Closed System

‘Think of it as seed money; use it to set up your software development business.’
‘Right, so let me get this straight, you’re one of the big companies as far as security software goes and you’re paying me to create rogue programs that may outsmart your programs?’
‘Yep. It keeps big business ticking over if there is [...]

Out Through 1: Click

Click click click, you’re just a click through. She stared him down, her eyes blank as radio whitenoise.
‘What are you doing, Spira?’
‘Spinning you.’
‘What?’
‘Tuning you to another frequency – as far as I can tell your aura is indicating that you aren’t resonating at the right spatio-temporal frequency for optimum experiential throughput.’
‘In English, please.’
‘I am giving [...]

Drags 1: Black Hole Son

This alternative they don’t call them drugs – they call them drags. Not in the same way you refer to having a drag on a cigarette either. Chemicals here are seen as anchors – they create existential drag that holds you back from full acceleration. They talk of some great singularity planted at the end [...]

Universally Acknowledged

The Temporal Relocation Officer had told her that she should have absolutely no problem with finding herself a new job, that her name would surely give her some cache. He had said he understood that it was a forced relocation and not something she had been seeking to do, but due to the stress fracture [...]

Goldfishing

Goldfishing was the latest trend – people using artificial implants to shut off some of their higher brain functions so they didn’t have to think about anything; it was mainly the memory centres and after a while it was said the damage could become permanent. That wasn’t definite – no one had been doing it [...]

Dogleg Hinterland One

Madrigal had travelled the inner spirals of Cerebellum for longer than she could remember, dodging the bird shadows with their crow-skull heads and the hungry wolf spirits so that she could hawk her dream-spice to the Quiet Sleepers. She had seen more Inn Spires than most and she never tired of the mirror-spun magic and [...]

Grit: Grass 1

The worst thing you could ever be was a grass. Grit had known more than one person who had been turned by the promise of immunity or money – it never paid enough and they were never safe enough. The police hated grasses as much as the criminals did.
Grit kept his operation streamlined but no [...]

Grit 9

For the next few days Grit asked one question and one question only: if I let you go and tell the rest of your associates to leave me alone will we be done? Thus far the answer had been in the negative. At least the ones he asked didn’t waste his time by lying. He [...]

Grit 8

Like a lot of men that have surrounded themselves with a network of people to do their thinking for them, to do their grunt work for them – they lose touch; become somewhat lazy. Granted, Grimoire was not as lazy as some that he had seen but it was all a matter of degrees. If [...]

undergrowth hack

He’d hacked Dylan’s head through one of the upload ports that he was using to stream music from one of the indie float-bugs that was touring the area. He often did shit like this – pirating someone’s wetware to get camera footage through retinas, aural data through auditory pick-ups. Wherever he could see a way [...]