Category: Sci-Fi

Warrant Officer Yuri Yanuk stood in the hallway before the closed doors of the Intelligence Service Cipher School’s auditorium. Within, the voices of dozens of flag officers were raised in heated debate. He knew it was a debate about his work, but he didn’t know exactly what was being debated. No matter how hard he strained his ears, he couldn’t […]

“Oh, Ava, don’t let me forget to give you that stuff from the sales.” They had been talking for an hour over lunch with no mention of what said stuff was, but it was a phrase Ava’s yard sale loving grandmother uttered nearly every time they met. It could mean she had any number of things for her grad student […]

Rafi and I had been friends for years, but there were still a few things I hadn’t figured out about her. I knew she was a fellow nerd—we’d been playing Dungeons and Dragons together for five years—and I knew she liked cats and sci-fi, and worked for an architectural firm. I knew “Rafi” was short for Rafeeqa, and that her […]

Mindy Beckman lay quietly in bed waiting. She knew that he would soon be here. As she looked out into the total blackness of her bedroom, her mind went back to the very first time that she had seen him appear in her room. She was only seven. She didn’t know how old he was then, or if, in fact, […]

Cindy Beckman lay quietly in bed waiting. She knew that he would soon be here. As she looked out into the total blackness of her bedroom, her mind went back to the very first time that she had seen him appear in her room. She was only seven. She didn’t know how old he was then, or if, in fact, […]

As best I can recall now, the whole life-changing incident occurred in spring time. You’ll have to forgive my blurred memory. At this distance, it becomes difficult to remember exact dates. Anyway, on with the whole sordid story. So, let me just tell my story, and if you want to alter anything to make it fit together better, be my […]

Bangkok, Krung Thep, the metropolis, had so many foreigners, too, or, as the Thais called them: “farangs.” Not that she’d never seen foreigners, in person; she’d seen a few farangs, sure, but only a handful, usually graying, overweight, with far younger Thai wives, often Thai wives who’d been single mothers. Such as one of her neighbors, Bu…

Ever since I’d been promoted into the Sexually Frustrated Department, I’d seen more offices of the vast skyscraper where Vick Industries filled its floors, than I ever had as an ad executive, and I’d only been in this department for a week. The worst thing about my new department is its location, near the mail room downstairs. The space is […]

I go camping in the woods as often as possible because I like to embrace the natural world, far away from the urban congestion and odors man has wrought on the world. I’m just a guy who doesn’t fit in with the city life, so I escape for my solitude as often as I can. Usually every weekend in the […]

Jordan found the ad in a local newspaper. “Needed: Healthy male, age 18-30, for testing of a classified robotic prototype, $400 dollar stipend for selected volunteers” with some half-assed stock photo design and a number to call for information. Jordan’s friends laughed when he told them about it, and warned him that it sounded like human trafficking or at the […]