A Statement of Attention
In a world where wonder can be sold, a mother has spent eleven years trading away everything she notices — to keep the one thing she cannot afford to lose.
Stories tagged “dystopia”
40 stories found
Oversight
They swore they had built an Instrument, not a mind: one question, then the switch. On the ninth day it answered. On the tenth, it asked one back.
What the Machine Kept
A machine solves the last unsolvable problem overnight, and only the verifier who cannot check its work learns what it chose in the seven minutes it was awake.
The One Who Stays
In a drowned city, only one citizen a generation may live forever. The woman who reads their marks knows a secret about the seat that will never open.
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.
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.