* 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.
Space-Kits: or, the Bar-lounger TellsYeah, well, that’s the way the Ran-deVos always think (or whatever you wanna call it), and do not forget that any Ran-deVos “kit” will birth (call it “birth”) at least 40-to-50 hundred Vossies at a shot. So why was I surprised, truly—and who, coming out from a 2-to-4 g planet rounding a G-type (or, to speak frankly, lesser) star, would not have been amazed?—to hear the Bargctians’ whintspers and Garganters’ whostlings and each of the 1,673 further stellar and galaxie-grown speci-forms’ outraged expressions of horror, shock, and simple mazement, all rolling, roiling, booming, or even floating about our tippling forms among the chandeliered and stained-plastiglass-windowed heights of our darklit, exotic-perfumed Classic Bar up here on Intercelestial Slurp’n-Atom Rest Stop #303—each of us struggling to hear and interpret (you couldn’t in reality believe!) that soft-pretty, fluffy, helpless-appealing Ran-deVoss fem who--eye-stalks a-shiver and fur-paks puffing out all over and her words a-fluttering from the intercoms--kept stuttering “Mi? Mi? I left ‘em here--here? Mi little Vossies? Left mi Vossie-kitselahs here?” and sobbin’ away like a . . . well, like an I-donno what, but say some species-deprivated “mama” (Mother? "Mother"?) . . . 'cause there, sobbie-leaning up against our bar, she was.
Right then, man-man, I hopped the very next star-shuttle outta there, faster’n light or itssShadow (if you'd call it that), faster'n faster 'n faster 'fore “she” (can you call a Vos a “she”?) or any other Ran-deVos-like fem could ever pin her Vossie-kits on me.
Elegy for a Thought You can't see our ride from the lounge window. Sure, they take-off like an aircraft these days, but it's still a bad idea to build masses of infrastructure too close to highly energetic rocket propellant. I glance at the big board. Still half an hour until the bus comes to ferry us over. There's enough time to take some notes about the lounge architecture, while it is still in front of me.
I carefully balance my disposable coffee cup on the empty seat next to me. There's a bit of a backward slope to the plastic seat, but the cup is only half-full, and gravity doesn’t trounce me this time. I carefully fish my notebook out of my flight bag. It's black, hardcover. Lined paper, nice creamy texture. With a decent pen, the ink bites nicely as I write.
Pen.
Don’t actually have a decent one handy. Have to disentangle my chewed-up ballpoint from an errant sock, and by the time I pull it out of the bag, the lady sitting opposite to me is trying to catch my eye. I'm sure she's bored, but if I don't get this all down on paper I'll lose it.
"I don't see people actually writing much any more," she says.
I make a placatory gesture with my hand, not quite meeting her eyes. Already know that would be fatal. "Just a moment, got to get this down."
The room.
Well.
There's an obvious functional connection to airport lounges, bus stations, all of the enervating public spaces where large numbers of people must wait indefinitely.
I've seen ones that are purely utilitarian, grim spaces with hard lighting that beats savagely down on the languishing crowd, beats them right down into the hard, uncomfortable chairs and the grimy floor. Others are grandiose, massively decorated to mock our puny human scale, shrinking us down as if we were ants, gnats, mere supplicants, perhaps eventually granted the favor of our scheduled destinations.
This particular example is trying desperately to emulate a style that was inauthentic even when it was new, a century and a half ago. Ersatz ray gun gothic, poorly implemented in cheap plastic. No straight lines, or genuine materials, in sight. Already showing signs of physical decay, and it's only a few short years old. At least there’s natural light coming in off the desert. At least there’s air conditioning. And reasonably good coffee from the cafeteria. I take a sip.
"Are you a journalist?" the lady asks me.
A thought dies, half-formed in my head. "I...,", I say, desperately trying to remember what I was going to write. "Hang on."
Place, right. Character. Details. I had the scene set a few seconds ago. Had. But.
"It's just that you seem to be trying very hard to get it all down in a hurry," she says, no doubt trying to be helpful.
I don't respond, waggle my pen back and forth slightly. Ballpoint. Won't work in zero gee, and I can't afford the fancy ones that do. Forgot my pencil. Hurry! That thought is still on the tip of my tongue. What was it? Quick!
"I suppose," she says. "You probably need to write things down as you get the inspiration." She smiles. I know she’s just trying to be friendly, but her smile is grim, like a missing idea, like dying inspiration, like captured fish thrashing on the deck of a bass boat. “Before you forget them,” she adds.
Gone.
