3,300 words
This story was first published as an audio story in the podcast Starship Sofa.
It's since been published in Mythaxis Magazine.
Houston’s a mighty fine city. It’s a damn shame it’s getting nuked to dust in sixty minutes, courtesy of the alien rift shimmering over the shattered spines of broken skyscrapers. Two arcing pillars swirl purple and amber, easily a mile high, like lightning frozen in the sky. They’re growing fast. When they connect, they’ll open a passage for hordes of invading Kestezai alien scum.
A mandatory evac order went out two days ago. The cash-strapped military did what it could to take away Tier 1 citizens. Enter Ryft.io, a startup that swooped in like a vulture, sensing profit to be made. I’m a Ryftr, a gun-for-hire following the company from rift zone to rift zone, kicking alien ass and saving any rich Tier 1 citizens too stupid to get away early. Two weeks ago, it was Seattle. Once this place is gone, I’ll make my way to the next city and do it all again.
I realize my figure silhouetted by the rift would make for an epic photo, so I send my cam-drone up. I activate the LED symbols on my purple battlesuit—machine guns, puckered lips, alien skull and crossbones—and hold my X87 Exterminator bolt rifle across my shoulder in a classic Ryftr pose.
We've all watched livestreams from places we probably shouldn't be able to see in real time — war zones, natural disasters, crises unfolding on camera while someone narrates for views. I wanted to push that to its logical extreme: what does livestreaming look like when the event is literally the end of the world? Full Metal Grandma imagines a near-future where the gig economy has colonised even warfare, and mercenaries-for-hire follow alien rifts from city to city, taking bounties, renting weapons on credit, and streaming their escapades for tips and sponsorships. Jenny — the Full Metal Grandma — is the beating human heart underneath all that satire: a grandmother trying to claw back connection with her family one Ryftcoin transfer at a time. It's a story about how platform logic warps even the most extreme human experiences, and how genuine sacrifice can still find a way to cut through the noise.