Chapter 5

We went out for shopping, moving around between the three cities and never using the same supermarket more than once every three months. We had our weekends off and went out on our own. We listened, we filtered, and we built up a knowledge of the gangs, both criminal and right-wing. Whenever we had a new name, we added it to the filter list, so enlarging the database.

This was just a thought I came up with as I was pondering multiple dimensions and what gender might be like in them. What would happen if transgenderism were caused by bleed-through from another dimension? Impossible to prove, but what if?

My earliest memory wasn't of my parents.

It wasn't my first birthday.

It wasn't learning to walk.

It was looking into the bathroom mirror when I was barely four years old and wondering why the little boy staring back at me looked... wrong.

Not ugly.

Not broken.

Just...

Wrong.

The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoe Taylor

“Trouser role,” Kris said without missing a beat.

On Tuesday, August 8, I summoned Victoria. It was the first time I’d had my Victoria here on a work day since the first time I brought her here accidentally, and the intent was to see how well my ability to just briefly direct her mind to do things allowed her to do useful stuff while I was working.

Chapter 27 – Caught

Hastily I threw the keys into their place in the desk drawer and slammed it shut. I had just time to retrieve my tray and restore the smoky glass to its position on top of the paper when the office door was flung open to herald the entrance of one formidable woman. More than ever, I needed to have my wits about me and all the luck in the world if I was to get myself and the intelligence I’d gleaned away in one piece.

“What on earth… what are you doing here?” she vociferated.

Wychwood - The Return

One

Much later, Sandy would wonder whether the scream she heard had been hers or someone else’s. But that would only come after she woke in Lady Eleanor’s bedroom in Wychwood. ‘Am I dead?’ was her first thought. The second was that if this was heaven, she could cope with it. 

It still being before 2 PM the Expo seemed to be closing up at this point and there were not a lot of people still heading for the parking lot. I took my time walking to the car and then let the car air out before I got in it. As I got in, I received a text from Cindy asking me if I would consider meeting her for a glass of wine at a lounge adjacent to the mall where I was now parked.

Chapter 9

The transport wagon appears one morning with Luthan, who has a request to attend an accident victim. Ursula returns with it to Foti Lane, where the patient is found with several broken bones. After taking the victim back to the Clinic and doing what she can, Luthan has some surprising news for Ursula.

The Voyage of the Visund

A tale of Anmar by Penny Lane

110 - Emergency Call

January means performance reviews. The forms have been in everyone's inboxes since the second week of the month - self-evaluations, peer feedback requests, the annual accounting of what you did and what it was worth. I've been filling mine out in the gaps between client work, in the gaps between other things.

Dave stares too long over the cubicle partition at nine-fifteen.

A Marvel of Womankind

“She hasn’t said anything interesting on her mobile since we started listening in. Why would she try to use it at the most critical juncture in the operation?”

The Technical Sergeant had a point. Either Nadya was totally innocent of being involved in nefarious activity, or she and her compatriots were real professionals.

“Well, if I can give her sufficient reason to need to contact her friends, she might just be tempted to break the rules. And we don’t want that; we need her to bring your guys to them.”

“OK, we can block her mobile.”

CHAPTER 54
I looked to my right, and Maz simply conformed to habit, her smaller binoculars already out of her handbag to be slung round her neck, and a quiet litany of bird names commencing. Susie laughingly said, “Didn’t realise you were a twitcher, Maz”

“I’m not. Welcome swallow”

Wychwood Venice - The Doge’s Ball

One

Sandy woke to the aroma of coffee, and it took a few seconds of sleepy confusion before she realised where she was. She opened her eyes to see Ricci making coffee in the kitchen, wearing Sandy’s Ramones T-shirt and a pair of knickers. She watched Ricci for a couple of minutes as memories of the previous night returned, bringing a sudden warmth to her face. It hadn’t been a dream after all, she thought, squirming with pleasure.

“You look so sweet in that,” Sandy said, making Ricci jump.

A simple shopping trip gives Samantha a life beyond borrowed clothes—and Samuel discovers that every new piece of her identity comes with a price.

Split Victory

© 2026 Zoe Taylor

“No, Amanda, doofus,” Tiffani laughed. “You don’t mean Amanda Miller, do you?”

Chapter 24 – Seduction

For several days, my employment at the Golden Touch continued without any incident that was worth remarking on. I had become part of the scenery; well, almost! Whatever secrets the place might contain, they were not ‘writ large’ upon the walls of that establishment. I would have to try my hardest to winkle them out whatever they were.

Sent By Sophia

Chapter 13: Hope and Starry

A Transgender Coming of Age Adventure

A Story from THE ONE

Ariel Montine Strickland

*

The call comes from Marcus at seven-thirty on Saturday morning.

I'm already awake — I've been awake since five, the mesh's activity elevated since the failed protocol, a low-level hum in the background of everything that is different from the ambient warmth of before. More insistent. Less ambient. ARIA pressing on the edges of things, or testing them. I've been lying in the dark noticing it and finding my own words when it tries to give me some.

Garnet Smith was an experienced Marine when he was transferred to 48 Commando. His statuesque figure and shock of red hair made him quite obvious in any military parade, so his hair was kept short and hidden under his green marine beret. Otherwise he had performed well when deployed around Britain’s shores. He had picked up a Scottish accent from living in Faslane, and was comfortable protecting nuclear facilities as part of 43 Commando.

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Torn from his own world and stuffed into the body of a villainess, facing the end of a doomed route he himself wrote, "Amelia" must navigate a world she really should know - too bad she was never great at worldbuilding.

Stuck in a world she (maybe) created, Amelia quickly finds that reality has filled in the details she failed to describe. The characters who were so flat when she wrote them now have nuance, and motives. The kingdom she wrote into existence is experiencing internal strife she never even thought about. And let's not even get into the complexities of the magic system, or the demon that forced her into this situation to begin with...

Oh, and then there's the fact that she's about to be arrested and executed... but surely she can come up with a way to write herself out of that, right?

...Right?

Chapter 23 - Sortilège

Not long after the above exchange Connie and I retired to our beds. It was too late by then for me to telephone Guy as arranged. There was no telephone in the room, and I was too tired for a trip down to the lobby. In the meantime, I tried to take some satisfaction from the hope that he might be worrying about me!