The Working Title crew bring you the exclusive opportunity to enjoy more wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica...

Aries

The cuddly lambs of the zodiac. Scratch an Arian between the ears and gambol about in the grass with them and you will have a lover for on whom you can depend.

Never show an Aries any harsh behaviour. They will run away.

Taurus

The laziest of lovers a Taurus will always be torn between making love and having a nice rest. Be gentle in your expectations and a Tauren will be faithful for life.

Never get between a Taurus and a bed, you will be crushed.

Gemini 

This sign never knows what it wants in a relationship. One face is absorbed in the relationship of the moment while the other is looking about for something new. Unsettling.

Never leave your Gemini lover alone with your best friend.

Cancer

Cancerians have a propensity towards the less gentle pleasures of the bedroom and are prone to pinching. Keep the upper hand and your love life will never be boring.

Never allow a Cancerian anything sharp.

Leo

The lion likes to roar and loves to be admired, but is mostly only interested in his or her own gratification. Purr a bit and they will know how to treat you.

Never have a mirror in the bedroom with a Leo or you won’t stop them admiring themselves for long enough to enjoy any physical closeness.

Virgo

The conundrum of the zodiac. Virgo lovers pretend disinterest and even dislike although in truth they are virtually insatiable. Keep fit if you want to stay in a relationship with a Virgo.

Never believe a Virgo headache, it’s just a ploy to make you work harder at convincing them.

Libra

While your Libra lover is weighing the consequences of each and every action and embrace, you will be able to get in plenty of nice naps. If you are not bothered by speed or continuity a Libra will get there in the end.

Never offer a Libra any choices or you will lose the will to live while they consider.

Scorpio

If you want affection avoid Scorpios like the plague. Ditto if you want fidelity or kindliness. However, if you want your bottom spanked… Experimentation is meat and drink to Scorpios so expect the unexpected.

Never let your Scorpio handcuff you to the bed. They may just find it amusing to leave you there.

Sagittarius 

The lover with the truest aim. Sagittarians are true bedroom athletes and satisfaction is guaranteed. Enjoy.

Never expect a good night’s sleep 

Aquarius 

The workaholics of the zodiac. Love is just another burden to this lot. But if you can wrest the water pot away from them they make charming lovers.

Never allow an Aquarius to bring their work into the bedroom.

Pisces

Cheerfully amoral, Pisceans are extremely able lovers and very good company. Open a bottle of something expensive and prepare to enjoy the ride.

Never let a Pisces see you care. It frightens them off. 

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return...

It was a junk shop, plain and simple. Cracked plates sat cheek by jowl with broken-down lawnmowers and a pretty roll top desk with catastrophic woodworm.

Henry was engaged in a lively discussion with the shop owner about the price of a rather ugly bronze dog, so Susan poked around in the back of the room.

She found the papyrus wedged between a muddy lithograph and a dog eared paperback book. 

On impulse, she slipped it into her handbag.

Henry’s dog proved to have been machine made late in the twentieth century. The papyrus sold for two million pounds…

