In this episode meet Mirriam, our isolated hacker heroine who wants her AI companion Pancake to bring her morning coffee. Simple request, right? Except something keeps blowing up her delivery packages with weaponized suicide drones, because apparently even in the cyberpunk future, getting stuff shipped is a nightmare.
What starts as a normal daily routine devolves into something more. Please enjoy this short story dripping with world building and isolation. I hope you like it!
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Miriam rolled over and with long practised habit blindly grabbed the earbuds off the bedside table and burrowed them deep into her ears.
‘Good Morning Miriam’ Pancake whispered in her ears, her personal AI knew that anything above a soft voice too early in the morning would get it swiftly modified.
‘No update on the Avon Advance Project, no outstanding jobs for today either’. She felt a mixture of old annoyance at the first and relaxed at the second. Pancake was getting better.
The smell of fresh coffee was finally enough to get her to open her eyes and begin pretending she was……
On this weeks Short Story episode instead of humans discovering aliens, we’re the cosmic equivalent of that neighbor everyone talks about but no one wants to invite to the cook out. We’re simultaneously too violent, too stupid, and too inventive for our own good—which honestly sounds about right.
Hopefully this story captures the absurdity of bureaucracy (even cosmic bureaucracy apparently involves endless meetings and committee votes) while building to a moment that changes everything. It’s political satire meets sci-fi with a healthy dose of “humans are space orcs” energy.
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“Not this motion again” Cruurqrix roared, his large lupine mouth giving extra weight to his anger. ‘The Humans are just too stupid to be let in. They need another few hundred years before they are ready.’
The millions of viewers were mostly spamming disagreement in the main log. The Intergalactic Council sessions were usually a dull, boring affair and only the most invested bothered to watch the holo’s beamed to all the worlds in the Federation.
Whenever Humans were involved the viewership exploded. I mused that the driving force behind a lot of these motions to make contact with the Humans were……
This week on Dave Wright’s Podcast, please enjoy the next episode “Bren and Canen”. A short vignette exploring the back ground of two of the characters from my Sol Novel.
Two brothers,; the Barley Boys, Bren and Canen, are the last survivors of their crew. Perseus, a deadly Super, has systematically hunted down anyone with abilities, and now he’s coming for them. With nowhere to run, the brothers must put aside their rivalry to face an enemy far beyond their league.
Their shared Super ability allows them to draw strength from each other at great cost – making it both their……
This is a Short Story about the past of Bren and Canen, known as the Barley Boys. They featured in my Sol Novel. You do not need to have read that first (although, of course you should!) it stands alone.
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“Bren.”
“Canen.”
The Boys stared at each other as the boilermakers were dropped between them. They both slammed the whiskey and held up two fingers for another. The young man who was waiting tables had not even turned around, he knew the Boys and their drinking habits. The young man gathered up the two shots and headed back to get them replacements.
“Not dead……
In the fractured world of Arcadia, where superhuman abilities are both a blessing and a curse, some powers carry consequences more devastating than any external threat. Levi, the Twisted Mirror, discovers this brutal truth when his unique ability—creating and reabsorbing mirror copies of himself—transforms from a tactical advantage to a personal nightmare. The moment he touches his newborn son Sean, erasing an entire potential life in an instant, reveals the terrifying cost of power unchecked by understanding or restraint. Through Sol’s haunted perspective, we witness a profound meditation on identity, the fragility of existence, and the monstrous potential that lurks……
Present Day
Haze dropped another pint in front of me, joining the growing ranks of empties. He was wise enough to keep moving. He knew when a man needed to be left alone.
The alcohol barely buffering the swarm of memories that were not my own fighting for attention. I was not feeling any guilt for this drinking session, I had earned it. I felt in the depths of my soul that if I tried to fight it right now I would shatter. I also knew that come tomorrow I would be able to scrape myself together and start making good on……
In the fractured world of Arcadia, where superhuman abilities are both a blessing and a curse, some powers carry consequences more devastating than any external threat. Levi, the Twisted Mirror, discovers this brutal truth when his unique ability—creating and reabsorbing mirror copies of himself—transforms from a tactical advantage to a personal nightmare. The moment he touches his newborn son Sean, erasing an entire potential life in an instant, reveals the terrifying cost of power unchecked by understanding or restraint. Through Sol’s haunted perspective, we witness a profound meditation on identity, the fragility of existence, and the monstrous potential that lurks……
Present Day
The body of Sol fell to the ground, blood pooling around his head.
Sol, quickly covered the distance to the stunned Three.
“Hot fucking damn! You! You’re a fucking Levi too!?” Threes’ voice was hissed through gritted teeth barely able to contain it. His eyes flickering wildly between the corpse on the ground and the man now standing next to him.
“No.” I bit back at him “I am no Levi. My name is Sol”
Watching for the tensed muscles, a cue Three would try something, anything. I would if I was in his position. However I was hoping the shock of seeing……
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