We're all stars now, or at least that’s what the advertisements say. The gear and hookups are free, and after that it's just a matter of waiting to see if any credits flow in while you carry on with your ordinary life. That's how it's pitched. In reality, 9/10ths of the kind of people who sign up for the hookups have their own plan of how to make ( Read more... )

When the plague came, we lost most of our doctors before we realized that the plague had a dark sense of humor. No, really! Wear a bio-hazard suit and it went after you twice as hard, three times as hard, calling in all the neighbor pathogens until it got you. The scent of alcohol sanitizers brought it running (the only way they figured that one ( Read more... )

Nobody wants to be alone. Everybody wants to love someone. Or at least, they want someone to love them. There is a perverse kind of comfort in pushing someone away who cares about you. That’s where I come in. I used to be an escort, one of the really high class kind that is only arrested as part of a massive sting, not the kind that gets rousted ( Read more... )

Passing through the pillars was never his favorite part of the job. He put it off for a couple of minutes by stopping at a coffee shop and getting a mocha latte to go. He justified it to himself by saying that the coffee inside was non-existent, the tea was some weird herbal crap, and coffee (and chocolate) *were* on the approved list, so it would ( Read more... )

Who hunts in the middle of a crowd, without being seen? There are a lot of answers to that question, but it boils down to "someone in the service industry." Taxi driver, waiter, secretary, hairdresser...all the service industries, or servants before there *were* real service industry workers. It's an easy way to figure out where I should aim my ( Read more... )

Everybody needs a brag page. Or a bookshelf, or a trophy display case, or something. C'mon, even serial killers tend to keep little boxes of molars or left shoes or something to help them remember what they've done. Me, I know it's bad tradecraft to do things like that, and my cover sure doesn't allow me to have anything on display in my home, but ( Read more... )

Christmas real estate is a thing. At first, people are skeptical when I explain that I work for a boutique Christmas real estate agency, but after I ask a few pointed questions--do you know somebody who collected gnomes or snowmen? how about that family that starts putting up their outdoor Christmas lights in August, because it takes them that long ( Read more... )

The forecast claimed that there would be good cloud-fishing tomorrow, so the seamen went out and replaced all their sails with giant nets, checked to make sure the engines and the rowers were ready to go, and told their wives to pack only very solid food for them to take--cold cuts or sandwiches wold do, but soup might cause some problems. They ( Read more... )

The warmth led to predictions of warmer weather, less rain, an increase in pollen count as the trees responded, and a high danger of hornet attacks. She gritted her teeth as she read the news and then went up to the attic to dig out the armored hornet-suit and helmet required for leaving the house. She made enough to afford the suit, and her job ( Read more... )

Ordering color is a bit trickier than you might expect. First, there are always the colors that people associate with the province or town, which in our case means quite a bit of different shades of blue. We need blue for clothes, flowers, the sky, water, and the cliffs that litter our province. It's an important part of everything, and because it ( Read more... )