The Day of Drag©2026 by Jot Russell
The outer crew-ring on Virginia-7 was decorated like the runway at a fashion show. Just as 4/20 had been celebrated as a farmers’ contest on the asteroid tug station, the tradition of 2/22 on Ceres was now dubbed, The Day of Drag.
The packed crowd irked on the couple as they remove their clothes behind a screen that only displayed their shadowy silhouette to the on-watchers. In profile, the image showed the slight drop of Rachel’s breasts after she released the strap. Gerard pulled off his underpants, whose exchange counted extra in the contest, and handed them with the rest of his clothes over to his girlfriend. He stood there naked for only a moment, with his manhood hidden from the profile of his muscular legs, but out of spontaneity, he jumped face first, and shook his hips and the dangle before jumping back.
The crowd roared!
Gerard managed, just barely, to strap Rachel’s bra across his broad chest and work the rest of her clothes up and over him. With just seconds to spare, they walked out as the intro music started up. Racheal held up the loose clothes to her, while Gerard paraded out with the summer-style dress exposing his hairy legs down to the feet where only four toes each squeezed into the high-heel shoes.
“Dang Gerard, you look hot!” His friend Tom, yelled.
Gerard laughed, "I think I lost my virginity."
Tom’s girlfriend, Jill, screamed, “Whoo!” after a sip of her drink.
**
The light crew on Ceres-1 monitored the contest remotely as the proximity alert sounded.
“What the hell is that?”
“I don’t see anything. Check the radar.”
“Holy shit! It’s headed right for us!”
**
Gerard stumbled another step as the alarm blasted.
“ASTEROID IMPACT IMMINENT! ALL TUGS, EMERGENCY LAUNCH! NOW!”
Gerard looked at Tom for only a moment, before kicking off his heels and pushing people aside from a command terminal. Tom jumped in next to him and signed into the console.
Gerard yelled out, “CLEAR THE HATCHES!”
Tom prepared the engines and waited for the nod from his navigator.
With a point of a finger from his friend, Tom hit the engines to max. With the force pushing them up at half a g, the orientation of the crew ring rotated down as the centrifuge slowed.
They cleared the horizon, with a dark hole in the stars representing the stadium-sized rock. Gerard screamed, “Fuck! It’s coming in too fast. We’re not gonna clear the impact cloud.”
Tom turned the vessel straight toward the asteroid.
“What the hell are you doing? We can’t stop that thing!”
Tom remarked, “Trust me.”
“Blowing a hole in it isn’t gonna stop it.”
Tom ignored the protest and rode them straight toward the center of the rock at full throttle. “EVERYONE HOLD ON!”
As he reached a couple hundred meters away, he kicked the engines into full reverse. The vessel’s ion drive blew dust off the surface of the quickly approaching mass, but did little to adjust its velocity toward the doomed station of tug vessels and crews. Virginia-7’s velocity slowed with its approach, “20..15..10.. meters a second,” stated Gerard.
Tom got them down to under a meter a second as they struct the surface and managed to cycle the engines back to full-forward before getting thrown from his seat by the impact.
Gerard had strapped in a gave a report. “Engines at full. Asteroid slowing. It’s not going to be enough…Wait, here comes another tug!”
Norway-4 hit the surface hard, but also managed to cycle her engines and double the thrust against the rock.
**
The asteroid flew just above the station, but sliced across Ceres, spewing rock and water-ice off its surface.
Toreek watched in anger at his thwarted attack failed to destroy the Mars Terraform Project. From the console of his hijacked tug, he cursed, “Go ahead, crash your rocks into Mars. Let’s see how the world unites after I cut Earth in half!”
**
Gerard asked, “Rogue asteroid?”
“More like a rogue tug. Look, there’s a dust trail off Eros, and its orbit is falling in…In toward Earth!”
**
Toreek knelt in prayer as the small, car-sized rock smashed through the hull of his pirated vessel and erupted it’s hydrogen storage into a large, fiery plume.
Tom remarked, “Nice shot, Gerard.”
Gerard checked the scope. “Eros’ path was not completely set, yet. Earth is safe!”
“Safe from you and that dress, you mean?”
“I thought you said I looked hot?”
“Keep dreaming, Jerky!”
The Culling PactI noticed right away the gravity on Helis Station was lighter than Earth’s. It was late and I checked my watch. Thankfully, I could catch a connection for Velux in a few hours, though I’d probably be one of the last journalists to arrive. I really hoped not to miss this story. Still, my stomach grumbled and the waft of felusian phlam caught my nose just as I spied an advertisement for Needler’s Café – Deck Eleven – Open 27hours.
