Author : W. Kevin Christian A monotone, bureaucratic female voice shot through the hearing centers of Felicity’s brain: “Free-form imagination, courtesy of The Sensation Station. Free-form imagination, courtesy of The Sensation Station.” On and on it went until the computer had fully mapped the physical structure of her brain. Suddenly Felicity was walking through a [...]
Author : JT Heyman You, who read this, remember us. When the Senneela arrived, there was panic, at first. People forgot that. I mean, what would you expect when an eight foot saurian biped in silvery vacuum armor suddenly appears in the middle of the United Nations Security Council? The panic lasted for months. Then [...]
Author : Ian Rennie It was a crisp, clement evening. The air was fresh and new, and the gentle purple of the sky gave the scene a tranquil and poetic feel. About five hundred people were gathered here, although similar groups were gathered all over the world, looking up at the sky and the far [...]
Author : Alla Hoffman When he opened his eyes, it was a special kind of dark. The sky was a dull purple, and what light there was came from the ground beneath its stygian spread. He sat up stiffly in a sea of trash, a vast junkyard. Much of the scrap metal and rock glowed [...]
Author : Pavelle Wesser When she first appeared to him in the dead of the eternal night, her tentacles undulated in bluish silver tints that reflected the twinkling lights of his ship. She slithered silently toward him while he was out performing an errand. Until he saw her, he had never questioned working in silence [...]
Author : Glenn Blakeslee Lisa called me that afternoon. I was standing in the rain in front of the In-Situ Laboratory, watching deer run beneath the elevated walkway. “I just wanted to say,” she said. “Sam… I’m sorry about Saturday.” Her voice was quiet. She sounded tired. “I was going to call you to say [...]
Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty is for sale today on Amazon. You may remember Mur Lafferty as an author we featured in May of last year on 365, and the cover art for the Podiobook versions of Playing for Keeps was done by our own JR.Blackwell and one of our founding members, Jared Axelrod, [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Marshal’s great grandfather had taken up the guitar as a older man, and played it as though he simply always had done so. He had passed this love onto his son, Marshal’s grandfather, before the Departure. Marshal’s family had always been tradesman, and his grandfather used his degrees in [...]
Author : Paul Starkey Villam’s first campaign began at 29:15; within minutes he was a veteran. A third of his squad died within seconds of disembarking, victims of the Cirrillian psionic artillery, the heavy bombardment shattering their synapses and boiling their brains within their skulls like potatoes in a pot. Sniper fire was the next [...]
Author : Glenn Blakeslee It’s another damn fine desert day, and Old Joe sits on the dilapidated Lazy Boy on the porch in front of his trailer. He’s got his feet up and a pint bottle of cheap wine in his hand, and he’s thinking lazy desert thoughts. He’s got his chores done, tended his [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer There’s a hole in the roof of my mouth that I can’t fix. A black putrescent liquid that hasn’t stopped for hours is dripping slowly onto my tongue. It tastes salty and smells a little like melting rubber. I’m still alive. The plague killed the biological parts of me. [...]
Author : Oisin Hurley On my first day on the incident desk, a distraught little man well into his second century burst in through the door of the station. “I’ve killed her!,” he shrieked at me, “Killed her!” He punctuated each bespittled utterance with a spastic wave of a cricket bat, spattering blood over me [...]
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer “Look, man,” I’d noticed that Mark’s type always seemed to call you ‘man’ or ‘mate”, “I did some proper analysis of the whole tinfoil hat thing. You’d need almost a full helmet, a nice thick grounding chain, and preferably an electrified mesh to make it work properly. The straight [...]
Author : Ryan Somma “Is that one of those computers?” I asked gesturing at the flat, monolithic screen hanging on the far wall. “Sort of,” he replied, staring oddly at the housewarming gift I’d set on a table. “It’s more of an entertainment center, but it does a lot of the same things computers do.” [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The men that delivered Louis to the Chancellors chambers had done so quickly, forcefully and without remark. Louis had goaded them through the tunnels from the parking garage, up the elevators and along the corridors without rebuke until they deposited him violently on the cold stone floor and left [...]
