#macrofiction — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #macrofiction, aggregated by home.social.
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Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.
-
Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.
-
Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.
-
Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.
-
Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.
-
Dear Fediverse,
what's the limit of microfiction?
Is there a tag for more than microfiction but less than a true shortstory?
Is there a tag for threaded stories?
-
Dear Fediverse,
what's the limit of microfiction?
Is there a tag for more than microfiction but less than a true shortstory?
Is there a tag for threaded stories?
-
Dear Fediverse,
what's the limit of microfiction?
Is there a tag for more than microfiction but less than a true shortstory?
Is there a tag for threaded stories?
-
Dear Fediverse,
what's the limit of microfiction?
Is there a tag for more than microfiction but less than a true shortstory?
Is there a tag for threaded stories?
-
Dear Fediverse,
what's the limit of microfiction?
Is there a tag for more than microfiction but less than a true shortstory?
Is there a tag for threaded stories?
-
June stared at the mirror and sighed. She looked as tired as she felt. The stim levels on her autodoc were running alarmingly low, and she had dialed everything down as far as she could, but the stress was wearing her down. It had taken days until the cooperative had greenlit Marga's plan to erase June from her current employer's systems.
"Won't be clean though." Bjorn had said. "People have active knowledge of you 'cause we tried to buy you out."
June pulled herself away from the mirror and lurched into the meeting room, where Rip pushed a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. She mustered a thankful smile.
"I didn't know that future shaping space discoveries would involve so much paperwork and politics." She said after her first big swig.
"Yeah, you'd think that would be different with the rogues and renegades," Rip pondered, "but bureaucracy is everywhere."
Marga entered with a bowl of popcorn and set it on the table and sat down next to June. The big screen lit up, showing a map of the seven gates and surrounding systems.
"Like every good capitalist conglomerate, your employer has locations near every gate, so attacks need to be synchronized across all locations." A smattering of red dots appeared on the map.
"That'll take more days." June's heart sank.
"Nah." Marga flicked a popcorn into her mouth. "I set up everything immediately. It executed as soon as the auth came in; we're just waiting for the last relay."
All the dots except those around gate seven turned green, and a big countdown with a little more than twenty seconds appeared next to the map.
Silence descended upon the room as everyone stared at the ticking numbers, occasionally pierced by the crunch of popcorn. When the countdown hit zero, the last red dots turned green.
Cheers and popcorn fountains erupted. June sighed with relief, smiled, and stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
13/X
-
June stared at the mirror and sighed. She looked as tired as she felt. The stim levels on her autodoc were running alarmingly low, and she had dialed everything down as far as she could, but the stress was wearing her down. It had taken days until the cooperative had greenlit Marga's plan to erase June from her current employer's systems.
"Won't be clean though." Bjorn had said. "People have active knowledge of you 'cause we tried to buy you out."
June pulled herself away from the mirror and lurched into the meeting room, where Rip pushed a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. She mustered a thankful smile.
"I didn't know that future shaping space discoveries would involve so much paperwork and politics." She said after her first big swig.
"Yeah, you'd think that would be different with the rogues and renegades," Rip pondered, "but bureaucracy is everywhere."
Marga entered with a bowl of popcorn and set it on the table and sat down next to June. The big screen lit up, showing a map of the seven gates and surrounding systems.
"Like every good capitalist conglomerate, your employer has locations near every gate, so attacks need to be synchronized across all locations." A smattering of red dots appeared on the map.
"That'll take more days." June's heart sank.
"Nah." Marga flicked a popcorn into her mouth. "I set up everything immediately. It executed as soon as the auth came in; we're just waiting for the last relay."
All the dots except those around gate seven turned green, and a big countdown with a little more than twenty seconds appeared next to the map.
Silence descended upon the room as everyone stared at the ticking numbers, occasionally pierced by the crunch of popcorn. When the countdown hit zero, the last red dots turned green.
Cheers and popcorn fountains erupted. June sighed with relief, smiled, and stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
13/X
-
June stared at the mirror and sighed. She looked as tired as she felt. The stim levels on her autodoc were running alarmingly low, and she had dialed everything down as far as she could, but the stress was wearing her down. It had taken days until the cooperative had greenlit Marga's plan to erase June from her current employer's systems.
