Change in the Machine: Science Fiction (Soft)

The only change to both machines recently was--the user. No software had been changed, nothing else had been updated, but there was a new operator, and that was enough. It was impossible, of course, because the interface was there specifically to stop interaction between the operators and what was inside the machine, because if that happened, everything could end. It could be fatal. The danger in what lay inside the machine was as strong as if it had been an atom bomb, and that was why the security precautions involved were also as strong. It shouldn't have been possible for a negative to get through that screening. He punched up his screen and looked at the face smiling back at him a little nervously. The new guy. Scrawny, just starting to grow a beard, a college kid fresh out of one of the finest institutions--


Inspiration: Can't remember.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Some sort of telepathic connection thingy.

Ticking Fish: Fantasy

The tick of the fish was alarming in the silence. she stared at her plate. A conversational lull, unheard of (hah!) in this dining hall, had happened randomly and almost miraculously. All around her a louder hubbub arose to discuss the minor incident. It was her luck, she thought, as she stared at the fish on the plate in front of her. She'd heard them tick, in that breath of silence. She didn't think other people's fish were ticking, just hers. She snapped out of her temporary paralysis, seized her plate ran across the room to the nearest window, and hurled the fish out into the night. A bang and a boom created the second silence that that dining hall had seen in years.

Inspiration: My ticking fish clock.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: This isn't a story so much as a scene. The scene is good, but this is not a story idea. Definitely a labyrinthine politics-type story.