The body opened too easily, like paper wrapping on room temperature butter.  “This isn’t right,” Lattner said, at first to himself, then louder, for the trauma nurse and anesthesiologist to hear. The patient, a John Doe, had arrived at the ER reporting pain in his right side and copious bloody vomit.

February 4, 2034: AI Compendium—Classified documents stolen from Congo last year were released this morning. These indicate morally, ethically, and legally dubious research on their own workforce as they seek more productive employees.

Never look down. Same rule as mountain climbing, high wire acts, or trapeze artistry. Once you lock eyes with the gravitational monster beneath you, it’s all-but-impossible to look away. You’ll see particles flowing down into the abyss that is the black hole—and whole suns unspinning themselves as their plasma and raw essence is sucked away into nothingness.

Thanks, everyone, for coming. My name is Tandy. I’m here to talk about how I used my Otherworld goggles to become a better version of myself, but first—here is a partial list of questions I will not be answering tonight: What is consciousness? Is reality real? Does the AR I see in my Otherworld goggles represent an actual parallel universe that exists or is it just a computer simulation?

For the seventh dusk in a row, the human girl comes to our tree with an offering. She approaches on all fours, moving almost as clumsily as I do when I crawl from the knothole and amble out along my favorite branch. Her face is hidden by a ceremonial mask. It’s a simple wooden thing, not half so ornate as the ones I know humans fashioned in the time of our ancestors.

“You can’t bid more than we agreed on. Please don’t get swept into it,” Jules said as we exited the BART on Market Street, the sun beating down at us. He shed a denim jacket while I suffered in my hoodie, which had made sense in Oakland, less so here. “You can’t believe what I saw when I temped at one of these divine auctions. I’m talking golden cattle, firstborn children, the smell of their grandma’s cookies.”

The reign of King Musa III had no place for things of the fantastical. He, unlike the previous kings, frowned against the thought of people who wielded the ability to veer situations with their hands. These types of people were wizards; grizzled and old, with vast years of experience at their disposal. King Musa III considered them dangerous, and that their primeval deeds would stain his reign.

Driving alone through the Sahara blew Sarah-Beth’s mind. She woke up in the back of the Jeep, smoked a joint, popped a Black Beauty, and revved her engine full of thoughts and plans. She’d imagined driving with her head empty, like she’d thought the desert would be, but everything was full: palm trees, all sorts of scrub brush she couldn’t identify.