Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Sometimes, when I try too hard, the words abandon me. It’s frustrating, sitting at an untidy desk with a mind free of story clutter. Just think, I would say. Just think like you’ve got a pocket muse who you can call upon. I’d go and make ...

Author: Kiley M. Campbell “Less than twenty percent is still intact,” said Rehwa. “For the entire precinct?” Komaer boggled. Rehwa nodded grimly. “I’d guess the whole province is roughly the same. Nothing’s left of the city. The last of the outer expansions are ...

Author: Alastair Millar “Look guys, I just wanted to say, like, thanks for being here. I needed it.” Mack had downed over a litre of the house distillate, and was slurring his words. “You okay, man?” I asked. I was the newbie on the work crew, but when Old Man Doug had ...

Author: Susan A. Anthony Huge spherical objects, each with a pale green tail, laid end to end seemed to stretch forever. The interior roof of the building was a dome shape, also green. The floor concave and squishy underfoot. She reached down, pulling at the white ...

Author: Alzo David-West an autonomous neural capsule drifts in the orion nebula This is my star song to you. Here I am in this watercolor night. Listen. Hear my whisper. I love you. My words will travel across the cloudy trails. And even ...

Author: Mark Renney All those who can afford to are jumping ahead. Almost everyone has the App, and those who don’t are excluded, and are seen as social pariahs. This is how we now connect, where we communicate. Admittedly the App isn’t any different to the other platforms, ...

Author: Majoki on the white poppy a butterfly’s wing is a keepsake A keepsake? More likely a ransom. The cost of freedom. Basho understood this, the price of cutting loose, of becoming or regaining the self, whatever its toll. His haiku relied on kireji, cutting words, ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Four figures sit on folding chairs scattered about a moonlit clearing. “Agent Doir. This is your first time, isn’t it?” He turns his attention to the nearest impossibility: a goose-sized pale skinned humanoid with multiple pairs of ...

Author: Sylvia Melvin The atmosphere in our spacecraft was charged with excitement as I, along with a crew of four, drew closer to our destination. For three long years, we journeyed through this endless expanse of startling beauty. Lone specks of shimmering starlight stood ...

Author: Sandra Paul The birth of things. The beginning and the end, All intertwined In a cycle called LIFE. She danced under the plumeria tree, swirling like a creature born arthropod—graceful and wild. The cold air kissed her bare ...

Author: Alfredo Capacho The deletion queue blinked patiently on Arin’s console, each consciousness backup represented by a small, pulsing icon. Most were routine: expired licenses, voluntary purges, memory consolidations. Nothing unusual. Until he reached File ...

Author: Jillian Schedneck It was the day after the wedding and everyone else would be hungover from the moonshine, the blodaskov, and the quantum gulps. Arden hadn’t swallowed any of that. She left the others to their beds, partners holding each other’s hair back as they ...

Author: Alastair Millar Don’t be nervous. I don’t know how tight you are with Johnny Red-Eyes, but he wouldn’t send a customer somewhere dangerous. I don’t bite. What can you call me? Just ‘Jane’ will do. I don’t need to know your name. Johnny’s paying me good for this ...

Author: Majoki The hall hushed when Toynbee took the stage, a first for an HDM. Typically, there would be snide remarks, a general sense of junior high rudeness at the appearance of an HDM. Because, really, who took a holo-digi-man seriously? HDMs were binary shills, ones ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s an awful mess. Jamie chuckles. I stop myself from snarling at him. Taking an extra breath before replying, I manage to keep my tone curious. “You find something funny about mass death, Mister Crea?” He looks at me and nods, ...

Author: Don Nigroni Abby, As you know, I never liked your husband and tried to talk you out of marrying him. But I never told you that, when we were kids and he lived next door, I once spied him in his backyard slicing the legs off a turtle he had put on its back. Last ...

Author: Alfredo Capacho After the Collapse, when machines devoured memory and history, humanity discovered a strange salvation: stories could be coaxed into flesh. A whispered myth became a bird. A bedtime tale became a guardian. Every narrative left the tongue and walked ...

Author: Anselm Eme The sky over Karu, a crowded settlement on the edge of Abuja, glows the colour of burnt copper. People blame Sahara dust. Inspector Daramola Owei knows better. Dust does not hum. Dust does not vibrate the bones. He stands on a cracked rooftop, ...