Category: Story

True Feast

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Typewriter Emergencies: A Journal of Furry Lit, May 2017

“She shouldn’t stop here; it would only slow her down, and she’d fallen far enough behind the migration.”

Argelnox hunched her shoulders inside her mechanical shell.  The metal casing chafed against her soft, wrinkly green skin.  She’d been traveling for months, solo-zipping from one planet to the next, skimming only deep enough into each planet’s atmosphere to replenish her oxygen and basic nutrients, soaking them into her suit’s mechanical gills before sling-shotting towards the next.
Continue reading “True Feast”

Fish Heart

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, April 2020

“She no longer wanted to eat the little fish, only to gaze at her and talk to her and share every thought that crossed her mind while the fish blinked at her with adoring eyes.”

The surface of the decorative pond in the neighbor’s yard shone like a mirror, smooth and bright, reflecting the overcast sky in shades of pale gray and silver.  Cora wanted to know what was hidden underneath the mirror, so she jumped down from the fence and stalked over to the stone ledge around the pond, tail lashing behind her.

Keeping her paws braced carefully on the stone ledge, Cora lowered her head towards the water, sniffing.  The angle changed, and suddenly the reflection of the sky and her own orange and black splotched face disappeared.  The calico cat could see directly into the underworld of water as clearly as through a pane of window glass.  Green, silty, and mysterious. Continue reading “Fish Heart”

Between the Black Holes

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, January 2021

“I can put you into the escape pod, leave you in stasis with a looped distress call, on course for the nearest space station. But I’m flying this starhopper between those black holes.”

The binary black hole sucked all the glittering starlight around into its twin maws.  It stared at the viewscreen like two dark eyes, windows into the void.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Clarity said, twisting her dyed-green hair nervously around her fingers.  “We can’t fly between those things.”

The pilot of the small starhopper, a red-furred canid, stared right back at the pair of black holes, orbiting each other in a mad, spiraling dance that would end in eventual merging.  Centuries from now.  “Dead serious,” he said, triangular ears laying back flat against his head. Continue reading “Between the Black Holes”

Shiny Red Chassis

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, August 2019

“She was programmed to seek out organic lifeforms in need of help, but those youthful organics who raced her through the sloshy pipes of the plumbing system had not needed her help. They said they did, but she no longer believed them.”

Reeree3 had been blessed with a shining red carapace by her creator, but it was blotched with rough orange patches of rust now.  She’d been taken on a joyride through Crossroads Station’s plumbing system, like a common toy being raced for fun, and she hadn’t been given a chance to properly dry out.  So, she was hiding under one of the food carts in the Merchant Quarter, watching the crowds of organic creatures of all species pass by. Continue reading “Shiny Red Chassis”

The Fisherman’s Robot

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, July 2019

“Every trip back from New Jupiter, Ayla brought Sebas7 to visit her roboticist mother and plead for yet another upgrade.”

Sebas7 opened her mechanical eyes to see limpid human eyes staring at her.  She recognized them as human eyes from using a pattern matching algorithm on her massive internal database of labelled images.

“Hello, friend.  Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe.” Continue reading “The Fisherman’s Robot”

Salvador Dalí Smile

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, July 2019

“Because Maradia had programmed Roia378, she believed that she had some wisdom or knowledge, some kind of superiority at all to the robotic woman. When in fact, she had none.”

“My brain isn’t working right.”  Roia378 — gleaming and silver, everything a robot should be, strong, aesthetically pleasing, a sculpted work of art that could build a stone castle with her bare metal hands — clutched her head, as if it ached, but she was not designed for pain or headaches.  Pain of any sort was useless; a mere note in her electro-net brain logs mentioning that a part of her mechanical body wasn’t in proper working order served the same purpose and easily sufficed.  No need for anything as dramatic as pain. Continue reading “Salvador Dalí Smile”

Diamond Dust Heart

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, April 2021

“I hope to whatever gods out there who would listen to an android like me that behind the door to this backroom, I’ll find a motherlode of drugs and not an android with a dark and leaky heart.”

Down at the precinct, we’d been calling the big crime lord in town Diamond Dust, because that was our only lead.  Whenever the big busts went down, the only clues left behind were microscopic traces of the expensive substance.  Most of my fellow detectives thought Diamond Dust was an addict, hooked on smoking the stuff.  But none of us had any luck tracking Diamond Dust down through the trafficking patterns of the illicit drug.  I had a different theory. Continue reading “Diamond Dust Heart”

Prototype Dino 1

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, May 2021

“After three more tries, it became clear that Wisper was not interested in inhabiting a robot body today. She was busy reading about dinosaurs in the paleontology archives.”

Maradia’s fingers flew over her keyboard as she uploaded the reservoir of files that collectively were Wisper, an AI program she’d been writing over the last several months, to Prototype Body 1.  She ran a quick check to make sure the files had uploaded properly, and then she pushed her rolling chair away from her desk with a grin on her face.  She spun around, kicking her feet out, and feeling like the kid she’d once been who’d dreamed of becoming a roboticist some day.  And here she was.  Ready to turn on her first fully automated robot, controlled entirely by a quasi-sentient AI. Continue reading “Prototype Dino 1”

Too Cuddly

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, May 2021

“”Okay, so you don’t want to be a giant teddy bear,” Maradia said. “What do you want to be?””

“Where did your plush exterior go?”

“I stripped it off.”  Anxlo7’s shiny metal interior gleamed, skeletal and mechanical, without the cinnamon brown teddy bear fur that usually covered her.

“But now you look… scary,” Maradia said to the robot she’d designed for Crossroads Station’s upcoming children’s carnival.  “You’ll scare the kids.” Continue reading “Too Cuddly”

Dry Skin

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Shark Week: An Ocean Anthology, June 2021

“I know that if I can hold out long enough, my skin will regain its natural levels of moisture. But I don’t think I can make it.”

My skin is drying out.  I can feel the withdrawal symptoms.  I want to go back home and run a bath, lace the water with sim-dopa66, and soak, soak, soak up the delicious chemical through my salamander skin.  Without the magic chemicals, I’m withering, drying up, shriveling like a water lily in the desert. Continue reading “Dry Skin”