Look Before You Leap

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer The smell of sulphur permeated his suit. His body absorbed and metabolized it, leaving a permanent foul taste in his mouth. He exuded sulphur through every pore. In short, Martin Petrov stank. This, however, was the least of his ...

Copycats

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer They were a race that liked to live amongst the other races to better understand them. They were diplomatic yet fearsome, possessing great weaponry but very gentle in one-on-one conversations. They looked like starving centaurs crossed ...

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

Author : CJ Bergin Tom rolled over in his sleep and felt his arm fall onto cool skin. “Careful honey” a whisper in his ear said. “Unless of course, you’re trying to start something.” A smile crawled up Tom’s face as he moaned playfully. “No” the word resounded through the ...

Seventh Contact

Author : Dale Anson Seventh Contact The ship was nothing but a bit of gossamer, wrapped in a smallish chunk of spacetime and plasma, elongated to impossible dimensions. Krista's thougths, stretched by relativistic time, traveled from synapse to synapse in mere seconds. ...

God Will Not Return

Author : Christopher Booth The life support system wheezed. Not that it made any difference. Yahwee could barely hear. Eons in space and the ability to communicate without making a sound made Yahwee’s ears barely usable. His big black eyes wanted to cry, but the ability ...

Concept Scope

Author : Daniel Fuhr “The concept is simple enough. We send a very powerful telescope out faster than the speed of light to a calculated area, then zoom in to the Earth at a specific location and hopefully we can watch past events.” “What you’re talking about is time ...

Sea and Wind and Fishermen

Author : Credentiality "This is our in-system debugger, for when we want to get really close-up. It isn't necessary for setting up hurricanes, but it's a good excuse to go down and play." Bar helped Nim set up his avatar and load in. "Heya Phil, how's business?" asked Bar, ...

The White Room

Author : W. Kevin Christian The room was not cold. It was not wet. It was not noisy or colorful. It was quiet and white. No pictures on the walls. No carpet on the floors. There was just a table with a man on it and a black-and-white digital clock hung from the ceiling ...

Missing Lockdown

Author : Andy Mee It would be easy to say that they had disappeared, but that wasn’t quite true. What was once a row of Victorian terraced houses still lingered in the cold swirling air, now just a choking dust, like a visible air-borne virus. An hour before sunrise, as she ...

Jumpstarting Earth’s Hydromagnetic Dynamo

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer The weakening of Earth’s magnetic field was becoming critical. It had been decreasing five percent a decade since the early twenty first century. If the decay could not be reversed, near-lethal doses of charged cosmic radiation would ...

Likeness

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Thomas was spending another Saturday afternoon looking for deals. Today it was furniture, specifically something unique to fill the vacant corner by the window in his apartment. "That's Ralph Lauren," he hadn't heard the salesman approach ...

As Long As It Takes

Author : Aaron Henderson "It's going to be a kick-ass weekend," Gus thought to himself as he maneuvered the ratchet and claw, carefully removing a panel from the dusty robot that lay a few feet in front of his maintenance pod. He was looking forward to watching not one but ...

A Chink in the Armour

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer “Don’t show it, please don’t show it, for the love of all that is holy, please don’t show it.” “Gentlemen, as you can see from the footage, the XA - 4 reactive armour system is effective against all small arms ballistic ammunition as ...

TC47

Author : Liz Lafferty Life insurance was easier to write now that Sovereign Earth had established a predestined day of death. I’m not saying that everyone died on the predestined date, but some politician with a mind toward the future had discovered that incentives and tax ...

The Dream Machine

Author : Andrew Brereton Now he understood what his master had meant when he said that some people come here only to never leave. The place was truly magical. Even as he watched, a man and his assistant walked by carrying two strange skulls with long ridged horns curling out ...

Two Minute Meeting

Author : Rob O'Shea Too little time. Too many meetings. I turn on the Transmit and zimmed out of office and back to home. In the wardrobe there is a skin I put on. Have to look fresh. The girl — blonde, cancer free, young — cries. I detach her body from the hanger; unhook ...

Swimming

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Headfirst into the mainstream with my lawsuit buzzing, that’s the only way to do it. The cold data can stop your heart. Bright red crosses dance around me, warding off viruses that can infect my setup and make it drain others. The pile ...

Insomnia

Author : Waldo van der Waal “Don’t worry,” she had said, “I’ll be there to take the straps off once we come out of stasis.” She had smiled at me. A pretty smile. She was pretty all over: Dark hair, pixie-like features and perky breasts. I could see her nipples through the ...

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