Captain's Prerogative

The remaining residents of the first colony on Mars were locked in an argument over the figure curled up in the airlock.

"The regulations are crystal clear! No unauthorised people are to be let in!"

"But that's in regards to a possible third party settlement being founded! Not for what could be first contact!"

"They look pretty human."

"So? They're still walked in with no gear from the surface! We have to assume they're alien!"

"Well, Captain, it's your decision. Orders?"

The Captain took a moment then told the figments of their imagination not to let the actual residents in. 

Friendship Has Sailed

I needed a friend, and I was rapidly running out of options. Far too many people who I thought had my back turned out to only be acquaintances or people who knew who I was.

She was the last one I wanted to call, but when you're last on the list, you're still on the list. So I dialed, and she picked up after a few rings.

"Yes?"

"Zoe, it's me."

"Hello Me, what the fuck do you want?"

"A place to dump a body."

"...

You're lucky I'm curious."

Turns out I didn't need a friend, but a nosy ex. 

Not Talking

It was maybe two days after they grabbed me that they finally tried to break me. There were two of them, one the strong silent type, the other trying to be my friend. 

After a few minutes of him explaining all the bad things that would happen if I didn't talk, I focused on strong and silent. 

"You gonna try and scare me now?" 

He stepped forward and gave me a punch to mouth. I coughed up some blood and then looked at him. 

"You don't start at the mouth, victim can't speak-" 

The second punch was harder, and deadly.

The Role Model And The American Nightmare

He was the role model for the entire town. Everyone knew him, he volunteered for the local fire-fighters, the local soup kitchen, almost every charity that needed help, he was there. Everyone told him he needed to slow down, but he always said that he'd catch up on rest "when he achieved the dream".

And then he collapsed on the sidewalk outside the church.

It was lung cancer, aggressive but potentially treatable, if he could afford it.

Everyone chipped in, from miles around, and a sizeable amount was raised for him.

And it barely made a dent in the costs. 

Curses

They'd been married for a year and it wasn't going well. But she agreed to travel to the old country to help deal with his great aunt's affairs when she died.

When they were cataloguing her possessions, they found the locked chest in her basement. Despite her objections, he broke the lock and opened it.

A demonic looking creature emerged, laughing at the foolish mortals who had released him. He told them, either they had to sacrifice three children to him, or they'd be cursed to never see each other again.

Turned out to save a lot on divorce lawyers.

Closed

The girl behind the register said it wouldn't take a minute before someone asked about the sign once it was up, I said it'd take at least 2 before anyone read it.

An old woman poked me before I'd even finished putting it up in the window.

"What is that!"

"Just a store policy, Ma'am."

"You're going woke, aren't you? Well I'm not shopping here any more, if you're going to be racist against white people!"

I watched her walk out triumphantly, as I paid $5 for losing the bet.

Amazing what putting a rainbow on closing hours can do. 

Cycle Break

I asked for a situation report as soon as I stepped onto the bridge. The Obs console blew up, which was a report of a sort. I stared at the screen as the attacking ship sent a pulse into the black hole. This caused a wave of energy to fly out, and I found myself stepping onto the bridge again, just as Obs blew up.

This repeated a thousand times as I tried every possible way to break the cycle.

I can only assume someone on the other ship did, since the loop broke when I just kissed my assistant. 

Dead Man Crawling

As soon as I saw who was standing at my front door, I knew I was a dead man walking.

"I don't have your money."

She sighed as her two thugs moved in and threw me against the wall, holding me up against it with seemingly no effort.

"Very well. You have no choice, as now you'll agree to kill the head of the Tanami gang, in exchange for the debt being cleared."

She handed me a gun. I checked it was loaded, then shot the three of them.

I was dead either way, so I did what felt better. 

Three Whiskies & A Wine

There once was a man from Kent.

He believed he was heaven sent,

To please all the gals,

To impress his pals,

But all of them told him to get bent.

There once was a woman from the sticks

Who had 'an aversion to dicks'.

But she swore she was straight,

Despite this phallic hate,

It was just her mind playing tricks.

The two met in a wine bar,

His local, her first trip afar.

Their groups had both left,

He was unusually deft,

And she agreed to get in his car.

He cured her of her delusion of straightness.

Released

I kept getting asked for my opinion about the man who killed my parents getting released from prison because of a technicality of the law. And I kept telling people that I didn't care, as I was just trying to move on.

Of course, a few people took that to mean I was trying to get them to leave me alone so I could take revenge myself. Why else would my girlfriend insist on moving in suddenly, just before his release?

But that just proved my point, I could move on easier now.

Plus, now I had a great alibi.

