Author: F. J. Bergmann Only teenagers would work detasseling corn back in the late-twentieth, my grandmother had told me. Boys, or girls whom no one wanted as babysitters. But I was lucky to get any work at all, at my age. Unusually lucky if I lived another ten years to ...

Author: Huascar Robles Old Lady Pérez shouted one simple instruction: “You need to gulp it down. Todita la limonada.” Her command was an energy that traveled across Pedro’s skin, each pore. “I have seen the lemonade stand; it’s pink,” he whispered. Old Lady Pérez stretched ...

Author: A.J. Glen How long had they been here? There was no way to tell. After the ship, their suits and all their equipment had dissolved away, it became impossible to know what Standard Time it was. Attempts to mark the passage of time using their environment were ...

Author: Phil Temples I see them on the street corner again today. They’re an eclectic assembly of men and women. I count thirty-seven of them. While some are in their twenties and accompanied by young children, the majority are older—in their sixties and seventies. They’re ...

Author: Majoki “Follow your nose. Trust your instincts. What bullshit. Might as well say a bedtime prayer cause that’s all you’re doing when you go with your gut.” Traisa took a swig and set her highball glass down. “It’s worked so far,” Darte said, glowering at Traisa’s ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I watch the spheres orbit about one another as they spin within the space defined by the delimiter field. Fractal printers are fascinating. I find their intricate revolutions calming. “What do you think it is, Derry?” Gia’s always trying ...

Author: David Barber Kuiper-23917 tumbled lazily alongside the Ada Swann. The conglomeration of dirty ice was on the small side, and worse, the market price was at an all-time low. When Perry was last on Vesta, folk were saying the Ice Rush was over. She still had one ...

Author: Lori D'Angelo The problem with the time machine wasn't the motor, as I had first suspected. The problem was the inhabitant. John, in his infinite wisdom or infinite stupidity depending on how you regarded it, had made it so that the machine would only work for ...

Author: Bill Cox Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood everywhere! It’s okay, it’s not mine. Breathe. Just breathe. Slow it all down. Don’t look at Jones, or the others. Don’t look. The explosion, I’ll bet it was that problem with the gas supply that we reported. Those ...

Author: Alastair Millar We were fifty light years beyond Tau Ceti when the screaming started. The sound came up from the open hatch at the back of the flight deck, and if I hadn’t been strapped in my head would have hit the ceiling. It was inhuman, a wailing that rose to a ...

Author: Bryant Benson Timothy sat in a brightly lit, featureless room. Across from him was a woman with thick glasses and a tight bun. She was as institutional as the room and had yet to look up from her clipboard. After an agonizing amount of time passed, she clicked her ...

Author: Majoki “You’re a what?” “A panpsychist.” “Whoa. Trippy. You psychoanalyze cookware or something?” “In a way.” “Really? Double trippy.” “Panpsychists study consciousness with the belief that all matter is conscious. From a frying pan to an amoeba to a ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’ve just got back from the pyre lighting when a grey and blue Mercy drone descends from the overcast and beeps cheerfully at me. I fish around in my pocket and pull out our fob. After I confirm my thumbprint, the provisions box drops to ...

Author: Ken Poyner The robot has seen his finger smashed by the iron press. His job is to slide uncoiled metal plates into place for the iron press to complete flattening them. But the press came down while the target was still being settled into its brackets. He has to ...

Author: Alastair Millar Look, dying on Mars is easy. Equipment failure, sudden illness, inability to follow the safety instructions, they can all lead to the same (you must excuse the phrase) dead end. Making something look like a genuine accident is tricky, but it’s ...

Author: Ross Field “It’s time Mason”. His flip flops slapped down the hallways, they seemed as foreign to him as the hands holding his shackles and shoulders. Hands crawled all over his body as soon as they dropped him into the chair. Restraints were winched, electrodes ...

Author: Bill Cox “Hello, my name is Fragog”. The voice was the deepest I’d ever heard. I’d been playing in the garden with some action figures, as you do at age seven and looked around to see who’d spoken. “Oh, I’m not there on Earth,” Fragog explained, somehow ...

Author: James Callan Picking up the pieces is useless, a failed enterprise, like eating bisque with a fork. The bits that were my lover are like autumn leaves late in the season, too many to count, frayed, half-liquefied, one with the mud. I hold what may have been her ...