“We cannot sustain the farm, Gozie.” I don’t like the way the words fall easily from Iyeh’s lips, even though I know he speaks the truth. I don’t meet his eyes. I cannot. Instead, I focus on the…

Sappel whistled as he walked to the construction site, the sound echoing off nearby buildings in a muffled way. It was early spring, and the city was bursting with the vibrant green of new growth.

continued from Part 3) MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL I strap into my rig, take a really big swig from my hydration dispenser tube I call The Ultra Black Vig, and settle back to begin this…

Continued from Part 1) JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Lòske jounalis sa yo gade m— Hold up. Let me say that again. I’ll wait. Y’all go grab y’alls paper an’ pen. When these Stater journos look at…

INTRO: ALL I’M EVER GON’ DO IS STAY BLACK AND DIE JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE Kinsley Chase sits on manman mwen plastic-covered couch. The InTell HumbleBrag subprogram Stanford Sutton Industries…

It is known that the Rootless are only ever leaving. Always moving on, never embracing soil long enough for connection. A life tumbled and tossed, and if it touches ours, it is only by chance…

“What’s your favorite tale?” I ask, voice quivering. My audience of thieves and killers, their gaunt, dirty faces illuminated by flickering firelight, eye me with equal parts skepticism and…

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?” Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green…

Three days later Alessia sipped tea by the circuit board, Mr Tumnus purring her lap. Things were going more smoothly than she might have feared. Too smoothly, if Alessia was being honest.

The miner birthed itself among rubble and vacuum, as it sang the last threadbare diamonds out of their stones. Where are the finest diamonds? No longer within reach. The miner had forged and extracted…

Teacher is an old-fashioned bug with a blue carapace and eyes like two domes of gold beads. She is very pretty and smells like follow, but when she flutters her wings you better look smart or you’ll…

Continued from Part 1) Kite was still curled into a bundle of blankets in front of the stove when Setti woke. The old woman sniffed, torn between surprise and annoyance. She’d have figured him for a…

Setti knew the woman for a ghost the moment she appeared. It was the pink hair that gave her away, short and spiky. Real people didn’t have hair like that. Also, you couldn’t see the scratchmarks on…

Punk Voyager was built by punks. They made it from beer cans, razors, safety pins, and a surfboard some D-bag had left on the beach. Also plutonium. Where did they get plutonium? Around. f*** you.

Nanlee was a woman with the sort of past that necessitated moving to a non-extradition treaty country, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t planned on enjoying her “retirement” on Luna Colony.

“It’s all gone.” The ethereal voice whispered—almost robotic and clearly distant—its desperate lament choked off with a gasp, which tugged Itoro back from unconsciousness. Sprawled on her back…

Úna’s dad once said to her: “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” Spring had turned and they’d come cycling up the highway, fourteen kilometres north through a land bedecked with rocky…

Lewis was poking at his tablet, trying yet again to open the training module from Station Commerce, when the sensor above his shop door chimed. “Not now!” he snapped without looking up. “But… but I….”…

Jaxon was not a connoisseur of art, but he could identify a work’s salient features. And the salient features of these particular works were that they were valuable, lacking any obvious security…

“Hey Marty,” Mom asks, “got a moment?” I cringe whenever Mom’s voice has that tone to it. I don’t know what she’s going to say; but if I’ve learned anything in my thirteen years on this desolate…

Trixie got out of her cherry-red godmobile and waved away the flitting cherubim waiting to bear her to her sedan chair. She wasn’t in the mood for a reverent chorus of hosannas, and the sedan chair…

You can hear it, in the basement, behind the metal boxes that your human puts her outer-coverings in just when they start to smell good—when the boxes are done, she brings out her things stinking of flowers or fruit. via Pocket

Diwali, the Festival of Lights is a magical time of the year, even on the Indian Battle Station. via Pocket Escape Pod 703 Light and Death on the Indian Battle Station | Escape Pod via Instapaper https://ift.tt/2TFpTbn

via Pocket

When I met her, I was twelve. There was no one else to take care of me. Before she showed up, she was preceded by this man in a pinstriped suit. A harbinger. He sat me down in his sterile office and he said, “Time Law is not a joking matter. via Poc…