When horrible war crimes have been committed by both sides, is a lasting peace more important than seeking justice against those who committed the crimes? In this work of war ethics short story fiction, two Inspectors, Seronian and a Bassweldan are put together to work on a criminal case. The case is of a Seronian and a Bassweldan who brutally murdered each other in a fit of rage. It seems they were both not using the “glanding” chemicals the entire population is required to use, to prevent old hatred from stirring up. The two inspectors’ investigation leads them to interview a “naturalist” group who believes the day will come when people will no longer have to inhibit their emotions by “glanding.” The story ends by the narrator finding out he had been set up to kill his fellow inspector in the name of vigilante justice for former war crimes. In fact, the narrator has more reasons to kill her than most as it was his family, that she had personally ordered murdered in the war.

What makes you, you? Why does your mind inhabit your body, instead of that of someone else? In this work of philosophical short story fiction about the mind, and ideas of self, Zach goes to visit his sister, Daphne, who has been incarcerated in a mental hospital. Her mental break came from her obsession with trying to solve the answer to her question, “Why am I, I?” She is obsessed with solving this problem and it has caused her to lose her grip on reality. Zach, her brother, is struggling at work, drinking too much, and also getting confused about the shifting world around him. Drunk, he gets angry at his family members of mental health patients support group and is picked up by the police. While sitting in the jail cell, sobering up, he shares a cell, and a conversation with a philosopher, who is particularly sympathetic to his/ Daphne’s questions about identity and self. It is only during their conversation that Zach begins to suspect he is Daphanie, and that he isn’t in a jail cell at all, but the mental hospital.

How do you forgive yourself for the horrible mistakes you made in your past? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Jimmy is the night shelf stocker at a grocery store. The narrator is working a summer job to pick up extra cash before heading to law school. One night while stacking dry goods, Jimmy confesses to the narrator he is tormented by something that happened when he was younger. He, along with some of his friends, stole a car, took the elderly family dog, and repeatedly pushed it out of a moving car until it died. Years later, Jimmy continues to be truly tortured by what he took part in. He can’t sleep, he is on medication, and tried going to a therapist. The narrator listens, and suggests he goes back to the therapist. Years later the narrator gets a visit from Jimmy’s wife who says Jimmy is tortured, distracted, and barely knows his own children. She begs the narrator to come and help. He refuses. Thirty years later, at the end of the story, the narrator is contacted by a long-term care mental health facility. Jimmy has been a patient for decades. They ask the narrator to visit and he does. Jimmy is unable to speak, but shows the narrator the scar on his hand from where he drove a nail through it.

What is the essence of parenting? Can a company, or the state, ever fulfill this essence and be a good parent to children? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Araminta Fox and her twin sister, Anastasia Fox, were conceived and brought into the world by Fox Television. They are the property of Fox and, while they have surrogates, they are not the legal parents of the children, the Fox entity is. The children are raised by a casting director, Beth, who receives direction and funding from the Fox board of directors. Araminta and Anastasia continue to work and grow in television and movies. Araminta enjoys the work, her sister does not. They are both emancipated at eighteen years old. Araminta continues to work in theatre while her sister goes to school, meets a boy, and gets married. Eventually, Fox reaches out to Araminta for a new TV show and asks her to be the “mother” to a new group of twins they are ready to birth and raise within the Hollywood system. Araminta is thrilled to do until she reads a clause in the contract stating that the caretaker for the twins will be rotated every five years; these twins will not have a “Beth” of their own.

Can machine learning and AI truly evaluate a person and determine if they are suited for a potential position? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Cindy is a recent college graduate struggling to find her first job. She has been sending her resume out for months without any luck when her brother, Jordan, explains to her that her resume is missing important buzz words that initial computer screening programs look for. She edits her resume and she starts to get job interests. Her first interview, however, is not with a person, but is a video call with a humanoid AI program. She doesn’t think the interview went well. Jordan expresses his frustration the how technology is changing and decides, in retaliation, to write a job application bot to send out resumes and counter the job hiring bots that are screening applicants.

How do you weigh the rights of the individual against the needs of the general population? In this work of philosophical short fiction, a zombie virus has ravaged the planet for over 30 years. While generations have been wiped out. Dr. Vivian Totter has developed a vaccine for the zombie infection and is being escorted to a nearby compound to accept an award for her world changing work. She is taken in an miliary vehicle across opens lands still infested with zombies. Their first overnight stop is in a city that causes her to find out that her mother was mentally disabled, raped, and later killed by zombies. With this revelation fresh in her mind she heads to her final destination, only to be confronted by members of the general population who assert the vaccination is killing a percentage of all those being forced to take it.

How important is it to forget the past? If you could trade a year at the end of your life for a day in your past would you do it? In this work of philosophical short fiction, Misha is working the family store (Shop of Yesterdays) by herself for the first time. The store she works at is a memory retrieval facility. All the memories of humanity are stored at the facility and accessible for reexperience. The price, however, for each day relieved is a death one year earlier. On this fateful day a man comes in with less than a year left and asks to sell his remaining day to relieve his “last good day.” After additional inquiry the man tells Misha this was the last day in his life before he “learned something he wasn’t ready for” and he was unable to let go of the information he had learned. It changed, and ruined, his life after that, forever.