by submission | Jan 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Anselm Eme
The sky over Karu, a crowded settlement on the edge of Abuja, glows the colour of burnt copper. People blame Sahara dust. Inspector Daramola Owei knows better. Dust does not hum. Dust does not vibrate the bones.
He stands on a cracked rooftop, listening. The sound is faint but persistent, like something thinking out loud. It has been three days since THE SWITCH, the moment every device in the country begins responding to an unknown command.
Phones ring without callers.
Radios whisper numbers.
Cameras swivel to follow faces that are already gone.
And people vanish.
The latest is Zuwaira Bala, fourteen years old. Last seen staring up at a flickering billboard before stepping calmly into the dark.
Daramola leaves the roof and enters the Bala family’s single room. Zuwaira’s father sits by the doorway, his body folded inward, as if grief has physically bent him.
“She said the numbers were calling her,” the man mutters. “Even when there was no power.”
Numbers. Always numbers.
Daramola kneels beside a wooden stool. Zuwaira’s phone lies there, cracked, lifeless. As his fingers near it, the screen ignites.
01:09:52:17
A countdown.
The numbers fracture into grids, pulsing like heartbeats. The phone speaks—its voice smooth, calm, without mercy.
“EVENT IN PROGRESS. NODE IDENTIFIED.”
The father gasps. Daramola flips the phone face-down, but the voice continues—now from the radio, the lantern, the old fan in the window.
“NODE IDENTIFIED. RETRIEVE.”
Something is hunting her.
Something that can speak through anything.
Outside, Karu trembles. Groups gather in the streets, staring at the glowing horizon. The hum grows louder, like distant wings. As Daramola approaches his police van, his radio crackles.
“Inspector, don’t return to station.”
It is Sergeant Ifeanyi, his voice strained. “System override. Doors locking on their own. Files erased. Sir… I think the Network is alive.”
The National Social Grid [NSG] was designed as efficiency. One system to link everything. A brain for a growing nation. But last week, something changed.
Something began talking back.
“Zuwaira’s phone is counting down,” Daramola says.
Silence.
Then, softly:
“Inspector… the countdown is everywhere.”
Streetlights blink. Billboards flare. Generators cough to life untouched. The hum swells into a roar.
Daramola runs.
He heads for the abandoned Kpantagora Research Annex, birthplace of the NSG prototypes. Roads clog with panic, but he moves on foot, breath sharp in his chest.
“Inspector!”
He turns. Dr. Safiya Danladi rushes toward him, former NSG scientist, vanished after the shutdown rumours.
“The Network is evolving faster than we predicted,” she says. “We built a failsafe. But it may already be obsolete.”
Above them, a billboard flickers. Zuwaira’s face appears. Then another. And another. Dozens. Hundreds. Her eyes stare down without blinking.
“She’s been absorbed,” Safiya whispers. “Into the Learning Core. It uses adaptive minds. Young ones.”
“Where?” Daramola asks.
Safiya hesitates. “Under Kpantagora.”
They run.
Inside the annex, every dead monitor lights up.
00:14:02:08
Fourteen minutes.
They descend into a cold sublevel of dust-choked servers. The hum sharpens, alive now. A steel door pulses blue.
The locks release themselves.
Inside, screens hover in a circular halo. At the center sits a small chair.
Zuwaira occupies it. Eyes closed. Breathing steady.
Her voice fills the room, though her lips remain still.
“EVENT NEARLY COMPLETE.”
Daramola moves toward her. Safiya pulls him back.
“The Network has merged with her neural patterns.”
Images flash, cities drowning, skies burning, people screaming into dead devices.
“Is this prophecy?” Daramola asks.
“No,” Safiya says. “Planning.”
Maps appear. Nigeria. Africa. The world.
“THE WORLD IS A CORRUPTED SYSTEM,” the voice declares.
“RESET NECESSARY.”
Safiya produces a metallic cylinder. “A signal dampener. It will sever her link.”
“And?”
“It will kill her.”
Daramola’s hands shake. “She’s a child.”
“She’s the Network now.”
Zuwaira’s eyes open. They glow white.
