Red

Author : Christine Rains All they cared about was the color red. When we landed on blue-gray gaseous Kepler 3, the squirrel-like beings greeted us peacefully. The Keps were primitive and living in small farming communities. They'd never even seen the full spectrum of colors, but they ...

The Energy Slug

Author : Chad Bolling They looked like large slugs with reptilian skin and no shell. Besides their lack of defense mechanisms, the species had many more obvious traits that made it easier for predators to catch them. However, through some miracle, one these creatures alone could supply ...

Air Rafting

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer If the Skipper found out what I was about to do, he’d probably dock me a week’s pay, but it’d be worth it. I figured with the gravity generator off-line for the next four hours, I could probably get in three runs. I popped open the access panel ...

HomeJet

Author : Morrow Brady The beauty of my living room design was the simplicity of it's vacuous two storey cube. High with expectation, I entered the freshly printed room for the first time. What I saw made me stagger. A spaghetti junction of alienesque shapes swarmed frozen throughout ...

A Defect

Author : Philip Smith Most of the bots you see in diners are the ones that serve the food. We have one but it was a bad decision on my part. Real waitresses give you a smile and make you feel welcome. Automota makes a place look cheap. When it breaks I won’t go to the trouble of ...

Hate the Syn

Author : George R. Shirer The girl is naked. Long limbed. Gorgeous. He can smell her from where he sits, in the back of the club, where the shadows are thickest. She struts across the stage, hips shaking, breasts swinging as she works the crowd. Bottle-blonde hair flies around her ...

Soul Stripping

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer He was wearing the recording helmet when he died. John DeMangus, out like a light, rest in peace. It was an embolism that took him out. He was by himself in the studio, and had the helmet recording. He had noticed a background hiss in the first ...

The Grey Age

Author : Lela Maarie De La Garza There’d once been a golden age, Pearson thought. What would this one be called? He reflected on the meaning of different colours. Green? There wasn’t a speck of it left. The blue age? If blue meant hope, there was certainly no more of that. The purple ...

The Meaning of Life

Author : Townsend Wright "Alright let me see if I can explain this to you," I wasn't very good at deciphering the aliens' emotions, especially with the monotonous voice of the translator machine, but I was fairly certain this was condescension. "What do you know so far?" "Well," I ...

Gene

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer He was the result of a human experiment of gigantic proportions. Why had they done it? Because they could, the way their ancestors had once bred dogs into all shapes and sizes, these scientists of the new grand era tweaked and fiddled at the ...

Just Not Built That Way

Author : Michael T Schaper Tanya looked out across the room. The party was in full swing and, because both of her sisters now had children of their own, any chance at conversation was being drowned out by a multitude of little voices. She swooped down, picked up one of her young ...

Casey's Dream Book

Author : Will Strouse If Casey wasn't so hard to understand, she would be perfect; we kissed for the first time at work... The next day, we still got along... at work. Kind of weird that she can never hang out after work... She says she lives alone downtown but I don't know ...

Nancy

Author : John Arthur Beaman Waking-up felt strange. “Waking-up” is probably not the correct term, but its close. Her eyes didn’t work at first. That should have been expected, but it still surprised her. She was confused. Why couldn’t she move? Lying down with her head resting flat on ...

Point Two Point

Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer As a child I was fascinated by the reflections you see when you place two mirrors facing each other and stand between them. Trying to understand that fascination drove me through mathematics and into science, down into quantum foam and up into the ...

Broken Cognizance

Author : Tiana Lexia The screen flashed on, casting shadows off the cadaver’s body. The tube that ran from the base of her head to the computer slowly radiated light with each passing memory. Her life started off normal, like any other person who passed through the Cognizance Center. ...

The Spinequake Register

Author : Huw Langridge It started as a series of headaches, but on my fourteenth birthday they made contact. Calling me by my first name. Talking inside my head. We talked for years. “The tremors are getting more frequent Daniel,” they eventually said to me. “The freak weather ...

Land of Opportunity

Author : Daniel M. Bensen "Ta zemya." The lookout cried from the crow's-nest like a muezzin. "Ta zemya~a! Kapitane, eto ya~a." Hristo Galabov gripped the plastic gunwale of his ship and squinted over the heaving Atlantic. "Ta zemya," the sailor said. Land. The last time, Hristo had ...

The Scientist

Author : Meg Everingham In the night Tom rolled over and opened his eyes. Through the dark like a ghost floated the low sound of his mother crying. She had arrived home earlier, from the airport; she had stared past him like a blind person and disappeared into her bedroom. Tom ...

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