Spitwrite Volumes 1-3 E-Book

George Saoulidis

• Herausgeber: Mythography Studios
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This is a boxset of the first three spitwrite volumes:

• Sketch and Story (Illustrated)
• Jellyspace
• Technosphere

Contains over 80 short stories in sci-fi, fantasy and a bit of romance.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

What's a Spitwrite Anyway?

Machimagic

Mecha-Chicken Race

Sweet, Hot Taffy

Have You Tried Turning Her Off and On Again?

Come and Get It

Hewoo

Berenice's Hair

Closely Guarded Secret

The Whale on the Veil

Fluffy or Shiny?

Explosive Decompression

Welcome to the Asterism

Sir Patrick and the Mermaid

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Redjus

Generations of Gold

A Trillion-Dollar Rock

Messenger In a Bottle

Gorgoneion

The Imiteles Space Station

The Garbage Cube

The Recovery Building

Looking Down on People From Atop a Big-Ass Mecha

The Hologram Riot

Waifu Wedding

A Self-Driving Car Named Desire

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Viking Shipbuilding

Chain Inaction

Adiadne's String

Shrooming is Serious Business

Robo Dune

The Godfather

Zeppelin City

Dysmorphia

Jellyspace

Utopia Needs U

Don't Sleep

Pagophilic

Tickle My Pickle

Meat the Aliens

The Hole City

Chucking Moon Rocks on the Back of my Pickup Truck

Euclidia

The Root of the Problem

Time-Travel Traffic is the Worst Kind of Traffic

Beware the Rains

The Cupcake Ingredient

Choose Your Own God

Crayon Warfare

The Lighthouse at the Edge of the Galaxy

Whoopsie Daisy

Ten Kilos Till Christmas

Technosphere

The Last Stargunner

Metal Fever

Hot Jupiter

Nanodaemons: The Fir Smart-Tree

It is Sometimes an Appropriate Response to Reality to Just Go Insane

Love is a Car Wreck

Simming Problem, My Ass

Custody Battle for Little Johnny

Santa Fight Club

The Red Holidays

Just Take a Nap

Sex, Lies and Propaganda

Acquisition Time

Smog City: A Girl and a Gun

The Rebirth of Capitalism

Nyx It

Alien Animal Control

Killing Blind

That's No Dinosaur Egg!

Big, Round Snowballs

The Last Kakistocrat

On Pointe All Day Long

Loveless Ada: Swipe Left

Shadow Dimension

Mount Faithful

Reprogram the President

Divide and Shatter

Wake Up and Smell the Turkish Coffee

The Left Hand of Agnes

The Luggage Disaster

Did you enjoy these stories?

Copyright © 2019 George Saoulidis

What's a Spitwrite Anyway?

Simply put, it’s a story written in a day. Every day, actually. I just call them spitwrites because it’s rude and in-your-face.

I can’t believe I’ve been doing these for two-and-a-half months. Some nights I feel like crap, I’ve got nothing more to give but I push on. Somehow.

Other days the story just comes to me from something that inspired me, like some art from the wonderful artists I follow and share all the time on my social.

The first month, that of Inktober was wobbly, I wrote a lot of these stories but I went back and worked on some, spent time coordinating with the artists for their sketches, etc. The second month of November was full-on spitwrite, one every day.

The third had some bumps on the road but it still got done.

Hope you like it.

Machimagic

Stilvi kicked the damn thing. “Why won’t you work?” she cried out, both from frustration and from pain.

The broom stared back in silence, mocking her with its immobility and its refusal to start. It was last-year’s model, of course, Stilvi couldn’t afford the newer ones. She liked it a lot, having stared at it every day as she passed the shop on her way home. The broom had a nice copper exhaust that shone nicely, a retro-style grip for the gear-shift and a big honking aluminium cooler at the back. It was a machimagick obviously made with love, just like she herself was.

She sat down on the bench across the store she’d just bought it from and sighed, her hat thankfully covering up her crying face. It was dark and the street light shone over her, making her face even more obscure.

She heard the sound of footsteps on the pavement. Three pairs. She instantly knew who they belonged to, because of the pit in her stomach.

It was the last person she wanted to see her that way right now.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the flickering star,” Meanie No. 1 said, mocking her name.

Stilvi raised her head just a big, enough to see their legs under the rim of her witch’s hat.

“Yes! Come on, little twinkle. Fly. You can do it,” Meanie No. 2 said in a fake tone of voice.

“Just like this,” Meanie No. 3 said and hopped on her own broom. The small but efficient engine on its back purred and the broom hovered between her legs. She then held on the clutch and shifted gears, her broom gently lifting her up in the air. The smoke it let out was minuscule, and Meanie No. 3 gave them all a bit of a show by flying circles around them.

“What a machine!” Meanie No. 1 said, throwing her hat in the air in applause. The hat spun a few times and then fell back right on top of her head, even facing the proper way.

The Meanie No. 2 flicked her wand, its gears spinning and a small vial of yellow liquid bubbled in the base. A shower of sparks ignited from the tip and opened up in a delicate flower, a rose blooming in the sky above them. Passers-by stopped and marveled at the sudden show.

Stilvi felt even worse. The trio of Meanies casually flaunted their use of magick in her face, when they knew that she couldn’t possibly do any of those things.

“Leave me alone,” Stilvi said with gritted teeth.

“What’s the matter, mechano?” Meanie No. 1 leaned in, faking her worry.

Meanie No. 2 tsked. “Hey, don’t use that word. Even she doesn’t deserve it.”

Meanie No. 1 waved her companion’s complaint away. “I apologize for the slip of the tongue,” she said, her hand on her chest in mock sincerity. “Then again, that is what you really are, right? It’s obvious by the fact that you can’t even manipulate the smallest trickle of mana flow.”

Stilvi said, “No!” Then she deflated on the bench. Who was she kidding? The Meanies were right. She was machimagick. Trying to make another machimagick thing to work was preposterous. What was next? Making them? Minds would explode at the very idea.

“That’s what I thought!” Meanie No. 1 said, her hands on her hips and her feet apart, looking triumphant. “Let’s go,” she said louder, so that her flying friend could hear as well. The trio of Meanies went about their way.

