Mari Estrela did not close the minimarket. There was no final gesture, no shutter falling, no moment that could be recognised as an ending. She left it running, as one leaves a system in motion not out of trust, but… Continue Reading
The oxen steadily trudged through the damp field, turning the soil neatly, while Isidore whistled tunelessly at the reins, only stopping on each turn to tell his two sons, sitting on the back, “Make sure to look out for rocks.”… Continue Reading
You want to hear a ghost story, cadets? Sure, I’ll tell you a real spacers’ ghost story. No, everyone’s heard tell of zombie cyborgs or cybernetic hiveminds that impress people against their will, so I’ll spare you another take on… Continue Reading
I’m alone now. Heavy rain hits the windshield. It rains like this more and more. It didn’t use to. He was my only friend. It was late when I picked him up and he’d been drinking and wanted to sleep… Continue Reading
They grew a heart for her and had operated by the time Dr. Kracauer realised his colleague, Dr. Montague, misread the scan. “I didn’t misread it,” he said. “I read the report. I always do. It was all there.” “She… Continue Reading
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do. Please state your full legal name, social security access code, and the nature of the crime or crimes committed… Continue Reading
The fire truck wails, lights blinking to life. Jackpot. As all the cars on the freeway move over, I get right behind the emergency vehicle and ride its wake, passing all the suckers who pulled over. A voice from my… Continue Reading
Ten years ago, everyone thought A.I. Richtree was just an eccentric tech trillionaire with a hidden identity. These days, everybody is aware that A.I. Richtree is a rogue supercomputer that is somehow responsible for “creating” around 2 billion people. The… Continue Reading
The Source crawls through code, examining and discarding ones and zeros until it finds the rogue defrag program nibbling away at bandwidth. A hidden cache of photos exists on an obsolete server that should have been destroyed during the last… Continue Reading
Since the day the two aliens — an organic form and a machine from the Black Eye galaxy, a spiral galaxy some 17 million light years away — appeared on Earth, Alex Cariddi had been cursing the day he started… Continue Reading