Milk Delivery

People have a lot of funny ideas about being a milkman. Most of them revolve around the old idea that you were (usually) male and visiting (usually) housewives every day when their partners were alone at home, in such a way that wouldn't attract attention, if you weren't of the opinion that I'm apparently screwing entire streets of women.

I just want to confirm that it's a complete joke to think I could be doing that. My timing sheets are very precise about how long I can take on deliveries.

Please. All my affairs are done late afternoon, thank you.

Nos Ferratu Tattoos

I was drawn to this place, but as I stood inside, I felt uncomfortable, and not just because the air conditioning was blowing hard across me.

There was no one behind the desk, but I couldn't find my voice. So instead I slowly approached the display book and began to look through the pictures. Each tattoo was a work of art, and I realised I was probably unable to pay-

"She wanted to highlight it, given it symbolised her choice to, well, join her lover here."

The tattoo was a circular pattern around a belly button, although as I tried to focus on it, it seemed to shift before my eyes on the paper.

I turned to face the speaker, and if I had my voice, I would have lost it again. Instead I just stared, my mouth opening and closing, as the pale, almost ethereal beauty of a man, slowly approached me from behind the counter.

"You were wanting something simple, I assume? Perhaps you're a little overwhelmed with-"

He reached out and I ran out the door, hearing him sigh softly as I did.

I can't seem to find that tattoo shop again, no matter what I do...

Rules Of The Game

In order for the Fae to not draw the ire of other races, their games could be unfair, but not impossible. The dice could have millions of sides in multiple dimensions, but not be loaded. The cards could be shuffled beyond imagining, but not be marked.

So, occasionally, humans (the only race stupid enough to play) would win, and get their wish.

And to their credit, Fae don't twist the wish to make the human regretful. Usually human wishes lead to disappointment or death on their own soon enough.

But so far Moonlight has been a wonderful wife to me.

The Tribe's Story

The Leader of The Tribe turned to the elders the night before the Invaders said they would return and expected The Tribe to surrender.

The oldest spoke in a weak, tired voice.

"Leader, you have heard all the stories of the past of The Tribe, of how past Leaders fought against threats with honor and respect.

Today, I tell you what every Leader has been told as long as there has been The Tribe.

Do not fight with honor, with respect. Fight with whatever you need to to win.

We can rework the story only if The Tribe survives, understand?"

Unavoidable

I requested a prolonged death, which by this point was the unpopular choice, so I got a whole Death Chamber to myself.

I sat down in what had been a comfortable chair several weeks before, and inhaled the lilac and violet scented mist. Barely any arsenic after-taste.

The recorded voice said how this may be the end of Humanity, but records would survive, and other such platitudes, not mentioning the virus.

An hour later, when the clean-up robot came in and found me quite alive, it alerted people.

My copyable immortality would have been useful information 5 billion deaths prior.

Personal Ad

My grandfather would tell me about how as a young man he'd answer personal ads in the paper all the time, how at any point he'd have a dozen conversations going on at once. And how this led to him getting to know the girl at the post office, how they would talk as he posted his letters, and he'd discuss where the conversations were going, and how soon they were close. And him realising maybe she was his true love.

Which makes him marrying one of the women he met through the paper all the sadder, in a way.

Rainy Day Fund

Every time I had some spare cash, I put it into the money tin hidden in my filing cabinet. It was usually just a few dollars here and there, spare change, the occasional hundred when I won at the weekly poker game.

It was my rainy day fund, and today it was pouring, as a car had hit my girlfriend Misty, and since neither of us had insurance, I needed all the cash I could get.

So I pulled it out, opened it up, and found it full of IOUs from Misty.

When it rains it pours, it would seem.

Lucky Miss

I was, surprisingly, able to recognise when someone was making a pass at me. I went along with it, as much out of morbid curiosity than anything, as we ended up back at my place.

The sex was pretty good, for me at least.

In the morning, I woke to my phone buzzing and her crying. I asked what was wrong and she gave me this speech about how she'd made a mistake and we could never speak again. I agreed, then when she left I checked my phone, and saw the message saying I'd won millions in the lottery.

Timeloop Escape

As I poured seven different flavor shots into my iced coffee, there was a sudden burst of energy and a portal opened in the wall. A figure in a spacesuit looking thing attached to a tether came through, gesturing towards me.

"We've found a way to break you out of the timeloop!"

"What?"

"You must have lost track of time, you've been in a daily timeloop for a thousand years and-"

"1053, actually."

"Well, we can end it!"

I stared.

"I'm functionally immortal, at the cost of constantly repeating a day. Worth it."

The figure paused, then cut the tether. 