"Won't be clean though." Bjorn had said. "People have active knowledge of you 'cause we tried to buy you out."
June pulled herself away from the mirror and lurched into the meeting room, where Rip pushed a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. She mustered a thankful smile.
"I didn't know that future shaping space discoveries would involve so much paperwork and politics." She said after her first big swig.
"Yeah, you'd think that would be different with the rogues and renegades," Rip pondered, "but bureaucracy is everywhere."
Marga entered with a bowl of popcorn and set it on the table and sat down next to June. The big screen lit up, showing a map of the seven gates and surrounding systems.
"Like every good capitalist conglomerate, your employer has locations near every gate, so attacks need to be synchronized across all locations." A smattering of red dots appeared on the map.
"That'll take more days." June's heart sank.
"Nah." Marga flicked a popcorn into her mouth. "I set up everything immediately. It executed as soon as the auth came in; we're just waiting for the last relay."
All the dots except those around gate seven turned green, and a big countdown with a little more than twenty seconds appeared next to the map.
Silence descended upon the room as everyone stared at the ticking numbers, occasionally pierced by the crunch of popcorn. When the countdown hit zero, the last red dots turned green.
Cheers and popcorn fountains erupted. June sighed with relief, smiled, and stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
13/X
-
June stared at the mirror and sighed. She looked as tired as she felt. The stim levels on her autodoc were running alarmingly low, and she had dialed everything down as far as she could, but the stress was wearing her down. It had taken days until the cooperative had greenlit Marga's plan to erase June from her current employer's systems.
"Won't be clean though." Bjorn had said. "People have active knowledge of you 'cause we tried to buy you out."
June pulled herself away from the mirror and lurched into the meeting room, where Rip pushed a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. She mustered a thankful smile.
"I didn't know that future shaping space discoveries would involve so much paperwork and politics." She said after her first big swig.
"Yeah, you'd think that would be different with the rogues and renegades," Rip pondered, "but bureaucracy is everywhere."
Marga entered with a bowl of popcorn and set it on the table and sat down next to June. The big screen lit up, showing a map of the seven gates and surrounding systems.
"Like every good capitalist conglomerate, your employer has locations near every gate, so attacks need to be synchronized across all locations." A smattering of red dots appeared on the map.
"That'll take more days." June's heart sank.
"Nah." Marga flicked a popcorn into her mouth. "I set up everything immediately. It executed as soon as the auth came in; we're just waiting for the last relay."
All the dots except those around gate seven turned green, and a big countdown with a little more than twenty seconds appeared next to the map.
Silence descended upon the room as everyone stared at the ticking numbers, occasionally pierced by the crunch of popcorn. When the countdown hit zero, the last red dots turned green.
Cheers and popcorn fountains erupted. June sighed with relief, smiled, and stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
13/X
-
June stared at the mirror and sighed. She looked as tired as she felt. The stim levels on her autodoc were running alarmingly low, and she had dialed everything down as far as she could, but the stress was wearing her down. It had taken days until the cooperative had greenlit Marga's plan to erase June from her current employer's systems.
"Won't be clean though." Bjorn had said. "People have active knowledge of you 'cause we tried to buy you out."
June pulled herself away from the mirror and lurched into the meeting room, where Rip pushed a mug of steaming coffee into her hand. She mustered a thankful smile.
"I didn't know that future shaping space discoveries would involve so much paperwork and politics." She said after her first big swig.
"Yeah, you'd think that would be different with the rogues and renegades," Rip pondered, "but bureaucracy is everywhere."
Marga entered with a bowl of popcorn and set it on the table and sat down next to June. The big screen lit up, showing a map of the seven gates and surrounding systems.
"Like every good capitalist conglomerate, your employer has locations near every gate, so attacks need to be synchronized across all locations." A smattering of red dots appeared on the map.
"That'll take more days." June's heart sank.
"Nah." Marga flicked a popcorn into her mouth. "I set up everything immediately. It executed as soon as the auth came in; we're just waiting for the last relay."
All the dots except those around gate seven turned green, and a big countdown with a little more than twenty seconds appeared next to the map.
