365 tomorrows

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

The weather had turned bad during the night; the low air pressure finally bringing on the threatened storm. All occupied buildings had been sealed to maintain environmental controls and life support systems and all transport had been grounded for the duration of the storm. The safety precautions for such events had been tested time after time, and daily life continued apace.

But for Jessica and James, it meant one more day being trapped in each other’s company, without the escape of the outdoors. Their parents had gone early that morning to the research labs to continue their work, and though they had arrived safely, it would likely be several days before they were able to travel home.

The children sat quietly as their lunch was served. Outside the double-thickness reinforced windows, the dust clouds raged silently, adding to the murk of the room. James watched his sister with a malevolent gleam in his eyes as one of the household servants moved round to place a bowl in front of her.

“Thank you” Jessica murmured, picking up her spoon to push indifferently at the fruit pieces in front of her.

James rolled his eyes, making an exaggerated noise of exasperation.

“It doesn’t know what you’re saying, it can’t understand you!”

“That doesn’t matter… but you shouldn’t call her that.”

James groaned.

“It’s a servant” he intoned, imitating his father’s voice as well as he could, “engineered to be quiet and efficient, without any unnecessary complications that might otherwise interfere with their activity.”

Jessica turned to look at the servant where she was standing unobtrusively near the door; face down and impassive, giving no sign of having heard the conversation. Her hair had been cut roughly short, and her slender figure was almost lost in the gray of her servants robes. She had blue eyes, Jessica knew, from the few brief times she had convinced the girl to raise her eyes and look at her.

“It’s only here to do what we tell it to!” James shouted, disliking that her attention had been taken away from him for so long. “See!”

With that, he pushed his bowl from the table, scattering fruit pieces over the carpeted floor. The girl shuffled over to the table and began cleaning away the mess.

James pulled his eyes away from the ownership braille on the back of the servants’ neck, exposed as she bent to soak the juice from the carpet. He raised his gaze to Jessica, the pained look in her eyes taking away the malicious pleasure he’d gotten in making the mess.

“I don’t know why you care”, he said. “It’s only a clone, she’s not even human”.

Author : Gavin L. Perri

Sometimes I wake in cyberspace and remember the wizened words of the old man, ‘When I was a one year old we didn’t have self-evolving tutorial programs, we had to learn by listening’. I try to picture what he looked like but all I get are a series of ones and zeroes, the discussion we had at eight, however, stays with me ‘Back when I was a lad we didn’t have spatial displacers, we had to walk everywhere we went’. Walking is such an abstract thought.

His words at my twelfth birthday for some reason stay with me ‘Pah! A telepathic communicator, when I was your age I used a mobile phone’ I create a simple program that recreates the genome of the old man but it does not show the creases on his age-old hands and it does not recreate our last conversation ‘When I was fourteen years of age we didn’t need time travel to find out about history, we just used the internet’. These words play around in front of me as I contemplate them. I will never hear the old man again, my program does not respond to wavelengths of sound and he never learnt to telepathically communicate.

Author : John Tudball

When we are young we are told a story of a ship.

As the story goes, the ship is damaged beyond repair and is set to crash into its destination planet. The crew on board consists of one android, one clone and one pure born. There is only one escape pod left.

“Master,” says the android, “you must take the escape pod. I shall prepare it for you.”

“Lord,” says the clone, “you must take the escape pod. I have made these provisions for you.”

“Friends,” says the pure born, “when I am rescued your names shall be written in the book of records. No greater honour could you receive.”

When we are old we tell a different story.

In our story, a broken ship is hurtling towards destruction and there is only one escape pod left. The crew of the ship – an android, a clone and a pure born – argue amongst themselves as to who should be allowed to escape.

“I should be given the pod,” says the android. “I can report to the ship’s maker what went wrong, so this never happens to anyone again.”

“I should be given the pod,” says the clone. “Throughout this system there are a great many lords and ladies who would miss my touch, should I die here.”

“I should be given the pod,” says the pure born. “For it is my right.”

And with this, the pure born draws a weapon and forces the others to concede. He backs into the pod, keeping his weapon drawn on his crewmen and closes the door behind him. The android and the clone sit and wait for their deaths. After ten minutes – just as the ship is nearing its end – the door to the escape pod opens and the pure born comes back out.

“Um,” he says, “how does this thing work?”

They don’t like us telling our story. It tells a truth they do not wish to face: Without us they are nothing.

Author : Kaj Sotala

Even after nine years, people still stare at us. We’re used to it.

The plague that suddenly made all of humanity sterile wasn’t easy on society. There was panic, rioting, doomsday cults. But eventually people adjusted and things calmed down, and scientists turned their attention to finding a cure.

It took them ten years, but they succeeded. After a decade of global childlessness, our generation was born.

Adults say we’ve had a strange childhood – I suppose so, though I wouldn’t know. I’m used to everything centering around us, from all the stares we get to the entire industries, a decade dead, springing back up to cater to our needs. When we entered elementary school, it had been seventeen years since any of the teachers had last taught first-graders. I sometimes wonder if that made them better or worse.

The older kids, the last generation born before the plague, look at us with a mixture of jealousy and suspicion. Jealousy, because previously they were the ones getting all the attention. A noticable fraction of them still wore diapers when we were born, their parents unwilling to let go of the last babies they might ever have. Suspicion, because we don’t share their culture. All the games and silly rhymes and crazy rumors that passed from one generation of kids to the next, secret from the adults, are lost now. We never learned them from the kids a few years older than us. Instead we chose to make up our own culture.

Never in the history of mankind has there been a generation like us. Even the adults are a bit weary of us, deep down. They know they forgot how small children should be treated, and they fear that they’ve made mistakes.

I say: let them fear. It makes things easy for us. Each night when we pray, those of us who’ve been taught to pray, we secretly add a thanks for the plague.

For making us unique.

Author : James Smith

Nardo sat in his broker’s office, running his “impatience” script. He occupied himself with the U.N. Secretarial bout running on hologram in the corner. One American candidate had just tagged out and his partner climbed to the top rope, towering above the Nigerian, when the broker’s pupils flashed twice and his BRB tags faded.

“Hi, sorry, meltdown in China, had to move some accounts, hold some hands, how you doing?”

Nardo hated that fast-guy-Eddie bullshit. “Ed. Population futures. I wanna get in on that. The returns sound fucking massive.”

Ed’s avatar smiled.

“Bernardo, let me guess. Some thirteen year-old Malaysian kid goes poking around in the GASDAQ, you pull the case, and some helpful soul explains population futures to you, just well enough to make you think you’ve struck gold. Now you’re logged into my office, wasting my retainer, and my time.”

“So… you’re saying…”

“I’m saying what the regulation scripts need to hear me say. I’m saying what the secret society of backchannel movers and shakers want me to say. But, you and me go way back, Nardo. You did that thing with the guy that one time–”

–blood, lots of blood, fucking everywhere–

“–and I owe you. So I’m going to do something for you. Now: You want me watching out for you, or do you want me getting hot wire hangers jammed up my ass on a Spanish prison ship? If it’s the former, keep your mouth shut about it. All right?”

“Stop trying to scare me.”

“Fine. First, I’m replacing this conversation with script on mutual funds. Now: Tinker’s Dam. Up in Christchurch? There’s going to be a storm next week, and the river’s gonna top it. No, no, shut up, stop typing. Don’t ask. There’s going to be a surge of untouchables into Rebekka proper, and property values are going to fucking tank. Absolutely. Now, Rebekka can’t absorb all these fuckers without some pain. The long and short is that over the next two to five years, the city’s going to hemorrhage middle class white folks over the wall into Snowtown and Twitch City. And you, having bought up a sizeable share of population vouchers in one or both of those fine municipalities, will be swimming in easy credits.”

“That… that’s how it works?”

“That’s what’s going to happen. How it works is beyond the ken of mortal man. You in?”

“My mother lives in Christchurch.”

“Move her the fuck out of there, man! That place is a sewer. Besides, the dam’s gonna blow and kill a bunch of people.”

“Five years?”

“You’ve already got a job. This is how you build a pension. Shit or get off the pot.”

Nardo looked over at the U.N. match playing on the side table. A Nigerian had one American in a sleeper hold. Her partner was beating the other with a folding chair, blood dissolving as it flew past the angle of the holo-cams. He had money on the damn Americans.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m in.”

Author : William Tracy

It was late after hours at SETI headquarters. Still, two men hunched over a computer, it’s light bathing them in a blue glow.

“I can’t believe it, Jim.”

“There’s no doubt. Arecibo is picking up an artificial signal from an intelligent source.” Jim straightened, raked his hair back with his fingers. “Play it.”

“What?”

“I’m just curious; the transmission looks like an AM radio broadcast.” He leaned forward. “Dave, can we play it?”