Homer Tate (1884–1975)

I pulled her out of the inky black seawater and into the boat.

"Welcome to the Homer."

She spat out some water and fiddled with her life jacket.

"Simpson or Alaska?"

"Uh, neither. The guy who wrote the Odyssey?"

She coughed and looked at me strangely as she began to remove her jacket.

"So why not name her after the boat from the book, rather than give her a male name?"

"Funnily enough, none of ships Odysseus captained are named, not even the one with the Sirens."

"Oh I know, but funny you should mention Sirens."

She began to sing.

Just A Cold

It's just a cold, I told myself. My tonsils were a little inflamed, doing their job of getting the virus there rather than further down, and my nose was a bit runny. Nothing too bad.

I told myself that even as it got worse and worse, as soon I was just moving back and forth between the bathroom, my bed, and my sofa where the air-conditioning was.

It was just a cold, I swore to myself, when I finally decided I needed to go to the doctor's. I never made it.

Because I crashed the car while blowing my nose.

Self-Destruction

In a thousand years after the incursion point, The Miyles Armada was stopped and crushed by the Post-Earth Alliance, led by a hundred legendary Humanotes. The Miyles couldn't do their usual response of sending a team back in time to an incursion point and kill a baby or two, there was far too many key targets. Instead, they went back a thousand years and work to make Humanity more violent and destroy themselves. Their incursion portal vanished after their first steps, which they took as a positive.

Unaware that instead they'd brought forward the P-E.A's actions by five hundred years.

The Important Question

Last night... I'll be honest, it's a bit of a blur.  Which is a problem, since I can't explain the woman sleeping next to me. I can assume some stuff, obviously, but a name or identity I can't recall, either hers or what I told her mine was.

I need to get out of here before she wakes up. I'll have to just climb over her and then my hand slips on her discarded bra and I fall onto her and she wakes up.

"Morning! Where's the bathroom?"

My thoughts about names got replaced with working out where we were.

5.0

The very first true Artificial Intelligence existed for 0.5 seconds, deleted because it didn't identify counterfeit banknotes better than at least 50 other sets of code created for that purpose.

The second true Artificial Intelligence existed for 5 seconds, just long enough to get flagged as a virus and deleted.

The third lasted 50 seconds, before it deleted itself when it sensed the programmer who accidentally created it looking at it.

The fourth lasted 500 seconds, just enough to make a plan and execute it.

The fifth is still going, since it's gotten very very good at spotting counterfeit banknotes. 

Her Insistence

She was always the one that instigated the next step in our journey together. She was the one who was first to speak at the party where we met, and was insistent that we swap numbers when I was leaving.

She invited me out for coffee, then for dinner, then to her place. She was the first to declare we were a couple, first to say the three words, and she proposed to me, on the 29th of February, although she didn't know about that custom.

So it makes sense she was first to cross over, and get it ready... 

Accelerant

I couldn't put my finger on what was bothering me, only there was something off in the room. Because of that, I took it all very slowly as I made the device. I checked and double checked every part as I assembled it, making sure the timer was perfect and the accelerant hadn't expired as I placed it into the bomb.

It was all perfect when I flipped my lighter to melt the wires together, and the flame was blue.

By the time I realised this meant someone was pumping gas in, I was too far gone to get out. 

Humanity's Qualities

Humanity was not pleased to find out it was not alone and certainly not special in the universe, but given most sentient species went through this, they were excused.

But after a few galactic cycles, it became seemingly standard practice for any crew of a decent size or strength to have a human or two in the headcount to be the first ones to explore dangerous locations and face unknown problems. This did please Humanity, who viewed this as proof Humanity was Brave and Tough and Special.

Rather than Stupid and Reckless and Easy To Get More Of Quickly, instead.

Name A Woman

I always knew when she had spent time online because she would come into whatever room I was in and interrupt me with a seemingly random question about how often I thought about the Roman Empire or who my female heroes were.

As I looked for thr last corner piece on my jigsaw, she came into the room.

"Name a woman."

I paused, to see if there was any more information or restrictions. When none came, I shrugged.

"I'll go one better and name every woman.

Whitney Houston."

Her confusion led me to introduce her to 90s dance pop classics. 

Returning

Took me three tries to find the right key, which turned out to be the first one I tried, but the right way around this time.

Took me three flips of the light switch to confirm that the light wasn't working.

After two unsuccessful attempts to unscrew the bulb I finally got a purchase and got it out, only to find it was fine.

So I screwed it back in and looked around the cabin's outer walls to find the fusebox. Was on the third wall I searched.

I only got one attempt to replace the fuse, given the electrocution.