When Stacy was twelve, she celebrated her father's thirty-third birthday.

It wasn't actually his birthday. It was two weeks before his birthday, but he was leaving on a mission in five days.

Stacy thought the party was boring. There were a ...

Battle raged on around him, the constant sounds of gunfire ringing in his programmed earlike audio receptors. He, however, was oblivious to anything but the almost lifelike pain near where his navel would be, where the bullet had pierced his stark green casing. ...

“We’re flying.”

His voice is soft. Satisfied.

Her smile never wavers, nor her posture or the angle of her head to the angle of her swan white neck. But the hand in his squeezes for a half-second. Her feet keep perfect time with his as ...

I’m standing in front of the safety glass and seeing the thing look up at me. Its legs end in black tentacles that look diseased. The fingernails of its left hand are very long. One nostril is dripping what looks like grape juice onto the ...

On top of the highest shelf of plywood painted to look like expensive wood, in the corner of the spare bedroom, sat a globe. The globe rested on a base of wrought iron with gentle scrolls and turned out feet like a bathtub. The globe itself was ...

The people started dying almost immediately.

They said that the earth would defend itself. That’s what the global warming and rising ocean levels were all about, they said. Eventually the atmosphere would get hard to breathe, they ...

My head throbbed like I’d been drinking cosmopolitans for three straight days and nights. When I was finally able to open my eyes, I was staring up at a white ceiling. Huh, that’s not my ceiling. Where the hell am I? I struggled to sit up. The walls ...

This was the test. Ted and Alice’s marriage vows had been exchanged and the reception was a huge success. It was the day after. They were glowing, a little hung over, and ready for the rest of their lives together. They were ready for the ...

We rebelled with a 100,000 watt transmitter.

Frequency Modulation and Amplitude Modulation. Both were abandoned by commercial radio and the military long ago, replaced by satellites and microwave bursts. Even 2.4 - 2.6 Ghz, those ubiquitous wireless ...

“So now what?” Taylor asked as she sat across from Jackie.

“I don’t know,” Jackie shrugged, “I guess we open it up and read the directions.”

They stared at the box on the kitchen table, excited at the prospect of parenthood. ...

I brushed away more leaves. There was a hard surface beneath. Ceramic armor. I ran my hand along it until I found the edge, then pointed my flashlight. I stared into a dark mass of machinery-- joints, gears, struts, wires. There was a serial number ...