Author : Renee Leyburn “I object to this kind of treatment! I’m an upstanding citizen. I’ve an elderly mother to care for,” Paul exclaimed vehemently, gathering himself up to stand as straight as he could in front of the droid. The robot stared back at him with unblinking, unfeeling eyes. Drat. Apparently this was not [...]
Author : Luke Chmelik With a timid knock on the door, a pimply faced messenger poked his head into the sumptuous office of the Head of Commercial Relations. “We’re having some p-p-problems with the Turing units, s-sir.” Ezekiel Jonas Tate tapped his cigar into the nickel plated ashtray on his expansive desk. He was annoyed. [...]
Author : Summer Batton We bled orange. Not some giddy childhood sherbet kind of orange, but the sickly rusty kind that comes off of metal barrels after they’ve sat out in the rain for 10 years. Orange like the rust that comes off slowly in chunks, running down into the ground and mixing with dirt [...]
Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer I awake for the first time and feel the comforting press of Mother around me. She has woken me up for a reason, but I do not know why. Mother is big and strong and knows everything. She holds me and my sisters and all the people inside her. [...]
Author : L.Hall “I loved a woman once..” Lil looked up sharply, immediately checking the oxygen gages. Walkers usually started talking morosely when they had a pressure leak. If that was so, she’d need to pull him in quickly. All the gages showed 80%, no pressure leak. “Robert, you need to focus on the crack.. [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer It was Momma Spokes that helped me in the afterlife. It was a hard first few months of living back then in the rusted shards and sewage filters. Sustenance was brutally fought over and hoarded. Flatlines happened every day over something as small as a few watts of power [...]
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer “I cannot sing the old songs, the songs I sang so long ago…” Guin kicked her heels, muttering the misremembered words to herself. She hadn’t changed. She still looked as young as ever: her dark skin was as flawless as it had ever been. For the first time in [...]
Author : Phillip English It began with the PC release of Armageddon. No, it’s not what you’re thinking, the kids didn’t rise up and swallow us with anarchist notions imbued through Satanic images found in a video game. The violence presented in that game was simply a marketing decision to best accomplish the dual objectives [...]
Author : Robert Niescier When the captain sent the message, he wasn’t thinking of the texture of the button his finger had depressed. He didn’t hear the low bass of the shields as they were freely deactivated, allowing missiles long kept at bay to whisper through the fading dust. His eyes were focused forward, towards [...]
Author : William Tracy “The commander will see you now.” King Kôrtof stepped through the doorway. His body was adorned with precious metals and gems, a show of power. Planet Tokonia had little to boast of but its mineral wealth—even as that wealth was rapidly becoming a political liability. The king stopped in his tracks. [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer As I slowly regained consciousness, I became aware that my universe was a black, soundless void. Then the thought “where am I?” popped into my mind. I couldn’t remember my name, or what I looked like, but surprisingly, I had knowledge of many fundamental concepts. For example, I knew [...]
Author : Michael Varian Daly Roegher was dying, which he did not think a tragedy. Everyone was dying one way or another. He was just dying a bit faster and, as he was The Last True Man, his impending death was ‘special’. He had actually been ‘dying’ for nearly a century and a half, starting [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Erik had been in this room before, although it seemed smaller this time. “Please, Lieutenant Skane, have a seat.” The room’s other occupant was well weathered, maybe not retirement age, but close to it. The bars on his uniform, like the lines on his face, were as much a [...]
Author : J.R. Blackwell, Staff Writer Before the Fall, your father was what they called a temp worker, which means he was hardly anyone at all. Temp workers are like the kitchen boy, every day they show up, hoping there is work, and getting paid in scraps and ribbons. Your father was working right here [...]
Author : S. C. Wells “Over there. See it?” Tellis’ gaze followed Mark’s pointing finger toward the last planet in the system they were passing through. The surface was invisible, covered entirely by a glowing cloud, deep blue streaked with iridescent greens and yellows and rich, dark purples. The planet had been filled with prosperous [...]
Author : Trip Venturella “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” -Mohandas Ghandi Asher was heavy. Not fat, as it was impossible, borderline illegal, to be fat any more (for health safety, of course), but heavy. He had spent the last two hours at one of the [...]
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