Jackson Allen's Blog, page 7

Ssh! It’s a Secret

SECRET – I made a new Youtube channel tag but you can only see it if you decode the message.

Pyvpx urer gb frr gur arj punaary gnt:
uggcf://lbhgh.or/GDdo-7CvLUH

#scifi #secret #Cipher #codes #Thursday

— Inkican Books (@inkican.bsky.social) February 13, 2025 at 7:07 PM

People are already coming in with their solutions:

Hurry up and solve it before your friends do – I’ll be waiting at the other end of this mystery …

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Toxic Scifi Fan Hate Mail Part II – The Author Strikes Back

Click here to read some Toxic Scifi Fan Hate Mail I got in Part I. Sometimes you have to ‘hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats’ – authors are no exception. I think their comments speak for themselves, so let me get right into my response – posted as follows:

Listen up, Dingus. I took the first two or three shots because I believe in finding common ground but now you’ve taken it too far. You think ‘nobody cares about quality anymore’ and ‘It’s all about cheap nostalgia, ‘Star Wars is an abomination,’ and ‘Rose Tico ruined everything?’ You just walked into my kill zone, sweetie – so let me give you a nickel’s worth of free advice.

Number one: stop reading / watching / experiencing scifi. If I were the principal and this was school, you’d be expelled. This isn’t room for you in scifi anymore – you don’t understand what science fiction is, you can’t understand what it feels like to color outside the lines. You can’t know, because you don’t want to know, what it feels like to be a Rose Marie Tran or a Ursula K. Le Guin in a Neil Gaiman or Scott Adams world.

Number two: Stop telling everyone that you love science fiction. No you don’t – you love a scifi-based play zone with safety corners and bubble wrap where your fee fees and your two movie dollars are more important than treating other people with respect and dignity. Stick to your Middle School-era TV shows and books where all the main characters are ruggedly handsome white guys, all the aliens are metaphors for brown people and all girls are dopey victims.

If it helps – let’s not call it ‘explusion.’ Let’s say: You’ve officially graduated from science fiction. Enjoy it, here’s your cap and gown, go down the road and watch Marvel and Fast X movies – that’s your speed and that’s what you deserve. I’ll tell you this now so you can skip to the end of your life – you’re going to miss everything cool and die miserable. That’s all people like you are capable of because you don’t understand what it takes to create – all you know how to do is destroy.

The irony is, you’ll never figure out how scifi has passed you by, and is treating you like you treated it. It was there to challenge you, it was there to open new doors – you couldn’t handle either of those things so you shrank back into destruction. I outgrew your immature, selfish mindset years ago and have no interest in lowering myself to debate you.

Go outside, touch some grass. Then go inside and get some help. You’ve got more issues than Time Magazine, and writing hate mail to me won’t make that better.

With concern,

J

So yeah – dang, that took a lot out of me. It’s been years since I’ve navigated an email flame war – so I  know I’m a little rusty. It’s part of my healing journey to stand up for myself and others.

If anything else comes of this Scifi Fan Hate Mail, I’ll keep you posted. I’m wore out, but I also feel … kinda good.

The post Toxic Scifi Fan Hate Mail Part II – The Author Strikes Back appeared first on Inkican.

Toxic Fan Hate Mail

Incoming Toxic Fan Hate Mail – wasn’t planning on that on a Tuesday morning but, hey – that’s why I’m an author. Nothing better to do than be somebody’s punching bag, right?

Part of me says ‘ignore/block’ but another part of me is like ‘they aren’t attacking me, they’re attacking everyone – Somebody’s gotta stand up to these clowns.’ The story began with a LOL – your site sucks email – okay fine, we always try to do better. I asked ‘what do you think I can improve?’ and then I got the following word salad:

Subject: ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS WOKE SCI-FI ——-?!?!
To Whoever the —- is Listening (Probably No One),

I AM ABSOLUTELY ——- LIVID about the state of scifi right now. It USED to be a ——- escape, a place for imagination and incredible stories. Now? It’s a ——- PROPAGANDA MACHINE pushing ——- down our throats and RUINING everything that made these stories worthwhile! And STAR WARS? Don’t even get me ——- STARTED on STAR WARS.

