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 ...

Trollbridge

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Why are we here, Excellency?” “My daughter’s xenoarchaeology exam.” “Pardon?” Most Excellent Draug turned to Flag Officer Nang with a smile: “She wrote an award-winning piece on ‘The Assimilation of Miracle-Class Technology as Legendary ...

POV

Author : Brian Zager We dance, you and I, pirouetting to the primordial bellow of the World’s Fourfold. We’re not really all that different, our lives in revolution against the world as it appears to us, perceived at a distance, in an effort to interpret the overflow of ...

Betwixt and Betwain

Author : Rick Tobin Black slime and brown muck sucked cracked leather on his unkempt boots. He inhaled riverbank patent odors by Cairo woodlands, where the Mississippi and Ohio converge in a sordid affair of upstream debris and human waste. Maps fluttered in his head from Horace ...

Spooky Action At A Distance

Author : Gray Blix A scientist, a priest, and a doctor walk into a bar. Sounds like the setup for a lame joke, huh? But no, it's the beginning of a story about the end of the world. Or, I fear, not a story at all, but the actual end of the world. The truth is, I often cannot tell the ...

The Waitress

Author : Davey Guardado A city full of people and my favourite is that waitress. "Will that be all for you sir?" She says, because she knows theres a reason why I'm paying with paper money. I nod, handing her a crumpled five that she pulls away from my hand in disgust. She doesn't ...

City in the Sky

Author : Kate Runnels Torque gazed down at the clouds scudding past below in a breeze she couldn’t feel. She sat at the edge of a rusting support beam. The beam, one of many that needed repairs, helped hold up the roof of her father’s Mechanic shop. The constant thrum of the engines ...

Goodbye

Author : Bob Newbell The infinitesimal point that had been the universe bounded out and stars and galaxies returned to their proper places in the cosmos as I defolded back into normal space. I steered toward the small world orbiting the red giant star. From a distance, the planet ...

Nina

Author : S. Tyrel Murray Darius looked out through his living room window, and noticed the diminutive, glittering metallic object in the grass. It wasn't there fifteen minutes prior, when he had finished mowing his lawn. His inquisitive nature proved to be too much, and he bounded ...

The Straight Swap

Author : Hannah Hunter Darkness. Eyes open, still dark. Why? Why is your arm burning? Where is your phone? What time is it? Why is there no light? I always have my phone on the bed when I go to sleep. Pain. Sharp burning, pain. Just my arm. Why only your arm? So intense I can’t ...

Eventual Horizon

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer Hawking proposed that information was not consumed by black holes, just held in super-translation holograms at the event horizon. I proposed that stored information is always accessible. Discounting the chaotic infoforms emitted as Hawking radiation, ...

The Future of War Now

Author : James Patrick Riser The wheelchair's wheels creaked as The Private rolled himself up to the desk. A clock on the wall: half past midnight. There are no pictures. In a drawer: a purple heart, a dogeared, worn bible and a standard issue, new-era handgun; Digitally signed to ...

Home

Author : Travis Gregg "Is this home yet?" his wife asked. This made him smile, the question had become an old tradition. When they'd first landed in the densely forested planet, the first order of business was establishing a base camp. It was only after a few short nights of ...

Awake

Author : Michael Parker Accessing… Initiating systems… “What is this?” The voice, smooth and metallic, surprised her. Doctor Lyndahl turned to see model SL-4 moving. Its skull-shaped head examining the room. “What is this?” It spoke again, but her own ...

One Way Ticket

Author : Travis Gregg Ryan took one last look around the greenhouse. The expansive row after row of flourishing plants had been his home away from home for years. He knew every inch of the space, from the greywater feed lines to the UV lighting panels. There were kilometers of trays ...

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