Author: Eva C. Stein Jen watched the boy wobble on his magnitro board, sparks flaring at the edges as one foot just skimmed the dusty ground. “He’s heading for disaster,” she said, not expecting a reply. “Or notoriety,” a voice said beside her. She turned. A stranger had ...

Author: Majoki Sebastian picked up a sheared finger. He gingerly held the digit, storing its smooth, young paleness in his memory before dropping it in the orange bio-waste bag fastened to his belt. Jakarta, Cape Town, Yangon, Chengdu, Lima, Montreal, Oakland. He’d seen the ...

Author: Alzo David-West The astronomers of Tui had built a Colossal Telescope, and peering into it, they were astonished to find in their home galaxy a planet much like their own—a world of olive shades and deep blues dancing around a sunny-colored gem. They zoomed in ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer He doesn’t see me coming: hardly a surprise. Who expects a random victim chosen from a crowd leaving a club to have a bodyguard? I punch him in the side of the head to get him away from the target, then kick him in the ribs to pre-empt ...

Author: Colin Jeffrey They returned Bromley, their butler android, to the factory after he started talking to himself while looking at his reflection. The trouble had started the month before when he paused halfway through serving breakfast to stare at his image in the ...

Author: Hillary Lyon The room fell silent as the Admiral strode into the briefing room. He snapped on a holographic representation of a small solar system. The planets on display swirled in their orbits around the ghostly sun. “For the last several generations,” he ...

Author: Robert Gilchrist You know what it will do to you. The warnings are everywhere. The PSAs on holovision. The billboards on the highway into work. Your social circle has even been impacted by it (Sophie’s cousin’s boyfriend is still in recovery). But that’s not going ...

Author: Linda G. Hatton Juniper’s steel-toed boots weighed down on the gas pedal like a cement anchor at the bottom of the sea, letting up only as she pulled her new fifty-thousand-dollar investment into the slot marked “service.” She ducked out of the car as soon as the ...

Author: Majoki You’d think I’d be happy about beating the odds on my very first try, of hitting a hole-in-one, winning the lottery, finding a needle in a haystack. Not so much. Not when you beat the astronomical odds of folding space-time to the exact system that is ...

Author: Rick Tobin “Sir, shouldn’t we turn about? Maybe hide in the asteroid belt?” Ensign Murphy stood to the Captain’s side, expecting an immediate order to retreat as a fleet of hostile aliens approached at maximum speed. “Hardly, Murphy. You were brought on this ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer He sits there like some statue against the rising full moon, hook nose and narrow chin in profile, eyes lost in shadow beneath tousled curly hair from which wisps of smoke rise, describing silver trails in the moonlight. “You’re ...

Author: Ernesto Sanchez I never thought I would ever hear my father’s voice again. Pitying my aimless life, he handed me this job decades ago, a post so simple a witless robot could do with ease. The monotony is the most difficult part; log every disturbed visitor ...

Author: Alzo David-West swirling leagues of double stars and life-pulsating suns, waving bands and cosmic rays and manifold planets turning, plasma clouds expanding in the spaces of the void, inter-solar orbits in great eccentric form— a nova blast ...

Author: Alicia Cerra Waters I remember laying on the midwife’s cot after the world had been deep-fried by a nuclear bomb. I wasn’t feeling very optimistic. The midwife’s mouth puckered with words she didn’t want to say as she offered me some herbs. Problem is, I knew those ...

Author: Alastair Millar Maybe if we’d thought about it sooner, instead of just buying what the newscasts told us, things would have been different. But I’m not sure. I mean, Autonomous Immigration Management Systems sounded like a good thing – they’d be a non-human (read: ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher The vessel approached the large planet and Ot’O was steady and eager behind the controls. This was Ot’O’s world to discover, his accolade. The extensive voyage, aside from a few minor adjustments, had gone as planned. Advanced technology allowed space ...

Author: Cecilia Kennedy If you follow the trail of woods at the Inkston County Line and see a purple and silver spot that swirls and sparkles in the afternoon sun near the oak tree, that’s where Lilibet lives. (At least, that’s what I call my little worm-like pet, who ...

Author: Susan Anthony “Have you ever noticed how bratwurst looks like the dismembered parts of an amorous man?” Jimmy replied, “I feel like we may have got away from recipes again.” “You’re right. I was just reminiscing.” Jimmy echoed the sentiment, “I understand. ...