Force Awakens, Last Jedi and RoS? ——- ABOMINATIONS. Complete and utter betrayal of everything George Lucas created. Every decision was worse than the last. Did they think that expectations were subverted when we got Rey as a Mary Sue, Kylo as a whiny emo kid, and Rose Tico?!?!  Don’t even get me started on that ——- Rose Tico. Worst character EVER – so fat, so ugly – she ruined all the scenes she was in! Finn shoulda just DIED.

Go ahed call me ‘toxic.’ U call anyone who complains ‘toxic.’ God forbid we’re TRUTH-TELLERS – standards doesn’t make you toxic, it makes REAL FANS. U silence ppl cuz u can’t handle different opinions.

Scifi’s about passion and adventure and ESCAPISM, too much to ask?!?!?! STOP ——- RUINING SCIENCE FICTION! Stop treating loyal fans like they don’t matter and focus on telling GOOD STORIES. If you want to tell new stories with diverse characters, FINE, but don’t ——- SABOTAGE established franchises to score woke points.

We deserve better than this soulless, agenda-driven garbage! Give us back the passion, the adventure, the ESCAPISM that made science fiction worth loving in the first place.
Or don’t. We’ll just keep laughing at u while ur woke empires collapse.

—- You,

[Redacted]
A Pissed-Off Fan Who’s Ready to Abandon Science Fiction Entirely Because of Your Woke ——-

Yikes

Okay, so um … yeah. If I had a Swear Jar, I could stop writing and retire. What dressing goes with word salad – balsamic nerderette? I didn’t want to respond until I learned more so I asked: ‘okay, so who’s doing scifi *right*?’:

Seriously, who’s even bothering to make GOOD sci-fi anymore? Paramount just ditched Prodigy, selling it off to Netflix like it’s garbage. Guess they don’t care about making a decent show. Figures.

The point is, nobody cares about quality anymore. It’s all about cheap nostalgia or whatever woke garbage is trending. We’re stuck with soulless remakes and reboots instead of actual creativity. So thanks, Hollywood, for ruining everything. Guess I’ll just go back to watching the same five movies over and over again because nobody can be bothered to make anything worthwhile.

Okay, so you hate the science fiction that’s out now – any time somebody makes something new, it sucks? Got it. You just walked into my kill box. Let me get my Response together – I’ll post it for you in Part II

Part II

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GSBCW – Global Silent Book Club Week Feb 24-28 is Back – 12-1PM PST

Hooray – Global Silent Book Club Week Feb 24-28 – is back! Re-starting the GSBCW for everyone to enjoy in the last week of every month starting in February.

Feb 24-28 – 12-1PM PST

Who? Anyone who loves to read in silence with someone else! What? Global Silent Book Club Week (#GSBCW) is a gathering where participants read their own books in silence. When? GSBCW is the last week of every month – with Silent Reading from 12-1 PM PST.  Where? You can literally read anywhere. Since this is a Global book club, I’m sticking with an online platform – See Discord links in Quick Links. Why? GSBCW is interconnectedness connect without financial barriers, shared humanity and meaningful bonds through the simple act of reading.

The fun doesn’t stop there – For kids,  GSBCW fosters a love for reading by creating a fun and social environment. It helps improve focus and comprehension while allowing them to share their favorite stories with peers. Families bond over shared reading experiences during GSBCW. Enjoy quality time together, encourage discussion, and nurture a bonded family culture of respect and love. We’re doing an hour of silent reading from 12-1 PST every day, but you can read together any time. Join us! 

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Scifi Thought Leader: Passion for Compassion

Needs As a scifi though leader, compassion is a passion. Take a step back from the news and think about that word for a second – compassion. Similar to empathy, compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it, and boy are we missing both in the Year of Our Lord 2025. Heartlessness, apathy, and cruelty are all around us. This isn’t new – I’ve been talking about the problem for a while now. Until we get together on showing empathy and compassion, we’re in for some pain and misery.

How did we get here? Not the point – I’m not a sociologist. There are a lot of ways to fake compassion and empathy – you see it often in the way that persons require a deep rigor of investigation or introspection after showing an utter lack of their own. For example – social media meltdowns where famous people become incredibly sensitive about their feelings after being insensitive toward others. 

I digress. Thought leaders ‘lead others in the thinking around a given topic’ – my goal is to lead science fiction as a genre and community into a place of harmony. It’s become apparent that we’re all missing compassion and perhaps there’s an opportunity to change. However, there’s a little ‘reality-ception’ going on, in that while most people agree that compassion is necessary, understanding requires us to go another layer down.

