Hero Sandwich

I was told that if I wanted to meet with Don Iannotti, it had to be at this hole in the wall parmigiana sandwich shop.

So I sat, eating a decent enough chicken parm sandwich, and waited.

The proprietor, cashier, and chef stood scraping onions back and forth along the hotplate.

"You waiting for Tony?"

I glanced up.

"Uh, I don't know him well enough to call him that, but yes. I presume you're on the payroll then?"

"Huh? Don't talk with your mouth full, I'm deaf, gotta read your lips."

"Oh, that explains it."

"Certainly my explanation."

"Wait, what?"

The Greatest Test Pilot In The Quadrant

I sat up one end of the bar, sipping on my drink, while further down the bar the Greatest Test Pilot In The Quadrant did plasma shots off a beautiful Mussiorian.

The observer from HQ came up to me, glancing between me and the Greatest Test Pilot In The Quadrant.

"I don't blame you for being upset. You're the one who created all these new technologies, she's just ballast, yet she gets the glory."

I laughed.

"I ain't upset. I don't die if I've made a mistake. But more importantly, I know how plasma shots feel coming out of you..."

Witch Trial

I think I took finding out my family was deep in the secret society of witches fairly well, all things considered. Although making the plate lift up and thus avoiding them wiping my memory helped calm my nerves.

But I was getting a little bored as they explained the history of witches.

"And then came the closest we ever got to being discovered, many lessons you'll need to learn from that."

"What exactly can the Salem witch trials teach us? Don't get caught?"

"Salem? That was nothing to do with us! We almost got discovered in Roswell, New Mexico, 1947."

Reversions

Dr. Identifica didn't intend the device's first test run to engulf everything outside the glass box, he just forgot an inversion in his calculations.

But he quickly informed the world, that everyone alive at that moment now had one reversion, that everyone had one chance to rewind time.

Or at least, move backwards in their own lives. Quickly, lotteries and betting on sports were shut down for obvious reasons.

But with that came so much more risk taking, given people assumed others would rewind time to save them.

Until Dr. Identifica used his reversion to not tell anyone about reversions.

Mandated For A Reason

The Frontline Enjoyment Officers were about to take the animatronics out the door when I shouted at them to stop.

I strode over and explained that Corporate Orders were quite clear. Given that the likenesses of N. Joy Mentor and the rest of the Funzone Buddies were copyrighted by the company, and more importantly must not be used in any anti-capitalist art, the animatronics needes to be destroyed beyond recognition before they were thrown out.

In retrospect, I agree that perhaps making sure they understood not to do this destruction in public, where they could be filmed, was an oversight.

Emotional Whiplash

I found her sitting in our front step, staring at the phone in her hand.

"I thought I heard you! How was the lunch?"

She slowly raised her eyes to me.

"You're constantly pulling on a rope, the pressure never out of your mind, just forever there, and then one day, the other end just vanishes, and suddenly you feel like you've got whiplash from the shift."

She showed me the message saying her horrible, manipulative mother had died.

It was a constant pulling in her life.

But it turned out to be keeping her from falling off the cliff.

Magic Eradication

Magic was, basically, a transmissible disease.

A dozen people where there when the final piece of the Oldest God was destroyed, and they all gained the ability to make magic.

They then, in turn, could in their words 'teach' people how to become magical. But really it was just a case of them deciding to make them magical.

At the peak, there were just under a million magic users.

My army worked hard for three decades, and we eliminated every one.

That ended a decade ago.

So how the hell is there now magic again?

...

We killed a Newer God?

Cost Of Betrayal

It was important to have a person like him on the payroll of any organisation, but especially a 'family'. You need someone who knows, or at least can accurately estimate, just how much things cost, and how much more it'll take to speed things up. You can't make decisions without data.

Plus, it made me feel better, every morning I asked him what it would cost to have him betray my partner, since I assumed it was the same price to turn on me. It was always very high.

But the day after my partner scored big, it apparently shrunk.

A Tiny Seed

The PR always went on about how The Genetic Depositary was the last line of defense against environmental damage, that it could rebuild the world.

But buried in the small print was all the details about how they didn't own the material, it was just held for the other owners, and how the standards for releasing everything was so high.

They at least had guidelines and rules, but after most of the world had died out, waiting a year for a reply from all clients to agree seemed like a bad idea.

Especially when one wrote back and said no.

Power Imbalance

The Grand Vizer spent over a decade of his life playing both sides to get what he wanted. With his hand on The Queen's shoulder, he convinced her to show a hard hand to the rumblings of discontent, then as the secret mastermind of the Resistance, he could make sure they rebelled just enough to repeat the need for punishment, until he was almost ready to consolidate all power in the Throne, then to have The Queen killed and rule as Regent for the idiot Prince.

