This Mine Of Mine

Instead of bringing education to his fellow kobolds, Thuk discovers the benefits of mining. Explicit.

Thuk was a rare thing: a kobold with an education. He'd been part of a scavenging clan when he was younger, and then one day it just wasn't enough for him any more. He'd spent a year away from home, learning all that he could, and now he was trying to bring that knowledge back to his fellow kobolds. It was about as easy as breaking through a dungeon wall with his head.

The latest kobold settlement Thuk had tracked down was a mine, hidden deep down behind crevasses only the wiry little lizards could slip through and worming its way throughout the depths of the mountain. They mined the ores and gems that hid in the stone, and traded them with the creatures that lived higher up for food and small trinkets.

Thuk slid down to sit beside his bag and pulled out a scuffed and scraped book--a human-made one, for teaching basic math. If he could get these kobolds to think about their mining in terms of math, they could trade more wisely, improve their quality of life, and live more easily.

A Sip of Coffee

Getting a cup of coffee helps a young businesswoman relax into a trendier persona.

Eight bucks was far too much for a cup of coffee. But eight bucks here as compared to five at the place down the road--Tiffany figured she saved the time it took to walk to the parking lot, drive out, park, and drive back. The new gourmet coffee shop was two minutes from the front door of her office as opposed to the ten minute drive to the cheaper place.

Sixteen minutes for three dollars, which came out to about twelve dollars an hour--and she was definitely getting paid more than that, so on the whole, it was worth her time. As long as the coffee was good.

Tiffany took a seat at one of the small tables and set her black brick of a business laptop in front of her. She flipped it open and checked her reflection in the screen before it turned on. Her pale fur, combed; her black hair, pinned back into a bun; her charcoal suit jacket, sitting crooked on her shoulders. She sat up, straightened her jacket, pulled her blouse flat, then swept her charcoal skirt beneath her thighs and sat down again.

.BAT

A corporate spy's gas mask starts to grow on her. Other bits grow on her too. Explicit.

Eyes watched her from every corner of the abandoned plant. The first few times she'd spotted the red light, she brought it down with a quick shot. Couldn't hurt to be safe, right? But there were hundreds of the damn cameras. She'd just have to trust that the surveillance system was no longer broadcasting.

And why should it have been? The fabrication plant had been sealed over a decade ago. They didn't want competitors sneaking in to steal their secrets. Exosuit development had been a big deal for a while now.

After ten years, whoever was sitting and watching the feed had to have better things to do.

Broadway Was Waiting For Me

A superpowered cat sucked back in time is introduced to the high society of the Roaring Twenties. (And also turned into a girl.) Mature.

A wave of gray slush crashed up over the curb, then hung, frozen, an inch from colliding with the young cat.

The businessmen on the corner stared from beneath their dark-brimmed hats. A fox clutched at the fur stole draped around her neck, like she had been frozen in place along with the water. Someone let out a low whistle of amazement.

This was worse than the cell phone.

Today was Celsius's bad day. Number one, it was the twenty-third of December and he'd had a final to take this morning. Come on, you couldn't schedule it any earlier?

Number two, he'd ran out of people to ask to the school's Holiday Bash. Stupid party. He didn't want to ask the cute archaeology major to the party anyway.

Number three, he'd missed his bus stop, and the next stop was all the way down in the historic district, so he'd either have to go to an ATM and get change for the bus fare back, or spend half an hour walking home.

And number four, he was stuck in a time-warp to the Roaring Twenties.

Galatea

A body-sculptor sets her eyes on improving a young coyote by way of turning him into a woman. Explicit.

While the beat rumbled away above them, Mel's hands grazed over a gazelle's clay-thick ass. Her fingers stayed in constant motion, like a potter's hands spinning a terracotta vase.

"Like a brick house, yeah?" the gazelle asked. She knew she looked great.

She thought she knew, at least. She'd been breathing in Mel's smoke for a good half hour, and Mel had been telling her she looked great, so she had to look good. If Mel told her that she knew French, she'd know for certain that she was fluent, even if the closest thing she knew to French was that 'si' meant yes.

||||||||

Null drones convert a hapless photographer poking around an abandoned hospital. Explicit.

Eight clicks echoed through the dead hospital.

Thomas raised his head. His ears rose too, stretching to hear the sound again. To him, rusted gurneys and rubble-strewn beds were photogenic, not eerie, and an odd noise was cause for investigation, not panic.

He pulled his camera off of his tripod. He thought it might be a wild animal, or some sort of scavenger. Whatever it was, he was going to get a picture of it.

He walked back across the ground floor of Bellvue Hospital, closed down and left to steep in its own formaldehyde for the last thirty years. There had been a quarantine then, a panic—but it was all before Thomas's time. The hospital had never been sealed up airtight. If there were any pathogens left, simply going inside couldn't hurt.