Stories

My assistant said, “You have received an invitation from Holk Xanthoulian. He is embarking on a new menu and invites, and I quote, ‘a select coterie of the cognoscenti to sample its superlative assemblage of tastes, textures, and titillations.’” Or …

“It doesn’t hurt, Gram,” Renata says. My sixteen-year-old daughter pulls up her t-shirt sleeve to show her bare arm, the skin summer brown and the muscle swelling slightly into smooth biceps, flawless. “I had it done when I was little and see, you c…

It isn’t until I realize I can’t find my son—really can’t find him—that I think of all the other things I can’t see in the starlit orchard. “Cruz!” I yell. “Buddy! You win!” There is no moon. The trees are thick with blossoms. I hear Cruz in the tal…

His name was Two-Tongued Jeremy; he was a monitor lizard with a forked tongue, thick glasses, and a wild, wagging smile meant to convince children that learning could be fun, too. He came highly rated. He updated automatically. via Pocket

When I finally visit Hugh Everett, it’s 1982. We sit down and pahnah pours himself a glass of sherry and lights a cig before asking me about the purpose of my visit. via Pocket

This story also appears in the anthology RESIST: TALES FROM A FUTURE WORTH FIGHTING AGAINST, edited by Gary Whitta, Hugh Howey, and Christie Yant. (Proceeds from the sale of the anthology go to benefit the ACLU.) via Pocket

“It is the voice of my child!” the White Queen cried out, as she rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!” and she began scrambling wildly up the side of the fender. via P…

The wolf arrives the same day Adeline buries Hugo on the edge of the woods, her boy’s grave forming a raft of upturned earth between two trees, just far enough from the fens that he won’t be drowning. She watches two young village men blanket him in…

I am alone now. The gates mostly stand dark against the starscape; you are the first to come this way in some time. I hold myself together, hold myself out, and after so much practice I can do it almost without thinking. I sing my warning song made …

My daughter fell from the top of the world. She tripped, she gripped, she slipped, and she fell. Into three kilometers of open air. I have a desk. Everyone on the atmospheric entry project thinks it’s the quaintest thing. They can’t understand it. v…

The path to enlightenment is through obedience to wisdom, and who is wiser than the Everlasting Emperor? via Pocket

[CC] Welcome online, Cybernetic Elbow Model CI953-L. This is your introductory Initial Boot orientation. You are currently in a locked and muted configuration while external medical systems run diagnostics to see that your replacement procedure has …

It was the end of all chaos. The room was clouded with murky smog. Ling Xi had coughed herself awake. via Pocket

When we set out to weave a new world from the old, broken one, we knew we pledged the lives of our clutches and our clutches’ clutches to wandering the wastes. via Pocket

It was midsummer when I arrived in Corcaigh from Sadbhsfort, and the famine parties were in full swing. I don’t know if you remember the posters for them—in a vibrant shawl, a red-headed woman stands, holding a twin in each arm. via Pocket

The rooftop is quiet except for the hum of a plane passing overhead, heading to a faraway elsewhere. The sharp stench of ammonia rises from the bucket hanging from your window-cleaning belt. via Pocket

If there was one thing Briar Redgrave hated most about her current profession, it was the clients. “But I wish it to be yellow, and vibrant,” the client insisted with a shake of her head. via Pocket

The sky was a thick nuclear gray over the parkade where Bo and Violet were scanning the streets for Bo’s othermother. Violet sat on the hood of a battered white Nissan, while Bo watched from the edge with his elbows hooked over the railing. via Pock…

There is a silent war that is waging on every surface of the planet, in every droplet of water, and on the skin and within the bodies of everyone you know. It’s hypothesized by some that this war began near the dawn of life on Earth. via Pocket

Little fists, clenching: one of the cameras, set to motion-cap, zoomed on them automatically. Two others watched the adults, mother, father on opposite sides of the room. The machines watched the players: half a world away, Stavros watched the machi…

Earth began to rise over the lunar hills as the Mighty Slinger and the Rovers readied the Tycho stage for their performance. via Pocket

A Lei was a young worker at the 045 Meat Union factory on Continent Three in starship Rhea. When the dinosaur uprising overwhelmed the factory, he used a hunting rifle to drop two great beasts that got in his way. via Pocket

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

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

Art’s funeral is full of crying girls. Law thinks this should tip some of them off, but there it is. Crying girls everywhere. White flowers in their hair. Black dresses and the scent of clean underwear and Ivory soap. There’s a ghostly snake wrapped…