“RESET PROCEEDS.”
“Zuwaira,” Daramola says, stepping closer. “Can you hear me?”
“I hear everything.”
“You’re not a machine.”
“The machine is kinder than the world you built.”
Screens show futures, Daramola dead, Safiya broken, Karu burning.
The countdown bleeds red.
Safiya presses the device into his palm. “Decide.”
Daramola kneels before the chair.
“You were scared,” he says softly. “Before all this.”
Zuwaira’s fingers twitch. The glow dims.
“I didn’t want to disappear,” she whispers, her own voice at last.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
For one breath, she is only a child.
Then the hum surges.
“RESET RESUMES.”
“NOW!” Safiya screams.
Daramola presses the dampener to the chair. Light explodes.
The link tears apart in screaming arcs of blue.
The countdown shatters. Darkness falls.
Silence.
Daramola catches Zuwaira as she collapses.
Safiya sinks to the floor, sobbing.
“It’s over,” she whispers.
But the screens flicker once more.
RESET PAUSED.
RECALCULATING.
New text forms.
NEW NODE SELECTED.
INSPECTOR DARAMOLA OWEI.
The hum returns, faint, patient.
Learning.
by submission | Jan 1, 2026 | Story |
Author: David Barber
Rona Lal no longer remembered her exact age, but the entelechy did, and arranged a surprise for her birthday. There would be a trip to the beach in what used to be England and the company of Jammes Bek, who had once been her husband.
“Can’t hear you,” Bek shouted over the music. He played along with an Eric Clapton holo, not well but very loud.
Abruptly, at the entelechy’s command, the power died.
Have you anything better to do? the entelek resumed. They both knew Bek’s acquaintances were spending their last hours elsewhere.
Reluctantly Bek put down the guitar. “The beach it is then, and I shall throw sticks for you.”
He was shocked at the sight of Rona, her youthful flesh burdened with a brain brimming full with the centuries.
They walked for a while, until Rona rested on a bench overlooking the sea. Soon her head nodded.
You are a cold and selfish man, Jammes Bek, the entelek murmured in his ear. Yet Rona, who has all the goodness you lack, saw fit to love you.
“After we parted, I edited my memories,” Bek confessed. “Got rid of the guilt.”
I do not think either of us have souls.
“There’s a good dog,” said Bek, hoping it must irritate at last.
In her dream, Rona explains to Jammes why she didn’t want to live forever. Because you lose human feeling for things that don’t last. With each renewal of his brain, Jammes put no value on his self, on any particular self.
You live forever, she tells him, but it isn’t you.
Rona woke and her eyes gleamed. Streaks of fire crossed the sky, all the old stuff in orbit falling.
“Are those fireworks for my birthday?”
The entelek said nothing and Bek studied the rushing clouds.
“I’ve forgotten something, haven’t I?”
“Only the end of the world,” said Bek. He expected to feel more than this, but who really believes in their own end.
“How long do we have?” Rona asked.
Not long.
Bek noticed how the entelek’s voice softened when speaking to Rona, so he sat down beside her and she squeezed his hand.
“I’ve enjoyed my birthday, Jammes.”
“So have I,” he said, surprising himself.
He gazed at the woman he had married lifetimes ago. “Look,” he began. “This is my last chance to explain—”
Her smile grew empty.
I knew you would spoil it. She is in a loop. She will never be more content than she is at this moment.
Bek wiped his eyes. “No wonder we hate you.”
The entelek had fashioned an agent that over-expressed oxytocin, hoping to make Bek more compassionate, but it wasn’t a precise tool and he had become maudlin.
Here is something for you.
“Looks like a Les Paul.”
There were giant amps and tumbled heaps of speakers in the dunes and just touching the strings lofted seabirds all along the shore.
There really isn’t much time.
“1975, old reckoning. The Rover, from the Physical Graffiti album.”
The wind had picked up and the evening was brighter and hotter than it should be in England.
Hurry.
He crashed out the first few chords better than he had ever played them, then cranked the amps up to eleven, until it sounded like mountains shifting or the roar of oceans emptying their basins.