And then the idiot fell off the castle wall with The Queen in tow.

Summoning Juvoleliuxor

There are six ways to summon Juvoleliuxor, The Reality Eater to a universe.

Two are no longer guaranteed, as they rely on weakening the barriers between universes via gravitational manipulation and white hole creation respectively, and Juvoleliuxor will resist due to the damage involved.

Two more are more theoretical than anything, as anyone capable of creating overlapping multiverse bubbles or using sixth-dimension algebraic geometries would be unlikely to desire Juvoleliuxor.

The fifth is the most commonly used, classic Klein time looping.

The sixth is the least used, as finding a typeset for the invitation Juvoleliuxor doesn't find gauche is hard.

Not Worth The Weight

I had intended on seeing the therapist just to shut up annoying family members, and to hopefully get, if not a tick of approval, just a professional acceptance of my attitude towards my weight.

But of course, it didn't go that way, as they wanted to discuss stuff, although they never took a stance on the issue.

Until they finally asked a pointed question.

"You don't want to be loved because of your weight, but you also don't think you deserve love because of the weight, and you don't think that's a problem?"

I was stunned they worked it out.

Alchemist's Golden Result

Every week, I took a handwagon's worth of food to the Alchemist's home. He always paid in gold, although it was always in odd forms, like it had been melted or cut up or such.

But then one week, when I got there, he was laughing and dancing around. When he saw me, he laughed and gave me a huge bag of gold.

He babbled something about having done it, and he was off to tell his patron.

I had assumed his patron was a lead dealer, but instead it was a silver dealer, and after gold became near worthless...

Loose End

After we'd gone through the plan one last time, we agreed to split up and not contact anyone involved in the heist before go time.

Everyone else had left at fifteen minute intervals, until it was just me and Becket... 'Sam'. He nodded as my time came.

I went to leave, but paused as I stared at the big paper map Bossgirl had drawn.

"You're getting rid of that, right?"

"That's the twelfth time you've asked! Here!"

He yanked it down and scrunched it up and set fire to it as I left quietly.

He didn't show for the job.

On Any Day

Whenever I saw my grandmother, she'd always ask if I was seeing someone, if I had a girlfriend. And I always told her no.

Eventually, on her birthday, as the cake was being distributed to the family, she asked in a low voice.

"Are you gay? It's ok if you are, I just want to know sweetie."

I laughed, which was obviously not a reaction she was expecting.

"No, no, Grandma. I'm straight."

"And yet you've not found a girl? After all this time? All that effort?"

"Who said I've been putting any effort in, Grandma?"

That confused her totally.

Post-Society Statistics

I didn't want to listen to the street preacher, but I had to wait there.

"And again, dear friends, the texts are clear, we are in the end of times! And what will you be doing when the world collapses?"

"I'll be dead."

I muttered it under my breath, but his hearing was better than I thought.

"But what if you are not, sir? What then?"

"Society fully collapses? I'm playing the odds, I won't survive. What makes you think you'll survive?"

"My faith-"

"Statistics beats faith."

I recall that every morning, as I awaken to this new post-society hell.

A Realistic Ending

"And then he had a stroke and dropped dead."

Their faces, so full of rapt attention, creased into confused shock as I closed the book.

"But... He just realised that he loved her! What?"

"Yeah, what the hell?"

"Language!

But anyway, it's a realistic ending. You don't always get the happy ending, especially if don't chase it and take too long to realise it's there. So grab them when you can."

They glanced at each other and sighed.

"I guess" they muttered, as I put the unfinished book away.

Well it's a better ending than the crap the author wrote! 

A Snake

I was focused on finishing my pissing while slapping the mosquitoes away from my face. So I didn't see the snake on the tree trunk until it suddenly jumped and bit into my leg.

I pulled it off me and bashed it dead against the tree, but I was quickly seeing double as I staggered back to my horse, pulling my trousers up as I went.

When I got to Demon, I could see a rider.

"Hey buddy, I've been bit by a snake, help me back to town?"

The rider lassoed me, then waited for the venom to work. 

Lie With Me

She would lie to me whenever she turned up at my door.

She would start small, saying she was just passing and thought of me. She would be swaying when she said this, and smelling of vodka and cigarettes.

Then, once she was inside my apartment, she'd move onto bigger lies, talking about how good her job was going, how well her investments were faring. Nothing too extreme or outlandish, but lies nevertheless.