©jj 2019

When the youngest son of a minor banking dynasty wanted a wife, the plain-faced and dumpy daughter of a middle-ranking merchant was deemed more than good enough for him.
But. By the time he was forty he was the richest man in the city. 
A subtle campaign begun. Fat old men dropped sugared words in his ears, and fragrant young women breathed adultery in his nostrils. 
None of the city’s merchants and bankers could believe that he might not wish for divorce and a toothsome young bride, so they threw their daughters and sisters into his path like sacrificial lambs. 
He bore it stoically, until he found one young madam pink and naked in his counting house very early one morning. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to repudiate his wife and children and marry the girl immediately, but he wasn’t a gentleman so he had her wrapped in a horse blanket and escorted back to her father’s house before foreclosing on the mortgages he held on the family’s vineyards and hill farms. 
That put a stop to the most outrageously obvious behaviours but not, sadly, to the ambitions of the owners of young unmarried daughters.
The whispering against his wife began soon after it became obvious nothing else would move the wealthy banker. At first it was subtle enough to be ignored. But when he heard that it said that she had a number of lovers he stormed home in righteous anger. 
He found his wife serenely engaged in her stillroom.
“Why are they doing this to us?”
“Doing what in particular?”
“Blackening your name now..”
His wife smiled her sweet smile and pressed his shoulder.
“Because I’m not good enough for you.”
He swore, before taking her small work roughened hands in his. 
“But don’t they understand that I love you?”
“How would they? Most of them love only money, and position, and showing off to the world. How would they understand the happiness of our home?”
He groaned but had to admit the truth of what she said.
“That is as maybe. But there has to be a way to stop this constant drip, drip, dripping. Before I do something regrettable.”
“I’m sure there is. We just have to think.”
Obscurely comforted the banker went back to his place of business, while his wife carried on bottling cordial and thought very hard.
By the time her husband came home for his supper she had the seed of an idea. When he had finished his food and was sitting by the fire with a stoup of ale in his hand she broached the subject.
“My dear. How many of the noble families in the city owe you money?”
“Without my books I don’t know precisely. But I suspect the answer is all of them. Why do you ask?”
She smiled. A secret folded sort of a smile. “I have been thinking about our little problem. I was wondering how the great and good of this city might react if there was a rumour set abroad that you were considering foreclosing on the mortgages of one or more families as you suspect them of speaking mischief against you…”
He stared at her, then started to laugh. “With extreme fear my love. But how would one set such a rumour afoot?”
“Among the women. I have only to drop a word or two in the ears of one or two of the less discreet of my acquaintance and the thing is done.”
He put his silver tankard down and came to kneel in front of her chair. “Will that be sufficient for them to leave us alone, do you think?”
“It is my hope. But if not we will have to decide who we dislike most and ruin him…”
He threw his head back and laughed delightedly.
“You have the right of it my dearest. You set your rumour about and I will drop hints that I might be acquiring a rather nice country property or two in the near future.”
His wife smiled demurely. “I never fancied a country house. But I wouldn’t mind a bigger garden.”
“If we don’t have to foreclose on anybody I’ll just buy you a house with what you want.” 
“Another child?”
With a roar of delight, the banker dragged his by now laughing wife into his arms. “Come to bed hussy. I must prove myself more manly than your lovers.”
And so he did, and he only had to foreclose on three mortgages before he and his family were left alone to enjoy the finest house in all the city and the happiest of families.

© jane jago 2019

It was cover pose number 34. The one where they could photoshop in – whatever. But at least he got to keep his pants on. He reckoned the photographer new to soft porn shoots, so he possessed himself of patience.

And anyway she was kinda cute.

When she had the requisite number of shots she smiled.

“Thank you. I have only done shoots with women before. I was nervous.”

“It didn’t show,” he lied stoutly. “Can I buy you a drink to celebrate?”

Later.

She smiled against his chest. 

“You are as randy as you are pretty.”

“Nah. Nobody’s that pretty…”

©jj 2019

When I open my mind and look inside, the gifts left by the passing of the Arganti stare back with their dark, pupilless eyes. I watch myself being watched, as the parade of the dead I cut down in their name, as their High Priestess and Avatar, grin from ivoried skulls.

The promise of the Arganti was a grant of immortality, bestowed on those I slew. Each soul-mind human patterned into ripples of sentient fabric and fused together into a patchwork cloak of human consciousness. Thus did humanity, at last, reach the stars, not as explorers or conquerors, not even as refugees or travellers – but as regalia, bestowing status on the Arganti who wore them.

And I am the one left abandoned. The one who gave up my very essence, an outlaw in my own brain, afraid they would find me and crush out the last spark of my ‘I am’. Perhaps I should have let them. It would be better than this endless opening of my mind to find what they left within…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Why they thought a visit to the zoo would help she had no idea, but going along was easier than arguing.

