by: John K. Peck.

The keyboard is ancient, with keys that require actual pressure. She’d brought it up from deep storage on deck B several days ago, hoping its haptics might jar her muscle memory.

She unfocuses her mind, as a stereogram requires unfocusing one’s eyes to see the image in the middle distance.

Each login failure applied a 10x multiplier to the lockout period. Her last failure had locked her out for nearly a month; the next would mean almost a year, well past the oxygen cutoff.

The cursor blinks. She places her fingers on the keys, like a pianist preparing to play.

© 2024. John K. Peck

John K. Peck is a Berlin-based writer and musician. His fiction has appeared in Interzone, Pyre, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Cold Signal, Dark Horses, and the anthologies Dark Stars (Shacklebound) and The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen (JayHenge).

Posted August 14. 2024.