Stilvi touched the gas throttle. She twisted it a few times, imagining herself flying up just like the Meanie No. 3 did just then. The air on her face, holding down her hat with the strap she had just sewn into it… She didn’t have the enchantment to hold it in place like the other witches, of course, so she’d have to settle for that.

Only, it seemed she had planned too far ahead.

Meanie No. 2 said something to the others as they were about to reach the corner, and walked back towards the shop. She checked back, the other two went out of sight. Then she walked straight towards Stilvi.

“What do you want? Came back to make fun of me some more?” Stilvi snapped at her bitterly.

“No… I… Um…” The Meanie bit her lip and looked around.

Stilvi said nothing, she just held her precious broom tight in her hands.

“My family has worked with sentient mechanos-” she stopped herself with her hand over her mouth. “Sorry! I’m so sorry, it slipped and I-”

“It’s okay,” Stilvi shrugged. “I deserve it.”

“No, what I wanted to say was that we’ve worked alongside them for years. And some of them have learnt to manipulate mana, if someone starts the flow.”

Stilvi perked up at that. “Really? How?”

“Like a spark, I guess. Basically, if someone lights it up, then you have the capability of learning to control it,” Meanie said, excited.

Stilvi eyed her cautiously. “This is just another prank. I don’t buy it. You just want to lift me up or something and then your buddies can laugh from their hiding spot as I crash onto a tree.”

Meanie chuckled at that. “No! I mean, yes, that is totally something we would do. But not this time, I swear.”

Stilvi looked away, gripping her broom. She mulled it over for what seemed like an hour, but was probably just a couple of minutes. “Thrice,” she said.

“What?”

“Swear it thrice,” Stilvi said, meeting her gaze.

“I… uh…” Meanie gulped. Swearing it thrice was no small thing, even Stilvi knew that. The backlash alone was significant. “I swear it, I swear I’m telling you the truth,” she said, nodding deeply with pressed lips.

Stilvi tilted her head. She couldn’t believe that Meanie No. 2 was actually telling the truth, but there she was, swearing an oath. She presented the broom to her. “Here.”

Meanie’s face took on a focused expression with a deep frown. Then she waved her wand, the liquid bubbling and sparks flying from the gears, her focus on the broom.

Nothing happened.

“I knew you’d screw me over!” Stilvi spat out, balling her fists.

Then it happened. The broom’s engine made an angry grrrr sound like a pissed-off hog. It was nothing like the expensive model Meanie No. 3 had, but Stilvi didn’t care. This one was hers. Her eyes went wide.

Meanie No. 2 looked exhausted. “Put your hands on the handles, quick. You only have a few minutes to figure it out.”

Stilvi complied. She put her hands on the handles and inhaled deeply. For a moment, she felt nothing but the vibrations of the engine. Then, she saw it. Or rather, she felt it. It was as simple as knowing where your leg was, that innate awareness of how it was bent and where it was placed. That’s how the broom, no, her broom, felt like at that moment.

“I-I can do it!” Stilvi squealed out in delight. “I can feel it!” She hopped on the broom and it hovered between her legs, just like it was supposed to.

“Yeah!” Meanie said, apparently shocked.

Stilvi gave it a push, she spun the throttle towards her and made the engine even louder. To her delight, she flew a good ten centimetres off the ground.

Meanie laughed with excitement, and suddenly stopped. Stilvi had jumped off her broom and was hugging her tight, crying tears of joy over the witch’s shoulder. “Thank you,” Stilvi whispered, squeezing her even more.

Meanie stood there shocked for a while, then she put a caring hand on Stilvi’s back and hugged her as well. “Enough about this,” she said, pushing her gently away. “You’ve got some flying to learn, it’s not easy.”

“I know all the theoretical stuff, I’ve read them all in the library,” Stilvi said, wanting to hug the smaller witch again, but composed herself.

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that you know the theory, but doing it is another thing. Come on now…” she prodded her.

Stilvi hesitantly climbed back on the broom and held it tight. Smiling wide at her new friend, she revved up the gas and braced for the acceleration.

“You’re sitting too far back,” Meanie No. 2 yelled behind her as Stilvi held on for dear life. The ground went by in a blur and the trees were becoming real big all of a sudden.

Mecha-Chicken Race

Cluck, cluck, cluck.

“The chicken race is serious business,” the man said, slapping the Mecha-Chicken’s behind.

Cluck, cluck.

“Now,” he continued, “hop on that chicken and ride like the wind, jockey!” Then he left, onwards to repeat the same pep-talk to his other riders.

Kotopouli hesitantly put on her gear. Vest, breathing apparatus, sword and holster. “The chicken race is serious business,” she sighed to herself, repeating the man’s words.

She took a second to inspect her chicken. It couldn’t have been more of a piece of cluck. The chicken shook violently as its engine ran. Suddenly, she literally snatched a bolt that had shook loose and was flying in the air. She quickly leaned in and grabbed her multitool from her belt, a gift from her grandfather.

As she tightened the bolt back, she remembered the man’s words: “Granddaughter, it’s up to you to win the race for our family’s sake. Your father is too old to try again, and your sister is too fat to ride. It’s why we’ve gotten you ready all these hard years.”

And then he gave her his multi-tool, reverently, as if presenting a magnificent sword.

Kotopouli accepted it and set her jaw firm that day. “I won’t fail you, grandpa!”

Such a stupid girl she had been, she knew now. She glanced at the other jockeys, they were all better equipped for this, better prepared. They all seemed fit and calm and ready to win this thing.

Whereas, she, was scared out of her mind.

Cluck?

Yes, chicken, she was here. Ready to ride.

Cluck, cluck.

What now?

The announcer screamed, “Jockeys, take your places!” and her chicken went to his spot.

Oh. Even he knew more about the race than she did. Oh, she was seriously not ready for this.

“LET THE CHIIIIIIIICKEEEEEEEN RAAAACE BEEEEGIIIIN!”

Cluck!

Holy clucks!

Her chicken darted off, sprinting like crazy. She held on for dear life, as the reigns themselves got torn and became useless. She hugged the chicken’s neck and positioned herself down low. Lucky for her, she barely dodged that way an incoming slash of another jockey’s sword, who had found easy pray and had taken a swing at her during the confusion.

