Author: Neil Otte Sean sighed as he leaned his head back against the tree. The good ones always left him with this amalgamation of thoughts and feelings, this clash of excitement and longing with the realization of routine and boredom. He closed his eyes and listened to ...

Author: Jatayu It made headlines. It was the talk of social media for a week which is, like, forever. “Someone came back!” “Wait, what? When? Who?” No one knew who and that was cause for amazement too; since World Citizenship came online there simply weren’t any ...

Author: Mina Dr Carlson looked up wearily as the last patient of the day came in. She was a new patient, Emily Mitte-Kunagi. He noticed that her body language and her clothes were aimed at not drawing attention to herself. It worked until she sat down, removed her darkly ...

Author: Dylan Otto Krider Rick saw the Universe in folds. He coded a program that could make anything in origami. You put in, say, a rhino, and it would make the plan, complete with lines for the folds, and when you were finished, it looked exactly like that rhino. Exactly. ...

Author: David C. Nutt “How’d did your last trip go Vincent?” (Sigh) “Not good Director. We keep hitting the same walls. No matter what we do, nothing has an effect.” “Nothing?” “You heard it right chief, nothing.” “Maybe we should go for a larger effect.” “Like killing ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Tapestries hang on the walls of a room where anatomical diagrams and scientific charts would have been, centuries ago. Two men stand reading a display that floats above the supine form on the chrome table at the centre of the ...

Author: Roger Ley ‘So, what’s your star sign?’ Mary asked, and took a sip from her glass, she watched him closely over the rim. It was one of her stock questions on first dates. You could tell a lot about a man, depending on how he reacted. His actual star sign was ...

Author: Alzo David-West Two neutron stars, ten times the mass of the sun collided, unleashing a cataclysm—an explosive kilonova, whose massive gravitational waves undulated through the dark mantle of spacetime, forging in their course a planetary system composed of fifteen ...

Author: Talon Abernathy The disease passed quickly and no one was spared. First, it neutered the men. Women became infertile. Men atrophied and women thickened. Hair sloughed off and torsos turned flat. The two sexes equalized and thus division was lost. Next, hunger ...

Author: Logan Smith In the beginning, humanity looked to the stars, and saw gods. In their golden age, they went among the stars, as if they were gods. In the end, when the stars started going out, they found gods. *** You don’t see a lot of sunsets ...

Author: Shari S Levine Miriam opened the door of the caravan-turned-time machine. Dry, hot air blew in. She shaded her eyes against the brightness. They had landed where they had planned: at the base of a range of hills, nothing around them but arid land that matched the ...

Author: DJ Lunan The spokesman for the Nui, Jesús the Giant, considered me with a foreboding and weakly threatening glare. “I have negotiated successfully with races on twenty planets. I know you have something to tell me, Gloria.” “It’s the ostriches.” I blurted ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Red emergency lighting makes more shadows than seem possible. President Booker leans back from the table and looks sideways at the one shadow he knows. “Clarence Dimitri. I’ve always meant to ask, agent: how did you end up with a name ...

Author: Beck Dacus Perhaps the most famous planet in the colonized Galaxy-- aside from Earth, of course-- Centauri B Prime may have the highest standard of living in the Milky Way. It is a center for scientific innovation, has borne some of our most accomplished artists, ...

Author: Michele Roger I make the coffee in the French press like I do every morning. Then, I regret it by the time I reach the City Freezing Works. A doubled edged elixir, the coffee rouses me from my bed and then inspires uninhibited vomiting by the time I reach downtown. ...

Author: Mina It’s the lack of sleep that’s the worst. I can live with the brutal beatings, the agony of untreated broken bones, the drugs that fuck with your head, the insidious cold, the gnawing hunger, the burning thirst and the routine rape, but I would literally kill to ...

Author: Jules Jensen Things are changing. The line in the sand is gone, washed away by changing tides that everyone saw coming but not this fast. In his eyes, I see the difference. I see the tech. “You have no idea how good this feels.” He says, smiling, and I bite back ...

Author: Henry Peter Gribbin There is a young boy who lives all by himself in a meadow. For miles and miles, there is nothing but soft flowing grass which sways in a gentle breeze. In a small depression stands a tree, an apple tree. This tree plays an important part in the ...