The mathematician split his time evenly among observation, calculation, and sleep. He never did conform to the can’s twenty-four-hour schedule. He had been accustomed to a thirty-hour day, and apparently saw no social or functional […]

The next time I saw her was two years after she died. My wife was thirty-two years old when cancer took her. She was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, an insidious tendrillar growth that grows in your brain, […]

I wasn’t always a fearless zombie hunter. I missed the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. I’d quit my job after a series of sexual harassment episodes perpetrated by my perverted boss that the HR department […]

His full name really was Tex Colin Davis, “Colin” was not exactly a middle name. “Colin Davis” was the family name given to it by Bruce Davis about four generations back when he got modestly […]

Let’s see what’s been happening lately, shall we? In the same moment, fifty-thousand people sneezed simultaneously, as though they’d planned it. And the very next moment, spread across the two planets and twelve moons of […]

“You’re Myr Anderson?” “You seem surprised,” said the woman at the door. “You said I should meet you here, at your office, at one o’clock.” “I am surprised,” I admitted, looking at my watch. “Because […]

Commander Georgiana Owen rolled over in bed to answer her comm. “Good morning?”   “It is a brand new day, Commander,” said Warrant Officer Gabriella Castille’s halting monotone. “According to Sergeant Franklin. Also, 07:00.”   […]

May 7, 2227 The shuttle Callisto rocketed out of the atmosphere. James Cabot and Michael Lee watched the Earth shrink through the window. The Second Space War hadn’t stayed in space. Ash and dust obscured the […]

  I wasn’t born a Belter, but I’m probably about to die one. Maybe someone will come looking for my carcass when the shooting stops, but it’s not a good bet. There’s a lot of […]

  Goddamn unicorns. Spontaneous mutation triggered by a new artificial sweetener started turning people into unicorns. The mutated gene somehow plucked the concept of mythical fantasy creatures out of fractured synapses, causing men and women to transmute […]

Wei knew what she wanted to do with the lights as soon as she found them in the storage closet. The town across the lake was falling into a state of ruin far beyond any […]

Kayonga Tedesco forced himself to put aside the emotions coursing through his consciousness after the confrontation moments earlier with the commander of Callisto Base. He was taking all his concentration to pilot the shuttle Pinega into […]

We walked by the canal at Nyhavn harbor, Copenhagen, looking for a good place to eat. The sun had nearly set in the distance, and neon drones covered the street in red, blue, and green […]

1.   It was a beautiful, sun-drenched Saturday morning when 42-year-old Charlie Duncan opened the front door of his single-family home and strolled down the walkway, between the flanking rose bushes, to retrieve his newspaper. His back ached […]

( Audio Credits: Reading by Sam A. Mowry, Soundscape by David Ian ) He checked through passport control, an unbearable line that seemed to grow instead of shrink, but he finally handed his Ident capsule […]

If she could only talk to her mother, Kris thought, she could figure out what to do, what to say, what to think even. How to handle this situation like her mother, Captain Donna Lynd, […]

  “But why?  Why should they die?” asked Eteract.  “You say, Gurovvu, that it’s their own doing, and that we have no obligations here.  That much is true, but still, we could do something, if we […]

  Gren hurried down the wide corridor, his hooves clicking against the cold stone tiles in a frantic staccato rhythm that matched his agitated state of mind. “Who installs stone tiles on a naval flagship? […]

  For Rosalyn   June 3, 2072   She woke. In the flow of seconds, she suppressed a cry of dismay, of terror, of loneliness. Elisabeth was three years old. She was in her bed, […]

    “What price would you pay to fix your greatest mistake?” The question hung in the air between us, the weight of it at odds with the situation we found ourselves in. I looked […]

       “Friend, what is your opinion of Emperor Justinian’s new reprobate re-education program?” “Reprobate I understand; re-education I understand; but what is this thing called an opinion?” (An ancient witticism, attributed to an […]

The comm-pad on the table between them chimed, a new notification scrolling across its otherwise dark screen. Ya’teng picked it up, a pained look spreading across his face before he slammed the device down in […]

  And so, in these latter days, you come here to our mines. You, the first children of creation, the children of the sun. The bright ones. The mirror-shiny helms you wear mean we could […]

  The universe is a big place. Insanely big, really. We all know it, intellectually at least, if perhaps not with the same bone-deep certainty with which we know those things that we can see, […]

  The lights came up gently in Gordon’s sleeping pod. The bed was tiny but sufficient to fit his six-foot frame in extraordinary comfort. Like everything surrounding him, it had been designed with exquisite efficiency […]

After nine incident reports and working well beyond the standard close of business, Trudy Coleman was ready to jettison the day job. With rapid fire mouse clicks she slayed the tunnel of apps and windows that were her […]

  Anxiety wormed its way through the Gardener’s mind after the seeds began using tools. It took time for seeds to germinate. There were moments when the Gardener worried the Omnidem had miscalculated either the double system’s […]

Miranda Ayodele glowered at the not-quite-human being slumped on the rear bench of her rover. “I should have left you to die.” Wide, dark eyes with cybernetic irises gazed back. Slender fingers lowered the rover’s […]