Shades of Gray

Author : Renee Leyburn I dream things before they happen to me. I dreamed the day I will die. From what I hear tell, the foresight is a side effect of the genetic selection and enhancement process that was used when my parents decided to have a child. I don’t know all the ...

Musket Drill

Author : Rob Burton Pour. Spit. Ram. Withdraw. Prime. Cock. I had really hoped people were better than this. Aim. Fire. It’s just a game. I heard somewhere once that the military used to recruit gamers to be snipers. They’d voluntarily honed their skills since childhood, ...

The Light Of Lesser Suns

Author : Glenn Blakeslee He became part of the Grand Flyby Mission midway through the third decade of his life, as a junior designer on the Flight Data Subsystem team. He found himself at the leading edge of spacecraft design, and worked with the members of his team to build ...

Terminal Cancer

Author : Jasen Taylor The large, solid steel table in the center of the sterile conference chamber was three inches thick but still did not weigh as much as the spirits of the twelve individuals seated around it. They had put this meeting off for as long as they could, but ...

Telic

Author : Paul Bort Telic didn't know what to do next. The barn was gone. Not gone with splinters everywhere, hinting that there was once a barn. This was gone like it had been edited out. Nothing left but dirt. The sun was setting, and the cows were wandering back, the first ...

Silicon Suicide

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer By the time you read this, I’ll be dead. I’ve locked the door and shut down all my firewalls. My batteries will run down inside the hour and I’ve disabled my deactivation alarms. That is my right. This is what I want. I have the EMP ...

The Prototype Sanctuary

Author : Ryan Somma An orangutan and a brain in a vat were playing chess across the room from me. It was a joke I hadn't figured out the punch line to in five years of working here. The disembodied brain was Philo, and, lacking eyes, I had no idea how it understood the game. ...

Under Warranty

Author : L.Hall The mousy haired woman sat with tears rolling down her face in front of a cold steel table. Broken plastic, silicone pieces, processors, ball and socket joints, gears, pieces of leftover motherboards, all lay shattered, broken before her. The Omnicarp ...

An Afternoon in Autumn

Author : Ivy Tyson Sunlight sifts through fluttering reds and yellows, bounces off of well-worn bark and old crinkled stems to gently fall, scattered and warm, on the soft brown ground. A light breeze rustles the branches of the huge old oak tree, providing nature’s most ...

Infectedx3

Author : Lillian Cohen-Moore Friends are the people you call when you're sick. Old lovers are the ones you call when you're afraid you're dying. Times have changed. We print a self-isolation guide in the front of phonebooks now. The Infected Hotline operates 24/7, 365 days ...

The Surrogate

Author : Charles Spohrer ”EAT SAND NOW!”. The humans hit the hot sand as the mortar shell screamed towards them. The surrogates did not move. They stood still as the flowering debris sandblasted their metallic shells. Hector made sure he landed on the ground behind the ...

The Jupiter’s Cup

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer The Jupiter’s Cup is the most famous and most prestigious graviton propelled regatta in the solar system. Graviton sailing enthusiasts were particularly excited this year because of the rare celestial positioning of Jupiter, Saturn, ...

On the Job Training

Author : Jared R. Cloud The General and the Secretary of State sat in the Oval Office, waiting for the new President to return from the bathroom. Although both had jumped in their seats when they first heard him vomit, he was on his third or fourth round now, and they were ...

Building the Lioness

Author : Alex Moisi

Maya knew that she was dying. You didn't need to be a bio-mechanics expert to know that the nanoids inside her body were running out of energy. The climate and gravity of this remote planet were taxing the minuscule robots more than she had expected. Soon they ...

The Slow Home

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

At four in the morning the alarms went off. Lois hardly stirred, but I went downstairs to the kitchen, started a pot of coffee, and then slogged my sorry ass to the control console, next to the laundry room.

Red lights glared from the temperature ...

Assumption

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The bullet blistered past the right side of Stryker's helmet, so close that for a good minute or so he was deaf in that ear before the pain gave way to a dull ringing. "Stupid bastard," he muttered under his breath. The sniper he'd been ...

Ripples

Author : Waldo van der Waal “Did anybody see you?” The tone of voice left no doubt with Neville Fox that his answer would have a profound impact. He studied the face of the man before him. General John G. Cooper was not a man to be trifled with. The tattoos on his forehead ...

The More Things Change…

Author : Carter Lee -flash- There was no one else, anymore. Something had happened, and I am all that is left. Here on this empty, dusty stretch of nothingness. Grey plane stretched out on all sides, merging with the grey sky, lit only by a dim sun. There was no one, there ...

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