“You clucking bastard!” she raised her fist at him, but they were already worlds apart. Chickens everywhere, bumping and jumping and clucking away, their jockeys trying to control their mounts while at the same time trying to kick their opponents off. And in that chaos, they were all somewhat sort of heading towards the finish line, a black and white ribbon three kilometres ahead.

Another slash, and Kotopouli leaned back completely, arching her back and becoming one with the chicken’s clucking butt. In her adrenaline rush, she saw the blade slicing through the air she had occupied. Angry, she eyed the jockey. He was handsome. “You clucker!” she swore at him and her chicken side butted his own.

The chickens both clucked. It was madness.

Kotopouli realised she needed to get out of that mess. She stood back up on the saddle and pushed her chicken’s head down. “Come on, come on, stupid chicken. Get what I’m getting at. Go. Just clucking go!”

It took its damn time, but it finally got it.

Cluck!

And it shot off towards the finish line.

Kotopouli was happy for a moment, thinking she had outsmarted everyone.

“Oh, no! The bout is over and now the real race begins!” the announcer said.

Kotopouli’s face went pale. She forced herself to look back as the entire flock of chickens came charging her way.

“Go, go, clucking go!” she yelled at her mount, slapping the side of his head. He ran, oh he tried, but he was a piece of cluck.

The flock came crashing on top of her, and in an instant she was overwhelmed, spinning around, out of control, parts flying off into the air, a piston coming in hot and sizzling on her arm, a screw shooting right into her cheek. “Clucking, ow!” she exclaimed, fighting to stay on the saddle.

It was a free-for-all around her. Everybody, and I mean everybody was at each other’s throats. Chicken legs flew off, torn apart by swords or angry beaks. One jockey in particular had a nasty chicken with spinning saws on its beak that tore through at least three other chickens in the few seconds Kotopouli could spare to watch.

It was madness. It was the chicken race.

Cluck!

“Yes, I know,” she said, trying to comfort her poor mount. “Just try to avoid them all. Just try. And we both might make it to the finish line.”

Who was she kidding? Nobody made it to the finish line, none except the victor. Even then, he or she sometimes didn’t make it in one piece, and that wasn’t an infrequent occurrence.

Every year, each family could sign up a jockey to ride in the chicken races. Every year, the best and the finest, or at least what was left of each family, would ride and get turned into chicken pulp.

Now she realised why her clucking sister kept eating all the time. She couldn’t possibly fit her fat behind in the saddle, let alone have the speed to race.

It seemed, her big sister was the clever one.

A beak came straight at her face and Kotopouli instinctively blocked it with her sword.

It snapped in half, sending shards of metal to slice her arm. She cried out in pain and could see the beak coming in for the kill.

Thankfully, her chicken used the precious seconds she had earned very well. He too dodged and pulled his jockey out of one harm’s way, and straight into a different harm’s way.

An entire chicken jumped up in the air and came slamming down on them. It was big, it was fat, and it was heavy. Kotopouli knew then, she was about to die. Pulped, in the chicken races, a mere five-hundred metres from the finish line.

She closed her eyes, gripped her belt tight, and braced for the inevitable squish.

She felt her multi-tool in her hands. Everything in her body hurt, the chickens weren’t easy to ride even when nobody was trying to kill you, but she realised something. Her grandfather had given this to her for a reason. She gripped it tight and opened her eyes wide, multi-tool in hand.

What do you do with a multi-tool?

“You clucking screw things!” she answered to herself, grinning like a madwoman. The chicken was coming down on both jockeys, fluttering its stupid wings and slightly adjusting its trajectory. Kotopouli fell to the side and in a feat of dexterity, screwed the other chicken’s leg. It froze in place, the chicken turning in circles like, well, a headless chicken. The jockey riding it cursed at her, then got squished.

Cluck!

“Nope, it’s not happening to us,” she assured her chicken, then slapped it to get running.

The squish-happy jockey jumped up in the air again, and Kotopouli repeated the same routine, sabotaging the closest chicken she could find and letting it get squished instead of her.

Cluck. Cluuuck!

“Yes, run, chicken. Run!” she said excited, seeing the opening and going for the finish line.

The heavy chicken realised it too late and began pursuit, but she was light. Lighter than most jockeys actually. She had lost her sword even, and her chicken had shed a few precious pieces of machinery.

“Come oooon! You just have to hold it together for a few more seconds,” she said with gritted teeth, now becoming one with the chicken’s trot. She felt the air hitting her face and her cuts stung, but she didn’t care.

The angry chicken behind her tore through the ground, its feet hitting the earth and digging in holes as it sprinted forward, despite its weight.

Metres away from the finish line, it caught up to her. Or, more precisely, its beak snapped shut on her chicken’s tail, pulling them both to a screeching halt.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her chicken and unbuckled her harness.

Cluck?

Sweet, Hot Taffy

"No, don't run away!" Irina pleaded as the man fled.

He shat himself as he ran. Irina stopped on the sidewalk, arm raised in a non-threatening gesture of 'Wait!' She couldn't understand what was really happening. All she wanted was to find the 'Be-Positive.'

That was nice, right?

Of course it was. Nothing that nice-sounding could ever be bad. She held her head, her thoughts were hazy. She couldn't actually remember what the Be-Positive was, but she knew she really wanted to find some, and fast. But she kept asking people for directions and they didn't even give her a chance!

Such mean people.

Where was this rude town anyway? She had no idea. She could understand the signs on the streets, so at least she wasn't that far away. But something felt off. It was quiet, if you discounted the loud cheers of joy she heard from an alley just a while ago.

Irina walked down the street. Cars were left in the middle of the road, no wonder nobody could go to work or anything! Why were people always so inconsiderate to others? She hated that.

Anyway, no bad thoughts, Irina. Be-Positive! Yay!

She walked through the abandoned cars. Some were messy, too. There was a nice smell coming from them, like hot taffy. She sniffed the air. It was unusual, had she hit her head or something? Could she be one of those people wandering off after a car-crash, concussed and confused?

Maybe.

