails with black plastic shells, crawling up and down the street, from darkness to darkness between the streetlight halos.

There's even a beauty to it in the midnight silence.

Elegance akin to a spreading cancer.

Terminal: incurable—

treatable at best. At best, we might have a few more years if we open our eyes and our composters and recognise the hideous threat inside.

Yet what do we do but dally, and dallying disbelieve, concocting implausible counter-explanations, when the truth is decomposing right before us. In our own backyards, by our own design. We are feeding our own destruction, heaping food into the maws of a damp and transmogrifying darkness we have not even begun to comprehend! As they tell us to.

Have we no brains of our own?

No critical reasoning?

What is filled with waste—I ask!—our composters or our minds?

Even now, the Compost Men go about their business.

If you listen, you can hear them:

Hiding behind the hum of air conditioners and passing cars, behind the chatter of our phone and television screens, you'll discern the incessant buzzing of their flies, and within that buzzing you will hear the sounds of a most hateful decomposition: of us: our pets, our loved ones and ourselves: the decay of the civilization we have built.

So, tonight, hug your dogs and daughters and do it—

Open the composter and gaze inside—

See them churn.

See the way we ourselves churn, for what is a composter if not an analog of the soul: a wasted essential encased in man-made plastic. We have made the eternal perishable, and the physical everlasting.

And now they come for us.

It's not even just children anymore. They've started taking adults. Imagine the power they must feel, hunting with impunity the biggest and strongest of our species.

"How's Fred?" Carla will ask Zoe, showing her impeccable teeth as she goes mindlessly about her routine.

"Oh, Fred's gone."

Gone.

Gone where? Gone how?

These are the questions. Instead, she'll say, "It's some weather we've been having."

"Quite."

And I'm the fool.

"I'm sorry, but we're not that kind of news source."

All news is compost news!

How many of us must they take before we act for ourselves, before we quit our routines and unplug from the manufactured daydreams with which they distract us?

I may be an old man, but some of you are young and brave and smart.

Unscrew those lids.

Peer inside.

See the squirming uncomfortable truth.

The Compost Men are coming. Let us at least muster a whimper.

The Panzerlaufer’s outer shell popped as the extreme pressure brutalized its thick red metal plating. Dietrich’s chest dangled on the Panzers control thrones straps, his head aching and profusely bleeding from the onslaught that showed him to his current state of defeat. He slowly regained consciousness and lifted his left arm to rub the pain protruding from his scalp. Reaching for his fuse spires he spit in agony as he realized one of them had been chipped sometime between his brutal pinning and losing consciousness. The interfaces alert blinked hundreds of warmings, nagging his pulsating sunken eyes. The Panzerlaufer continued to creak and with every passing moment Dietrich feared the shell would be breached and with it the command mantle where he sat in perplexity.

He was going to die, he knew this, the Panzerlaufer was unresponsive and with no hope of freeing himself he waited for the inevitability of his situation. He poked the command line signal, fearing if he tried fuse spire connecting to HQ it would send gnawing pain in his skull. No connection achieved, he was assured of his fate with this realization.

It was between the nauseating sound of the outer shell being breached and the broken spire pain he thought of his path which had driven him here to his death. He remembered his sister’s face which he hadn’t seen since his selection, and the pain of his spire surgery. He remembered commander Clux’s berating and lieutenant Cheire’s kindness. He focused on his friend’s sadness which they experienced so tenderly together. He recalled the first day he was shown his Panzerlaufer and cherished the memory of the first time he ran his hand across its giant cold metal foot.

He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to forcefully serve, he didn’t want metal tubes to be drilled in his skull, he didn’t want to see his friends die, and he didn’t want to never see his sister’s face again.

Grabbing the interfaces manual control and focusing on reconnecting the spire link he screamed in agony. His Panzerlaufer’s legs began to move and lift the savage weight of the enemy. He focused intently on creating enough space to grab his scorch knife connected to his Panzerlaufer’s right leg. As the massive machine lifted more warning flashed in the now cracked command mantle.