And then, after sex, she always told me how great it had been, and how she loved me, totally.

I could recognise patterns of behaviour, don't worry.

C Sharp

It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon when it stopped.

I was confused for several moments as I tried to work out what had changed. I knew something was different, but I couldn't see anything that has moved an inch.

But then I realised that the note was gone. A barely audible tone, just on the edge of my hearing, that had been there my entire life, was finally gone.

Just as I began to think about it, it suddenly came back. But now, of course, since I was aware of its existence, I knew it would now drive me mad.

Any Command In A Storm

The last two operating artificial crewmembers on the starship were holding the bulkhead closed, while they stared at the last non-corrupted biological.

"We have no authority to override the command staff, you need to work out how to get the computer to fix this!"

"Sure, but how?"

"Medical staff can relieve crewmembers of command due to insanity, if you're an engineer you could rewrite the databanks?"

"I'm the cook."

"So tell the computer that the last food shipment was infected with Hansolof Spores!"

They typed it in, and the ship's biological quarantine system kicked in, and blew the ship up.

Reception Issues

I was sitting at table 19 (the Bride's second cousins and college roommates) sipping a slightly watered down whisky sour when she sauntered over and grabbed my hand. She seemed surprised when her attempt at pulling me up was met with my staying seated.

She gave me a look which, despite only meeting her an hour prior, I could easily decode.

"Come on, it's just a dance!"

"No."

"Oh come on, you want to."

"I truly don't."

She shrugged and danced off, as my uncle slapped my shoulder.

"She could have been the one!"

"She's a dancer. She clearly wasn't."

Delivery

The wave wasn't the largest he'd ever seen, but it was large enough to capsize the supertanker, the overworked and undermaintained metal breaking apart like tissue paper.

He'd gotten into a lifeboat before a wave took a bunkhead into his head and knocked him out.

He woke up on a desert island that Hollywood would reject as too unrealisticly beautiful, with a few shipping containers washed up on the sand.

Slowly, he grabbed the tool from the lifeboat and opened them.

Cans of stew. Food!

Sheets and blankets. Cloth!

Flat pack furniture. Burning materials!

Passed out illegal immigrants.

More food!

Simple Peasants

The peasants wouldn't understand basic military tactical planning, so we told them the castle needed to be on the hill so it could warm up with the sun.

The peasants wouldn't understand simple diplomatic manoeuvring, so we told them their new queen was the most beautiful woman in the world.

The peasants wouldn't understand the first thing about true value, so we told them that the Royal Court owned all, but graciously let them keep some things.

The peasants wouldn't understand rudimentary engineering, so we didn't bother locking the gate controls.

I don't understand why the peasants are attacking us.

Compression Issues

It would be the last time I ever saw her, and it was a glitchy mess. Compression artifacts, skipped frames. Enough that I couldn't decode what she was saying.

So I spent all my money and several years hiring the best in their field to clean up the file, and then after they did all they could, I hired other bests in their fields, and they filled in the gaps the best they could.

And finally, I had the video, and with a deep breath, I pressed play.

"Honey, I love you, but don't fixate on me, please, move on."

Emotional Arguments

They say that you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't use reason to arrive at. Emotional thinking can't actually be defeated by reason and logic, no matter what highly emotional 'rational' men believe.

The reverse, most people don't think about, but there's plenty of evidence to show that you can absolutely use emotional thinking to break logic.

Idealy, logic will bow to superior logic, but that's something of a pipe dream at times.

And emotional arguments are the only way to beat emotional arguments.

Thus, you should always use emotional, illogical arguments to win people over.

QED.

Two Hands

Two hands, a dark one holding a knife at a pale throat, a pale one holding a shockstick at a dark throat.

Two long seconds, as eyes met, anger and healthy respect mixing in both gazes.

Two movements, as a knife was lowered, and a shockstick was turned down.

Two words, one per mouth, the first a name in a questioning tone, the other a second name as a response.

Two more long seconds, as two minds quickly ran through various outcomes of the other goal being achieved and it's impact on their own.

Two salutes.

Two withdrawals.

Two assassinations.

The E.S.T And The Edge

She was a Gifted, born wlth Extra Sensory Telepathy. Every exploration craft of the Space Armada was supposed to have one on board, but most of them just had weather guessers and card sharks.

But I was glad she was on board as we reached the edge of the universe, as she would be able to tell me if there was anyone there.

She concentrated on the expanding edge of matter, and reached out with her mind.

The expansion halted, just as she began to scream.

Later, what she became insisted that she received a gift at that moment.

Yeah.