“Well, let’s see—” Dave punched buttons. “There we go!”

A voice speaking in English emanated from the computer’s speakers.

“It can’t be…”

Jim stared at the screen. “That star is forty light-years away,” he pronounced solemnly. “This message is forty years old.”

* * *

The general faced the SETI researchers down across his polished wood desk. Medals swarmed down his uniform.

“Gentlemen, you wish to speak to me about Project Starshot.”

The researchers answered that they did.

The general placed his hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Project Starshot is a classified government project—its very name is secret. I do not know how you found out about it, but whatever happened, a serious security breach has occurred, and national security is jeopardized.” He leaned back, crossed his arms. “Start talking.”

Jim turned to Dave. “Play the tape for him.”

First there was static, then a words. “… Officer Franks, of Project Starshot. I have completed the first manned test of the device. Our coordinates must have been wrong, because the wormhole seems to have delivered me to an alien world. The wormhole we created only works in one direction, and I have no means of returning. I am broadcasting this message in hopes that … ” the message dissolved into noise.

As the tape played, the general’s eyes widened. Then he placed his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers together, and propped his nose on his knuckles. He paused, listening. Then the general moved his head down, and leaned his hands against his forehead.

When the tape stopped, there was a long, awkward pause before the general looked up at his guests, eyes tired.

“We canceled Project Starshot in 1967. We thought they all died.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Susan crept downstairs slowly, curious about the noises she was hearing from the kitchen. The lights weren’t on. It was Christmas morning so it was still dark out at five in the morning. Her parents slept far away from the kitchen all the way upstairs on the second floor plus they had been celebrating last night so they were in a deep sleep. Susan, of course, had barely been sleeping at all. Her eyes had flown open at every little creak of the house settling. She kept a sensitive child’s ear out for the sound of sleigh bells or hoofbeats.

Neither of those sounds was coming from the kitchen. It almost sounded like burglars. The lights were off and all she could hear was the slight tinkling of what sounded like cutlery. Every now and then, it sounded like the fridge was gently being pushed forward a few inches.

As she got closer to the kitchen, there was the sound of sparks. The half inch of darkness underneath the closed door lit up bright blue like night-time television and then went black again. The clinking and the gentle scraping continued.

Susan was not a fearful child but she was getting nervous. She chewed on her lower lip with wide-eyed indecision. The contest in her between wanting to see Santa and wanting to alert her parents to possible intruders was violent but brief. She opted for the Santa glimpse.

Very, very quietly she opened the kitchen door a crack, pushed her arm through, and felt for the light switch on the wall. She found it. Light flooded the kitchen.

The sounds continued.

Susan opened her eyes.

It wasn’t Santa.

There was a giant long-legged metal spider on the kitchen table eating the toaster. It was like a black skinless patio umbrella with a streamlined teardrop-shaped blob of metal at the center of it the size of a microwave oven. Its mouth parts were gingerly tearing away the chrome skin of the toaster. It hissed a little and the blue sparks came again from its mouth as a perfect square of the toaster’s hide came away and disappeared into the maw.

Susan stood frozen to the spot. The spider didn’t know she was there.

Wrapping paper still clung to the spider’s legs. There was a colourful bow still smoking on the kitchen floor.

It didn’t have its light sensitivity sensors or earmikes installed yet so it had no idea that Susan was there or that the light was on.

Susan whooped with delight. Obviously her parents had set the time zone wrong and it had woken up early. She stroked the back of her hand to fire up her implant and snapped her fingers twice to set it to pet control.

The spider spasmed and fell on the floor with a crash. Susan could hear her parents waking up.

“Bad spider!” she said with a smile on her face. This was the best Christmas ever. Her friends were going to be so jealous.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

Deep in the bowels of the Top Secret Experimental Vehicle Development Center, sat the most technically advanced aircraft ever developed by General Motors. As the ship rested solidly on its landing skids, I meticulously guided the ion-vapor polisher a few thousands of an inch above painted graphite composite skin. My fellow detailer, Clement, was polishing the chrome and mahogany trim inside the cockpit. “I don’t know why I bother,” he complained to no one in particular. “You know the military is gonna gut the entire ship once they get their hands on it.”

“What makes you think the customer is the military,” I asked?

“Com’on, who else can afford to spend 130 billion dollars for a one passenger ship? Hell, a thousand man deep-space battlecruiser doesn’t cost that much.”

“Well, I was kinda hopin’ this ship was for some trillionaire playboy,” I replied as I admired the 40 foot long aerodynamic beauty. “A primo ship like this should be used for recreation, not war.”

Clement stepped out of the cockpit and studied the sales sticker glued to the windshield. “Look at the options,” he remarked. “This ship has a tracking system with 5040 cascading global positioning locators, each with its own quantum homing sensor. The propulsion system is a 3.2 terawatt warp engine with microburst capability. There’s an inertial braking system that can stop the aircraft in less than a nanosecond. The cockpit canopy has a heads-up night vision photonic display. It even has a multiphase cloaking device. Think about it. Why would a civilian need an instrumentation package this advanced? There’s no doubt in my mind. This ship is definitely a prototype for a military fighter. I’ll bet they plan to use it to take back Mars. President Moore was an idiot for letting those ungrateful bastards secede without a fight.”

“You’re nuts, Clement,” I countered. “For God’s sake, this ship is a convertible. It can’t even leave Earth’s atmosphere. How’s it gonna reach Mars? Have you even noticed that it’s painted red? Who paints a fighter red?”

Undaunted, he continued arguing his point. “Mars is red too you know. You’d never see this baby while it was parked on the ground.” He motioned me to the rear of the aircraft and opened the cargo hatch. “Have you seen the hold? It has a station-to-station subspace tunnel array. It would be perfect for remotely loading munitions during an extended sortie. After the pilot fires all his antimatter torpedoes, he can re-supply the ship in-flight using the tunnel.”

“That tunnel only has a range of 15,000 miles,” I pointed out in vein. “That alone shoots down your Mars theory?”

“Just the opposite, Einstein,” he replied sarcastically. “Space Force has a supply station on Phobos. Fifteen thousand miles can cover every square mile of Mars. I’ll bet you a case of beer the customer is Special Forces.”

“I’ll take that bet,” I said enthusiastically. “Look, they’re supposed to be here in thirty minutes to inspect the ship. We’ll find out then. In the meantime, we need to finish up.” Clement and I quickly completed detailing the aircraft, then ducked behind some shipping crates and watched the hanger door.

A few minutes later, the door whisked open, and a plump elderly man with a broad face and a full white beard stepped into the hangar. When he saw his new “sleigh” his droll little mouth drew up like a bow. His eyes…how they twinkled! And, I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Author : Matthew Green

There were rumors of course, most were squashed, but on a ship full of soldiers with nothing to do but watch the stars go by, rumors happened. It was like getting cleaning detail, no use trying to prevent it, just grab a space suit and scrub.

The most prevalent was that the war was over a year ago and the ship was just squashing various rebellious factions that hadn’t got the news. Higher-ups didn’t let the lower-downs know this because that would result in a drop in efficiency. All very scientifically tested and all that. People spreading these rumors brought forth facts such as how little equipped the pockets of rebels were and how each trip between hold outs took longer to get to. Most were wiped out and the rest were getting harder to find. That explained the lack of any form of action for several months now.

Another, more frightening rumor was that they had miscalculated when the ship had sling-shot around that black hole. Somehow we were slung into the far reaches of… somewhere and didn’t know where home was. That one scared me the most. As a maintenance tech, I was privy to the storage holds of the ship, and I knew we only had enough food in stock to last six months at most. The commander told us that mail transmissions had been turned off so the enemy couldn’t triangulate our position. That was four months ago and by now everybody knew the truth; burst transmissions couldn’t be tracked that way. The rumor mill liked to churn that one out during the late shift. I used to like working at ship’s night. Some people complained about having to step outside and brush off the antenna arrays and scrub out the various vents and sensor assemblies, but I enjoyed it. It got me out and moving, and I liked the view. Well, I used to like the view, now I just wanted to live under a sky again.

I heard another voice that I recognized. “Hello Roy,” he greeted.

I was on cleaning detail, again, and turned toward the suit that was approaching. He waved one gloved hand at me as I stared into his gold visor. Suits didn’t display the occupant’s rank like normal uniforms did.

“Dave?”

“That’s me, me matey.” He said in his pirate voice.

“Damn man, they said you were dead.”

“That was the rumor.”

I turned back; the brush I had been using had drifted to the end of its tether. I retrieved it with a practiced move and resumed brushing dust off the antennas. They coated easily out here in the nothing.

“Don’t bother, at our speed it’ll be years before we’re close enough to use that.”

