Stretch your brain
The night was black and starless. Even the moon dared not sail that darkened sky. But below, New Manzhouli's neon glow dazzled, cold and bright. Yuxi stood in the in-between. She could be a phoenix rising from electric ashes, or the angel of death descending from the heavens into the City of Dis. Tonight, she… Continue reading Let’s Do This Again Real Soon
The Queensboro Bridge was all backed up. Karsyn had never been in a traffic jam before—there hadn't been a traffic jam in New York for decades. She peered out the window; it looked like there was something going on at the old additions that led down to Roosevelt Island, but it was hard to tell.… Continue reading Can’t Stop Progress
Lincoln, a little drunk, entered his dark home while his car parked itself in its stall. He tugged at the knot of his tie and opened the top button of his shirt. He stopped at the hall bath to empty his bladder on the way to the kitchen—had to make room for more. As he… Continue reading Crosstalk
The city was bedding down for the night; the city of analysts and wrench-turners, of school children and factory workers and project managers, that is. The Night City—that parasite that succeeded in entangling itself within and around its daytime sibling without strangling it, that sunless city of teal-lighted windows scattered among the daytime's disused towers… Continue reading A98 in Progress
Sander Hurr stood outside the locked hold watching the monitors and smoking a cigarette. He hadn't smoked in years—was it ten yet?—and he couldn't believe how hard it had become to find the damn things. Or how much they cost. They were selling them individually wrapped now, and for what used to get him a… Continue reading Emerging Problems
Kendi's feet hurt. It was an unseasonably cold September—record-breaking, as it seemed every September had been all her life—but her toes were especially frigid. She put thermal gel in her thick socks, but nothing seemed to help. As many pregnant women did these days, she tried to focus on her work. But unlike them, she… Continue reading Invisible Ladder
Paa set up her shop on a dusty road an hour's ride from the spaceport at Ibreseem. It was a little difficult to get to, and that was the point. Tourists thought it was authentic. The 61 Virginis tourism board had cultivated and maintained a rich mythology for centuries—a fabricated mythology to be sure, but… Continue reading Lexicon
Cade awoke beneath the clear dome of the transport. It was nighttime, but the blizzard held its own soft luminescence, vaguely purple. It felt like the storm was on the wrong side of a snow globe. He shifted in his seat, his leg sore from the prolonged nap in a strange position. "We're almost there,"… Continue reading Absentia
The copter drew slow, low-altitude arcs through the thick air around Akkarfor Arco on Rypfe. Heavy storms pummeled the hills to the north but hadn't yet reached here. The copter piloted itself autonomously with only occasional interruptions by Governor Dalen, who would nudge the stick this way or that to point out some mundane feature,… Continue reading Pipes
On the day before my 15th birthday, it occurred to my father that perhaps I was not ready. "Milo," he asked, "what will you tell the civilgorithm tomorrow? How could you best serve your life?" "I don't know," I said. He scolded me harshly, planting little seeds in my arms and back with his fists… Continue reading Milo Meets the Civilgorithm
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