Author: John Xavier A swarm of monarch butterflies jewelled the banyan trees and oscillated between these like autumnal leaf-shower as the blue span of Neptune gleamed beyond. The planet took up most of the circular window because the bio-sanctuary orbiting it was tidally ...

Author: Kevlin Henney Alcohol is not permitted onboard any landing vehicles or habitats. "Damn, Natalya!" Don chokes. "You sure this is vodka not fuel?" "It's good, right?" Natalya takes back the cylindrical metal flask. "And you distilled this on the way ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The airflow drops to nothing again. After the circulation noises cease, I wait as silence becomes a roaring thing that threatens to drown my mind. There’s a distant ‘thud’. The noises resume. Feeling cool air against hot sweat, I blot my ...

Author: Melissa Kobrin “No, your nose is too big for you to be him.” Ryan glared at his best friend. Samuel lay on the bed next to him, looking unrepentant. “You should be glad you have such a big nose, it’ll make it easier to figure out who your pattern is,” he ...

Author: David Dumouriez In the old days (that is, in the time of the bitten fruit company), people had worn these things in order to track the duration and patterns of their sleep. Now Nexus had stolen the market by developing a quantum neural network which had the ability ...

Author: Leigh-Anne Burley Mary's living room wall quivered, peeling back like delicate skin. It revealed a mirror image of her own space, but someone had painted the walls light gray instead of the familiar light blue. In a corner, a young man who bore a striking ...

Author: Mark Renney It didn’t take us long, as a group, to work out that Jonathan had been fitted with an implant. It wasn’t that he’d changed, he was still our same infuriating friend. Unfocused and unreliable, Jonathan was the group’s party animal, the one who didn’t put ...

Author: David M. Herman Five to eight. I try not to live by the clock, but school administrators, neck-deep in institutional syrup, insist. Result: the kids have to be up and washed and dressed and fed and transported by a specific hour. Margot, glowing after her morning ...

Author: Majoki When Billy Pilgrim applied for a stockroom job at Vonnegut Hardware in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, he was informed by the manager that he was overqualified. When asked in what way, he was told the position did not require any time traveling ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s been a while since the supplemental power went out. Well, I say ‘went out’, but what happened is Lasta shut down anything non-essential to preserve the power banks. Until the core is back online, there’s nothing else. Director ...

Author: Vaughn Simmonds The first thing the villagers saw was a tiny black dot in the sky. It wasn’t moving. As more noticed, murmurs spread through the crowd. Nobody could tell what it was. They went to their wise woman, hunched over the dying embers of a fire. She did ...

Author: Vera Marie Scott Those places that you go when you dream. Some indefinable sensation settles across your head and chest, and you half expect to either pass out or wake up, either way having faded through something that was neither here nor there. Another part of ...

Author: Alastair Millar “Damnedest thing, had a fly in my quarters last night.” We were back at Marvin’s, me and the crew, kicking back after a double shift. It’s not the fanciest place in town, and not the cleanest or most reputable, but it’s solid. The kind of place they ...

Author: John Carey “I know everything seems somewhat clichéd, Master George. Rest assured, you have passed.” The little machine beeped happily. It wasn’t wrong either: a plain white room, translucent skin, and a top-down view of a corpse. All the boxes had certainly been ...

Author: Colin Jeffrey Deep in the remote Amazon jungle, Professor Reginald Cowhopper knew he was close. The host plant was there, the time of year was right, and locals had even reported sightings of pupae. Scouring the forest floor, he caught a flash of red and yellow ...

Author: Majoki Shalimayne raised the being. Carried close to her bosom everywhere she went, the being experienced all she did, all she said, all she felt. For twenty years. Then Shalimayne named it. And birthed it into the world. TINA It was hailed as an AI like no ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The distant glow on the horizon fades. On every screen, only night and stars are visible. “What now, sir?” A fat man in a too-tight uniform turns to regard the lean attendant. “We are victorious. Carry on, operator. You will be ...

Author: Colin Jeffrey As I neared the top of the hill on my morning run, I took in the glorious vista before me. Great clouds of rolling grey mist blanketed the surrounding cliff tops as flocks of hovering mice formed a wheeling layer of... Hang on. "Mice"? Mice, ...