Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer The porcelain pilot hovers just beneath the artificial swell of the valley lip. Once long ago a dam though now, after the water has long since fled, it is but a hill covered in lush deep grass and bluish grey flowers with petals that purr ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The planet Naduskar is a technological wonderland without visible natural surface, be it land or water. At some time in the distant past, an advanced race converted or covered every last piece of open ground. There’s the mystery: is it ...

Author: Chana Kohl When my ship touched down on the small moon of E’lyrvst III, nothing struck me particularly outside the ordinary. Host to the largest salvage yard in the sector, V’hara, the proprietor, was known across the explored galaxy for her business acumen and ...

Author: Fatemah Albader The only certainty in life is that it will eventually come to an end. But what if there was a way to know exactly, with 100-percent certainty, when your life will end? Would you want to know? If you said yes, I’d rethink that if I were ...

Author: Rosie Oliver An idealised woman never existed. She is an imagined blend of traits in a single glorious perfection, a beautiful Frankenstein of personalities. Not one considered as part of the crowd or an asset to be used or abused by another, but a woman who stands ...

Author: Maryfaith Ocampo I authorize the usage, study, and replication of my gametic cells. I grant the genetic clinics permission to edit my Genetically Modified Human (GMH) as they deem fit. I understand that there are unknown risks of experimentation with newer ...

Author: Rick Tobin Meds failed Jeremy Paloo, leaving him restless, sweating under the ship’s ventilation over his bunk. Newbie deep space fever—no crime struggling with it during maiden voyages outside the solar system, but embarrassing for executive officers. He felt ...

Author: Fatemah Albader “When you install a family of your own, you’ll understand,” I said, though I wasn’t convinced she ever would truly understand. She’s 30, successful, wonderful life, but still acts out like a child, even though we took her back to the adoption agency ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer In a room darkening as night falls, lengthening shadows are rearranged by the flickering of a grimy display screen. White, blue, green, yellow, black. The night briefly reforms. An image of an emblem flashes up to fill the view. It ...

Author: Brian C. Mahon Posit this: If post-singularity, the lucky ascendants have their consciousness uploaded to a massive mainframe, they would have two rewards. One: As long as the servers are powered, time is untethered from sensory perception. A second could be a ...

Author: Carmen Condon 'It was one of them …' 'One of the robots?' 'Yes! They think a robot smothered him …' Variations on this theme drifted between the deceased's relatives; their eyes averted from the aged care automatons whirring gently down the aisle. Verity ...

Author: K. A. Williams The steel android watched the aluminum android cleaning the window and said, "I overheard that the humans plan to destroy all older model androids by melting them down." "Thank you for telling me, I will inform the others." Walter 99 finished his ...

Author: Amanda Leon I live a life by a thousand cuts. I’ve died too many times to count. I always feel it towards the end, the straining of my old self on new muscles, my bone edging out, ripping slowly through flesh. Some humans never change. They occupy the same body ...

Author: Majoki Once there was and there was not a place. a time. a man. a woman. a child. a robot. The medina was a maze of alleyways and shops largely unchanged for centuries. Until this one. Saad, Buchra, Abbas and Rafik sidled through the dark, narrow footways lit ...

Author: David Barber "There's the official version," said Lev. "Where First Contact was that signal from the Jirt ship out in the Oort. Then there's what really happened." The old hands round the bar had heard all this before, but it was Lev's birthday and he was footing ...

Author: Georgia Scalise It's common knowledge that eyesight is a thing of the ancient past. Ask any kid and they'll be more than happy to tell you the stories about how millions of years ago, humanity supposedly lived above the surface, basking in sunlight and using their ...

Author: Majoki What do you think we hit, Captain? Can’t say. We went through the critters pretty fast. I’ve never seen anything quite like that flock: multicolored, almost metallic, circling in a protective formation. Very strange. We’ll have to wait until the techs ...

Author: Angela Acosta Juru steadied the nozzle skyward, working his way up the curvature of the inner dome. It was tricky work sealing in the pleasant mixture of breathable air for the new inhabitants. The locals christened their new home Stoda, short for Standard Dry Air, ...