* FEBRUARY 2026 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories only) > Likes and Comments
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IT’S A LIVINGMatt Breslin bolted down the last of his Scotch and water. He pinched his nose, massaging his throbbing head. What in hell ever drove him to become a salesman? Driving through an endless blur of hick towns. Growling dogs, crabby housewives. Damn…what he did for his company.
“Closing time, sir,” the bartender said, dimming the lights in the seedy little bar room.
Matt yawned, realizing he was in no condition to get back on the road. “There a place around here I could bed down for the night?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“Just the hotel across the street,” the bar man said.
#
“7A,” the grumpy-looking hotel manager said, handing Matt the key. “Checkout’s at 10.”
Matt was a bit unsteady as he headed for the elevator, the sleazy, run-down lobby pitching just a bit. As he passed the staircase, he noticed something on one of the steps. An odd-looking metallic silver disk, about 4 inches across. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand. Light. No discernable hinges or lights or markings. Could be anything from a fancy new kind of cell phone to a lady’s compact. “Oh, well,” he thought, slipping the disk into his jacket pocket as he pushed the elevator button. He’d turn it in later.
As he made his way to his room, he realized he was more drunk than he’d realized. He was seeing things. One thing in particular stood there in the hallway, apparently watching him. It looked like a gigantic black spider more than anything else he could think of. It stood up on its hind legs, about 6 feet tall. He’d always hated spiders. No wonder he was hallucinating one. His blood ran cold as the horrible thing started towards him. He ran, screaming as it gained on him. He tried not to look back, but he couldn’t help himself, those scuttling black multiple exoskeletal legs making a horrible scraping noise on the floor. He reached his room, his hand shaking as he tried to fit the key into the lock. His heart was throbbing as the key finally clicked in the lock. He could hear the thing closing in on him as he slipped into the dark room, slamming and locking the door behind him.
He was panting, covered in cold sweat as he groped for the light switch. His heart was pounding. He could hear the thing scratching at the door.
He winced as the lights came on. The door looked strange. Odd locks and devices the like of which he’d never seen before. He looked around for a phone. Though he wasn’t sure who the hell to call. He saw a kind of metallic pole, about 4 feet tall with a kind of console at the top. Figuring it might be an intercom or something, he fiddled with the controls.
He gasped, almost falling over as the wall in front of him opened into a kind of shimmering rift in space…like a portal into another world. An immense, futuristic world of metallic cities. Alien creatures of varied shapes riding on flying platforms into some immense, saucer-shaped thing like a spaceship out of an old Star Trek episode or something.
He started as the door flung open behind him. He spun. He stood paralyzed, his knees buckling as…something…like a twisting knot of slithering giant serpentine trunks. 3 or 4…maws or heads or something. It was nearly seven feet tall. The giant black spider thing came through the door and stood behind it. Was he going mad? Was he…was he in hell?
“All right, buddy…” the huge serpent thing said in a seemingly human voice. “Give the nice gentleman back his bus token.”
Matt could barely speak. He had to be dreaming. “Huh?”
“In your pocket,” the snake thing said, pointing a kind of metallic device. “Hand it over.”
Remembering the metallic disk, Matt took it out and handed it, trembling into the spider-thing’s black claw-like appendage. Suddenly, the spider was replaced by an average-looking guy in a business suit, the snake monster by a cop in uniform. The whole room changed, the odd devices disappearing, the space portal vanishing.
“These natives are a pain,” the civilian said, fingering the disk.
“It’s your own fault for losing the token,” the cop said. “Be more careful. You’d better hurry if you’re going to catch your transport.”
The civilian grumbled as he walked towards the wall. “What I do for my company.” He vanished. Matt fainted.
One Evening at Yeager’s35,000 kilometers below was the Earth-bound terminus. 35,000 kilometers above was a massive counterweight that kept the Ribbon tight. Crawlers moved on the Ribbon, carrying Mars- and Moon-bound passengers up and Earth-bound passengers down. Passengers flowed up to and down from 12 gates on the Docking Ring or between ships for those making the Moon-Mars transit.
Chuck Yeager’s Bar and Grill was located on the ring between the Space Lift terminus and the spaceport’s docking ring. The bar/café/space port lounge took up small segment of the circumference of the “lower donut”, with floor to ceiling windows that curved outward, offering an unobstructed view of the Americas, from Canada to Venezuela.
Special Agent in Change Thomas “Bull” Bolinstein’s beat was the entire complex, but he spent most of his time in Yeager’s. Here he could get the general feel of the crowd and spot individuals who looked out of place and were up to no good.
He received a Credible Threat alert several hours ago. A Terra Prime terrorist slipped a Total-Conversion bomb past security. Bull momentarily pondered just how difficult that would be. He pushed that thought out of his when he spotted the suspect, a middle-aged male with a briefcase facing away from the windows. Nobody ignores the view in Yeager’s. The guy was clearly suffering from space sickness. Only someone carrying something important would forgo medication.
He listened to his implant as his agents relayed updates: The bomb maker had been captured. They remotely disabled the detonator – the suspect couldn’t set it off manually. But the Deadman switch was still active. If the suspect died, it would detonate. There was also a timer set to go off in thirty minutes, when the most ships were scheduled to be docked. Their captains had been notified and they were in holding pattern a hundred kilometers away.
