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Mushrooms
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Mushrooms the little girl said, pointing upwards.
"Yes, yummy", her mum replied handing her a slice, but totally unaware of the deadly blasts her beloved daughter just had spotted on the distant horizon.
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Reflection
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The man in the mirror looked nearly identical. His movements were perfectly synchronised. He was wearing the same clothes. But he had no face. Was it him? Some sort of clone trapped Inside its own body? He reached towards the mirror and touched his reflection, suddenly triggering waves on the liquid mirror surface. As the waves ceased, he saw his clone suddenly had a face - his face.
"Thank you." the clone said with a grin.
"For what?" the man wanted to ask. But he couldn't open his mouth. In panic he reached for it, but it was no longer there. What was happening? Suddenly his sight started to darken until everything turned pitch black. Now he was the one trapped in the mirror. And in its own body.
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Flakes
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It had been snowing 6 months in a row. A thick grey layer of ashes covered the entire landscape. How much longer would they be able to survive? They had been rationing the food, but without further supplies they were most probably doomed. Good thing nobody else knew how little was left. Especially the new arrivals who randomly stranded at their door. Them carrying automated rifles certainly wasn't a good omen. They sure didn't look like they would live by a "ladies and children first" code.
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Moon Phases
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Ever since the new artificial moon had been launched people had started acting weirdly. There were reports saying people behaved liked brainless zombies walking aimlessly through the city, others mentioned cases of extreme violence without any apparent trigger. The government obviously denied there was any correlation between their newest creation and the effects on the population, but people lived in a constant state of anxiety. And there it was again - a painful high-pitched sound coming from the new moon. My vision started blurring. Men were dropping to their knees. That's the last thing I recall before waking up in my bed. Had it all just been a dream?
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Mares
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She woke up tied on a table. Where was she? How did she get there? She couldn't remember. Suddenly she felt an intense pain in her feet. She looked down. And paled. Her feet were no longer there. A loud scream echoed through the empty laboratory.
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Progress
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His dream came true: ∞Immunity∞ Inc. smart pills were finally compulsory for every human being above the age of 14. This move extended the average life by 88 years in best possible conditions. For everyone who could afford it. But even financially less fortunate had the right to live longer - they just had to be system compliant and hand over their first 10 new-borns for experimental research purposes. A fair deal in the name of science and for a ever cleaner genetic pool.
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- 76
"Order your local weather today and make ensure the best preconditions for an awesome weekend."
Another one of these telepathic ads. So insanely annoying. But there was no way around it if she wanted to keep the info live feed in her contact lenses up-to-date.
And that was essential to guarantee her competitive advantage as a head-hunter. And after all, with such a lucrative job in a few years’ time she would have accumulated enough life time extensions and rejuvenation points to retire comfortably. That was enough motivation... at least for now.
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Efficiency
"Target acquired - prepare for aerial drone strike?"
She was so happy to have A.I.D.S. - the Artificial Intelligence Defence System incorporated in her biotech upgrades. The latest version made life so much easier.
"Please define maximum % of collateral damage or stand by for autonomous calibration." The inbuilt features allowed for a nearly effortless criminal hunt and execution. What else could a police officer dream off.
A swarm of drones came out of nowhere and flew at full speed towards their confirmed target. But the very moment they were about to activate their Gaitling machine cannons an EMP wave hit the entire district. The drones crashed into the windows of a oxygen bar nearby, some people collapsed instantly, others, wearing smart lenses were merely blinded. Luckily for her bio tech suit was EMP shock resistant and she just got disconnected from the main frame. But the criminal had escaped. The use of electromagnetic waves had earned him a death sentence through torture though. She would never understand how people would wanna defy the system in such a foolish way.
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Inside
So, it was true. It was more than an urban legend. He wanted to see it with his own eyes. And now he did. One of the indigenous had cut his stomach open and was frantically fishing for his bowels, driven by his morbid curiosity to see how beings were made of "inside". Fortunately, the pain was all gone by now. But he was bleeding out and everything was turning grey slowly. Did he send the distress call in time? The last image he saw was the rescue spaceship coming through the wormhole. Probably just a hallucination before crossing the Styx. Extreme Space Tourism had once against demanded its tall. But maybe it is exactly the high mortality rate that kept this branch alive.