Author : Debbie Mac Rory

Dear John,

How are you? Such a stupid way to start a letter like this. You’ll probably never get it anyway, and even if you do I’ll never know your answer. But I hope you’re well. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You were right. But I don’t think I would have made any other decision.

I know when you first met me, sitting at the space port, staring up at the sculptures of shinning metal and watching the scurrying of their army of workers as the next flight was prepared, that you thought it was a kind of fascination on my part, a poor planet bound creature held enraptured by the shining towers. You thought that if you offered me some small part of the stars, a part of you, strange and exotic and alien with the memory of a thousand stars seen from the bridge of your ship, that I could be happy, and you could keep me with you.

And for a while I was content, truly I was. We would lie in the rose-gold dusk of day-start, as Filha’s pale light faded and Mãe began to rise. I would lie with my head on your chest, listening to the beat of your heart, and the echoing chamber of your chest, and hear words as you would have spoken them on your own world, before they reached your lips to become words for my ears.

But for every story you spoke, for every star in my sky that you pointed too, and told me of the peoples who lived there, the ships that passed by, I wanted, I needed to see them for myself. I listened to your cautions of time warps and life spans; how my race wasn’t equipped for the rigours of travel. But you could never understand what it was like for me, what it was truly like to be condemned to a planet bound existence and watch the lines the great silver ships traced across the sky. You offered me visions and remembrances of visited worlds; but the ships offered me the stars themselves.

So I’m writing this letter to say, you were right. The stasis is harder on my body than any other member of the crew, and when I was woken for this phase, I didn’t recognise the person looking back at me. My once flame coloured hair has turned grey, my face is lined. I still pass as fit for the helm but I know now I won’t make it to step out onto the next port.

But on my phase, when I’m alone on deck, I’d adjust the filters and watch as pinpoints of light streaked past. I capture images of distant nebulae and far reaching galaxies to gaze over when I’m in my cabin. I won’t reach them, but I’ve gotten to see them all. And it was so worth it.

Love, Calice

Author : Pyai (Megan Hoffman)

Anton set the hypernav coords to just beyond the rim of debris.

“Aren’t we cutting it a bit close, Captain?” a thick gravelly voice came from behind him. Silverlo, whose face was a mess of scars, wrinkles and facial hair, frowned at him.

“That’s the point. The closer to the wreckage the better we are hidden. I want us in and out with minimal detection.”

“They’ll detect us hitting the hull of one of the derelicts…” his co-pilot muttered beside him. But Siverlo would do as Anton said. That was why he was still his co-pilot after 15 years, one war, two divorces and an alcohol shortage.

The hypernav kicked in and Anton closed his eyes. Watching the view window made him nauseous. Space sickness, they called it. He should be used to it by now. Towards the end the small ship made the usual rumblings it did as it was slowing, and with a loud POP in his ears they dropped into normal space again.

Anton opened his eyes in time to see a large scrap derelict hurtling at them. Or more appropriate, they were hurtling at. Silverlo let lose a string curses as he jammed hard on the control panel. One moment they were rushing towards the debris growing larger in the view window, and the next they were out of its path. Anton forced his muscles to relax. Yeah, that was another reason why Silverlo was still his co-pilot.

He could feel Silverlo’s glare on his back, but ignored him. His gaze was fixed on the small tugship coming out to them.

“T6703 to Unidentified Spacecraft. Identify yourself,” crackled the communication over the wire.

Anton smiled. “Negative. Not until you come through our lower hatch.”

There was silence. The hull resounded when the tugship latched onto the lower hatch door. Anton was there when they opened the hatch in the floor, and when Sergeant Ames stepped up.

And then Anton smiled, extended his hand. “Sarge, you made it.”

The other man shook his head. “Risky move, Anton. I couldn’t believe you hypernavved to inside the rim.” There was respect in his voice.

“No other way. Did you bring the supplies?”

Sarge nodded. “How is Mother doing?”

“Fine. Sarah’s kids are always over at her place. Jyn and I visit when we can, but it’s always a mad house.”

While he had been talking, Anton lowered a cable down the hatch and someone below in the other ship attached a large crate to it and tugged on the rope. One came up, and attached below it were three others.

Anton’s eyes opened wider in question. Sarge shrugged. “News that the rebellion still exists has filtered in. Somehow we ended up with more donations this month than ever before. Our biggest donor this time was the United Newfoundland Orchestra.”

Anton chuckled. “Since when did we stop being pirates and start being rebels again?”

The other man just smiled.

Two minutes later the tugship was firing “warning shots” across their hull, as they hypernavved away.

What no one had told them was that it was refueling day on Citrix, and the cargo lanes were longer than ever. So the coords that they usually hypernavved to were currently occupied by the hydrogen tanker UBX771. Anton still had his eyes closed as they hit the hull of the tanker. The ship exploded into metal bits, and the crates burst open. A halo of violas, bows and flutes floated outward, and they say it rained cellos on Citrix for a week.

Author : Tony Pacitti

Jack pulled a SimStik out of its small plastic container and placed it between his lips. Alice cleared her throat and looked at him through drunk eyes and a patch of blonde, wind blown hair.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the SimStik bobbing up and down as he spoke. He gave her one, put the pack back in his pocket and began patting himself down.

“What’sa matter?” she asked as she pulled a drag off her SimStik.

“Oh, nothing.” Jack smiled and laughed at himself. “I smoked when I was a kid. You know, actually smoked. Sometimes I forget you don’t need a lighter for these things. Force of habit.”

Alice’s eyes slowly fell shut, heavy with a night’s worth of drinking then snapped back open.

“I smoked once.” She stumbled and Jack reached out quick to grab her arm. She went on talking as if nothing had happened. “In college. Some guy I knew knew a guy who had a friend whose brother-in-law grew tobacco in his basement.”

“Sounds sketchy.”

“But that was the fun of it! Smoking real tobacco rolled in paper. Man…I knew, just knew we’d get busted at any second,” She laughed and leaned in, putting her head on Jack’s shoulder and her hand on his side. “Mmm…but we didn’t.”

Jack rolled his eyes and took a drag off of the small plastic stick, feeling the chemicals spill into his mouth and work their magic. SimStik begat chemicals which begat chemical reaction which begat the simulated sensation of smoking a real, honest to goodness tobacco cigarette.

After his lungs were full of what his brain believed to be smoke, he exhaled slowly and watched as a cloud that wasn’t actually there dissipated into the cool, summer sky.

“It’s funny,” he said before taking another drag, “an advanced, science-minded species and what do we have to show for it? No colony on Mars, no patches for the ozone layer. No proof of intelligent life out there and no flying cars. We don’t even have a cure for cancer, just this dodge around it” he paused and held the SimStik out dramatically. Alice looked up from the spot on his chest that she’d nestled up against. “Just this little plastic straw that makes our brains think we’re perpetuating a filthy habit with none of the undesirable side effects.”

He looked down intently into Alice’s eyes and asked her, “What would Gene Roddenberry say?”

Jack looked down into Alice’s eyes and though he’d like to chalk the stupid look up to the booze, he knew that she hadn’t the slightest clue as to who Gene Roddenberry was.

“Forget it.” He said with a grin, “How’s about we head back to my place for a drink? Can’t promise it won’t get you drunk or destroy that pretty little liver of yours,” he tenderly caressed the side of her right breast, not entirely sure if that’s where the human liver was but one hundred percent certain that she wouldn’t know either, “but I’m sure top scientists are working on it right now.”

With there arms around each other the stumbled away from the bar.

“Why Jack,” Alice joked, “It sounds like you’re trying to take advantage of me.”

He wasn’t trying. He was doing.

Here’s to another Friday, he thought as he dropped his used up SimStik into a high tech looking garbage can.

“Thank you for choosing SimStik,” it said cheerfully over a corporate jingle, “The world’s healthy alternative since 2043.”

Author : Benjamin Fischer

The Shore Patrol has to ring three times before she comes to.

“Ma’am, we would prefer to not break down the door,” one is saying. “Please open it now, ma’am.”

Groggy and maybe still drunk, she paws at the suite’s intercom in response to their annoying persistence.

“Aye,” she croaks, bracing herself against the headboard.

He is nowhere to be seen, of course. They never stay until the morning and most of the time she likes them that way. No buyer’s remorse. No uncomfortable second round of introductions. No waiting for the bathroom while the other showered. And no awkward pauses at the door, no unnecessary questions about a sequel.

One of the shore patrol coughs, loudly.

“Be just a minute,” she says, her voice cracked and raw.

The champagne had been good and maybe even French–not the usual Tycho knockoffs that nine out of ten casinos in Golden refill their bottles with. That’s why she drank so much, she tells herself. Make the most of the boon. Seize the night. Fuck it. She was a superstar and medical can always grow her a new liver.