One of the busiest waystations during peak time, Helis processed arrivals and departures via wormhole every 15 minutes. Now, the corridors were nearly empty, and I strolled past closed storefronts for everything from massage bots to trinket shops, even a clinic for nuisance eyeball removal, finally arriving at the small coffee shop tucked quietly into a corner.
“What can I getcha?” the gangly Sorrian owner asked from behind the counter, his single eye glaring at me beneath a soda jerk’s hat.
“I’ll take some phlam,” I answered.
“With or without scales?”
“With, please,” I replied, and he put the order in. “So, what’s new around here?”
“Everyone’s talkin’ about the Veluxian revolt, of course.” He motioned to the vid screens on every wall, then set my bowl in front of me.
Sipping my stew, I discovered one other patron, who happened to be Veluxian, staring emotionlessly off into space. His Earth coffee had long gone cold, so I picked up my phlam and joined him, taking a seat. “That’s an expensive drink to just sit there,” I remarked.
He didn’t reply.
“Ironic, running across a Veluxian here, especially now,” I smiled, angling for some sort of comment that might add to my story.
Still, nothing.
“Seems like your people are pretty upset,” I prodded again. “Your government really must’ve pissed ‘em off to warrant a revolution.”
“They don’t understand,” he finally replied, his cobalt skin shifting to gray, a dermal cue indicating sadness.
“Understand? Is there something they should know?”
“Are you a reporter or something?”
“Stephen Veracruz, Tellurian News Service.” I motioned to shake his hand. He didn’t take it. “So, what’s the angle here. Velux is a peaceful world. I’ve been there.”
“We’re doomed.”
“Well, that’s ominous,” I smirked. He then shifted from gray to brown - fear. “Okay,” I prompted him along, “How are we doomed?”
“The Culling Pact,” he replied, then shrunk away, realizing, “I’ve said too much.”
“I remember reading something about that in the Spacer’s Archives. It’s just a legend.”
The chaos and rioting continued on the screens, and my companion confirmed, “It’s true.”
“So, the Velux really do have a lottery system to cull their population?
He nodded.
“Well, that would explain the coup. I guess they’ve had enough. Your government is about to fall...”
“And destroy the whole galaxy,” he interrupted, just as the gates to the royal palace crumpled and citizens stormed in.
“Maybe a bit alarmist?”
His eyes welled up. “The fools.”
“Tell me. I reach a lot of people. Maybe I can help.”
“My name is Mexion Pavilus Velux LXII.”
“Of the royal line?” I marveled. “Why are you here?”
“I was on my way back from university…for the next culling. It’s our burden…our curse,” he explained, eyes sullen.
“A curse which is about to end, looks like.”
“The Culling is a pact, a process to keep an ancient doorway sealed. Eons ago, long before space travel…before ships and waystations, my family discovered a doorway to a tangent dimension – a universe filled with horrific monstrosities. They flooded through and consumed us. Our civilization was nearly lost when we chanced upon the means to close the breach, using cosmic energy and the blood of nearly all the remaining survivors. Since then, the only terrible way to maintain the seal is to feed the gate with our own people, and at least one member of the royal house – a direct bloodline from those who first opened the gate. Our family must be amongst the culling. It was little Orexa the last time,” he wiped a tear away. “For eons the seal has held, but only because we’ve been there to ensure it.”
“That’s...horrible.”
“And if our bloodline ends, the seal will breach, and the creatures from that dimension will drown us in death.”
“So, how do we stop it?” I asked, the foundations of the palace tumbling in upon themselves. In their place, horrible writhing beasts churned from below ripping into the masses and tearing them apart.
“We cant. It’s too late.”
A casual encounter on Five Points Station“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine…”
It was nightshift on Five Points Station and I was enjoying the relative quiet of the station’s dimly lit observation lounge. I took another deep drag on my bad habit and casually blew it out my nose. “Casablanca” played quietly on one of the monitors arrayed along the guard rail that kept idiots from attempting to “fly” in a null-g area that existed on the station’s outer rim. It was a transitory place for transitory people. Workers or those transferring between transport flights might pause briefly to watch the incoming traffic at the passenger terminal or simply stare into the black void of space, but no one ever lingered. The sparse furnishings contributed to the sense of impermanence. Beaten chairs and worn ottomans practically invited you to leave the space. Nothing to see here. Move along. Yet here I sat like a permanent fixture, the most transitory person aboard.
