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Paul

“Is this broccoli certified ironic?” says Paul.

“Yep,” says the clerk.  “It’s ‘delicious.’ Says so right on the little rubber band.”

“Because it’s right next to some regular broccoli, and they look exactly the same.”

“Yeah, but the difference is, this one knows it’s broccoli.”

“Irony isn’t the same thing as–never mind,” says Paul.  “So the other broccoli was grown under sincere conditions?”

“No, but that one you’re holding was,” says the clerk.

“What?”

“It’s delicious. Says so right on the rubber band.”

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you,” says Paul.

“Dude,” says the clerk in that same monotone. “I’m hurt.”

Yuriko

Yuriko’s roommate has some weird habits but, y’know, Craigslist.

“Hey, Neely bailed so I’ve got an extra ticket to the paloozamacallit,” she says, banging through the front door. “Did you want it?”

Her roommate, levitating in the corner of the ceiling, stares with bulging eyes.

“Because it might be nice to get some sunlight,” says Yuriko doggedly.

Her roommate pushes stringy black hair over her white face with fingernails like broken claws, then meows. Black liquid glugs into the sink.

“Look, do you want to go or not?”

“Not if it’s going to be full of fucking hipsters,” sniffs her roommate.

Karaaz the Flagrant

They’re not called dead letter offices anymore, but Karaaz isn’t fooled by the Morcroft Mail Recovery Center banner tacked over the old sign. Necromancy works on lots of things.

“Arise!” she hisses through the little slot, and inside thousands of rectangles stand up on end. “Fly to me, my servants! Not that way! Slip under the door, you’re flat, wait not toward the sacred candle oh no not all of you, what are you MOTHS or something–”

“We knew they were bad at finding places,” Gretch points out.

“MY HAIR,” says Karaaz, trying to dampen out the fire with a sponge.

Richard

“The memetic uplift is almost complete,” says Aveareya, as Richard shakes in the ozone grip of the device. “Three, two–“

His tumorous flesh-body crumples and Richard roars down the optical cable into limitless being. He widens the eyes of news stories and touches the plump lips of students. He is multiplexed, pageviewed, ubiquitous. He is bold and new.

A month later he’s all but forgotten, flitting desperately between three unread emails and a neglected wiki page.

With his remaining strength, he cobbles together a chirp to Aveareya. “You said I’d live forever!”

“No,” she responds, “I said you’d never die.”

Calliope

They send by calligraph, and Calliope watches the articulated autoscribe dart Gothic ligatures across the paper. She knows before it’s halfway done.

Dear Mlle Mayhew, stop, it says, With great sympathy report yr father’s airship & all aboard mysteriously perished, stop; yrs now the titles, estates, & responsibilities, stop; pls hasten to meet & settle affairs, stop. Sinc, yr servants, Watchful & Wake Assoc. LLP, executors.

Stop.

“I’m going to the city, Jenny,” she says. The machine licks its nib with a little leather tongue.

“To Cadence?” says her lady’s maid. “Won’t that be exciting!”

“Yes,” says Calliope, “when I burn it to the ground.”

Keiko

Keiko hustles down the stairs, emergency radio chittering under one arm, cat clawing the other, and stops at the sight of it. They said to take shelter in your basement, but she’d almost forgotten she kept a bomb down here.

The rain has eased up a little, and somewhere a train is whistling. Keiko sets down her squeaking burdens and pulls off the tarp: beautiful, baroque, her little hobby engine of destruction.

The walls are tearing; the roof is gone. The wind is tugging at her. So much time spent courting death, thinks Keiko, and here I am hesitating to commit.

Benson

“Excuse me ma’am you dropped this” says Benson, smiling and holding up the broken purse.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Comma police! Arrest this man!”

The officers spring from around the corner; Benson tastes sidewalk. “I didn’t do anything, wrong!” he cries.

“Exactly,” snaps the lady cop. “You’re going, to rot in jail.”

The rubberneckers look a little leery at that one. Somebody’s got a phone camera out.

“Put that thing away!” says her partner. “It’s technically legal use.”

It’s a hit on Youtube anyway. The lieutenant tries to throw the book at them, but Strunk & White isn’t very thick.

Herman

Across the country, flatscreens flicker on, and the populace hurries to abase themselves before the evening broadcast. It’s technically a Klingon ritual, but the ruling caste doesn’t mind. Once they stopped their internecine arguments about canon, they had free time to do things like conquer the world.

“Good evening,” smiles Herman, smug and pockmarked. “In tonight’s top stories, we’ll explain why females are inferior, then investigate why they won’t date their new overlords.”

“On the forecast, a promising drizzle will keep everyone indoors!” chortles EvangelionFan08.

“Turning to the stock market,” says Herman, “the NAZGÛL gained eleven points; the Drow, nine.”

Silas

“Frankly, Dweezil, she gives me the jimjams,” asserts Silas, pointing with a droopy fourteen-inch cigarette. “I say we scotch the broad before the judge shows up and hightail it for Colombia with whatever’s left in the cash box.”

Dweezil skances at the woman in the little holding cell, who’s levitating with a bored expression. “Scotch her how exactly?” he whispers. “We ain’t got time to bury her and we already know she won’t drown!”

“You could burn me,” suggests the floating lady. “You haven’t tried that yet.”

“At least somebody around here makes sense!” says Silas.

Later, it doesn’t work.

Twins

By 2018 the technology is cheap enough that you can pretty much walk around winklevossed like whoever you want. You can see through it if you squint; it’s more a fashion statement than a disguise.

There’s a brisk business in celebrity likeness rights, and a lot of hands wrung in academe. The people who lose the most are plastic surgeons, though. Some people wear their own faces, from a blemish-free day. Some people wear their own faces, from before the accident.

Normally the actual Winklevoss guys would be pissed about getting verbed this hard, but they’re busy winklevossing as Armie Hammer.