Answering Some Compassion Questions

For example, why do many conflate ‘showing compassion’ with ‘virtue signaling?’ I have a personal theory that needs need more data to validate, so take it with a grain of salt. In a world where we’re constantly maximizing our impact with limited resources, people expect their compassion to have transactional benefit. It’s not enough to help someone in need, I must film myself for Internet Credit in order for it to count.

Why is compassion so hard to come by? Again, here’s a theory – take it with as many grains of salt as you need. Compassion is missing from our cultural dialogue. In a world that prioritizes ‘mic drop’ moments – you the Main Character destroy your opponent with a burn so hard that they fade away under the weight of their own shame? Yeah, something like that. Anyway – when we’re looking for a ‘mic drop,’ we’re not looking for destruction, not healing.

We can’t fix what’s happening to us with more rage. I mean, if rage and agression worked – it would have happened by now, right? Rather than doubling down, let’s look at our situation with a view toward healing. Here’s what I mean:

Bioremediating Science Fiction

Can you bomb an ecosystem into health? Probably not. When an ecosystem becomes polluted, what works is ‘bioremediation.’ Making change happen over time: See the ecosystem differently, treat it differently, give the system time to heal itself. All of those components are a manifestation of compassion – an expression of interconnectedness, empathy, and purpose.

Congruently, can science fiction be ‘bioremediated?’ Absolutely! Introduce positive, empathetic storytelling without sacrificing compassion or empathy. How can we show compassion to each other – are we doing enough to express empathy and interconnectedness to ourselves and our readers? I’m not the first one to talk about it – but I want to keep talking about this because it’s a solution expressed over time, not by knee-jerk Band-Aid fixes.

Scifi Needs Compassion Now

Compassion matters now. Compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. Encourage the compassion by approaching it as opportunities for personal growth, leadership, and recognition. As people take steps toward compassion, allow for personal recognition and leadership while contributing to a more inclusive sci-fi community.

Be the change you want to see in the world – along with compassion, show empathy, kindness, and decency. That’s how we’ll survive together in apathetic, unkind, and indecent times.

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DeepSeek and Qwen 2.5-Max AI Models – “My AI model Can Beat Up Your AI Model”

New news about DeepSeek and Qwen 2.5-Max AI Models. All I’m hearing is “My AI model Can Beat Up Your AI Model!”

Sorry for any burst bubbles. That’s all I hear when I read the hype about the DeepSeek and Qwen 2.5-Max AI Models. We’ve heard this song before. Alibaba released Qwen 2.5-Max, supposedly unseating DeepSeek’s seventy-two hour legacy as ‘Best AI model evar!’? Sorry folks, this is starting to sound dumb – can I recommend taking a step back?

Here’s the deal: AI models are disrupting many markets and newer models mean more efficient ways to get the same results using less power. Yes, these models are fascinating and outperforms ‘Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s o1 in AIME.’ The question simply is – so, what? What will these models help us DO?

Anyone help me with that? I mean, we’ve been using AI in various forms since the 90s. I’ve lived through – let’s see – four tech hype/bust cycles so far (PC era, Dot-Bomb, social media / mobile devices, and IoT). This song sounds so familiar, I’m starting to hum the words. Just as Dot-Coms, mobile devices, and IoT were Wall Street darlings a few years ago, LLMs and AI models are the new ‘IT Girl’ of Wall Street in 2025.

So what? Most of the speculation fails to connect the dots on what these super-duper models are supposed to be doing for us. Just as dot com companies could find themselves with $150M in funding before they had a business plan, AI models are massless centers of gravity. ‘Your car has a 350 V8? Ooh, but I have a 6.6 liter engine!’ Like, awesome – what’s that going to do *for* me?

Most of the AI model signal contains those important ‘missing stairs.’ How many more days until we find ourselves laughing at AI’s speculative bubble? The lyrical nature of these hype/bust cycles means we’re still climbing the hill toward ‘facing reality.’ The next step – after people lose trillions of dollars – will be the market opportunity and sustainable market. Which part of this process do we want to be a part of?

The ‘my AI model can beat up your AI model’ talk from DeepSeek Qwen 2.5-Max AI should scare everyone. Human beings – for all their cynicism – are gullible creatures. I think it’s time to revisit Steve Jobs’ famous 1997 speech about the importance of starting with the customer experience and working backwards. See if you can find any justification for caring about the technical benefits of one AI model versus another in this impromtu TED talk:



Yes, yes – we know: Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs. That’s not the point. What *is* the point is what we’re learning from guys like him who understood what it meant to build innovative products for people to use every day.