The room is a deluxe package, with unlimited water and an almost depressingly vast selection of feeds. She dials up FOX LUNA so she doesn’t have to hear herself in the toilet. The news network comes blazing in on three walls, the anchor’s rugged face reaching from floor to ceiling. “-inevitable conflict. NATO forces did not respond to what they have billed ‘morally bankrupt brinksmanship’ but multiple sources claim that both America and Luna are rapidly mobilizing strategic-”

“Room! Mute the TV!” she orders from the bathroom.

A complimentary bottle of mint mouthwash clears the last of the bitter taste of vomit from her throat. Gargling the thin green fluid, she rolls her shoulders and stretches her neck. She pads back to the main room, naked and feeling slightly more human.

“Do I have time for a shower?” she calls through the intercom.

“Ma’am, anyone not answering the recall by thirteen hundred-” starts one of the MAAs.

The other cuts him off.

“I’m sorry. No, ma’am. You do not.”

“Aye.”

Her whites are strewn on the floor and mixed in with the chaos of the bed, and she decides that her medals and her underwear aren’t worth the hunt. A quick once-over of her uniform determines that while it is unsat, it will get her back to the ship, whiskey stains and all.

The chiseled features of the anchorman silently watch her straighten up her gig line and pull her skirt down to a slightly more modest mid thigh. She clears her throat.

“Room, mirrors.”

The FOX stud evaporates into an endless series of her. Her hair is shit, but that is what covers are for. She twists the brown mop on her head into a mockery of a bun and sets her hat at a jaunty angle.

She shrugs–she looks even more hung over than before. But hell, she’s been out all night, drinking and whoring and she doesn’t give a damn if everyone knows. Tonight she can be the talk of every wardroom between here and L5. Tomorrow–well, the wicked and the innocent are one and the same when the tac nukes start flying.

She nods to herself.

“Room! Door!”

She strides out into the bright florescent light of the hotel hallway. A first class and a third class Master-at-Arms are waiting for her, arms crossed and visibly impatient.

“Good morning, boys,” she smiles.

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

In a dark, empty hanger, a needle-like flat black fighter rested in its cradle… thinking.

“You see General,” a small man in white gestured toward the ship, “those pods mounted beneath each ‘wing’ are the main armament. The magnetic rail guns. They are able to launch a projectile the size of a soccer ball to transonic speed within their seven meter length. Each ‘wing’ serves as a magazine and carries seventy combined solid and nuclear rounds.”

“The turrets mounted top and bottom are automatic and purely defensive. They only come into play while the ship is exposed when firing.”

“That’s all very well and good, Doctor,” the General said wearily, “but I want to find out more about the propulsion system, what I read… is it true.”

“The General is aware of the PK work that we are conducting?”

“Yes, but I thought it was all theory.”

The little doctor chuckled. “No, my dear General, we have entered the practical phase. It sits before you. Perhaps I had better explain,” he said removing his glasses.

“The concept of PK, that is telekinesis and telepathy, has been around for millenia, but it has only been in the last fifty years that we could select for it in vitro. Only in the past fifteen years have we been able to employ it to move objects this large with the aid of a PK amplifier.

Simply put, since the speed of thought is, as far as we know instantaneous, the ship simply appears out of nowhere, fires, and disappears. It is vulnerable only for a few seconds, hence the turret mounted automatics.”

“How does the pilot operate the ship?”

“Well,” the doctor continued, “The first attempts were standard. The pilot simply sat in a cockpit and ‘thought’ the craft where he wanted it to be, but their thoughts were limited to the speed that their bodies would react to,” he shook his head sadly. “There were many casualties.”

“We tried direct linking to the PK amplifier. This was much more effective, however the men tended to over compensate in their movements, leading to similar results.

Our third attempt was similar to the second, but this time we linked the men to the PK amplifier through a virtual construct that simulated a cockpit but run at a speed approximating that of thought. Unfortunately, after long periods on duty, the men had trouble adjusting to ‘normal’ speed. There were…incidents.”

“So, that is all behind us now? The Mark IV is ready for testing?” General Kaskorov asked, running his hand along the sleek black hull.

“Oh yes, it is,” the doctor said gleefully, “you see, after PK and pilot training in simulators at normal speed, the pilot is sedated unawares, his entire central nervous system is removed, and implanted into the ships core.”

“So, he is the ship?”

“No Sir, he is merely in the ship. Through a VR construct, he runs his missions, and leads a normal life off duty, booze, women, gambling… what have you. All virtual, of course.”

“And they don’t realize that their life is a simulation?”

“No, Sir.”

“He can’t hear us?”

“No. There are no external audio pickups. Any necessary outside contact is sent through his virtual commander. After that, he’s allowed to follow his own life, within the parameters of the construct of course.”

“You mentioned telepathy.  Can he…”

Both sets of turrets swiveled and fixed on the two men.

“Oh shi…,” was the last thing Kaskorov said.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Finnegan Sue was a pit fighter.

She wrapped leather around her knuckles, mindful of her nails, and ran her sharpened tongue around her poisonous needled mouth. She sung a tune while she prepped. Her horrible lisp made a mockery of the lyrics she whispered to herself as the counter in the top left of her field of vision counted down to Go Time.

Outside, the announcer’s spiel was cresting.

Too many chapters of her life were prefaced with the phrase “…and in this corner.”

Before tonight, Finnegan Sue had never been a main event.

Two kinds of fighters got headlined:

There were connected fighters with flashy, expensive augmentations entered into and bred for the top tiers. They had short careers. They had nowhere to fall to. Every fight was to the death up there and political maneuvering shed as much blood off the arena floor as on it.

And then there were fighters like Finnegan Sue. Heavy with scars, right moments and hundredth-of-a-second survivals. Long, unexceptional careers of death. Fights to first blood, fights to humiliation, fights to first break, and sometimes, fights to the death. The path of their careers was a slow, steady incline.

Finnegan Sue was nearing the end of her career. A win at this level as an independent and she could retire. All she had to do was kill this next fighter.

Sue checked the levels of her speed. She stretched the armoured tendons in her wide neck. The drugs were coursing through her now just as sure as they were coursing through her opponent.

The announcer was getting around to it.

“…the Russian ripcord, winter’s dog of war, the Siberian she-devil, the gutpunch from the gulag, Moscow’s murdering Maria, I give you….FINNEGAN SUE!!”

The crowd went wild and the doors opened.

Finnegan Sue flexed, breathed in, and ran to the light. She leapt into the arena in a forward roll that ended in a kneeling crouch with her nails fanned to hide her face.

After a respectful pause, she stood up straight, cueing the announcer to get on with it.

“And in THIS corner….” he started rattling on about the person Sue had to kill.

She tried to tune out what the announcer said at this point in every match. She liked seeing her opponent with fresh eyes. She had heard hints that her opponent had started out as a male and was not Free. He was a German.

For no reason at all, Sue thought of her long-dead mother. It was surprising and unsettling to think such a thought before a fight.

Sue hoped it wasn’t an omen.

The doors of the other side of the arena opened.

Author : Chris McCormick

The finest moment of my whole life was when I stepped off that ship. When we finally found each other in the arrivals lounge, her utterly uncomplicated joy was mirrored by my own. Two friends since forever, separated by years of space travel. There was no shyness whatsoever in our extra long hug. All the years of missing, yearning, and desire for each other’s company poured out as we clutched eachother tightly. Our sweet embrace loosened and we paused just a moment, smiling wildly, looking into each other’s sparkly eyes. This led without any awkwardness to a kiss, which lasted longer than a kiss between friends should have. We pulled apart and laughed, still holding each other at arms length; the laugh the first sign that we knew we had crossed a line.

In that moment, free of any emotional baggage we managed to express what we hadn’t been able to for so many years at the same pod, imbibing information together, sharing ideas, and having adventures. I had always had other girlfriends, and she had always been busy with her applied nanotech studies. Eventually she’d got her degree and then all of a sudden she was leaving to the colonies in a matter of days, without any kind of warning. Of course we had both known that the day was coming when she’d eventually have to leave. That was the only smart career move.

When that day came we both felt a confusing hole that hadn’t been filled. Something between us was left undone. Those last few days were bitter sweet moments; we wanted to spend the time together having fun, but of course neither of us felt the least bit like having fun. “This is it,” we thought together with teenage melodrama, “this is the end of our friendship.” I cried so damn hard when she left.

I don’t want to talk about the days that followed my arrival at the colonies because it hurts too much. Suffice it to say that neither of us knew or understood the status of our relationship now. It lurched awkwardly between friendship and relationship and the dark hounds of paranoia and insecurity were lurking in the shadows ready to tear it to shreds. We tried to fix it with sex, but the afterglow from all those years of pent up sexual tension only lasted two days. That was probably the stupidest thing we could have done, but also inevitable.

