No matter who Jax asked about the old times, before his people made webs over the dead city, the answer was always similar. Nobody knows, the old stories don’t say. Under the shrugs, a signal almost too faint to hear:… Continue Reading
Iona, on duty at ten minutes to midnight, smiled over her cup of coffee. Everything was running smoothly. She closed her eyes and listened to the machine hum. Encased in rows of transparent tubes, volunteers slept while verisimilitude engines pumped… Continue Reading
I loved Christmas lights till I knew better. Loved to look out my kitchen window, down the hill, and see the lights twinkling, sparkling, lines going off and on, leading the eye in complicated cuneiform, punctuated with glowing candles and… Continue Reading
Early Christmas morning aboard the Masters’ starship, and once again there was no Santa Claus. I stared at the stars streaming past on the display window. There was a quiet knock on our apartment’s door, a little rap-a-tap-tap given with… Continue Reading
It was winter and a blue snow fell again covering the plains of this insignificant planet in a fine cobalt dusting of fresh, deep powder. Janey liked to kick it around exposing the light blue layer beneath the darker surface;… Continue Reading
Please don’t let the door bang, Prof.! Sorry, can’t talk. Or move. Slightest twitch and things will fall apart. Thank goodness you always seem to read my mind. Wanted so much to tell you all about it. This four-by-four-foot sheet… Continue Reading
I’m twisting together the brass wires separating the intermaxillary and the upper mandible on the skull of the northern saw-whet owl I’m disarticulating when Arly bangs into the cabin, the door practically careening off its hinges. I jump at the… Continue Reading
— in memory of Antoinette Bolden — The Master didn’t play with Rocket as much as the dog preferred, but he knew he was loved. He was a good boy, after all. The Master said so. Every day, when The… Continue Reading
Andrei grips the chain-link fence, unmoving, anticipating the light beams. Right above him, Nadya hangs in silence. Three white circles dance around one another, catch them by the foot, the hand, by a bit of their dark clothing—and swerve, continuing… Continue Reading
“Technology ranking?” Surveyor Morgth asked, holding his clawed appendage up to the monitor. “Post-industrial… Ah, level seven,” Observer Fuunth said, tapping the metallic railing ahead of the viewport. “Scratch that. Level six! They’re still using fossils fuels!” Morgth grunted, dragging… Continue Reading