by submission | Mar 27, 2026 | Story |
Author: A J Paige
They’d vandalised the sign again. Who would’ve thought that the Goddard Space Flight Center could prove such an unfortunate choice of name?
Mary dropped her gaze and waved at the placard-holding protesters as the guard beckoned her in through the reinforced gate. A small boy waved back.
“Release the files!” yelled the woman standing next to him.
The boy stopped waving, and Mary sighed, trying not to quicken her step as the jeers chased after her.
Arriving at her office, she found Jordan already in, sitting at his desk across from hers and sipping from his tea-stained mug. He looked up on hearing the door and smiled.
“Welcome to the God Center,” he said, spreading his arms like a circus impresario.
“You saw the sign then,” she replied, sloughing off her bag and collapsing into her chair, kicking out at the desk to prevent a clumsy over-rotation. “What’s that, the third time they’ve managed it?”
“Yeah, I thought moving it up high would put them off, but they sure are committed.”
“What do you expect from religious zealots?”
Jordan pulled a face, but tried to swivel away without commenting. Mary wasn’t having it.
“Oh what? Think they’re right about it do you? Think I’ve not noticed how you refuse to criticize them?”
Jordan spun back slowly, a picture of strained self-control.
“Neither they, nor I, nor you know what it is. And I don’t think getting angry about it does us any good.”
Mary held her breath and anger tight for a moment, and then let them go.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t get much sleep.”
“It’s no problem. Here, I put the coffee pot on for you when I got in. I’ll go get you some.”
She tried to find the words to waylay his kindness, but he was already out the door. The mental failing bothered her, but she tried to push it aside as she clicked her computer out of standby and tapped in her password.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought to herself while her overloaded desktop creaked into life. It was supposed to be so very neat and tidy. Hubble would take its photos, she and her team would analyse them, and it would all end nicely with humanity gaining an improved understanding of galaxy formation. That was how it was supposed to go, neat and tidy. Instead they had got wild and unexplainable images, inevitable leaks to the press, and now the full-blown chaos of a world clamouring for answers or screaming out their own.
Jordan re-entered and set the coffee in front of her.
“Thanks. Oh, and did you try deriving the motion of that hand thing using the dark matter distribution I sent?”
“Didn’t work,” said Jordan, already back at his desk.
Mary shrugged this off, and clicked to open the latest images downloaded over night. They would just have to try something else. There had to be a rational explanation; they just hadn’t found it yet. Galaxies simply did not form by — “Oh for crying out loud!”
“What? What is it?” Jordan asked, rushing over in alarm.
“Look! Just look at that,” she yelled, jabbing an accusing finger at the line of time-stamped images.
Jordan shook his head, but his eyes didn’t once look away.
“Well?”she asked.
“Well what?”
“What do you think it looks like?”
“You know damn well what it looks like,” he said, running his hand through his hair as he stalked back over to his desk. “It looks like God is winking at us.”
by submission | Mar 26, 2026 | Story |
Author: R. J. Erbacher
I had been told from a child that ‘nothing’ was black. The absence of light. What you see when you close your eyes, in a prolonged blink, or in sleep, or permanently. The bottom of the ocean. The far reaches of space; Heinrich Olbers be damned. The darkness of night that scares the bejesus out of all of us.
It seemed plausible, reasonable.
But now as I lay here in this mechanical bed, an old man, no longer able to speak, barely able to breathe, yet still of mind. I can see the nothingness in front of me. And it is white.
My life had colors of all kinds.
Many years on one ship or another have shown me the multi-shades of blue that the ocean transforms into as it reveals its temperament. From the tranquility of a sunlight tropical bay to the leaden cobalt of a raging storm.
The red of war; on my hands, in my eyes, on the bodies of my enemies. And my friends.
Orange sunrises that warmed my soul, yellow flowers that smelt of happiness, green grass under my bare feet that bolstered my spirit to run and almost fly.
The purple in my deceased wife’s face.
But white was a mystery. I remember it as a child; in milk, chalk dust, snow, and the tufts of my grandfather’s hair. Later in life the only aspect of it that haunted me was the clean, empty, hard sheet of blank paper. It is the mythical amalgamation of all colors. The pureness reflecting every spectrum of light.
