Sadness

Author : J.D. Rice “What’s wrong?” she asks, dialing her emotion control implant down to ‘concern.’ I watch as her brow furrows and her mouth turns from a smile to a frown. The shift is gradual, like a water droplet running down a window. “The damn thing’s broken,” the words sound ...

Digital Footprint

Author : Sean P Chatterton ‘How long has she been dead?’ ‘We don’t know.’ ‘How come?’ ‘Katherine Danderfield was a plugged in person. She had autresponders for her email, bots to update her social network status and MyFace Blog. Her web presence had auto updates scheduled. No one ...

The Ascent of Man

Author : Bob Newbell The Landreb fleet didn't travel across space. It simply appeared suddenly and without warning in low Earth orbit. One of the fifty starships fired an energy beam that obliterated an uninhabited islet in the Dodecanese Island chain mere moments after the vessels ...

Just Desserts

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Their blood was like a cross between egg nog and hollandaise sauce. Their skin was like bacon jerky. Their internal organs tasted like pecan pie filling with veins of peppermint running through them. Their muscles tasted of tarragon and ...

Into the Void

Author : Ian Hill “Please, I don’t want to be here. Just- just help.” The voice was distorted and compressed, only decipherable after being ran through an extensive quality recover system. “I need- I need to leave. I don’t want this.” The message went on for about a minute, a minute ...

Convoy

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer None of us would have signed up for this had we known of course. There were now sixteen ships left in the convoy. Sixteen left from the original forty that had set out from Earth all those years ago. I had been a much younger man then. This was ...

Remember Then

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer It’s not like I meant to end the world. I was just scared. “Mike! Another side of fries for table fifteen!” He should be shouting for bread and cheese. It’s my fault that he isn’t an innkeeper. I found it lying in a clearing, limbs turning from ...

Heaven's Gate

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer “I assure you, Mr. and Mrs. White, the procedure is quiet painless.” I steeple my fingers together and settle deeper into my chair, smiling with cunning charm at the elderly couple sitting across from me, their doubt and fear clearly at odds ...

They

Author : Roger Dale Trexler They knew that it was the end. They saw the mushroom cloud grow out of the ground, a bright, blinding light providing the seed. They knew about seeds; they were farmers who grew corn and soybeans and milo. They were simple people who did not understand the ...

Getaway Gear

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer “We are in so much drek.” “Did I not say that you were to be nice to him?” “Nice? Emmett, he had his cyberpaw so far up my skirt I thought he was a gynaecologist!” “Easy, Celene. Watch the tollway.” “We’re only doing two hundred. I can ...

Daily Dose

Author : David Kavanaugh “But I don’t want to!” she whined in her little voice. “Why do I have to? It’s. So. Boring! I hate it there.” “I know, baby, I know,” said her mother. “But it’s good for you. Just for a few minutes. Understand? Then you can come back in.” “Humph!” If only ...

Shelf Life

Author : James Zahardis Inside a low-rent apartment a wall-pocket hums, then illuminates. An aerosolized admixture of stimulants and bio-stabilizers wafts toward Alron Chattobee’s face, awakening him: “Tatti! Forty days down the drain!” he thinks, reaching for the red button above his ...

Legacy

Author : George R. Shirer The room was bright and airy. One wall was transparent, revealing the crumbling Old World city, overgrown now by forest and vine. A flock of iridescent birds shot across the sky, their wings flashing green and gold in the late afternoon sunlight. There ...

Alive

Author : Scott Hatfield I killed someone today. Well, not today. But "I killed someone yesterday afternoon and I was just now released from jail" doesn't sound as dramatic. They let me go, so I walked home. No jacket, no gloves, dress shoes, hands stuffed in my pockets. The ...

Spacesuit

Author : David Stevenson “Once there was a ship, travelling through space. There was a terrible accident. The reason for this is not important. What is important is that one man got suited up in time and was able to survive the immediate aftermath of the ship’s destruction. Of course, ...

Borrowed Time

Author : Desmond Hussey, Staff Writer I spot one of Osiris’ Illegals amongst the shuffling throng of pedestrians as he exits an antique music store on 49th Ave. The face in my scope’s crosshairs is a dead ringer for the black and white snapshot I was given. His sandy hair is a ...

Last Dance

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer They came from heaven, or hell, or outer space, or under the sea. Earth has been invaded in every way imaginable, thanks to the imaginations of authors over the last three centuries. You would have thought, with such a rich base from which to draw ...

Ghosts of Christmas to Come

Author : Mark Gorton My new friends are all dead. But that doesn’t stop them giving me presents. Presents like words and understanding and sight and hearing. Thanks to them I can think in this language and theirs too and hear their voices all around me all the time like invisible ...

Random Story :

  • The Blue Weed

    Author : George Galuschak The end of the world: we …