The sudden hammering on the door jolts him awake. He doesn’t know for sure if it’s dawn or dusk. His upended sofa, his queen-sized mattress and box spring, his mother’s hutch block the loft’s only row of windows. “Dan! It’s… Continue Reading
My eyeballs still had a layer of ice on them when my lids snapped open to shrill, beating light. My body was hit with wake-up juice and jabs of electricity from the bed. I couldn’t scream because my throat wouldn’t… Continue Reading
John Ramos tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the line of red taillights ahead. He was stopped on U.S. 219, headed south through McHenry, a long line of traffic before him. John thought he could make out… Continue Reading
He peered into baby blue eyes. Scott analyzed them first, because if something didn’t check out there he could skip the rest of the inspection. Eyes were too important. The engineers had a love-hate relationship with the eyes–darker eyes hid… Continue Reading
Its real name is Jackenpacks, after the inventor, but everyone calls it the Game. Everyone on my world is crazy about it, even though most people can’t play — you have to have the right mind talents. My sister Gwen… Continue Reading
It was raining the day I met myself for the first time. I opened the door, and there I was, standing in the rain with my hair plastered to my head. I appeared to have grown about fourteen or fifteen… Continue Reading
At first it was just an animal trace, barely discernible to the naked eye. But soon it turned into a dirt trail, a country road, a superhighway and a stellar warp-lane. Ian Bailey, a Nundle Koala from north of Sydney,… Continue Reading
A momentary absence of pain. Rationality separates from context. A quiet moment, a slow breath. Enough time to settle, then the bottom falls out. Shadows on the walls. Realspace asserts itself. Spheres resolve themselves into buoys and entry markers. The… Continue Reading
Everyone has a secret fear, and Rutherford’s is this: for the minute it matters most, he won’t be looking. Rutherford has a government job. He works on the 19th floor of Building 209. He’s in a special projects division of… Continue Reading
On this first wondrous day of planetfall we danced and sang and drank (perhaps too much) and had all the stars and the gods to thank for bringing our ship to this place: New Earth. On this eleventh day of… Continue Reading