Author: Lee Hammerschmidt April 29, 1976, 11:53 PM "Don’t answer!” I said as I felt the muted phone throbbing in my cargo shorts pocket. “Do NOT answer!” I answered. “So, Chalk,” Aurora Nirvana, my boss said. “Would you care to explain to me just what in the ...

Author: Chana Kohl “When Dr. Helena Athanasiou took the lectern, I could feel the hair on my arms prickle, as if the electrostatic potential inside the auditorium increased several Coulombs. It wasn’t just because she was a brilliant geneticist, a sharp intellectual, and a ...

Author: Matthew Goldstein The ancient skull peeked out of the ground like a shy creature waking from an interrupted slumber. “Hey, Davoh, check this out!” Shielding her eyes from the glaring sun, her body tense with anticipation, Jarab brushed off a few more particles of ...

Author: Matthew Ferguson Earth 106 AB (2077 AD) – Blamazon Prison #654 Hamish, an older man, and Janie, a young woman, wait in their cell for lunch. "Eat your bleep and lament your bleep of robotic bleep", intones the robotic jailer. The robot deposits two trays of ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer I live in a cabin on top of a very large hill. Of an evening I go into my kitchen and I rummage in the second to top drawer and I retrieve my ever-depleting roll of aluminium foil and I fashion it and place it atop of the large hill of my ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Out of the grey-blue fog comes a five-armed green pudding in fancy breeks, waving two ray guns and a cutlass. It takes three attempts to blow a hole in it with my beamer. I’m too drunk for this. The world only comes in to focus every ...

Author: Phil Temples “Centre for Metropolitan History,” Ross Livingston speaking.” The youthful historian answered his desk phone with all of the authority he could muster given the fact it was only his second day on the job at the prestigious institution, situated in ...

Author: Rick Tobin Look at your moon, or so you call it. So much the lie. It isn’t yours. It never was, and worse, it is the trap, detaining me against my will. I am multi-dimensional. I traveled freely through the galaxy, using the unusual magnetic fields of this blue ...

Author: Hillary Lyon “Hand over your phone, please,” the officer ordered. He smiled a mirthless smile behind his plastic face shield. “Look, I’m fully vaccinated,” the woman answered as she extended her left arm. She pushed up her flannel sleeve and rotated her arm, ...

Author: Majoki It has been noted that the first few dozen steps tend to dictate the following few thousand. For sheep. I wonder what that makes me. I’ve been on this trajectory for 80,000 years, and it’ll be another 1000 years before I reach Proxima Centauri b. That’s ...

Author: Chana Kohl Walking down the alabaster hallway towards exam room three, I pass a row of windows overlooking the hospital pavilion. A flash in my visual periphery draws my gaze across the open courtyard. Crepuscular rays of golden sun escape passing clouds, leaving a ...

Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer My name is Verity. I am senior columnist for the Moonville Daily Star. My name means truth. I’ve a friend, she’s obviously not. If she were then I wouldn’t be sticking pins into the pools of her cartoon fawn-like eyes. Oh, but I do it ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer When I crash-landed here, I thought my life was over. Sure, it might take a while to actually end, but nobody would be looking for a freak-chance survivor from the Fourth Battlegroup, who only avoided sharing their grisly fate by a twist ...

Author: Connor Long Johnson It began in 2049 as the Asimov Initiative and ended a decade later with the release of the Mother AI – the most advanced program in human history and man’s biggest undertaking since the Manhattan Project. Everyone wanted M.O.T.H.E.R. The brains ...

Author: David Barber Because they’d all turned up for book club and Kitty’s apartment was on the compact side, Jo-Anne’s Companion had to be left out in the rain. There were cries of appreciation at the period detail. There was even a bulky TV set in the corner. "Who ...

Author: Majoki When Misty smiled that big smile of hers I could see the cancer so much more clearly. It was hard not to say anything. I mean what do you tell the thirty-something supermarket cashier you see a few times a month and only know her name because it’s pinned ...

Author: David Henson Feeling drained, Walter Banks decides to prepare a homemade energy drink. As he tries to find a recipe online, he interrupts his search every few seconds to check his phone for email, headlines, sports, weather and more. Before he knows it, a couple ...

Author: Alastair Millar When we found her, the Marsport Mary should have been dark and silent, or a wreck. Instead, the lights burned, the life support systems ticked over, the computers hummed… but there was nobody aboard. The salvage crews are bringing her in this ...