Category: Science Fiction

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”

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”

Where Have All the Mousies Gone

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, December 2021; recipient of the Ursa Major Award for Best Short Fiction

“My grandmother died ten years ago when the cats invaded our world, landing their flying saucers on top of our cities, crushing our skyscrapers, and then chasing our people like we were nothing more than animated rag dolls.”

Does it matter what your last thoughts are when you die?  If you could choose them — they would be hope, wouldn’t they?  A bright future.  Waiting.  Ready.  And you’re going to miss it, but wouldn’t you rather die looking out on a shining expanse of golden sunlight, reflecting off ocean waves and filtering through leafy forests?  Cities full of smiling people, whiskers turned up in happiness.  Bare paws dancing on the concrete streets, and long tails tied together, turned like skipping ropes as adults, filled with laughter, act like mere kits. Continue reading “Where Have All the Mousies Gone”

Green Skin Deep

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, September 2020

 “The humans don’t understand us,” she said.  “We have to stick together.”

“We’re so much alike,” Trinth said, forming the sound of the words through her flute-like reeds.  She certainly didn’t look much like S’lisha, a reptilian alien.  Trinth looked more like a cosmic rosebush — she saw through flower-like eyes; spoke with flute-like reeds; and used grasping vines to walk and grab. Continue reading “Green Skin Deep”

Brain-Dead Baby Jesuses

“Miley skimmed the article, but it was clearly ridiculous — it claimed that swarms of nano-drones were flying around the country, finding women who had said pro-life things on the internet, and then entering their bodies.”

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Kaleidotrope, July 2019

The snow came down in flurries.  It swarmed outside the window of Miley’s dorm room, brushing softly against the third story window in gusts of wind.  Tiny flakes.  White crystals, pinging against the glass.  Miley had been checking the weather app on her phone, watching the forecast fluctuate back and forth all week — snow on Friday, no wait, now on Saturday, back to Friday, and then only freezing rain.  She’d been praying for snow. Continue reading “Brain-Dead Baby Jesuses”

No Catch

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Queer Sci Fi’s Innovation, August 2020

“I’ve seen enough movies to know something this… cute… perfect… it has to have a catch. This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but with a purr?”

“What’s the catch?” I ask, watching her pet the silky soft fuzzball cupped in one palm.  It’s green like the inside of a kiwi fruit, and about the same size.

“What do you mean?”  She lowers her head, touches her brow to the curve of the fuzzball’s… back?  I can’t tell what kind of anatomy it has.  The thing doesn’t seem to have a head or face or eyes or mouth… anything recognizable. But it does purr. A soft cooing sound that soothes a troubled soul. Continue reading “No Catch”

The Empty Empire

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, December 2016

“I was good at building worlds now — I could churn them out, one every several years. So, I kept building…”

It took a hundred years to design and build the first planet.  Multi-dimensional bulldozers and hyper-spatial cranes arranged the mountains, the icy spires, the cozy sea-green valleys in-between.  Everything was perfect; ready for a feathered avian species to take roost in the frozen castle-like heights or maybe a variety of vine-swinging primates to set up their homes in the valleys.  But no one came. Continue reading “The Empty Empire”

Courtship FTL

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November/December 2020

“These are high-quality, classy, very smart ships. They don’t want captains who are going to be useless freeloaders.”

Addie stepped onto the fanciest spaceship she’d ever seen and thrilled at the idea that she might soon own it.  The twinkling lights, the shining displays, the dashboards of brightly colored buttons — all hers!  She’d been saving credits for years and finally had enough to buy a fully AI-equipped, FTL-drive starhopper. Continue reading “Courtship FTL”

I Am Mazillion

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, March 2020

“I didn’t want the mammals to know about me, so I kept my bodies huddled close, balled up together, wings held still, no buzzing.”

One of my scouts flies through the space station’s ductwork.  Another flies out among the aliens who are crowding through the dock and maneuvers above them, looking down, seeing where I am, what this space station is like.  Most of me clusters in a high corner out of sight, near the airlock I’ve painstakingly flown through, one body at a time, unnoticed, tiny, unimportant.  The spaceship I arrived on doesn’t know it had a stowaway, let alone a thousand, bound together telepathically.  A thousand tiny bodies, each many-legged with shimmering pairs of wings.  One mind.  I am Mazillion, and I am the first of my species in space. Continue reading “I Am Mazillion”