Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer They met at Darlington’s; exchanged glances, bought each other drinks and before the lights came up and the bar spilled out they were in the back of a taxi heading back to his flat. He’d never done anything like this; ultraconservative, careful, cautious, but there was something about her [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer Life has always been hard at the bottom. My grandparents survived the collapse of 2013 and my parents made it onto the first exodus in 2055. It was considered simpler to test the tech and logistics on fifty thousand poor people. If it succeeded then Rockefeller had a head [...]
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer SSG Ray Mansfield raised his rifle and glassed the valley below with powerful optics. His men, stretched out behind him, were virtually invisible, their chameleon skin armour blended seamlessly with the sparse vegetation and oily, rocky soil. He clicked his teeth and opened the teams freq. The weak [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer “I don’t give a damn,” bellowed Senator Orcus as he slammed his fist onto the conference table. “They knew this day was coming, and they did nothing to prepare for it! Why the hell should we bail them out?” “They were there for us,” retorted Senator Cura, “when our [...]
Author : Donovan Pruitt “It itches,” the soldier complained, scratching at the data socket on the back of his neck. Seated across the table, the doctor offered a sympathetic smile. “That’s normal for a new download, Sergeant Jax. Just don’t think about it. Think about something else.” “Like what? I wasn’t recruited for my thinking.” [...]
Author : Robert Vennell I stumble down the road through the hazy tungsten half-light. Padded headphones suck out the ambient noise and replace it with the hum of distorted guitars. An empty street, a dim coating of artificial light and the buzz of electric instruments. I have to remind myself I’m really here. It feels [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I am too old to enjoy the future. I am physically unable to. People, like older trees and metal from the ground, could not be retro-engineered. Transporters were finally here but everyone who had dreamed of their existence could not use them. Anyone already born at the moment of [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer Seventeen days to travel two kilometres through the most extreme security ever deployed. My rations are finished and I have drunk the last of my urine. The moon is bright yet anyone monitoring the meeting hall roof would find nothing. The scions of Iga have not been lax in [...]
Author : Steve Jopek A man lies gripping a slowly tumbling boulder of ice and stares into the distance of space. His broken femur pokes sharply into the material of his white skinsuit threatening to rupture it. His foot and leg are numb, his boot full of thickening blood. Here, deep in the planetary rings, [...]
Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer The music was deafening. New wave fusion jazz. Whatever the fuck that is. I had an “appointment” with Vinnie “The Fag” Scarpacci. Most men would have been pissed to have a moniker like that. Some would kill you for even whispering it. Not Vinnie. He loved it. He [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, Featured Writer The eighteen foot tall robot stared down at the park worker in pleading disbelief. Sam jabbed the giant’s leg with his broom, “Come on, off you go. You can’t stay here anymore!” “But I don’t comprehend this request. My place is here in the park.” Sam felt a lump [...]
Author : M. J. Hall We wait. We the shadow-women, the marginalized, the dispossessed. We wait, for our time of power is near. Long ago, the elite decided that natural means of reproduction were far too messy for those of great wealth and status. As the clone banks churned out replacement generations, the ruling class [...]
Author : J. S. Kachelries This will be my greatest invention! Of course, my invention bar is not set very high. The phaser thing sort of worked. It was able to set the living room curtains on fire, but I got second degree burns on the palm of my hand when the damn thing overloaded. [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Major retrieved the chewed tennis ball Max had laid at his feet and loaded it back in the meter long, ice-cream scoop of a throwing arm he was using to launch it. Max bowed and jumped, eyeing the ball with keen interest as Major cocked the stick behind one [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer My name is Control V. My boss calls me Paste. I am a clone. I work for the government. I am a secret agent. There are a few of me kicking around. I don’t know how many. I am given orders that I can’t disobey. I get through metal [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer “What do you mean you lost her? This is Central, the most surveilled planet in the galaxy. How do you lose a two meter tall three armed gal?” Gens Adamant had the grace to look crestfallen, and so he should. He may be from a long line of scientists, [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer I open my eyes and gasp aloud. Where… is this? What… what day is… time is… where am I? Who… who… who… who am I? Although my entire awareness is a swirling multitude of uncertainty, I know I am looking up at the sterile white interior of a… a [...]
