21 Futures Blog

FICTION - Sagas of the Lincoln County War

FICTION - Sagas of the Lincoln County War

FICTION - Sagas of the Lincoln County WarPatrick Leifson
Published on: 11/09/2025

A city will wear you like a pair of old cowhide boots. Your feet slip in, comfortably, since their caresses have worn in the leather just so, and now they are a part of you. Such thoughts preoccupied Pat Garrett as his train rolled into Montreal Central Station.

Fiction
FICTION - The Final Monopoly

FICTION - The Final Monopoly

FICTION - The Final MonopolyAlexander Reeve
Published on: 26/08/2025

Congratulations! You won, you did it, you have everything. Literally everything. Turns out unlimited growth works when there are no checks and balances to stop it. Well, for a while, right? You made The Company. The one that owns everything because you just bought everything until there was no competition. For decades you were able to just build and grow and acquire everything in the world.

Fiction
FICTION - Ringcut

FICTION - Ringcut

FICTION - RingcutKristina Warlen
Published on: 05/08/2025

Exit moved in silence through the black zone. The road beneath his boots was fractured and blistered from a century of stress fractures, chemical erosion, and neglect. Every surface held the residue of failure. Surveillance nodes blinked faintly in the walls above him. Pale red eyes stared from cracked housing. They still tracked motion and still read heat. Power to the district had been cut hours ago. The Network never really died. It idled, quiet and watchful. It waited for patterns to reestablish.

Fiction
FICTION - Static Between Signals

FICTION - Static Between Signals

FICTION - Static Between SignalsAZA
Published on: 15/07/2025

Tonight, my pals are meeting to watch movies. Yup. That ancient stuff. Flickering screens. Glowing pixels in the dark. Eyes wide, and hearts racing. Sometimes laughter. Sometimes gasps. Priceless experience most people of this era never felt. Not that they’d refuse—just something they haven’t even heard about.

Fiction
FICTION - The Journal's Alchemists

FICTION - The Journal's Alchemists

FICTION - The Journal's AlchemistsGonzalo Coelo
Published on: 01/07/2025

Leo's eleventh birthday party was not as disenchanting as he expected it to be. At first, his anxiety was driven by his father's uplifting promise of a mysterious gift: "I will give it to you after the party." Those words stuck with him for a while, but he unexpectedly forgot about the matter throughout the day.

Fiction
FICTION - The Fixer: Medical Device Exorcist

FICTION - The Fixer: Medical Device Exorcist

FICTION - The Fixer: Medical Device ExorcistEric Kay
Published on: 17/06/2025

It’s that kind of crappy day: so cold the rain’s freezing to the windows and the roads are gridlocked. I don’t drive, and sometimes gridlock is good for business, but I do walk, and no one loves being upright one moment and then cheek-first into the icy sidewalk the next.

Fiction