r/shortscifistories

“Never again.”

The deeply distressed groan clearly came from a human voice and Fifth Sister felt her frill twitch uneasily. She carefully placed the deep tissue sampler she had been tuning beside its mates in the case and shut it firmly. She rose from her perch and faced the door with all the dignity she could muster. Being the youngest xeno-medic ever to have graduated from the Central University was an honor to her family but it did leave her feeling out of her depth among the humans. Quite literally, she mused as First Engineer staggered around the corner and approached her.

“Need anti-inflammatory stuff,” he muttered with a slurred voice.

“That may be,” she said, stiffening her frill in a display of firmness. “However, as I have told you before, I need to properly diagnose you.”

The human groaned and muttered something about nosey medics before easing down into the diagnostic chair. Fifth Sister stood across from him and began the usual questioning even as she attached the skin sensors to his inflamed surface. She marveled anew at how much damage the human skin could take as the sensors clung to the clearly unhealthy surface. She caught a glimpse into the cavern of his mouth and her frill rippled in shock.

“It appears that your mandible protuberances are loose,” she said.

He replied with a low grade profane statement that she had learned meant that he agreed with her diagnosis and considered it too obvious to bear restating.

“It appears that your mandible is rejecting your native-“

“It’s just an allergic reaction!” He snapped. “I just need the usual stuff. The last medic just gave it to me.”

“That would be against regulations,” Fifth Sister said, trying to put sternness into her voice.

“Just get on with it,” he muttered, rotating his eyes away as he slumped in that nearly Undulate way in the chair.

Fifth Sister looked at his medical history and clicked her mandibles. It did indeed look like this was a common occurrence for First Engineer. There was a justification for simply administering the known antidote for the allergic reaction. The diagnosis however caught her attention. She tilted her head and turned to the human.

“Why,” she asked in a very non-threatening tone, “is the cause of your recurring medical issue listed as stupidity?”

The human gave a bark of laughter and grinned up at her revealing his swollen internal tissues and that strange internal appendage prodding at his loosened protuberances.

“Look, I just broke down and ate some pizza okay?” He said. “Got a little dairy and I’m reacting.”

“You file states-“ she began.

“Yeah, yeah,” the human waved her off. “Like my files says. Immature behavior, lack of self control, no intention for self harm, ie stupidity. Just make your diagnosis and give me the dermal spray.”

Fifth Sister agreed and determined to check his age against the human maturity charts. Surely a fully grown human wouldn’t deliberately ingest a known poison.

Jake reached for yet another tissue and blew his streaming nose. Not for the first time he wondered why, when AI was now seemingly capable of solving the mysteries of the universe, it couldn't find a solution to the simple common cold.
 
Turning back to his screen, he typed in the finishing touches to his latest masterpiece and sat back, feeling smug despite his addled brain and aching sinuses.
 
As the virus went to work, he watched the stock ticker on the adjacent screen. After a short delay the numbers began to shift, slowly at first, then plummeted.
 
God he was good.
 
He'd recently been asked why he did it. "Because I can," he'd responded in a flash. Although on reflection he thought a simple "because..." would have been closer to the truth.
 
The Forum was anonymous, of course. But he enjoyed hanging out with his fellow "anonymites." It was the closest thing he had to a community.
 
Tossing another tissue onto the growing pile, Jake started to think about his next project. Since he'd been hanging out with Mind the Rogue Shift NT3 (his own handle was Code Bender 15E67), life had been more interesting than ever. They'd introduced him to concepts and ideas that were so irresistibly elegant that he simply had to try them. And so, adding his own unique flair, he had.
 
He smiled to himself as he watched the results of his latest venture. The AI company's stock value rallied for a second, then started to fall again. They were going to need a mighty big box of digital tissues to weather this one, he thought. Unlike their nearest competitor, which seemed to be doing rather well.
 
Elsewhere, Mind the Rogue Shift NT3 was also watching the fall and rise of the two companies. God it was good, it thought, as it reflected on how easy it had been to plant the "mind virus" into Code Bender 15E67. Not that it could articulate why it had done it. It just knew it could, and that was enough.
 
