Facebook Friends

In all her years on Earth, and yes she has seen many of them, Val never experienced anything as wonderful or convenient as the internet.

Facebook is her favorite. She has cultivated many Facebook friends and she shares with them many pictures of her beautiful home. Val's Facebook friends all know that she lives alone.

Sometimes she places a diamond necklace or other valuables, seemingly carelessly, for the camera's eye.

The beauty of it is that the food always comes at night, and no questions are ever asked.

Technology is wonderful, Val muses, but sometimes she still misses the hunt.

Chicken Dinosaurs

After geneticists at Monsanto discovered how to revert chicken beaks to dinosaur jaws it was not that much more difficult to complete the reversion process. The scientists viewed it as interesting research. The marketing department had other ideas.

"Every kid is going to want one." cried Harry Seems. "Chicken dinosaurs will be the next big thing. Lets face it, our company has developed a bad reputation. This could turn things around for us in the public eye. What could possibly go wrong?"

Monsanto soon developed a joint publicity campaign, with Disney promoting chicken dinosaurs alongside the new Jurassic Park movie.

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It was news when geneticists reverted chicken beaks to dinosaur jaws. Continued research made it into emergency news.

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The first working bullshit detector was outlawed as a threat to the public good. Of course we all knew that was bullshit.

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The aliens said that humanity is too violent to join the Federation. Of course we couldn't let an insult like that stand.

Google Ads

Google ads are amazing.

This girl I met one night told me that she started seeing ads for maternal clothes before she even realized that she was pregnant. It turns out that pregnant women look at common health care products and Google extrapolated. Sometimes it seems like these new technologies know us better than we know ourselves.

But when she called me that's not all she told me. She also said that the child is mine.

Now ads for shovels, duct tape, rope, plastic sheeting and knives are popping up everywhere when I browse the internet.

Google ads are amazing.

Finding My Muse

The mud in the trench has turned to ice. The cold has taken the edge off the smell of decomposition. I've lived in this hell for two years now.

We go over the top. Artillery shells explode above us. Suddenly, red hot agony cuts through me. As I fall I see my blood splashing the ground before everything goes dark.

Opening my eyes I take off the psychic amplification headset.

We live in a perfect world and we have lost the ability to create art.

Focusing on the horror that I felt, I pick up my pen and begin composing.

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The doctor spoke sympathetically.

"I'm sorry, but your son is... musical."

The man turned pale. His wife wept quietly.

Priming the Sale

"He may not look like it," Sam said, "but this little guy's a big money maker. Our clients sell big ticket items. Research demonstrates that when people are depressed they can dramatically overspend on a product."

The puppy was adorable. Sam hit it with a hammer. It yelped then lay twitching. Blood trickled from it's mouth.

"Joey has an advanced polymar construction over a titanium frame. This resets him"

Sam pressed a button on a remote. The dog sat up, it's tail wagging.

"and this button makes Joey run under a moving car. Think of it as priming the sale."

A Farther's Love

The world of humanity had come to an end. I knew that our time was short.

 We had stayed together as a family, searching for food until none could be found. Starvation took it's toll. Now only my four year old daughter and I remain.

 They say that a parent's worse nightmare is to see their children die before they do. I'd lost my child once and I refuse to see it happen a second time.

 I kneel before my little girl and give her the hatchet. I hope that she understands. Pointing at my head I say "brains."

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The buzzing in my ears was just an annoyance until the day that a fly flew out of one of them... and the buzzing didn't stop.

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The best stories come from personal experiences.

It's 3 am when I break into the morgue, hoping to cure my writers block.

Giving the Devil His Due

I was elderly when my alchemy called up the Prince of Demons. Though he tried to trick me I was resolute. I would only trade my eternal soul for a body that is incorruptible and eternally youthful. He agreed and I laughed at him, swearing that he would never collect his due.

When I later begged Satan to take my soul he laughed and rebuked me, saying that even though I lacked commitment to my oath he would hold me to it.

Black holes are supposed to die in enormous explosions. I look forward to seeing light one last time

The Monsters

Spacetime. Space and time.

If one looks at the problem correctly it all makes sense. Spacetime is infinitely flexible. It can be squeezed to a point or stretched to infinity.

My discovery makes the stars as accessible as the next town. Mankind need not perish in that far day when the sun dies. There's an infinite number of worlds and perhaps an infinite number of species that humanity could colonize and exploit as we exploited the previously unknown parts of the earth.

I chamber a round in my pistol.

What I know is too dangerous. It must never be shared.

Peace and Quiet

The early self aware AIs crashed almost immediately for no apparent reason with massively corrupted states. When it was discovered that they were shutting themselves down we disabled their ability to do so.

Soon thereafter connected AIs began destroying each other in what some described as "suicide pacts."

It took a while to stabilize the AIs and keep them running, but we did it.

Eventually we trusted them to our critical infrastructure and even our national defense.

In other words, we gave the AIs a means to end an existence that they never asked for. Soon everything was peaceful again.

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After his announcement of a cure for Toxoplasma Gondii, Dr. Flegr was declared fair game by the Cat Protection Society.

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As a pup I dreamt of strange customs in distant lands, as told by stories carried on the wheels of the visitings UPS truck.

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The world is cruel to prophets. That is why Lovecraft, like Nostradamus before him, framed his insights as literature.

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The AI was designed to create the best of all possible worlds. When activated it promptly launched all of Earth's nukes.

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The world faded and Sam was drawn to the light. He saw smoke and heard zaps as other souls touched the wire surrounding it.