Author : Jarrod Chestney-Law Sapphire, threaded with white and then a diamond studded blackness. Sapphire and white fill my vision again. They remain now. Chirps and static bursts chatter in my ears. Emerald threads begin to fill my vision, cascading down, faster and faster until a fine web blossoms across my vision, overlaying the sapphire [...]
Author : Salli Shepherd Ant, You’re not going to believe this. Unzip the folder and check out image 14, number 227. Yes, that’s a jugger you’re looking at, only ten times the regulation embryo mass. And yes, that is an illegal frontal lobe. Look at those EEG printouts. That says sentient-level brain activity, or I [...]
Author : Tom Coupland Even more of the world watched Jerome II enter the hospital room than had even watched those first interviews with Jerome. Those early interviews had set the world alight. They had watched in their thousands of millions as the gray haired scientist had described the moment he realised he had taken [...]
Author : Jamie Grefe It doesn’t take them long to do it, just eye contact. Once they do, and those eyes are locked, instant transmission — you disappear. I’m not sure if this is just the way my own programming reacts to this planet, but something has happened. I was on the shuttle to the [...]
Author : Victoria Barbosa “You want to do what?” said Alice’s mother, Irene. “That’s insane!” “Not really,” said Alice. “We always speak about time as if it were a great surprise, an uncontrollable element. I think it’s time we tamed it.” Her father smoothed his muttonchop whiskers. “Has this something to do with all this [...]
Author : Geoffrey Cashmore Regret. That was new. My life had been built into a shape where regret had no place. I only had one purpose – my entire existence leading up to it – and it wasn’t just me – I couldn’t even guess how many others were involved; working behind the scenes so [...]
Author : Maria Coello “The problem with sibes – the main problem with sibes – is that they won’t lie down when they’re dead,” Kirsten said three days ago, spitting bits of sausage across the dinner table. I ought to have told her years ago, of course, but it never seemed like the right moment. [...]
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer He awoke to the cloying smell of marijuana mixed with patchouli. His eyes fell on a poster featuring a cartoon rendering of a short bald man in yellow robes and flowing white beard. One sandaled foot was outthrust. The caption below the figure admonished the viewer to “Keep [...]
Author : Clint Wilson The herd of Separable Hybrates fed veraciously on the nutritious fungus. You had to get your fill when you could and patches like this didn’t usually strike up so abundantly this early on. The old matriarch was larger than the rest, and her feeding tubes liquefied and drew in more fungus [...]
Author : A. R. Coy A fine layer of crimson dust covered the streets and filled the transporter with a red haze. Freetown claimed to be the finest of the planet’s three cities, which only made the scene drearier. Deals were made here that were banned throughout the galaxy. Josiah and Brent, smugglers, felt right [...]
Author : Jeremy Herman Did you know coal can be reduced to liquid? With enough heat and pressure it’s possible. The government discovered this once they ran out of oil but they still needed to power their war machines. Right now Coleman felt like one of those dull pieces of rock. He felt like the [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The office was tidy and the boss sat smiling behind the desk as he finished pouring a second glass of malt whiskey. The smell almost made John drool. Andy looked up with a beaming smile. “Come in John. Take a seat. This is informal so you can take the [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Our breasts are sore and our balls itch. We feel like half of our food goes towards our tumours now. The black accordion beside our bed makes our four lungs work, squeezing long and then flat, our only sense of passing time when the lights are off. All of [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Day 1. Our transport ship just crash landed on Piscium III. It was a miracle that twenty-four of us survived. The subspace transceiver still works, but C&C said it would probably be eight months before a rescue ship could get this deep behind enemy lines. Day 2. We buried [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Ambassador Shaylin steepled his fingers and pursed his lips in a half smile. “Now Envoy Tsak-tuk, you must appreciate the cost of transporting your exports to other planets, we’re happy to facilitate trade, but we’re simply unable to be any more charitable than we are at present.” Across the [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer Telemada Centre is pretty on a New Year evening. The displays in the shop fronts are outshone by the Christmas lights. I watched on live AV as Veleria Diesel turned them on. Seemed right that her fight for the rights of the poor was finally getting recognised. The transparent [...]