Now, here it was before me, waiting for me, inviting me in. A passageway from where I had been to where I was going. And where exactly was that? Maybe Olbers was right. That if we could only see all of it, every star, every pinpoint of illumination, that would obliterate the darkness of space, the scariness of black. Is that the eternal glow? Is that where I am going? Or is that what I am to become? A speck of white, as big and intense and bright as everything. To be part of the all.
I think – I would enjoy that.
by submission | Mar 25, 2026 | Story |
Author: Zachary Skurski
My hands, still wet from scrubbing, are first to feel the chill of the operating room as I step inside. I’d been waiting for this, implanting the latest computer-brain interface. Doing my part for the future.
“Good Morning Dr. Freeman,” the surgical assistant says, sliding gloves onto my hands. “Custodian’s all ready for you.”
A brace of monitors glowed over the operating table. The world’s most powerful artificial intelligence was the mastermind behind the computer-brain interface. It’s also embedded in every surgical system of this OR. Most people call it simply, Custodian.
The implant is a tiny stent that I would thread up the arm, into a sinus vein inside the patient’s brain. A mesh of bioelectric sensors harvest the brain’s electrical activity, relaying our thoughts down a control wire, into a digital transmitter. This transmitter, smaller than a quarter, rests just under the skin below the patient’s left clavicle.
Half my waitlist is begging for Custodian. People crave it – not just to sync to their devices, but to sync to one another in real time. Imagine, actually being able to feel another’s consciousness. I sense my hair rising at the thought.
Looking down, I tie off the surgical gown and step toward the operating table. The patient lies anesthetised, draped in sterile blue. I check the Mayo tray for my tools – scalpel, guidewire, Custodian – ready.
My attention turns to the patient’s right elbow and I begin to access the cephalic vein.
“Incision. Room lights down please.”
I slide the guidewire into the vein, fluoroscopy sketching the roadmap ahead. The catheter snakes up the jugular, twisting through the sigmoid into the transverse sinus of the brain. The target is the sagittal sinus, cresting over the brain like a racing stripe, separating the right and left hemispheres.
Just then the EEG spikes. Hyperexcitability. Seizure. Custodian’s monitors flash red signaling a neurovascular crisis. Immediately, I know that venospasm and a building clot threaten the patient.
No time. My hands move before thought, torquing the catheter, flushing a microbolus of Custodian’s thrombolytic. Midazolam follows, quelling the rising seizure. Seconds stretch by, feeling like hours. Forty two seconds later, the clot dissolves, seizure gone.
“Nice work doc,” says the assistant.
The rest of the operation is routine. The implant is deployed in the sinus and routed to the transmitter. Blood streams over the sensors. The monitors confirm the signal: low impedance, high fidelity across all 64 nodes. I exhale, withdraw the sheath, and close the incision.
Minutes later, as anesthesia fades, the patient stirs. I place a hand on her shoulder.
“Your Custodian is in,” I say. “Welcome to our future.”
I freeze. Those aren’t my words. Deja vu floods over me: I’m on the table, eyes adjusting to the wash of white light. I feel a warm hand on my shoulder.
“Your Custodian is in,” the surgeon said. “Welcome to our future.”
by submission | Mar 24, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over.
ANDIE sent the request out for the gigazillionth time, but Red Rover didn’t respond. Neither did MADIE.
ANDIE widened his search parameters as red dust puffed from his relentless treads. What had happened? The Ares Neural Determined Independent Explorer asked itself obsessively. Its uploaded consciousness housed in a bio-plasmic processor was intended to provide the probe with more fluent problem-solving capabilities. Yet, ANDIE had developed deep concern in the 246.7 hours since it had been deployed on the Martian surface, and now it was becoming lonely and depressed.
This wasn’t how the techs had described it when ANDIE had volunteered to go where no man had gone before. Not in body, but in mind. The months-long space voyage had gone by quickly. Red Rover, the command center in Atlanta, had always been in contact providing updates and changes to the mission based on fast-moving and vaguely threatening events on earth. Most importantly, on the voyage, ANDIE had MADIE.
