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No Veg Rack
Having turned the corner, Pride stops short, taken aback by the size of the building she now discovers to her right. She goes: „Wow. What a veg rack. Never seen one that big.“ And it is big. Huge, even. Totally unlike the row of low houses in the first street of ArcheoTown. This was a…
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G Day 89
What to do on a cloudy Thursday afternoon in thirty three C heat? Not much, and certainly nothing physical. Kchalo spares a thought for all the robots doing all that work. To think that the poor ancients would have been busy in such heat. Shocking. Kchalo turns up the cooling of his reclining chair a…
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Recalling Cow Void
“Grandpa, what are those for? Can I have one, for pling practice? It’s just the right size. I’ll hang it up by its straps, this way round, like a little basket, over my bed. I won’t damage it, grandpa, I promise. Can I have one, or two, just in case, please?” Blief is doing her…
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Undue Reticence
„What exactly do you mean by ‚It’s not working‘, Floup*? It can‘t be not working, not as such. Failure is impossible this time round. The mechanism is ultraoctople effective. Tried, tested, refined, retested, rerefined, reretested, and again, and again, and yet again. You know it, Floup, for the sake of clear waters, you were there…
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Breathalyzer
Bump. Soft left turn. Slowdown. Bigger bump. Sharp left turn. Gilbright reluctantly opens his eyes, thereby deactivating his mobile storyteller. No need for an arrival alert to tell him he’s home, his body is familiar with this sequence. The autonomous commuter pod delivers the customary message anyway: “Dear passenger, 82 Lower GT Drive reached at…
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Optiboost On
Glam take a deep breath, open the door and don’t step outside. The night is over, but there is little light. Grey curtains of rain are waving by. Yesterday’s mosaic of puddles has merged into a lake. It stretches as far as the eye can see, turning all the shelters into islands. A foaming river…
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Bolda Bookbinder
„Blinking is not going to work, Arthur. With antique visio readers, the bat of an eyelid won’t get what was considered a display when this was called tech to move on to the next section. No embedded RMT connection. That kind of sophistication wasn’t even invented in the glory days of this device. You have…
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As Advertised
Flicking awake in a panic, Paul opens his eyes only to squeeze them back shut at once. Insufferable brightness. He must be falling into that bloody sun. Horror. Despair. Terminal. Final. Overwhelming. Five thumping heartbeats later, there’s still not much happening. Paul’s body also feels much better than an ongoing sun dive would suggest. He…
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Shit Happens
„Tap water? Never no way. You‘re kidding, right?“ Liam has to ask, because honestly. And he has to look up at his boss to check if Joshua is once again trying and failing to make a joke. The senile sucker considers himself funny. It’s a total misperception, an insult to anyone with a real sense of…
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Black Friday
Gorsus taps his left temple to switch off his interface. It’s been a good forty-five minutes, half a day’s worth of linked work, he’s overdue a break. “Never more than thirty consecutive minutes” says the sky above his reclined operator armchair, in a psychedelic 3D whirl of colors. As if someone had thrown bags of…