Translation

Her name was Bianca. She was thirteen. She only spoke French. No one spoke French. The resistance brought her here after she'd been hit by a Federated tank. The gash stretched from her ribcage to her hip, opening up like a silent and thirsty mouth. I realized, after the third hour, that ...

Copy

“I still don’t understand how anyone could justify putting a little kid through this.” Quinn’s father glared at the doctor, viciously protective. The doctor shrugged. “It’s to discourage use. They didn't intend it for little kids.” His mother had been begging hopelessly ...

Digital Multiplex

“So what about ‘light blue’ or ‘dark blue’? Can I just say ‘tinoh ekilit’ and ‘tinoh saikilit’? Or do you have to use a separate word?” “No, no, you’re missing the point. They don’t have light blue or dark blue. It’s either blue or it isn’t.” “But they have ...

Soul Drive

Turning a page in the magazine, Martha looked up to glance around at the others waiting in the lobby. The sound of dizzying muzak resonated around the off-white walls. She was nervous, but she had no reason to be. She was going to help a lot of people. Across the room there was a small child ...

Party Girl

Which one of you did I go to the DEX with last night? Fess up fuckers, cause one of you left me floating in R-space without my pants. At first, I didn’t even know I was awake, there was light inside of my head and I couldn’t make it dark. Then I realized that my eyes were open and I was ...

Tomorrow Is Suburbia

"They're shutting down another museum?" Michael groaned as he turned the page over. "Who do these guys think they are? There's like, what... two museums in the world left?" Michael's co-worker slowly raised his head above the cubicle and cocked a brow. "Mike, do you ever listen to what you ...

The Tower

The day Korea went silent was the greatest single act of terror the world has ever known. There were no bombs in Samsungs tower, no poisonous explosions, no shootings, no crystal night. There was only that quiet dormant virus, spreading silently from one person to another, insidiously latching ...

Fleet Of Ages

I've been expecting you. You're going to ask me if I've heard what the Fleet of Ages found on their return trip. I have. Wasn't surprised when I heard it, either. I never could wait. That was my problem. That was a failing we all shared. I used to think that, more than any man, I understood ...

Dan Huckabee, Hero

for my mother Dan Huckabee was the type of guy that nobody liked at parties, unless it was a party filled with the same type of guy that Dan Huckabee happened to be. He talked too much. Some people talk too little at parties, and nobody likes them, but nobody liked a guy who went on ...

Weapon of Choice

"Damn, we're in a tight spot!" Simon had never seen a more troublesome mentor in all of his training. He just sat wide-eyed with two suitcases in his arms, stuffed behind a pile of debris from their bridge-port fight, his legs poking out. Simon's maverick mentor Alabaster Jones was firing a ...

Last Resort

A professor of mine once said that creativity was the last resort of losers. That it was an evolutionary quirk, of no more merit than a giraffe's elongated neck or a platypus's duckbill. That from an evolutionary standpoint, creativity was not worth mentioning, and worth even less compared to ...

Pripyat Time

On rainy days, on days when the air smelled like ozone and soot and water fell swollen with chronoradiation, Anton climbed to the roof of the tallest building in Pripyat to watch the sun peel the clouds from the horizon at sunset. The first nine blocks were easy: he pushed the girl ahead of ...

Epidemic

"Did you hear about the breakout on the southside?" Alison twisted her head around to watch Misty pulling off her decontamination helmet, which emitted a soft suction sound as her head popped out of the air-tight seal. "What? I couldn't hear you through this. You know I hate it when you do ...

Pride

Carol laughed, her plump cheeks rising over tiny eyes. "Admit it, you're a genius." Jude shook his head and his dark silky hair slipped over his pale face. "I do okay, but I wouldn't say I'm a genius." Carol smirked and put her hands on her fleshy hips. "How about Renaissance man? Come on! ...

High Art

In the evenings I would go into the studio, tablet in hand, and sit there for hours, just sketching. My husband had bought me a full-wall screen for our last anniversary, finally giving in to the idea that without my art, we wouldn't have had a marriage. After twenty-two years, it was an ...

Keeping Safe

Jemai's skin was the color of water, which is to say it was hardly a color at all. Her body was a milky grey that took on a blue or green tint in certain lights, and when Thomas's warm fingers traced her hip bones they left a trail of amber in their wake. He loved the way her skin reacted to ...

Outer Space Romance

"I don't understand you Earthans at all," Jaeg said, inflating a third bladder in order to rise up to the spaceship window. Earth was still in view, though it was slowly shrinking amongst the black. "You have one of the most gorgeous planets in the galaxy, yet you all are constantly wandering ...

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