The Quickening

Author : TJMoore

Lightning struck her left wingtip sending a twinge all the way down to her ribs. Finally it had begun. She flapped her enormous wings, increased her speed and altitude. She needed a body strike.

It had been twenty rotations since she had mated and the time ...

Temponaut

Author : Duncan Shields

The good news is that my time machine works.

The bad news is that the laws of the universe will only allow it to go forward.

I don’t know what I was thinking. We sent it forward two minutes and then three minutes and then a month. All tests ...

The Sea and the Skylark

Author : Sam Clough aka "Hrekka", Featured Writer The wind is always cold. Or - I correct myself - the wind always feels cold. It's usually about four degrees this time of year, but the wind makes it feel like minus ten. It's heavily laden with salt. I've lived down here for months, ...

The Path Not Traveled

Author : Patrica Stewart

Kathryn Duncan sat in the waiting room of Alternative Realities, surrounded by her husband, her two sons, her four grand children, and her seven year old great granddaughter, Wendy. Wendy sat in her lap, while the others gathered around her recalling ...

Babel

Author : Robert Niescier

We didn’t know what to think when we first saw it. The case, shiny as a mirror, surviving down in the bottom of the ocean God only knows how long, resting in the shadow of some strange underwater mountain. We had never seen anything like it.

I ...

Something In My Eye

Author : Chris Court-Dobson “Stop, there’s something in my eye.”

The spore had crash landed in his eye, and people were emerging. Light was blotted out as he rubbed, but the people were unharmed.

“I think its gone.”

The people had nuclei, flagella, ...

The Queen of Sparks

Author : Sam Clough aka "Hrekka", Featured Writer Molly padded along a short alleyway, and emerged out onto a wide street. She was approaching the centre of Night City. High above, the slow beat of the topcity's vegetable heart could be felt rather than heard, one beat every few ...

Haunted

Author : Jeff Deignan

Let me tell you a ghost story.

I see my sister every day, while she eats and sleeps through the minutes and hours. She walks, she talks- but never to me. The cold, white rooms always seem to threaten to swallow her as she traipses about, and me as I ...

Burned

Author : Benjamin Fischer

“Haywood! My good friend.”

So says Szilveszter, ever propped on a barstool at the Wildwood Flower.

Takes me a moment to wrap my brain around the fact that it’s him, for real, not ten meters in front of my scarred, cindered, ...

Sosiosphage

Author : Sam Clough aka "Hrekka", Featured Writer We pieced together what happened later, taking what we knew about the way we'd been infected, and from what we saw happening to the rest of the world. We don't know if we should count ourselves lucky that we were the first to be ...

Endgame

Author : Jeff Deignan

Stop me if you’ve heard this one- No, that’s not it. Let’s just say I’ve been busy.

Ok, talking hand, got that part.

Burly men giving chase, got that too. Not liking that; would enjoy it more if they were women and less ...

Beginning

Author : N. Landau

The morning paper on the table declared that the crime rate had tripled since the news that the city had run out of vaccine, and the virus was spreading rapidly. The headline lay between two stale cups of coffee over which the two scientists had made their ...

Bureau of Life

Author : Michael Shreeves

The judge stared down severely from her podium. "Mr. DiPolo, you are hereby sentenced to two months of court-mandated therapy and a one year probationary period, during which your prescriptions will be monitored and adjusted. You are also required to ...

.CO.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The building's glass stretched skyward from the sidewalk, turning back looks, and draining the features from their reflections. Stone stepped into the turnstile, and with a quick twist, the glass cylinder dutifully deposited him inside. At the far ...

Search and Recovery

Author : J. S. Kachelries

Captain Semaj sat at the head of the conference table. Also at the table were the remainder of the Bridge Crew and several senior department heads. At the far end of the table sat Lo Yaluo, the director of Search, Rescue, and Recovery who had just ...

Alternate 8927HG

Author : Joshua Reynolds

Rifles barked and Censor Wight grunted with the impact of each slug. High-velocity bullets. Unpleasant. A lucky shot had disrupted the light-bending circuitry. He continued to run, hugging his burden to his chest and weaving between the columns thrusting ...

Red String

Author : RFK

There is a 65% chance I'm thinking with you now, though your scientists believe it to be smaller if you've heard of me at all.

Although I found you mammals late in the Cretaceous period, I was legion when the Cenozoic era began. I started with small ...

Expeditious

Author : Daniel Nugent

The stars shone coldly through the solar plane of the binary system XJ-22V. At a point 100,000 kilometers away from the lone planet in the system, space began to warp itself in such a way that if you looked at it, you would vomit. Which is what the grey, ...

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