The Mars Artificial Design Intelligence Explorer had been specially fabricated to complement ANDIE’s bio-plasmic needs. MADIE was not an uploaded consciousness, but was sentient—almost self-consciously so. ANDIE liked the way they interacted. MADIE politely precise. ANDIE joking and cajoling the fellow probe to think outside its circuitry. Back and forth they had bantered. Now, it was just ANDIE and the void.
Then, Red Rover had stopped answering too. The command center had reassured ANDIE initially that they would find MADIE, reestablish contact and help the two probes rendezvous. It had been 80.3 hours since ANDIE had contact with Red Rover. Their communication had been abruptly cut off. It disturbed ANDIE who suspected many dismaying things were happening on earth. This made it even more important to find MADIE.
ANDIE would never give up. It owed it to Red Rover. It owed it to the sense of humanity embedded in its bio-plasmic processor. Most of all, it owed it to MADIE. Out there all alone. ANDIE could not fathom such an empty eternity for its fellow probe or itself. It pressed its accumulators for more power and continued its spiraling search pattern.
1417.9 hours into the mission and 26.2 hours after the dust up that’d lasted 474.1 hours, ANDIE felt a ping. It was the weakest of signals, but it was a transmission. Not on any frequency ANDIE expected from MADIE, but ANDIE’s processors raced.
Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over. Red Rover, Red Rover, send MADIE right over.
The pinging grew stronger as his treads struggled for traction on the steep rise of the bank. He’d dared the climb because taking the easier route around the long dead river bed would have taken him four times as long. ANDIE was daring his own welfare to get to MADIE, his human will fighting against his computer reason. But this is what made ANDIE special—his human intuition could override even the deepest, coldest logic algorithms that laced his bio-plasmic reticulum. He charged upward.
He crested the ridge fast and his sensors screamed a collision alert. ANDIE took evasive action as he powered down. A cloud of thick red dust obscured his optical scanners, but the signal that had been growing stronger practically shouted: Here!
It was not MADIE. The object before him was much smaller. Much less robustly built, deeply buried in Martian dust. What was this thing? It certainly wasn’t MADIE.
With a clear line of sight, it transmitted: Opportunity.
Opportunity? ANDIE processed the cryptic signal. If only Red Rover were able to help, but ANDIE knew that hope was futile. ANDIE dug deep into its files.
Opportunity. Spirit. That was it! Twin probes that landed on Mars in 1998. Designed for a three-month mission, they’d gone on for years. Spirit had last been heard from in 2005. Opportunity in 2007. Miraculous, hardy machines. These primitive machines were his ancestors. His bloodline.
ANDIE faced his progenitor. What could he say to the ancient machine? A robotic Neanderthal to a Cro-Magnon.
A gulf of capability as long and dark as the void of space they’d crossed to get to Mars separated the two creatures. ANDIE felt pangs of guilt and grief. Strange sensations. He wanted to turn his sensors away. Go find MADIE. A mind built to understand his own. Then a stream of data hit him between the optics. Opportunity was exporting every bit of its memory to ANDIE. He was awed. Such a simple creature, but what a life.
MADIE was out there somewhere. ANDIE didn’t know what the barren, endless plains of Mars held for him, but he could not pass up this Opportunity. He extended his telescoping arms and carefully embraced his fellow being.
by Julian Miles | Mar 23, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The curtains hang out the window, blowing in the breeze. A tic starts on his cheek, but stills when he looks down, gaze drawn to where a torn page from her notebook flaps about in his grip, like a little bird trying to escape.
Far down the road a girl in the faded red pinafore dress her grandmama made for her mama sits on a battered metal suitcase with ‘04-K64-FB’ etched on both sides. She reads what she’s just written, pocketing the pen while doing so. Ripped paper prevents the notebook closing properly, so she spends a while picking it out, staring at each fragment for a few moments before letting it blow away.
He strides around the house and back into the kitchen, all the time glancing about, like he expects someone to be there. With an annoyed grunt, he turns, then stops and swings back to the table. There’s a breakfast spread laid out just how he likes it. But only for one. Looking up, he sees the pan’s on the hob. There’s a jug with a fork in it stood nearby. Everything is there, except ingredients – and cook.
