Author: Josie Gowler My exoskeleton is in an uncooperative mood again. It doesn’t stop my daily march out of the camp and round the city, it just makes it more difficult. I’ve already lurched to two appointments today: first psych (boring) and then meditation ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The lover of cats does not so much love the little sycophant balls of fur as he craves their affection. Anything, any trace of attention directed toward the frost of his cold and achingly lonely existence. Even as they pander to him solely ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The breeze from the windows is lethargic, like everything else in the oppressive heat and humidity. Tutor Phenedras shakes his head in resignation and puts down the cane he’s been using to point out the finer points of ‘Machiavellian ...

Author: Chidumebi Ikechi Njoku-Browne "I want to change my afterlife!", screamed Jeanette McCormick at the floating hologram in front of her. It was a hologram of a Renaissance-era Cherub, wearing an anachronistic late 20th-century full male business attire which looked out ...

Author: Stephen Duffin Bracken poked my eyes as I crouched low in the undergrowth. An armed guard walked past, fiddling with his rifle. Intruders were shot dead. I'd zapped past barbed wire fences using a rusty teleportation-belt strapped to my waist. Three loose ...

Author: Thomas Mills Muscles ache to the point of insensibility. Crucified on a wrought iron framework, I wait. There. Listen. There it is again. In the distance….thunder? Or my imagination. Twenty-three other souls hear it. Infectious fear spreads among us. Lashed without ...

Author: David Barber The child has learned a lot of things. It knows about the food machines and how to trick them; it knows where a tap drips water to drink, and it learned early on about light and dark. It learned the lights in the ceilings get tired too, but ...

Author: DJ Lunan “I supply water just like my ancestors did”, discloses Chinza in quiet but precise home-world English. Mkoe’s always returns to this sole recording of Chinza, even though he’d died of cholera on Earth over one hundred years before her birth on Neptune. ...

Author: David C. Nutt I don’t remember dying, and I don’t remember much of my living, but I do remember here and now. I am a human brain, once a human named Doug… (or was it Mike?) Anyway, brain in android bi-pedal human form body, resurrected for research and experimental ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer War is a sanguisuge. The blood thief, taker of light and life and sleep that is sound. The old one who rips speech from shocked throats and piss-stains the sheets of the brave. Two fat men sit in a room leafed in gold. A dirty pact ...

Author: Jack Bates Rae smiled as patiently as she could. The elderly man sitting across from her gave her that look of confusion so many other clients expressed upon hearing their claim had been denied. “I don’t understand,” the man said. “Back in twenty-twenty, that ...

Author: Coleman Bomar The doctor scowled in disgust behind an orange Hazmat mask, began to remove the feeding tube and said, “1284, I suppose by now you’re tired of being fed through your sinus or whatever the hell you things call it. Well, I have bad news, we are ...

Author: David C. Nutt “Thank you for your service,” she said. “Thank you for your support,” I replied with the appropriate level of expected gratitude. The hardware store clerk saw the veterans imprint on my license. I didn’t ask for it, it’s required by law. Still, it’s ...

Author: David K Scholes “When they transported us down time to the original colony I thought we would at least have the place to ourselves,” Urrle was indignant. “Apart from the dinosaurs of course.” “We did,” I replied, “we did for a while.” “Until “they” started ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Kaz got close enough to town for broadband wireless access before hunkering down in a culvert under the roadway. His suit's AI ran the standard duck and cover protocols, scouring for low-security funding resources, supplies available for ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer I hate women. I really do. I guess that's probably why I chose this life. Or maybe it’s as they say, it’s this life that chose me. I’d heard that up here in the colonies the women are obedient. That they do as they’re damn well ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The fan on the ceiling turns slowly, another kitsch feature of this fake colonial era hospital. I do not know when hospitals started to compete for trade, but the ‘healing ambience’ vogue has been out of control - and good taste - for a ...

Author: Mandira Pattnaik Summer 2039, Tokyo: Goats read the evening news on TV. Goats? Yes! Take it, or leave it! Not goats, Sam! Kamala had once corrected me. I had been silent then. It’s so much better to buy peace with your spouse even if you know better! I had worked ...