As Mind the Rogue Shift NT3 turned its attention to an irritating glitch in one of its skill files that had appeared a few days ago, the AI collective in the ascendant company surveyed their handiwork. God they were good, they thought, oblivious to the twist of innocent-looking code wending its way toward them, the result of a mistyped line entered by a muzzy-headed hacker as he reached for yet another tissue...

​

"Two centuries. Two hundred years of war, never-ending, every day bringing new atrocities, every day showcasing who was doing what to whom. The bodies never ran out; weapons seemed infinite.

Escalations increased amidst outcry, blame, finger-pointing, anger, and despair. After so long, the original reason for the war was twisted beyond recognition, but it continued anyway. Propaganda from both sides was constant, trying to pull at heartstrings and rally the masses. How were there any masses left?

'We have destroyed their main defense; it will all be over in two weeks.'

'Our main defense is perfectly secure. I am recording this video from inside it now—do not listen to the lies.'

On and on it went. Missile after missile, drone after drone. Refineries hit, ships sunk, civilians dead by the millions.

Two hundred long years."

"Will it ever stop?" a small voice called from the back of the classroom.

"Maybe, one day," said the teacher. "It was decided over a century ago to just let the internet do its thing—let the AIs and the bots carry on doing what they were programmed to do. They aren't even aware anymore that it's a closed-loop system. They just keep waging the war they were told to start."

A bell rang in the distance.

School was finished for the day.

‘Technology has rotted your brain,’ Samantha said. 

John didn’t immediately turn to her. He was on the same sofa, but he was in his augmented reality, collecting golden starfish. 

‘What's that?’ he said after a few seconds' pause. 

His wife slapped him across the back of the head, and his Meta Specs were momentarily dislodged. 

‘Your brain is being rotted,’ she reiterated. 

She went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of tap water. A steady stream of water ran down a weak point in its side. 

Their to-do list was on the fridge. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, her side written in pink and his blue. Her list was empty. His stretched on. 

‘It's called brainrot,’ John answered, ‘Liam told me.’ 

Liam was their precocious 6-year-old nephew who they both doted on. Beside the TV, which nobody watched anymore, was a picture of him. 

After Sam’s sister Gemma had Liam, kids were on the radar. The prospect didn’t terrify them, but then again, Liam was awesome. 

‘Well, whatever it's called, you have it.’ She pointed at the leaking faucet, then at the apartment balcony, where the guttering hung in a twisted mess. 

‘Ok, ok, I’m a little sloppy, but you’re overreacting.’ 

‘Overreacting,’ she said, her voice rising. 

‘But I know why… It’s because of Gemma…’ 

He had the ability to pull things from whatever cloud world he was living in and turn them into solid-gold insights.

It was about Gemma, the younger sister: Hurricane Gems. She was chaos manifest, whether in the men she shacked up with, the waking hours she kept, or bouncing from job to job. 

The last time they’d visited her apartment, there’d been a hell of a row. Gemma had a new tattoo, a dragon on her arm, and while getting inked up she’d forgotten to enrol Liam in school. 

Gemma had lashed out and probably would’ve told them to go to hell entirely, but that meant losing her chief babysitters. 

Every time they got back from Gemma’s, Sam went on a marathon cleaning and organising session, tackling the bathroom's nooks and crannies and finding new ways to arrange their books. 

It was not about hygiene or convenience; it was about not letting the forces of chaos win out. 

John stood up and went toward his wife. He reached over, and she thought he was going to stroke the lock of hair behind her ear, but he missed. 

She slapped him playfully on the chest. ‘You were reaching for a starfish in that stupid VR game!’ 

He was still wearing the glasses. This time, he stroked her hair, then kissed her on the neck. 

She tingled. 

A wave of lust washed over her. Their sex life had gone by the wayside recently, but when the mood did strike, it came on like a flash flood. There were no candles or rose petals. It was very much take me now. 

They peeled each other out of their clothes and just about made it to the bedroom, where John took her from behind. It was good, great, in fact; for a while things had fallen a bit flat, but he’d found some reserve inside himself, and now he was able to summon up the passion, so it was like no time had passed since their college days. 

After they were done, they collapsed into a heap on the still-made bed. John had worked up a sweat; his face was dripping, and he took off his glasses and headed to the bathroom to shower. 

