Stretch your brain
Zyz awoke staring straight into the sun through a shattered skylight. Full charge. Elapsed down-cycle: 14:11:55.25. She remembered now wandering the tunnels for days in the dark and then scrambling to find a place to recharge before a forced shut down. In the end she'd had to tap into the aux capacitors to stay conscious;… Continue reading Zyz’s Syzygy
Pearl stood at the foot of her bed, staring at it with trepidation, not feeling the least bit like sleeping. She glimpsed herself in the mirror; it was getting worse. She wished Reyna were here. She was a good partner, even if she couldn't actually help. Reyna would wake Pearl from her terrors and rub… Continue reading Souvenirs From the Front
I missed home. I missed my garden. So I planted a new garden, right in the middle of everything in an unused emptiness. I added nutrients to make it fertile and put in scaffolding, a trellis of sorts, to give it structure. I love my new garden. I grow lightflowers—uninspired, I know. No braided vines… Continue reading Garden of the Lightflowers
Gatlin felt weird. The whole world seemed to be capsizing around him, and he felt...magenta? He knew the feeling was usually called cold—he was shivering—but for some reason he was equating the tactile chilliness with the color magenta; he could feel it crawling across his skin, little flickery blobs of purple-red like paisley come alive. He… Continue reading Psychotropic Space Nuts
General Welkar took the podium. "Congratulations, cadets. You are still here. When I addressed this group a year ago, you numbered more than a thousand. And now? Thirty. Those others did not share your grit, your intellect, your skill, or your boldness. They quit. They were cut. Some believed they had no limits, and they… Continue reading If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Seek Vengeance
"Sit down." The badge on his shoulder armor said POLICE, but he was on the wrong side of the law—the way it's written, anyway. The smoky black visor of his helmet had a spiderweb crack on one side and fresh beads of splatter on the other. He spun his pistol in quick circles on the red… Continue reading Down to Business
Natalie shifted the two jugs of water and the sack of fruit—plums and peaches, just now in season, and bananas—to her other arm and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. It was so humid. "It's just been so busy lately," she was saying, "with Eli's leg still healing—" A tug on her pantleg.… Continue reading Greener Tomorrow
Tana was the world's best cryptographer. She hadn't thought so before, though she'd known she was talented, but her very presence on this task force confirmed it. Everyone here was the best at what they did. The eclectic team included a renowned Oxford linguist, a cosmologist stationed on Luna's far side, an Angolan who was… Continue reading We Were Here
"Stop stalling. A bet's a bet." Xyler's opened his mouth as wide as he could, stuck his tongue all the way out, and held the pepper in front of his mouth. He sat that way, still as a statue, making an unsure moaning noise, before again pulling the pepper away. "C'mon, Eb, you know I… Continue reading Wanna Make a Couple Bucks?
Up ahead the sky was baby blue. Fortunately, between Karta and the sun were long white stretches of high cumulonimbus clouds with inflamed charcoal-filled underbellies. If she only looked up she could almost mistake it for Earth, as long as the clouds held out anyway. But the wind was picking up. It was supposed to… Continue reading Blue Skies Ahead
Warmup Pages 