Author: DJ Lunan Clarke peered mesmerised through the tiny pod’s porthole at the forested planet, verdant, moist and fertile stretching to the horizon. He smiled, doubting it could save his soul, but it was certainly rescuing his mood. Six years wearing a HAZMAT suit in 50 ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer “Will there be zombies?”, she asks and I shake my head no and we weave around the discarded limbs and the stalled cars and sodden newspapers with pages that no longer flick and away from this city of rot. “You do know who I am…”, offers ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer On a far balcony, people are starting to panic. A crystal goblet flashes rainbow reflections as it tumbles, the hand that held it snatched backwards so quickly the goblet falls straight down. The holder was my target: now more a thing of ...

Author: Michael Hopkins Olivia told me she saw a double rainbow. She said it just as she stepped through the front door. Water dripped from her long brown hair onto the wood floor entryway, she said it was a sign from god, an answer to her prayers. This was after she saw ...

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 ...