Platinum Black
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I stretch as far as I can, my blackened fingers finally finding purchase. Once more, I turn to memory to provide strength.
“Yurik, don’t be silly.” My mother, looking up briefly from her packing.
I pull myself up. Releasing the line from my ...
Recommission
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
General Grant had been pretty explicit in his displeasure.
"Harmon, take a Tac team and recon the graveyard. Someone's turned the lights on in there, and if it's the same bastards that have been cleaning out our supply trucks and stealing ...
Enjoy The Show
Author : S T Xavier
Katarina sighed and turned back to the show. "Don't sulk. It's very unprofessional. At least we can watch the show."
Arms crossed, Mercault looked out silently from their seats near the royal box. She was right, of course, but these excellent seats in the ...
“I Think, Therefore . .”
Author : Ian Clarke
Her mind lurched into focus, it felt like she had suddenly regained her balance after stumbling, her pulse quickened and her eyes widened but she looked inward. The Mentor had read a few simple words from an obscure ancient text as part of the daily ritual and her ...
Welcome To The Castle
Author : Sean Mulroy
Your home is now the Castle.
Feel free to wander and explore any hall, every garden, each room and all the towers. Eventually there’ll be no need to, for they’ll come to you; by that time an improvement will have taken place – your metamorphosis, which is when ...
Patient X
Author : J.E. Bates
The bone-saw keened like a dentist's drill above her paralyzed eyes. The injection had petrified every muscle down to her eyelids but it had not sedated her mind. This isn't how you removed a minor malignancy, she knew. The brain scan had shown only a minute, black ...
Apocalypses Past
Author : Lloyd Grey
The sun is descending over the Olympic Mountains, and the world is about to end.
Patrick Xu is standing in a monorail station, somewhere in Downtown Seattle, calmly sipping water and watching the peak of Mt. Rainier collapse, flowing north into the Puyallup. A ...
Solomon’s Baby
Author : Anthony Francis
Greed never dies. It had been forty years since my consciousness graced a human body, but the attraction is irresistible, universal, born of the survival instinct, an unquenchable desire to acquire the things needed for life — and so avarice was the only desire ...
Misunderstood
Author : Katherine Cowley
I.
Amenope stood next to the river, adjusting his nets. Ra, the sun god, beat down on his brown, tanned back. A taskmaster stood nearby, making sure no one neglected their duties. And then the pharoah’s royal barge arrived. Everyone prostrated themselves on ...
Emergency Power
Author : Tino Didriksen
[emergency power online]
Sergeant, lock down that...wait, what’s going on? Backup neuro-simulation? So we lost, badly. But, this is supposed to bring up the ranking officer, so why am I...oh, I see...died too fast for station to scan them, and their backups are ...
Oasis
Author : Sophia Bella
At the edge of a bright green lawn in the middle of the desert, a young woman’s chapped lips stretch to a hopeful grin as what little strength she has left is enough to get her over the fence.
No sooner do her toes reach the softness of the grass does the glow of ...
Room and Board
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is spartan, the bed a blanket-draped exofoam block that has had body contours carved out with a spoon, by the look of it. The kitchen area is a kettle, five kilos of Nutri-Slush, half a kilo of Vita-Soy and six litres of blue market ...
Four Letters
Author : Andi Dobek
“So, I was watching this film last night.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“Something called Casablanca.”
“I’ve heard of that one. Never seen it. Any good?”
“I don’t know. My emotive censors blocked most of it out. I guess so.”
Iteration 247 stared at Iteration 7225. ...
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Author : David Atos
He landed his ship on her front yard. The spare key was still underneath the ceramic frog, so he let himself inside.
The living room looked right. Their vacation pictures were hanging on the wall: the two of them on the beach in Maui, in front of their rented ...
Symbology at First Contact
Author : S T Xavier
This whole “first contact” thing is such a hassle. Neither of us can understand each other. You’d think we’d have spent more time learning their language before coming down to talk, but of course we didn’t. Management knows best, after all. “Don’t worry, ...
White Marble
Author : Phil Gagnon
Our destiny was to spread from our cradle, to go forth and tame the universe. Our motivation for this was simple; pandemic, mutually assured destruction, cometary impact, the thousand ways that humanity could die. Whether by fate, chance, or its own hand being ...
The More Things Change
Author : Morghan J.
“You understand why I require payment up front in a hard currency; when I complete my task, you will have no reason to pay me.” The woman idly stirred her cocktail, eyes latched on the man in a wheelchair sitting across from her at the bar table, his eyes gaunt and ...
Testing
Author : John Domenichini
Don held the phone closer to his ear and raised his voice. “Gramps wait. Don’t test anything. Wait for me… Gramps!!” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Damn it!!!”
Don’s roommate, Hong, sat calmly on his bed. “That was your great-grandfather? The ...
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