Author : Rick Tobin Ventilation fan rumblings echoed over huddled mourners chilled in multi-colored, insulated, puffy arctic suits. Their drifting breath mists bellowed over a gaunt figure, attired in a jumpsuit dyed red on the left—solid white on the right, draping over a black, ...

Author : T. N. Allan There’d never been any protocols set in place for a disaster of this magnitude, no emergency course of action which might have retrieved the situation; but how could there have been? It wasn’t possible to make allowances for the unknown. Cromwell knew ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer Her hands groped the earth. Superheated fingertips sent urgent signals to the chip embedded in her neocortex. Owl withdrew, shook her hands and heard the particles cascade back home. "This is it," she said. "The motherlode." Whisper ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The man coming round the corner blinks as I punch a killrod under his ribs and through his heart. By the time his body completes its slide down the wall, I’m over the barrier and extracting the other killrod from the receptionist’s eye ...

Author : Hillary Lyon “Just think of all the work you will complete, Connie, now that you have an extra month here.” Conrad ignored Tandie, the on-board computer that ran everything. Including scheduling. He was in the middle of a job, and didn’t care for distracting ...

Author : Paul Alex Gray “See everyone’s got a level,” says Cassie, swigging more than a mouthful of lager. “You can go way over. But you’ll pay. We paid! Remember? You’d always swear ‘never again!’” She smiles broadly and nods at my glass. I take the hint and swallow ...

Author : Olivia Black, Staff Writer Cold. For so long it has only know the frigid expanse of deep space, numb to the wonders, and horrors, of the galaxy. In this solitary existence, time has no meaning. It knows nothing, feels nothing as it hurtles ever forward, eon upon ...

Author : Riley Meachem The stars in our sky are run on electrical wires. Shaped like logos and dyed the color of neon and glass. They come on the fronts and backs of cars, on huge billboards. There’s a sort of beauty to it, I suppose, knowing that your mountains were drawn ...

Author : Beck Dacus I entered the war room, the data all pulled up on my reader. The e-whiteboard at the front told me that one of the colonels was trying to sell the idea of a space ark to the Admiral, telling him to devote materials to escaping the Solar System and trying ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer Sam looked at the tickets and crumpled paper, already softening under the onslaught of summer heat and Mei’s palms. “I never been to some classics concert before,” he said, holding his fists tight against his sides. “You never sat in ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The room is a stock F-Class residential dwelling. With three people and a forensics robot within, it’s one small child short of standing room only. A young man in a lurid red suit, cut in the fashionable retro-zoot style, turns to his ...

Author : Samuel Stapleton Synthetic: a substance made by chemical processes, especially to imitate a natural product. The data analysis was grim. Predicted system stability - 62%. --- My small gathering of journey members stood off to one side. Tori spoke ...

Author : Leanne A. Styles I reached across and tightened the strap on my kid sister’s tatty seatbelt. She grinned; through the breathing tubes, through the pain. The shuttle we’d stolen had been recently decommissioned, but so far it was holding together pretty well as we ...

Author : Jordan Altman Weightlessly floating in the blue liquid of my suspended animation pod, a queasy feeling stirred in my stomach. The tubes down my throat feeding me air, water, and food didn’t help; although I will admit the worst of it was the flashing red letters on ...

Author : Daniel S. Helman Malia read the paper and then again. It was hard to believe. "Really?" you thought. "They're offering money for that?" It was midweek, and you'd managed to accompany your brother to the store, where he picked up yesterday's news for half ...

Author : Beck Dacus Six feet from the cave entrance, we all turned on our flashlights and moved toward the mouth. The only way to get down was a steep flight of natural rock stairs, giving us footholds while also threatening to impale us. The only way I could tell that I ...

Author : Priya Chand, Featured Writer Red lights flapped in an artificial breeze. For the observer whose data banks were lacking, most of the lamps were identical: a big round input, and an output sized *just so*, coming together to penetrate and un-penetrate, over and over ...

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer “I’ll bring your drinks over in a moment, but the steak sandwich will be about ten minutes.” With a flick of her auburn hair, Teria moves away, navigating the tables, chairs and customers with an unconscious grace. She works fourteen ...