Rabbits & Plastic Foxes

Author : P. S. Walker Day 2: Only day fucking two? I'm pretty sure time's measurements are inaccurate. I'm trapped in my kitchen by my home built robot. How insane that in a world where everything is connected I'm stuck in the only room without any sort of communication. At least ...

Lie in Peace

Author : cchatfield The child hovers in the doorway, reluctant to abandon the light of the hall. “But it’s dark…” she whispers, “I don’t like the closet. Or the bed.” Her father pats the pillow and proffers a gently humming comfort-bot. “Don’t worry. I promise there’s nothing to be ...

idog

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer I am Charlie. I have been augmented with idog software. I can understand over 6000 words of English. I like food. I like warmth. I love my master. He navigates the garbage-strewn alleyways with the expertise of someone born post invasion. I am only ...

Sprake

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer In a room devoid of décor, two chairs face each other across a table barely wide enough to be called a bench. Everything shows the khaki swirls of extruded Replast. In the left hand seat, a young man in filthy rags sits in a pose of tired ...

Anything To Fit In

Author : Kirstie Olley My name is Leila and I used to be the queen bee at school. If I curled my hair, all the girls curled their hair. If I cut one side short and left the other long, everyone did. If I shaved the Queen of Hearts into the short side of my hair, my class became a deck ...

Missed Connections

Author : Tyler Hawkins I only just missed you this time. Five millennia in the timescale of the cosmos is a needle in a haystack and then some. I was only 5 thousand years away from you but it seemed like it very well could have been any of the other times I arrived before the Milky ...

Gold

Author : Roger Dale Trexler They found it. In the most impossible spot, in the most unlikely location, they found it. And the scientists were baffled. On the edge of explored space, Henry Frisk stared out the porthole of the survey ship. The nearby star was just close enough ...

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 ...

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