Hunter, Builder

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Trees lay flat behind the ship where it had crashed to the ground in the forest. Its silver shell winked in the sunlight, shuddering occasionally as whatever machinery inside of it quaked to a wounded stop. The hunter had seen nothing ...

2020 Hindsight

Author : Sean Austin Murphy I was 19 when I first heard them. I thought I was crazy. They assured me I was not. I told my family. My family agreed I was crazy. I went to the doctors. The doctors gave me pills. The pills don’t work. They said they were from the future. ...

The Great Leap Ahead

Author : Matt Matlo Jeremy Davenport awoke in an apple orchard outside Somerville, Massachusetts, sometime in June, 12,459 A.D.. Back in the 2200's, some genius invented the temportation machine. They used it to see into the future, and then, before anyone asked if they ...

Ergo Sum

Author : Scott Angus Morrison There is a small metal ball on the table before me. An object at rest shall remain at rest. I touch it. It rolls away from me. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It rolls until it reaches the edge of the smooth white ...

Turistas

Author : Make Penmarche “Isn’t it just lovely, Jenm?” Mary pulled her sunhat off and tossed her hair in the sea breeze. “It’s nothing like home!” “Jim. It’s Jim.” He glanced at her, then turned back to watching the crowd. “Keep slipping up like that, and someone will hear ...

First Stop

Author : N. Thomas Parshall The world blinked and Martin found himself surrounded by a wide plaza filled with people in odd clothing. Time travel to the future worked and Martin had discovered it. Seventeen years of work, and now I’m standing one-hundred years in my own ...

Intra Machina Sine Deus

Author : Martin Berka Nothing about hell could be pleasant, and that included departure, but joy matched pain. Slowly, my consciousness was drifting through the wires. A thought or a memory would drift away from the others, accelerating, then slowing. More would follow, and ...

The Worst Part

Author : J.D. Rice I twist my ankle as I land in the ditch. Mud spatters over my uniform, filthy water pooling in my socks. I ignore the stench, the reek of the jungle, the pain stabbing up my leg, and press on. If I can only make it another ten minutes, I’ll be free. Ten ...

Caveat Emptor

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Viisas signaled the plaintiff that it was ready to receive its opening statement. “Your Honor,” transmitted Rotalutsop, “Reus sold me a planet that is completely unusable, and I want a full refund.” Viisas processed the opening ...

Kulbit Blindness

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Nicola pushed the throttle further forward, feeling the massive airframe surge as he tripled the speed of sound. "There are now eight aircraft in pursuit, finger four formations, over under," Sev, the aircraft's control system, broke the ...

Time To Think

Author : Clint Wilson It always felt lonely when the ship sailed off to tow more rocks. After all, being the only companions for eighteen light-years Jim didn’t want to see them wander too far. But somebody had to stay here in the processor and make sure things ran smoothly. ...

C is for Light

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer She was giving me a lecture and I didn’t like it. However she was the captain so I listened. “If you go any faster than 2C, you start to travel backwards as you travel forwards. You get to your destination before you leave. That is ...

Transit

Author : Julian Miles We met at a parts fair. We simultaneously laid hands on opposite ends of an Emptor storage array. She smiled and brandished a handful of gigaflex at me. "Mine." She said. In one of those moments of prescient genius, I replied "Ours." It started for ...

The Weaknesses of Revision

Author : Brian Bartolomeo Apparently I have a face that invites unsolicited advice. “Are you even listening to me now?” my brother asked from the driver’s seat of his semi-classic car. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? What you need to do is to get a job that ...

Staples of Life

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer They watched him through a one way mirror. He sat in a corner of the room in a pool of his own excrement, legs pulled up to his chest, arms tightly wrapped around his knees. What was left of his clothing had been reduced to little more ...

Leisure and Medication

Author : Cael Majin There was a spider on his ceiling. It hadn’t moved for as long as he’d been staring at it, which was… probably an hour now. Maybe two. He wasn’t knowledgeable in the acclimate taste of arachnidkind—were there brown recluses in this area? There’d been ...

The Cupboard Was Bare

Author : Cesium When the food ran out, we all responded differently. The Cythalans engineered themselves into cold-blooded pygmies, with slow perception and quiet metabolism, tending their meager crops with careful patience. They lay on the hills and watched the sun wheel ...

Outsmarted

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Raising a pair of binoculars to his eyes, Captain Anderson peered out the warehouse window toward City Hall. “Any indication that our snipers have spotted Baskan?” “I am no longer receiving telemetry from Cooper,” replied the android, ...

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