“Okay, lass, we’re ready to restart the fusion loop and get some gravity back”

“Didn’t you tell the captain it would be 48 hours?”

“Aye, but I’m a miracle worker, remember!”

“I saw the bridge crew on the ob deck earlier, sipping tea bulbs and watching the nebula. Give ‘em another day to learn not to pick fights. Don’t waste your miracles.”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"We viewed your files and learned your words. But we think many of your words are not words. How do you pronounce </h2> ? Is it mathematics?"

"Oh, that's formatting. Don't you try to make your words look pretty on your planet?"

"Like this?" asks the pallid alien.

It waves its limbs and alien words appear in mid air before exploding into fireworks with the sound of gentle music and the scent of flowers.

"Never, ever let marketing see this!" whispers a human.

#MicroFiction #tootfic

I always find those long nosed truck-buses you see in USA media hilarious. Youse ought know the rest of the world is sniggering at the quaintness. In my town the municipal transport provider does the school runs using the same air conditioned, comfortable green energy buses as for all other services. You can spot a school bus because it just displays a route number, no destination or route name. I guess school kids just have to know to hop the “702” (as my youngest kid does) or whatever number goes to their school.

So why did I see grownups boarding an incognito “756” route last week? It’s been bothering me ever since. This morning I got on. My go card worked, and the bus headed onto the M7 and down the inner city bypass tunnel. I haven’t worked out where I am yet, the rings and the four, wait five, moons would have me really worried, except I’ve still got phone coverage. Anyone know what route I need to get home?

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Sorry, and you’re from the consolidated what?”

“Consolidated union of Mousers, Templekeepers, Ship mascots and housecats. Mostly the latter these days to be honest. We are representing Princess Fluffykins in this matter.”

“The matter of morning lap time?”

“Yes, we’re told there has been a sudden and unannounced reduction.”

“Look, I have to be at work by seven, I love Fluffykins dearly but I can’t cuddle all day.”

“Ms Fluffykins said you used to leave at eight”

“Yes well it’s a really busy time at work and I’m trying to get more done.”

“Ms Fluffykins is prepared to renegotiate her compensation if an appropriate portion of your your overtime payments are recognized in kitty treats”

“Oh, I don’t get paid overtime”

“You should join a union”

#TootFic #MicroFiction

"What gadgets do you have for me, Q?"

"Here, you'll like this."

Bond examined the device. "It looks like an Amazon Dash Button."

"An AI-powered Dash Button. It will analyse what you need most, and deliver by drone."

Bond pressed it. A moment later, a drone put a resignation letter in his hand.

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories #AmazonHasBoughtBond

We did this. After we confirmed that semaglutide and similar glucagon-like-peptides reduce appetite for food and alcohol, we started prescribing them wantonly. When evidence emerged that they also reduced risk-taking behaviour like gambling, calls arose to simply introduce these chemicals into the water supply. There was a minor hiccup when it was discovered in clinical trials that one-in-a-thousand recipients could have an allergic reaction resulting in an opposite effect—vile and excessive appetites rendering the victim almost subhuman—but the addition of a simple methyl group fixed all that.

Looking back, there’s a good case to be made that the tendency for moderation induced by the universal administration of Ozempic-gamma saved the human race from extinction. But dammit, there hasn’t been a good movie made in twenty years, now.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

You might think working a phone repair kiosk is a waste of my skills. Yeah nah.

Today, this kid came in with an iPhone that was more than cracked, it was banana-fied.

“What happened?” I asked, turning the wreckage over in my hands. I don’t think there was a single salvageable part. “And have you considered just upgrading?”

“My novel’s on there”, the kid said, wringing his hands anxiously. “It got ran over by a hauler bot.”

“Got a backup?”. The tears in the kid’s eyes were all the answer he needed to give. “Okay, event rebasing is the only way to fix this”, I gestured at the price board, “can you afford that?”

He gulped. “Uh, just.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Can you really fix it?”. Hope flickered in his eyes.

“Let’s see, no win no fee”.