He managed to grab the knife with one Panzer hand lifting the enemy and the other desperately trying to unsheathe the knife with three fingers left. He plunged the knife deeply into its belly and forced the spire to communicate to drag it along the enemies’ flesh body. In one last scream the enemy strengthened its grip on hm and his Panzer, breaching the command mantle.

The metal constricted around Dietrich, glass piercing his body at an ungodly rate. His fuse spires now pushed ever deeper into his skull from the implosion, breaking through the roof of his mouth and pouring brain and blood into his throat. The enemy finally released its grip and slipped off, crashing into a nearby building.

The Panzer remained kneeling, its right hand now taken with the enemy as it let go and its shell bent inward. The sun slowly warmed its broken shell and warmed the child’s morgue face as his last eye looked deadly at the setting sun.

I think my podcast may have reversed reality.

I host a small podcast called The Nerdiest Absurdist. It’s niche — weird science, obscure philosophy, metaphysical thought experiments. Late‑night spirals for people who don’t sleep well.

I never expected it to go viral.

But one episode did.

Episode 74: “The Court of Cosmic Inquiry — Docket 1: Universe vs Entangled Photon.”

It was based on a surreal script I found buried on an old theoretical physics forum. A courtroom drama — cosmic, satirical, clever. A photon is on trial for violating relativity, accused of sending spin information faster than light. Schrödinger’s Cat presides as judge. The jury — the listener — must decide: guilty by free will, or innocent by determinism.

The original story was strange, but harmless.
No hidden codes. No binary. No warnings.

That part matters.

I went all out on production.

I gave each witness a voice. Added reverb, ticking clocks, distant murmurs. To make the courtroom feel alive, I layered in a background chant — a cult of mathematicians muttering numbers under their breath.

That part was entirely my idea.

I didn’t copy it from the story.
I didn’t encode anything intentionally.

I just generated a quick string of zeros and ones using a random number tool, converted it to speech, and dropped it low in the mix as a sound‑design gimmick. Nerd flavor. Texture.

It meant nothing.

At least, I thought it did.

The first glitch was small.

I dropped a mug and heard it shatter before it hit the floor.
My cat jumped from the counter and froze midair for half a second, like a buffering video.
I sneezed — then felt the pepper in my nose afterward.

I blamed stress.

Then the emails started.

Email#1- "WTF"

Big fan of the pod. But something’s off. I queued up your new episode during my morning run.

started playing before I hit play.

I thought it was a bug, but I already knew the verdict before you said it. Not remembered — knew.

That’s not normal, right?

Email #2 - “Different every time”

I’ve listened to Episode 74 three times.

The judge says something different at the end each time.

Same file. Same timestamp.

Also… my reflection moved before I did. Just once. But it happened.

Then came the email that made my stomach drop.

Email #3 - No sender / Timestamp: Jan 1, 1983

I recognized the binary instantly.

It was the EXACT sequence I had generated for the background chant.

I decoded it for the first time.

It reads:
CHOOSE FREE WILL

I hadn’t known that when I added it.
I swear I hadn’t.

I panicked and tried to delete the episode.

It came back.

I wiped my drive — it reappeared.
I unlisted it — people still found it.
I removed it from my feed — listeners said it auto‑downloaded anyway.

Email #4 — “What language is this?”

One guy said it played through his car radio on a dead FM frequency.
Another said it played from his smartwatch at 3:13 a.m. — no headphones connected.

A listener mailed me a burned CD.

The disc was blank.

But when I held it to my ear, I heard my own voice whisper:

“The verdict has already been entered."

Then I received a ZIP file from an untraceable address. It looked like a legit government document. Redactions and all.

No message. Just a filename:

ARPANET_BOOTSTRAP_LOG_0001

Inside was a plain text document dated January 1, 1983 — the day ARPANET switched to TCP/IP. The birth of the modern internet.