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Dark Memories
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It had arrived. A freshly dead new brain slice! Her body was shivering in euphoric excitement before even applying the memory extractor. What would it be like this time?
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A few moments later she found herself in a casket. Being buried alive. She could hear the prayers outside and earth being tossed on the casket. She screamed, knocked tried to force it open, scratched the wooden boundaries until her nails broke off. In vain. And then fainted. As she woke up again, she was surrounded by darkness, still in the casket. But couldn't hear anything anymore. The air started getting thinner, her breath heavier. But her lungs couldn't find the much-needed oxygen. Panic. Darkness. Deja Vue. Looping.
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Her brother found her in her bed. The memory extractor had burn through. Tears of blood wear running down her nose. Her brain was lost. For good.
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Beta 5180
She came to senses in water. Instinctively she tried to breath. But she just inhaled water. Panic fuelled her attempts to swim upwards, but her body felt extremely weak.The water was too heavy for her barely developed muscle tissue.
A split second thereafter she was flushed out of the glass tank that kept her prisoner. She fell to the floor grasping for air. Where was she? What was going on? She looked around and saw other glass tanks. All filled with bodies sleeping in water. She managed to stand up and step closer. That's when she saw her own reflection in the tank and realized the woman in the tank looked just like her. A look to the next tank revealed the same sight. And so did the next.
Suddenly an alarm sound was activated, and 2 drones flew towards there. She started running, but her legs betrayed her. Her escape attempt ended before it even begun, and a robotic arm grabbed her pulling her into the air. She tried to fight it but got punished with an injection that stole her last bit of energy.
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Hanging upside down she noticed the apparently endless fields of clone tanks. It all felt like a dream. A really dark one that one that would soon turn in a brutal nightmare, cause the drones were heading for the vivisection area. She'd just been harvested.
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The Light - Part I
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So this was Bombay, the new capital of advanced cybernetics. He was told they could cure his sporadic blindness hear by giving him a pair of eyes that was less sensitive to solar flares and radiation. There had been rumours of occasional brain drive incompatibilities causing synaptic disruptions and the occasional multiple personality disorder, but this was a risk he was totally willing to take...
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The Light - Part II
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... He swallowed the pill as advised. It helped to relax before the operation.
And it truly did. As soon as he sat down in the operation room he quickly drifted into a deep sleep.
As he woke up, he was surrounded by darkness. Did the operation fail? to his relief he remembered: the robo-doctor told him the magnetic stripe would shield the light until he would be ready. He disengaged it and finally could see again the world in all its beautiful colours.
But wait why did he have black hands? Black skin? His euphoria sublimised in an instant. He walked to the mirror and saw himself in the body of an African. Had he just been scammed? Did they just execute a cheap consciousness transplant? How could he return home in the body of a stranger? His life had been turned upside down.
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Switching
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Pure excitement. Today was gender choosing day! And although as asexual human life had felt extremely balanced, hormones represented a seducing mood roller coaster experience. The cyborg and his new alien friend were so looking forward to the exchange program.
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Beyond
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In the attempt to achieve immortality humanity had lost its fertility. No big deal, supporters said. But they had missed one fundamental aspect. As long as aging couldn't be slowed down the long-chased dream actually would turn out as a nightmare. Billions of senile citizens a few decades from now all in need of care takers. Fortunately, he had emigrated to Titan after the last global insurgence. He definitely wasn't in the mood to keep serving his masters any longer. Earth was doomed. And he was totally fed up with humans and all their stupid ideas! A never learning life form.
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Once Upon A Time​
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Grandpa always shared his childhood memories with us. Visions from a time when it was still possible to play soccer outside in plain daylight, only with the use of a gas mask and radiation screen. What a wonderful time it must have been. Even my mum can't recall the sun. Sometimes me and my brother sneak-teleport us to where grandpa grew up. It's actually forbidden to visit the outer sphere, and the place is just a ghost town with a few decayed buildings slowly being engulfed by an ocean of dunes. Yet, I love to imagine how it used to be. Plus, while I am there, and my time travels feel more vivid. And these dreams are all I have at the moment...
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Dark Ages
Obviously, if the high council knew, we'd probably be sent asteroid mining as punishment, but the last Martian invasion crippled their units, so there is nobody here to enforce the Evangelion, and everyone does what he wants. I guess we'll die free after all. Poor, but free - as my rebellious second mum said before she got sentenced to the black hole.