This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 14, season 2, for Tuesday the fourteenth of October 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is:

What Fools These Mortals Be

by Elizabeth Guilt

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Hersh's eyelids flutter, hands clenching and twisting. Hersh is - allegedly - the best, a hot-shot consultant, but it's been hours since he passed wetware security and jammed cables into his spine.

And the systems are still down. Heda checks, repeatedly, feeling like he's missing something.

"Hey... new boy. Err... Ike? Get coffee."

Down at street-level, Ike hugs himself and grins. He's grinned like that since he teased sabre-tooth tigers, since he baited centurions. He throws away the name Ike. He grinned before people gave him names.

"You know the best bit?" he asks the barista. "These days, no-one believes I exist.'

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow for episode 15.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/s2episode14