Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer They'd tested it, of course, but she was the first person they'd installed it in. The injections were painful, and numerous, the material marching through the subcutaneous layers of her flesh like an army of angry ants, and when it was ...

Author: David Broz A warship never took the same route twice, to or from battle. As the joke goes, it's because they usually disintegrate on the way there or on the way back. By all accounts, The Ebenezer was the luckiest starship in the Earth's fleet, probably because ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I'm no expert, but the big green flash followed by a noise reminiscent of a building collapsing makes me think it's time to leave this habitat. Things about us start to shake. I look down, then tap the wall by his head to interrupt his ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks “He was the one afraid to cut the cake” -Bob Seger When workers joined the lines at the Gratiot Plant, they signed away their hands. Losing their hands was the first step toward gainful employment. After three years, ...

Author: Mahaila Smith The casting call was very specific. No bodymods, no one over 6 ft. No medical conditions. She taped her audition in an office tech supply store in front of a tall, tubular black camera-droid. She introduced herself, Jordan Wreath, age 24, from ...

Author: Helena Pantsis I learnt in the moments I stole when I was sixteen that time piled up, folded in and on top of itself like leaves of an endless, unwilting cabbage. I took seconds from my father, gathering them like crumbs of toast on the plastic table cloth, and ...

Author: Christopher De Pree She was funny at first, more of a party trick. You could ask her a question and she would answer in fully formed sentences. She could write stories, essays. Other versions took our pictures, selfies and wove them into fantastical scenes. Made us ...

Author: Majoki The shovel chimed lightly against a larger rock and the gravedigger paused in the hole. Sharp gusts lifted the loosened dirt, whirling it across the high plain into the reddening dawn. They would come soon. They always did. A slow procession up from the ...

Author: Bryant Benson I have wandered Earth for over a century searching for another one of my father’s creations. Even those that hunted us so long ago had all disappeared. Between the relentless plagues and rising oceans that consumed their coastal cities, it didn’t take ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer No guns down there. No swords, either. Nothing bigger than a table knife, and nothing double-edged. The humans who first founded a colony on Kenshun were an unarmed combat cult. Their teachings quickly became the laws by which this odd ...

Author: David Barber Hemmings made his living from hunting trips. It was his way to study clients as if they were big game themselves. Take this Fournier-Clément couple for instance. Madame had glanced into her tent, found it spartan and clean, then busied herself with ...

Author: Timothy Goss 1. They've lost the Dog, it was en route to Vega station. "What happened?" Councillor Lauder drools while foam bubbles form at the corners of his mouth. His red face turns beetroot in the afternoon light. The vessel was dragged from the stream ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks Why wo ee? why wo ee? an' wo ee an' wo ee? -Snow All day long, the droid kept entering and exiting the room. It opened the curtains at dawn and levitated Kurt while he slept. It turned his body, fluffed his pillows, and lowered the room ...

Author: Bill Cox When I was eight years old, my step-dad put me in the hospital. One punch was all it took, but that punch eventually knocked me all the way through the social care system and out onto the streets. Funny to think that it might also have saved my ...

Author: Hillary Lyon "Ugh, what did I eat last night?" Marvin groaned, patting his belly. It protruded, solid and round, like a bowling ball. A pot-belly! Tracy, his girlfriend, wouldn’t be pleased. If Tracy bailed, he'd have to get a real job—until the next generous ...

Author: Rick Tobin “Come in, Hanson. Close the door. What’s up?” A worn senior manager, with tie askew over his crumpled white shirt, sat hunched while peering at three connected computer screens. His visitor took deep breaths, removing his horn-rimmed glasses, twirling ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Captain Jennie Ray arrives on the bridge to find her entire executive team bent over monitors or indicating things to one another on diagnostics displays. It’s a picture of activity she’d usually associate with blaring alarms and an air of ...

Author: Timothy Goss I awake with a start, like something bit my toe. Its dark, early hours of the morning when sound if muted and amplified simultaneously. I sit up and gently shake my head while caressing the sore appendage. My mouth is dry and thick with yesterday’s ...