So what will the customer / user experience be from using Qwen 2.5-Max or DeepSeek? Even AI doesn’t know. “These advancements in AI technology have the potential to make various aspects of our lives more efficient, accessible, and informed,” sez Perplexity. “However, it’s important to note that the actual impact on quality of life will depend on how these technologies are implemented and made available to the general public.”

Exactly.

The only people getting rich off of AI model news seems to be the media / narrative complex, and stock trading platforms. Does that sound familiar? It should – ‘during the 1849 gold rush, those who made the most money sold picks and shovels to miners.‘ This new update means DeepSeek may become an investment DeepSink. Who knows how long Qwen 2.5-Max will last before being supplanted by another model?

So when it comes to DeepSeek and Qwen 2.5-Max AI models, I’m glad you can say ‘my AI model beat up your AI model.’ Good for you, enjoy whatever gold star or participation trophy or Wall Street bump you get. Nobody’s *quite* sure what these models are going to do for us, and until you’ve answered that question, I’m keeping my hype to myself.

More Futurology notes here

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Sunday Morning Scifi #3 – Microfiction

Welcome to Sunday  Morning Scifi Microfiction! As you know, I write microfiction to help you wake up and greet the day with a smile. I started by posting the following to Mastodon and Bluesky:

Today’s Sunday Morning Scifi Microfiction comes from @X31Andy@mastodon.green:

I hope you enjoy …

Moon Plumbers

“C’mon, one more minute!” Seymour yelled at the light, turning a wrench. “Fred, get over here.”

“Almost there.” Fred inspected with his flashlight, a quarter-inch line feeding the cooling systems inside a craterlet of Kircher. One leak usually meant two, so you had to look carefully. God knows, they weren’t paying for a second trip. “Whose dumb idea was it to put a sensor out here, anyway?”

“Impact monitoring, earthshine, who knows?” Seymour grunted. “Lots of times, it’s just a company or country, wants to say they have a moon project. First lunar base of Tuvalu or something.”

“And then it breaks …”

” … and then it breaks. That’s why we get paid the big bucks. Where’s your light, this stupid work lamp is toast. I told you that guy was scamming us!”

“Maybe. How’s that ice treating you?”

“Don’t ask.” Seymour straightened up. “Patch is secure – lost maybe fifty gallons. Not the end of the world. How do we get back home?”

“Excellent question,” Fred answered, not mentioning the obvious life support problems. “That battery was driving our radio and your work light. No sunlight down here, we’ll have to bring the solar panels, battery, and radio out to the surface. Charge the battery, then we can call for a ride home.”

Fred listened to Seymour use every curse word in every language he knew as they toted heavy, secondhand gear. It wasn’t just the weight, every trip was hundreds of uphill meters to the surface of Kirchner. Fred tried to be optimistic: “Look on the bright side, we’re getting all our cardio for the week.”

“Shut up and hold the light.” Seymour unbolted the moon rider’s radio from the chassis. “Watch that ice.”

“I’m watching it.”

The two moon plumbers made their third and final trip up the dark, gray powder and scree. Seymour and Fred reached the battery and solar panels, ready for the next boondoggle.

“Aw, geeze. The clips didn’t hold. I told you that guy was scamming us!”

“Dang it.” The terminals of their battery weren’t compatible with the solar panels and converter, necessitating a MacGyver’ed solution held on with alligator clips. The old clips slipped off at some point, meaning the battery wasn’t charged at all.

“What do we do?” Seymour asked. “Can’t stay out here forever.”

“I’ll have to hold it.” Fred knelt in the regolith, holding the alligator clips to the terminals by hand. “See? It’s already starting to charge.”

“Times like these – I really don’t know why I took this job.”

“I admire your optimism,” Fred answered. “Like we had a choice.”

“Nothing else to do but wait and save our air.” Seymour killed his flashlight, saving power for life support. “I told you that guy was scamming us.”

“Yeah, man. I know.”

The End

Thanks for the suggestion, Andy – I hope you enjoyed this Sunday Morning Scifi Microfiction called ‘Moon Plumbers.’ Feel free to grab some of my other projects if you enjoy these little moments of joy. Thanks again!

