Jiang Xiaoyu didn’t move. “Time to ratchet things up a notch.” Max didn’t seem to have noticed Xiaoyu’s trepidation. “We can’t let your trip be in vain. Now then, down on Earth, you might try to jump the last three steps of a staircase. via Pocket

Meychezhek is big, even among badhar-krithkinee, a circumstance exacerbated by the fact that I’m both already nervous and kneeling in anticipation of her entrance. Her skin is purple-black, more textured than human skin. Her head crest, flattened no…

The atheist awoke in the machine. Body had he none. Merely a consciousness, who even dead, yet hath his mind entire. A good line, that. Where did it come from? Around him was a sort of prison of flat light, was it light? Prison, because he could not…

I hope you’ll forgive the whimsy of this report. I’ve held my silence my entire life, and there are many things I deserve to say to you. I know it’s a breach of protocol, but in a sense, so was I. And there may not be another chance. via Pocket

Jassim is giving chase and he shouldn’t be. Beneath the flapping robes of Jassim’s running target, a deadly corset bristling with titanium circuitry flashes into view. via Pocket

Yoshi scythes the lotus seedpod with orange-slickered arms and tosses them in the harvesting bag on her back. The blue sky overhead reflects ominously in the still ponds below. She reaches out and cuts the same perfect pod again. This means she’s in…

Sahar, moving softly through the river valley, made sure to listen. The sound filtered into her helmet from the external mics, and she imagined this must be what hiking on Earth must be like. via Pocket

I was sixteen when the viz came. The spiral went crazy for a while, shooting, soldiers at the corners. But then, like everyone knows, it went back to normal. By twenty I was looking for ghosts in the vaults. via Pocket

Long ago I dreamt things to myself because, when I talked to people, I had nothing else to do, most of the time. Robots were easy. I could loan them cycles and bandwidth to temporarily accelerate them, or just download them and read them completely …

Wake up, killer. For a year, two, you’ve been the static hum of space, floating, spread out over a solar system, asleep, invisible. Girl born on Helio 70, you. via Pocket

Gonzo arrived in an assault of brass music and spilling banners rippling the pelt of cannon smoke where her feet would’ve been, taking up the hotel entrance in all its marble and chrome—its expensive anachronisms and the people paid to stand next to…

The Gods were circling when the sun rose, nine long patches of black that did not brighten with the sea as the sky lit up. I watched Them, Their knife-blade fins like polished onyx slicing the surface, formation shifting but the huge old matriarch a…

Stormchases’ little skiff skipped and glided across the tropopause, skimming the denser atmosphere of the warm cloud-sea beneath, running before a fierce wind. via Pocket

They never gave her a name; when she needs one she names and renames herself after the birds she sees from the watchtower, the birds she sees in the forest, whichever most recently caught her eye or arrow. via Pocket

Chenguang hikes up her sleeves before vaulting over the pile of fuzzy moss and greets Lukas with a nod. The chloropolyurethane fabric flaps in the slight breeze and the double suns beat down onto her arms. via Pocket

The skimmer is on the roof waiting for him, but he cannot help but pause to take a few deep breaths when he first enters all that open space. via Pocket

When Li Yaya was roused from sleep, it was seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. This was aggravating because the day before Saturday was Friday, and on Friday nights, Yaya never retired too early. The first thing she saw when she woke up was …

They all tried to save me. In that space between life and death, you make a decision whether to wake up. Maybe that’s when time ceases to matter. I felt older than four years old and too young to remember. via Pocket

The occasional breeze allayed the scorching midsummer heat, soothing the fever dreams of the sleepers in the mining scar. The remote blue sky was rooted to the earth, which here in the work zone was the blood red of hematite. Zhang Hua crouched low.…

Landing planetside used to be a good feeling. via Pocket

“I rise today on this September 11th, the one-year anniversary of the greatest tragedy on American soil in our history, with a heavy heart . . . ” —Hon. Jim Turner September 9, 2001 Jessica slumped against the inside of the truck door. via Pocket

Sister Nadine’s first true thought is of beauty. Father Paul is delivering a sermon on sacrifice in his deep voice, pausing for emphasis every so often, when the bird lands on the ledge of her squint with a silent flutter of wings. via Pocket

Sometimes the Discontinuity kinks and curves and flips about as if it is alive. Openings slide along its vast length like undigested morsels down the gullet of a cosmic serpent. via Pocket

And then there was quite a long time with nothing to chase. No suggestive tracks in the ice, no hopeful stories told by misinformed strangers. The air didn’t hold any name glancingly resembling her name, and there weren’t even rumors about intriguin…

This is a story that ends as all stories do, eventually, in deaths. When Ada’s parents died in the winter of her sixth year, she was sent to the neighboring parish to live with her aunt, Margery. via Pocket

At the nurses station, Qina and Auntie Han were the only two left on duty. Everyone else had already gone home, relief flooding their faces as they exited the ward. Qina wasn’t her usual carefree self—but who could blame her? She was in the middle o…

For weeks, Sprite had told herself that Ratchanee Malakul was helping her hero get better, but no. “You have to accept that Jaran is never going to have sex with you,” the lifeguide told Sprite, as she was leaving on that last day. “You’re wrong,” s…

Halfway up the winding cliffside guideway, Zhang Lei turned his bike around. He was exhausted from three days of travel and nauseated, too, but that wasn’t the problem. He could always power through physical discomfort. via Pocket

“You sent this good for nothing wimp to me?” Her pointed finger inched upwards in the air until it settled on my face. Meixiu pulled back her finger and formed her other hand into a cup, tracing her right finger along the inside of the palm of her l…

It was a century ago today that you found the spark of life in this freeze-dried valley of death. via Pocket