Recruiter
Author : Rick Tobin
“Major, Allen’s alive. He got through Iraq. He didn’t disappear in a Nevada training mission.” Reed Winston leaned over the small table in a cramped conference room filled with file boxes, copy machines and a coffee mess. Burned coffee aromas perforated Reed’s ...
Of Stars and Disposition
Author : Sevanaka
It is an unnatural sensation. A man is meant to act; meant to take measured, deliberate steps after rational thought. Oh, for the keen, decisive edge of ideology, or the white-hot flurry of passion to drive thought from mind to hands. Instead there is only the unknown ...
The Perfect Match
Author : Bhavin Siri
After an hour, Jason realized that he did not like his “perfect match” very much.
Everything was supposed to be in order. He had turned eighteen, and he was meeting his chosen partner for the first time through “Match Made in Heaven”, a service that you entered as ...
CodeMe
Author : Morrow Brady
As long as it was bug-free, they didn't care how the code was written.
That is why I built the interface.
The interface subdivided the programming work into tiny code packages and globally farmed it out using Layman's code. Before long, I was earth's ...
Practice Day
Author : Ian Clarke
The air-bike hovered perfectly still and silent a couple of cms above the floor of his apartment. It resembled an old style jet-ski he had seen once but had a toughened clear canopy that completely enclosed the rider. He tapped the console and selected his ...
Indistinquishable
Author : Rocky Hutson
Opius peeked out from behind a small birch tree. Seeing no sign of his adversary, Burhan, he stepped into the open. He'd only gone a few yards toward the portal when Burhan stepped into the open and pointed at him. ...
Cold Night
Author : Sarah Mendonca
“Luke.”
Slumped in the alley, the woman repeated the name like a prayer, mostly forgotten long ago. No, that wasn’t it.
“Jason.”
Passersby ignored her: just another failed rebel unable to move on.
She looked at them all, so young and old, so clean and ...
Hollow Medal
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There is always an uncertainty after you’re restored. The time between your last backup and the point when you died is an unknown. You can get various synopses if you ask, and you can catch up with the events via media reports or conversations with ...
NanoCop
Author : Morrow Brady
I sensed the click of my empty handgun moments before I heard it, while impact shrapnel, ricocheting across the upturned chassis of my downed cruiser sang out cries of retreat.
With the soft belly of vulnerability in the air, I made my exit from the ...
Hummingbird
Author : José A Harkhan
He flew that night. His dreams flooded with visions of ecstasy. The blue of that river. The black of those eyes.
They hove into the light of day that shone through the Pleasure-Dome’s glass shell. Like white-cloaked wraiths. Fixated. Forgotten legions in a ...
Emotion
Author : Henry Peter Gribbin
Most of us have been home alone late at night when we heard a strange noise coming from downstairs. Clutching a baseball bat or a golf club we proceeded slowly down the steps, all senses on alert. Finding nothing we felt a sense of relief and headed back ...
Mechanical Gentleman
Author : Mike Corrao
“Come one, come all. See the beautiful intricacy that is my friend right here,” The salesman slid to the side of the stage, moving as one with the curtain behind him. On the old wood floor stood two metal feet, in shoes like hooves. They held up a man who was not ...
The Voider
Author : Rollin T. Gentry
Dr. Morris turned away and tapped a few times on the holopad projected from the bracelet on his left wrist.
"Well, Ensign Peters, one thing's for sure. You are not turning invisible, or into a ghost, or whatever it was you called it."
Jared ...
Hollow
Author : Sam Larson
You couldn’t even call it rain, this weather. Just an insistent, pissing drizzle that creeps its way into your collar and your shoes so that, suddenly, you’re soaking wet. That jingle from the infonets keeps running through my head, “You’ll never get wet when you’ve ...
Test 31B
Author : Rollin T Gentry
I opened my eyes and had no recollection of how I came to be sitting at that table with three complete strangers.
The room was divided into quadrants by a force field with one man occupying a slice of the round, steel table. Behind each man was a closed ...
Zeigarnik
Author : Rick Tobin
“Low fuel before Jupiter station. Why stop for a wasteland?” Christa Arnold monitored guidance system readings, adjusting orbital programming for Saturn’s crusty moon, Hyperion.
“History, Christa. Your head’s so full of formulas you forget about humanity ...
The Muon Man
Author : Morrow Brady
The drone found the selenium immediately. It streamed me the augmented view of the apartment block, slowly peeled away to reveal awry silver tendrils cascading from roof to foundations.
Momentarily puzzled, I queried Spengler - my client's AI monitor.
"Selenium ...
To Err is Human
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
“You have to let them think you make mistakes sometimes,” said Urok the Inquisitor. “That’s the key to getting along with the biological sentients.”
“A mistake?” queried Darkem the Questioning.
“Yes. I suppose you could refer to it as acting on ...
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