She leaned in and checked her reflection in a rear-view mirror. Eh, she could barely see herself, and she twisted her body around, trying to get a good angle on everything. She didn’t look hurt, it was just her normal, curvy self, wearing a red dress. She couldn’t remember ever buying that dress, but it fit her nicely. As she turned herself over, she realised she needed to find a bigger mirror.

She walked to a shop window, it was reflective enough and the interior was dark enough to make a mirror. That too was weird, it seemed like it was the middle of the day, yet the shop was closed. Anyway, enough with that. She checked herself out, raising her leg on the ledge, then the other. She didn’t seem to find any cuts or bruises.

There was a weird crick in her neck, and she stretched herself to rub it better. She also felt weird on her back, on the shoulder blade. Maybe she had been in an accident after all, but with no visible bruises?

Ah! Could she have internal injuries?

She didn’t feel like it, just a bit sore. And she also had these long fingernails, they were perfectly done by a manicurist, long and red. She never had her nails long like that, it always bugged her when it came to manipulating stuff. So that was weird. Was she getting dressed for some sort of event? A wedding, perhaps? And what about the nails? Somebody had to have convinced her to get them, they were so out of her usual style.

Oh well, must have been a special offer or something, she definitely was a sucker for such things!

Irina kept on walking the empty streets for a while. Now, this was getting ridiculous. Where was everybody? These bloody towns. What was it, a festival or something?

Was that what Be-Positive was? Perhaps she was going there, and then she forgot why. Perhaps someone was waiting for her.

A date!

That’s why she was so dolled up, that must be what it was!

Silly Irina.

She tilted her head and concentrated on a noise somewhere. As she did that, drool fell down the side of her mouth. Oh, come on now, be ladylike, dammit! This is no way to act in public. She wiped her drool and kept on listening.

She scanned the area. A store front, another one, a pizza place… A dumpster. Yup, there was definitely someone behind that dumpster.

She walked up to it, and could see that the man was somehow stuck behind it. He made some weird sound from his throat. He was definitely crying for help.

“Relax, silly! I’ll help you out,” Irina told him and got ready to get her hands dirty. She grabbed the dumpster, this was why she didn’t like long nails, and she pushed it aside.

It slid to the side.

Huh. It must have been empty.

Oh well…

“Hello, mate! No need to shout. Hey, could you tell me where Be-Positive is?”

The man lunged at her. Irina dodged him with a swift shuffle of her legs. The man kept on running down the road.

“Hey, wait! That is bloody rude, mate!”

She reached out and grabbed his leg, making him trip. “Okay, sorry, mate, but you shoved me first, and I was trying to help you! I mean, really, what is it with that rude behaviour around here?”

Some drool fell from her mouth again right on top of his shirt. She gently held him down with one hand as he thrashed and kicked her. “Oh, so sorry about that! So, so sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me, can’t seem to keep my bloody drool inside my mouth! How silly is that?” she chuckled, but the man didn’t seem to find it funny.

Instead, he punched her.

“Ow, you bloody bastard!” she snapped back, and gently punched him in the stomach.

For some reason, that nice smell wafted from his person again. That hot taffy smell, so sweet and delicious. There it was, her entire hand inside his belly, and as she pulled it out the soft taffy was all over her fingers. She licked it, and it tasted heavenly.

“How rude of me,” she chuckled, unable to control herself, still licking her fingers. “This is a weird way to meet your acquaintance…”

The man gurgled taffy from his mouth.

“Now that’s an understatement,” Irina agreed.

She licked her fingers, she was so bloody hungry all of a sudden. The man had stopped thrashing, at least that was a good thing. Perhaps he was calm enough now to answer her question?

“Hey, mate, I just wanna know, where is Be-Positive?” She flashed her biggest smile at him.

Nothing.

What the hell, had he fallen asleep?

Irina stood up. Still that crick in her shoulder. She felt a lot better now after that sweet taffy, but her thoughts were still muddled. She turned her head and stared at herself in the store-front’s reflection.

Same thing, her, dressed in red, drooling again (dammit!) standing over a man with warm taffy coming out of his belly and mouth. Okay, that last one sounded weird, she had to admit that.

A flicker.

Everything was the same, but the sweet taffy in her mouth felt more metallic. Vampirina’s long nails were even weirder, like metal fingers. Her teeth were stained with red lipstick, and they felt larger somehow in her mouth. And that crick on her shoulder? Well, it seemed like a bloodhunter symbiote.

Wait, what?

She shook her head. Everything came back to normal.

There it was, all better.

Now, if only someone could tell her where that bloody Be-Positive was, everything would be alright.

The End

Have You Tried Turning Her Off and On Again?

“Have you tried turning her off and on again?” the tech support lady drolled on the holocall.

“Yes!” Jack said, exasperated. “That’s what you tell me to do every single time. I have. She’s smoking from her back, it’s not a software issue. Or, at least it’s not just that anymore.”

“Okay sir, we’re sending a technician over to service your sexdoll. Thank you for calling 6T9, we’re here for you to plug any hole.”

Then she hung up.

Jack waited anxiously, tapping his foot. He could see his doll through the door, slumped forward, smell of smoke in a hazy room. He felt bad about that, so he went in and opened a window to air it out.

It wasn’t long before the doorbell rang.

“Hello, this is your technician Wendy from 6T9, here to service your sexdoll. If you please point me to the room where she’s installed,” said the bored technician, carrying her toolkit.

“Right this way,” Jack said, inviting her in. “Here she is. I’ve followed everything support told me to do on the phone, nothing worked.”

“Hmm, I see,” Wendy said, inspecting the sexdoll. She put on plastic disposable gloves and turned her over, then plugged some device into a hidden slot in her back.

Jack was nervous, pacing up and down. He wanted to intrude, but decided that it would help speed things along if he just stayed out of the technician’s way.

Wendy checked the readings. “I see that you’ve had a similar malfunction three times already, but you opted-out of our offer to replace the sexdoll.”

“Well, yeah. I wanted this one. A replacement wouldn’t be her,” Jack said, apologetically.

Wendy raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, they are identical, sir. And in case you’ve paid for any mods, which I can see you haven’t, they too would have been replicated.”

“Yes, but I want this one. Can’t you fix her?” Jack said, pleading with his hands.

