Edward M. Lerner

“Examining the new assailants, the predator inferred something of vital importance: These creatures had been crafted specifically to attack it. The predator had no concept of a bloodhound, but there was no mistaking the scraps of its own code that the phages used to identify their prey. To identify it.

It could learn. It could react.

If even a quiet existence without offense could not convince its curiously slow-acting Opponent to leave it alone, its course was clear.

The predator would attack, and attack, and attack again. It would devastate and destroy for as long as it took to flush out its Adversary from wherever it hid in the vast network.

Whatever resources the unseen Foe most valued, most closely guarded--these were what the predator would attack.”
― Edward M. Lerner, Fools' Experiments

“Bobby, this is crazy!” Moira was laughing in my inner ear. “They’re all wearing their pants over their heads!” It wasn’t just those on the tram. Most of the men in 2073 Melbourne central district, I realized with another snort of amusement, were wearing business suit trousers or blue jeans on top, arms through the rolled-up legs, sparkly shaven heads shoved through the open flies. A few women with their hair up in luxurious folds wore the same, although many preferred skirts, hanging down over their arms like something a nun would have worn back when I was a kid, in the days before nuns dressed like social workers. “And check out the leggings,” I muttered under my breath.”
― Edward M. Lerner, The Time Travel MEGAPACK ®: 26 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Stories