So we sat on the wall watching the pretty lights dance in the distance eerily. All of space hung above us, it’s lonely, alien magnitude so poignant for us now. “It’s amazing,” she said in a numb voice, staring into the distance, “I can change the fabric of matter with a small piece of technology and the power of my mind. I can create any object I want. But I can’t fix us.” The frustrated way she emphasised the word “us” told me we were both stuck in the same head place. All the technology in the modern worlds couldn’t help two breaking hearts.

“Well,” I said, taking a risk, “we could always try to fix it by fucking again.”

Luckily we both giggled, and there it was; the spark of our friendship was still alive right there in that giggle. We looked at eachother, smiling softly, the eerie lights dancing on our faces. She reached across, and we held hands.

Author : James Smith

Nothing but killers. They came screaming soundlessly out of the Oort and Mercury Station was gone. My wife swallowed a handful of pills when the remains of Venus fell across the Moon.

The Dyson sphere lays empty, reconfigured into an enormous laser. I remain behind. I am the firebreak between them and our fleeing caravan. I began the power-up this morning, and four years behind me the sun will soon strike the lens now moving into position. The light will cohere and lance through my relays to the diamond core of Jupiter, naked and polished for the purpose. Jupiter’s Lightning will strike some fifteen lightyears out, punch through their sun and cause a cascade effect, ending in a supernova. Before their world is consumed, seas will boil, and the very air will catch fire. Perhaps the man who ordered that first attack will watch his own wife burst into flames and, if he is a man, may be given to regret.

I have not had a body in 145 years, but my sensors register the throb and hum of this station. I am reviewing a video of my wife. I’m wondering why, at the last, she felt the need to first grow a body. So many centuries and we still don’t trust our senses, no matter how superior to the initial five.

The cameras float everywhere, of course, and calling up the file was easy. I watch my wife uncap a bottle with three-day-old hands, an action she hadn’t performed in almost two hundred years, on an object no one’s used for a hundred. I cross-reference with file footage from a family picnic. Yes, she re-grew the body she had when we first uploaded– aged, liver-spotted, sagged and broken. She killed herself striving for a kind of pride we haven’t had need of in a century.

Once Jupiter’s Lightning fires, it will be another sixty years before the light of their exploding star reaches me. Their homeworld will be ash while I still run this station, and for good measure I will once more pump the remains of lonely old Sol into deep space, long after the threat has passed.

I look at my wife on the slab, and superimpose her on top of the picnic footage. Her corpse lays along the blanket where our food is placed. I am not in the picture; I am holding the camera. She and our children appear to reach into her flesh and pull out plates piled high with food.

Across the chasm of centuries, over the expanse of her own dead body, my wife smiles at me. I miss her. I miss the electronic susurrous of the sum of human knowledge, underpinning reality. Somewhere in the depths of me, I ask myself if I will accept handshake from the second relay. Without accepting, the beam will reach Jupiter too dissolute to make the final, murderous journey out of the solar system. I deny handshake and power down. Come and get us.

Author : Geoffrey Cashmore

The first thing Vinka noticed were the trees, (Bula was late…why was she always late?) the ground was dirty too; some places nothing but bare earth or a covering of ragged grass. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? These pathetic people.

Vinka watched Bula arrive and park up, clumsy as usual, but at least she didn’t hit one of the trees. He glanced at his watch. Charl and Birdo would be expecting him back. It wasn’t fair to leave them finish the shift without him, he’d had so much time off lately.

“Sorry.” Bula wore the silver outfit she got last winter. She wore it once to a party and hadn’t touched it again, saying it was too good for normal wear. She was obviously making a special effort today – first impressions and all that.

“You’ve left your lights on.” Vinka gestured impatiently, sending his wife back into her car to fluster with the controls. “This is the place, isn’t it?” he asked when she finally made it over to stand beside him, smoothing down her jacket and smiling.

“I think so.” She answered. “It’s not very clean. Look at those trees. That can’t be healthy, can it?”

Vinka was gazing around for signs of activity. “No…” he said absently.

“Oh Vin, we are doing the right thing, aren’t we?” Bula had grown increasingly nervous as this day approached. “Adopting one of the under privileged, I mean.”

“Bula, I told you, it’ll be fine.” Vinka was weary from the reassurances, but Bula could be like this; nervous about something at first then confident and self-assured when it finally happened “How could any right minded person stand by and leave them bring up a child in this squalor? And besides, I showed you all the forms we’d need to fill out if we wanted to adopt back home. Look.” He pointed out past the broken down buildings to where something moved at the edge of the trees. “Someone’s coming.”

“Oh yes, there he is!” Bula caught sight of the figure. “Isn’t he adorable?” she said, leaving Vinka to approach the youngster alone for fear of frightening him. He seemed a little nervous, and curled up on the floor as Vinka drew near. “He’s so cute. I hope the other children don’t tease him because of he colour of his skin.” Bula stood to one side while Vinka lifted the child and put him into the back seat of Bula’s car.

“Now.” He said “I’ve really got to get back to work – Birdo’s going to go mad – can you take the kid home and settle him in?”

Bula was smiling even though there were tears in her eyes as she nodded to her husband. She kissed him on the cheek as he closed the car door. “Thank you, darling.”

“Whatever makes you happy, honey.” He said, pulling car keys from his pocket and preparing to go.

As Bula’s car broke free of the little blue-green planet’s atmosphere the child on the back seat began to cry.

“There, there.” She comforted, “You won’t have to live in that nasty old place any more.”

Author : Sam Clough aka “Hrekka”, Staff Writer

It’s just like they try to teach you in biology.

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Municipalis, Europa, Munchen, EDF, Umbra, Generatrum, Gigas.

The common or garden Generatrum Gigas. Very roughly, that’s ‘Giant Generator’. Self-replicating automata are absolutely great unless you impose severe limits on them. And make sure there’s no easy workarounds.

‘Europa’ may have been true once, but no longer. Municipalis don’t respect political borders: these things walk around the world. Not fast enough to stay in perpetual daylight, but fast enough to snatch eighteen hours or more of light a ‘day’.

And they’re damn tall. And some of the subspecies can float.

About the only people who gained anything purely positive from the whole evolutionary technology revolution were the damn taxonomists. Whole new species sprouting in a whole new kingdom of life. And sprouting far quicker than anyone anticipated.

The new breed of taxonomist are an aggressive bunch. For the first time in years there’s something new and fresh in the field. Now they’re all out in the world. They’re the new heroes: the new household names. Charles Maltz, first human to document the speciation of mineral extraction drones, as they evolved from general extraction to specific ores. Donald Powell, first human to enter the wreckage of Dungeness and find evidence of emergent radiotolerant forms of common municipalis. Kate Finnigan, first human to cross the pacific with a seagoing umbra solar platform. Alexei Khostov, first human to gain the trust and acceptance of an enclave of dimachaeri combat frames.

The oil is gone. Most metal, too. The machines are extracting the last of it from Africa. Taxonomists have already witnessed predatory forms attacking and breaking down slow-moving members of umbra and the other lumbering solar families. Entire mechanical ecosystems are appearing.

The most remarkable discovery has been a symbiotic relationship found on the african savannah. A solar platform allowed several small velite combat frames to draw power from it regularly in exchange for defense against the small, fast edo family predators that would try to disable and disassemble it for parts. The combat frames were obviously several generations into the relationship: when discovered, their catabolic furnaces were already atrophying, forcing them to continue protecting the solar platform.

The Royal Society is bringing together research from everyone it can contact: they’re preparing to publish a new book. Systema Metropolis: the Systema Naturae for the modern age. The project is one of the few positive, creative efforts that has occurred on a worldwide scale in years.

The world is slowly dying, choking on the pollution of twelve billion minds. The ennui of the world is dissapating now that there’s finally a new frontier. There is romance, there is excitement. There are heroes once again. For the first time in a long time, the future is not quite so bleak.

Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

The bright yellow spaceship of the Sol Department of Transportation pulled up next to a two ton rogue asteroid. They deployed the grappling sling, and slowly maneuvered it toward the asteroid. After they secured it, the spaceship adjusted its orientation, fired its aft plasma engines, and launched the asteroid toward the center of the sun. The crew confirmed that the asteroid’s new trajectory was “terminal,” and then moved on toward their next target; a jettisoned escape hatch from a cargo vessel that had collided with a utility schooner.

Vir Quisquilia glanced over at his trainee, Josh Knoxx, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat. He was a good kid, but he was beginning to get on Vir’s nerves. He never shut up. He was always commenting on something, or questioning some department procedure (usually related to why Vir wasn’t following them). Vir momentarily reflected on his rookie year, and quickly concluded that he had never been like Josh; as best as he could recall.

