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The Rector's Tale by John Grantner

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A morally bankrupt high school principal takes extreme measures against a bully in his school. Image generated with OpenAI 1 Brian Flaherty sauntered into my office, looking smug and self-assured as usual. "Shut the door and have a seat, Mr. Flaherty," I said. He dropped into the chair across from my desk and slouched, smirking at me. Flaherty was a football star that every teacher granted an undeserved passing grade because St. Brendan was a football powerhouse favored to win another state championship, and of course, football rules. A muscle bound, dimwitted brute who made the lives of kids who were smaller and smarter than him a living hell, he was the kind of thug who was the bane of my existence all through my own high school days - privileged, with an overweening sense of entitlement, and a bully - and now that I was a high school principal, was the bane of my existence again. "Do you know what this is about," I asked. He shrugged. "Like I care?" ...
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The Last Peddler of Arch by Laurel Hanson

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A grieving merchant travels the dangerous Dread Road to sell her wares - if she can make it to town alive. Image generated with OpenAI Hawthorn had been trekking for over a day and hadn't seen another living creature, not even a lizard, let alone a reaver. The Dread Road was safer than it used to be. She supposed she was to blame for that. The sheer walls of the gorge trapped the heat, and the air rippled with it. It even smelled hot, a baked absence of life. She shifted her straw hat over her eyes. Mountain-bred, she was unaccustomed to the summers of the lowlands, but though mountain people are small, they have strong legs. She could walk all day without tiring, and she'd need to do just that. Any day now, the rains would break over the mountains, and the floodwaters would cascade down the Dread without warning. Then, there would be no escaping the deluge which would carry her out to the sea where there were monsters she didn't even want to think about. Which is what she ...
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With Distance Comes Perspective by Rick Duffy

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Retired engineer Janx is investigating a strange cosmic anomaly when a curveball causes him to discover more than he imagined possible. Image generated with OpenAI Falling nearly naked through an asteroid field is not how I envisioned retirement. I say 'nearly' because that's how it feels with no ship, no pod: just a safe-suit. Masses of drifting rocks covered in sky-wires and transceivers speckle my view, as if I'd sneezed in my helmet. I skitter between two monstrous slabs, like petrified hands waiting to clap. My com crackles. "Diver 18, status?" That's not for me. I pick it up since the omni-stations echo whatever signals hit them - when they're working. And though I'm millions of clicks from the Zeta anomaly, I'm already seeing its effects: magnetic lines of aurora swirl and weave around the antennas like an electric storm. Someone has to repair the sensors and transmitters when they glitch, but it's not my old engineering career that...
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