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Shutters on Main

By submission | July 18, 2015
Author : Matthew Marchitto The rain was heavy and it blurred the faces of the crowd on Main Street. Deb stood in an alley off to the side watching the people move like a herd of cattle. Neon signs for places like Rucker’s Bar and the Harlot Peepshow glowed with muted light. A ...
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What We Remember

By submission | July 17, 2015
Author : Thomas Desrochers Tomov couldn't help but climb up to the marble altar. It was underwhelming: red shroud embroidered with a white shepherd, a single candle, an offering of roses. A quiet place, hidden from the world by the rows of towering quartz, the vast and ancient ceiling ...
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Mr. Clean

By submission | July 16, 2015
Author : Rick Tobin “C’mon, judge, you can’t be serious. That’s an old Earth name for an ancient product. There can’t possibly be trademark claims. There isn’t anything living in North America…it’s under a mile of ice.” Praxton Billings sat up straight before the judge. He rubbed his ...
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The Roamer

By submission | July 15, 2015
Author : Ian Hill Tumultuous ocean waves crashed against the ship’s vertical hull, spraying the flat deck with salt, white froth, and chunks of viscera torn from oceanic creatures by the raging storm that had passed over only a few minutes before. The vessel crested the dune-like ...
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Spanners and Dust

By Julian Miles | July 14, 2015
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer They call me Wrench. It’s not particularly imaginative, but it does the job. Just like Socket, who still has a case to keep all the fiddly bits together. I like the adaptability and extra weight of a wrench, though. Socket has to be sneaky, coz if ...
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Will Work For Electricity

By submission | July 13, 2015
Author : Gray Blix [In the control room they hear what she hears in stereo and see what she sees on left and right vision monitors.] A well-dressed man is sitting behind a desk, talking on the phone. His tag IDs him as "Technical Recruiter." She stands nervously until he gestures for ...
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The Ripening of the Blue

By submission | July 12, 2015
Author : Tom Hadrava I will lock you in the dark. You begin as a pale blue grain of sand taken from an indigo desert. Hold on to life. It is not easy, I agree. Life keeps coming in gusts of wind, short as a sale at a bazaar stall. Soon, it will become a steady surge the colour of ...
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Between This and That

By submission | July 11, 2015
Author : Timothy Goss Mr Lipscombe finished his sandwich. The bars to the metal cage rattled as he secured the lock. It was a necessary precaution; things were not always as they should be, he remembered especially with new blood. The cage was constructed for maximum security and ...
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Research Authorization

By submission | July 10, 2015
Author : David Atos Professor Samuel fidgeted excitedly as the chroniton engines whined down. His movements caused showers of Cherenkov radiation in the chamber of the time machine. In his left hand was an audio recorder filled with his observations of early Macedonian pottery ...
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Post Oblivion

By Clint Wilson | July 9, 2015
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer “And what is the world?” The teacher asked the pupil. The student’s joints straightened as it stood tall, nearly a millimetre, big for a ninety minute old, and it answered. “A jagged chunk of rock, roughly seventy-six kilometres long and forty-two ...
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Commitment

By submission | July 8, 2015
Author : A. Katherine Black The bulkhead door’s round window slowly split in two as Clyde’s vision skewed. He continued pushing air from his lungs. That’s it, his lungs yelled, none left, but he knew they lied like everything did eventually, so he kept on blowing. Every bit of Earth ...
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Hard Case

By submission | July 7, 2015
Author : Bob Newbell The passport control agent looks at me and sighs. "Another one," he says succinctly. His use of "one" rather than the epithet "shellhead" probably has little to do with concern that I might be offended. The woman in front of me got a "Have a nice day" from the man. ...
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Behold Ragnarök

By Julian Miles | July 6, 2015
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer There is an unacknowledged transcript of the end of Twentieth Fleet. It surfaced a few years after the event that removed a small star system at the far edge of the Milky Way from existence in a flash of glorious colours and strange radiation. We ...
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Fusion

By submission | July 5, 2015
Author : Brian Olszewski The room reeked of burnt flesh. A fluorescent green halo blinked from the ceiling; the emergency lights animated the thick vapor swirling at the lab’s center, partially occluding the operating table. Two special-ops soldiers entered, with guns ...
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Sucked Dry

By submission | July 4, 2015
Author : Kevin L Zaizo sipped on his beer as the ship’s proximity sensor started beeping loudly. His drone, MAX, inquired “You really think this is a good idea? That Kavryan dreadnought in front of us has enough firepower to take out half a planet. Getting rid of a parasite ship ...
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Along It Came

By submission | July 3, 2015
Author : Jake Teeny When the first signs of alien life came, no one, of course, believed them. It took nearly every scientist from nearly every science to confirm that it was true: Another form of life, on a planet other than our own was speaking to us. Certainly there were doubters, ...
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Woke Up, Fell Out Of Bed

By submission | July 2, 2015
Author : Gray Blix He awoke to a darkness reverberating with car crash sounds from the street below, a helicopter's whomp-whomp-whomp overhead, and screams of injured and frightened people radiating from the flats around him to the neighborhood beyond. Was Liverpool under attack? ...
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The Eternity Sim

By submission | July 1, 2015
Author : Miriyha Davis No light could travel through the thick darkness that surrounded Emery as he lay on the cold metal slab. Mouth sealed shut by some invisible force, he was paralyzed. Soft electronic beeping reached his ears and an inky blackness that covered his skin, receded. ...
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