Author: Mark Renney Thomas collects the needles. It is an unpopular job but is open to all. No qualifications are required or prior experience, not even a recommendation. One has simply to turn up and register at an Agency office, take to the streets and, using the bags ...

Author: Majoki The chair creaked noisily when Sandoval sat at the table with five glasses set out. Even though he’d lost a few pounds since they last met, the old wood complained. Soon the others joined him: Avrilla, Hurst, Marpreesh, Suh. Five left. Only five. No ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer Mum always said ice mining is a stupid idea. Whenever she said that, Dad just shrugged and went back to watching videos about playing the markets to get rich. I’m not sure if it was her crazy enthusiasms for anything that might get us ‘a ...

Author: Anna Mantzaris It’s not easy to forecast weather on the moon. With an average temperature of 250º F and no atmosphere to speak of, this job has its challenges. The extended forecast goes into the billions of years. I always knew I’d never make it in a big TV ...

Author: Jason Schembri My body comes back before I do. Lungs seize. Throat raw. Muscles twitching down my left side—all the expected waking-from-cryo nonsense. And then my mind, snapping back like elastic. “Vitals stabilising. Visual distortion: temporary. Passenger ...

Author: Sarasi Jayasekara Sammy could see color. That was the part that bothered me. Not that he had all his organs intact while half my body had been replaced with machines. Nor that mama hadn't spoken two words to me since he'd been born. All that didn't trouble me. This ...

Author: Dimitry Partsi Hawkett and his desk arrived on the 17th floor at precisely 9:04 a.m. The desk, a formidable beast of faux-wood laminate, announced its presence with squeaky caster wheels. Hawkett, a man with a perpetually surprised expression, was, in his own mind, ...

Author: Rida Tariq *That bell of the night:- The phone bell rang at 2:30Am . "Liza" picked up the phone. There was a name on the screen that had been erased for three years: "Max❤️" Panic, surprise, and a forgotten pain all woke up together. "Hi...?" Silence then a ...

Author: Majoki “Based on the most current cosmological evidence, the known universe is less than 5% ordinary matter, all the crap we can see and touch.” “That’s still a lot of crap.” Grunden grinned. He always grinned. Finnhil waved him off. “That’s nothing. We’re ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Go left. Left! Between the trees.” “Rule nineteen: do not follow a road.” “Not the gap on the right. The gap on the left. Left!” Tersi rests a hand on my shoulder and cuts into my comms. “Check definition: road. Query application of ...

Author: Alastair Millar It was our usually bad-tempered neighbour Mr Winkelmann who first told us we could get ‘special benefits’ if we registered in person at the Central Bureau in Lapis. Indigo’s government knew we spent a lot on the exoskeletal clothing and ...

Author: Don Nigroni "Thoughts can't die or fade away," my little brother, Arthur, told me two months ago. He was an adorable bald baby who grew into a self-taught bald polymath. I replied, "So, what if thoughts do spend eternity in the thought-ether?" "If someone could ...

Author: Sarah Goodman One unblemished red apple. I passed it along the conveyor belt. Swoosh. One green pear. Its surface was a little rough, but it was decent. Swoosh. Another apple, but this one had a bruise on its side. A horn blared. A door opened, and I slid the apple ...

Author: R. J. Erbacher She was seated on the closed toilet, legs crossed, just a bath towel wrapped across her breasts, water still dripping from her brunette hair onto her pale bare shoulders. She pulled the straight razor along her skin, her fingers laced between the ...

Author: Majoki In my line of work, I hear it all the time, “Why do we have better maps of the surface of the moon and Mars than our own ocean floors?” To most folks it sounds like a reasonable question, but to a hydrographic surveyor it can be triggering. A few weeks ago ...

Author: Rachel Sievers It is unlikely that many people would leave here. This one-horse town as I’ve heard it called time and time again. Families and neighbors know since birth to walk down the concrete sidewalks. It is cemented in time as a place where the fifties values ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer There's another explosion outside. People are running about, screaming and shouting incoherently. Nevaten finishes his meal and watches as he wipes his lips. Takes a while, his face being more lupine than human. He’s one of the Beaston, a ...

Author: Cindy Landers There were disbelievers. No one had built a mega tower taller than seven kilometers. But that didn’t stop Max Ever. Eventually, an eight-kilometer tower rose above the clouds. A massive titanium egg on the roof, the Ever Enterprises logo, lit the sky ...