Judy is an isolated shut-in who freezes up during any real-time social interation. She's worked from home her entire life, just getting by on the jobs that require no direct contact, but despite her excellent work, her inability to participate in calls is threatening her work. Now her one remaining major client is at risk unless she shows up to a meeting with his bosses in person! What should she do?

Judy didn’t know what to do. It was a state of mind she was very familiar with, though that really only made her feel worse. A lifetime of anxiety-induced indecision and a paralysing fear of social interaction had seen her grow from a withdrawn and nebbish child into the adult life of a reclusive shut-in. It was only thanks to the miracles of the modern age that she was able to find work on a freelance basis with mixed media - graphic design, sound design, programming - instead of simply wasting away in an attic somewhere. She wasn’t stupid (though anyone would have struggled to convince her of this): She had a keen eye, a deft hand and a knack for problem-solving, so long as the problem could be expressed in a short email or project brief. If only she could maintain her composure when faced with… well, another person’s face, she might have become quite successful in life. As it was, any work that required an in-person meeting or even so much as a video call caused her to shut down in such a way that she couldn’t even bring herself to decline the invitation. The resulting reputation for ghosting had hurt her job prospects, and she realised that if she didn’t do something drastic, the work might dry up entirely. Right now she had one major client that hadn’t yet written her off as a lost cause, but she could tell it was a close thing. Her work until recently had been very well received, but her contact there had recently been promoted to project manager and he had been determined to pull her up with him, despite her protests. “It’s my supervisor,” one of his earlier messages read. “Several supervisors, to be honest. They’re refusing to believe …

As newlyweds struggling to make a start in life, Lucas and Mila Cruz are astonished to learn that Mila’s late grandmother has left them the entirety of her estate on the condition that they stay at her personal villa for seven nights. It’s a strange demand, but how can they refuse?

The will had been read. The papers had been signed. Mila and Lucas Cruz stood at the entrance to the new estate - THEIR new estate -in complete, stunned silence. The property stretched out for what felt like miles in every direction - row after row of meticulously trimmed topiaries stood guard along gravel paths and around walls and columns of sandstone that shone golden in the morning light. Lucas permitted himself a quiet whistle. “Yeah,” Mila agreed. “And you really didn’t know her very well?” Lucas asked. Mila shook her head. “Barely knew she existed. Wasn’t expecting anything, really. Definitely not THIS.” Lucas nodded, the silence broken only by the sound of distant birdsong. At almost a hundred years old, Teresa De León had been the matriarch of Mila’s side of the family, now very widely dispersed around the world. Mila herself had fallen out of touch with the vast majority of her extended family overseas, until she received a summons to the reading of her grandmother’s will. “Should we go in?” Mila said eventually. Lucas shook himself awake. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ll leave the luggage here for now and just bring the keys.” They left their second-hand car parked by the fountain, looking for all the world like a chicken nugget on a wedding cake. Something to be done about that in a week’s time perhaps, but for now the incongruity would just have to stand. “How big is it?” Lucas asked as they trod the gravel path. “Big,” said Mila, almost spinning as she walked trying to catch sight of everything at once. “The executor gave me a number but, I mean… just look at the place.” “I’m looking,” Lucas agreed. “Big.” A pair of dark wooden double doors greeted them at the end of the path, flanked …

The legalisation and regulation of AI-generated content resulted in a digital entertainment renaissance, with advances in digital assistants and sensory feedback being the crown jewels of the movement. Strict limits on content ensure that published media poses no danger to the health or morals of the public, but clever players will always find ways to bypass any limits, regardless of the consequences.

