The music, décor, and activities were biometrically
enhanced to perfectly attune to individual taste. Alice made sure this
would be the party to end all parties.
“Anyone want punch?” she asked.
A line had formed at the bar. She could not have lines at her party, unless her invited guests were into that.
“First rule of any party is never drink the punch!” the crowd said.
“Oh yea?” Maybe they couldn’t vouch for their punch bowls, but Alice hadn’t even used digital security. She’d watched over it personally.
Alice took a big swig and smiled before she blacked out.
Yelena Crane
is a Ukrainian/Soviet born and USA based writer, incorporating
influences from both into her work. With an advanced degree in the
sciences, she has followed her passions from mad scientist to sci-fi
writer. Her stories often explore the boundaries of technology, the
complexities of human nature, and the consequences of our choices. She's
published in Nature Futures, DSF, Dark Matter Ink, Flame Tree, and
elsewhere. Follow her on twitter @Aelintari and https://www.yelenacrane.com/.
If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to read her most recent previous stories on our site, “Like Clockwork,” and “Literally.”
The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood
spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a
few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted,
usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries,
determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to
Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.
You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
This
time the challenge was to write a flash fiction
piece playing off key word: punchline.
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