Author: Anjan Chatterjee ROVID-87 decimated dogs. That was over 700 years ago. For my research, I was combing through old books in Central Archive. Only a few books survived the disasters. I was trying to understand dogs and what happened to them. A terrorists’ virus ...

Author: H.B. Varley She held the baby close. One hand nuzzled his head, the other laid upon his mouth. They laid curled in the back of the car, below the seat and the windows. She didn’t let him see, and kept him close to her chest, so that her heartbeat might calm him. He ...

Author: David K Scholes “It’s the third time this week I’ve tried to put through holographic calls via the real-time galactic link,” Mary sounded frustrated. “Nor have I done any better using instantaneous or delayed messages on the Universe Net. I can’t run a business this ...

Author: Craig Finlay You’ve kept a list of firsts ever since you were six and learned you were the first generation of humans to be born on a generational space ship. You knew this earlier, but for some reason six is when it clicked, what first really meant. While reading a ...

Author: Marvin Thiele It was 2050 and the clocks were striking thirteen. Technological addiction was widespread. Everyone sat on their couch, headset on, enjoying artificial utopia. VR was about five years old, and everyone was already bending over backward for it. The ...

Author: Gerard Mulligan As she requested, he had retrieved the red blanket from the bed upstairs and thrown it over her feet as she lay stretched out on the sofa. She had murmured thanks and was soon falling asleep with her hands instinctively covering her stomach. He ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer The walls are clad in something cheap that’s meant to look like metal. The table I’m attached to has one leg bolted to the floor. Likewise the chair, but I’m not tethered to that. The door looks like it might actually be metal, but the ...

Author: Brian Maycock Peter's hand was cold as she led him down to the beach. She was unsettled so wanted to talk but they had run out of conversation weeks ago. Peter can talk on more than two hundred topics. She had read that somewhere. But she had not focused on the ...

Author: Oisin Hurley Nailah stopped to catch her breath in the shadow at the base of the pyramid. One time her ancestors would have been buried here, surrounded by items they could bring to the afterlife. They had food from the chill lands to the north arrayed around their ...

Author: David Henson Richard teeters to his pig. Made of a hard, shiny material, it's pink, sports a green tux, and is about two feet tall and five feet long. Steve scoops the pot into his pile of poker chips. “You OK, Richard?” "Not OK,” Richard slurs. "Wife left me. ...

Author: David Barber This species is very wary of us. Skittish. Paranoid even. And all because of the reckless behaviour of the Adversary in times past. Though doubtless that is what the Adversary says of us, so neither can pretend the Accord was an act of benevolence. ...

Author: Beck Dacus He lowered the faceplate of his emergency spacesuit’s helmet, sealing it under his chin. In his ear, a voice suddenly said, “Hello, Commander. I’ve set your suit to play this recording approximately when you’ve crossed the event horizon of your life.” He ...

Author: Sara Jordan-Heintz I found myself gasping for air, awakening on the loveseat in the sitting room of my rented beach house, my heart thumping in my chest, with the same sensation drumming a discordant beat in my ears. I could hear the waves thrashing against the ...

Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer “Good morning. What a glorious day to be chugging through the cosmos in a scow named Cameron.” “Fuck off, Mike.” “No need for that, my esteemed colleague. We should revel in the sinecure we’ve been given.” “Are you high?” “Merely full ...

Author: Ken Poyner Stoyan looks down at the broken glass. “You would be this awkward if you had six legs,” he says. And I probably would be. No matter what else, this host-an-alien program is proving a way to expand perceptions. I am learning oh so much. Stoyan is ...

Author: Nick Carter Blackness. Brilliant light. Twinkling suns. It was beautiful. He had never seen anything like it. Even from the starship, it wasn’t like this. There, he was held back by man-made metals and alloys. “Barriers,” he thought. Barriers holding him back from ...

Author: Brian Maycock Free drinks for life. I was nineteen when I said yes. The machine announces its intentions with a gentle hum. A can is dispensed. I feel dizzy, nauseous. I've hardly slept for the last week. We're going to lose the Mitchell account and it's ...

Author: David K Scholes Through the Unified Mind I perceived the vastness of this Einstein-Newton Gap. One of the tracts of interstellar space where neither true teleportation nor even hyperspace travel were possible. You just had to crawl across these “gaps” at just ...