LINKDING

excerpt: She knew to expect Kierk’s homegrown MDMA analog to hit like a blissy staticky tsunami. She knew to expect Mona’s band—formerly the Noctambulists, now Gristleswing—to pack the dancefloor into an electric sea of skin and sweat. She knew to expect the long rambling goodbye pep-talk from Vawn on the rooftop and the frantic-turned-tender goodbye sex with Ilya at hers. She did not expect to stumble home and find a corpse on her doorstep. ➜ a short story about a dystopian future, a murder investigation, community, and someone who's trying to leave the only home she's ever known ➜ the information reveals over the course of the story are handled so well ➜ and the narrative tone of...hm. of inevitability? of sadness. of people trying their best to hold the line against the constant pressure of external forces. idk it's real good. ➜ written for a Stop Copaganda short story contest! ➜ 4.7k words

<blockquote>Pico flattened himself against the aquarium glass, rippling his suckers. Etta got her first look at his beak, hooked and sharp, almost like a parrot’s. “He gets bored when we aren’t working. Plays with the toilet a lot.” Thierry peeled off the smartgloves and set them carefully on his work bench. “So, you got a job for me, right?” He grabbed the wheelie chair and shoved it over. “You know the fee? Payment options?” “Quinton told me, yeah.” Etta caught the chair, but didn’t sit down, gripping the back in both hands. She swiveled it back and forth as she arranged her words. “I left something at someone’s house. After a party. And I need it back.” Thierry raised his eyebrows. He yanked the fold-down bed off the wall and sank onto it, hands behind his head, one leg over the other. “Okay. Deet me the deets. I say deets for details. It’s shorter.” Etta moved the chair back and forth, back and forth. Then she sat down, took a deep breath, and deeted him the deets.</blockquote> ➤ low-stakes fun, love the use of slang

<blockquote>A Young Man Stops Time Whenever Things Get Rough</blockquote>

<blockquote>Barely a sliver of skin was left exposed to the sun’s glare, but there was a whisper in the back of her mind that it didn’t really matter anymore. It didn’t matter if she had soft and beautiful skin, because the God in the Pit had made his decision and never unmade them. Yet, Reva kept reminding herself, he hadn’t unmade one yet. The God in the Pit was different from the spirits who swirled through the sands or pulled the sun along its groove in the sky. He was more like a man. He needed wives, and Reva knew that meant he had a body. She and Brete and the other girls had discussed it often enough in the night.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Eris was kicked back doing some work on her glitchy left arm, tweaking the artinerves she didn’t have the cash to replace, when a fist pounded against her cab window. She startled; the hairpin she’d been using slipped into the wrong socket and her spidery metal hand flailed wild. Staticky pain flared through her arm and shoulder and made her hiss.</blockquote>