Author: David C. Nutt Dimitri sat up as the semi-viscous fluid keeping him alive in suspended animation oozed off his body. “Ship, how long have we been in fluid?” There was an unexpected pause that stretched longer than Dimitri would have liked. “Commander, the ship logs ...

Author: Alzo David-West Charles Hooper had been away for twelve years. No one was precisely sure where he went, though there were indications he had joined the Space Corps as a volunteer for the generational residents and the new settlers on the Martian and the Jupiterian ...

Author: Janet Shell Anderson The thing I just saw dead on the road is huge. It’s not human. I’m glad of that. I stop, back up, hear no sound of coming traffic; no one’s around. Since it’s early October, the fields look shaved, most of the corn already harvested. I ...

Author: Thomas Desrochers “I give this gift to the people of tomorrow. On the precipice of this great twilight I take comfort in knowing that as our ports run dry and our rails rust the people of the world will always have access to the materials needed to shape the world ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer My grandmother is five hundred and ninety-two years old. Left to her own devices and the pitiless march of time this wonderful woman, who is actually my many times great grandmother, would have slipped away and into the finality of ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The tip of the cigarette glows red as I slowly inhale. The taste of the black tobacco momentarily overwhelms my receptors. I wind their sensitivity down and cancel the ‘inhaled toxin’ warnings. The second drag goes down without alerts. I ...

Author: David Hartley Perhaps it would have been better, somehow, if this had been sample #142 or #96 or #305, something innocuous and meaningless but no, it was sample number one, the first, and he already wanted to taste it. He’d tried blaming a few other things: it had ...

Author: Daniel Hampton I rested my eyes upon the tessellated sphere. It was such a beautiful dream. It was such a spectacular failure. If the world is a golf ball, then I’m the one who drove it straight into the bottom of the lake. My club? A thing so simple, so deadly, so tempting. My ...

Author: Mike Bailey The box sat upon the table. It was inanimate, but strange waves of light moved across its surface and Roman felt a tingle in the back of his head like the beginning of a headache. The box had been carefully placed there on that smooth glass table and ...

Author: Thomas Desrochers Rebecca set her fork down. “Be honest with me. How is work going? I mean, really.” He sighed, shoulders rolling forward. “It’s bad. Real bad.” Damn, she hated to see that look in his eyes. She reached across the table and snaked her fingers ...

Author: Ian Hill The fat man sits in his high place. His presence is revealed by the twitch and wiggle of an oversized quill over the rim of his lectern. When not penning away, he’s spotted by the crunch of a nut in the jaws of his bearded cracking doll, by the discarded ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer There is life out there in the radium sea. A solitary orb of blue and green. A place where oceans are poisoned and bombs they are cast and beauty is carved out of words. So alien, so different. Though so much is the same and children they ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “If any can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let them now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold their peace.” The traditional silence falls. Then a grating voice sounds in everyone’s minds. “I speak for the ...

Author: John McLaughlin "Christ, this place is a dump." Paul Braun glanced around the offices of Organic Transport, Columbus branch. Dust-streaked fliers pepper the walls: Fifty-Thousand Credit Reward for Water Smugglers... "Food Rioters To Be Shot On Sight," says ...

Author: Mark Joseph Kevlock The metaphysical archive didn't have as many visitors as it used to. Satch understood that. Still, he treated each one with all the kindness he could muster. The past was important to keep alive. Round about six-thirty on Saturday night, a ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Rebecca stood in the middle of her little gallery and surveyed her work. She'd hoped her recent direction was going to be different, maybe spark some kind of reaction from this sleepy little town, but the series hadn't gotten anything more ...

Author: David Henson I regain consciousness in a small hut made from sweet-smelling grass and blue sticks. A male garbed in the same type of grass stands over me. When he notices my eyes are open, he looks away and begins clicking and whistling. I ask about my crewmates. He ...

Author: Ian Hill Affin slipped and slid over the lumpy white slopes. Her hair hung clotted with curdy chunks, and irritating crescents of tallow lingered under her fingernails; most of her skin was hidden under smeared wax; her clothes were heavy with clinging runoff. After ...