Opportunity

Author : John Plunkett The girls were dressed in simple skirts and blouses of homespun wool from their father's sheep. They spoke brightly to one another, rejoicing in a day of swimming and play at the small pond just over the hill from their father's house. A young, naked boy darted ...

TIME

Author : Roger Dale Trexler Tom Jacobs awoke. It was 9 o’clock. It was always 9 o’clock. His mind swam through an ocean of grogginess. He did not know where he was. It was dark and, in a moment, he realized he was floating in some sort of liquid. He tried to turn his head, but ...

Family First

Author : Cameron Filas It’s about a five year process, the whole prison-rehab formula. Since the introduction of Memwipe, crime rates have plummeted. The idea is to take a dangerous criminal, wipe their memory, then give them a basic education and return them to society. Still, I’m ...

Heaven Needs an Upgrade

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Heaven needs an upgrade. It’s too full of people and the hardware is stagnating due to obsolescence. New storage systems and access devices are pushing Heaven into the past. Soon, it will be like the mythical Betamax or the ancient Zip disk. ...

Outcasts

Author : Roger Dale Trexler “You really should try this,” Liz said. Her voice was distant and gentle, like someone talking to me from the end of a tunnel. I turned and looked at her. She lay on the vacuum formed couch, her naked body sucked in perfectly, every curve, every contour ...

Henry

Author : Colm Scully When Henry hit the curb he knew it was over. The sun had got in his eyes. He had bent his left wish bone badly and knew he could not walk straight. He called the recovery service and they lifted him into the van. He tried to keep upbeat, chatting with the ...

Letter to All S. Mundi Network Users

Author : K. J. Russell The moment of transition was 7:34 AM today, July 17th, and this one was unique in that nobody saw it coming. Haverforth Diedeli finally stirred awake thirty-four minutes after his alarm clock began to buzz at him, and at the moment his eyes popped open and his ...

HTTP ERROR

Author : Tamara Rogers They gave me a million eyes. Well, not a million, more like a terra-billion, a bajillionzillion. All x to the power z equals I want it I see it. Excuse me if I’m not too precise, there’s buzzes coming in and network trails running through. Dope data ...

Rocketbike

Author : Jackson Fitzjames Anonymous trespassing isn’t very easy in a surveillance state. Or, at least, that’s what they want you to think. The rocketbike is juddering along between my legs in a way that’s going to chafe soon. If I get any more growth spurts, I’m not going to fit on ...

Black Rider

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer “What the hell is he riding – or is that piloting?” “Riding. Even though the round bits front and rear aren’t wheels: they’re gravtac repulsor loops.” Blake turned to stare at Neville: “Nice. So what the frack is it?” Neville smiled: ...

Virus

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The flickering neon promise was the same as always, 'Rooms by the Hour' and underneath 'Vacancy'. I knew what I would find inside. The locks on the double front doors were burned away completely leaving a metre wide hole in the surrounding ...

I Would Know

Author : RM Dooley The rogue tampons rolling across the trunk floor and abandoned high heel tell me it’s a girl’s car. Probably this girl’s car. I can’t move much. Duct tape binds her hands, feet, and stretches over her mouth. The taillight is kicked out and the flashlight next to her ...

Tandem Passenger

Author : Peter R Jennings “It’s not going to work, is it”? Gentry gasped out between huge, sucking breaths. He was right next to me so I was getting his panic in stereo through my earphones. The bright, tight lines of lasers and crumping explosions flashed and strobed the night sky ...

Prime Numbers

Author : Elijah Goering Justin Perdan sat at communication center of mankind's first interstellar spaceship. The Earth Ship Endurance was truly massive, containing within it tens of thousands of people and the systems to keep them alive and comfortable for centuries. It was the first ...

The Mind's Lie

Author : Amber K Bryant It belongs to me. Naturally, that’s a lie. What right does a D937 Class-C AutomaGirl have to be in possession of an AI Generator? They say if you tell yourself a lie often enough, you’ll start to believe it. I found it. It belongs to me—I’ve said this ...

The Last Witness of Memories

Author : Elisa Nuckle The star in the sky doesn’t move anymore. It blocks out all other light. Something new has come. She looks up through her mask and sees the colors of space, not so empty after all. Blues and yellows and browns and reds and whites. The particles that built their ...

Hate the Player

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer The conspiracy nuts must have wet themselves when the Barraz arrived. In a global broadcast, they announced that they were making a pre-emptive move to protect their main weapons supplier. That was us. Or the chunk of us that worked within the ...

The Code

Author : Ryan Somma A software bug killed 64 people this month before it was discovered. The administrators have brought the system down and a patch is working its way through the emergency release process. It will cost the ministry $400 million in downtime after you add up all the ...

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