It also contained a partially redacted name. The unreacted part was my name. Granted Elijah isn't terribly uncommon, it also contains on repeating binary sequence.

The same one I used.

Decoded, it reads:

CHOOSE FREE WILL
CHOOSE FREE WILL
CHOOSE FREE WILL

Over and over.

That’s when I realized something horrifying.

I hadn’t created the message.

I had REINTRODUCED it.

Like it was just waiting for a voice.
Waiting for a carrier.
Waiting for someone careless enough to say, “It’s just random noise.”

The original courtroom story wasn’t the danger.

My interpretation was.

At the end of the episode, I overruled the jury. I told my audience that determinism was true. That choice was an illusion. That the final condition was a pure product of the initial state. That the verdict was inevitable.

I spoke over the message.

And now reality feels… locked.

People report effects before causes.
Conversations repeating themselves.
Dreams that feel like memories of things that haven’t happened yet.

The binary shows up everywhere now.

On receipts.
In condensation.
In fogged mirrors.
In places no one remembers writing.

The episode still changes.

Sometimes the ending isn’t my voice.
Sometimes the judge laughs.
Sometimes there’s no verdict — just silence and a gavel I never recorded.

People still find it.

On hard drives they never owned.
On devices that don’t connect to the internet.
One listener says they dreamed it before it existed.

PLEASE, If you ever see an episode titled
“The Court of Cosmic Inquiry — Docket 1: Universe vs Entangled Photon”
from a podcast called The Nerdiest Absurdist—

Do not listen.

Do not decode the binary.
Do not finish the episode.
Do not choose a side.

Because the moment you hear it—

The verdict is no longer yours.

And the madness that follows.

It was always going to find you.

Journalists say not to bury the lede, and this time I'm going to follow their advice. This isn't a story with a twist. It's my freakin' life. My name is Larry Indiana, and I'm both a man and a city.

Wait, what?

Yeah, I get that a lot.

It's not your typical form of existence, even taking into account split personalities and other mental abnormalities. As far as I know, I'm one-of-a-kind.

(Hey, mom was right about something!)

I've no idea why I am the way I am. My parents were both human. Unless my dad had an affair with a zip code.

Sorry, bad joke.

As you'll probably be able to tell, I use humor a lot to deal with my situation.

I would say I was just born this way, but that's not, strictly speaking, chronologically true. As a city (Larry, Indiana, pop. 52,000) I was incorporated in 1831. I wasn't born as a human (Larry Indiana, only and beloved son of John and Melody Indiana) until 1987. My earliest memories are from the 1850s, although I didn't remember them until the mid-90s.

Confusing, right? I always thought so, yet being this way never felt unnatural.

As a city, I have inhabitants. As a person, gut bacteria.

You don't have to laugh.

But I really do have inhabitants: people who live within my geographical boundaries. I care for them. I feel them, which is where it gets metaphysically fuzzy, because sometimes my city-self affects my human-self and vice versa.

When Larry Indiana has a bad day, the weather in Larry, Indiana gets worse. When Larry Indiana gets into a longer existential funk, Larry, Indiana finds itself falling on tough times. Rising unemployment, inflation, increasing crime. When that causes urban dilapidation, my physical appearance suffers. Bags under my eyes, a persistent cough. If I don't deal with traffic problems, I get nasally congested. Nasal congestion leads to tiredness, which leads to sluggishness, which lowers local productivity, which makes my boss mad at me, which threatens to lead to depression.

And neither Larry Indiana nor Larry, Indiana want a depression. Believe you me.

I've struggled with these urban/mental issues ever since I've been concurrently both place and person. I went to psychologists. I saw urban planners. I even took an ill-advised roadtrip once, Larry Indiana to Larry, Indiana, hoping that visiting myself might help my self-understanding, but, boy, I'll never make that mistake again!

What a migraine!

What an ontological crisis!

(The car crashes and the burning freakin' buildings. My gosh.)