She wandered from place to place, coldly uncaring, until she stood outside the orang-utan enclosure where the hard carapace she had grown around her soul moved to expose the burned flesh beneath. The baby orang lay on its back looking about itself with the mildest eyes she thought she had ever seen.

And in those eyes she saw the child that hadn’t had the chance to grow to term in her womb.

For the first time she cried… 

©jj 2019

My apartment was, annoyingly, on the third floor. Annoyingly, because I needed to use the service elevator and the thing was designed to move slower than mucus. It added almost a quarter again to the time of my commute. I’d been looking for a ground floor place in a good part of the city since the day I moved in, but, on my pay, it wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. Sitting there waiting to reach my floor was the time I always felt the most frustration and the time I always seemed to get the same thought: I could’ve retired and lived a very different kind of life.

Maybe I should have.

It was touch and go if I’d even live at the time. You don’t walk away from that kind of damage whistling. I’ve worked out the pension they’d have given me would’ve been five times or more than the amount I get now. That is calculated under the ‘local adjustment’ rules, designed to avoid having us CSF personnel out in the sticks living it up like a powerbroker from Central. Of course expenses are available when needed, but those you’ve got to justify to a fussy AI with zero ability to be flexible outside the permitted parameters.

But no, I chose this.

I didn’t want to give up doing the job I loved just because some of the bastards I was trying to stop had made mincemeat out of me from the pelvis down and left most of the rest shattered and broken. When they assigned me to this placement, it was in the expectation I’d be doing a lot of data collection and providing hosting support for those who were sent in to clean up any real problems—people like Grim Dugsdall. And yes, I did a fair amount of that, but I also pulled my weight and more with the workload. They hadn’t expected that.

Home was my personal sanctuary and the one place in the entire galaxy I could feel at ease. Here, everything worked for me and around what I needed. It had taken some setting up, but it meant from the moment I got in through the door I could feel relaxed. Normally I’d have an ambiance selected on the way home so the stiff grey furnishings would be overlain with the appearance of opulence or grandeur, depending on my mood or more usually set to cosy, But today I didn’t bother, just cancelled the quiet music which I had preset to greet me and made sure the internal monitoring system for the apartment was shut off.

My hiding place for the few unauthorised items I kept handy wouldn’t fool anyone in the CSF for long, but then that was never my intention. If ever my own people came searching my home, I’d have lost the plot and be in freefall. I licked my fingers and pressed. The wall panel behind my bed slid open as its biometric sensors read my DNA.

From ‘The Invisible Event’ a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook, in the Challenge Accepted anthology.

It was eerily quiet in the velvet darkness of the abbey lawn. The waiting girl shivered, and when the clock chimed midnight she was about to give up. But then she heard the faintest thread of music.

The whisper of sound swelled until it became the complex harmonies of plainsong, coming down the centuries from the throats of the monks displaced when their home was sacked at the whim of a vengeful king. The girl drank in every note and every subtle nuance.

Three months later, a flawless soprano voice brought an undiscovered melody to the ears of the world…

©jj 2019

Technology Gone Mad is the first sci-fi anthology from Saturn Returns Publishing and is out now.

Cell phones, computers, industrial machines… They all seem to develop a mind of their own after a while. This collection of shorts will focus on technology going totally mad on us. A possessed cell, a computer that has gained its own intelligence, an industrial mixer that decides to rewrite recipes. Anything and everything could happen in these stories. Humor, horror, gore, and more

Proof – The Foolproof System – Terri A. Wilson

At Meadow Lawn Medical Acres, we strive to offer the best hospital care for all our patients. Our award-winning facility and board-certified medical staff create a cohesive foolproof environment that promises the best health care available. (Just don’t lose your I.D. bracelet.)

Wires Crossed – Purea Omallia

What happens when AI companions have an emotional breakdown? Carly, Joe, and Bryant are about to find out!

House Hostage – Jeff Ducker

Haven’t you always wanted to have a smart house? This story might change your mind on that. William and his AI housekeeper don’t quite see eye to eye.