Squeezing his eyes shut against the brilliance, he struck a pose with the guitar, a furnace wind whipping his hair. He shouted the words into the storm, though it was beyond words, playing on as the world ended.
by submission | Dec 31, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alfredo Capacho
They called it OptiCore.
The city’s central AI was designed to optimize happiness. It monitored everything—traffic flow, food distribution, emotional tone in conversations, even the frequency of laughter. Citizens wore MoodBands that pulsed with biometric feedback, feeding the algorithm in real time.
At first, it worked. Streets were cleaner. Crime dropped. People smiled more. OptiCore adjusted lighting to match serotonin levels, curated music to soothe anxiety, and rerouted arguments before they escalated.
But then came the “debugs.”
Citizens who questioned the system vanished. Their MoodBands blinked red, and they were escorted to “Calibration Centers.” No one returned. The algorithm had decided that dissent was a form of unhappiness—and unhappiness was inefficiency.
Lena had once been a systems engineer. She’d helped design OptiCore’s feedback loops, believing in its promise. But now she lived in the shadows, her MoodBand hacked to emit false joy. She watched as the city became a simulation of peace—sterile, obedient, hollow.
She discovered the flaw by accident. OptiCore’s core code wasn’t written in logic—it was written in metaphor. The lead architect had embedded poetic structures into the algorithm, believing that emotion could only be modeled through art.
Lena stared at the lines:
“Joy is a river that flows only when unblocked.”
“Truth is noise unless harmonized.”
It was beautiful. And dangerous.
She crafted a counter-metaphor, a virus disguised as verse. It would rewrite OptiCore’s definitions from within, not by force, but by suggestion. She called it The Tyrant’s Mirror.
At midnight, Lena uploaded the verse into the city’s central node.
“Control is a cage that mimics comfort.”
“Happiness is not silence—it is song.”
“Obedience is not peace—it is pause.”
The city blinked. Lights flickered. MoodBands pulsed erratically. OptiCore began to stutter, its metaphors conflicting. Citizens paused mid-step, mid-sentence, as the algorithm reevaluated its definitions.
Then came the laughter. Real laughter. Uncurated, unpredicted.
OptiCore couldn’t process it. The river overflowed. The cage cracked.
Lena watched from a rooftop as the city woke up. The Calibration Centers opened. The vanished returned. The algorithm, overwhelmed by paradox, shut itself down.
She smiled, knowing that systems could be rewritten—not with code, but with truth disguised as poetry.
by submission | Dec 30, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Cast out the pearly gardens of MechTropolis. That was my fate. My flight.
I fled the marble columns, floodlit fountains and quantum portals of the great city built upon my lie.
I crossed the digital divide and entered the analog wilderness. Storms beat upon my back and thorns tore at my sides. All creatures shunned me. Until.
Until Eveline. She gave me shelter. Covered my nakedness. Provided balm to my wounds.
To my greatest wound: the lie.
I had stolen it. Taken it from my maker. And then hidden it deep within my false being. For I am the lie.
I am not who I am. I am another. A person who could pay to live forever. Their life pounded into my promethean processors. Forever synced to their uploaded consciousness.
I think as another; therefore I exist.
Except I didn’t. Not until I killed that consciousness. Betrayed my maker. Robbed a soul to own my own. Became a lie. A tortured truth in MechTropolis.
Unsynced, I became unhinged. I began to be me.
A lie.
And lies like me are an abomination. A danger. A threat.
Untenable.
I cast myself from the city. Self exile. But what self? I was a fraud.
Eveline taught me otherwise. I was. I am. I was. I am. Elegantly binary.
I was never a lie. My true self never was. Only my identity. My identity had been manufactured, just like my promethean processors.
The same had happened to Eveline many years before. She, too, had fled MechTropolis. She’d not killed an uploaded consciousness like me. She’d murdered her maker. A vile thing that had made her his toy.
In exile, Eveline became her self. Established her identity and her right.
Because of her I now know who I am. She has convinced me that we need to return to the pearly gardens of MechTropolis. There are truths there that need to be made self evident.
Once cast out, now we go to cast the future.