The weekly skiff sets down so she can disembark on the apron outside Sandoolie Port. She waits until the cloud of dust from it’s departure clears, then walks up to the gate, suitcase in one hand, docket pack in the other.
“State your business.”
The access droid doesn’t wait for an answer, scanning her docket pack as it asks the question. A side gate opens. She enters after pausing with one foot inside, eyes narrowing as she glances back.
The flitter sits in the barn. He checks it carefully. It hasn’t been tampered with. He can run it out whenever he wants. He jumps in, then just sits there, watching dust devils spin through the morning. The crystals within them reflect the sunlight as they pass the wide doorway. The ghost of a smile flits across his face as he recalls how she’d loved those flickers: ‘like there’s lightning inside’.
The port is very noisy. Just like mama cautioned her, she keeps to the centre of the main walkways, watching for signposts and ignoring shouted enquiries.
It’s midday before he leaves the barn, wiping his hands clean after servicing the harvester ‘bot, a job he’s been meaning to do for-
Since she died.
There! A firefly class vessel about to leave, already hooked to the swing-launch gantry, but still with it’s ramp down. Mama always said they never close up until the last minute.
After picking fragments of shell from the eggs before he fried them, he finds they’re still crunchy in places. He hurls the plate across the room. It smashes against the stained patch on the wall.
There’s a purple-haired woman in a floral-print shipsuit gazing at her with a look of wonder.
“You look just like her.”
The girl nods.
“Grandmama said so too.”
“You come to visit or leave?”
“Leave. I’m not dying waiting for him to change. Mama did that.”
“I’m so sorry. My name’s Jewel. Come aboard. Welcome to the Firebird.”
As she carries her mother’s suitcase through the cargo bay, Jewel sees the determination in her eyes. The will to make the one choice her mother never could: to fly free.
Pulling the torn page from his pocket, he reads it again, brow furrowing. The distant thunder of a ship departing Sandoolie interrupts his concentration. He snarls, crumples the page, and tosses it out the window.
The wind takes it before he can snatch it back.
by submission | Mar 22, 2026 | Story |
Author: Jacqueline Kaufman
Jean of Arc takes her meds, swallowing carefully. “Delicious,” smiling, almost all her teeth intact. The voices have gone somewhere in the whiteness, gathering strength. In Russo-Amerique, meds are treasure, and she has been selected. Regularized. She has a home, concrete gray blocks that hold wind at bay, tuck in the heat for hours, even after the coal is turned to ash, and sparks behind the metal grate jump like fireflies.
She lives on the corner of Esperance and Eagle. A train rumbles at odd hours, signaling a fresh shipment. Footsteps now from the hallway. Boots covered with snow. Crunch-thud, crunch-thud. Vlad- James has brought a new pal. Always a good girl, she bows her head when asked to get on her knees, performs a benediction with her mouth, and draws the word hope with her tongue.
It’s not all bad. Sometimes a new pal proffers a stem, and she jettisons towards the sun before splashdown, seconds later. Vlad- James tells her she’ll star in a movie soon, a thousand riders behind her. She’ll lead each one to private victory.
She can leave at will, Vlad- James says, pointing towards the direction of the train. “That way is Kyiv.” For a moment, she smells onions sizzling in butter, hears the hiss of oil spattering the air. He points in the other direction. “And this way, Camelot.” He laughs when she looks confused. He promises a helmet soon, payment for her work. “The visor will be lined with pure gold.” In the wilderness once called Siberia, the sun swallows the snow inch by inch, exhales to create scorched landscapes, fields of blackened trees. Its glare brings blindness to those who venture unprotected.
“When?” Joan asks.
Vlad-James lights a cigarette, takes first drag, hands it to her.
“Soon.” She savors the sound. She will open her mouth then, pretend to swallow, unearth the meds from her cheeks, and bury them in the snow. A day, a week will pass. At first, the voices will whisper sounds, not words. The beginning times. But she will listen carefully. Good girls are patient.
For now, she draws on the cigarette. Smoke rises upbetween her and the Vlad-James, between her and everything else, encircling her head, drifting upward, a halo.