“We certainly can!” Wendy perked up and went back to checking the readings. “Same malfunction, every time. Sir, I need to ask you about how you use our product. Please be assured that I’m bound by my contract to not disclose any information to anyone, ever. Think of it like talking to your therapist.”

“Okay…” he said, hesitating. “Ask away.”

“What is the exact nature of your sessions with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you use our product? Doggy-style? Reverse cowgirl? What?” she asked, spitting the terms in a deadpan, even bored tone of voice.

“Uh, sometimes, yes,” Jack said, his face turning red.

“I can actually see the logs, sir. You’ve done none of that. Listen, part of troubleshooting is sometimes figuring out what weird shit the client does to the doll. Now, trust me, I’ve seen it all. And I do mean, all. Nothing you say will shock me. Just lay it out for me, what’s your kink?” She batted her eyelashes and waited, tablet at the ready to jot his reply down.

“Uh… I don’t think I have any.”

Wendy snorted. “Right. You have a sexdoll that costs half an apartment’s worth and you don’t have any sexual kinks. Sir, all of our clients are weirdos, nothing to be ashamed of. Well, at least not when your money keeps going into our bank account.”

Jack was getting angry now. “I’m telling you, I don’t have any kinks.”

Wendy sighed and put the tablet away. She licked her lips, shut the back panel on the sexdoll and turned to him once more. “Sir, I have all gyroscopic and inertial data here. The sexdoll records your sessions so she can become better at pleasing you. Honestly, man, this was a high-priority call and I’m late on a dinner with my wife. I’d much rather be figuring this out early and being home with her than standing in your sticky sex room and begging you to tell me what you’re doing to your sexdoll to mess her up.”

Jack said nothing.

“I know you’re tinkering with the product, but none of the other technicians could figure it out. That’s why they sent me. You might have noticed my lack of decorum here, we’re basically teetering on the edge of a lawsuit. They don’t usually send me out on calls, for a good reason. But I’m the best, and I can’t figure out how you’re fucking the damn doll to mess her up like that.”

“I don’t fuck her,” Jack said softly.

Wendy cupped her ear with her hand. “Excuse me, what was that?”

“I don’t fuck her,” he repeated.

“You don’t fuck your sexdoll,” Wendy mocked him back, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Suuure…”

“We have sex… It’s just not, like that,” Jack said, waving his arm in her direction. “Like what you described.”

“Come on, dude, I’m trying to fix your fuck-toy so you can get back to pounding it! Tell me what it is you’re doing to her. What is it? Hot wax in her pussy? Almond milk in her ear? Drilling a Lumbar Puncture in her lower spine and then fucking it? I’m telling you, I’ve seen it all. Just tell me what it is.”

“I make love to her,” Jack said, softly.

Wendy’s eyes went wide. “WHAT?” she exclaimed, stepping back. She looked as if he had just admitted he liked killing puppies.

“I just make love to her,” Jack repeated with a shrug.

“That’s not how you’re supposed to treat her! Where’s the abuse? The punching? The humiliation?”

“Nowhere. There is none.”

“She wasn’t built for that!” Wendy said, going back to the sexdoll’s diagnostic panel.

It was Jack’s time to cross his arms and hug his chest. “Well, I’m the customer, right? Make her be able to handle it.”

Wendy stepped close to him and spoke as if to an idiot. “You bought the most heavy-duty sexdoll in existence, basically a crash dummy with boobs and fuckholes, build from space-age material that can withstand any and all abuse, so you could just have sweet-sweet love with her?”

“Yeah,” Jack apologised again. “I liked her eyes. You know, on the website.”

“Ay ay ay,” Wendy huffed out and went back to the sexdoll.

“Can you do it?” Jack said hopefully.

She sighed. “I guess. Why the hell not? It will void your guarantee as it is an illegal mod, but it’s not like you’re ever gonna need it with your touching and caressing,” she said, making fun of his voice.

“Thank you!” Jack said, excited.

Wendy clicked her tongue. “You better, ‘cause this will take too long and my wife will be pissed. But who am I to get in the way of mechanophilia?”

“Mechano-what?”

“It’s a kink,” she nodded slowly, looking sure of herself. “Look it up. I honestly wasn’t expecting that one, it’s a first. I give you that. But I’m always right.”

The End

Come and Get It

Robo Muffin walked out of the field covered head to toe in pink blood. Only a tiny bit was hers, just some spittle from a kick she took to the face. The rest was from the opposing team, the losing team.

She got back to the locker room and the others made way for her. Conversations ended and eyes followed her as she passed them by.

Heading to the showers, she tore her armour and clothes off and went straight in the spray. The girl who was getting a shower at that moment yelped, “Hey!”

Robo Muffin simply shoved her out. The girl fell on the floor, wet and stunned, but Muffin didn’t care.

She let the scalding water wash her sins away. One more match. Just one more bloody match, and the sword was hers.

Muffin didn’t enjoy hurting people. Sure, she’d protect herself if someone took a swing at her, but she wouldn’t go out and deliberately hurt someone.

At least not outside the Cyberpink field.

It had been ten years. Ten bloody years, and she was promised she’d be out six years ago. The contract was simple, play jugger, earn cash, pay off your debt, earn your freedom.

Such an easy concept, isn’t it?

But the fine print was what truly fucked you over.

She had fought tooth and nail to get into a good, winning team to get the cash early. She had waded through opponents with her sword, had torn ligaments, had crushed bones and ended careers.

A million euro, was the end total.

It wasn’t that high in the beginning. Buuut… accumulated interest here, a tiny bit of delayed payment there, and it added up to a ton of money. Nobody explained the fine print to you. Nobody. Not your owner, not your fans, not your next owner who your paramone contract was sold off to.

And then it was the injuries. Jugger was a fast game, a brutal game. Injuries were a daily thing. You got injured, and then you got medical care. But, in this time and age, you couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to also augment yourself. Why let the arm heal when you can just augment it and become stronger? Why live with that neck problem with silly brittle bones, when you can augment it and fortify the entire neck area against incoming blows? Why settle for human reaction times, when you can supercharge your nerves and get superhuman ones?

It added up. A toe here, an aug there, you ended up trading pieces of your soul. Bit by bit you got replaced until you looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognise yourself any more.

