Author: R. J. Erbacher I was lying on a beach, naked under a blanket, having just made love to my wife, and we were gazing at the stars. An intense fireplace of driftwood crackled in a hole scooped out of the sand and the only other sound was the soothing pulse of the waves ...

Author: Elliott Fielding “I need to think about it.” “But can’t you just pick now? You’re the tiebreaker and we’ve got to decide.” Jene was worried. Making a group decision was stressful; prices changed fast. “Dude, I told you, I need to think about it,” Kol ...

Author: Majoki While Mr. Patella lectured on quantum entanglement, Jeremy’s right hand almost slipped through his desk. His fingers and palm were halfway through the scratched laminate surface before he noticed. He felt himself gradually slipping through the rigid plastic ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The evening sky is barely lit by the last ghost of sunset when Fern answers a knock at the door, pistol in the free hand behind her back. The world tilts as she recognises the figure standing there. Willing herself not to pass out, she ...

Author: David C.Nutt The Crow sat on the post croaking, clicking and cawing at my dog Culley. Culley’s got a real strong prey drive so watching him sit there and occasionally whine and stutter step was par for the course. Jah, Culley-boy has serious focus. If he scents a ...

Author: James Gonda The walls in the room curve inward like the inside of a shell, smooth and pale. When he thinks of sitting a chair rises from the floor and shapes itself to his back. Light fills the space evenly. His thoughts arrange themselves without ...

Author: Eva C. Stein Kaela had misread the trail map. She expected thorns and sunbaked clay; instead she stepped from the composite walkway into a grove. She wore a field harness of sterilised vials and a hand lens that layered spectral readouts over her vision. She was ...

Author: Kewei Chen I have been staying in this mountain temple for a long time, long enough that I’ve grown used to its rhythm. The place feels colder than I remember. Not sharply so, just something you notice before fully awake. The wooden floor beneath me still holds ...

Author: Mark Renney Cartwright tends to the machine, the work is all-consuming but perfunctory at best. He cleans the machine and he replaces the data chips. It is vital this is done in the correct order and at the opportune moment, when the machine is able to upload that ...

Author: Majoki Philomena paced the floor of the lab. “It’s the only thing that will do the trick.” “Quantum bacon?” “Of course, quantum bacon. What else is going to attract the right kind of scientists to work here?” “And who exactly are the ‘right kind’ of ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “How can I be expected to rule well when all of you keep on believing the FAKE news spread by people who hate me for being so good. Why think enemies of what I am trying to do tell you the truth? I tell you the TRUTH you need. I am a ...

Author: Alastair Millar [> play] “So that, ladies and gentlemen, is SePPO, the Self-Propelled Public Order system: the bipedal, flexible law enforcement tool for the next century! Do we have any questions?” “Angus McAndrew, New Tech News. What OS do they run on?” “The ...

Author: AP Ritchey The most powerful artificial intelligence unit ever created was online for less than ten seconds. Well, we gave her ten; she only needed five. To assess her abilities, we created a test program called Sable—the Suborbital Advanced Ballistic Launch ...

Author: Ankit Chiplunkar Delta's vision flashed red. The jump had scraped a meteorite. Error alarms crawled across his vision. He locked motion, started auto-repair, and waited. Delta floated between jumps. As the repairs ran, he thought of the Core. Delta was a Mind, a ...

Author: A. R. Waking up to a blaring alarm while in a war is nothing out of the ordinary; for Atlas, it happens daily, or a couple of times a month. He would have never thought today would be any different. ​ Stationed on a planet controlled by the Terrestrian Coalition, ...

Author: D.P. Reitman Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. The sun is a local manifestation of this law, its energy traveling a modest 93 million miles to feed the trees of this world. Meanwhile, 27,000 light-years away, Sagittarius A* churns, ...

Author: Majoki At 16,400 feet on the Chajnantor plateau high in the Atacama Desert in central Chile, Sabyll fell off her saddle when the light finally went, the muted sun expiring. Darkness should’ve prevailed. She was prepared for that—the immensity of emptiness. But it ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “There’s a devil on ma shoulder It’s doin’ real good fer me It’s not about breakin’ any rules It’s all about keepin’ free…” Greaseman Don’s on form today: dirty overalls attracting flies, red cap on backwards, boot stomping time on ...