For the Children
Author : cchatfield
It took only a moment of eye contact for the stranger to change his evaluation from “boy” to “young man.” It was a useless habit leftover from before the outbreak: assuming a young body meant innocence or an unblemished mind.
Even the smallest child, a girl of ...
Torture
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The goons in their black suits and sunglasses hold me above the chasm by my ankles. Then I hear their commander’s bullfrog voice.
“Drop him.”
Without hesitation strong fingers release their respective grips in unison and suddenly I am plummeting ...
Somebody Comes to Town
The first inkling I had that something was up was when Dinah's was out of bumble-berry pie. It don't seem like much, but nobody in Clyville eats bumble-berry pie but me, and there's always a pie made when I come in after work.
Dinah said I'd eaten the entire thing that afternoon with a half ...
Taffy
Author : Rachelle Shepherd
There was a teal stained smile behind her plump cobalt lips.
“Tonight’s flavor is cotton candy,” She placed a coal chunk in the sticky pit of Haze. It flared red-hot. Potpourri purrs into plumes of purple breath. “Smoke responsibly.”
She went on to the next ...
Target Practice
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Tomas entered the sushi bar ten minutes before noon, ten minutes before his assignment would arrive. The restaurant was busy, not packed, and there were a few vacant tables along one side. His assignment would take the one closest to the ...
High Fliers
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Bloody hell but it’s a long way down.
It always gets to me at least once each shift. Burlaria has a vast atmosphere envelope. The result of it becoming the capital of the Nineteen Worlds was a huge increase in population. As the planet prided ...
Time Bomb
Author : Bob Newbell
I hugged the grieving woman and told her I was sorry for her loss. I said her son had been a good friend and good soldier. I told her I would be thinking about her and then stepped aside to allow the mourners lining up behind me to offer their condolences. I looked ...
Parade of the Mute
Author : Ian Hill
The dense battalion of grey-clothed workers strode through the militant capital, their stiff legs rising and falling in finely tuned unison. Their perfectly timed footsteps echoed around the dark square like gunshots, deafeningly loud compared to the enveloping ...
Angels
Author : Anthony Rove
The night when Joey saw his first drop-off, dense grey fog hung over both sides of the Line. Across it, through the pea-soup clouds he saw the Liberator’s outline. Joey imagined that he could see Ben sitting upright in the driver’s seat with his noble stare locked ...
Speed of Lies
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Jams took the offramp still pressed flat against the fuel tank, arms outspread, hands clutching the handgrips with intent. The suspension fought to press the tires into the asphalt while mass and velocity tried to launch bike and rider into ...
Rove
Author : Anthony
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Look up on the cracked concrete wall. Do you see the slick digital screen chirping happily? It doesn’t need to tick. Clocks haven’t needed to tick for over two hundred years. But they used to. In long-forgotten analogue clocks, metallic guts would ...
Reality TV
Author : Willis Weatherford
Omni leaned back in his bowl, rubbing his furrowed foreheads with a long, many-jointed leg. He gazed at the large screen and tried to squeeze inspiration from the last few rotations of his boring life as a writer.
…
Shent froze as the Permissors implanted in ...
Waves
Author : Nils Holst
Many say space is a void, a looming blackness that extends to the end of forever. It is nothing but a great emptiness, a barren wasteland waiting to feel the touch of human expansion. It is the antithesis to everything humanity stands for.
They are wrong.
Space is ...
Pride
Author : Tony Taylor
A klaxon blares again in Suda’s ear, dragging him toward consciousness. His groggy eyes strain open to find error messages flooding his helmet’s display. Replaced by fear, the fog of his mind begins to part. A distant scream snaps back into the foreground of his ...
The Dome
Author : Ian Hill
They all gradually woke up, rising from the steely cradles to stagger to their feet and peer around in confusion. The mismatched assortment of befuddled people shuffled around the large circular room, taking in every detail of their surroundings while trying to find ...
Off the Menu
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Yngtranzian Harvester incoming! Genghis Class - it’s huge!” Janice sounds terrified, but she’s new. She’ll get over it.
Many pre-spacers compared the depths of space to the seas of Earth. Truly prophetic words. A wise man once said: “The ocean ...
Space Age Pilgrimage
Author : Jorge Mendoza
The gash on her forearm stopped dripping thanks to the two ounce can of epithelial hemming gel she stored under the bathroom sink. Survival instincts simmered down as muscle memory seized control over the bandages being wrapped across the exposed flesh. There ...
The Doorway
Author : C. E. Page
Silt rained over her as she crawled from her hiding place; a pocket of air in the pile of rubble that had been her habitation tower. Others, some familiar, were emerging from the crumpled buildings to bay at the sky and drag grey hands over their anguished faces. ...
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