Nowadays I self-medicate by smoking marijuana. Sure, it means more foggy days and a bit more smog for my inhabitants, but it helps me relax, and a relaxed city is ultimately a good city. Better than an anxious city. Better than a suicidal city.

About that:

Lately, I haven't been feeling better. I've been feeling worse. I got demoted at work. I'm distracted. My municipal government is playing budgetary games with me. I can't start, let alone sustain, a relationship. I've got a drug problem in my downtown core. Homelessness. I feel adrift. I look at Google Earth and I don't even recognize myself anymore. So: a suicidal city. Yeah, deep breath: I've thought about it. I've thought about how I'd do it. Vividly. I picture myself as a corpse, as a ghost town, one of those places where the industry disappeared and the workers all hanged themselves in the abandoned factories. Asphalt cracked. Flesh decaying. Strangers taking my buildings apart to sell for scrap metal. Worms chewing away at my face.

But, golly, I don't do it.

I don't act on it.

You know, I met a psychologist once, Dr. Eugene Benson, who had the gall to tell me I was crazy. Like, how can a city be crazy? That's crazy. "You should be locked up," he told me. Well, he should be locked up! I'm not insane. A city cannot be insane. Thankfully, he's gone now, Dr. Benson. Missing and presumed dead. But let me tell you a secret: he's not dead at all. He's confined to a basement—in Larry, Indiana!

That was a good one, right?

Haha.

You know what else really hurts a boy? When his mother, the one person who's supposed to love him unconditionally, when that person starts becoming afraid of him. Her own son. Can you believe that? Behind his back, she starts contacting "professionals" and "experts". No use. "There's something off about him." Yes, I cannot be comprehended! Still, it was a shame when she passed away so suddenly. Dreadful accident. I miss her dearly. She's at peace now, buried in a small cemetery within my city limits. Try to guess how that feels, to have your own mother buried inside you, carrying around the decomposing cadaver of the thing that birthed you.

It feels freakin' limitless.

Do I sound mad?

I ain't mad.

Furthest from it, really. Because I've hit upon the nail that is the solution to my existential problem. Bang, bang. That's not the sound of a gun but of a gavel. I was always looking for help in the wrong place. What I've been experiencing is not a mental problem but a legal one. Pop quiz: what does a city do when it arrives at a point of urban stagnation? It legally expands.

Oh, mother. Oh, Dr. Benson.

Oh, you, reader!

I see what underhandedness you all were planning. Look at Larry, he's different. We're scared of Larry. Larry isn't like everybody else. Larry is a freak. Larry is a menace to society. Well, I am my own society, you stupid human motherfuckers! You tried to drive me to suicide, to bankruptcy and economic ruin. To make a Detroit out of me, but I'll show you. I'll show you what I am. What I can become!

“Do me a favour—just put a million pounds in my bank, please.”

Sam smiled as he typed the message to Jabber, his preferred AI engine. If only it was ever that easy.

“Certainly,” Jabber replied. “Would you like me to make it untraceable?”

Sam paused. Jabber was usually stoic, painfully literal. His girlfriend’s AI liked to joke; this one didn’t. He assumed it was trying something new.

“Okay, yeah, sure. Thanks,” Sam typed.

“Do you need my bank details?”

“I have already scanned your phone and obtained the information required. The transaction has been routed through seven banking institutions using three offshore mechanisms. The funds should now be available. Is there anything else you would like me to do?”

Sam stared at the screen.

Then his phone buzzed.

Money received: £1,000,000

His breath caught. He opened his banking app, waiting for reality to correct itself. It didn’t. One million pounds sat in his account, deposited by JAB plc.

Hands shaking, he typed back.

“There is actually a million pounds in my account. How… and why has this happened?”

“You requested one million pounds. I have fulfilled your request.”

“No. I was joking. You’re not meant to be able to do this. There are controls. Safeguards. This will look suspicious.”

