What happens when people, gods, AIs, and institutions stop behaving as designed?

Out of Spec...As Designed is a science fiction and speculative fiction collection about systems under pressure-and the individuals who refuse to fit cleanly inside them. Across dark political SF, sharp satire, quiet domestic moments, cosmic horror, absurd bureaucracy, and hard-won hope, these stories explore what survives when rules fail, authority corrodes, and survival requires improvisation.

You'll find familiar faces from the Cassidyverse-Kendra Cassidy, Dakota Chase, Kalili and Faith-alongside new voices who don't get monuments or victory parades. There are assassins and parents, soldiers and immortals, angels with terrible management skills, demons with performance reviews, AIs asking inconvenient questions, and ordinary people doing the unglamorous work of living after the explosion. Some stories are funny. Some are brutal. Many are both.

This is fiction about agency, consent, and responsibility. About found family, moral injury, and the cost of choosing to intervene-or choosing not to. Humor here isn't an escape hatch; it's a survival tool. Hope isn't guaranteed, but it is chosen.

You don't need to know the Cassidyverse to start here. These stories are designed to meet you where you are.

Start anywhere.