Stretch your brain
Jay and Warren sat above 352nd Avenue, their feet dangling 1,500 meters in the air as they ate sandwiches and synthetic fruit from their lunch pails. They worked third shift; it was just after nightfall. "The Jubilee holiday is coming up—you have any plans?" asked Warren. The big man crossed his ankles and swung his… Continue reading Jubilee
Ten. Nine. Lydia remembered carnival rides that shot her into the air like a slingshot. She white-knuckled the restraints and screamed at the top of her little eight-year-old lungs, but she kept her eyes open, and her smile broadened. Eight. Seven. She remembered the leader numbers on old film strips—actual cellulose, before they were digital—circling… Continue reading Countdowns
Do the cave eels of Europa hunt by vision, or sound? Heat, maybe? He hoped it wasn't heat. Bay stood still in the ice cave for a long time, waiting until he was absolutely sure the crew had departed. There'd been a mutiny—not against him; he was just a general staff member, and a junior… Continue reading Fragments of Mutiny
What idiot called this thing an ice bath? Floyd had never been in cryosleep before, and he was starting to wonder if he'd made a mistake. He'd had a hard enough time putting in his breathing tube and sealing it over his face—it felt like using a snorkel while his head was in a plastic… Continue reading Ice Bath
The world's first artificial consciousness was on suicide watch. She was housed in a humanoid platform, more for the researchers' benefit than hers, and more for their hubris than their benefit. She oscillated between despondence and rage at regular intervals and was unquestionably a threat to herself. They worried she might become a threat to… Continue reading Gods of Incompetence
Sana jolted awake. Where was Sora? He was it. It. As in tag. There were six of them under the age of twelve—Sana, Sora, Kanna, Kaito, Niko, and Itsuki—and every hundred years, when they thawed out and the grown ups ran tank diagnostics, they played tag. And Sora had been it when they went down for… Continue reading Freeze Tag
Carter hit the treadmill with gusto. It was old and worn—mechanical, not electric—just a rubber strip wrapped around a couple of rollers, no motor. Electricity was a scarce commodity these days, and he wasn't the wasteful type. He wasn't a brainiac either, though, and couldn't figure out how to use the treadmill to generate and… Continue reading Running in Place
Morrison grew up on a rye farm outside of Cenesthesia, a typical arcology in the midlands. And, as do most children who grow up on farms, he was going to become a farmer himself one day. He didn't find it especially fulfilling, certainly not exciting, but it was as lucrative a career as you could… Continue reading Most Unthinkable
Dr. Rykovanko had finally done it; she'd mastered the process of digitizing human minds. It had taken a lot of trial and error, made all the more unfortunate by the destructive nature of the procedure. But progress is rarely a linear path. The procession of brain boxes in her office laid out the milestones, lest… Continue reading A God in Our Own Image
For all his political posturing and his penchant for charismatic public overtures, Leon Brault was having second thoughts. It wasn't an ideological shift he was experiencing, but an awareness of his survival instinct. He was close enough now to see the Artifact with his own eyes, separated only by a few kilometers and 4mm of… Continue reading Dust to Dust
Warmup Pages 