Silence descended upon the room as everyone stared at the ticking numbers, occasionally pierced by the crunch of popcorn. When the countdown hit zero, the last red dots turned green.
Cheers and popcorn fountains erupted. June sighed with relief, smiled, and stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.
13/X
-
We usually met on the second level of the mall, in the coffee shop run by some weird dreadhead. They didn't seem to mind a couple cyberpunk kids hanging out in the back, as long as we drank copious amounts of coffee. Also, the uplink was exceptional.
We had already fueled up and jacked in. Shelly hooked a tripwire into the shop's cams, to let us know if someone got too nosy, security in the mall was a joke.
"Yo check this out." bROOTal dumped a couple twilight addresses on the channel. Ain't gotta tell us twice.
0pid moaned "Sooo slooow! Where the fuck is that routing?"
I set up a jail, opened a connection, and data trickled in. We dumped checksums and partial payloads in the channel.
"Huh, everyone gets a bespoke stream, headers look like VR sims." Shelly had started annotating patterns in the binary and bROOTal had set a
ghidr/ailoose to decompile the code. "There's connection code in there, and lots of crypto. What's a #veilid?""So, anyone wanna sample?" 0pid's avatar started wagging an eyebrow.
"Fuck it." I flashed a hard damper onto my interface and the world grew dim. Less pressure from the seat and the cup in my hand felt cooler. My vision grew a little blurry and muted. I fed the payload into the runtime.
The world vanished. No more seat, cup, or hand. No more vision. I floated in absolute blackness. Then a fractal of light exploded in the sky. Unfurling tendrils of complexity ate away the darkness, replacing it with pulsating constructs of nightmarish beauty. Nothing was dampened. My head hurt and I tried to remember how to unplug, but instead of my memories I found a face. Not a human face. A facsimile of one, nearly correct but wrong. Smiling a wrong smile with too many teeth. Speaking without opening it's mouth.
«BE. MY. GUEST.»
The headache got worse. There was pressure on my ears and my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe.
«LET. ME. HELP.»
The face grew a body with too many limbs and stretched an arm out to touch me. Just before the hand reached me, I snapped back.
I lay on the floor of the coffee shop, smelling vomit and tasting blood. My friends were staring down at me, and so was a weird dreadhead.
"You alive?" They slapped me gently on the cheek and I moaned as the headache flared up again. My friends grabbed me and pulled me onto a seat. Dreadhead threw us a pitiful look.
"So you're smart enough to find trouble, and dumb enough to not know."
They grabbed a coffee, pulled up a chair and sat at our table.
"Listen up, kiddos, today we'll learn the lesson: Fuck ICE."
#guest #wss366 #cyberpunk #writing #tootfic #macrofiction #microfiction #scifi
-
We usually met on the second level of the mall, in the coffee shop run by some weird dreadhead. They didn't seem to mind a couple cyberpunk kids hanging out in the back, as long as we drank copious amounts of coffee. Also, the uplink was exceptional.
We had already fueled up and jacked in. Shelly hooked a tripwire into the shop's cams, to let us know if someone got too nosy, security in the mall was a joke.
"Yo check this out." bROOTal dumped a couple twilight addresses on the channel. Ain't gotta tell us twice.
0pid moaned "Sooo slooow! Where the fuck is that routing?"
I set up a jail, opened a connection, and data trickled in. We dumped checksums and partial payloads in the channel.
"Huh, everyone gets a bespoke stream, headers look like VR sims." Shelly had started annotating patterns in the binary and bROOTal had set a
ghidr/ailoose to decompile the code. "There's connection code in there, and lots of crypto. What's a #veilid?""So, anyone wanna sample?" 0pid's avatar started wagging an eyebrow.
"Fuck it." I flashed a hard damper onto my interface and the world grew dim. Less pressure from the seat and the cup in my hand felt cooler. My vision grew a little blurry and muted. I fed the payload into the runtime.
The world vanished. No more seat, cup, or hand. No more vision. I floated in absolute blackness. Then a fractal of light exploded in the sky. Unfurling tendrils of complexity ate away the darkness, replacing it with pulsating constructs of nightmarish beauty. Nothing was dampened. My head hurt and I tried to remember how to unplug, but instead of my memories I found a face. Not a human face. A facsimile of one, nearly correct but wrong. Smiling a wrong smile with too many teeth. Speaking without opening it's mouth.
