Author: Mark Joseph Kevlock "I'm finished at last." Tommy pulled Mariel by the hand as they ran through the nearby woods. "I've retrofitted the structure with twin rocket pods sufficient to achieve orbit." Mariel did not know what her best friend was talking ...

Author: Irene Montaner “So, what is it?” Dan asks. I don’t know. I think it’s a flower but I don’t remember its name. I add another brushstroke to my watercolour painting. Another red leaf, longer than all the other ones and I paint some green leaves too. Red and dark ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer I was going to say that everyone knows of Shoichi Yokoi, the Japanese soldier who hid for many years, not knowing that the war had ended. But most, probably, do not. His war and its scattered detritus have now long since been replaced by ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m sitting in a luxurious café on the seafront at Torslit, watching ten-metre-tall purple waves break across the dome, when a news article catches my eye on the ever-present infofeed. “Police today released the constructed image of a ...

Author: Philip Tudball Etrian blocked a glaive swing that would have decapitated him, moving backwards and trying to find his balance. His attacker leapt in again, sweeping a low strike at his legs. Another hurried parry and another step back. A third attack, this a stab ...

Author: Malcolm Carvalho Sneha glances at me and adjusts the collar of her gravsuit. The ocean depths are unforgiving to these elite land dwellers, even with their gravsuits and this room’s pressure neutralizing field. Yet they need this place. She shoots a dictating glance ...

Author: Justin Williams “Shit...” Velia pulled the car over on the side of the road as the check engine light flashed. The car sputtered to a stop and Velia glanced at the rearview mirror. Lily shifted in her sleep, causing a stretching sound to emanate from the leather ...

Author: Damien Titchener His mind had never felt such warm serenity before this. Gazing upon the world below, the mix of whites, blues, and greenish browns coalesced into a vision of unmatched beauty. His sense of pride looking at this pale blue dot, as a great Earth ...

Author: Phillip E Temples I know he’s at work right now. I called his office number earlier from a burner phone and he answered. I slip quietly into the hallway of the apartment complex, looking in both directions from the stairwell door. It’s the middle of the morning; no ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The rain is sharp as the one-armed man pulls his daughter up the gray steps and barges his shoulder to the door and staggers from the dark night and into the old psychiatric hospital’s milky black gloom. Steadying, he listens. He knows the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Crane somersaults over my head with a gleeful shout. He lands behind me in the crater as a spray of purple fire lashes by above us. “Why are you so bleedin’ happy?” “I love it when a war doesn’t fuck about.” “Come again?” He waves his ...

Author: Mike Croatan We were made of clay. We spread across the earth like a virus, even before we became one. We fed off the earth itself until there was a myriad of us. Then we became cannibals. Devouring each other mercilessly, we doubled, tripled, quadrupled, until we ...

Author: KevS The old lady lays, eyes closed beneath the crisp white sheet and soft pink wool blanket. The blanket is rare, the last sheep seen centuries ago, but she is wealthy, and her records told me, she had this as a child on Terra, something handed down through ...

Author: Rick Tobin “Was food satisfying?” A mechanical, calm, nondescript voice asked from invisible speakers. “It was cold. I need warm food. You know that.” Zuri sat cross-legged, staring into a video wall displaying an exquisite Zen garden spreading to an indefinite ...

Author: DJ Lunan I work nights. Protecting the humans roosting in my cave. Well, those that can pay in protein, dry wood, and nurture. Here they roost. Sleep, love, cry, shit. This winter, our protein and vegetable larder is stocked but we are perpetually at risk. During ...

Author: Rick Tobin Ranson picked at a sharp raspberry seed wedged tightly between canine and incisor, stubbornly poking a nerve in his aging gums, distracting attention from a therapist’s droning. “Your weight is ignored by some on this ship, but as the assigned analyst ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The Detective lays in the warming twist of the hot-tub, an outrigger cocoon that juts, one of many, from this recreation floor high above the 2211th Precinct. The steam peels away thoughts of her desk and of stacked files of death and ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I encounter God at midnight in a convenience store. She’s chatting with the bloke behind the counter while making herself a caramel latte on the new coffee machine. “So I said to him, you shouldn’t service rich people all the time. Try ...