“I don’t understand,” protested Josh, “why haven’t the ship designers figured out how to strengthen the forward deflector shields so they can handle a two ton rock. We could finish our route in a week if we only had to clear the really big ones.”

Vir mentally counted to ten before answering. The kid still didn’t see the big picture. Less work also meant fewer pilots. For now, he decided, he’d just explain the physics. “Listen, Josh, its all about mass and velocity. If a ship is only going 500 miles per second, the shields could deflect a 180 ton mass. But since the interplanetary velocity limit is 0.5c, we need to clear out all objects one ton and larger. Nobody is going the slow down just to make our job easier. Besides, you should be grateful that you were assigned to the Earth-Mars sub-light corridors. Imagine trying to keep the corridors clear through the asteroid belt? I covered a buddy’s run for a month. Hell, I’ll never do that again. The way the corridors constantly spiral to stay aligned with Jupiter and Saturn was a logistical nightmare.” He physically shuttered as he remembered the intricate space-dance he needed to choreograph to get Vista to shepherd a small cluster of asteroids out of Interplanet EJ-13.

They approached the drifting escape hatch and synchronized their orbits. Josh swiveled toward the sling panel to start the targeting sequence.

“Not the sling,” snapped Vir, somewhat more harshly than he had intended. “The hatch is titanium. It’s recyclable. It goes into the metals hold. Use the arm.”

“Damn, sorry.” Minutes later, the arm locked onto the hatch. As Josh maneuvered the hatch past the cockpit he yelled. “Oh God. There’s a dead guy holding onto the inside handle.”

Vir squinted at the arm monitor. “Yea, you’re right. I heard they couldn’t find one of the crew.” He sat there looking at Josh expectantly. “Well, come on,” he prompted, “get into your suit and pry his hand loose from the hatch. Store him in the biologic locker in hold number three. And ignite a thruster, it’s almost lunch time.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The place reeks of green beans.

I hate the feel of the floor underneath my bare feet. It’s made of ivy and soft branches.

I’m not from around here.

I usually work the corporate zealots on the rim. All they know is credit and value. I’m a machine when it comes to getting those rogue independents back on our side. It’s all suits, stims, and pissing contests. I’m a natural because I like it. I’m at home there.

This must be punishment.

I’m an emissary from a highly technological civilization and I’ve been sent to talk to the Leaf People.

It’s what’s called a Green Moon.

It takes less time to terraform a moon than a planet. Terraforming stations are set up on both the moon and the planet. The moon finishes first and the plants are shuttled down to the planet surface to hasten the change and relieve the processor’s workload.

Then more plants are grown on the moon. They get ferried down. Then more are grown. It’s a process that continues until the planet is sustainable and ready for habitation. It takes about a century.

It’s a process that requires a much higher initial outlay of capital but the long term profits have been proven from past examples.

The employees live ‘in the green’, in tune with nature, and after a while, money becomes abstract to them. Occasionally, employees on a Green Moon get it into their heads that they are independent community organizations and not an asset of a corporation.

Eventually, they want to secede.

Secede, rebel, steal, it’s all the same to us. They are substantial investments that must be protected and functional. Corporation emissaries are sent in to negotiate and reach a compromise that leaves both parties mutually dissatisfied but keeps the Green Moons running. It’s too expensive to go to war with them.

Maybe I’ve done something wrong and that’s why my bosses have thrown me to the farmers.

Lunar terrafarmers. Loonies, we call them.

The rep I’m supposed to meet in this humid section of a hedge maze is called Rainbow Shark.

I’ve already sweated through my expensive linen suit.

A strongly muscled woman walks out from behind the bushes and stands in front of me. Except for a woven belt holding a telepad and what I guess are food pellets, she’s completely naked.

She stares me down for a second and gives me a visual appraisal. There’s a smirk when she looks at my bare feet and something that almost sounds like a chuckle at the sweat stains growing under my arms. He eyes return to mine. They’re as green as go-lights.

“I’m Rainbow Shark.” She says. “You must be Jonas Malko, the company man.”

She looks like she’d just as soon stab me in the throat as look at me.

Maybe this isn’t a punishment after all. It might even be a challenge.

Author : J.R.Blackwell, Staff Writer

Peter ran to the docking station, his small duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He did not walk in the front end where the merchants, pilots and passengers boarded their flights. Instead, the young man slipped behind the security tent and toward the cargo loading docks. Peter was lean and tall with the thick blue-black hair that was typical of most Martians tied back behind his head.

At the entrance to Cargo 3 the Peter saw a hooded man leaning against the wall, hunched into a dark, hooded robe. He felt another rush of adrenalin. Was this a workman or his lover learning against the wall. He crept closer, trying to peek under the robe for any glimpse of Christopher’s silver hair or long nose. After several long minutes the man in the hood looked up and Peter recognized Christopher Tshosvosky, guest conductor of the Martian Symphony and his lover.

“Christopher” whispered Peter. The conductor jumped and let out a breath.

“Peter. You made it.” He held out his arms.

Peter ran to him. “It was difficult getting past the security fence but the cutter you gave me deactivated the electric wire in my section and sliced though the fence easily.”

Christopher took Peters hands in his own. “Lover, I am so proud, so pleased.” Christopher pointed to the pack Peter was carrying. “Your instrument?”

“And a few other things I couldn’t bear to part with.”

Christopher motioned with his fingers. ”Give it to me.”

“I can carry it myself.”

“No, you can’t. If you want it when you wake up, I’ll have to take it. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your things.”

“When I wake up?”

“Lover, I can’t just add you to the flight roster. Immigration between Earth and Mars is challenging, if I hadn’t been asked to come and guest conduct-“

“I thought you said you could get me on this flight, that I would join you in the Paris orchestra.”

“I can – you can! Just not awake.” Christopher motioned inside the hanger. “I still have some contacts. I faked and ID for a chryo cube. You’ll be Mrs. Fletcher for the trip. Once you’re in the cube, they won’t be able to identify you, then I unfreeze you on Earth and we work it out there, where I have more influence.

Peter backed away. “Connections, right.”

“What’s wrong? I thought you wanted to come with me.” Christopher leaned his face forward for a kiss, but Peter backed away.

“Sometimes Martians disappear, taken away on ships, kidnapped.”

“What are you implying?”

Peter crossed his arms. “Earth has a rich organ market and it’s easy to make people disappear between planets.”

“Peter, I don’t’ want to kill you. I want you to play third viola for me in Paris.” Christopher put an arm around Peter’s shoulder. Peter did not return the gesture of affection, but he did not pull away.

“A batch of organs would make a man rich.”

“Yes, yes it would. I’m not going to deny the realities of the Earth organ market. A batch or organs would make a man very rich, and it would be easy to put someone in freeze and never wake them up. You just have to trust that won’t be me. You have to trust me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I was afraid that if I told you, you wouldn’t come. I was afraid of going back to Earth without you, of living a life without you. I was afraid that you would say no. Don’t think about it. Trust that I love you.”

Peter looked into those blue-green eyes, as blue and mysterious as the pictures of Earth. Christopher took Peter’s hand and led him to a white cube that was glowing softly.

“Kiss me,” said Peter. “So that if you love me, you will seal me inside and kiss me again on waking. Kiss me, so that if you are untrue, the kiss will be a seal and a curse on you.”

Christopher didn’t hesitate, but pulled Peter toward him and kissed him hard, without finesse, mashing their lips together. Peter stepped into the cube.

Author : John Tudball

Love – with all its pain and all its wonder – is the human condition. We are slaves to it and truly, above all other creatures, masters of it. When we know love we feel alive. It brings us terrible, terrible hurt but that’s okay because of the joy that comes with it. When we forget love we feel cold and empty. Inhuman.

In my line of work, you wouldn’t think I’d spend too much time thinking about love. I run a cloning facility outside New York. It’s not one of the big ones; you’ve probably never heard of us. There’s no room in the industry for another company making pigs. There’s already enough bacon on the market so’s everyone can have it for breakfast and still have some left over. And chickens are a waste. Too much time and money goes into a chicken with too little output. It’s still cheaper to produce chickens the old fashioned way.

No, we mostly clone specialty animals; ostriches are a current top seller. Last year it was pandas. Fancy restaurants where the bread costs more than most of us make in a year, they buy from us to avoid the legal issues with endangered and near extinct species.

And occasionally we sell directly to the rich folks themselves, when they want something even more special. I take care of those orders personally; they need a delicate touch. The rich can do whatever they want, you see. It’s a good basis for society. Encourages everyone to try extra hard, like. When you’ve got enough money your only restrictions are your own ethics, and who am I to question another man’s choices? I make my money growing the most beautiful creatures on the planet for food. So when someone offers me a whole lot of money and tells me they wonder what human tastes like, it’s not my place to say no, it’s my place to make sure no-one finds out about it.