«BE. MY. GUEST.»
The headache got worse. There was pressure on my ears and my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe.
«LET. ME. HELP.»
The face grew a body with too many limbs and stretched an arm out to touch me. Just before the hand reached me, I snapped back.
I lay on the floor of the coffee shop, smelling vomit and tasting blood. My friends were staring down at me, and so was a weird dreadhead.
"You alive?" They slapped me gently on the cheek and I moaned as the headache flared up again. My friends grabbed me and pulled me onto a seat. Dreadhead threw us a pitiful look.
"So you're smart enough to find trouble, and dumb enough to not know."
They grabbed a coffee, pulled up a chair and sat at our table.
"Listen up, kiddos, today we'll learn the lesson: Fuck ICE."
#guest #wss366 #cyberpunk #writing #tootfic #macrofiction #microfiction #scifi
-
We usually met on the second level of the mall, in the coffee shop run by some weird dreadhead. They didn't seem to mind a couple cyberpunk kids hanging out in the back, as long as we drank copious amounts of coffee. Also, the uplink was exceptional.
We had already fueled up and jacked in. Shelly hooked a tripwire into the shop's cams, to let us know if someone got too nosy, security in the mall was a joke.
"Yo check this out." bROOTal dumped a couple twilight addresses on the channel. Ain't gotta tell us twice.
0pid moaned "Sooo slooow! Where the fuck is that routing?"
I set up a jail, opened a connection, and data trickled in. We dumped checksums and partial payloads in the channel.
"Huh, everyone gets a bespoke stream, headers look like VR sims." Shelly had started annotating patterns in the binary and bROOTal had set a
ghidr/ailoose to decompile the code. "There's connection code in there, and lots of crypto. What's a #veilid?""So, anyone wanna sample?" 0pid's avatar started wagging an eyebrow.
"Fuck it." I flashed a hard damper onto my interface and the world grew dim. Less pressure from the seat and the cup in my hand felt cooler. My vision grew a little blurry and muted. I fed the payload into the runtime.
The world vanished. No more seat, cup, or hand. No more vision. I floated in absolute blackness. Then a fractal of light exploded in the sky. Unfurling tendrils of complexity ate away the darkness, replacing it with pulsating constructs of nightmarish beauty. Nothing was dampened. My head hurt and I tried to remember how to unplug, but instead of my memories I found a face. Not a human face. A facsimile of one, nearly correct but wrong. Smiling a wrong smile with too many teeth. Speaking without opening it's mouth.
«BE. MY. GUEST.»
The headache got worse. There was pressure on my ears and my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe.
«LET. ME. HELP.»
The face grew a body with too many limbs and stretched an arm out to touch me. Just before the hand reached me, I snapped back.
I lay on the floor of the coffee shop, smelling vomit and tasting blood. My friends were staring down at me, and so was a weird dreadhead.
"You alive?" They slapped me gently on the cheek and I moaned as the headache flared up again. My friends grabbed me and pulled me onto a seat. Dreadhead threw us a pitiful look.
"So you're smart enough to find trouble, and dumb enough to not know."
They grabbed a coffee, pulled up a chair and sat at our table.
"Listen up, kiddos, today we'll learn the lesson: Fuck ICE."
#guest #wss366 #cyberpunk #writing #tootfic #macrofiction #microfiction #scifi
-
We usually met on the second level of the mall, in the coffee shop run by some weird dreadhead. They didn't seem to mind a couple cyberpunk kids hanging out in the back, as long as we drank copious amounts of coffee. Also, the uplink was exceptional.
We had already fueled up and jacked in. Shelly hooked a tripwire into the shop's cams, to let us know if someone got too nosy, security in the mall was a joke.
"Yo check this out." bROOTal dumped a couple twilight addresses on the channel. Ain't gotta tell us twice.
0pid moaned "Sooo slooow! Where the fuck is that routing?"
I set up a jail, opened a connection, and data trickled in. We dumped checksums and partial payloads in the channel.
"Huh, everyone gets a bespoke stream, headers look like VR sims." Shelly had started annotating patterns in the binary and bROOTal had set a
ghidr/ailoose to decompile the code. "There's connection code in there, and lots of crypto. What's a #veilid?""So, anyone wanna sample?" 0pid's avatar started wagging an eyebrow.
"Fuck it." I flashed a hard damper onto my interface and the world grew dim. Less pressure from the seat and the cup in my hand felt cooler. My vision grew a little blurry and muted. I fed the payload into the runtime.
The world vanished. No more seat, cup, or hand. No more vision. I floated in absolute blackness. Then a fractal of light exploded in the sky. Unfurling tendrils of complexity ate away the darkness, replacing it with pulsating constructs of nightmarish beauty. Nothing was dampened. My head hurt and I tried to remember how to unplug, but instead of my memories I found a face. Not a human face. A facsimile of one, nearly correct but wrong. Smiling a wrong smile with too many teeth. Speaking without opening it's mouth.
«BE. MY. GUEST.»
The headache got worse. There was pressure on my ears and my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe.
«LET. ME. HELP.»
The face grew a body with too many limbs and stretched an arm out to touch me. Just before the hand reached me, I snapped back.
I lay on the floor of the coffee shop, smelling vomit and tasting blood. My friends were staring down at me, and so was a weird dreadhead.
"You alive?" They slapped me gently on the cheek and I moaned as the headache flared up again. My friends grabbed me and pulled me onto a seat. Dreadhead threw us a pitiful look.
"So you're smart enough to find trouble, and dumb enough to not know."
They grabbed a coffee, pulled up a chair and sat at our table.
"Listen up, kiddos, today we'll learn the lesson: Fuck ICE."
#guest #wss366 #cyberpunk #writing #tootfic #macrofiction #microfiction #scifi
-
We usually met on the second level of the mall, in the coffee shop run by some weird dreadhead. They didn't seem to mind a couple cyberpunk kids hanging out in the back, as long as we drank copious amounts of coffee. Also, the uplink was exceptional.
We had already fueled up and jacked in. Shelly hooked a tripwire into the shop's cams, to let us know if someone got too nosy, security in the mall was a joke.
"Yo check this out." bROOTal dumped a couple twilight addresses on the channel. Ain't gotta tell us twice.
0pid moaned "Sooo slooow! Where the fuck is that routing?"
I set up a jail, opened a connection, and data trickled in. We dumped checksums and partial payloads in the channel.
"Huh, everyone gets a bespoke stream, headers look like VR sims." Shelly had started annotating patterns in the binary and bROOTal had set a
ghidr/ailoose to decompile the code. "There's connection code in there, and lots of crypto. What's a #veilid?""So, anyone wanna sample?" 0pid's avatar started wagging an eyebrow.
"Fuck it." I flashed a hard damper onto my interface and the world grew dim. Less pressure from the seat and the cup in my hand felt cooler. My vision grew a little blurry and muted. I fed the payload into the runtime.
The world vanished. No more seat, cup, or hand. No more vision. I floated in absolute blackness. Then a fractal of light exploded in the sky. Unfurling tendrils of complexity ate away the darkness, replacing it with pulsating constructs of nightmarish beauty. Nothing was dampened. My head hurt and I tried to remember how to unplug, but instead of my memories I found a face. Not a human face. A facsimile of one, nearly correct but wrong. Smiling a wrong smile with too many teeth. Speaking without opening it's mouth.
«BE. MY. GUEST.»
The headache got worse. There was pressure on my ears and my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe.
«LET. ME. HELP.»
The face grew a body with too many limbs and stretched an arm out to touch me. Just before the hand reached me, I snapped back.
I lay on the floor of the coffee shop, smelling vomit and tasting blood. My friends were staring down at me, and so was a weird dreadhead.
"You alive?" They slapped me gently on the cheek and I moaned as the headache flared up again. My friends grabbed me and pulled me onto a seat. Dreadhead threw us a pitiful look.
"So you're smart enough to find trouble, and dumb enough to not know."
They grabbed a coffee, pulled up a chair and sat at our table.
"Listen up, kiddos, today we'll learn the lesson: Fuck ICE."
#guest #wss366 #cyberpunk #writing #tootfic #macrofiction #microfiction #scifi
