Author : Beck Dacus “Sorry,” Merida said, “but why did we let him come aboard with a gun?” She looked warily at Jonathan’s holstered pistol, his hand guarding it from her and preparing to draw it. “You do know why he’s here, right?” Vennix asked her…

They are not awake. They have been asleep for days, years. They lie sprawled across train platforms, clutching cellphones, notebooks, and mp3 players. Their hearts barely beat, drowsy with decreased metabolism. Their fingernails have grown long, cur…

I never thought I’d live to see The End. In fact, the way I figured it, no one should see The End, I mean, that’s why it’s called The End, there is nothing after that, and certainly no one to see it. And yet, here I was. Floating gently in the shutt…

We’re cutting it damn close. The three Gyth gliders are closing quickly as we jink in and out of the towering rock spires attempting to stay out of their line of fire. We’re gaining altitude quickly enough, but Kharla’s running low on water to conve…

Author : N. R. Crowningshield Vanessa let the shower water flow over her hand. The old pipes moaned and shrieked as the shower head spewed into the white pedestal tub. The temperature of the of liquid changed from cool to warm to hot. Steam pillowed…

Wachter ran out of the bank just as the alarm sounded. It was not an auspicious beginning to what Wachter had imagined would be a long and successful criminal career. The teller had initially thought he was kidding when he’d asked for $20,000 in cas…

Trevor waited in the Jump Box. Grey electrodes threaded from his scalp and bobbed like Medusa’s curls as he amped himself up on electronica. I really need this A, he thought. The Lander sat at the stage’s opposite end, in an identical translucent ch…

Reach into me and fix the leak that’s dripping my youth away. The creams, the antioxidants, the buckets of ice baths—what good have they done but stall the crawl of age? My first wrinkle, curving upwards from my left brow like an evaporating tear. A…

“Relax. Breathe through your nose and count backward from ten,” said the technician. She was wearing a white isolation suit, one gloved hand twisting the flow regulator of the anesthetic, the other on my arm in a sterile and entirely unsuccessful at…

We can confirm that the new procedure has been a resounding success from a physiological point of view. The subject has not reported any headaches or other adverse physical symptoms. Psychologically, the subject seems stable and has integrated the l…

When he opened his eyes, it was a special kind of dark. The sky was a dull purple, and what light there was came from the ground beneath its stygian spread. He sat up stiffly in a sea of trash, a vast junkyard. via Pocket

Blue. That’s the colour I remember the most in that operating theater. It was the last honest colour I would ever see. I had them installed as part of my training. It was something I had a choice over. I regret that decision now but it was a one-way…

I’d like to remember her the way most ex-boyfriends remember their exes. That is to say, when I’m drunk and missing her, I want to remember that space right under her ear, her easy smile, and that way that she’d hiccup if she laughed too much.…

Author : Rollin T. Gentry Dr. Morris turned away and tapped a few times on the holopad projected from the bracelet on his left wrist. via Pocket

When pigeons deviated in mid-air and windless leaves rustled, the hidden dreamers were about. Carpeted with warm dappled light, the Italian Piazza was filled with coffee drinkers, buzzing scooters and devoted artists. via Pocket

She sat down on the bench, overlooking the local park. She and James used to meet here. It seemed a fitting place to say goodbye. After the operation, she might never come here again. Worse, she might never want to come here again. At 13, it had bee…

The nine-year-olds repeat the Camp Haven creed and then take their seats, gaze never wavering from the flag. At the head of the class, a strapping man swells with pride at the sight of these glowing youth. “Hi boys and girls! My name’s Sergeant Wall…

A well-dressed woman flung the office door open and collapsed onto the sofa across from me. I pretended not to stare at the woman whose body appeared completely artificial. She had cosmetic work done to accentuate what I supposed were her good featu…

The snow is so fine it sometimes drifts about for hours before finally settling. The result is a mist that makes everything vague before fallen snow obscures it completely. This being acid snow, obscuring may become erasure when thawing drenches eve…

These bite marks on my forearm. Just below the crease of my elbow. They’ve always been there, even as a child growing up on the colonies of Ganymede. via Pocket

She sits at the console, the warm glow of beading sex sits at her lip and the sleeping monster it shifts and turns in her bed. Silently her fingers glide, swirling across the holographic keyboard that projects from sensors embedded into their tips. …

Some say it was bound to happen. But people no longer talk about it. After years of governmental and military alien cover-ups, who could be shocked at all? We saw something, that’s for sure. But what? via Pocket

You had to fall into mine. Lord, but you are a sight for jaded eyes. Hair like liquid night, eyes a man could drown in, lips that form a bow Robin Hood would kill for. via Pocket

Doctor Jessup is terribly polite. We’re stirring our coffees before he asks his first question. “You asked what started it. That question is the answer. I can’t remember when it became an actual question, though. via Pocket

It doesn’t feel real. I don’t feel connected to any of this, out here alone amidst all this nothing. Shadow coloured stones crushed and scattered under sneakers. Our passage unheard, we had slipped silently across the rooftop expanse to its eastern …

I wake up sweating, check the alarm clock. Three fifty-nine? Too light. I fumble for my watch. Almost 10. I come back from Kyle and Lisa’s across the street. “They don’t have power either. And there’s no Sunday paper. Must be out across town.” via P…

Solinsky sat upon the mountaintop and watched his hometown die. As the sun set at his back, the farthest outskirts of the city fell into shadow first. Solinsky had his telescope trained there, upon the edge of town. He gasped to see the first of the…

Thirty breaths, and then my world will be over. I know I will die from the moment I know anything at all, an understanding so innate, so instantaneous and thorough that it seems to precede me, which makes sense, as it was coded into my mind before y…

Sure, he’s not exactly the same. There are small differences. Some easy tidbits that I picked up on. Like, he’s right-handed. Ian was left. And this morning he asked if I wanted to take a week off. Save up for a get-away. via Pocket

The girl sits atop the corrugated roof of her grandfather’s garage as her fingernails loosen and flake from her hands. Her dog, Apollo, a grandiose name for so tiny a pup lays curled into a tight coil dead at her side. via Pocket