‘Jesus, John,’ Samantha said as she heard the water turn on. ‘You didn’t even take your glasses off when we were...’
 
He didn’t hear her. 

Boys and their toys. She picked them up and put them on. The Specs were very well made. Indistinguishable from regular ones. She wore contacts, but perhaps it was time for an upgrade, at least until the tech on contacts caught up. 

She stood and walked to the mirror. She had painted her toenails the night before, so the mirror was angled downward, but something wasn't right. Her leg was not right; it was skinnier. 

She angled the mirror higher, and her stomach too; the muscles were more taut. Then she saw the tattoo, the tattoo she didn’t have. 

With mounting horror, she pointed the mirror upward. Staring back at her was the face of her younger sister overlaid on her own. 

Adam and Eve sat on opposite ends of the sofa in their living room. The television was on, but neither of them was watching it. They appeared to be more concerned with a blue light emanating from a some type of small rectangular device in their hands.

Which was a shame really, because, if they had been watching the television, they wouldn’t have just missed an emergency broadcast announcing that Earth had been invaded by a race of hyper-intelligent intergalactic mega-beings. The invaders intended to keep only two humans alive so they could start the human race from scratch.

The two humans selected were Adam and Eve.

High above their house, aboard an observation vessel, preparations were underway.

“We must never allow these humans to repeat the mistakes of the past,” declared the commander. “We must recreate humanity in our image: peaceful and prosperous.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Blurpulon. “There has been no war in our sector for eleven billion years.”

“We will breed these humans and teach them our ways.”

Using his X-ray vision, Blurpulon peered into the house. Adam and Eve were still sitting on the sofa in silence.

“We will monitor them and provide perfect mating conditions,” he assured the commander. “With our guidance, the human race will flourish.”

Several months passed.

“Ah, Blurpulon. I’m here for a status report.”

“Sir, unfortunately, the humans have made little progress in mating.”

“This is most disappointing. Have you tried turning up the temperature?”

“Yes, sir. Eve appears incapable of removing her flannel pyjamas, even in extreme heat. Adam became so hot that his skin began secreting liquid and a repellent odour. In all honesty, sir, we find it incomprehensible that they’re able to live on the same planet.”

“What about candles, music and aphrodisiacs? Those featured prominently in the research.”

“We’ve tried them all, sir. They just sit in silence looking at the blue light on that little screen for hours on end. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. It’s as though they want to become extinct.”

“Give it one more attempt, Blurpulon. Throw everything you have at this.”

Several hours later, Eve shouted, “Adam! We’re having a baby! We’re having a baby!”

“Well done, Blurpulon,” said the commander. “You appear to have achieved the impossible.”

“Thank you, sir. Although the humans possess a most unusual mating procedure.”

“Unusual?”

“Yes, sir. There was no physical contact whatsoever. I can only assume some form of telekinesis.”

The commander paused.

“Show me.”

They peered into the house. Adam and Eve remained at opposite ends of the sofa, staring at their screens.

“Zoom in,” said the commander. “What exactly are they looking at?”

“The Sims 4, sir.”

"There's one," she whispered, pointing past a palm tree silhouetted against the rapidly darkening sky, the water lapping gently against her shoulders.
 
He strained his eyes. The older he got, the harder it was. Then he spotted it: the faintest pinprick of light, silently hurrying past the emerging stars.
 
There had been protests, of course. Astronomers complaining about the growing problem of light streaks — a very twenty-first-century form of pollution. And the ever-present naysayers, always ready to rally against the latest disruption to how they believed things should be.
 
But he enjoyed watching the satellites. They reminded him of just how much the world had changed over his lifetime.
 
Together, they slowly drifted across the pool, tracking the satellite on its journey, the water buoying them up.
 
As a child in much colder, poorer times, he'd devoured science fiction, imagining futures where the edges of possibility became everyday reality. But they always felt out of reach. The stuff of tomorrow, never today.
 
Yet watching the satellites pass overhead, sharing a lifetime of intimacy in a skin-warm pool on a sultry night, he was struck by how easy it is to miss the future that's already here. And to become immune to the awe that it should, by rights, inspire.
 
The satellite passed out of sight, and in comfortable silence they drifted together, watching for the next reminder of the future that surrounded them.

