Author: Michael Anthony Dioguardi Only one man had ever landed on Pallas Palu—a meter-wide asteroid composed entirely of palladium. He was my former partner, Denton Fitzpatrick, and he’d been mining the Taurus cluster for decades. The asteroid wrangler snuck in without me ...

Author: Robert Beech My brain is dead. I should feel nothing. After all, the brain is the thing that thinks and feels, is it not? “Garbage in, garbage out,” that was the rule taught by the first computer programmers. So, with no input, there should be no output. I should ...

Author: Ilias Stroulias Ever since I was little, bad memories dragged me down like weights chained around my neck. I still recall vividly that time in English class when the teacher called me a monkey for messing around with my friends. The whole class laughed and all I ...

Author: Alzo David-West Dust whirled in a sunbeam. The early dawn was sapphire. A monomorph somewhere about seventeen, with gentle eyes and regrown arms, walked down a vernal glen. They saw two hares and three toddlers in the bordering woods. Branches of a birch wavered in ...

Author: Morrow Brady Time has no business in a cemetery. It stands by the gates, weeping at each new monolith. Within the pine casket, at the bottom of the open grave, the red chrome tendril pushed inside the corpse like a train entering a tunnel. Mechanical discs tore a ...

Author : Kathy Kachelries, Staff Writer Ollie McNeil used to be a person, or so the rumors said. He came to the glades when the glades could still grow grass, before the floating villages, when the mosquitoes were smaller than the shrimp and the shrimp were safe to eat. Not that ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Space, the never-ending frontier, the long night, the sea of stars. That last one should have given us a warning. Look what we did to the seas of Earth: filled them with our discards to the point where we nearly choked the planet. “Ping ...

Author: Leon Taylor “I am not going to live next to a mansion of six-foot cockroaches.” “It’s their right,” his wife said. “Since when did cockroaches have rights?” “Since the Alien Rights Act of 2037.” “I know. I wrote it.” The Senator watched the movers lug ...

Author: Rick Tobin Werewolf rage fell short at the cage’s impenetrable viewing glass, prevailing against the assault, aided by a low-gravity holding cell. The brief demonstration impelled Ensign Collier to fill his spacesuit diaper. “First time seeing one up close ...

Author: Tina Ruiz The beast screamed as she pushed her way through the dark underbrush. It had been chasing her for what seemed like an eternity, but tonight it was closer than usual. She stumbled but caught herself on a branch just above her head. Scrapes from the dense ...

Author: Tadayoshi Kohno “Hello. Welcome to your new Aurras Smarthome Assistant. I will listen to you when you say my wake-up word, ‘Aurras.’ Say, ‘Aurras, Configure,’ to configure me.” ### RECORDING, JANUARY 4, 2026, 3:01PM: “Aurras, Configure.” ### RECORDING, JUNE 27, ...

Author: Deanna Di Lello The RV began to slow despite Adam’s heavy foot on the gas. A loud beeping noise accompanied by a flashing light drew his attention to the fuel gage. It was past E. The RV came to a stop and Adam began to shake. He had spotted a group fifteen ...

Author: Barbora Bartova It was a late sunny afternoon. The freshly fallen snow was glowing bright. For a moment she wondered whether the glow was caused by the sun or the radiation of the nuclear fallout. After a while, she decided it was the sun, but still, she would ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Hey, Cherry. Who’s that freak you know? Reynard?” Constable Dalforth grins nastily. Inspector Cherry Fasslin of the Tactical Response Group grimaces. He knows she knows exactly who he’s insulting. She also knows he wouldn’t say word one ...

Author: Kevin Johnston Hello, sir, welcome to Cerebromax™. Please place your hand on the scanner for identification. For your convenience, this scan signs all waivers and release forms concerning our transaction today. Thank you for choosing the Cerebromax™ ...

Author: Jacob Bentzen The blonde beard iXi had commissioned dripped with dew as he flowed through the misty forests of New Norway. He leapt over the moss-covered rock and landed on the animal trail without breaking momentum, his naked body covered in sweat and thin lines of ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer I woke with a start before dawn, the sky outside was still dark and yet the room was bathed in a shimmering orange glow. For a moment I thought I was dreaming, but the room was my room, as I left it when I went to sleep, excepting of ...

Author: Robert Beech I do not recall when I first began to dream. Slipping silently from cell to cell, from host to host, I had no perception. Breath and blood, fever and delirium, these were the realms I inhabited, but I was no more conscious of them than you are of the ...