Author: Philip Tudball “You know what the worst part of it all is?” Harper reflected “It’s the codpiece. Definitely the codpiece. I mean the food is rubbish and my health plan is currently non-existent” Harper picked another louse from his hair, just to reinforce the point ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The bright lights seem colder, shining from tall glass towers, set against a sky made starless by clouds. Nearer are the lights that adorn the forest of Christmas trees on the plaza above. Closer still are the control boards that flicker ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The Dentist turns onto Fremont Street. Pausing, he slips a hand beneath the lapel of his jacket and massages the laudanum that eases the needles that scratch in his chest. The double-action Thunderer that hangs at his hip will feel ...

Author: KevS I watch them squabbling like vermin. Vicious, pathetic vermin. 3 months ago they arrived, answering the beacon. In 2 months they exhausted the food. Like vermin they have numbers, so I watch, I wait. In the first month, they harvested rocks, heating them ...

Author: Philip Tudball We explore. As a species, it is both what we do and defines who we are. It is what we have always done, since the first of us gazed outwards and wondered. We took ships and travelled out into the unknown, planting our flags on distant shores. The ...

Author: Rick Tobin Charlene, a bubbly, buxom blonde graduate student from Rutgers, acting as a freshly appointed aide-de-camp to a hatchling President, turned sour overnight. Her daily briefing notes were disheveled, poking from her leather daily briefing binder, held close ...

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 His war and its scattered detritus have now long since been replaced by ...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 ...