Author : Kevin Ware It was only because of the eighty years that the first probe had been studied that the true meaning of the next was clear. The teams of muttering specialists who had travelled to Alberta to examine the wreckage in exhaustive detail had wrung every last shred of information from the charred [...]
Author : Ray Gregory I could get any woman in this bar I want, but she’s the one. I mean, what a babe: blond, built, just check out those knockers! Now she’s hitting on me even harder than I’m hitting on her, like neither of us can wait. We find a corner table. The place [...]
Author : Sarah Crysl Akhtar They said no pets. I’d felt a little guilty, a little bit not quite truthful, but I hadn’t made a home for it or anything, no tank on the windowsill; just sometimes carried it inside, from the garden, and then took it back out again. If it wanted to be [...]
Author : Page LePage My wife is angry. I have no idea what I’ve done. “DESTRUCTION SEQUENCE INITIATED.” It’s at times like these that I know my brother Shen was right when he told me I should have married something with more sophisticated logic calibration — or at least a better emotional processor. “SELF-DETONATION IN [...]
Author : Gordon Day The man was dressed in ivory and on his chest for all to see was a red bolt, declaring his allegiance to the Militant Atheist order. His audience did not know it yet, but he would be the last to publicly wear it. His lightly freckled cheeks begin to vibrate in [...]
Author : George S. Walker Before the EMP went off, the sky over Stonehenge had been aflitter with fairies scattering pixie dust. Agent Jack Bishop pulled off his mirrorshades as tourists around him tried to blink away the afterimage of the electromagnetic flash. “Mummy,” said a little girl, “the fairies are gone.” “They’ll be back, [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Do I consider myself a citizen of Earth? Do I consider myself a human? Am I an alien sympathizer? Members of the council, I fear I no longer know what these questions even pertain to. They are meaningless sounds to me now with no more gravitas than the bark [...]
Author : Z. J. Woods Crowley said, “You sure you wanna do this?” I brushed at the front of the faded jumpsuit. Nothing on it, of course. Nervous habit. He took a long drag from his cigarette, sighed the smoke out. “Well,” he said. Expecting me to fill the silence. With what? “Dammit, Crowl,” I [...]
Author : Suzanne Borchers Creak. Edwin stopped his writing stylus. The screen pulsated waiting for the next letter. Silence. Once more, he began gliding the stylus, writing his letters with meticulous care. Edwin did not know why this was necessary when thoughts could produce the same effect on the screen, but his father had told [...]
Author : Shaun.K.Adams South of his lofty position in Tempest stations observation tower, Kane De Souza observed a vast cyclonic column of dust drifting across the Syria Planum. He marvelled at its frenetic energy as it tracked slowly across the highest plateau elevations on the Tharsis bulge, unleashing a dazzling light show of dry lightning [...]
Author : Erin Cole Dawn fractures through the glades of the development. Solar-paneled rooftops refract the cadmium light of sun and men prepare for their busy days, hefting briefcase to hybrid. Jen-6 wakes and rises erect. Inside a petite helmet, embedded with black silks, is a cellular mass of encrypted energy. She snaps it into [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer It looks too soft. This thread-like network of blue filaments and their pale red host substrate cannot possibly give me my right arm back. For the eighteenth time, I reconsider my decision to volunteer for this experimental procedure. “Incredible stuff, Axian, its incredible stuff. Just put it in a [...]
Author : Roi R. Cechvala, Staff Writer Helmut Rose made his way down the broad avenue to his office at the Aerospace Centre. He looked up at the hundred foot long banners displaying the movie star good looks of the President’s face. Hitler’s picture was everywhere. The only resemblance to his great-grandfather was an untidy [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer “Receiving a distress call, Captain,” reported the communications officer of the SS Diciotti. “It’s coming from Lavello III.” “Lavello III?” repeated Captain Campbell. “What idiot would land on Lavello III? It’s a death trap.” “Captain,” said the science officer after consulting his monitor. “According to the ship’s transponder code, [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer My entire celebrity life is online for people. There are over a million people looking out through my eyes, breathing in time with me, feeling my exhilaration as six months of rehearsal come to a head and I perform my number-one hits to a crowd of fifty thousand people [...]
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