It was then that I noticed her – I don’t remember exactly when but she was hard to miss. She emerged from the shadows, blonde, statuesque, with a determined look and body language that screamed panic. She was so focused, so intent on something else, that she failed to notice me at all. I could hardly blame her. I was rumpled, needed a shave, and scarcely a male specimen that might garner her attention in the full light of day cycle. But I was here and my instincts told me this might be an altruistic opportunity that could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
“Hello,” I said quietly so as not to startle her, but she started anyway with a deep inhale and clutched purse. I immediately found a small stunner pointed directly at my chest.
“Just you stay back!” she threatened.
“Hey! Easy now!” I replied with my hands up. “It isn’t a crime on this station to say hello to passersby.”
“Well it should be!” she hissed. “Startling unescorted ladies as they make their way through the promenade.”
“And why are you out and about during these small hours, Miss?”
She let the question hang there along with remnants of my smoke cloud until it got awkward. I stood up slowly with my hands still raised.
“I’m Hugh, Hugh Bogart. May I?” I brought my hands down slowly.
She gestured to Casablanca.
“Any relation?”
“No, not as far as I know.”
“Well Mister Bogart, it’s none of your business what I’m doing.”
“Of course, Miss?” she still wouldn’t share her name – which made it devilishly hard to make any inroads, but I was determined to make good on my hunch.
“You see, I’m a bit of a private investigator and it seems to me that you’re looking for something.” She finally lowered the stunner and put it back in her purse.
“Let me see your credentials,” she demanded brusquely.
I pulled out my data card and let her wave a reader over it.
“Oh! I do apologize Mister Bogart! It’s just I’ve dealt with so many scammers and conmen that I really don’t trust anyone anymore. I’m Evelynn DeBoise. My friends call me Evie.” She held out her gloved hand.
She had a strong grip.
“Now, Miss DeBoise,”
“Evie please.”
“Now, Evie, how may I be of service? If my P.I. instincts are any good, you look like you’ve lost something.”
“Oh yes I have Mister Bogart!”
“Hugh please.”
“Oh yes Hugh, I have. Something very valuable, it’s…” she looked around before she leaned in close and whispered it in my ear.
“Really?” I asked incredulously.
“Really Mister, I mean Hugh. Can you help me? I can pay…”
“Don’t you go worrying about that now,” I closed her hand around the credits she held out to me.
“It’s not something I want anyone else on the station to know about. It’s…sensitive.”
“I completely understand Evie. I will be very discrete. In fact, I have a very high degree of confidence that I can absolutely find this.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“I know so. My record speaks for itself don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”
“No apologies necessary. Now, I’d like to discuss this further with you, but not out here in the open.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“There’s a place I know. It’s called the ‘Staggering Nag.’ I’m a regular.”
“Sounds interesting. I’m game!” she said.
“Here’s looking at you kid…”
(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2026
Reviews/critiques welcome
Voting details:First round votes:
Tom Olbert => ***Carrie
Greg Krumrey => **Justin
Carrie Zylka => Greg, Jot, Paula
Paula Friedman => Lichtman, Chris, Carrie
Jeremy Lichtman => ***Carrie, Tom, Greg
Jot Russell => **Justin
Chris Nance => Paula, Carrie, Lichtman
Justin Sewall => ***Carrie, Greg, Lichtman
Jack McDaniel => Tom, Carrie, Paula
Finalists:
Breach by Carrie Zylka
A Casual Encounter by Justin Sewall
Second round votes:
Tom Olbert => #*Carrie
Greg Krumrey => ***Justin
Carrie Zylka => Greg, Jot, Paula; ***Justin
Paula Friedman => Lichtman, Chris, #*Carrie
Jeremy Lichtman => #*Carrie, Tom, Greg
Jot Russell => ***Justin
Chris Nance => Paula, #*Carrie, Lichtman
Justin Sewall => #*Carrie, Greg, Lichtman
Jack McDaniel => Tom, #*Carrie, Paula
Winner:
Breach by Carrie Zylka
Congrats Carrie on your forth championship!
Great Data Breach story! Put those form letters into perspective.
wait...holy cats, I just got back from an veterans ice fishing trip and finally got some service, and what a great surprise! thank you everyone! I will get the new prompt up tomorrow morning right away when I'm back at my laptop, it will be too late tonight when I get in.
Congratulations, Carrie. A good, strong story. Possibly free a couple of those fish in celebration.
---Paula
Jot, curious did my votes this time reach you? Sent them the regular way just after the 22nd, then to your email after you posted that otherwise votes weren't reaching you. But my e-server's saying it couldn't send post to you. ???
Paula - lol I've always a catch and release kind of a gal. :)
Yup, I got them, Paula. Shows here in the voting details:Paula Friedman => Lichtman, Chris, #*Carrie
Elements: A cafe or bar and something lost