#tootfic

The mechanic removed the back plate and inhaled through pursed lips. "Who did this?" "I did," the robot said. "How?" "I took one arm off, put in a wireless interface so I could still use it, and put it in a vice, then turned-" "OK. Why?" "I needed fixing." "You are allowed to ask for help." #MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

In his house at R'lyeh, dread Cthulhu lies dreaming. There is a nudge on his back. "Fgimb?" eldritch Cthulhu mumbles. "Scoot over a bit." The elder god complies, and soon resumes dreaming. Being spooned alters the dreams. "Mhrrm..." "Yes, it's nice." The visitor snuggles in and falls asleep. #MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories #Cthulhu

"I was told you're a monster," the hero said. "So they say," said the monster. "But you're beautiful!" "Thank you." "Have you always been a monster?" "Heh. I was a young maiden. But I did something forbidden." "And became a monster?" "Got named a monster." "What did you do?" "I hit back." #MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

A gravelly voice spoke from under the mayor's bed. "I hear you need a monster hunter." The mayor sat up. "What? Who?" "I'm a monster. I hunt. What do you need hunted?" "Beklo the Ogre, but..." "I'll bring you its head." "How..." "I am a monster under the bed. If it sleeps, I can find it." #MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

It was the kind of audacious idea that can make a fortune. Combine a widely loved concept with a just as widely loved item. What could go wrong? Pre-opening sign-ups filled up in minutes. In practice, though, they couldn't make the cat library work. "They won't stay on the shelves." #MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories

“I’m not in the right headspace to do this.” “You’re the fold operator on duty, nobody else can do it.” “Then, Ma’am it is my recommendation we lay over and reassess tomorrow. Let’s not add to the Rolls Of The Lost.” “You know what this means, right?” “Yes. Computer: Navigation officer raising Condition T. Captain, do you concur.” “I do. ALL HANDS NOW HEAR THIS. ALL HANDS. CONDITION T, I REPEAT CONDITION T. ITS TACO NIGHT. NAVIGATOR JONES ON THE GRILL” #tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

You might think working a phone repair kiosk is a waste of my skills. Yeah nah. Today, this kid came in with an iPhone that was more than cracked, it was banana-fied. “What happened?” I asked, turning the wreckage over in my hands. I don’t think there was a single salvageable part. “And have you considered just upgrading?” “My novel’s on there”, the kid said, wringing his hands anxiously. “It got ran over by a hauler bot.” “Got a backup?”. The tears in the kid’s eyes were all the answer he needed to give. “Okay, event rebasing is the only way to fix this”, I gestured at the price board, “can you afford that?” He gulped. “Uh, just.” “You sure?” “Yes. Can you really fix it?”. Hope flickered in his eyes. “Let’s see, no win no fee”. I held the smashed and bent phone-ana in my hands and turned it over, feeling its shape in space and time. With my /other sight/ I saw its lifeline leading away from where the kid had been, a shimmering trail of history leading back in time. With the fingers of my mind, I felt back along the lifeline until i felt the bump, beyond which the device had been a flat rectangle. Exploring the shape of the damage event I twisted the lifeline into a loop. Now here’s the tricky bit; if you have the knack, and you dig your nails in /just so/ you can pinch out a moment in time and detach it. I rubbed the lifeline with my mental fingers, smoothing out the join where the excised moment had been. Blinking back to the present, I powered on the phone and handed it back to its owner. “All good?” The kid’s fingers flew over the screen as he checked on his preciousss, and breathed a huge sigh. “All good. That’s incredible, can you fix *anything* like that?” “Almost. Like?” He avoided my gaze, staring down at my hands on the counter with their iridescent nails, matching the highlight colours in my hair. He made eye contract briefly, wide eyes again a bit teary. “Even…..me?” Oh, that. “Absolutely not. *wink* Such things are not done and definitely not by me. Clear?” *nod* “Okay, hold still.” It’s a different technique than rebasing, especially because i like to spread the change over a few years to conceal the edit. “All done”. “Oh wow”, she said, reaching up to feel her shoulder length mauve hair (clearly I’d nailed that detail), then taking a twirl. “How, how much do I owe you?” “On the house and you weren’t here. “ The tears were back. “Thank you thank you, this is the best. “ “My pleasure, have a great life” “Thanks, you too” she said. “Bye!” “Wait! Don’t forget your phone!” #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

We used a card catalogue to take the census, just to be safe. The results were hand tabulated three times for error checking, the cutoff frequency is four point three MegaHertz, plus or minus two percent. Any clock signal faster than this will eventually attract an infowasp swarm. They primarily feed on those high frequency radio emissions, but when they are driven into a frenzy state any nearby radiator (say, a human brain) will be attacked. Look, by all means try shielding your high performance computer, let us know if you live, we’ll stand well back. Or maybe check your attic for something below the Langerfeld Limit. — Sent from my Amstrad CPC6128 #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I didn’t have “time travel” anywhere near the top of my “next grift after AI” list. The chronomigration bubble came out of a confluence of developments; gamma ray telescopes sensitive to the 500 keV electron-positron annihilation energy allowed us to spot the inbound antimatter comet 67i/Fermi as soon as it began interacting with the solar wind. Gravity tugs brought 67i to lunar orbit, where laser ablation was used to direct a stream of antimatter dust onto fuel pellets (just moon rocks, in fact). The plume of energy liberated by quantum annihilation acted as a giant rocket motor, slightly perturbing the moon’s orbit in such a way to tug the earth farther enough away from the sun to cool the climate. It will take four hundred centuries, which is where the time travel (also facilitated by the matter/antimatter energy fountain) comes in. If you can afford the fare, you can deposit one dollar in a savings account, blip out of our climate ravaged world and arrive rich in the clean, comfortable future. No, you cannot deduct the cost from your future fortune, it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work at all. The kind of person who would take this offer can’t be expected to know the difference between a time portal and a disintegration field. And they just won’t believe you when you warn them. #Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

It is a popular mathematical experiment to try and work out just how fast Santa has to be to reach every house with a child in a single 24 hour period. The calculations always end up with a significant fraction of the speed of light. There then usually follow discussions about what the collateral damage from Santa's passing would be. And cargo limits, and so on. All of these are wrong, and ignore another end-of-year tradition. The portrayal of the ending year as an old man. Now that I've put these two traditions side-by-side, I think you can see what is really going on. It is possible for one man to visit every house in a night, with no shock waves or any of that silliness. But it comes at a cost. For that man, the night lasts many years, as he travels back in time after each visit. Even with time travel, he does not get much time to eat - so the snacks you leave out are essential to him surviving the night. But he only just survives. By the end of the night he will have aged over forty years. And then he hands the reigns of the time-travelling sleigh to a younger man, warning him of the cost. Someone always answers the call, despite the cost, because there is always someone willing to sacrifice everything to bring joy and light, even just a little, even if only for a moment. So leave the snacks, and, if you catch a glimpse of him, give him a bow of respect. He deserves it. #SFF #SF #Christmas #Santa #microfiction #microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting