Skimmers and Soap Bubbles
Author : Alicia Cole
"Watch out for that kid!"
Tanya swerves, kicking the drive gear into second. Our hover skimmer chugs left, close cropping a row of season's end corn. She nudges the engine to a full stop and settles in the field.
Trash spills out of the can the kid was ...
Stepping Stones
Author : Bob Newbell
It's rotating. It doesn't look like it, but instruments show that it is. Right now it takes around 24 hours to complete one rotation. Since it's just over two miles in diameter at its center, the amount of centrifugal "gravity" being generated right now is ...
The Hero of Time
Author : Glenn Leung
He was the Hero of time, that was all we knew. For millenia, long before he was born and long after he had died, he had been saving the world. An alien invasion two hundred years in the future, a genocidal plague three hundred years in the past, had all been ...
Diplomacy
Author : Bob Newbell
"Please be careful getting up, Mr. Turner," says the tinny, sing-song voice of the robotic surgeon. "Some dizziness and disorientation are to be expected."
Other medical automata extend thin mechanical arms to help me to my feet. I still can't believe I went ...
Orbit
Author : William Tham
I screamed.
Green spots of oxidation on silver-lined instruments. The porthole encased in fire, through which I vaguely saw the curvature of the earth, the Scandinavian peninsula hurtling below me, followed swiftly by the frozen wastes of the North Pole under ...
Hard Day's Night
Author : Suzanne Borchers
“Good evening, Susan.” The desktop robot’s eye blinked as the gender-neutral voice greeted her.
Susan had arrived home from an 18 hour shift of nursing casualties at the local pub/hospital. She slammed the front door behind her. “I have to remain cheerful, ...
Polystars
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Why are we all the way out here? If we had taken the Rigel mission, I could have been home for mid-winter revel.”
Chapni sighed. That was the problem with the Urulaunk; they had this thing about partying. Preferably with as many like-minded ...
Shedding
Author : Kieron Walquist
As of this moment, I am a ten-year-old Eskimo, lying on the beach in the frigid rain, stone-cold and lifeless. However, that could all change in an instant.
My father, for now, is a humpback whale, circling the shallow waters that lap upon the shore, crying ...
Cows
Author : Gary Will Kreie
"Hi, Dusty."
"Howdy, Richard."
"How's the cattle business, Dusty?"
"Business is good, Richard."
"Have you been riding the fences?"
"We don't use fences anymore, Richard. Open range now."
"How do you keep your cows from wandering off, Dusty?"
"Moogle ...
Preload
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Thirtyseven sat on the edge of his bed, kicked off his shoes and fell heavily into his pillow, not bothering to peel off the white coveralls he normally couldn't wait to get out of. He was exhausted.
He lay staring at the ceiling, the last ...
Promises to A Future Self
Author : Thomas Desrochers
Jean steps out onto his sunlit balcony and sits down at the glass table. He sweeps the surface off with his hand and then lays down a piece of creamy stationery. Pen in hand, he begins to write:
[Anna,]
He pauses, glances down into the street. There's a ...
Tentative de l'Impossible
Author : Sommer Nectarhoff
He knew what she would look like before she was created. He had always known.
“Yes, I’ve always known.” He smiled into her closed eyes as he raised his brush to add a few eyelashes to one of her eyelids.
They said that he would be unable to do it. They ...
You Will Be Home Before the Leaves Have Fallen From the Trees
Author : Eugene Brennan
The humans stared at the slogan scrawled across the prep room wall. Sergeant Drake kicked some metal scraps out of the way, switched on his quad beam, and scanned the graffiti.
“It’s a quote from the First World War,” said Captain Chang. “From Kaiser Wilhelm II ...
Primal Needs
Author : Gray Blix
They met after hours in her office.
"Dr. Molloy, I'm Detective Buckley," he said, flashing his ID and a smile. "Thanks for agreeing to see me."
He sat across from her, scolding himself for inappropriate thoughts about the way she filled her chair. She was ...
Storm
Author : Connor Harbison
It was a bright and stormy orbit. Wave after wave of solar radiation buffeted the Barracuda, wreaking havoc with her electronics and damaging her solar sails. Captain Aguilar frowned at the display on the bridge.
“Sir, the mainsail can’t take much more of ...
Attachment
Author : Dan Larnerd
Doctor Grace Virchow sat at her computer desk with her eyes closed. Her office was dark and full of deep shadows. Only the flickering blue light of her computer monitor illuminated the scene.
Next to her sat a cold cup of coffee and a picture of her family that ...
Luminaris
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Luminaris.
They called it a slingshot planet. It had what was known as a linear pendulum orbit.
So far it was the only one on record. It was caught in a gravity well between four stars of different colours. It was a planetoid that tried to ...
Pay the Piper
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Dad said that the nannybots inside would stop the monsters from getting me. I liked that. The first night after the injection, I slept with the lights off. My nannybots would protect me. Even when mum died the next day, I knew that bad things ...
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