The Adventure of the Glass Dragon

Daszel crushed the last nut-sized concentration of magic between his fingers. Removing the alarms had been arduous and unrelated to his safety, for the mage who owned the place would have been worse off for acknowledging the intruder. The client wanted secrecy though, and Daszel the Stymph's clients got what they wanted down to the detail.
The main thing this one wanted was among the treasures deep below the earth in the mage's sanctum mirabiliorum, some of them plainly valuable and others coveted only by the knowledgeable. Daszel touched none of them save for the requested item, a glass figure the size of a rich man's stomach which represented a dragon and had inside it an unnatural gem which gave the thing a pleasing radiance. There it was.
He sent a charm of comprehension to caress the dragon; he was ever wary of traps and curious too about the importance of this innocuous gewgaw despite his policy of not bothering his clients with questions. The item must have some secret to it, and so it did. The gem within was a dragon's heart, something few realized could be so small. The work of converting the figurine into the core of a new body was well underway; a dragon reduced to its heart was a play reduced to its script and awaiting the right actor.
What use someone (whether mage or client) might make of a dragon was likely to worry the moral, but since Daszel contented himself with ethics, he absconded with the dragon and brought it to the client, whose gratitude came in a substantial form.
"Although," the man said, "It seems a bit different from when he displayed it before. The color is a little fuller, but duller too."
"It's closer to reviving, that's all."
"It's what?"
The resulting conversation left the client quivering like a tax farmer who saw his books in a judge's hands. "Oh, that's, not quite what I . . . Are you prepared to take on another job? Immediately? It's to put something somewhere. Without being noticed."
"I'm Daszel," Daszel answered.
Finis

The Strange Sources of Xenopaleontological Knowledge

I chased the space pirate all the way to Heraclius, one of those worlds that's nothing but grains and farm drones. I expected him to have some goons, a hideout, or at least a cache with a few guns there, but when I tracked him down, he was doing nothing but staring at a rock stuck on a couple other rocks.
"I remember," he said without turning around. "They argue whether a member of one species can be reborn as another, but it has to be true because I remember. I was a great magus once (for by that name we called those with the strongest psychic talents) and kings bowed to me even in their own palaces of brown-purple marble. They put before me the rich flesh of the uyilla, the delicate hobtgui roots, and I undid their difficulties. But even my wisdom failed when . . . Oh, I see the towers, how they crumble! The dead fill the streets and the wails of the living form inescapable clouds! Iauvne, where have you gone? Plellol ecsa, plellol monsa!"
"Fine, but I'm still going to arrest you."
"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I should have waited for a convenient time to come here, but you sort of get these ideas in your head, you know?"
I wasn't interested in conversation with scum, so I didn't answer, but I knew all right.
Finis

Dragon Incentives

It's probably Pern's fault that riding dragons and their dragon riders so often have some kind of magic/psychic/empathic bond, but let's be honest: Both parties probably just liking wrecking stuff and pillaging what's left. The will to evil is sufficient without such contrivances.

Addendum

Readers with no fear choose fanfiction, naturally.

This Is to This as Those Is to Thems

If magical realism is fantasy for cowards, and it is, what's science fiction for cowards? Articles about comets? True crime? Moneyball? Probably all of those. One of the reasons science fiction struggles is the abundance of substitutes.

Interstellar Worry

What will we do when we meet an intelligent alien species that doesn't have distinct fingerprints? They're gonna commit all the crimes! Our human police will be helpless.

The New Year Always Rings Twice

I won my way into the room with two honest items, my face and my money. Private security would have been less interested in demonstrations of virtue than the building staff, but Viranz's men were spread all over the city, looking innocent, or at least guilty in an orthodox way. The seventh-story room had a peerless view of the arena. I'd known that before I came in. It also had oddities on every flat surface, just what the public would expect from the eccentric collector Viranz presented himself as being. I had girded myself with detailed descriptions of certain items, and I found one: Tarmenbi's Wonderfully Efficacious Queasiness Caster.
"Do you think it will work?"
I spun around. There was Viranz, grinning, and one of his boys, grinning even wider. He had a big face. It went with his big fists.
"I don't see why it wouldn't," I conceded. "Which is why you won't use it. There's no point in rigging the annual fight between Old Year and New Year."
"There's a point to winning bets with outrageous odds, isn't there?"
"But you won't see another year to spend it in."
"I suppose I'll have to get used to living as a rich man in this one."
A discourse on temporal philosophy didn't have much promise in it, and I wanted to catch the match (after getting Viranz turned in of course). Aside from a description, I'd gotten instructions too. I used the Queasiness Caster on the heavy and waited for it to be wonderfully efficacious, which it wasn't, and for Viranz to surrender himself, which he didn't. Those preventive measures I hadn't bothered to listen about were making themselves known.
I was in a tight spot. Whether I got out of it or not, well, wait and see if there's another year.
Finis

Addendum

"But will the streets be wide enough for tanks, given that they'll be designed for either foot traffic or efficient self-driving routes?"
I hadn't thought about it. I suppose it depends on whether the mastermind with the one tank landed the contract for road-building beforehand.

Military Self-Sufficiency

I just realized that future space colonies probably won't have tank factories and, therefore, no tanks. The crime gang or evil business that manages to put one together will rule the streets.

