Author: Marcel Neumann After years of living in an unjust world, being disillusioned by an ideology I once thought held promise and having lost faith in humanity’s collective desire to live in harmony, I decided to live off the grid in a remote Alaskan village. Any needed ...

Author: Majoki They call us the new DJs—Dream Jockeys—because we stitch together popular playlists for the masses. I think it lacks imagination to piggyback on the long-gone days of vinyl playing over the airways. But that’s human nature. Always harkening back to something ...

Author: David Barber Like nuclear weapons before them, the plagues each side kept hidden were too terrible to use; instead they waged sly wars of colds and coughs, infectious agents sneezed in trams and crowded lifts, blighting commerce with working days lost to fevers and ...

Author: David Dumouriez I thought I was ready. “I was on the precipice, looking down.” Internal count of five. A long five. “I was on the precipice, looking down.” Count ten. “I was on the precipice, looking down.” I noticed a brief, impatient nod. The nod ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “The only things I work with are killers and currency. You don’t look dangerous, and I don’t see you waving cash.” The man brushes imaginary specks from his lapels with the hand not holding a dagger, then gives a little grin as he ...

Author: Gabriel Walker Land In every direction there was nothing but baked dirt, tumbleweeds, and flat death. The blazing sun weighed down on me. I didn't know which way to walk, and I didn't know why. How I'd gotten there was long since forgotten. Being lost wasn't the ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks I live in Mississauga, a city that builds dozens of downtown towers every year, the finest towers in the world. Each morning, I watch cranes move like long legged birds along the pond of the horizon. They bow and raise their heads, plucking at ...

Author: TJ Gadd Anna stared at where the panel had been. Joshua was right; either The Saviour had never left Earth, or Anna had broken into a vault full of sand. She carefully replaced the panel, resetting every rivet. Her long red hair hid her pretty face. When ...

Author: David C. Nutt The uniformed Da’Ri officer saw me enter the bar and nearly ran to me. He was at my booth before I had a chance to settle in and was talking at light speed before the first round hit the table. Things did not go well for the Da’Ri today. As an observer ...

Author: W.F. Peate A child’s doll sat in the deserted street pockmarked with missile craters. Little orphan Tara tugged away from our hands and reached for the doll. “Booby trap,” shouted a military man. Quick as a cobra he pushed me, Tara and my grandfather behind him so ...

Author: Majoki “You’re mad!” The humming stopped. “Yes, sir! I’m YRMAD.” “You’re mad.” “Yes, sir! I’m YRMAD.” The humming returned. Major Biers turned to his non-com. “Corporal, can we have this thing shot?” Corporal Khopar frowned. “On what charge, ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m not one to fight against futile odds, no matter what current bravado, ancestral habit or bloody-minded tradition dictates. That creed has taken me from police constable to Colonel in the British Resistance - after we split from the ...

Author: Charles Ta "We're sorry,” the alien said in a thousand echoing voices, “but your species has been deemed ineligible for membership into the Galactic Confederation." It stared at me, the Ambassador of Humankind, with eyes that glowed like its bioluminescent ...

Author: Stephen Price The stranger arrives at the community hall dance early, before the doors open. No one else is there. He stands outside and waits. Cars soon begin to pull into the parking lot. They are much wider and longer than the ones he is used to. He watches young ...

Author: Ken Carlson Mrs Bellingham frowned at her cat Chester. Chester stared back. The two had had this confrontation every morning at 6:30 for the past seven years. Mrs Bellingham, her bathrobe draped over her spindly frame, her arms folded, looked down at her ...

Author: Soramimi Hanarejima When the Bureau of Introspection discovered how to photograph the landscapes within us, we were all impressed that this terrain, which had only been visible in dreams, could be captured and viewed by anyone. This struck us as a huge leap, but ...

Author: Frederick Charles Melancon The scars don’t glow like they once did, yet around my pants’ cuffs, neon-green halos still light my ankles. Mom used to love halos—hanging glass circles around the house to create them. But these marks from the bombing blasts on Mars ...

Author: Majoki The float bobs and I feel a slight tug on the line, a nip at the hook. A shiver of guilt, a nanosecond’s exhilaration. I finesse the reel, patient. What will rise? There’s nothing like fishing in a black hole, quantum casting for bits and pieces of worlds ...