Nick threw the headset aside, choking for air and covered in sweat. The tech-heads weren’t kidding: This shit was wild. Thirty years ago, pearl-clutching conservatives would have a televised fit over some pixelated gore, or the kind of blocky nipples that an etch-a-sketch would sneer at. 4K graphics and VR would have probably given those people an aneurysm. Nick had waded waist-deep through the entrails of demons and fondled every physics-simulated pair of breasts he could fit on his bank of SSDs, so he considered himself fairly inured to entertainment technology’s extremes. He had never been more excited to be proven wrong. “An authentic execution simulation created using the realtime biometrics of death row inmates.” Nick had assumed that both the sales pitch for the Nerve and overwhelmingly positive reviews were hyperbole. Sure, the graphics were basically photoreal and the sound was perfect too, but the best he had initially expected was his vision to go blurry while the audio muffed itself out. What he hadn’t expected was the very real sensation of his muscles locking up, his heart stopping and every organ in his body being slowly starved of oxygen. Artificial intelligence had refined media fidelity until there were no more pixels to conquer, but neural interfacing was an entirely experimental and thoroughly illegal practice. Western governments had banned its use immediately, on account of the prototypes’ frequently frying the bodies and brains of test subjects. However, that was an open invitation to less scrupulous nations to literally sell the suffering of their own people for a fee. And not just suffering, either: As always, the runaway seller was sex. Nick looked at the small pile of digital experiences he’d already tried: Mostly visceral adrenaline trips. The execution recording had come recommended by one of his edgier friends, but …

For all of his ten years on earth, Nick’s dearest wish was to become a superhero just like his sister, Dana. His ordinary family want nothing more than an ordinary life for him, but extraordinary circumstances throw those plans into disarray. Nick suddenly finds himself becoming a superhero, but maybe not in the way he had hoped for. This is a strictly PG story due to the age of the characters involved, and I've needed to exercise some creative license to tie the requested plot points together into a coherent series of events

Nick Miller loved superheroes. In fairness, everyone Nick’s age loved superheroes - anyone who didn’t was boring and dumb - but Nick was one of the few that genuinely aspired to a career of costumed crime-fighting while others aspired to be brain surgeons or astronauts. His family mostly tried to discourage him, but found it difficult to convince him that superheroes weren’t real, because every effort to do so was tacitly misinterpreted by Nick to include a wink and a nudge because everyone knew real superheroes needed to be kept a secret. Nick’s older sister did NOT discourage him, much to their relative’s annoyance. Dana had given up a promising life as a banking clerk to pursue a career in both cosplay and martial arts - a life decision that had functionally excommunicated her from the family except on special occasions. This attempt to shield Nick from outlandish influence proved to be ironically counter-productive, as it lent Dana’s few appearances in Nick’s life a mythological quality and allowed her to lean into her stage persona as the Amazing Danamite whenever they met: Yes, she’d been on lots of adventures since their last meeting. This year she had defeated invading aliens from the Negaverse, but not before fighting off assassins sent by the League of Villains. Nick believed every word of it and pinkie-promised that he would never tell anyone about Dana’s true identity, ever, ever, ever, and in return, for Christmas after his tenth birthday, Dana would begin training him as a real life superhero.   ***   It had not gone well. The training had started off with a lot of promise - Nick’s very first lesson in being a superhero was how to survive. Most kids might have baulked at this - demanding instead to be taught how …

Aisha volunteers for an unspecified medical research project, only to be left alone in a waiting room where absolutely nothing of interest happens to her. A fire in the building forces her to go home before she has a chance to participate in the experiment. At least that's how it seems at first.

Aisha sat impatiently in the bland, sterile room. Not literally sterile, but the spartan lack of decor and drab colouring made her feel like she was waiting in an unfurnished hospital ward. Admittedly, this was hardly surprising - she’d signed up to join some kind of mysterious medical experiment at uni after all - but it wouldn’t kill them to put in a pot plant or something. The door opened, and Aisha gratefully rose from the sole chair in the room, only to sink back down in disappointment when she was told they would be ready for her soon. Not soon enough, she thought to herself. Her leg bounced restlessly, and she began to question whether it had been worth signing up at all. Fifty bucks was fifty bucks, but if she wound up waiting here for hours she may as well have just worked a shift at some shitty little fast food place for all the good it would do her. She shivered. This wasn’t a good attitude to have. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply and steadied herself. How did the saying go? “Patience is a virtue: Possess it if you can. Very rare in women and never in a man.” Her grandmother had taught her that. A bit mean, but she grew up in mean times. Instead of getting frustrated, Aisha decided to challenge herself to see how long she could stay perfectly still. Like a Buddhist meditation kind of thing. Just sit still, stare straight ahead and focus on her breathing. She was so focused that she almost jumped when the door opened again. Someone in scrubs poked their head in and asked how she was feeling. “Fine,” she lied, though admittedly the attempted meditation had seemed to be working for a moment. Scrubs seemed …

Bethany is in a hurry to find something to wear to this year's halloween party, so when a stranger offers to sell her an amazingly details mask for cheap, she jumps at the opportunity

Bethany hated Halloween. Actually, that wasn’t true: It was an excuse to party, and that was all well and good, but the obligation to dress up in costume was a pain in the ass. Put in too much effort and you were a try-hard, put in too little and you were a buzzkill, pick something too popular and you were basic, pick something too obscure and you were pretentious. Last year Bethany had tried to play it safe by dressing up as Harley Quinn - along with what turned out to be 99% of her social circle - making for some very cringeworthy selfies with the party’s lone joker who was way, way too into it. This year she’d put it off far too late, and suddenly it was 3pm on the 31st and she still hadn’t picked an outfit. Her boyfriend, Jason had made some well-meaning but ultimately unusable suggestions - he was going as another DC character, but that wasn’t a dice she was ready to roll two years in a row. Instead, she found herself thumbing through the racks of a party supply store, despairing at how irredeemably tacky the available costumes were. “Can I help you with something?” Bethany jumped, turning to find someone quite a bit younger than herself - probably still in high school working part time - standing beside her. “Mika” said her name tag. With no energy to pretend and truly just wanting a moment to vent, Bethany sighed. “Honestly? Probably not. I’m desperate for an outfit for a party tonight, but I’m not THIS desperate.” Rather than taking offence, Mika rolled her eyes in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a bit shit, hey? What were you looking for?” Bethany tried to convey in expression and gesture what she couldn’t in words, and to …

Everyone in a relationship gets asked the question eventually.

“Would you still love me if I was a worm?” Lee rolled over in bed to find himself nose to nose with Tania, his girlfriend of almost a year. Tania looked back at him without a hint of guile in her expression. Lee sighed and closed his eyes. He had been expecting this question. Dreading it, even. By all accounts, the only “right” way to answer was basically to lie. “What?” He said, buying time. Tania averted her eyes in feigned nonchalance. “I dunno, I just feel like if I was born as a worm, you wouldn’t like me.” Lee spent some time carefully assembling a truthful answer. “Tania, if you had been born as a worm, it would have been very difficult for you to use the equipment at the gym where we met. Furthermore, I would suggest that we would have struggled to bake together, sing together, go drinking together and… well, all the other ways we enjoy each other’s company together, and that would certainly put a strain on the relationship.” Tania had turned back to look at him as he spoke, though it was impossible to tell from her expression if he was making a strong case or not. “On the other hand,” he continued, trying for humour. “I’ve seen plenty of worms while gardening and while I’m sure they’re all just as charming, intelligent and thoughtful as you are, I can promise you that I’m not about to run away with any of them.” Tania looked at him for a little longer before rolling away onto her back and staring at the ceiling. While Lee had been expecting to be memed at some point during their relationship, he had not been expecting such an apparently serious response. “What if,” Tania eventually said. “You woke up …

Everyone goes a little bit crazy when they're alone

Anita tried to make the best of her circumstances. She really did. She had more than enough food and toiletries to last the four week hard lockdown. Government cheques meant that her immediate bills were taken care of. She could do anything. She did everything. And in less than ten days she was completely burned out. Waking up with “French for Idiots” plastered to her face, Anita threw it onto the pile of discarded books in disgust. Her everything was still sore from jumping into every type of workout routine at once, and she had given up on several attempts to write, draw or paint over the past week and a half. Logging onto her socials, she found that her friends were having mixed results with their own endeavours. Everyone had advice to give of course, if only because it was an opportunity to pretend their own lives weren’t falling apart, and Anita was inclined to take the vast majority of it with a pound of salt. Something obvious someone suggested - so obvious that she had forgotten to try it at all - was meditation. That was perfect, wasn’t it? It was doing something by doing nothing. If she could get meditating down, she’d be set for the rest of lockdown as long as she remembered to eat. The soundtrack recommendations that came with the suggestion she bookmarked for later, choosing instead to focus on the basics for her first attempt. Setting an alarm for two hours in case she fell asleep, Anita settled into a comfortable sitting position on some cushions. Eyes closed. Breathe deeply. Concentrate on your sensations. Be mindful of your body. Be mindful of your thoughts. Be mindful of your breathing. The alarm went off. Anita snapped back to alertness with a sudden shock, her …