Author: Brian Maycock In one hour, he would be free. Murty grinned. Smiling was not against the rules, not strictly speaking, but if a guard saw you smiling there was a good chance a beating would follow. They might think you were laughing at them or hiding a ...

Author: Chris De Pree “How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them.” –Christian Huygens (1629-1695) The rapidly moving silver ...

Author: Majoki The dog’s tail wagged. Or so it had seemed. Lhalam wasn’t so sure now. She held back the sim-treat. The dog nuzzled her sandal. Curious. Curious for both Lhalam and the dog. She powered down the dog and it stretched down at her feet as if ...

Author: Alastair Millar They could be watching him already. He eyed the roboserver winding through the tables towards him. It was a bipedal, not rolling, model; the Ares Lounge had tone. The performers and escorts were human, even. No class or no money? Then you could ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer “Above as under, I am eternity.” It is irrefutable fact that each day you all, without exception, unwittingly amble through the exact moment of your eventual demise. That unassuming second into which those you leave behind will, ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Of all the things I loathed while growing up, learning that kept me indoors and sat down was highest on the list. Consequently, I became a superlative athlete with appalling academic skills. If it wasn’t for my never-admitted abject fear ...

Author: K.Hartless Will it stay cloudy forever?” I release a pillow of breath through the slit in my box, try to imagine Jared’s expression, lost to me from behind cardboard folds. He’s brought me to the ravine for a reason, and I sniff the morning air as if searching for a ...

Author: Eric Fomley “What are you doing?” Sammie asks. Bo is slicing through the artificial flesh on the back of her neck, folding the plastic material away and exposing the circuitry. “I’m packing you up,” Bo says. His chin trembles and he chews the inside of his lower ...

Author: Samantha Kelly Jac entered the cafeteria, tapping her ID bracelet against the sensor. She waited for the machine to calculate an ideally nutritious meal. Once it arrived, Jac took her tray and sat at the end of one of the tables. The other paramedics were in the ...

Author: Rachel Medina I admit I am not the most skilled gardener, but these flowers say the cruelest things. Not that I don’t deserve it. I know that I do. But, if these flowers die, that’s it. I’m dead, too. It wasn’t easy to get this gig. You have to remember where you ...

Author: David Barber An old spacer complaint is that home is never where you left it. Spacers end up in bars like this. Relationships don't survive years out in the dark, but that doesn't matter here, one loner recognised another. Perry listened to them arguing about ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer I have been in this asylum for so long that its corridors have become my arteries and its rooms my veins. I really feel more than a little lost, and my gums are covered with a grainy film. I don’t know why I stopped here. I don’t know ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I staggered from the wreck of the Templeton stark naked. I’d been submerged in a sensory womb, enjoying some virtual sports with colleagues from C-Shift, when all three dropped offline. I wasn’t to know their side of the ship had been torn ...

Author: David Henson After work, I stop by to check on my father and find him carrying a flashlight around the well-lit house. “Is everything OK, Dad.” “It’s your mother.” “I miss her too, Dad.” “No, Son. This is your mother.” He holds up the flashlight. His ...

Author: Lorna McGinnis Dear Valued Employees, As you may know, the world will be destroyed next Wednesday. A massive asteroid will strike the earth at approximately 4:00pm PST, and that will be the end of humanity. Unfortunately, additional requests for paid time off ...

Author: Brian Etta “Breath through the nose and out through the mouth” Justin let that instruction carry him. Sitting in half lotus he resisted the urge to itch as he scanned his body for sensations and in so doing produced and amplified them. There had to be something to ...

Author: Majoki Her eyes were oceans of possibility. Blue and depthless. And I was shipwrecked. A fallen eyelash crushed the sails and within moments my ship foundered in the shoals of the iris. When I climbed, half drowned, upon the pupil, I was looking straight down ...

Author: Jim Anderson A bell rang and the finding room fell silent. The finder — a small, silver-haired woman in a lavender robe — turned to Ulrich and said, “A simple question, Citizen. Do you believe in one objective, mechanistic reality governed by the laws of Newtonian ...