High Stakes and Digital Frontiers
A story often lives in the questions it raises rather than the answers it provides. These unfinished tales are curated to provoke those questions, dropping you into the middle of a corporate scheme or a cyberpunk chase. They are incomplete by design, capturing the energy of a concept before it settles into a final form, preserving the fluidity and potential of the drafting phase.
This collection functions as a laboratory for the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence. We are testing how digital tools can integrate into the writing process, acting as partners that shape new methodologies for storytelling and scriptwriting. This research is vital for understanding how to enhance digital literacy skills and creative workflows in a modern context.
The genres featured in this post highlight tension and systemic complexity. We explore the high-pressure worlds of Sports Fiction, Mystery, and Corporate Thrillers, alongside the speculative edges of Cyberpunk and Satire. This selection focuses entirely on the work of author Jamie F. Bell.
We call on you to engage with these texts as an imaginative participant. The plot threads are loose, waiting for someone to tie them together. Read these excerpts and let your own logic and creativity dictate how the mystery is solved or how the corporation falls.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
By synthesizing sports fiction, satire, and corporate thriller elements with high-concept cyberpunk and urban fantasy, we aim to push the envelope of creative technology. Our initiative focuses on the future of publishing, examining the potential of AI-assisted narrative to craft complex dystopian and psychological thriller plots. Through these expository and journalistic short stories, we strive to improve digital literacy and demonstrate the versatility of modern storytelling when traditional mystery tropes meet cutting-edge innovation.
The Geometry of Falling
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Psychological Thriller | Genre: Sports Fiction
The air conditioning in the Zenith Performance Centre had one job, and it was failing spectacularly. It was the kind of thick, recycled air that tasted of sweat and ozone, clinging to the skin like a second layer. High above the padded floor, fifteen metres of vertical space separated Franklin from everything that felt solid, the multi-coloured plastic holds a constellation of impossibilities he was supposed to solve in under six seconds.
Static on the Line
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Dystopian | Genre: Mystery
The air in the subway station was cool and sterile, smelling faintly of ozone and disinfectant. Every surface, from the polished chrome handrails to the seamless polymer floor, was designed to be clean, efficient, and easily monitored. Tiny red lights blinked from camera domes clustered in the ceiling corners, their lenses sweeping in silent, overlapping arcs. Even the advertisements on the walls were interactive screens, their virtual models turning to follow passersby. Privacy was a historical curiosity, like phone books or gas lamps.
The Squirrel’s Ascent
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Journalistic | Genre: Satire
The oppressive summer heat hung heavy over Maple Creek, a shimmering haze distorting the edges of the main street. Sylvie’s battered old Civic coughed fumes into the still air, its air conditioning having given up the ghost somewhere around kilometer forty-five. Dust, fine as confectioner’s sugar, coated everything, clinging to the wilting petunias in front of the municipal building and settling like a second skin on the peeling paint of the storefronts. The town square, usually a sleepy patch of manicured grass, buzzed with a peculiar energy, a bizarre tableau forming under the relentless sun.
Glass Shards and Holly
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Urban Fantasy | Genre: Cyberpunk
The biting wind howled through the narrow canyons of Neo-London, carrying with it the metallic tang of acid rain and the faint, sickly-sweet scent of synthetic pine. Snow, already blackened by exhaust fumes and industrial fallout, clung stubbornly to the ledges of chrome-plated skyscrapers that pierced the bruised, winter sky. My breath fogged the internal visor of my cheap optical overlay, a common glitch with the discount models. Another Tuesday. Another layer of grime settling over everything. Especially me.
A Hostile Bid in Watercolour
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Expository | Genre: Corporate Thriller
The boardroom on the 80th floor was sterile enough to perform surgery in. A single slab of polished obsidian served as the table, reflecting the perpetually grey London sky outside the floor-to-ceiling armoured glass. The air hummed with the whisper of the climate control and the unspoken threat of corporate annihilation. On the walls, instead of motivational posters, hung priceless works of stolen art, each a trophy from a fallen competitor.
About the Project
By design, these stories have no beginning and no end. Many stories are fictional, but many others are not. They are snapshots from worlds that never fully exist, inviting you to imagine what comes before and what happens next. We had fun exploring this project, and hope you will too.
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection is part of an experimental, creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. Each chapter is an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment focused on two key areas: AI-Assisted Scriptwriting, where researchers explore using AI to generate story ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs to enhance creative development; and Talent Development and Training, where the project studies the necessary skills for creative professionals to manage AI and immersive technologies in production, helping to inform future training curricula. The project was made possible with funding and support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation research and innovation in Ontario.
About the Author