Clones are grown in a lab. They’re kept unconscious – the shock of accelerated growth would be painful beyond belief. They’re not loved and they’re not capable of love. So when you ask me if I’ve ever tried one, when you look at me with those accusing eyes and whisper that word, “cannibal”, remember that they don’t know love. Remember what they are: cold and empty. Inhuman.

Author : Laura E. Bradford

“Merging down.”

He pulled the joystick and the car started its swift descent, tugging him along like on a roller coaster. “Whooo!” he yelled, pushing the pedal down and merging onto the invisible highway at two hundred miles an hour. He swerved around skyscrapers, flying across the street made of air, completely exhilarated. He was born for this.

“Car approaching, left side,” came the calm, female voice of the navigation system.

“Way ahead of you,” said the young man. He pulled the joystick back and the car went up, giving the other–a yellow car in the shape of a bee–plenty of space to go by. He watched it pass beneath him on the monitor, which showed a 360-degree view of his surroundings.

“Light ahead. Projected signal: stop.”

“Aw, man.” He hit the brakes and slowed, noticing how smoothly the machine responded. With some disappointment he watched the floating signal ahead change from magenta (northbound travel go) to blue (northbound travel warning) and then red (universal color for stop). So he stopped, which meant floating in the air six hundred feet above the ground, as traffic in other directions began to move. He glimpsed a few ladybug-styled 2018 models, but mostly saw older cars, shaped somewhat like yesterday’s ground-movers but sleeker, with an aerodynamic design better suited for cruising through the air.

A soft “beep” sounded in his car, and the light changed back to magenta. He pulled a lever and darted forward, maneuvering like a fish through the sea, swimming in an ocean of blue sky. The pedestrians below appeared tiny, like pebbles tumbling in sand.

“Turn left now,” the navigator said pleasantly.

Done. At the sight of an office building, he lowered his car to its space one foot off the ground, and paused a moment before taking off his seat belt. What a ride! Safe, fast, and thrilling. Finally, with a sigh from having to give up something so wonderful, he pressed a button to lift the eagle-wing doors, and stepped out. He stood in the showroom of a car dealership, having completed his virtual test drive.

“Well?” asked the salesperson.

He grinned. “I’ll take it.”

Author : Michael Herbaugh a.k.a. “Freeman”

Ten years. That’s what the Fri-l’r sting had cost him. Craig had been on safari on Lankus XIII when the accident happened. His friends didn’t realize until a few days later that his personality had been completely superseded, but for Craig the transition was immediate. For Craig, it was like he’d been locked in a dark box with small lights racing all around him, locked in his own mind for ten years. Ten years of complete sensory deprivation while the Fri-l’r had control of his brain and by extension his body.

Ten years seemed both impossibly long and incredibly short while trapped in his own mind, learning the language of the neurons firing around him. Craig had been fighting intensely to regain control of the pieces of him that previously had taken little or no effort at all. Fortunately for Craig, he wasn’t the first case. While he spent ten years trying to fight his way out, there was a team of psychiatrists wrestling with the Fri-l’r personality, convincing it to let go of the body it had grabbed merely by instinct, fighting to allow Craig to regain control.

Craig finally emerged to the body of a thirty-nine year old having been locked inside since he was twenty-nine. While his body had aged and the Fri-l’r had kept it in good shape, Craig retained the maturity of man now ten years his junior. It wasn’t long until he began to feel disconnected from his old life. All his pre-Fri-l’r friends were living their lives, with the loves and families of middle age, while he retained the wild personality of their youth. He made new friends, sure, ones that felt more appropriate of age, but having the body of a forty year old, he was always an outsider amongst them as well. Dated. While he shared the same goals and interests as his new younger counterparts, he was more of a relic in his knowledge of this new time he had awoken in. Craig was more of a token in his new circle, an object of interest and entertainment.

A side effect of the accident and his rehabilitation was that he had a strikingly acute awareness of his own mind. When he closed his eyes he could see his own thoughts as they raced around his brain in the form of neural energy. Craig felt as though he had a more accurate sense of his emotions, however those around him felt that he had lost the emotional expression that they felt was ‘normal’. People found him to be insincere; he knew he had feelings, he just had lost the ability to express them to others.

After a few months of being back in society, Craig’s disconnect from those around him grew to be too much to handle. He could see only one solution. He would turn his body back over to the Fri-l’r personality which had been subjugated to the deepest parts of his sub-conscious, and return to the depths of his own mind.

On the night he sat down and decided with finality that he would relinquish himself back to his neural prison, he wrote a note to the world he would leave behind.

It read, “Don’t concern yourself with me, I died ten years ago. Help the man I leave behind.”

Author : Andy Bolt

The dripping residue of some poor bastard’s elbow explodes against my shoulder.

“Goo fight!” Jayav shouts, handfuls of dead man oozing through his fingers. My synthskin registers the contact with unstable biomaterial and sterilizes my left arm.

“You have serious problems,” I say. “Now, what do you think?”

“That you’re no fun, Meggie.” Jay is chuckling as he builds a grotesque little snowman out of human flesh and liquefied innards.

“About the body.”

“Oh.” He draws a little smile with his index finger. “Normal. Churn it and burn it.”

“Agreed.”

We stand. While Jay nudges his snowman’s head off with the toe of his boot, I drop a gene blender into the puddle. There is a momentary whirlpool effect, followed by a bubbling human stew, and finally, the scooper shoots clear with a sample and the afterburners reduce the whole mess to a few dried out protein strands.

“Your villainous disrespect for the dead has earned you the position of bad news barer,” I say as we turn and exit the bedroom.

“Your mother villainously disrespects the dead,” Jay replies, clicking over to symp-auto.

We meet the family in the hallway, and I try my best to look contrite as Jay’s pre-recorded condolences speech starts emanating from the microdigitizer in the back of his throat. My mind wanders as the MD starts to explain how decades of genetic modification and enhancement have completely destabilized the average person’s genome. The droning but natural-sounding voice then assures that the boost in the general quality of life has been worth the sacrifice. The wife asks about toxicity. It’s one of the more common questions, and one the MD is programmed to answer. It calmly tells her that the WHO is still looking into the details, but the protein remains have never been shown to be harmful. They’ve never been shown to be harmless, either, but the MD leaves that part out. The fact is no one knows what triggers a genetic meltdown. But every extant human has some altered DNA at this point, so we’re all potential victims of a seemingly random killer that strikes without warning. The MD leaves that part out, too. I nod sympathetically as Jay’s arms execute a series of pre-programmed shoulder pats.

“We’re all going to die,” Jay tells me, back in our bullet and zipping towards our next case in Osaka.

“You should add that to your condolences speech. That sets the right mood, I think.” I push my seat back and let my eyelids droop. It’ll take the bullet about ninety minutes to get to Japan from Winnipeg, and I could use some sleep.

“You laugh,” Jay continues, lighting up a pipe full of the new strain of combat marijuana. “But my buddy Jukks is on the research team. We’re all going to get this. Faster and faster, as it starts to spread. You can’t fix what’s broken if broken is what you are.” He stares at me, self-satisfied, his eyes the same reddish color as the artificially prolonged sunset we’re speeding into.

“We’re all going to die!” he giggles.

“Yeah,” I agree, drifting off.

Author : Beth Mathison

The thin slice of the moon slipped past her window frame, into the night sky waiting for it.

There were people there on the moon, they told her, although some days she doubted their stories. Her parents told her many things – that human beings had built space ships to travel to distant stars. That there were rooms, buried deep underground, that held all sorts of miracle cures for diseases. They told her that at one time you could talk to another person across the planet in an instant, by picking up a piece of machinery. People used to live on the moon, they said, living together in tight groups called colonies. Her parent’s expressions turned sad, when they spoke of such things. Emily didn’t ask about them often.

She thought about it, though, especially at night. What the world had been like. At ten, she was old enough to know the difference between fairy tales and reality. That past, when the world supposedly sparkled with magical things, seemed too much like a fairy tale.

Emily lay on her bed, a down comforter tucked under her chin, and watched the sky through her bedroom window. Her mother allowed her to keep the thick shutters open every so often, when Emily had that trapped feeling. During the day, she loved the colors of winter, the sharp scent of curing meat as her father worked outside, helping her mother can fruits and vegetables from the hothouse to store in their pantry. At night, however, her thoughts turned to the long days ahead of them. Having to stay indoors in some days if the thermometer told them they’d get instant frostbite if they went outside. Rationing wood and food and everything else.

Her father had taken her to a city once. He said he wanted her to see what lay under the snow and ice. Standing at the edge of a cliff, holding his mitten-covered hand, he pointed out the lumps and dips in the landscape. People used to live there, he told her. In cities filled with people and animals and machines that moved.