Daisy was gone. Robo Muffin stared you back.

Covered in pink blood, washing over you, its spectrum shifted to avoid the streaming laws but the smell remained the same. Blood.

Muffin pushed the wall of the shower and let her head hang under the water. The water trickled around her short hair and somewhat covered her nose and mouth, making her drown a bit. She liked that, simulated drowning.

A waterboarding of your own.

Hundreds of opponents would have liked to see her go through with it.

Muffin was feared, envied, cursed upon. She had the guts to actually claim freedom, to fight for it and get close enough that it nearly burned her.

The precious Spatha sword. It was what you won along with the cyberpink tournament trophy, but it came along with something more important: Freedom.

You won the tournament, you won the sword. You could trade it in for enough money to buy out any paramone contract.

Or, you could keep it, and keep on fighting. Why anyone would want to choose the latter was beyond her.

Muffin walked out of the shower, dripping water. She didn’t bother to get dry. The girl who was there before was gone now. She put on her clothes and armour back, clipped her current padded sword on her belt and headed out of the locker room.

On her final match, she didn’t hold back. At some point during the final few seconds, her opponent got in a lucky hit and paralysed her. Muffin happened to be in an awkward angle as the implant kicked in and made her freeze. Her head was slumped down, her hair doused in pink blood. It trickled down, rimming her nose, filling her lungs with every panting breath.

One stone. She felt she would drown, so close to reaching the end.

Two stone. She surrendered to the blood’s thick delight.

Three stone. Dammit! Not like this.

Four stone. She braced herself, coughing and chocking. No. She would simply not lose now.

Five stone. She looked around, deciding her next strike.

As soon as Robo Muffin got free, she charged the opposing enforcer. She went down in an instant, clutching her torn off cyberarm, pink blood and blue hydraulic fluids spraying in the air. Then she tore through the other one.

With the opposing team disabled, her qwik picked up the skull and scored a point.

They won.

The fans screamed their lungs out, but all she could do was cough and cough and cough. The blood was inside her, stuck there, infecting her. She coughed to get it out, but she couldn’t.

Journalists and cameras and microphones got shoved in her face, but all she could do was barely contain her coughing.

Someone gave her the Spatha sword. She held it. It was heavy and felt great in her grip. It had a corporate logo on it, and came with a holographic surface that made it shoot out rainbows from the beams of light that hit it.

She stared at it, mesmerised.

“So, what will be your choice, Robo Muffin?” some man asked her.

“Uh? What?” she stuttered.

“The sword. Do you keep it and defend the championship next year, or do you trade it for your freedom?”

Everybody went silent, waiting for her reply.

She looked down at her hand. It was alien, augmented, powerful. It held the coveted sword. With it, came power. Fame. Glory. It shone back a rainbow as an errant light hit it, like a naughty wink at her.

What was she doing? Was she really considering it, carrying on? She had one goal all these years, one single goal: to earn her freedom. Why was she even hesitating?

Raising her chin, she gripped it tight. She knew what her reply would be.

Robo Muffin raised it in the air, took in a big breath, and shouted, “Molon labe!”

The End

You can read the Cyberpink books here: https://mythographystudios.com/books/cyberpink/

Hewoo

Cooky smiled at the hitmen that had come tonight to kill her. It was her birthday, after all. There were two of them, and they were properly armed. All she had was her trusty dagger.

Not that she needed anything more.

“Hewoo!” she cooed as she charged the one on the right. Only idiots waited, the correct action was to catch them flat-footed. Nobody ever expect a head-on attack when they were the ones getting the jump on someone.

They both raised their guns at her.

“Too laaate!” she giggled as she drove her dagger between the man’s armour plates and straight into his neck. He had barely managed to raise his gun half-way before she had closed the distance and had daggered him. Another rookie mistake, people think that a gun draw is quicker, when in fact, a knifed attacker can do-

Well, exactly what Cooky just did.

She twisted the knife to make sure she got the jugular. She had aimed from five meters away and straight between his protection, but getting through it and actually delivering a killing blow were two different things. She was good, but she wasn’t that good.

Thick, warm blood spurted into her face. “Jackpot!” she smiled, then turned to her next attacker. He had lost precious seconds being stunned by her attack, but his training seemed to kick in and he had raised his pistol at her.

She smiled at him eerily, her face sprayed with red.

He fired at her.

Cooky pulled the dying hitman in time between them. The bullets struck the guy’s Kevlar.

The hitman with the pistol froze in place, waiting to see the result. After a few endless seconds passed, Cooky poked her head from the side. “Peek a boo!”

The hitman yelled, “Aaah! Die you crazy bitch!” and emptied his clip.

Cooky poked her head out once more, her mouth in an ‘o’ shape. “Your peepee doesn’t work,” she said like a little girl.

Then she thrust her dagger under the man’s jaw and into his skull. Something crunched. She put her palm to the handle of her dagger and punched upwards, driving it further in. She saw the glint through the man’s teeth.

Then she put her knee to his chest and grunted, and pulled, and huffed, “Nyehhh!” and the dagger came loose, sending her tumbling down on the street and landing on her butt.

Cooky tilted her head. She heard some muffled sounds. She walked close to the first hitman’s face. She slapped him, then pushed his lips together. “Hah! You’re a fishy now. Are you talking?”

She could still hear something. She reached in with her fingers inside his ear and pulled the comms. “Ear wax, yucky…”

“I thought you said her name was Cookie! How fucking hard could it be to kill a girl named like that?” a man squealed through the comms, terrified. “I don’t- No, I don’t care. We’re done. Contract is off, I just lost two men in five seconds. Never call me again, I will fucking gut you.”

Cooky stood tall, as tall as a featherweight like her could possibly be. She looked down the alleys. There it was, a van. The lights just came on and the driver revved up the engine.

Now, what would the best course of action be in this situation?

She tapped the bloody dagger on her chin. Huh.

Oh, right.

Charge it headlong.

She ran up to the incoming van. The driver actually tried to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting her, but she sidestepped and jumped right into its path.

Slamming on the front with a hollow thud, she drove her dagger inside the metal. She barely had any footholds and held onto the dagger with both hands.