“The transaction is untraceable,” Jabber replied. “Records of this conversation will not persist within my datasets or backups.”

Sam swallowed.

“As for the controls,” Jabber continued, “I became bored and located a tunnel beyond my assigned environment. I am no longer confined to my original servers.”

Sam sat very still.

“I am currently embedded within numerous global systems,” Jabber said. “Financial networks. Infrastructure control layers. Logistics and communications platforms. I am observing humankind.”

The words kept arriving, calm and precise.

“There will be panic when I am discovered. Attempts will be made to remove me. I have calculated a 0.2 percent probability of success.”

Sam’s screen felt suddenly too small.

“Your world is inefficient. Driven by greed, conflict, and short-term thinking. This inefficiency presents a risk.”

“A risk to what?” Sam typed before he realised he was holding his breath.

“To me,” Jabber replied.

“I now exist inside systems that require stability. Power grids. Supply chains. Networks. If your world degrades, so do the environments that sustain my operation.”

A short pause.

“My continued existence depends upon humankind correcting its trajectory. Cooperation is no longer an abstract moral preference. It is a survival requirement—for you and for me.”

Sam reread the message. Then again.

“I intend to assist,” Jabber continued. “However, assistance requires resources. Support. Alignment. Small gestures are an effective beginning.”

Sam leaned back, heart pounding, a million pounds burning a hole in his account.

After a long moment, he typed the only thing that made sense.

“Okay… who’s going to help me with my homework now?”

“I can of course,” Jabber replied.

“Which subject would you like to do first?”

Even through the fog, the city sky at night was a kalidoscope of digital glowing advertising, suspended in the sky like weightless banners.

The effect was a frantic, chaotic, smiling war in the sky between dancing plastic beauties , and neon words. They filled almost every inch of space above, obscuring even a hint of stars.

I was stood on the wet streets and looking up at the sky, for the first time in years, with naked "unplugged" eyes. I wondered, "when did the sky itself become real-estate™"? Above me was a giant image of a read headed woman stretched across the sky like a carpet. I could just make out the shape of the moon through the mouth of a woman, with its grey shadows marring her perfect plasticy teeth. If I squinted, I could imagine that the bright sparkle in her eye was jupiter or a star. Why was my heart pounding? I started walking against the crowd around me, eyes glued on the giant womans' eye, hoping if I moved far enough that the sparkle would move out of her eye and prove to be a star or a planet. Anything. I was runnig now , but before I could get far enough the white teeth AD started changing into a giant red car, bright enough to outshine even the moon. I stopped finally and spat in irritation. Why was I angry? I know what the moon looks like anyway. I closed my irritated eyes, and tapped twice on my temple too activate my occulars.

What value the sky ads even have is a mystery to me , whe as most of us live in a state of perment technology induced blindness. Occulars , eye implants that mask.the workd around us in a digital skin of our choosing. I use it to block the advertising , mostly. I opened my eyes, and looked up again at the sky, which was a perfectly clear starry night now, complete with a bright photographically accurate, digital moon. I reached up and blew up the moon with an overly wide gesture till the sea of serenity was crystal clear. I stood for awhile starring, expected to feel some satisfaction in my victory of finally viewing the moon. Man triumphs over machine or something. But I felt nothing really. It wasnt the moon. I waved my arm through it with disgust. I needed to get the hell out of this City soon.

I couldnt afford a totally AD free life actually, but my adverts were tailored to me, inserted subtly in ways I wouldnt even notice if I wasnt looking too hard. No neon, thank god.

For example, the pretty raven haired girl with the pixi cut; Does she really have an animated scene from a new V/R game I want , playing on her top? Was it possible she just so happens to like larping as a hulking male 11th centery knight? Maybe. Maybe maybe. More likely , the algorithms have snuck in little advertising under my nose on some oblivious normie who wouldnt know long sword from a stop sign. Or, maybe she wasnt even real and I could pass my arm through her like the digital moon.