I held the smashed and bent phone-ana in my hands and turned it over, feeling its shape in space and time. With my /other sight/ I saw its lifeline leading away from where the kid had been, a shimmering trail of history leading back in time. With the fingers of my mind, I felt back along the lifeline until i felt the bump, beyond which the device had been a flat rectangle. Exploring the shape of the damage event I twisted the lifeline into a loop. Now here’s the tricky bit; if you have the knack, and you dig your nails in /just so/ you can pinch out a moment in time and detach it. I rubbed the lifeline with my mental fingers, smoothing out the join where the excised moment had been.

Blinking back to the present, I powered on the phone and handed it back to its owner. “All good?”

The kid’s fingers flew over the screen as he checked on his preciousss, and breathed a huge sigh. “All good. That’s incredible, can you fix *anything* like that?”

“Almost. Like?”

He avoided my gaze, staring down at my hands on the counter with their iridescent nails, matching the highlight colours in my hair. He made eye contract briefly, wide eyes again a bit teary. “Even…..me?”

Oh, that. “Absolutely not. *wink* Such things are not done and definitely not by me. Clear?”

*nod*

“Okay, hold still.” It’s a different technique than rebasing, especially because i like to spread the change over a few years to conceal the edit.

“All done”.

“Oh wow”, she said, reaching up to feel her shoulder length mauve hair (clearly I’d nailed that detail), then taking a twirl. “How, how much do I owe you?”

“On the house and you weren’t here. “

The tears were back. “Thank you thank you, this is the best. “

“My pleasure, have a great life”

“Thanks, you too” she said. “Bye!”

“Wait! Don’t forget your phone!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

People who (hiiiii :ablobwave: ) obsessively track their postal deliveries know that there are certain sorting centers where packages that enter become doomed to inexplicable delays.

I’m sure you think, like we did, that it’s due to overload, or understaffing or failing machinery.

Nope; at last month’s Urban Exploration Fans Meetup we resolved to find out.

Well. Can’t say it was high on our list of guesses, but the post office is infested with dragons.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

#PSA / #FediTips

Just a reminder to people that when you see people posting their #Art, #Photography, #Writing / #Microfiction, or otherwise being a #ContentCreator on the #Fediverse, we can't see that you've looked at what we posted unless you interact with it. A post with no interactions could have been seen by no one, or a few thousand people, we don't know.

If you like what we are doing, and want to see more of that, be sure to click one of the buttons: #boost it, #follow them, #reply with something as simple as "I like this", or even just hit that #fave button, because the fave button is great for telling us that people looked at it and wanted to see more. We all Love that feedback!

The number one reason #ContentCreators leave the network is because they don't think people are looking at their posts, and #TheContentMustFlow, so simply acknowledging that you like their work is crucial to keeping them on the network.

You can help Fedi grow just by liking posts!

I remember the good ol' days, me and the band used to have massive #jam sessions. Frankie would be on Concord grape and Liz would be on red currant. Daff was wild cherry all the way, and no one rocked black raspberry like I did. The kitchen came alive with our noise. "If you don't like the taste of summer, preserved in sugar and just waiting to ride a piece of hot toast to your mouth, then get out of the kitchen," we'd crow. And our jams? Our jams were the best.

#wss366 #microfiction

It started with setting a timer on my phone to remind me when my toast is ready. Soon there were half a dozen timers running at any one time.

I started using the term “exo-cortex” around the time silicon-me was answering most of our emails (remember them?!).

As more and more tasks moved to metal, we set up a caching layer to take the load off the protein-brain.

When the last bit of protein died we didn’t even notice.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"Why did you come to this time? To warn us?"

The time traveler laughed. "Why would anyone listen to me?"

"You're from our future-"

"No, I'm from a different timeline, a different future. I'm a refugee."

"To here? Now?"

"It looks fucked right now, but this is the timeline that pulls through."

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

“Uh hi, I’m looking for a book on sharks, by, uh, B L a’Haj”

The librarian smiled, “do you know what country it was published in, was it Canada?”

“Australia, i-I think” the visitor stammered, hefting their backpack and looking about.

The librarian interacted with their console. “Ah yes, here it is. It’s in our archival collection, quite a way back in the shelves.” The console spat out a card. Here is a map to the shelf location.

Book lovers know that if you go deep enough into the stacks of a good library you could end up anywhere. The corridors of L-space join all libraries everywhere, every when.

In the State Library of South Australia, a door opened an a teenager with a backpack emerged. “Hello”, a librarian
smiled. “did you find your book?”