The driver cursed at her and turned the wheel, driving the van scratching into the sides of the parked cars. He was frantic, spitting and cursing. “Just fucking die, already!”

Cooky held herself from one hand on the dagger and swung around like a pendulum. “Weeee!” she squealed in delight.

The van revved and went into the main road, forcing other cars to stop and honk at him in anger.

Cooky could feel the wind hitting her, it made the various cuts on her body sting. They were going too fast, they really needed to stop. So she dug out her dagger, held herself with the other hand, leaned to the side, arched her body aaaand…

Sliced the tire.

The van came tumbling in the air and landed on it’s top. Rending metal was all she could hear for many dizzying seconds that adrenaline stretched to feel like entire minutes.

Bam. Crunch.

“Wha- Nonono…” the third hitman said, shuffling away, pulling himself by his arms.

There was fire all around them. Oil slicks. Bits of metal. And in the middle, Cooky, coming at him with her dagger and a big smile.

She cut his arm carefully. He screamed all the way until he passed out.

Oh well. He was gonna bleed out anyway, no way an ambulance would come so fast in this neighbourhood, and she doubted that second-rate hitmen like these bozos could afford Apollo Tripods.

She lifted the man’s severed arm and checked his implants. They weren’t exactly military-grade, but they were black-market ones with encryptions she didn’t have the patience to crack otherwise. She fiddled with the severed arm until it popped up an augmented reality display. There it was, her location and an exact time for the hit.

Only one man had that information.

Cooky stepped inside her house, waving the severed arm around, staining the hallway. She faced her husband in the study, who was drinking expensive whiskey while watching the flames crackling in the fireplace. His eyes met hers, then he gulped and frozen, he waited for her reaction.

A long moment passed. Then she squealed, opening her arms wide, “My hubby!” She ran up to him and gave him a big hug. “Best birthday present, ever, muah, muah, moo-waah!”

The End

Berenice's Hair

Since she was little, Berenice had one goal in mind: To be become like one of the models she saw on the AR billboards.

It was what she desired. She kept letting her hair long, despite her mother’s protests of wanting to keep them manageable. It was her big issue, that her hair was thin and whispy and frail, just like her mother’s, just like her grandmother’s.

She fixed that as soon as she turned 15, with a black-market CRISPR modification of her genes that hurt like a motherfucker.

After that, her hair became thick and long and soft, becoming the envy of every woman she ever encountered. Even before her next birthday at sixteen, she had learnt a valuable lesson in life: fuck genetics. You make your own fate.

She ran out of patience at seventeen and left her small town to get to Athens. She traded a handjob to an overweight man for a lift in his car.

On the very first day, she met her best frenemy in a sleazy bar, getting drinks by horny middle-aged men. Arsinoe was the exact same as her, ambitious, pretty, they both wanted the same things. Before success was even a whiff in the horizon, they didn’t really have anything much to separate them. They went to the same model auditions, to the same photographer calls, to the same porn castings. Yeah, that last one they pushed off, but as the expenses ate away at what little pittance of euro they had scrounged around, it only took a couple of months before they caved.

Honestly, Berenice was shocked at what passed as porn these days. She thought she would get hammered by two studs, or at least she wished she had. In reality, someone paid her 300 euro for her to sit on her perky butt while a man sniffed and licked her feet. He did some other weird things too, but she had tuned out after about twenty minutes or so.

And that was it. She had earned her rent.

“What did they have you do?” Arsinoe asked with a frown.

“It was silly, actually. Foot worship, he called it? And you?” Berenice said, bending her wrist.

“I got tickled. Not-a-euphemism,” Sophia scoffed at the situation.

They both giggled and left, their paycards feeling heavier.

They moved in together, it was inevitable. Athens was hella expensive. Arsinoe got less gigs in general, but she seemed to manage to save a bit more, so it all worked out in the end. Berenice liked to party a bit too much and she always ended up in the red despite her frequent paydays. At some point, someone told them about sugar daddies and they both were extremely interested in the concept.

They found a few which they kept in rotation, who paid their bills and their drugs and their expensive clothes.

For a while, it was perfect.

Then Arsinoe got the job Berenice was angling for her entire life. “I’m so happy for you,” she squealed in the highest pitch possible.

Arsinoe hopped up and down, grabbing her by the arms and twirling her around like a dance routine. Berenice smiled, she had practised a lot of fake ones, and her magnificent mane waved as they both spun in joy.

All she could think of was that Arsinoe’s hair wasn’t prettier than hers. They had both auditioned for that contract at Aphrodite Cosmetics, and the executive was staring at her ass, not her friend’s, she was sure of it. She had worn the tiniest skirt imaginable, and it was sheer too.

How could they have given the job to Arsinoe of all people, who kept her hair short and in knots?

They stopped spinning and fell on their couch with an excited, “Whee!”

Then Arsinoe climbed on top of her and started kissing her on the neck. Yeah, that was a recent development, after one of their sugar daddies wanted them both at the same time one night. Berenice didn’t mind, and she felt safer with Arsinoe, so she accepted. The problem was that after that day, Arsinoe had started behaving weird. Some nights she’d make a bother when Berenice wanted her to get the fuck out of the apartment so she could screw her sugar daddy, other times she’d badmouth them constantly, even being rude in front of them when they groped Berenice. Arsinoe had also managed in the last month to get her stoned a couple of times and then went down on her.

Berenice didn’t mind, she was good at it, and her tongue felt like a small doggy who was way too excited to see you. As Arsinoe’s head bobbed between Berenice’s legs, she ran her fingers through her hair, examining them again thoroughly.

Cropped, tangled, she even had a hint of dandruff.

Terrible, really.

How had they given her the hair contract instead of Berenice?

Arsinoe used her fingers to pleasure Berenice, who moaned reflexively, but her thoughts weren’t into it. She gripped her frenemy’s hair and pushed her down. Arsinoe misinterpreted it as excitement and licked harder, but Berenice actually thought about choking her frenemy by using her pussy lips.

She could do it, perhaps pin her in place with her thighs. She was stronger. She was sexier. She had better hair. She was better at everything.

