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 ...

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 ...