Two Wrongs

Author : Colin Edley Nobody likes the guy who told you so being right, especially when the three day bender you went on after the girl he said was no good meant you couldn't drag yourself out of bed except to phone him up and ask him to cover your shift. So here I am on the ...

The Corbett Prominence

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Faced with almost certain defeat, Earth Command committed 70% of its deep space fleet to a last ditch effort to conquer the Arcturian homeworld. But the Arcturians were well prepared, and Earth’s future was looking bleak as the ...

Outlaw

Author : Q. B. Fox The music for News Night faded from the surround-sound speakers. Robert waggled an outstretched finger towards the sensor on the TV and, on the second attempt, dragged the window containing the security camera feed to one side. “Tonight,” the interviewer ...

Here There be Monsters

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer The leaves of the overhanging canopy cast a restless pattern of light and dark on the forest floor. The soft trill of flying animals and the occasional flutter of branches as some unseen creature passed on it’s arboreal thoroughfare ...

Trucker

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Our server’s arm whined with steam driven pistons as she set our drinks down. This was body modification on a new level. She must’ve been on eleven different kinds of immunosuppressants. She probably had a biotechnician on call to handle ...

The Future Soon

Author : Neil Shurley “Will you just cool it about the jet pack?” It was all I could do not to shout at him. Barry’s daily tirade against the state of the world left me feeling nothing but tired. Ever since New Year’s Day he’d go off for at least ten minutes every morning ...

Ding

Author : James Riley “Oof!” Miller grunted, raising the bar for John to take it. He exhaled deeply and sat up. John casually dropped the weight onto the maglev lifts and patted his friend on the back. “Think that’ll do it?” John asked. “Should. . .” Miller replied, tapping ...

The Other City

Author : Cesium They were together when the city stopped. Their office perched atop a spire reaching up from the business district. Usually holoscreens afforded them a panoramic, unobstructed view of the city, or of whatever other landscape they wished to see, but those were ...

What’s The Manual Say?

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer The shuttlecraft was careening out of control in the upper atmosphere of an uncolonized Class-M planet orbiting Alpha Mensae. Lieutenant Ashby reached down and touched the control panel to shut off the alarm. “What’s the Manual say we ...

Our Title was “Revivalist.” We Performed “The Process.”

Author : D. Maurer “Coffee?” I asked him; we were watching a recovery procedure. This poor sap died well over five hundred years ago. He was the oldest meat popsicle we had attempted to revive. “Excuse me?” “Would you like some coffee?” “No. No, thank you.” I looked at ...

Prophet and Lösch

Author : Q. B. Fox 17th April 2002, a concrete room, off an unmarked tunnel on the Northern Line. “How long were they down?” Simon looked up from what he was doing, and even in the dim light of the rack mounted servers I recognise the pinched expression. “12 days. ...

News at Nine

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer “Okay, this is some of the best footage of the conflict we have seen. We spent a lot of money to have Johnson’s eyes and optic nerves replaced with the latest equipment including superconducting neural jacks, which can operate at higher ...

Sovereign Earth

Author : Liz Lafferty Seven years I’d waited for my DNA match. Seven years of anxiety about what she would be like. Seven years of stress about whether she’d find me attractive and a suitable provider. Nineteen billion people inhabited the planet. I never understood why ...

False Positive

Author : Mark Robinson “But, how is any of this possible?” Despite the scene she’s making all I can focus on is the pink tip of the pregnancy test strip - which we stock on aisle five - that she’s waving around in the air; watching the droplets of pink-tinted urine fleck ...

Crash Protocol

Author : Daniel Fuhr Red rocks crumbled under my heavy boots. I looked around the desolate Martian landscape and destruction thereupon. I could taste the acrid smoke around me as I walked through the wreckage of the downed ship, even through the environmental suit and ...

The Anti-Universe

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer A small boy sat in his father’s lap staring at the full moon as it rose above the eastern horizon. “Daddy,” he asked, “Where’s mommy?” The father rested his son’s head against the inside of his right bicep and pointed toward the ...

The View From Below

Author : Elbie Kruger I was born on the Calcarus colony settlement, a city floating 50,000 miles from planet Earth with a breathtaking view of the solar system. Having been born in space there were perks, however there were also drawbacks. You became used to cramped spaces ...

Way Out

Author : Ellen Couch “Don’t you love me?” she asked. “You know I do,” I said quietly, “but you’re not mine, you never really were.” I could tell she didn’t understand- how could she? As far as she was concerned, we had the perfect life. Late one night in the physics lab, ...

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