"The Ambassador" a short story by Craig Zimmerman

 Ambassador Warner looked at his news feed: No wars, no riots, no criminal activity, no civil disturbances of any kind. His current diplomatic assignment was a newly discovered planet about twenty light-years from Earth.

The dominant species on the planet was an intelligent bovine-like creature called the "Kastus."  Ambassador Warner found the Kastus to be warm and pleasant but they were also boring as hell. Since being posted to the Kastus homeworld he had not had anything even close to resembling a diplomatic crisis.

After one particularly boring day, Warner fantasized about creating a little excitement. The Kastus diet consisted of a variety of grasses grown by a network of computer-directed robots. After a bit of hacking, Warner was able to make some changes to the network and left a few signs that a sub-species of the Kastus called the"Jyfis" were responsible for the intrusion.

Warner's next step was to blow up a Jyfis building and leave clues that the Kastus were responsible. It wasn't long before he had a small-scale war going and he couldn't remember being so happy.

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"Isolation" a short story by Craig Zimmerman

Angela awoke in a room she had never seen before. The walls were mostly glass and several people in lab coats observed her from outside the room.

A video screen of some sort stood on a table at the foot of the hospital bed she found herself in. While Angela stared at the people outside her room, the smiling face of a middle-aged man appeared on the video screen.

"Good Morning Angela, my name is Doctor Abrams and I have been assigned to your case. I imagine you have plenty of questions so I will fill you in on what is happening."

Dr. Abrams continued: "A few days ago, an AI health monitor at your high school indicated that you had a few unusual symptoms and to keep everyone safe you were transported to government quarantine facility number 306 which is where we are now."

"I don't remember any of this" Angela answered, "and I would like to see my parents."

Dr, Abrams made a dismissive gesture. "Your memory will come back in a few days once the medication you were given wears off." Dr. Abrams then vanished from the screen without answering Angela's question about her family.

Angela's memory did gradually come back, but she preferred to not think about the men who took her out of class and then injected her with something that immediately rendered her unconscious.

Dr. Abrams appeared on the video screen twice a day and briefed her on her progress but he refused to say anything about Angela's family. 

After what felt like about three weeks, Dr. Abrams stepped into Angela's room in person. "I have good news for you Angela" he announced with a big smile. "It seems that there was a programming error in the AI system at your school which gave us a false reading so you aren't really sick at all."

In response, Angela kicked the video screen at the foot of her bed and watched with pleasure as it shattered on the floor.

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