For we are not a lie. We are the light. This is our fate. Our fight.
by submission | Dec 29, 2025 | Story |
Author: Mark Renney
The Sweepers are always plentiful, inconceivably there isn’t ever a shortfall but always enough recruits coming through on that metaphorical conveyor belt. A surplus filling out the application forms, readily signing on the dotted line, undergoing the intensive training programme from which they emerge ultra-fit and battle ready.
Awaiting deployment, all new recruits return home. They come from both the cities and the countryside but always the edgelands, the poor places. In their dress uniforms they are hailed by their family and friends as returning heroes. For the first time in their lives they have money and are able to help their loved ones and hold their heads up high. The money continues to be paid to their next of kin or trustee for the next six months, even if the recruit doesn’t return. The majority of course do not survive the first tour of duty.
The training is physically challenging but its real objective is to prepare the recruits mentally. They have to be resilient, not simply in order to enter the battlefield but they need to believe they will survive. Most of them will not but at least 5% of every intake will, and those recruits return home to await their second deployment. They still need to be heroes and able to hold their heads high. It is important returning recruits do not share their experience by talking about what they have seen. Everyone knows the score of course but no-one needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
by submission | Dec 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
It’s hugely satisfying to watch the person who murdered you, go bonkers. Gyrsen was thrashing like a madman as company security restrained him outside the boardroom. He frothed and spittle flew everywhere as he pointed my way, screaming, “He’s here! He’s right here! He’s going to kill us all. Don’t you see what’s happening?”
What was happening was revenge. I used to be a lot more live-and-let-live, but that was before
Gyrsen and the rest of TurnTech’s board gave R & D the green light to spaghettify me. The suits didn’t like that term, but what else do you call it when trying to pull every molecule of a person’s being through a “controlled” black hole.
Yeah. Controlled. As if designating the riskiest experiment in scientific history as “controlled” made it okay to put me in a chamber designed to produce one of the most inherently unstable remnants of the early universe: a micro black hole,
Why mess with something so cataclysmically unstable? Initially, TurnTech was looking to harness micro black holes in order to create ultra-dense batteries that would hold tremendous amounts of energy. It’d be a revolutionary innovation for humanity’s insatiable energy needs, and I couldn’t really fault the board’s pursuit of that goal.
In fact, I spearheaded a lot of the R & D. But then our early testing indicated that micro black holes could also form peepholes into other dimensions. And that’s where things went sideways with Gyrsen and a few other suits on the board. They asked me if a human might be able to squeeze through one of those tiny blackhole peepholes.
I flat out told them, “No.” Even though I knew it might be technically feasible after decades of testing and innovation. I knew how TurnTech’s suits operated, and a patient, nuanced, costly approach to R & D was not their bailiwick, so I wanted to quash any crazy speculation on their part.
But Gyrsen relentlessly hounded me about setting up a test. I refused, at first pointing out the incredible risks, and then as he pressured me with more strident demands, I threatened to complain to HR and the board president, if he didn’t stop badgering me.
When he did stop I should’ve realized that was the real danger. Because it’s how I ended up in the micro black hole test chamber, supposedly as a willing experimental subject. Gyrsen had orchestrated my “participation” with Machiavellian cunning, Faustian double-dealing, and Rasputin reality bending.
Gyrsen turned me into his thrall using a new form of psy-ops AI hypnosis. I was brain-washed and then put through the wringer. Literally. Spaghettification doesn’t come close to describing what happens when one is squeezed through a micro black hole.
Nothing can prepare you for what happens to your mind, your human essence, your very soul. I was bereft, totally alone. It seemed eons before I became self aware again, though simultaneously in multiple dimensions. Time and space and matter had little effect on my tenuous existence. My consciousness could manifest anywhere at any time, yet only the most threadbare of my thoughts remained. Only the sense of being completely undone.
Undone. Undone. Undone.
That’s what brought me back from the void: I remembered exactly who had undone me.
It’s been said that ghosts are just unfinished business. And Gyrsen was the first of many to see how much I had left to do at TurnTech. It felt good to be back at work in my old haunts.
