The Plum Eater

Author : David Zhou

It started, as many such things start, with a plum.

The fruitseller first noticed the plum eater when he came by the same stall not once, not twice, not thrice, but fifteen times in the same cycle. He would always pick the juiciest plums; freshly cloned ...

Discovered Upon Drawing a Curtain

Author : J. R. Salling

A large ripe melon rests on an operating table. Members of the surgical team stand in the wings, preparing long serrated knives. Spotlights illuminate chunks of crushed ice that slip down the sides of the patient. My mouth becomes moist in sympathy. I take ...

The Danger of Hubris

Author : J. S. Kachelries

I am very, very sorry. What else can I say? If it means anything, at least I will die before you. I probably only have a few hours left...just enough time to tell you what happened, and to ask for your forgiveness.

I am (actually, was) a graduate ...

Mobius Revisited

Author : LaTosha Hall

The three children stared at the table top.

"How's it doin' that?" the fair haired boy whispered, reaching two fingers out towards the dull metal object floating above the center of the cracked table. The only girl of the group, tall and gangly, ...

Guardian

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Zero hour is struck on an instrument of time beyond the grasp of mortal men. Above the sky over the northern pole of the earth, a great creature slowly shakes off the remnants of a rather lengthy slumber. Eight bristling legs unfold and stretch, ...

Next of Kin

Author : Ashley Bonkajo

The old woman had not been seen for quite a while. Nor was it unusual for a person to not be seen for months at a time. Robot or (for the very wealthy) android assistants handled the details of day to day life.

The old woman had not answered the door ...

Renegotiations

Author : Benjamin Fischer

Basajaun sighed and rubbed the sweat from under his eyes. A shadow had fallen across reflected rays of his private sun.

“What is it you want?” he asked, blinking and groggy.

The shade resolved itself into the slim image of a woman ...

Necessary Fictions

Author : John Mierau

"Mr. Jerome?"

Pen and thoughts still pressed to the page, the writer looked up: a tall man in an old-fashioned suit weaved his way through the happy hour crowd.

"David Jerome. It's really you!"

Another fan? God, why can't people be ...

Threshold

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer The big bike tugged at his gloves, pleading for the roll of the wrist that would send the 6 cylinders into a frenzy of combustion and release. Patience. He eased out of the garage, coasting down the parking ramp onto the drive before gently throttling ...

The Career of a Psychic

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer The recruiter says that you are a dumbass. He tells you he wouldn’t put you in the infantry for the eighteen worlds, because you would get someone shot. Later you learn this is the worst insult he could give. The recruiter tells you that you would ...

Einstein’s Last Words

Author : J. S. Kachelries

I walked into the offices of Temporal Travel Inc. A bored agent three rows back motioned me toward him with his free hand, as he peered around his upturned coffee cup. “Good morning, Sir.” he said as he placed the empty coffee cup squarely on a ...

Alternate 7816JS

Author : Joshua Reynolds

Dinosaurs thundered through a post-industrial city on their way to work. Suits and ties. Briefcases built to fit thick, knobby talons. The stink of mammal bacon on the breath of some, boiled plant on others. Pollution choking the air and grease and oil and ...

The Last Beautiful Thing

Author : D. Magliola

Ron was sprawled on a park bench. His dirty hands were tucked into the kangaroo pouch of his salvaged Nike hoodie. He exhaled a cloud of vapor and wheezed with his next breath. A single tear ran down his cheek and was absorbed in the dust mask that protected ...

Sky Marshal

Author : Phill Arng

It was wet work, being in the Sky Platoon. Yawning decades hunched in the basket of those primitive balloons with nothing for company but the clouds and the telescopes for watching all our friends below.

Time moved differently in the chronosphere and it ...

Space Walk

Author : Duncan Shields

The helmet amplifies my own breathing and makes me feel uncomfortably confined. It’s like when you can hear yourself chewing and it sounds so noisy because of the bone conduction going on with the sound but outside of your head its fine. Except with me I ...

One Step Forward…

Author : Michael Shreeves

The call had gone out, and they came. Across land, sea, air, hundreds of miles, they came, three million all told. No one in United Dissent could afford to miss an opportunity like this. Still, especially with a pig like Beauregard being sworn in, we ...

Stronghold

Author : Kenny R. Brown

A very sweaty, very fat man with a rifle paces back and forth at the top of the wall. He is guarding the only entrance, but he is more for effect than for any real purpose. An entire army would be unable to break down these doors. Made of an unknown ...

Eternal Life

Author : Patrick Supple

At the peak of the technological firestorm of the mid-21st century, few would have forecast a second Dark Age. The advance of dogma started with the unification of the world’s major religions into an evangelical philosophy in the 2050s. Many had welcomed ...

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