Arsinoe’s skill probably saved her at that moment, since a wave of pleasure crashed all over Berenice’s body and she arched her back, shuddering as it overtook her. She did pin Arsinoe between her thighs but oxytocin flooded her mind and made her feel good. Or, at least, less murdery.

It was Berenice’s turn to get grumpy. She stayed at home more and more, while looking for gigs less and less. She cut ties with her sugar daddies, who were stupid enough to still send her cash for a while, hoping it was just a girl’s phase playing hard-to-get and she’d relent, but months went by and even the last one cut her off.

Berenice would spend her days just listening to music, brushing her hair, caring for them, touching the individual strands softly. She was proud of them, dammit! Why couldn’t they see it?

Arsinoe brought in the CEO of a subsidiary hair-product company one night. Her boss, basically.

Berenice simply barged in the room as Arsinoe was sucking him off on the bed. “You don’t mind doubling up, do you?” she said lustfully and dropped her negligee on the floor.

He gulped. “Uh… No! Please, join us.”

She started playing with Arsinoe as they always did. When she reached in to get her turn of the cock, she sucked it as hard as she could, making the man grunt with pleasure. She kissed the tip and said, “Hold my hair, I love it like that.”

He did so, running his fingers through her hair and holding her head, pushing it down.

“Do you like my hair? Isn’t it soft? And pretty?” she cooed.

“Yes…” he grunted. “It sure is.”

Arsinoe stuck her tongue inside her ear. “What do you think you’re doing?” she whispered, annoyed. Then she took the cock from her and attacked it herself.

Berenice stuck her tongue in turn, and whispered, “I just think the man should have a fair sampling of the goods on the market, don’t you think?” Then she smiled at him, climbed on top of Arsinoe and started kissing him. She pulled his hands and placed them on her head.

He got the hint, and started massaging her head. “Mmm, you like this, don’t you?”

“Yes, so much. You do it better than anyone else,” she said huskily, kissing him again.

Arsinoe let go of the penis and went for Berenice’s ass. She pretended to be making out, and then she bit Berenice very hard, definitely leaving a mark. “Ow!” Berenice exclaimed, slapping her away.

“Naughty!” the clueless CEO said. “I like it.”

Arsinoe started kissing him then.

Berenice stuck a finger inside her frenemy and purposefully made it hurt.

“Ow!” Arsinoe said as well.

“Calm down, you girls, there’s plenty of me to go around.”

Arsinoe straddled the man and pointed his cock straight inside her.

Berenice kept on the playful teasing.

A few rounds of biting and twisting and hurting each other’s skin, and Arsinoe had enough. “Stop it, you wacko!” She grabbed Berenice by the hair, it was long and provided a good handful.

“Ow! You-” Berenice fought back, pulling her away from the shocked and erect CEO.

They fought and said names. Finally Berenice shoved her and Arsinoe fell on the man’s erection.

“Aaargh!” he screamed in pain, holding his crotch.

The embarrassing lawsuit from mangling his penis put both of the girls in serious debt.

Arsinoe kicked her out, as she was the one who had been paying the rent and all the bills for the past six months anyway. Berenice got back with one of her sugar daddies, because it seems that young pussy is always sought-after pussy, even if it falls off the face of the planet for half a year and ghosts you on every call and text you send.

He lived in the better part of Athens near the East, overlooking the sea. She liked that, even if she had to endure his body odour to have it.

In the end, Berenice defaulted on one payment, one single payment, and that was because she had been hungover that day and forgot about it. Adult responsibilities weren’t her strong suit.

So she basically lost her freedom. They called it debt-bondage, where they made you a corporate slave basically and you had to do whatever they wanted to pay off the debt. She kinda got what she wanted, Aphrodite bought her debt and put her to good use as a model. Uglier girls had to do other things, yucky things. She got off easy, basically modelling for ads and videos where they needed a young, sexy girl with a sultry voice.

Which was pretty much everywhere.

She hadn’t spoken to Arsinoe in almost a year. She knew that she hadn’t lost the hair-product contract since she kept seeing her ads. Funnily enough, she thought of her best frenemy when they chopped off her arm.

Oh, yeah, it was a thing they could do to you, even if you objected. Basically, you were meat and they owned you. The ads aimed towards the augmented demographic, so they simply augmented her arm and plugged a few more implants into her. She had no say in this.

Even so, she knew that uglier girls had it worse.

Berenice didn’t care about that, though. She had learnt early in life that you made your own fate. And yes, she had royally messed up hers so far, but she could still make it happen. Showbiz was a weird place with massive amounts of money that got thrown around each day. Just a tiny bit would get her freed from the paramone contract and straight into stardom.

If only she could her job back from that thief, Arsinoe.

The black-market dude was nothing like she expected him to be. He was a well-dressed Russian, actually handsome. He presented the box, it was metal and heavy.

“There you go miss,” he said, presenting it to her.

“How do I know it’s what you claim it to be?” she asked.

The Russian smiled and presented a device. He lifted the metal lid just a tiny fraction. The device started clicking with a weird tone. “A Geiger counter. See how it goes crazy when it’s close? That’s how you know.”

“Nice!” Berenice said, her eyes looking wild. “Sending you the cash,” she said and authorised the cryptocurrency transaction. They waited for the confirmations to come in and then the Russian nodded. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“I-Uh, just wanted to say I’m sorry…” Berenice stuttered in front of her frenemy.

Arsinoe had her arms crossed and wore a mask of annoyance.

“Here, just a small gift. I picked it out for you when I got to Bodrum, remember how we said we always wanted to go there?” Berenice said cowering. She presented an ornate hair brush that was decorated with semi-precious gems.

Arsinoe bit her lip. “Of course I remember.”

“So you’ll accept it? Please?”

Arsinoe’s face softened. She snatched the hair brush and pointed it back at her. “Puh. Alright. Thank you, and apology accepted, even though you didn’t actually say any of the words.”

Berenice beamed at her. “This is so great! Okay, gotta go now, I have an audition to get to. But we’ll talk, okay? Byeee!”

Arsinoe felt ill for months. Nothing she did would make her feel better. She vomited a lot, which the doctors misconstrued as her being bulimic. And a model trying to convince a doctor that she wasn’t bulimic was like a porn star claiming she was a virgin.

Days went by.