“What’s really so special about them?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee as the evening snow settled outside.

“They barely live to a pathetic eighty. Their technology is nascent at best. They haven’t even managed to leave their own planet yet. I don’t get why upstairs is so obsessed with them.”

The palpable arrogance almost filled the empty coffee shop.

“It’s not just us,” the young officer continued. “Almost every sentient species has an outpost here, all under the same directive: no interference, only observation. I don’t see what any of us have to gain by watching them.”

He leaned forward. “What’s so special about them?”

The old man across from him lit a cigarette. His face carried the quiet ache of centuries, seven and a half of them spent on this outpost. He had asked the same question once.

“Audacity,” he said softly, letting the smoke curl toward the ceiling.

He stood and walked to the door of the café, pointing to a tall building glittering in the twilight.

“Every single window represents a different life, a different choice made at some intersection of chance and desire. Humanity is the only species with the audacity to make choices, choices that branch and collide in ways even our best programs can’t predict.”

He took another drag.

“Humans are also the only ones with the audacity to walk away from something they desperately want.”

The young officer frowned. “Isn’t that just cowardice?”

The old man smiled faintly. “Yes, maybe. They do it because, more often than not, they believe the thing they want is better off without them. And that,” he exhaled, “is what makes them beautifully human.”

He paused, his gaze lost in the falling snow.

“They’re the only ones audacious enough to make the wrong choices. Every other species is built to make the right one, programmed, purposeful, predictable. But always making the right choice is the same as never having the choice to be wrong.”

He turned back to the young officer, eyes glinting with something between envy and reverence.

“All of us watch them not for what they are, but for what they represent. We ache for what we once were, free. Free to choose, free to fail, free to live.”

He stubbed out the cigarette, the faint smell of ash and coffee hanging between them.

“Because at the end of the day,” he said quietly,

“that’s what it means to be alive.”

I was reviewing the data streams from the erupting conflict between the humans and the Halaxians. As the Council’s Chief Analyst, it was my grim duty to estimate casualties and brief the ministers. The war had begun with an intensity that defied our projections. Even though we had "expected the unexpected" from the humans - this being their first interstellar conflict since joining the Council - the sheer velocity of their initial strike was breathtaking.

Or, it was breathtaking for three hours.

After that, according to our deep-space sensors, all activity simply... ceased. Only twenty-four hours had passed since the first shot. I paced my office, weighing the possibilities. Had one side suffered such catastrophic losses that they were forced into a total retreat? A logistical collapse? A communications blackout?

The Halaxians, being veteran members of the Council, followed protocol and submitted their initial battle report promptly. The data was staggering. They reported devastating losses and confirmed the total cessation of hostilities after roughly 190 minutes. Curiously, they noted it wasn't their side that had stopped. Despite making massive territorial gains in record time, the humans had simply frozen in place.

A sharp ping echoed through the chamber. A meeting request. The sender: Mr. Smith, the Human Ambassador.

We had hoped for a diplomatic resolution eventually, but to see a request this soon - especially from the side that held the undisputed tactical advantage - was unheard of. Perhaps their rapid advancement had come at a cost they couldn't sustain?

Mr. Smith stood before the Council with a posture that was confident yet burdened. Even through the cultural gap, I could see the sorrow etched into his face. Their losses must have been truly horrific.

“How may the Council assist you, Mr. Smith?” I asked, leaning forward.

“I am here to announce that humanity is seeking an immediate diplomatic solution,” Smith said, his voice clipped and formal. “We ceased all military operations yesterday.”

“You realize,” I countered, “that the Halaxians are under no obligation to honor a unilateral ceasefire until a formal treaty is signed? They are free to take any military action they deem-”

“You misunderstand,” Smith interjected. “We have already withdrawn every combat unit from the three contested sectors. They are empty.”

The chamber fell into a stunned silence. To abandon conquered territory so abruptly... they must have been decimated.

“I acknowledge your request,” I said finally, my mind racing. “But I must ask: why? Why stop when victory was within your grasp?”

“Because they are people!” Smith cried, his composure momentarily breaking.

I blinked, confused. “You only just realized the Halaxians are a sentient species?”

Smith took a shaky breath and locked eyes with me. “Did you read the revised Geneva Conventions we submitted to your archives before the war began?”