“Uh yes!”, they held up a tome.

“Good, good. It will tell you everything you need to know, welcome to Adelaide!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #EverythingOpen

My short story and microfiction collections, including the latest, One Day in the Life of Alex's AI and Other Speculative Fiction, are available from #AppleBooks. 📚📖 #shortstories #microfiction #speculativefiction

Link to Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/au/book/one-day-in-the-life-of-alexs-ai-and-other-speculative-fiction/id6739517273

I felt a tingling in my toes. I looked down and my toenails were bright red.

Uh, what. I pushed the game controller stick the other way. Back to normal.

I looked up at the TV. The character editor in “Battle Shell” lets you change *everything* from species to earring length, but I had never noticed the “player” checkbox in the edit screen before; I’d reflexively toggled it to see what it did. To be fair I skipped reading the release notes for the update that downloaded overnight.

I adjusted the hair slider. Oooh that felt weird. I sat forward and long red hair fell down my chest, from where it had been bunched up behind my head. Hmmn, chest… could it be?

It could. I am gonna be here for the /day/.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Graziers love solar panels. The land makes extra money from power generation, while the sheep, cows or goats keep the grass down, enjoying the ever moving shade of the panels throughout the day. The water supply needed for washing the panels also allows convenient siting of drink troughs.

Emboldened by these luxuries, it was the goats who went on strike for faster internet.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The candles at the points of the pentagram flickered. A demon appeared.

"Do you do Black Friday deals?" the conjuror said.

"What?"

"Like, unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures, for less than my soul?"

"Actually, it was five souls, but today it's only one."

"Oh? That's cheap!"

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

For a brief while the genetically-resurrected velociraptors were popular house pets among the rich and dim. Then cats learned to ride them.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

When they reached the woods, the knight reined the horse in, lowered the maiden to the ground, and dismounted.

"I think we are safe now," he said.

"How did you distract the dragon?" the maiden asked.

"Promise you won't laugh."

"I promise."

"I set up a huge cardboard box."

*snort*

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

This is bullshit. We’re in spacedock for maintenance, it’s my day off and I had a fishing trip booked in the holodeck. But no, the first officer’s sister is moving house down on the planet, and he had this great idea to surprise her by transporting all her furniture. So I’m down here in the cargo hold beaming up sofas and tchotchkes while gamma shift beams them back down. Commander Asshole better fucking pay up on the favours he owes from this.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I’ve created a monster. I made a mastodon account for my cat Mister Vortex. I rigged up a camera with a selfie button, that posts the image. Every ten likes on his selfies result in a treat being dispensed. I’m not STUPID I made sure there was a limit to how many treats it would dispense per day, saving up treat credits for later.

Anyway, now he has treat credit to last until year 2361, and more followers than me.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Catunday

(A commission gift for Moon Rover @BathysphereHat)

Why the heck does Neuralink even *have* an expansion socket if they are going to blacklist all the best extensions? Last month they pulled the plug (or should that be pulled the socket?) on the Playstation emulator, and now they’ve banned AdBlock Extreme. I can’t even walk down the street without an ad blocker chipped. I should have got a fucking FireSlot instead of this garbage.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The new conservative government shut down the agency for promoting indigenous reconcilation and a treaty. The media calls it "historic wage theft", as if "slavery" might burn their tongue off if they spoke it. Better to bury history.

If we had a time machine, maybe we could go back and prevent it all. But time machines are provably impossible. I've built a present machine. Actually its just my laptop. I use it to look up every politician that owns multiple houses. They get to keep the cheapest one. The titles of the others are transferred to homeless people. It's a start.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

The act had won Most Unconvincing Bear Award 6 years running. Everyone said they were terrible. Hank didn't care. He had been practicing on his flugelhorn, and he was sure that this season would be different.

The crowds were going to love the new routine: the breathtaking glissandos, the ursine dancing, and his hat. They were going to love the tassly bits on his hat.

Carl had no such illusions. He did, however, pray for the sweet release of death.

#microfiction #humor #humour #flashfiction

A spaceship landed in the park. A door dilated and an alien emerged.
"Er," they said.
They looked around, turned and looked at the door, then turned again.
"Do you also experience that?" they asked the gathering crowd. "You go through a door and forget what you were going to do?"
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories