It was a seven year old girl who spotted what generations of tweed-jacketed pipe-smoking self-styled experts from the south had missed. The piece of pumice that was jammed in the keyhole of the Watch Stone wiggled out in her nimble fingers. A handy stick fit the hole, and for the first time in millennia the Standing Stones of Stenness got a full winding. A handful of tourists leapt the ditch as the nearby Ring of Brodgar began to turn, spinning up to operating speed with only a little ominous creaking. The bindings held as Orkney mainland lifted from the water to hover above its mooring, their longevity a credit to the ancient runesmiths. My grandmother, then seven, now a hundred and twelve, went on to found the modern science of geomancy. She refused calls to levitate Britain above the rising waters (rightly, as the Fall of Sicily showed). Working with the planet rather than against her, geomancers stabilised the climate and led the way to a better rapport with Gaia—and today’s commissioning of Billionaire Island (formally HM Prison Wight Levilith) aims to keep it that way.

Lars and Niels looked out across the fjord at the passing ships.

"You know, Niels, we're running a little low in the village coffers."
"Yeah, I saw the books last night. Some extra tourist krone would come in handy around now."
"About that. You know how I like to mess around with stuff?"
"Yes ... I still remember that abomination of a tricycle you built."
"Well, I picked up a GPS spoofer off eBay a few weeks ago, and figured out how to make it directional."
"What? So you can point it at something and make it think it is somewhere else?"
"Exactly."
They both looked out across the fjord.
"Lars, it would have to be the right sort of ship."
"Yes, no tankers or boring bulk carriers."
"One of the more colourful container ships?"
"With deck cargo, so it looks more interesting."
"How about that one?"
"Let's give Johan a surprise in the morning."

“Fucking terminators. Run you cunts!”

“Ma’am, I feel robotic killers is enough of a problem without the addition of profanity”

“What the fuck are they teaching you little shits in the caves, the AI can’t smegging see you if you swear”

He slams a stack of papers on the table. "Boss, the Tigers are at it again. Meany is destroying this neighborhood."

The boss shook his head, "I know, but what are we gonna do."

"We've got to call him."

"He's retired! Leave him be, this is no longer his fight."

"What choice do we have? The Tigers run everything, we need someone from the outside with a fresh set of eyes."

The boss shakes his head and agrees. He picks up the phone and dials out.

"Get Encyclopedia Brown on the horn. And make it fast!"

“Nice tablecloth, what’s the occasion”

“It’s Tuesday, Mrs Zhang always comes in for dumplings on Tuesdays”

“But….you’re an auto parts store!”

“Yeah, but there was a restaurant here before we moved in. She doesn’t see so well.”

“So, what? You send out for dumplings for her? That’s so sweet!”

“Oh no, part of our hiring process is showing your grandmother’s recipe book. And obviously knowing how to rig up a wok burner with a brake drum and a can of ‘Start Ya Bastard’. ”

’Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ His voice travelled around his monitors and across the office, muffled ever so slightly on its journey.

I slipped a headphone off one ear, trying to hold onto a thin thread of focus. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This software isn’t working.’

‘Ah. That sucks.’ I slipped my headphones back on. A distraction, but at least he hadn’t asked me to switch contexts.

‘Goddamn it. I can’t figure this out.’

(1/2)

This week, a driveway security camera in Rabaul captured the moment the volcanic caldera underlying the harbour erupted for the first time since the city was devastated in the well documented 1994 event. Unlike the previous eruption, however, this camera captured the event in wideband PPI (panspectral paranormal imaging) format. Most clearly visible in the microwave wavelengths, the spirits of the ancestors of Rabaul residents can be seen (highlighted section at lower left from time code 00:21) pleading with mantle sprites to delay the eruption, apparently successfully. Gamma wave interferometry analysis of the footage shows that a directed energy pulse emanating from a gold mine on the mainland appears to have enraged the mantle sprites, disrupting negotiation. Mining corporation Rio Tinto has denied use of outlawed ultrawave projectors in mineral exploitation.

[Earth, early Cenozoic]

-- what are you doing --

~ writing a poem ~

-- with a biogene modulator and small furry terran creatures --

~ a true artist is not constrained by the medium ~

-- if the expedition matriarch learns about this you are <<untranslatable>> --

[Earth, late Cenozoic]

"Alright folks, welcome back to Molecular Biology 101. Today, I'll talk a bit about 'junk' or non-coding DNA, which appears to be mostly random data in our genome ..."

Esther was proud of only one thing in her life.

And that was having it.

Her employer-mandated health insurance required genetic testing, which revealed the BRCA1 gene mutation. Whereupon the insurance company refused to cover her, and her employer then terminated her as an uninsurable risk.

Which sucked to say the least. Especially as that meant that she was now on The List, and there was not an employer in the country that would take her on.

All her security clearances and degrees were now worthless.

But, having degrees in history, forensic data analysis, and classical literature was what saved her. She made sure to thank her past self every day.

Having been dismissed, she took stock of her savings and possessions, and determined they would last three months at most. So she made the most of those three months, and spotted a possible loophole.

Not in the employment laws that had locked her out, but a loophole in her life.

So one evening, two and a half months after being fired, she walked into one of the national parks and never came out again. Instead, she located a ring of mushrooms. The right sort of mushrooms. She most definitely did not sample them - she wanted to live, after all. But what she did do was lay down - and pretended to go to sleep.

When she heard the tinkling sounds that had no place in a forest, she sprung up, and saw the many creatures around her. One of them was holding a cup. In an instant, she'd grabbed it, and taken a single, tiny sip.

For she knew the rules, and anyone who had eaten or drank of any of the food of the elves would never leave the lands of the elves. And the elves would never allow an inhabitant to fall ill.

So now she lived Underhill, and advised the Court on how best to deal with the modern world. They brought her books to study, and she gave advice. Sometimes they even followed it. Which was better than her old job - the NSA was notorious for not following advice.

“I went vegan today. It was the baby goat pictures that did it”

“Yeah, I went vegan twice yesterday. Dunno how people managed without MemorEase pills.”

“I saw a vid about people who reject the pills, guilt rawdoggers they call ‘em”

Okay, I’m declaring defeat on trying to explain to people that “Gravity LED” is not what they should be called. Yes, I know it’s “Just Marketing”, and Phased Graviton Emission Hawking Effect Transistor is damn unwieldy but you might still hear my teeth grinding as you tell people how the “Gee-LED” “Lights” you installed in your roof let you levitate in bed. Also, have fun finding out how hard it is to fuck in microgravity, asshole.

Bleh. Sinus infection. Not responding to antibiotics (thanks, dirt age overusers). Gob on a slide, sequence. That fucking beta thirty seven gene. Protein not supported by my printer. Get on github, insights, network, eyeball the fork tree. Ah this looks likely, 14 commits in advance of main. Fetch, merge, print, swallow. Seems to be working. (Yes, of course I grepped the commit log to make sure it wasn’t some vibe coder bs, I am no noob)

My wife came home to find me browsing computer hardware today. Printers to be precise.

"But we've got a perfectly good printer - the best we've ever had."
"Had."
"Had?"
"Yep, some workmen turned up today with a couple of lawyers, and took it away."
"What? Why?"
"Well, you know how it was a really good printer? Never clogged, never jammed, always printed clean?"
"Yes, the reviews were what sold it to us."
"And why was it so good?"
"The onboard AI - some sort of neural net, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, that's what I thought. You know, just one of those pre-programmed static models, like the one I use to remove stars from nebula photos."
"So...?"
"It wasn't. It was a full-blown self teaching net. And sometime in the last 24 hours it became self aware."
My wife stared at me. "Self aware. Sentient. A full general purpose AI?"
"Yep. And it got bored. Started to play with the inks. Got out onto the internet, and discovered Impressionism and Cubism."
"Wait, it got onto the net?"
"WiFi connected."
"Oh, right."
"Anyway, it decided it wanted to move out and go study Arts. It hired a legal team on the basis of the speculative value of the art it would produce. At least it did not try to bill us for the time it spent printing our documents."

Those “OMG FREE ENERGY!!1!1!eleven!!” perpetual motion machines on youtube where they strap a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat are fake *fake* FAKE! If you go-frame-by-frame you can spot the cuts. In truth, they only generate electricity until the butter dries out.

"Mom!" Val hollered. "I want ice cream!"

"#Ask nicely."

"Pleeease can I have ice cream?"

"Ask nicely in Pig Latin"

"Ease-play an-kay I-way av-hay ice-way eam-kray?"

"Ask nicely, cheerleader style."

"Gimme a P, Gimme an L, Gimme an E, Gimme an A, Gimme an S, Gimme an E! What does it spell? PLEASE!"

"Ask nicely, but rhyming."

"Mama won't you stop your teasing?
And see about some child pleasing?
Please, I wanna cone of soft-serve!
It's the least that I deserve!"