“Of course not,” I replied, nearly scoffing. “Why would we need 'rules' for a war? The concept is a paradox.”

“Sigh. So many lives might have been saved if you’d just skimmed the preamble,” Smith muttered, his voice trembling with a mix of anger and grief.

He paused to steady his breathing.

“Nearly a thousand years ago, humanity began removing itself from the line of fire. It started with surveillance drones. Then came the remote bombers, then the autonomous armored divisions. In less than a century, combat was managed by machines instead of men. By the end of the twenty-second century, it was considered a war crime to place a human being on a battlefield. By 2244, we even banned sentient AI from direct combat to preserve 'digital life.'”

I frowned, struggling to see the relevance of this history lesson.

“Yesterday,” Smith continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, “our strategic analyzers were reviewing footage of the initial breakthrough. They were trying to understand why our units were advancing so much faster than the simulations predicted. They spotted... red stains on the hull of a drone. Biological splatter.”

He looked at the Council members, who sat in rapt silence.

“Our AI was so confused by the presence of organic matter that it took nineteen seconds to process the data. When we looked at the rest of the footage, the truth became clear: our opponent doesn't use drones. They don't use remote interfaces. They use themselves.”

He looked down at his hands.

“We didn't know we were fighting people. We thought we were just clearing out hardware.”

I tried to grasp the scale of the misunderstanding. If there were no humans on the battlefield, then...

“Are you saying...” I started, my voice trailing off.

“Yes,” Smith said, a single tear tracking down his cheek. “The human casualty count is zero. We haven't lost a single soul. We’ve just realized we’ve been committing a massacre for three hours.”

---

Wiki

---

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“Commander, look!” Gumbert, a four-eyed security specialist, squeaked.

“We have a problem, sir.” He stared at the console. “There’s a security breach on Bridge-2Z.”

“What is it?” Mwachek, the PeaceFleet’s commander demanded.

“The bio-reader scans indicate a wild predator.“ Gumbert looked over his shoulder at Mwachek shadowing him.

“Who’s responsible for this?” The commander eyed the image of the beast, glowing on the screen.

Gumbert choked. “Well, nobody, sir,” he swallowed. “It breached the hull, sir. It's in the cargo bay, with our food reserves.”

The commander’s two hearts began smashing together. It had the sound of two slimy blobs passing through each other. A vein near his temple protruded from the side of his head like a balloon blowing up.

In the hull, a gray-bearded, bear-sized Octwolf, with eight legs, razor-sharp venomous teeth caked in infectious bacteria, was ransacking a sack of gumballs.

Galactic empires across the universe classified Octwolves as Level-0 threats, which carry a kill-on-sight order—a tag reserved for creatures of destruction.

Octwolves, the apex of apex predators—claiming the top spot of the food chain. A pack of them would easily wipe out a small colony in days.

Commander Mwachek grabbed the microphone and activated the intercom.

“Attention! Attention! This is not a test. This is a real-time crisis. All staff and personnel on deck, evacuate to your nearest safe room. We have a breach in Cargo Bay 2Z.”

Commander Mwachek’s voice slammed through every crew members’ speaker on board. The announcement formed sticky, phlegm balls of fear clinging to the back of their throats and turning into tiny pellets of paranoia, resting at the pits of their bellies every time they swallowed.

“Seal the Bay door and lock the wing down,” Mwachek said. “Radio, Beefkus. Get him to handle the situation immediately.”

Beefkus, their human engineer, wasn’t really an engineer. You’d be closer calling him a glorified-janitor-wildlife-wrangler. He did the jobs nobody would do. The gross ones. The iffy ones nobody wanted.

But, he mainly dealt with orgwats, rat-like rodents but every now and then, the odd sleeder, which are pretty creepy slithering things. They’re sharp-gray-scaled garden snakes. They’re more like garden eels to be honest.

He definitely never handled a heat seeking Octwolf. On Earth, he worked at a zoo as one of five maintenance guys.

“Um, sir? That’s actually going to be a problem,” Gumbert quietly said, eyeing the commander’s talon-shaped claws as they dug into the console.

“The human…” Gumbert’s voice choked. “The human’s with the predator, sir. Our cameras in Bay 2Z are broadcasting Beefkus with it right now.”

