Writing Battle Winter 2025 Flash Fiction
It’s that time again on Writing Battle!
I wrote a 1,000-word story and can tell you nothing about it!
Dude, totally exciting. How’s that for drumming up interest?
More information is on the way — hang in there!
2025.03.06
Okay, it’s debrief, and I’m free to discuss my story.
My prompts weren’t bad, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to tackle the spray paint.
In this 1,000-word cyberpunk revenge story, Mo Caldwell takes an interview for a job she doesn’t need. Across the desk sits Grant Shaw, a powerful Portland executive who doesn’t recognize her, but he should. Years ago, he destroyed her life, but Mo isn’t here for reconciliation or a fresh start. She’s here to turn his sins into currency.
In its bones, Signal Lost is a story about reclaiming power, exposure, and the price of vigilante justice in the digital age. Unlike the neon-drenched dystopias familiar to the genre, the setting is terrifyingly contemporary. It starts in an everyday office in an everyday city, and the story unfolds in a sleek, corporate world — the world we already live in. A world where a reputation is fragile, privacy is an illusion, and accountability can be streamed live in 4K.
It’s amazing how we live in a world of science fiction. Artificial intelligence, talking to each other on our watches, self-driving cars — ready or not, the future is already here — and a technology core to the story is what many technologists consider the next frontier of wearable computing: smartglasses. These devices allow users to interact with a HUD (a Heads Up Display) embedded in the lenses through eye movements, blinking, and touch. Independently connected, the glasses have access to many of the same resources and functions a mobile phone might have, except they can capture video in real time to store it locally as a media file or stream a live experience to an audience.
I foresee a near future where social audiences worldwide join others on adventures, concerts, biking tours, restaurants, everyday functions, gatherings, private tours, and erotic encounters, constantly interacting with the metadata of the real world. Smartglasses offer augmented reality where the context of objects and people can be instantly accessed. And it won’t be long before these capabilities will be embedded into contact lenses.
Within that world (our world), Mo takes matters into her own hands and confronts Grant in an environment where his reactions would be constrained (his workplace). He’s trapped; Mo has him exactly where she wants him, and she shares her confrontation, exposing Grant for who he is.
Instead of a world where women are isolated and alone, preyed upon, gaslighted, or stripped of their autonomy, smartglass technology might be able to empower, offering women a platform to show the world what monsters live among us in real time, to show us the abuse women endure every single day.
Beneath the cyberpunk veneer, the story provides a glimpse into a changing dynamic between the sexes brought about by technology: a shift of power where we eschew the contentious he-said/she-said arguments of the past for cold, hard, digital facts, where real-time accountability levels the playing field.
Oh, and the spray paint. Ever heard of a QR code stencil? Yeah, it’s a thing :)
I hope the judges enjoyed it! Results are due in a few weeks!
2025.03.14 Pie Day!
The verdict is in, but the story is out!
Ending up with a 6, the story scored enough to receive an Honorable Mention but did not go through to the finals … again. It scored 13th out of a cohort of roughly 50 stories. I’m becoming well-versed in scoring HMs on Writing Battle. It's a bummer drag, but I’ll take the win. Maybe next time!
R
