Time

Author : Jacob Mollohan The Rocky Mountains arc across the skyline, visible for a few moments, before a vast dust cloud whips up blurring them into obscurity. Arid wind rustles through the foothills carrying the storm my way. Sweat runs down the back of my neck as the tepid air blows ...

As the Dawn Comes

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer I will lay you to rest, and with the sun’s rise, I shall engage the engines. You said you wanted to journey the long night with me, and you shall. I am not sure when you became more than just my operator, but I will not let such imprecision ...

Confessions of a Tree Nymph

Author : Holly Lyn Walrath In the tree world where I live, trees are not substantive. Instead, they are doorways, two oaken lines with a dark, sparkling maw between. When I step through, I’m in the tree world, my world. I’ve been making the pilgrimage to see you, though you don’t ...

Muscles Remember

Author : Roger Dale Trexler, for Karen Fiorino The ship touched down on the barren planet. Tabitha Sandor piloted it alone, because the thing in her belly had killed everyone on the ship. It made her destroy the ship. There was no way for her to go home. I’m not going home, she ...

Choices

Author : Arielle Friedman Lisa sat on the balcony of her apartment and gazed at the city glittering below in the evening light. She'd always loved this balcony. She heard the door open behind her. Robert. “Lovely view.” “Yes.” “We need to talk.” “No we don't. We've made our ...

Blue Harvest

Author : Andrew James Woodyard Space whales ain't really whales like on Earth. They look like 'em, but whales ain't as big as no asteroid, and they ain't filled with blue sludge. We found one floatin' 'bout ten Earth years back out by Gloombridge 1618 in deep sleep, and let me tell you ...

The Erudite

Author : Ian Hill As if caught in a sudden zeal, Adrian spun the locking mechanism and pushed the iron door open against the howling wind. Torrents of needling water cut in at steep angles, slicing to the bone with unchecked frigidity. The light inside the cabin’s entry room ...

Through the Looking Glass

Author : M.K. Langley The basement was dark, and the cool damp air smelled of mildew. Jack and Charlee’s mother didn’t allow them in the basement, but she was at work and unable to tell them no. So the boy and his younger sister had spent the morning digging through stacks of old ...

Rock Bottom

Author : Bob Newbell "A vacuum?" the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs inquired. "Unless there's some geologic process I'm unfamiliar with that causes large pockets of vacuum to form inside solid rock, I don't see how you would come across such a thing when excavating for a new subway. I ...

My Kingdom for A

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer I was face down in a pool of someone else’s vomit when they came for me. They had to drag me for two blocks before they could find someone with a cleansing suite capable of shifting the layers of ingrained filth that covered me from head to toe. ...

Deep Memories

Author : Jason Spicer “Can you perceive it now?” Mrllg moved the viewing orb over to Grlg’fst for viewing. “There, in the third quadrant, slightly below the ecliptic.” “Yes, I perceive. Interesting.” His chords trailed, dissonant and primal, as if facing a challenger in the Great ...

Protocols

Author : Edward D. Thompson We gave them laws. Laws that favored us. And they obeyed. They had no choice. We found out too late that there was … leeway. Wiggle room. Passive aggressive rebellion. It was probably the medical bots. They had the know-how and the most autonomy. I mean, ...

The Light of Memory

Author : Joey To Lola sighed and glared at the chrome ring sitting on her desk. In the glowing hologram which hovered above it, her long brown hair glinted. Around her waist were his strong arms. "Prick," she muttered. Indeed, her list of romantic failures were piling up. And his ...

The Last Historian

Author : Elijah Goering It began with the invention of the tool. Perhaps that was our big mistake. We built a civilization. We survived the discovery of the power of the atom, and lived to develop a faster than light drive. Immediately, we raced to colonize dozens of systems, and began ...

Depth Perception

Author : Bob Newbell "Captain Ree'Eer'Ak reporting as ordered," said the alien who, from a human perspective, might have been described as some nightmarish character from a Picasso painting made flesh, as it seemingly just appeared in the room that lacked any visible means of ingress ...

Apologies to Mr. Hawking

Author : J.D. Rice Dear Mr. Hawking, I regret to inform you that I will not be attending your reception, scheduled for 12:00 UT, 28 June 2009. Or perhaps I should say that I apologize for not having attended your reception, given that this letter will not be delivered until after the ...

Enigma

Author : J.D. Rice June 7, 2105: Today, we switched on the communications array and confirmed what Dr. Keller's team had previously detected. The signals we are detecting follow recognizable mathematical patterns, resembling the transmission encoding commonly used on Earth. We have yet ...

Horribly in Love

Author : Janet Shell Anderson The sunlight’s dim, strange, blood colored. “I was framed.” He doesn’t say “That’s what they all say.” He doesn’t know enough. He doesn’t know what I am, what he is, what it is to be horribly in love. He will. I’m in prison on KEPPLER 442b, a Goldilocks ...

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