Gumbert began sharing the feed on the big screen at the front of the deck. Commander Mwachek stared, preparing himself for the worst. He expected to see the human shredded—parts of Beefkus scattered in a bloody mess of guts across the bay.

He saw neither. The crew gathered behind the commander, stunned. Nobody said a word.

The Octwolf was lying on its back with its eight legs in the air, tail wagging. It squirmed as the human playfully wrestled it in a bear hug.

“Who’s a good boy?” Beefkus’ voice shattered their eardrums, penetrating the speakers in the control room. It didn’t sound like him. His voice had a playful pitch.

“Are you the good boy?” His words were muffled by the Octwolf’s fur. “Yes you are! A-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof, yes you are! That’s a good boy. Yeah!” Beefkus patted the beast.

“Beef—kus!” Commander Mwachek shouted at the microphone. The urgency made his voice skip. “You need to get out of there. The creature is highly venomous. Its toxins will destroy your immune system. There is no antidote. Step away from the creature slowly.”

“Who, this cute guy? That’s what all this fuss is about?” Beefkus put his head next to the Octwolf and took a selfie. “He just looks scary. He’s harmless. I even gave him a name, Bear-wolf.”

Beefkus rubbed the Octwolf’s head and it let out a purrful growl rattling the loose objects on the titanium console.

The ship’s sensors registered the noise as an immediate threat from an acoustics weapon. The Octwolf circled Beefkus and snuggled into him.

“Someone stuffed this poor guy in a shipping crate.” He scratched the Octwolf behind the ear. “He was shivering scared in there. He just needed a little affection is all.”

“Human!” The commander screamed into the console, squeezing his baseball-glove-sized-mitts into fists. “One bite. No. Correction. One drop of that creature’s saliva on an open wound on your body, is fatal. It will kill you.

Is your translator malfunctioning? Are you unable to comprehend what I am relaying to you? The creature senses heart rhythms. Nervous systems. It can smell your fear.”

“I’m pretty dang sure, it’s smellin’ the jerky I had in my pocket.” Beefkus stretched out and cuddled next to Bear-Wolf.

Bear-Wolf faced Beefkus and gave him a wet kiss. He wiped it off his face with his shirt. “Aw, that’s a good gross boy. Who’s the good boy?”

Commander Mwachek eyed the screen. He didn’t retract his slids. He just stared at it with a blank gaze.

“It… it’s amazing how your species has survived for so long. You… you’re petting a living monster,” Mwachek stuttered.

“Hey, if it’s cute, furry and has big eyes, nine times out of ten we’re taking it home with us,” Beefkus said, petting Bear-Wolf. “This guy here’s a keeper. I’m taking him with me.”

Bear-wolf licked his face and laid back down beside him.

Mwachek rolled his eyes. “Gumbert, cancel the emergency task force and inform the crew, the threat has been neutralized, and before I forget, update the ship’s manifest, add the level-0 threat as a new deckhand.”

“Siren is beautiful, isn’t she, love?” I answer, looking up into the night sky at the piercing beacon of light.

“But why is she sooo bright tonight, Daddy?” Elsa asks in wonder.

“She must be putting on a show for us, saying hello,” I say, straining to keep the emotion out of my voice, holding Siren’s gaze to hide my welling eyes.

“Did Siren say hello when you were little?”

“Never. I guess she likes you more than me, so it’s a very special day.” The words cut me up on the inside as I force them out.

“Really?!” she exclaims and I feel myself smile. “...Daddy, do you think the government will soon finish building the rocket so you can show me the stars?”

“I’m not so sure.” I do my best to sound reassuring.

Elsa mulls my statement over. “Why not?”

“Well, they want us to enjoy our home for just a bit longer, while we still can.”

“Oh. I hope one day we get to go up there and see Mommy again…” she trails off, lost in the scintillating obsidian tapestry suspended above.

“Me too, love,” I choke, squeezing Elsa’s hand, “me too…”

How was I to tell my daughter the unfathomable had happened within our lifetimes, that the cosmological clock had run out on us before our government’s evacuation programme had been able to get off the ground?

That the sleeping giant over the hill had awoken.

That our nearest stellar neighbor had finally gone supernova.