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AI’s Dumbest Move Yet

Hello and happy Caturday – time to discuss AI’s dumbest move yet. This week, Fortune describes an AI that can tell if CEO’s are depressed on earning calls. According to the article, ‘AI-powered mental health assessments have already allowed researchers to identify correlations between CEO depression and business risks.’ This application of our new favorite technology might interest some, but is alarming and inappropriate for reasons we’ll now discuss.

The stated use of this tool is to ‘highlight mental health in leadership roles and how prevalent it is,’ the associate professor of accounting (accounting??) at Indiana University told Fortune. And then, almost in the same breath, ‘it … also has far-reaching implications for the organization, the employees, the investors, and the broader economy.’ So, thanks for that tissue of respectability – I hope you’re happy when this ‘AI voice stress tool’ goes the way of the polygraph.

Polygraph 2.0

I don’t blame the tool itself – only the people who made it and the people who use it. This is AI’s dumbest move yet, and if you can’t understand why – you’re part of the problem. See folks, we’ve been here before. Since the early 20th century, lie-detector devices were de rigueur with law enforcement, with many variations all focused on the same goal – ensuring no one could lie to you. But here’s the punchline: people defeat polygraph devices all the time.

Wikipedia lists some of these cases for your education / edification – you can review them at your convenience:  Aldrich Ames, a former CIA officer who became a spy for the Soviet Union, is perhaps one of the most infamous examples of someone beating a polygraph. Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, underwent a polygraph test and passed, despite his guilt. It is believed that he managed to stay calm and collected, employing relaxation techniques to keep his physiological responses in check. This allowed him to evade capture for many years until DNA evidence linked him to the crimes. Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, also managed to pass a polygraph test.

Polygraph results have varying degrees of effectiveness. The only guys who benefitted from polygraphs were the people selling them or the people selling you on them. For everyone else, a polygraph was in some cases no better than flipping a coin. Now we have this new ‘AI mental health tool,’ proving we haven’t learned a thing. Any tool to exploit your mental or emotional vulnerabilities can be exploited. 

How This Will Go Wrong

Meanwhile, the most useful tools of human connection – compassion and curiosity – buried under layers of suspicion and skepticism. At what point are we going to start learning to talk TO each other instead of talking ABOUT each other? I’m not sure, but I know this AI ‘mental health tool’ won’t help.

Worse yet, this tool will – no doubt – be used by bad actors to attack opponents’ personal vulnerabilities. Along the way it’ll also be used to exploit those with personal, private medical issues. No sane executive will miss ‘crazywash’ training – tailoring their public persona, appearance, and voice skills – distancing themselves further from the people they’re supposed to be serving.

No one argues that AI can be valuable in some ways – we’re still learning those ways every day. Just as fire keeps you alive or kills you depending on who holds the matches, AI is a torch in the hands of mad children obsessed with charisma, control, and capability. This tool will burn us until we keep it with compassionate, conscientious, and caring craftsman.

So when it comes to AI’s dumbest move, here’s my parting thought: Congratulations, you played yourself.

More Futurology notes here

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I honestly just want new media. New ideas, new movie plots, no spin offs, no prequels and sequels. Something new.

I honestly just want new media. New ideas, new movie plots, no spin offs, no prequels and sequels. Something new.

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Sunday Morning Scifi #2 – Microfiction

Welcome to Sunday Morning Scifi – this ‘Swordfish Elegy’ is microfiction to help you wake up and greet the day with a smile. I started by posting the following to Mastodon and Bluesky:

And two people got back to me right away – good times! To honor their Sunday Morning Scifi Microfiction request, I’m doing both – here’s part #2.

I hope you enjoy:

Swordfish Elegy – Courtesy @pxplowsound

The picture, that was what he kept staring at. Sunlight on shiny, dark hair. Hopeful eyes. Winning smile. Diwan-e-Khan couldn’t take his eyes off the picture of his son. I came here for you. I might never see you again. 

Freeya Freeah, the android, applied clear leakpaste to their cracked viewport. The asteroid field – so promising as a mineral resource – now a floating deathtrap. Powerful magnetic fields, undetectable until you were too close, nearly ripped the Swordfish apart. Frantic, last-second navigation saved them. Would they survive until the rescue, or had they delayed the inevitable? Rancor – the helmsman – wasn’t giving up. Diwan-e-Khan couldn’t afford to give up, either.

They called as soon as they heard. Of course they did. “Greetings – we couldn’t help but receive your distress call.”

Rancor sneered, muttering a Bolbish oath under his breath. Then he spoke to Freeya Freeah: “I knew it.”

The oily Oligarch-o-bot voice continued. “We’re happy to  mount a rescue operation, but first let us discuss terms. For the low, low price of thirty percent of your equity, we will give you the priceless gift of your lives. If you agree, please signal so that we can begin signing the official Doc-o-sign signifying our agreement.”

“Don’t respond,” Diwan-e ordered. “It’ll just make things worse.”

“We cannot afford to ignore them,” Freeya Freeah answered, impeccable droid logic. “It is unlikely we can make it home under our own power.”

“Never accept the first offer,” Rancor said. “That weakens our bargaining position.”

“The hull has microfractures. We’re losing atmosphere in every compartment. If we don’t get back to base within twenty-two hours, there will be no one left to save.”

“Seal off all compartments except this one – transfer all breathable air back into the tanks. We can survive a lot longer than you think.” Diwan-e peered through the viewport at the nearest asteroid. “Any idea how those magnetic fields work?”

“Computer’s working on it,” Rancor tapped a switch. “They have some interesting characteristics, almost as if the magnetic fields are … ”

“Are what?”

Rancor looked up from his screen, confused and yet fascinated. “… ever heard of a sentient magnetic field?”

“You’re kidding.” Diwan-e Khan’s mouth fell open. “How can a physical force be aware?”

“Don’t ask me – I only work here,” the alien slapped the console. “No denying that the magnetic force activated when we arrived. Nothing, then as soon as we were close enough, it struck. The asteroids knew we were here and did something about it. That indicates some form of sentience.” His eyes blinked, a Bolbar’s sign of fatigue.  “Danged if I know what to do about it.”

Diwan-e recognized Rancor’s fatigue, knowing it came from lowered oxygen in Bolbars. They were running out of time and options. “What about the tech VC ship?” Freeya Freeah asked. “They’re still waiting for a response.”

“Let them wait,” Diwan-e responded. “Let’s think about what we can do with those asteroids. Freeya – tap into the computer and start feeding the sensor data back to naviagation. Are you observing any patterns?”

“Sure, why not? It’s not like I need to breathe,” the android muttered.

“Hellooo?” the Oligarch-o-bot spoke again. “I’m authorized to lower the bounty on your rescue to twenty-five percent equity. If you agree, please signal so that we can begin signing the official Doc-o-sign signifying our agreement. Any response?”

“Man, I hope you find something before they figure out how messed up we are,” Rancor said. “Our life support just dropped from fifteen percent to three. We won’t last longer than six hours at this rate.”

Diwan-e studied his son’s picture, mentally crossing his fingers. If they accepted the rescue offer, he couldn’t afford to travel back to Earth – all his family visits would be across a remote screen. No way to be a father. Six hours of life support versus a lifetime of regret and lost hope. Tempting to lay back and let the darkness close in.

“Hold it,” Freeya Freeah leaned forward, studying the navicomp’s read out. “You were onto something – check this out.”

Diwan-e followed the android’s polished metal finger, seeing the vague torus shape of a nav-path among the asteroids and associated forces. “This system isn’t set up to trap us – it’s there to protect us.”

Rancor clapped two of his tendrils together, excited. “If we hit the ring right here, the associated magnets will turn into one big spaceship rail gun. That’s enough velocity to get us back home in two hours.”

“I can’t believe it,” Freeya Freeah said. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Diwan-e said. “Something was bugging me about how fast the magnetic field activated. Who put it there, why did they do it?”

“Your guess would have been as good as mine,” the android said.

“Sure – only instead of seeing it as a threat, we see it as an opportunity. Our little magnetic trap just became an intergalactic runaway truck ramp.”

“I guess that’s why we keep the humans around,” Rancor commented. “We need those kinds of leap beyond logic.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Diwan-e gestured toward the Bolbar. “Punch it, and let’s put that Tech VC rescue squad to shame.”

“Counting down,” Rancor said. “Three … two … one …”

“Launch!”

The End

Thanks for the suggestion, @pxplowsound.  I hope you enjoyed this Sunday Morning Scifi Microfiction called ‘Swordfish Elegy.’ I’m tired but happy – these were a lot of fun to do. Thanks again! Feel free to grab some of my other projects if you enjoy these little moments of joy.

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