Looking out her window, she wondered if a journey to the stars were as cold as the world. The blackness of space surrounding those people traveling to the moon, the earth falling behind them like a dream.

Snaking a hand out from underneath the covers, she pressed her palm against the frosty glass. She would close the window soon, as the night pressed in against her. But for now, she felt the cold filling her warm hand and imagined another girl, laying in her own bed on the moon. Pressing her hand against the cold window of glass, watching the earth slide past her window.

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The Ravaged Angel.

That’s what was painted in red nail polish on the nose of the three-person cryshuttle. It had docked on autopilot with good codes but wasn’t answering hails. The dock’s computer was talking to the shuttle’s compnav to ascertain where they’d come from and what their sitrep was when the hatches blew on the three ovals on the top of the Ravaged Angel’s hull.

It was a human ship, possibly an escape pod, but the decorations on the outside of the polished hull looked old and slightly archaic.

With a well-oiled creak, the vacuum pump kicked in and the ovals on the top of the ship swung up and back to reveal three capsule bays, each one holding a naked, blue, cryosleeping body.

The Ravaged Angel held three sleeping women.

The silence held for a few moments before noise amped up into procedure again and we got the three girls disembarked and taken to sick bay.

Cryosleep Restart was a fairly routine procedure but all the same, the doctor felt the need to ‘dust off’ some manuals from the backup banks. He also requested an emergency download from homeship for immediate protocol deniability with maximum instruction. Just to be sure.

None of us had seen a woman for our entire lives, you see. Neither had our grandfathers.

This must have been a capsule from one of the fabled ‘golden seed’ whoreships that had traveled from colony to colony hundreds of years ago.

It was too late to keep it a secret. As the bay commander, it was my duty to report what had happened to the captain and relay his decision on how to proceed.

I had no idea how I’d react in the presence of a woman. Something about the way I swear I could actually smell them from all the way across the cargo-lock floor while standing behind thick glass told me I should stay away from sick bay until I was fully ready for the briefing.

Three colours of hair haunted my dreams that night.

They’d be awake in eight hours. I wished there were flowers somewhere on board that I could bring them to make them feel safe.

I’m sure all sixteen thousand of us felt the same way. I’m sure at this very moment, every last person on the ship who wasn’t in the bay was downloading and reviewing those three pod-doors swinging up and back.

It was going to be a different ship in the morning.

Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer

Jacob sat as he always did, cross legged on the coffee table in the middle of the room, making himself the center of attention.

“You really have to get over us and move on, you know that don’t you?” His voice carried to the corners of the room and back to its only other occupant, enveloping her in the warmth of his familiar tones.

“I’m not ready to give up. I know we can make this work,” her voice seemed small and fragile by comparison, “we just need more time.”

“What you’re holding onto isn’t real, it’s just a memory. You’ve got to get past this Holly, you’ve got to live your own life without me.”

The woman blinked back tears, tucking her knees to her chin and burrowed deeper into the corner of the couch.

“It’s not fair, Jacob. I can’t give up, you can’t give up either.”

Jacob shook his head, smoothing back the stray stands of hair that refused to stay tucked behind his ears. “I’m afraid I had to give up a long time ago, and I’m sorry, but we’ve talked about this Holly, you have to let go.”

Holly glared, her eyes burning through the space where he sat. “You said you’d stay with me forever Jacob, was that a lie? You left me with all this money and this house full of memories but it’s not you Jacob, it’s not you and it’s not enough.”

Jacob laced his fingers behind his head, pulling his elbows in and straining as he lowered his eyes to the floor. “I left you money so you could live your life, not to watch you waste it waiting for me.” His stoic expression faltered slightly, revealing its undercurrent of pain, his eyes swollen with imminent tears. “I always knew this was a one way trip for me Holly, you knew that too. You can imprint the essence of the flesh on the machine, but you can’t reconstitute that essence back into flesh. You’ll be long gone before that’s possible; do you want to live out what’s left of your life waiting for a miracle?”

“When the time comes, I’ll imprint too, then we can wait together in there until they can bring us both back.” Holly’s eyes streamed now, her body wracked with sobs.

“Holly, sweetheart, this isn’t all of me. You know that. The computer has enough memories and thoughts to make a convincing persona, but I’m just a projection, a shell. I’m not the man you lost. He’s gone. You and I both know that he wouldn’t have wanted you to stay here wasting away like this, and if you can’t move on with me here, then I’m going to have to purge myself from this system.”

“You wouldn’t. No. Please, Jacob, don’t leave me. Not like this. It is you in there, I know it. I feel it.”

“I’m just a program, Holly. If you can’t let me go, then I have no choice.”

“No, Jacob, a machine would never kill itself for me. If you were a machine, you wouldn’t care, but you do care, don’t you? I know you’ll never leave me Jacob. Tell me you’ll never leave me.”

As the afternoon sun stirred dust up through the cloud of light that was Jacob, she could see rainbows glistening on his wet cheeks.

Author : Laura Bradford

He chased her even as her ship touched the stars.

At night he gazed through the glass of his telescope, feeling tiny compared to the evening sky, but his days were all routine: get up, go to work, watch the flying cars crisscross and block his chance to catch the faintest patch of gold in the sky. The streets of the city felt empty, even if a thousand people passed by him every day.

He waited in her favorite café, ignoring the news reports flashing on the screen behind the counter. The world continued on without her–how could it, and how could it not? Now he could only count the remaining days until she returned. She had blasted away in her golden ship during the first snow of October, as he stood in a sea of snowflakes for one last goodbye. How she loved the winter, always dressing in a hat and scarf to laugh at the face of frost and chill. What was happening now to amuse her in the dark and swirling expanse of space?

To distract himself he kept busy, tinkering on gadgets or mapping the stars. She would have taken him if she could, he knew that, but his land-locked heart couldn’t survive the journey. Besides, he had a job, clients, commitments. The world had roped him in while she sprang free, not even halted by gravity. So he waited, one fixed point in a shuffling world.

One day nearing spring, a crackly message sounded on his inter-stellar radio, bringing a sentence that gave him an unsafe amount of hope and longing: “I wish you could see the sunset on Mars.”

So she’d be home soon. He collected every scrap of paper he could find and added detail to his navigational charts: color, texture, a red planet, a path with a yellow dot reaching home. A tiny hologram of the ship spun over his desk, and he sighed and slipped a sky-blue map beneath it, the ship’s shadow quivering over the surface of the world.

Her ship touched down as the last of the snows melted, and the first buds twinkled under half-frozen dew. The hatch opened and there stood his pilot, all honey-colored hair and blue eyes.

“You won’t believe what I’ve found,” she said. “The contributions this mission made to science–”

He swept her in his arms and kissed her. “I’ve missed you.”

She smiled. “I brought a photo. Now you can see it.”

It showed a dusty red sky with light filtering through, the sunset on Mars: an image he had guessed at in his dreams, a souvenir from space. He hugged her and said, “It’s lovely, Zoe, but how long are you staying?”

“Forever.” But even as she said it, she raised her eyes to the sky.

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

Okay, I have to admit the first skywriting advertisement I ever saw was pretty nifty. I was in boot camp in San Diego, and a plane was writing a “Bartle’s and Jame’s” advertisement thousands of feet above the ground and just barely within my peripheral vision. I didn’t dare to turn my head for a better look, or I would have been doing pushups until my arms fell off. Still I thought it was pretty cool stuff. Especially for a country boy

When I was even younger still, I saw the old “Burma Shave” signs out in the sticks. You might not remember them, there were seven of them, six each had a piece of a jingle written on it, and the last sign read “Burma Shave”. It was shaving cream, if you didn’t know. They hadn’t put them up for years, but some of those signs were still there. Not to mention the “Chew Mail Pouch”, and “See Rock City” signs that adorned the barns in my Rural Texas.

This was classic advertising. Passive, it didn’t annoy you, it didn’t shout at you. It didn’t wake you rudely like it does when you fall asleep in front of the TV. It was part of the scenery, the ambiance, a classic piece of Americana.

This time though, I think it’s been overdone. At first people sort of liked the new advertising. It was wired, it was tech. It’s a damned invasion if you ask me. When the FCC licensed new frequencies to be opened to broadcasters, and advertisers, somebody should have known better than to include the psionic bandwidths as well.

I guess it was just assumed that the advertisers would have the common decency to stay out of peoples dreams. Yeah right, in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, all’s fair.

This morning I woke up with the Blakelys Bakery jingle in my head;

“If you want a better burger,

Buy a better bun,

Blakelys Bakery fresh baked buns…”

Oh well, I guess you can’t fight progress. It’s time for breakfast, anyway. Think I’ll go to McDonald’s.

“I’m loving it!”