Cough: A Sci-Fi Short

By James Cartledge

Joel is a lonely software engineer isolated within his tiny apartment because of a future pandemic.

When he's asked to tackle a weird little glitch in the public artificial intelligence code, he gets an idea for how to break out of his confinement -- and perhaps find a way to feel properly human again.

A 10,000-word short story for readers who enjoy science fiction by Philip K Dick or Isaac Asimov.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Cartledge
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005138790

James Cartledge

James Cartledge is a writer of speculative fiction, science fiction and horror.A former environmental and business journalist who started his career at the BBC's TV and film magazine Radio Times, in recent years he has been a freelancer, ghostwriter and editor for other indie authors.James currently lives in London, England, and is the proud parent of two lively children.

Book preview

Cough

COUGH

A SCI-FI SHORT

JAMES CARTLEDGE

One Dark Night

Copyright © 2022 by James Cartledge

All rights reserved.

Cover image © KHIUS | Bigstockphoto.com

Cover image © Krakenimages.com

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

About the Author

ONE

It had been around three years since I’d last seen my friends in person. And tonight, finally, we’d all had our boosters for the latest variant, and the restrictions were ending. Officially, they ended at 19:00 hours. And the bars of the city would actually open their doors to in-person customers.

Insane.

That afternoon I had been finishing up some work — my boss had asked me at the last minute to take a look at a whole new problem with the latest AI upgrade. Always something just before the weekend, huh? And I was happily telling her that I was going out to a bar to meet up with my buddies. 

Of course, the news was on in the background, as it always was. It helped me feel connected or something. 

And then it came up on the bottom of my cornea screen: New Variant Detected. Lockdown Restrictions Continue.

So that put paid to the whole going out to a bar plan for the evening.

I fired off a message to Nessa, saying I can probably take a look at that AI upgrade now. Since the lockdown’s back on. 

I was flicking through the news a few minutes later, hoping to find out where they’d identified the new variant when there was an incoming call alarm. Nessa’s image appeared the moment I accepted. 

‘You know, you can probably claim overtime, doing this on a Friday night,’ she said. 

She had already changed into something comfortable for the evening. It wasn’t often that I saw her like this — gray hooded top, sweatpants, teal hair let down. Something about the unexpected informality of it all made her seem so very attractive to me at that moment. Perhaps it was just because her hologram was perched on the edge of my bed, which gave rise to a particular suggestion in my subconscious. Maybe it was because it had been three years since I’d had physical contact with another human being. 

‘So, what’s the problem?’ I asked her, trying not to seem like I was checking her out. 

Nessa grinned. ‘You’ll get a kick out of this one…’ There was a bugle sound as the documentation arrived in my in-box. ‘Some kind of conflict in the upgrade is causing AIs to