Author : Huw Langridge Carla’s hand retreated from the ON switch while the media wall flickered to life. The software programme went through its final initialisation stages, with lines of configuration code working its way up the screen. She waited. ADAM appeared on the wall. ADAM, the shining humanoid avatar, the ‘physical’ representation of the [...]
Author : Martin Berka Tom stood meters behind the ethicist, armed to where his teeth had been until they encountered grenade shrapnel two years ago. She knelt in the alleyway, engrossed in some insect or small plant ? it was not his job to understand. He could end this right now, and never again have [...]
Author : Eugen Spierer “Why do you want to work for Bosch paper mills?” The question echoed distantly in my ears. I knew it didn’t matter what I answered, my future was being decided as we were speaking based on the blood sample I had donated five minutes earlier. “I think the company can offer [...]
Author : Cesium It is only from one of the higher towers, the myriad smaller buildings laid out below and higher ones gleaming in the distance, that the City’s infinitude truly becomes intuitively and not merely intellectually apparent. But even in the mist of a cool morning, when only the closer bridges and skyscrapers loom [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer A torrent of sea water gushed from the six meter in diameter penstock into the Sirenum Ocean, Mars’ largest body of water. Twenty-eight minutes earlier, that sea water had been in the South Pacific Ocean, before beginning its long sub-space journey from the Atafu intake gate on Earth, to [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer The Introdus happened in late 2021. Seven hundred thousand time travelers showed up around the world. They showed up on fire. They showed up in clumps in the larger cities and by the singles and pairs in rural areas. Most of them were burnt beyond recognition. Only sixty-eight of [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer He stepped over the bodies of the last two assault teams and walked swiftly to just below the camera blister on the ceiling. Waving a hand, he spoke calmly. “Hello Justin, I’m Agent Dessall. I’ve come to chat about what we can do to end this stand-off without any [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer “I wrestle with it every minute of every day. However please let the record show that every precaution was considered when it came to keeping it humane. No one ever knew for even an instant what hit them. One second we were a planet overrun by thirteen billion parasitic [...]
Author : Andrew Bale “Five minutes, General.” “Thank you, Gunner.” Anywhere else in the fleet she would be an impossible escort. Her dull-black skinsuit was topped with a spiked leather jacket, her hair gelled into liberty spikes, her face painted like a skull. She still showed her rank and rate, but the only name was [...]
Author : M. A. Goldin “Anything?” “Bacteria, some multi-celled organisms, but nothing complex. Nothing sentient.” Captain Dalmar nodded, and the technician’s projected image blinked out. She stood alone on the bank of a river. It rushed, boisterous, from the mountains behind her and off into a rolling plain, the water twinkling with the light of [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Stuart lost his footing scrambling over the shattered garden wall and fell, hard. As he struggled to his feet, his head still ringing from the tumble his pursuer caught him up and knocked him back down harder still. “You frickin bastard,” Stuart spat blood and dust, rolling away from [...]
Author : Michael Georgilis My hand scrambled over tiles studded with shattered glass until it found my gun, clenched, lifted, swung over the bartop, and pointed between the deepest blue eyes I’d ever hunted in the entire system. The gun cocked on reflex. Her eyes twinkled. “Per-sis-tent.” Her hand grasped a bottle of grog rather [...]
Author : Clint Wilson, featured writer “Unbelievable Simmons! We actually have him mainlined through the wormhole!” The assistant was no less excited than the good Doctor. “Professor!” he shouted as he checked the subject’s vitals. “The fractal condensers are working perfectly. Mr. Tyler is unharmed. The batteries (a misnomer as they were actually portholes to [...]
Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer /run -verbose -output=screen * Did you know that programmers have a higher rate of obsessive behaviour than any other occupation? * Watch your terminators, they taught me. * Always free the memory. * Never goto. I love sloppy coders, but I love hackers best. Nothing beats ennui like new [...]
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