Cherney was a little guy, smoked a cigar, little mustache, shirt with a busy, abstract pattern. He paced back and forth outside the office, filling the waiting room with smoke and nervous energy. When his name was finally called, his shirt was drenched with sweat and he wiped some off his forehead with the back of his hairy arm. Then he burst into the office and Mr. Brenner told him to have a seat but he only got halfway into his seat before he popped up again. “Do you realize what this little piece of paper is worth?” he said, spittle spraying across the desk. Mr. Brenner regarded him calmly. “Calm down, Cherney. Take a deep breath.”

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Dana and her sister Cira sat out on the dock, the wind whipping their hair around. It didn’t bother Dana much that Cira was a robot, or half robot, she just didn’t want to be alone out there. She’d had this thing about being alone ever since the plague- every since everyone died pretty horrific deaths except for her. She’d spent days wandering the woods alone, trying to imagine trees and rocks had personalities and were aware of her presence. Cira was aware. And now and then she’d repeat a phrase her real sister had once said, exactly the way she said it, and Dana would feel comforted and creeped out at the same time. She still had part of a human body but the human brain had been mostly eaten away by the plague so the robot circuitry took over. “This is a beautiful sunset,” Cira said, in exactly the real Cira’s tone of voice. Dana looked out. You couldn’t really see the sun in the low fog. Everything just looked grey. “I’ve seen better,” Dana said. Cira turned to her, looking human except for the way she moved.

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They were all chained up in the field and you could hear the chains rattling from far away as they strained against them. We figured that if we left all the vampires out there the aliens would come and sweep them up and we’d be able to sleep again at night. We were only half right. The flying saucer came and the spinning knives chopped up all the vampires, which was good I suppose, but then the saucers came over here and tore the roof off the church and went straight to the mall, sucking all the shoppers out.

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