Author Archives: kyu

Selected Transmissions from Synthesized Human Emulation Mk.8.014b, Otherwise Known as Katey

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k80: September 16, 2011, 3:42 a.m.

Dear Mom,

I know it’s the crack of not-yet-dawn, but I thought this would be the perfect time to remind you about either the strength or flight upgrades we’ve been talking about, because I figure being stuck from the waist down in concrete sidewalk really illustrates my point. I mean, I know you worry that I’ll get careless with the super-strength and blow my secret identity, but personally I think that surviving a 22-storey drop with more damage done to the sidewalk than to me is also likely to attract attention. Maybe that’s just me. Continue reading →

Makisig’s Heart

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Listen, daughter. This story begins before the beginning, because that is the way of our people.

Once, there was a hero named Makisig, blessed by the gods and favored by fate. It is said that he was so strong, mountains would move aside upon his approach. It is said that he was so fast, winds would not dare blow without his permission. It is said that he was so skilled, he could even fuck mermaids.

The legends speak of how Makisig would come to kingdoms plagued by monsters, or beasts, or shadows. Makisig would come, and he would bring with him two swords, a lyre, and a cloud that spewed rainbows. Makisig would come, and he would rip out the shadows of the enemies; he would expose their hides to sunlight; he would scar them with his blade. Makisig would come, and kingdoms would be saved.

But Makisig had his price. Continue reading →

A Girl’s Guide To Love In The Big City

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personal stories: The Mean Reds, by Holly G.

The City is not good for me. I came here to make it, make it big—and still I am small, a speck of dust in the grime that collects on the surface of things, the grime that is a by-product of the hustle and bustle of the City, the grime in the shadows, away from the city lights.

I no longer bother to peer at my face in the mirror. I know what I will see: the City’s face, hard and unrelenting. It is the face I share with the laborer who bumps into me in the alley of small eateries between two gigantic malls; the salesgirl on break, slurping her soup; the tot that accosts me like a veteran bully, demanding a coin.

Continue reading →

Freeborn in the City of Fallacies

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His weary heart surfaced a question.

“Valle Paradox,” answered Freeborn.

Valle Paradox: where shamed academics live on in feudal chaos, debating their flawed theories ad naseum, casting misshapen temporalgorithms into the cubic ether and warping actuality with every barbed, non-canonical entry into the world’s spatialgebra. Valle Paradox: the anus of hypotheses, the blasphemous academy of the failed postulation, filled with polygauchos, parallellamas, and concaverines locked in tedious, eternal debate. Valle Paradox: home of the Nimble Riddles, as far from the pool of knowledge as one could get within the country of Logic, shaded by twin mountains that flanked the northern gate from the lands of Reason. When good sense falters, it enters Valle Paradox.

“And so shall we,” he said, “for La Sphinx’s implication points here. This is ‘where one and one adds up to nothing’.”

Continue reading →

Escape

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The last foe fell to the blows of the Whirling Lobster’s good claw, emitting a tart smell as it melted in the dappled forest floor.

“Well,” the Stickman said, breaking the heavy silence. “And that’s that.”

In the aftermath of the furious battle, the three companions stood closely together, their noses pinched and proof against the disagreeable odor, little understanding how fortunate they were to have survived the unanticipated assault.

The Whirling Lobster, whose sensitive nostrils had almost succumbed to olfactory attack, sighed. “I cannot, for the life of me, see why some hearts simply go sour.”

“Some things are simply that way, I suppose,” the Stickman said, gingerly stepping over a curdled corpse that was dissipating in the disinclined breeze. “If you keep hoping-“

“There is nothing wrong with hoping,” interrupted the Whirling Lobster. “For some, it is all they have.” Continue reading →