If Terra Prime succeeded, the explosion would sever the Ribbon. The counterweight would be launched into space and everything below the lower donut would plummet back to Earth. Everything and everyone going up or down would be destroyed. It would take a decade before they could rebuild it.
Bull had a plan. A very bad plan. When nobody could come up with anything less worse, he had his team put it into action.
He watched a maintenance bot move to the window directly behind the bomber.
Six marines, fresh in from the moon, staged a convincing bar fight and security cleared them out along with almost everyone else. The bot had been busy during the fight, completing the initial task and locking into position below the window.
Just Bull, two other agents, the bomber and the bar tender remained in the bar. The bomber kept watching Bull and his men, who did their best to ignore him.
Bull heard an update from an engineer “Airlocks above and below Yeager’s are closed. Pressure’s up to three atmospheres. Yeager’s is rated for five, but we don’t want to push it.” Another voice: “A second bot is on the way.”
When Bull saw the second Bot move into position, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. His agents did the same.
The bomber took a step back and then laughed. “What are you going to do? Arrest me?” He pushed the button on the case and his smile disappeared.
Bull locked a cuff around his own wrist and the other onto a railing on the bar. His agents did the same. The terrorist stared at them, for a moment before realization dawned. He turned to see the first bot apply a torch to frame and the window explode outward.
Everything not bolted down was ejected into space. The second bot caught the briefcase as it flew out and its main engines flared. There was a flash on the horizon and a burst of EM interference before the systems cleared.
==
The bartender was the first artificial life form to receive the Daystrum award for its actions in the rescue of Bull and his men.
The spirits collection did not fare nearly as well with many of the bottles being spirited away during the decompression event. Many remained in orbit months later.
Yeager’s opened a week later with temporary repairs, a month later, more permanent repairs restored the famous view. One FBI-issued cuff remains attached to a railing at the bar and those who ask the bartender on a slow night may get to hear a first-person account of the event.
Breach
The station functioned in layers, and after hours, it shed its skin.
The Event Horizon Exchange breathed in ionized citrus and exhaled the smell of old fuel. As the departure boards dimmed to a bioluminescent haze, the self-healing floor tiles smoothed over the day’s footprints. Only the Void-Side Café remained, a sliver of neon tucked under a silent arrival gate.
I sat at the counter, watching janitorial drones bump rhythmically against my boots. My chest felt hollow. I hadn't just misplaced my ticket; I had freaking erased it. In a fit of sleep-deprived panic, trying to hide my trail from someone…or something…I’d purged my local cache.
So stupid.
I’d scrubbed my own soul clean, and now the turnstiles didn't recognize my DNA.
I slapped my palm onto the café’s interface. Twelve languages blinked back a polite, digital shrug: NO RECORD OF SUBJECT. NO RECORD OF PURCHASE.
“F&$k me….” I muttered.
"The station doesn't like ghosts," the bartender said. He was a multi-limbed mass of drifting fronds, sliding a mug toward me. The liquid tasted like burnt chocolate and ozone. "And right now, you’re basically a ghost."
"I have to get to the Krios Belt," I rasped. "If I'm here when the morning shift brings the Wardens..." I made a face.
"Then stop looking for a paper trail," he hissed through multiple throats. "Lost things like to be found sideways, if ya know what I mean."
I knew what he meant. And I knew it was a stupid, Tier-1 security violation. But the vibration of a ship launching somewhere deep in the gut of the station made my teeth ache with the need to leave.
“Let me go check Lost & Found. Maybe a good Samaritan turned it in. I’ll be back.” I ssaid,motioning to my half full mug.
But I, of course, didn't go to Lost & Found. I made my way to the terminal pylons, the literal nerves of the station.
I leaned my forehead against the cold, adaptive alloy of the main pillar. I didn't just 'ask' the station...I bypassed my internal firewalls. It was an act of digital masochism. I opened my neural port, the one meant for private memories and secure banking…and invited the station’s archaic, hungry AI to come inside and data breach me.
God help me.
The intrusion felt like ice water flooding my veins. The station’s consciousness was a chaotic roar of a billion past departures. It searched me, peeling back layers of my childhood, my fears, and my secrets, looking for the "weight" of a destination. It was an invasive, disgusting trade: My privacy for a seat.
I gasped, my knees hitting the floor as the station’s greedy "fingers" rifled through my mind. When it was finished, I collapsed onto the floor, feeling defiled and violated and dirty. I wrapped my arms around myself and hurried back to the Void-Side Café.
Chime.
As I slid into my seat, the café’s register spat out a rectangle of light. It wasn't the ticket I’d bought. The glyphs were rearranged, shimmering with a predatory, bioluminescent glow. It was a ticket forged from the data I'd just let the station steal.
The bartender watched me shakily raise the mug to my lips, my nose bleeding slightly from the neural strain.
"Sideways," he whispered, tilting his fronds, and slid the ticket across the counter to me. "Found."
I grabbed the ticket. It was warm…vibrating with the rhythm of my own heartbeat. I had done something incredibly stupid; I’d given a galactic hub a map of my mind just to get a ride.
But later, as I stepped onto the platform, the ticket pulsed with a dark, satisfied hunger. I was no longer a ghost. I was a passenger again. And the station, having eaten its fill of me, chuckled a low, cruel, rumble of laughter.
Elements: A cafe or bar and something lost