futuristic story

Friday Fictioneers: Every Minute

Leigh W. Smith 20 Comments
unidentifiable-on-a-stick--Friday Fictioneers, 3 Oct. 2014, by Kent Bonham

Photograph by Kent Bonham

Genre: Science fiction (flash fiction) story

by Leigh Ward-Smith

Dr. Kyla Dysun marveled at the LP prototype from the archive.

From that mock-up to the latest incarnation of the LollyPetz product line seemed light-years. When she’d formed FiveFineMinds eight years ago, only the technology for the ChocoLiszts had been perfected. For a time, everybody with the means could generate a piano sonata with mere mouth power, thanks to edible electronics by FFM.

But the word whipper-uppers had worked a new level of magic with the LollyPetz campaign.

It is a brave new world, she thought, with such capital in it.

Later, her speech to the shareholders went grandly. “Today, 31 March 2079, carves a company milestone: one LollyPet ‘born’ every minute!”

This flash fiction is for Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers of 3 October 2014. Please visit Rochelle and check out the other Friday Fictioneers as well; you’ll find a great range of story genres and angles to go with this prompt. And, if you enjoyed my speculative fiction story, please pop back by sometime. I have a feeling I will continue the LollyPetz story soon.

Advertisement

The Lone Egg: Flash Fiction

Leigh W. Smith 10 Comments
Photo from Lee's Birdwatching Adventures Plus. Check out her informative blog.

Archival photo of eaglet and parent, before the extinction (from approximately 2014), by Lee’s Birdwatching Adventures Plus.

Levant Davis gently rearranged the simulated nest but wasn’t having much luck with the lone egg. As lead researcher for the Lorax Project, even he could do only so much prodding of natural processes. The recovered eagle DNA from which he’d helped create Phoenix, first of her kind in 22 generations, was rebelling in her parthenogenetic offspring.

“The sim-nest isn’t adequately insulating.” The bio-console picked up his pique. “We must maintain a core temperature of 99.67 degrees from now until pipping.”

He blew out a long breath, then muttered. “One time when cool is not cool.”

“Bio-con, erase previous statement.”

He hid his hopes. Emotions aren’t data.

Flash fiction written for the Light and Shade Challenge of 19 September 2014. My gratitude to the Raptor Resource Project Blog and the American bald eagle resource unit from The Learning Technology Center at Vanderbilt University, which provided invaluable data in which to “ground” this flash.

“Cool is not cool.”
– Matt Smith in Doctor Who, written by Steven Moffat