Irreplaceable Dignity

The guard stationed at the crossroads pondered his duty. "Not to denigrate so eminent a person as I hope to be considered, but could not a statue do as much as I? Ah, a chance to test. Hail, Terad!"
The final salutation was no silent thought. Terad answered, and soon the two agreed to terms over a rough likeness of the guard, altered from another comission which depicted an official who had already secured a better post.
Upon delivery, the guard fixed his replacement and left to pursue a separate occupation. The statue watched over the crossroads ably. No crime occurred which would not had the proper guard been present. The sole notable incident involved a traveler from afar. Taking the statue for a local god, he left an offering and prayed to it before continuing his journey.
Incensed, the true crossroads god smashed the statue to splinters. The guard marveled upon seeing it. "I never realized how strenuous this routine could be for a guard of lesser resilience. I am aggrieved, lamented substitute, that you bore the weight of my miscalculation in thinking myself inessential." He proceeded to consign the statue to the care of the proper gods in his prayer. Both duty and piety thus returned to the world.
Finis

Addendum

In general, nautical terms suffer from the fact that sailors customarily refuse to line up spelling and pronunciation. "Gunwale" should mean one thing, "gunnel" another, and both should be cool. Well, cool-adjacent; "gunnel" sounds like a low-ranking criminal thug.

Visions of Future Anarchy

The first cruel robber asked travelers for the time. When they looked at their watches, he grabbed their feet and swung them against a tree. Knowing that, the hero approached him.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you know what time it is?"
"No, but you can look at my watch. I wear it around my ankle."
"Eh?"
Pow! The hero kicked the bandit against the tree and killed him.
The second cruel robber invited travelers to rest in a cottage. When polite visitors removed their shoes and stepped inside, the treacherous floor dropped them into a boiling cauldron. Knowing that, the hero approached him.
"Excuse me, sir. You look like someone who needs a break."
"Thank you. I'll just take off my boots."
"Eh?"
Entranced by the valuable watch, studded with gems but nevertheless tasteful, the robber failed to resist in time and was thrown into his own trap. Splash!
The third cruel robber gave travelers a remote control and suggested they watch their favorite program on his gigantic television set. Too bad for them, the remote was a bomb. Knowing that, the hero approached him.
"Excuse me, sir. Why not sit down on this couch and watch your favorite program?"
"It isn't on yet. Here, check this watch."
"And a fine watch that is. I bet it could bring . . . eh?"
Smash! The hero brought the TV down on the robber's head. With that, the road was safe at last.
Finis

Addendum

That aside, the future will almost certainly have either trains or the apocalypse. Possibly both.

Science Fiction Logistics Considerations

When considering whether your setting's transportation has developed to such a level that there are no longer surface trains, remember that people can grab on to the sides and shoot bandits or else have tense fights on the top.

Speaking of Law Enforcement

You know what you want to cut down on theft? Non-evil empires.

Obligations of the Dead

There was a man who, as punishment for a crime irrelevant to this history, spent a term in the land of the dead. When the end of his sentence approached, he asked the king of that land about that which confused him most about the customs there.
"Why is it, great king, that this is far from a dismal land? The dead have such feasts and entertainments as are never possible elsewhere without months to separate them, but here there is never any rest among those said to be forever resting in the matter of revels."
The king tested him with these words. "Where did you hear that this kingdom was ever dismal?" The man responded with citations from several classics, whereupon the ruler of all subjects nodded, satisfied. "It is because today the dead are deluded and think their duties done, whereas wiser men in earlier ages, relieved at last of the obstacle of sleep, set themselves ceaselessly to laborious tasks that they might not be found unprepared when at last it comes."
The man spread the warning of the ultimate monarch among the living and trained his body relentlessly, interrupting his exercises only when he judged more exertion would be wasted and never for the purpose of pleasure. Accordingly he was remembered as the first of the sword prophets. Reverent gratitude became attached to his name after at last it came, by the prepared; the unready regretted their indolence.
Finis

Streamlining the Conceptual Process

When you're coming up with ideas for you next story, just brainwashing away, if you ever accidentally write "explore" or "interrogate" without immediately following that with some fantasy name, cross it out and write, "What if Al Capone was a dragon?" Then underline "dragon" thrice and run your pink highlighter over the entire question except that word "a."

Addendum

You can use "unprepossessing" too, but your main character had better be a priest who solves crimes or something of that sort.

A Legacy of Intimidation

"Don't stay up too late, Papa!"
"I will stay up exactly long enough!" The man chuckled as he turned away from the door to return to his workbench. Behind his teasing lay the certainty that he would not stay up late, because at last his work neared its completion.
No more than an hour later, he stood and yawned. Everything was ready for the big demonstration later in the week. Just then, he heard a noise. Intending to lecture his daughter or a pet for unwarranted nocturnal activity, he walked through the house looking for the source only to find his door torn from its hinges and on the ground next to it, a paper wrapped around a key.
"Give up your foolish scheme! You're hurting us all! Including yourself!" He read that and crumpled the message in his angry fist. Determined, he placed the key on his workbench next to his project.
"You fiends," he said, unable to keep his indignant thoughts silent. "Threatening me because of how my invention terrifies you." He compared the two, nodded, and picked up his model. "This key which doesn't disappear when it's used will ruin your Keymakers' Guild!"
Finis

Addendum

I suppose alien crime-solving technologies made up for the lack, though I wonder how interested aliens who told people to build pyramids were in stopping crime. The whole thing sounds a little new age to me.