Author: Jessie Atkin The pairs line up at the life tubes. They wait patiently. It has been nine months; a few extra moments will not break them. When the white light begins to flash everyone stands a little straighter. The first pairs in each queue step toward the receiving ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks Franco had fainted. It was 105 degrees in the city, and despite all the warnings on radio and television, he had insisted that he would go birdwatching. Franco had heard that a male bobolink had been sighted in one of Detroit’s many tallgrass ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer I’m running down a corridor lined with tall computers. There’s a government goon hot on my tail. What scares me most is his non-stop shouting about “can’t fire on the slippery bastard because hitting a system will ruin my shot at ...

Author: Daniel Mainwaring “Fuck! He’s not breathing,” whimpered Kai. His friend was delirious when they dragged him from the crashed vehicle but he had slipped into unconsciousness as they laid him out on the desert floor. “Stop freaking out, Kai,” Eli retorted. “He’s ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks There was a fur farm, the Edward Fur Farm, in Livingston County, about fifty minutes northwest of Detroit. When a group of city-resident foxes, whom Detroiters called “sentients,” got wind of the farm they planned to pay it a visit. The foxes ...

Author: Andrew Dunn My ex hated the spaces between terraformed colonies on Mars. “There’s nothing there. It’s all dead.” She’d complain, as we glided through thin atmosphere, a meter over unforgiving land where bioengineered chaparral was taking root. When we still loved ...

Author: Alzo David-West The Uppers in Mazui could not understand anything Sam Tek was doing. At first, they thought the problem was cultural, but he had lived in northern Atakia for six years. Next, they thought he was inexperienced, but he had a decade of experience. ...

Author: Randall Andrews "Don, a year ago, you thought you were a robot. Literally. You've come a long way, but this is a big step. Are you sure you're ready?" "I'm sure, Doc," Don said, hoping it was true. *** Five hours later, Don was sitting in the passenger's ...

Author: Alastair Millar "Live clean," the pastor always said, "and when the Time comes, you'll be taken up". So I was good, worked hard, kept my head down, avoided most of the obvious moral pitfalls of 21st century society, watched dutifully for signs of the End Times… and ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Sir Kenneth Greyling’s eyebrows rise as a uniformed youth rushes into the members’ lounge, looks about frantically, then heads his way. “Michael, I do believe this one’s for you.” Major Mike Greyling looks up from his apple pie, catches ...

Author: Rosie Oliver Lizzie had left the life of pressurised techno-work behind and retired to a small cottage in the wilds of her beloved Northumberland. Peace at last, except for renovating the cottage top to bottom. She could take her time, that precious commodity that ...

Author: Nicholas Schroeder The supercomputer could predict everything you were going to do. But Kyle was skeptical. “Let me see that video again!” He studied it carefully. “None of that’s going to happen.” “Could you be more specific?” the scientist asked. “Well, I’m ...

Author: Mikhail Gladkikh First, there were thoughts. I acknowledged my existence. None of my senses functioned, but I felt their presence. Somehow I knew they were taking care of me. Then my vision started to return. I realized I was submerged in liquid. I remembered I was ...

Author: Surina Venkat “Your nanobots are infighting,” my doctor tells me over the phone. It makes sense now – the sudden blackouts, the locked limbs, the dark red bruises that snake my body. The doctor’s voice is tight but careful, in the way of someone who’s used to ...

Author: Alzo David-West And the midnight air is hall'd, all the people turning cold, shadows storming in a stare, something's coming, drifting near.

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Ocular atoms detonated in a scream from a lonely girl's eyes. An android woman ...

Author: Anna Hamilton Glacier National Park. Many Glacier, year 2050. You adjust your iGoggles and look at the rock face. You blink twice, fast, indicating you want to do a search. You look at a result towards the bottom, hyperlinked words superimposed over the ...

Author: David C. Nutt The robot fabricators went haywire and had to be powered down and the minutes not working were counted in billions of dollars. To make matters worse, when they powered up again, all the software patches did was cause the once haywire fabricators to up ...

Author: Paul Colby In the end, no one really missed it. Some of the older faculty members in chemistry and economics had routinely enjoyed mid-morning coffee with Dr. Milstein, the cranky Americanist, who read them depictions of anal sex and urine showers from Henry Miller ...