In A Nest Of Ice And Snow

Hongping watched a small child flounce across the glacier floor. The furry grey snowsuit the child was sealed into kept it from going faster than a clumsy amble, but it didn't seem to mind. It was charging toward a huddle of summarily swaddled children. Waving its arms like that, the handless ...

Thirteen

Herring rushed down the wet road toward the dock. Thirteen minutes till the grid went live. Thirteen, an unlucky number. Herring thought about knocking on one of the doors in the first class residential district, pretending to be a businessman trapped by his late hours. It would have worked ...

Digicide

It's tough to tell when someone disappears. You always just figure they're busy at work, or studying for finals, or on vacation, or something of the sort, so none of us thought anything was strange when we didn't see Nodek for a while. Actually, to be brutally honest, none of us even noticed. ...

Pile Of Dead Things

The surprise was ready. Melanie had worked hard to ensure that this November would be the most wondrous time that her daughter, Fawn, had ever experienced. She’d made all the right calls and had the work done in a forest around their estate. As the workers departed, she left them with thanks ...

This Year's Aristogiton

"Half-man, half-dinosaur!" A voice-over perfectly matched with the combination of human and tyrannosaurus genes that hovered above Zyi Izaiah Eizenberg's holo snapped him awake. "The perfect candidate! He literally devours his opponents! Kennedy Rex wants what you want, and is not afraid to ...

Cyber

“So what you’re saying is that—” “What I’m saying is that I want you to look at me when you speak!” Christie scowled at her husband. It was an argument they’d had at least a dozen times in the six months they’d been married. “That’s what webcams are for.” Joel ...

Ticket

There were no trees on earth but despite this the Martian men took to the metal forest as easily as the native Martian woodlands. They battled the native Earthers in crumbling buildings and industrial towers, dead electrical lines strapped between sprawling cities. On Earth, this urban warfare ...

Boom

It's not easy, you know. I've had to sit here until they needed me, just like all the rest, but they tell me I'm special. The scientists told me that I would be different than the others, that they pulled me from the plant and opened me up with the cutting edge of science. It's an honor, of ...

Sally Stardust's Cosmic Celebration ™

I think I was about eight years old when I decided I was going to be a scientist. When you're eight, this sounds like the perfect career. I could see myself in a starched white lab coat surrounded by petri dishes and beakers as I looked into an antique microscope all day, and then, at night, ...

Personal Taste

“I’d like one Sephiroth, please.” The voice of the timid, mousy-haired girl in front of the counter matched her appearance. Maggie sighed as she looked up from her paper. “Do you have an appointment?" “Ah, no. Was I supposed to?” The shy girl looked uncomfortable and wrung her ...

Old Man's Moon

Jesse McVeigh had lived long enough to remember a time before the wall was erected, way back before the seawall was necessary to keep back the waters of the Sea of Tranquility from encroaching on the borders of the city of Artemis. Old Jesse McVeigh will tell you about those days, if you ask ...

Moresheck

Moresheck was one of the brutish, ham handed psychics that roamed the twisting urban alleys of the north face of Mars. All his rapes were consensual. All his fights were fatal. He was a free citizen bound only by his ability to pay for damages, but no one ever got far enough to charge him. ...

Street Smarts

“Open this door. Right now. I mean it! Open the damn door!” Herbert kicked the car door in frustration. “Honey, will you please tell the car to open the door?” he asked through clenched teeth. Herbert’s wife, Alice, peered up at him through the driver’s side glass from her seat on ...

Civic Duty

It was Friday evening and Lucas was getting ready to perform his duty. He’d already tugged off his leather loafers to put on a pair of combat boots. He'd disheveled his black hair in front of the bathroom mirror and traded his pinstripe jacket for an old worn t-shirt and army fatigue vest. ...

Adsum

The glass beads were black and white: tiny flattened circles that made a loud clattering sound when he emptied the bag onto the glowing white floor. Most of the 1,394 settled within a few feet of his legs, although a few rolled to the outer reaches of the room. "The problem here is that you ...

When The Dust Settles

"There's an element of theatre to all this, ain't there?" the sheriff said. Malachai Singh was a gruff man, but a fair sheriff, and Sister Britney took this into account when she spoke to him. "Jeddeloh is our home. We're here to assess the damage, get some closure." She motioned behind her ...

For The Music

“Oops!” a golden egg dropped from Yizzies mouth onto the glowing floor. “There goes another baby!” she laughed and a skittering spider came with a dustpan to clean the mess. Raich pulled his eyes out and threw them halfheartedly at Yizzie before plugging his sockets into the curling ...

Match-Made Messiah

“This planet needs a Messiah so you and I have to fuck.” Sydec said. He didn't mean for it to come out that way but the tests were absolutely fail-proof, and he needed to express the urgency of the matter to Vsha. That’s aside from the fact that he wasn’t always too keen on ...

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