There was a portrait on the wall, and for some reason Kilbourn couldn't take her eyes off it. It was black ink on canvas that had grown sickly yellow-green long ago. She couldn't decide if the face was a man's or a woman's. Every time she thought she'd made up her mind those eyes seemed… Continue reading Wired
Category: Creative Writing
Standardized Testing
Calia climbed into the hollowed out stump of a fallen roof tree and made an effort to quiet her labored breathing. Her lungs felt sunburned from the sprint and her mouth was cottony, flecked with bitter congealing saliva. She wiped at the beads of sweat on her brow, not noticing the dark streaks she left… Continue reading Standardized Testing
Alternative Fuels
Evolution has been around longer than humanity, so it follows that nature has already solved many of the problems we’re only beginning to identify. It should be no surprise then that technology bent toward the arc of biology soon after we had the power to manipulate the machinery of the cell. We learned to speak… Continue reading Alternative Fuels
Ultracortex
Ivy wrestled a braid of fiberoptic cables off of her shoulder. Snagged on the joint seal again. “How much longer?” Holden stopped and slowly, carefully turned himself around in the fluorescent underwater tangle. Air bubbles trickled up from the back of his suit, stringing together a breadcrumb trail leading from his rebreather to the surface… Continue reading Ultracortex
Human-Overkill Theory
You've probably heard the name Linda Beckman. Early twenty-second century visionary industrialist, world's first trillionaire. She made some unfortunate political alliances late in life that stained her reputation, but overall she did more good than bad. During the decades between her meteoric rise and her shameful final years, she spent her fortune and her energy… Continue reading Human-Overkill Theory
Tempers and Timers
Roscoe Bard jogged to the landing pad, his utility vest bouncing heavily against his scrawny chest. In his haste to greet the pilot he'd grabbed his jacket but hadn't put it on. The small scout ship—only 30 meters from tip to tail—was only a dragonfly-shaped silhouette against the gargantuan disk of the late evening sun.… Continue reading Tempers and Timers
The Day That Lasted Forever
You're tired. Sure, you haven't slept in 22 days, but that's not the source of your exhaustion—you might not ever sleep again and you wouldn't miss it a bit. No, the problem is the repetition. The unending déjà vu on top of déjà vu, like standing between two mirrors, surrounded by infinite reflections of yourself.… Continue reading The Day That Lasted Forever
Keeping Score
Once we cracked it we became unstoppable. Most people thought we were unstoppable before, but that's only because it had been so long since we'd been stopped. We were only overwhelming back then—still impressive, but not quite the same as unstoppable. Our chances of ever losing another battle went from non-zero to zero. It was a… Continue reading Keeping Score
Night Ride
Nira tore through the desert night on her '72 Appaloosa single-cycle, the silent lightning in the distance painting shadow-Nira's at varying angles across the cinnamon-colored sand. She didn't need the predictive analytics or the visual enhancements from her visor's HUD—she knew this desert road well. It was straight and flat and rarely used, and the… Continue reading Night Ride
Patient 83
"So it's, like, expensive. That's what you're saying?" I genuinely couldn't tell if he was in denial or if he was actually that dense. What he needed was the truth. Unfortunately, there were a hundred other people in the waiting room who I might still be able to help, so he was on borrowed time… Continue reading Patient 83
Warmup Pages 