I Want My Money Back – Cynthia Staton

Machines have feelings too. Lexi Carter finds that out one morning while already running late to work. It is amazing how things work out depending on you react to the machines. Will it be painful or miserable? Will it be a love connection?

We Are Toast – Chandra Trulove Fry

Charlie was a tech-savvy bachelor who knew how to show respect to everything, including his machines. He loved buying old things and making them new again. Things start to get interesting when he buys a toaster that insists on being painted purple. Next thing you know the world is in chaos as machines start to stand up for themselves. Can Charlie convince them that they can live side by side? Or is everyone toast?

Ear-Jacked! – C.L. Williams

Introducing the newest in smartphone technology! Meet the Deluxe Elite XL and all it comes with! Tech firm founder and CEO Cleve Hobbs has something new up his sleeve. Something you’ll just die to have!

Too Smart for His Own Good – Philipp J. Kessler

Gabe works in a cubicle farm at the world’s leading technology firm when he gets invited down to R&D for a meeting. What he learns deep in the bowels of the tech firm’s sub-basements will change his life and all of humanity forever.

Holographic Love-Hate – Maggie Lowe

It is the year 2045 and everyone has holographic systems integrated into their homes. Callie’s home is no different. Her parents allowed her to customize it to however she wanted it to be. She called it Jaxon and made him look like her favorite actor. Like any other teenager, she took advantage of her hologram and would often tease it. That is until her parents disappear and she suddenly wakes up in a strange room.

Human Demise – Draevnn Motkova

Demise is defined as the termination of existence, and this is what the planet faces when challenged by an unseen and expected enemy. Before there is time to react people kill people and fear sweeps the planet. After an attack of such magnitude, how can the Human Demise not follow?

AI From Hell, a Horror Story – Paige Clendenin

What if technology had a mind of its own?
Our parents had died at the hand of their very own creations, and we were left to suffer the hell they had created. We would have endured the torture until death, but when we uncovered the bots plan for world domination and saw the murders on the news to match, we knew we had to take things into our own hands…and we knew the bots needed to be destroyed.

Technology Gone Mad is out now!

A Bite of...  Philipp J. Kessler

Q1 – How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Much of my own writing is a form of therapy. I can admit that. I often include personal dramas in a way that helps me to rectify the situation in a fun – I hope – and entertaining way.

Q2 – Have you ever written somebody you dislike into a book, just so you could make them suffer?

Well… I suppose so. I have based characters on people I know. At least their personality traits. Sometimes I make them suffer – BIG TIME! – and other times I use them to move the story along. I try not to Mary Sue my characters. My own series, Dark of the Moon, New Beginnings, includes characters based on people I know, but only loosely. I’ve not killed any of them off. Yet.

Q3 – Why do you write?

I write to tell the stories in my head. If I were in it for money I would be on the wrong career path. Money is nice, but not the reason I write. I’m multi-genre, so writing lets me experiment with new ideas in many different ways. Including nonfiction.
Saturn Returns Publishing is a small publishing label that I started to get my projects out to the word and help other small and indie authors get their projects out there in the best way I can.

Philipp is a multi-genre author and publisher. He’s included in several fiction and non-fiction collections and has three books out in the Dark of the Moon, New Beginnings series. He is also a radio and podcast personality.  He spends his days and nights in service to his feline overlords and neck deep in entertainment media.

You can find him on Facebook, BookBub, Twitter and Instagram, or sign up for his newsletter.

Whoever heard of a purple bouquet? It seemed to her to be more appropriate for mourning than rejoicing. But she knew her bridesmaidly duty.

Wedding over, she followed the happy couple down the aisle, although the claustrophobic sense of danger was almost overwhelming.

They stepped out of the shadowy church porch into a blindingly bright summer day. She heard a strange noise, repeated six times and felt a stinging pain in her upper arm. The bride and groom were less lucky as they were both hit mid chest.

In the pandemonium, she dropped the purple flowers among the scarlet blood.

©jj 2019