Author: David Barber The man in the armchair by the window is Frank Chappel. He’s been widowed for some years now; he walks a little stiffly because of his knee but is determined not to use a stick; his hair may be white but at least he’s not gone bald like some men his ...

Author: Janet Shell Anderson “The extra dimensions of spacetime are sometimes conjectured to take the form of a six-dimensional Calabi Yau Manifold.” I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t mean a lot to me right now when there’re riots in West Palm and I’m nearby at my ...

Author: Kevlin Henney You get all types here — the good and the bad. The ugly? No, it's all the beautiful types here at the Nakamoto. You want ugly you go to Zom Zom's. Gets real ugly. You wouldn't want to be seen dead there. But seen then dead is how you'd be. Rough ...

Author: Ben Coppin The only thing protecting me from Titan’s vicious cold is my fourth generation spacesuit, the result of decades of experimentation, engineering and design work. Suit sales have been in decline lately, and my marketing people assure me that a ...

Author: Katlina Sommerberg Snow piled over trees, rendering them unidentifiable lumps. In the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, it was early spring, but Charlotte thought of Christmas. Over eggnog, Grandma always gave her lessons in writing Traditional Chinese, often with ...

Author: Mark Renney People were talking about the exhibition and not just on the Net. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who knew someone who had visited and who had a story to tell. Someone who enthused excitedly about their experience and how the images that they had seen ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Unit KB428 XNG is going slowly tonight. Is there a problem? The habitual Thursday night stop at the supermarket was only 2.8 minutes longer than usual. Traffic is moving steadily. If the underspeed persists, I’ll have to notify traffic ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher I looked in the bathroom mirror but couldn’t see him. I saw just my reflection. My every-man, cleanshaven angular face. And the gold and lavender custom marble tiles of the wall behind me. The matching lavender Egyptian cotton towel draped over the ...

Author: Jeremy Marks "Are we seeing some wholesale return of the dead?" -Thomas Pynchon When homo sapiens expired, at last, it was not by fire, nor by a virus, as the species’ own wits and prophets had predicted. Rather, it succumbed to boredom. The last days ...

Author: Bruce McAllister and Patrick Smith What does a county animal control officer do when people throw away the pets they’ve ordered, had designed for absurd amounts of money, but no longer want? The Purple Poodles, the Forever Kittens, the Songbirds Just for You. What ...

Author: Moriah Geer-Hardwick “Henry?” Bringdown raises an eyebrow. “Really?” “You don’t think he looks like a Henry?” Allgood turns the skitter over in his hand and snaps the activation tab forward with his thumb. Its little legs snap outward and immediately begin hacking ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer They seeped through the fissures and oozed through the sands as they rose up from the black and into the quivering blue. Ancient and hungry they feasted, stripping the meat from shells that clamped to the rocks and picking clean the bones ...

Author: Ken Carlson “I’m sorry, Mister Bennett? “Yes, Ronald Bennett, my first day.” He pulled the tan card from his pocket that came in the mail the week before. The receptionist, a tall, pale woman looked down her glasses at him. She wore a pristine tan blazer like ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Her shaking fingers reach for the yellow lozenge. “No, not that one. Try the green one.” Olivia does so and her eyes go wide, then close. She slumps. Smiling, toothy and benign, he steps over her twitching body, then shakes the bowl and ...

Author: Philip G. Hostetler “Many have failed but perhaps you will succeed.”, said Torjen, “The trans-galactic download is paramount to the ascension beyond space-time and admittance into the Multiverse Associates. You, you…” Torjen looked inquisitively at his tablet, a ...

Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi I can’t see! I can’t fucking see! No! Don’t crumble, stop! Christ, my tether is threadbare. I have to dig my feet in. I can’t get my hand out of this biner. Oh shit! More wind! Armstrong! Armstrong! No! he’s gone. I don’t want to die! My ...

Author: Shon-Lueiss Harris What was a dank alleyway disappeared. Gone, cut straight to black. The pungent stench of urine the only sign Michael hadn’t died suddenly. That and the hands grasping him, both forcing him to follow. At some point, Michael dropped his coffee. ...

Author: Phil Manning My mother was a strange woman. Not strange as in, lock the children in the closet, more, strange how easily she seemed to be able to pick up new information, new things and make them work for her. She could learn almost anything but she could never ...