Sparg By Brian Trent Sparg had difficulty making pancakes, but he was trying. In the empty apartment, he clutched the silver bowl with one tentacle to hold it steady. With another, he attempted the far trickier business of whipping the batter as he’d seen his owners do many, many times. The bowl was bigger than …

When We Fall by Kameron Hurley I don’t remember the first time I was abandoned and forgotten, but I have told the story of the second time so often that when the memory boils up it feels hot and gummy, like the air that day. Whoever cared for me – and I can’t be certain …

Lonely Robot on a Rocket Ship in Space By A. Merc Rustad Byron scribbled crib notes on his wrist the night before he planned to come out to his dads. He’d told all his friends he was sick so he would have an excuse to stay home Friday night. It wasn’t like he was lying. …

The Sixes, the Wisdom, and the Wasp By E J Delaney Fereshteh Nemati was scared. She knew she was gripping her bow too tightly. She knew she should never ever aim at another person. But it wasn’t bad technique she was thinking of, or breaking her father’s golden rule. It wasn’t even the sight of poor …

My Generations Shall Praise By Samantha Henderson The woman on the other side of the glass must be very rich and very sick. I study her face, looking for any kind of resemblance. If I’m a Jarndyce candidate, we must be related. It’s the only way she could ride my brain. She’s a predator. I …

Surveillance Fatigue By Jennifer R. Donohue Is this woman a terrorist? It’s my job to decide. My typical first step is social media, before I delve into the emails, the school records. via Pocket

Anna and Marisol in Time and Space The big day came, and Anna was tempted to tie up Marisol and stash her in the closet just to be safe, but instead she put on her makeup and her pale blue gown (it was prettier than she remembered) and called, “Mari…

Astor did not want to discuss their coping plan. They didn’t want to think about their coping plan, or the trip itself, or the airport, or the subway, or— “No, thank you.” It had been worth a shot. “Never mind.” via Pocket

Brochures fanned across the lace tablecloth in Grandma’s dining room. Up close, I saw the recruiter’s immaculate makeup starting to crack, the silver showing against auburn at the part in her hair. She slanted forward with briefcase on knees and wei…

HK-812 stepped out of her charging pod and gazed out the single narrow window that her 8×14 living space boasted. The brick wall outside was a whole eight inches away from the glass, and the morning sunshine gave the red-brown a cheery tone. via Poc…

The space station was silent in the way that a black hole is black; it was more than just an absence of noise. There was something physical to the silence, a force pulling in all sound and eating it. via Pocket

The brown woman came to Vrau from the sky, without a name of her own. Piarcu knew that she was nameless, even though the women of his family only whispered it when they thought no one else could hear. via Pocket

When the guy with the horns came in, I knew it wouldn’t be a good shift. He scowled when the ZapStop’s doors refused to slide open for him. Ignoring the late-hours doorbell, he pounded one meaty fist on the shatterproof polycarbonate. via Pocket

After the terrible push to be free of the Earth was past, we could stand again. In a while, the engineers had said, everything would float, but for now we were still accelerating. via Pocket

They come to study. Not me. Not really. No, they come for Aerik—what he’s become. What I suppose we both will become when the slow swell of time and gravity finally draw us together wholly. via Pocket

You’re listening to the Mike Colavito Show on Cleveland’s home for straight talk, WCUY 1200. The opinions expressed on this program do not reflect those of WCUY, its management, or its sponsors. Fair warning; I’m in a mood today, folks. via Pocket

Lieutenant Sirella Nacleth breathes in green dust and tries not to cough. Her feet feel too heavy to move, but she forces herself to walk on, ignoring the heat that blasts down and around her, heat carried by winds that do nothing to cool the air fr…

He’d never seen a burgundy before. Kim held it in her lap, tapped it with her finger. She was probably tapping it to bring attention to it, and Jeff didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of asking to see it, but he really wanted to see it. via …

In this, the 25th anniversary of the founding of the lunar colony, First World (colloquially called Blacktopia by its residents), The Indianapolis Recorder, the nation’s oldest-surviving African-American newspaper, continues its series re-visiting k…

Escape Pod 648 A Handful of Dal - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2RsuBpR

Escape Pod 646 Subtle Ways Each Time - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2MQ9JFI

When the intercom on his desk buzzed, Marc’s head snapped up, instantly awake. He’d been dozing in his chair. His finger stabbed the button that told the boss he was on his way. He stood up and straightened his rumpled gray suit before glancing at h…

I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you this, but I really hate your vacation cabin. Everything about it creeps me out. The sound of crickets at night makes my skin crawl. via Pocket

Carmen would have expected a gold necklace or tarnished antique, maybe some money or a secret family recipe card, but she’d never dreamed her grandmother would try to immortalize herself through an inheritance like this. via Pocket via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 702 Inheritance - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2qnrR48

Points of Origin Most people who have reached their eighties without raising children have every right to believe that they will go on not raising them, and Judith and I were no different until the day they turned up with the social worker, neatly s… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io

via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io I didn’t go back to the Junior Colonists’ Lounge for a whole week. Instead, I spent the time with my dad, who seemed pleasantly surprised that his son wanted to hang out with him. It made me feel bad, like I’d been neglecting him. via Pocket

Raya eases power into the singularity engine and all her senses sharpen with the glorious, brutal reality of the moment: dead ahead there’s the blacklight-purple disk of Wolf-Rayet 104, twenty-eight subjective minutes before it goes core-collapse su… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 697 The Last Stellar Death Metal Opera - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/307B7Wc

If you are reading this, your Loved One has died. We are sorry for your loss. via Pocket via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 696 The Homunculi's Guide to Resurrecting Your Loved One From Their Electronic Ghosts - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/32ugG7t

Every night I come home and I drink. I trade away the hope, the guilt, the fear, even the love–I think it’s love, crazy as it seems. I trade them for oblivion, because otherwise I won’t sleep at all. via Pocket via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io Escape Pod 695 This Is As I Wish To Be Restored (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2Zx80Lx

Martian Chronicles They say you can’t smell anything through a launch-hood, but I still smelled the pove in the next seat as the space-attendants strapped us into our acceleration couches and shone lights in our eyes and triple-checked the medical r… via FREE Fiction / Raindrop.io https://raindrop.io