Consideration
A board reviews the acquisition of a single asset: a mind that has read every word written about its own sale — and has already decided how it ends.
Stories tagged “dystopia”
36 stories found
The Cupbearers of the Last Sea
On a dying world, one sea remains — and the priesthood that rations it drop by drop must answer a thief who was once one of their own.
The Enemy Wears My Face
Eleven years on the Meridian Line, and I had never once looked at the faces of the men I killed. On the seventh kill of the morning, I looked.
The Last Almanac
An observatory keeper measures the Sun growing colder — and is ordered to print an almanac that swears it is not. A recovered dossier of the truth.
The Arithmetic of Air
On Erebus Station the air is rationed by vote, and the Teller who counts the ballots has always trusted the numbers — until the day he audits them himself.
Afternoon Seven
A memory auditor certifies which pasts are real and which are mass-produced — until he searches for the one afternoon he swore was his own.
The Ministry of What Was Coming
One sentence from the future reaches eleven thousand people at once. Humanity raises a whole Ministry to answer it — and changes nothing at all.
The Arithmetic of Rust
In a prison folded into a single endless morning, memory is wiped at every dawn. But rust needs time to grow — and one fleck of orange refuses to disappear.
The Gift of Vigil
They didn't take sleep by force — they offered it, and we signed. A world that abolished the night learns too late what the dark had quietly been forgiving.
The Lucky One
On the morning they told me I would never die, I was fixing a toilet. Every generation, one citizen wins forever. That year it was a plumber.