Author: Brooks C. Mendell Day jobbers think offices clean themselves. They show up in the morning at their desks, put down their gourmet coffee on coasters their kids made, flick the mouse and check the Inbox without wondering who swept the floors or removed the lettuce ...

Author: Ken Carlson “This a good trade, Tommy; a good trade.” “Yes, Mister President.” “It’s the kind of deal that’s good for America. Maybe it’s my greatest trade ever.” “Yes, Mister President, right this way, sir.” The President and Thomas Lee Jarvis, a junior ...

Author: DJ Lunan The Zeppelidrone hovered soundlessly outside the window blinking its countdown, indicating less than twenty minutes to make our decision to sign the contract. “You will need to be sterilised before we can go, no natal medical facilities on-board”, said ...

Author: Thomas Desrochers Bg’lkk Ut’rk had found the blue jewel with its eccentric inhabitants and decided he wouldn’t make contact. His name sounded like “big lick” in the planet’s principle political and business language, and he was of the opinion that first contact by ...

Author: Jamie Bainbridge-Wood Marshal was a photographer, an anachronist and a killer. Before we met, he hadn't bothered to iCap any of the women he had finished with: he used an old camera, the print kind. That's a throwaway fact- an affectation- for someone who isn't a ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer Her fingers are young but they feel wrapped in the heft of ancient mountains as she writes. Her nails are blotched with ink but she remembers the taste of the paint, that which she mined from beneath their tips as she thought with the edge ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer We dash around a long curve that should get us out of their sights for a while. “In all those old films we watched, fighting the evil empire involved a lot less running away from angry warriors with frighteningly accurate weapons.” Freya ...

Author: DJ Lunan “London is ours! Zero-ing in on infamy!” announced Haggard Elsson, winking to the air steward and striding purposefully from the First Class exit from BA0171 with his Executive Assistant Freya trailing him, awkwardly wheeling both of their ...

Author: James Hornby In all my days on Gulliver's Rest, I never believed that the War would reach us. From the window, I see the sky is pitted with scars from the wreckage of an Artari Sunskipper, ripped from history in a series of blinding flashes. I came to this planet to ...

Author: Malcolm Carvalho Pa is sleeping. It’s one of his intermittent naps. They said the meds would make him drowsy all day. He looks serene when he is asleep, even in these fifteen-minute sessions. Must be enough time to mine his memories, and perhaps a little of his ...

Author: Thomas Desrochers The sweaty politicians like to remind us that the EcoFasc League were monsters, especially before we do a round of flyovers. “Remember,” they scream at us, “remember the billions.” We come in off the eastern seaboard. It’s lovely this time of ...

Author: David Henson “Hi, Dad, how are you today?” “Same old, same old, Danny. Come in.” Daniel and Stanley go into the kitchen, and the two sit at the table. Stanley begins scribbling in a notepad. “I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re writing about, Dad,” Stanley ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer She makes love to him in the long grass that encircles the base of the old stone lighthouse in a moat of shivering green. His untrained skin too it quivers. Though her hands they grip and caress as her passion it distills and smooths him ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The bridge is quiet. After the last escapade, everyone’s resting in some way or other. I do my down time relaxation up here, working through the after-battle reports to assess where we can improve. “Captain Dulles.” I look up and back to ...

Author: Joseph S. Pete Clive never thought it would come back to haunt him, what he wrote for one of the more widely read zines on the punk scene, even if some disparaged it as “Big Brother’s Little Brother” or a “bullshit preacher of phony authenticity,” even if it were ...

Author: Katie Venit It was a clear Tuesday in May at the Eden Garden Center when a new universe commenced between the petunias and marigolds, just left of the snapdragons. Initially the size of a speck, it was easily mistaken for atmospheric sparkle. Within days, the ...

Author: David K Scholes Canberra, Australia 2085 Janelle looked on, in disbelief. “I recognise some of this stuff,” she said pointing to a collection of head set/self-moulding ear plug combinations. “They look like crude old fashioned noise nullifiers.” “Also those ...

Author: Lisa Conti Until today, I had only seen government-sanctioned flames. And I had never felt them; never known how heat could change so rapidly with distance. Never smelled smoke. Never felt so guilty. Of course, I would never take fire above ground; and I would never ...