You remember when Billy first went into space, don’t you? First time one of those crazy rockets of his went off with him in it. First time he sent up the big rocket, not those little ones with the sensors made of old cell-phones and other garbage. Chuck always said he’d send up Chairman Meow, [...]
The aroma of cooked vegetables filled Leba’s nostrils as she finished mixing the oils for the final touches of her dinner. All the guests had been waiting to taste her delicious mixture of carrots and lettuce with roots and peppers as spices. In fact, the whole of the community adored Leba for her talents at [...]
Dear John, I loved you John, I want you to understand that. The Core wasn’t wrong to match us as marriage candidates; it just didn’t understand who you were really, the physical you. When we spoke and wrote and sent all those mad pictures over the Core – that was some other John. You used [...]
Science has become the new standard of belief. It became the boundaries of thought and idea. I helped it grow to that, I helped to smite imagination and faith. Isn’t it strange that I call upon you now? When we completed the humane genome it was called a genius. I bore medals that weighed on [...]
Harun did not think she was being unreasonable. The passenger obviously felt she was, but what did she know? Nothing, Harun concluded. Nothing that was worth anything anywhere but planet-side. “Look,†Harun said. “You cannot take this much luggage. There is not much space on the ship, and that isn’t going to change any on [...]
“This is a disaster,†said Herman Goodrich. His magnetic chair glided away from the table and bobbed gently as he threw his excessive weight into it, then it obediently slid back into place. Goodrich wiped a glaze of sweat from his forehead and reached for a donut before opening his console. Around the conference table, [...]
The pitter patter of sneakers came in rapid succession down the halls of the Great Southcrest Shopping Center. Dustin had a hankering for cheesesteak and was anxious to get back to his group before they left the shopping center. He spun around a corner and saw the signs for Chuck’s Delicious Steakies flooding his senses [...]
It happened in a late night Karaoke bar on Mars. Neil had hit the high note on the Pop Remix of “Some Enchanted Evening†when he felt a white exultation, his feet lifting off the stage by a celestial breath, his eyes cracked open but unseeing. Then he fainted. His friends took him to a [...]
Originally, Karen went along with the idea because she was certain her roommate wouldn’t come through with the goods. True, Jill had befriended (“befriended.†Chrissy giggled, her fingers hanging in mock quotation marks) a number of important people in the university’s psychology program, but the idea of sleep aids seemed like the idea of affixing [...]
The roads of Rajeev were packed due to the mass exodus to the docks, and presumably, off-world. My skimmer was resting quietly on the dusty pavement, the hours–no, days, it had been days, hadn’t it?–spent idling had left the poor conveyance without enough fuel to keep it hovering, much less actually moving. Not that it [...]
Tomorrow is today’s warranty. That’s the motto they took when they made me. The lifespan of my purpose is equal to my battery expectancy. I am composed of titanium alloy and still shining after four years of operation. I am functioning at my highest rate. In this cycle of time I have compiled many bytes [...]
Courtney was the leader: a petite woman in a well-tailored business suit and Italian leather shoes. Her straight blond hair was cropped at her chin and her blue eyes burned with determination behind silver-framed glasses. She walked with purpose, her heels clicking against the tile of the lobby, and she carried her bomb in an [...]
The man with black teeth ripped at her plastic environ-suit. Beth didn’t scream, it was a waste of energy and no one would hear her anyway. He had no suit and his skin was bleached in some places, peeling and red in others. Sores covered his body and his hair was patchy on his head. [...]
Behind the wire, inside force fields and walls of concrete and steel, lays The Bomb Shelter. The Bomb Shelter is referred to as the warmest place on this side of the galaxy. In the Bomb Shelter, Captain Jaylean Rael tossed back his third Jack and Coke and continued to hold court within the Green Zone [...]
The teacher tapped her wrist twice, and the drugs started streaming from the plastic tubes embedded in the students’ desk into their soft little arms. Within moments, she had their undivided attention. The yellow design on her dress to moved in a soothing pattern, giving her students a visual point to focus on. “Today,†she [...]
Hijet dreamed of breasts, as he did every night. And once again he awoke with his sheet stained. Once more he would endure the sharp tongue of his mother holding the stained sheet as evidence of Hijet’s unclean body, and crying to the gods why she was cursed with a son. Hijet endured this as [...]
The catwalk was narrow, rusty, and in violation of at least four safety codes, but Juan didn’t care. When he stepped from the concrete landing by the elevator onto the precarious metal walkway, he grinned. It was a good day. “Eight pounds seven ounces,” he told his coworker for the sixth time. Still, Jamal afforded [...]
The cards were set down on the table, shuffled up, and dealt out. Somewhere in a little back room on the U.S.S. Horizon, a dangerous deal was being made. Reuger was sitting with his suitcase held on his lap, watching in the dim light as the dealer tossed out the five cards. There were three [...]
Cory pressed his foot on the rubber accelerator so hard that the car began to smell like peanuts from the oil it ran on. The couple in the back seat started making out viciously, tearing at each other’s clothes. They were middle aged, sixty or so, horny on a cocktail of uppers and hormones. They [...]
Her ass was blinking blue when I walked in. That’s how I knew she wanted me. The light was only slightly diffused by her skirt, a new material that changed from black to transparent when her cheeks glowed. The whole skirt was affected, giving me a clear view of her naked thighs. I thought about [...]
The light was beginning to come to him in a haze of blues and whites. Fredrick’s family stood by, smiling as they waited for him to sit up. The first thing he worried about was not knowing who was who. “I… can see.†Fredrick was lucky to have received such experimental treatment, and now it [...]
The sound from the slums is no longer the groan of bodies. Hunger cries, cussing, gunshots, the crackle of fires in old trash barrels—all of these are gone. Our poor no longer freeze or hunger. I hear it every day on my way home from work, from beneath the narrow steel and concrete bridge that [...]
“Dude. I’ve found it.†The Systems voice chimed pleasantly from the walls of the house. Ryan looked up hopefully from his dinner, his brown hair falling into his face. “What? The program?†“No. Better.†Ryan shook his head, turning back to his baby back ribs. “I asked you to find the program.†“Dude. Shut up. [...]
Abigail used to cry her self to sleep every night because of another black eye, because of another bruise on her that she’d have to write off the next day. Her cheeks were stained and her doors were always locked. She never slept because she was afraid he’d wake her up. Abigail’s boyfriend was a [...]
Marcus crooked his fingers around each of his eyeballs, and plucked them out with a small “pop.” He unceremoniously placed the squishy orbs in a small jar of salt water on his desk. “Marcus! Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Stella was leaning against the door frame as she yelled; she hadn’t quite [...]
“Let me tell you about the revolution.†said Hack as I lay back, enjoying my smoke. Hack and I engaged in the worlds’ two oldest professions. I sold sex, and Hack stole stuff. Recently, Hack had been doing well enough to become a frequent client. Hack wasn’t so bad, for a geek. His hair was [...]
This way, she says, and I follow. There was no real direction, of course. The surface had been frozen beneath a mile of ice long before humans evolved, but still, I follow. Two hours after we lost our way in the snowstorm, all directions have become meaningless. When I was a child I read a [...]
The first day the sun didn’t rise, it was business as usual. The trains ran, the offices were open, and we just used a little more electricity than normal. We went to work, fed our fish, and gossiped about the news coverage while waiting for the bus. Over dinner the television told us what a [...]
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