Author: Mark Renney The bullet passed straight through him. Of course it did, he was a Hollow but he was the latest model, state of the art, the most efficient and lifelike replica on the market right now. Lenny groaned, because to all intents and purposes at that ...

Author: Ell Rodman I spent most of Monday morning awake in bed, staring at a clock that reads three hundred and eighty two. Its set into a wall of deep green steel tainted by orange rust. Or did the clock stare at me? I could never tell where the cameras were. Next to me, ...

Author: Elysia Rourke The meteoroid hurtles towards Pioneer’s cockpit every time you close your eyes. Alarms scream—you scream—and slam the controls. All for nothing. Today, your calculations have worn your last pencil to the eraser. That's why you're mixing urine and ...

Author: Majoki It’s a bummer, but whenever you try to cram too much into too small a space, black holes inevitably form. That’s the danger of trying to imagine the largest of numbers. Huge numbers contain a lot of information, and information has weight. Ten trillion ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer There’s a star on the horizon, and it’s golden, not white. Tasmisa is what the people who live there call it. They spent thirty-eight years developing the world-shifting technology that allowed them to escape the destruction of their ...

Author: Bob Brussack On the planet Janus there are two advanced species: the Narses and the Nerses. It's taken for granted by both species that the Narses are good-looking and the Nerses are smart. Be that as it may, and there's reason for an off-worlder to question both ...

Author: David Henson “Hello, this is Claire Rains with Now You Don’t Enterprises, maker of the Light Bender Extraordinaire. Whom do I have the pleasure of assisting?” “Claude Wells. I’m having problems with my new invisibility cloak. I —” “I’m here to help, Mr. ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher The Stormwatch was wrong. There was nothing on the scanners for this. The projection was for only light chop for the nine-hour trip from New York to Plymouth, England. Captain Hendrick squinted through the rain slashed windshield, at the ...

Author: Mark Renney We have been instructed not to refer to her as the alien or the extra-terrestrial or even the visitor. I’m sure she has told the Scientists and Government officials her name or has informed them of the system she and her society use in order to identify ...

Author: Rachel Sievers We stood there unable to say or do anything. Looking was all that our minds seemed capable of at that moment. I wondered if it was because we were the same person. Maybe we would have the exact same amount of time in shock and horror and then we would ...

Author: Majoki Poets aside, the universe is not indifferent. It runs on love and hate. Attraction and repulsion. It has a physical obligation to bind or repel. Sometimes both. Which explains my relationship with Enth. Like orbital and subatomic decay, we clung to one ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The scream of fighters passing overhead fades. Silence resumes. The three sat at the undamaged end of the table return their gazes to rest on the woman sitting at the other end. Minutes pass. Finally, the middle one of the trio ...

Author: Steve Kemple For one thing, they don’t prepare you for continental drift. How could they? We aren’t equipped to think on a geological time scale. You live eighty, ninety years and the tectonic plates move what. Thirty feet? Try this on for size: “I remember the ...

Author: James Flanagan Lying on the gurney, I slowly succumbed to the anesthetics. The last thing I recalled was a bright light and a frantic “Oh, shit.” *** I opened heavy eyelids and blinked. “He’s back.” My wife’s voice, distant, unsure. “Dad?” Andy, my ...

Author: James Flanagan Iain opened the car door for his father, Tom, inviting him to exit. “Three decades I worked for those uncouth S.O.B.s,” Tom muttered. “I raised you kids…of all the betrayals…” “I’ve heard great things about this retirement home,” Iain said, pleading ...

Author: Timons Esaias This would be a nice planet, if not for all these places where the seabottom is sticking up out of the worldocean. It is most unseemly and immature. We are trying to be generous about it, trying to convince ourselves that this planet is too young, ...

Author: Cliff McNish Eventually, once we’d screwed up everything in the ecosystem, Naomi and I were the final ones left – the last man and woman on Earth. Unfortunately, we didn’t get on. We felt some vague responsibility to repopulate the world, but kept avoiding sex. We ...

Author: Majoki I fancy myself quite a reader. I mean, I read everything. Everything. Even “Know your 8-inch Howitzer” published in 1984 by the Department of the Army, Headquarters, US Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command. I’m not particular. I wasn’t ...