Author: Robert Beech I’d been on the force a couple of weeks when I started doing night patrol. Night patrol is a rite of passage that all the newbies go through. It’s where you get to see what lies beneath the façade and see the city for what it really is. Night is when ...

Author: Warren Benedetto "Mom!" Amy called. "Package is here!" The delivery drone lowered the package onto the receiving platform, then buzzed back to the mothership hovering overhead. A pleasant tone chimed as the package slid into the apartment. "I didn't order ...

Author: Peter Arscott The shouts across the river were loud and human. On this side there was no noise and no activity, and the house stood between two oaks along the road. Close against the side of the house the man stood with a rifle waiting for the inevitable to happen. ...

Author: Kat Hutchson She looked at him with her huge blue eyes. “You have a Dollar, Mister?” With a quick glance at her, he noticed the delicate machinery shining through three straight cuts in her cheek, the plastic flesh hanging loosely over the left side of her ...

Author: Rick Tobin Linoleum floor tiles under Lieutenant Benson percolated. He watched his black and white control room warp in a rolling wave as a cacophony of grinding groans rose from below. He grasped slick white walls behind him for support, fearing his collapse. A ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer They warn us about culture clashes, especially the dangers of exposing primitive cultures to advanced technology. My mother went with the concept of “one being’s magic is another being’s science”. Ever since, if our devices are too much ...

Author: Evan Alexander On the last remaining colony on earth, a now desolate and fiery landscape, two men steal the STRATOCYCLE. The only hoverbike in the galaxy with a faster-than-light drive. The last colony, Offworld, is a bustling epicenter of business, yet a seedy ...

Author: Quinlan Moss I wasn’t born in space like most of you. Until I was sixteen years old, I was planet-bound. I only dreamed of traveling to the stars and beyond. If I had known what it was really like, I would’ve remained where I was in my gravity well. Maybe it does ...

Author: Steven Sheil Vera exited the Ambassador Suite and activated the vacuum seal, ready for the next guests. The moment the seal was complete, she felt the pulse in her temple that indicated that her work schedule had been updated. COMMODORE SUITE, EAST WING came the ...

Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks If breakthroughs keep occurring let them in - Death By the year 2100, Detroit was know no longer as the Motor City. Few people called it Motown. It became known, at least among its own, as City of Cans. In the 21st ...

Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer When you're hurtling through space, distance and time become distorted. Celestial bodies appear, and disappear, sometimes in the blink of an eye, the instrumentation the only proof they existed. Sometimes they seem to drift past over the ...

Author: Don Nigroni I was an orphan, never adopted, perhaps because I wasn’t ever cute or special in any way. But, when I was nineteen, I was fortunate enough to become a live-in housekeeper to Professor David Knežević. He was a polymath, most renowned for the Knežević ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer We spent a century looking for life on other worlds. Found some, too. Most of it wasn’t happy to meet us. Us being us, we got round that with our usual bonhomie and genocidal violence. Until we met the Pesserac. They kicked our murderous ...

Author: JC Hammer Everyone hears new and they think different or better. That’s not always true. Humans on Mars? Sure that’s new. There’s nothing different about us, though. Nothing better. They didn’t exactly take the best of us with them. Sure, we’ve got a couple of ...

Author: I.W.Ray “What’s the matter? I’m busy.” “He’s dead,” my ex-wife gulped through her sobs. She didn’t have to continue. I knew who she was talking about. “Are you still there?” “Yes,” I take a second to brace myself like a dam against the news I knew was ...

Author: Phil Gagnon The prairie stretches before me in an endless expanse under the million blue hues of a sublimely beautiful sky. The camp is busy with the preparations for serving the evening meal and then later to bed down for the night. A freshly downed buffalo has ...

Author: Kafi Desir-Lorde It took nine long seconds for my cells to transform. The dryness was unbearable. My innards felt charred and empty, especially my head; this was intensified by the vibration of my breathing chambers. I felt undulating friction between all of my ...

Author: Fariel Shafee It always was the dazzling stars -- always, since he was a toddler. They flashed like beckoning lighthouses. "This is your destiny," John utters the words in a room with no other souls. But the words feed into his own head. He likes the sound and the ...