Author : Philip Berry “Is it surprising, really? After what they did to you, that you can’t feel a thing.” But I could feel. Too much. My skin was on fire. “No Lana, I mean really feel. Perceive em…

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Aimee propped herself up against a transformer just outside the halo of the lone streetlight. A kilometer up the road in each direction, red and blue lights pulse…

Author : Bob Newbell It’s been a subjective month since we changed history. It feels like ten years. In reality, an infinitesimal fraction of a second has passed for us in the Stopwatch. That…

Author : Damien Krsteski The receptionist was tapping her pudgy fingers impatiently on the desk. Leaning on one hand, her pale face hid momentarily behind an inflating chewing gum bubble until a lo…

Author : Charles Paul Wallace The microscope sat on Lena’s desk exactly where she’d found it. It had been there when she got home from school. Her mother just looked at her blankly when…

Author : Tim Hatton The black is total. Oedi’s life is devoid of light and endlessly deep. Only stars prick the canvas. He stares at them, each in turn, for entire shifts. He finds it odd to real…

Author : James C.G. Shirk cheap camel cigarettes The automated countdown clock flashed: one hour, twenty-one minutes. Commander Albright grimaced and adjusted the controls to retract the dome above…

Author : Bob Newbell The passport control agent looks at me and sighs. “Another one,” he says succinctly. His use of “one” rather than the epithet “shellhead” pr…

Author : K. Pittman Sometime before midday’s full blaze, Susan threw down her skein and stopped walking. Georgia broke pace steps later and trod back, face flattened, hat shadowing her glare.…

Author : Ian Clarke The air-bike hovered perfectly still and silent a couple of cms above the floor of his apartment. It resembled an old style jet-ski he had seen once but had a toughened clear ca…

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer We meet every six years. The project churned out over two hundred of us. When they ordered us terminated, twelve of us escaped. There are eight of us left. The…

Author : Jason Frank “I felt a drop.” Laurine looked over but her cousin was facing away from us. She talked to herself so much that you didn’t always expect it when she wasn&#821…

Author : Roi R. Czechvala, Staff Writer Drop capsules are virtually impregnable to anything man or xeno can throw at them. They have consistently proven themselves many times in combat under the on…

Author : Ilan Herman Koy, the sky-blue alien, explained to Jeff that life on earth was really an experiment conducted by him and his associates, an anthropological study of how life evolves from th…

Author : Ken McGrath I’m taking my time, figuring it’s best to be patient. By letting him feel secure and safe he’ll never suspect what’s happening. Never realise that I’ve been slowly bleedi…

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer The external camera pan across a steely – if a trifle motley – flotilla of guard skiffs, arrayed before a Griffin-class Space Dreadnought painted in the…

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Three aliens floated a few dozen meters beyond the ship’s forward observation viewport. They were formless blobs approximately two meter in diameter. The cen…

Author : Anthony Francis Greed never dies. It had been forty years since my consciousness graced a human body, but the attraction is irresistible, universal, born of the survival instinct, an unque…

Seamus dipped the greasy piece of bread into the even greasier layer of oil in his plate. “Mm. It seems so much easier when you know your own sin, doesn’t it?” Carol hadn’t touched her food…

In 2198 Earth Standard Time, Jonas Fox, a pilot for the Interstellar Defense Crew, spotted a few pirates off the southern hem of the moon. He got on the radio to contact his fighters, who then zoom…

Author : Ian Florida Metal grates against stone as my cell door shrieks open. They shout as they slam their rifle stocks into my ribs. I laugh. They pause. They think I should be afraid. They think…

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer I work in a nursery. I’m about to kill six hundred babies. Where does life begin? That’s the age-old question. It plagued the pro-lifers and now, here, at the …

Author : Bob Newbell I raise my hand and wave to get Scott’s attention as he walks into the restaurant. He comes over and joins me in the booth. He gestures at my drink. “Is that whiske…

Author : Joshua Reynolds A little flare. Just a flash on the other side of the sun, our sun, and it was gone. That was when we knew it had escaped. We made it in a generator the size of a grown man…

Author : Rick Tobin “O holy night, the stars are brightly shining…” She choked off her singing of the next phrase, unable to overcome phlegm from fearful regret as Marcus lay still next to her in t…

Author : Gray Blix The sign on the wall read, “180 ACCIDENT-FREE DAYS.” For the umpteenth time since the accident, UR4-51 climbed into an electronic parts recycling bin and positioned i…

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer Time travel has always been possible. We’ve been doing it for centuries. Even the most archaic craft in our earliest space faring ventures used to bring back bra…

Author : R. A. Jackson Each step came slower now. Her back hunched so that the long grey strands of her hair trailed across the stairs as she climbed. Counting the painful strides one by one was th…

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Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer We put Jesus24K99 into his cage for our own protection. The anti-coagulants weren’t holding. He was destabilizing. He’d bleed out soon. The hole in our researc…