Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks I am convinced that I am a “fish,” i.e., an artificial human being. I came to this conclusion because the terrific pain I feel is not physical. I do not remember having had a body ache. My pain comes from a “systems malfunction,” also ...

Author: David Barber 1. Pauli Neutrino Telescope, Antarctica, 22nd July, 15.05 GMT Elusive particles flash through the array buried deep in the Ross Ice Shelf. Outside, at 50 below, the wind howls like a ghost in the machine. The latest plan is to run the PNT ...

Author: Rick Tobin “Thanks, and repeat whatever the lady is having.” Telman directed by lifting his shot of premiere whiskey towards a striking redhead in a tight chartreuse dress with a revealing leg slit sitting on the last stool at the end of the ritzy hotel ...

Author: Evan MacKay The holographic simulacrum was a perfect image of her mother. Same long flowing black hair that framed her heart shaped face. It was almost like seeing her in person. Maddi fought back the urge to reach out and grasp for her mother’s hand, knowing she ...

Author: Majoki If you believe in monsters, you believe in Bechevinka. As child refugees growing up in New Beijing on the southern tip of the subarctic Kamchatka Peninsula, we’d heard all the stories. Tales of fire and ice, volcanoes and glaciers, radiation and ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer "Nine hundred ordinary people have experienced portal transit to Nambinull with the help of a Candamar grant. Nine hundred lives transformed thanks to the generosity of our donors, many of whom come from impoverished zones ...

Author: Matthew Wollin In the beginning, everything was everything, and nothing was nothing. This lasted for an infinite period, which was no time at all, because time did not yet exist. Then the everything split into something, and something else. The something was called ...

Author: Condallas Snokoanovich I lie awake in the darkness, staring at an exceptionally clear star-filled sky. Two moons in crescent phase are peering from the horizon like the eyes of a black cat watching from the distance. The quietness around me would have been ...

Author: Melissa Kobrin Dear Kayley, I have no idea when you’ll read this. I guess it depends on what planets your parents decide to trade with before coming back to Provident. But I need to vent to someone, and you’re the only one I can talk to about this. Just please ...

Author: Mark Renney Tanner had always managed to navigate his way through life unnoticed. He became acutely aware of this when he first began his work as an Eraser. Ordinary looking and extremely reserved, even as a young man Tanner realised that this did not fully account ...

Author: David C. Nutt Nystrom 6 is a heavily altered planet- by what or whom was why we were there. On its surface is a 100-meter-wide glass smooth band of an unknown substance. It circumnavigates the globe at the equator and pole to pole. We had dozens of scientific survey ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer Rachel scrolled through what passed for news on her phone, coffee slowly cooling on the kitchen table. Malcolm would already be at work, leaving her in peace for this precious little time before she herself had to get dressed and head to ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m about to tear the end off another sachet when a voice sounds in my mind. “Go easy on the sugar. Too much of it makes me ache.” I look about. There’s nobody else except for the two staff. It’s not a busy period: early in the morning ...

Author: Paul Cesarini “I hate them. I hate them so fucking much,” she said, looking through her rangefinder. She had been there on the roof of the house – or what was left of it – for most of the night. She was tired, hungry, and grubby, but this was no different than any ...

Author: Rick Tobin Cold steel from a small revolver in his sweaty palms gave little comfort to Jack Chase, sitting alone amidst feral wheat still struggling in an abandoned field near his grandfather’s rotting farmhouse, long since left to crumble after the 2024 financial ...

Author: Gerri Brightwell We travelled for years before finding a habitable planet. Its one continent would be enough—to the south volcanoes let out wisps of smoke, to the north winds tore across deserts, but between lay a fertile land of easy rivers, and plains creased by ...

Author: Alastair Millar Eighty lights is a long way to go for a party, but Prosperina Station orbits Dis, the rogue gas giant PSO J318.5-22, and where there's no sun, the nightlife never stops. More importantly, the Company had decided that I was due a good time, and they ...

Author: Bob Freeman 10:43 It was always 10:43 His classy watch, each beat synched with the atomic clock in Colorado, was stuck. Scientists warned about the hole in the sun, the X-class magnetic burst. No one paid attention. "But the flaming telegraph wires in the ...