Think you’re tough? The kind of hyperspace hero who calls a meteor storm “confetti?” I dare you to say “no” to my mother. Tell her something just can’t work that way, and she’ll start to wonder why not. She’s good at untangling things — my girls will swear to that. And then — eventually maternal […]
Sergeant Alberto S. Mendoza (U.S. Army, Retired) always stayed indoors during the Running of the Robots. The damned things were dangerous. In the early years, Homeland Security had advised everyone to stay in their basements until the bots had passed. But now the Running was almost a public holiday in Dallas, just as it was […]
BEE WAVED ITS ARTICULATED CHROME ANTENNAE at Dr. Nesbeth’s hunched shoulders. When the doctor remained focused on the Petri dish, the microbot launched into the air, wings creaking, and hovered near the doctor’s eyes. The microbot’s internal code flashed a warning that wing failure was imminent. The doctor sighed. “Yes, Bee, I see you there,” […]
I try to keep pressure on the bullet wound but blood still leaks out between my fingers. It’s a deep red against my green scales. I don’t know if I hit that damn bug, Renny. But he hit me. It’s been quiet for a minute or two, or ten. I think I’m in shock; staring […]
You are not the son your parents hoped for. Your father is a minister. Your mother is a would-be Olympic skater, a famous local beauty who blew out her knee at the age of 17. They wanted a son to be proud of, a confident son with friends and followers, a clever son who could […]
A week before Christmas, my father left the milk jar for me to skim off the fog-colored fat. I found his boot prints in the ice kicked out of the goats’ water pan. The machine in the barn had also disappeared. My mother searched his things and found little missing: his graphing calculator, his […]
A honeybee fluttered its wings for the last time. It was the last honeybee, a sickly man-made clone descended from a tragically short line of sickly man-made clones. Its stunted wings were translucent and crisscrossed with veins. The blackish yellow fur on its thorax reminded me of the ducklings I saw at the zoo when […]
Attempt 1: Talk to her. “Hi,” I say in the break room at Innovations Worldwide, though this is debatable. I might have only cleared my throat. Regardless, I am counting this as the first word I have uttered to Jennifer. She looks up from her tablet. Her green eyes sparkle in the fluorescent light. She’s […]
Daytime, must be. Birds singing outside. Too warm here, under the covers in my clothes and shoes. All the air’s gone but I won’t move because my Mum and Dad are watching from the ceiling. Floating there, blubbing. Picture perfect they are too, younger than me. Eyes wide and wet as babes’. I can’t bear […]
When it’s dark and no one would notice, we’ll break into the office. We’ll ride the elevator to the fourth floor, alternately giggling and pretending like we have serious work in an office building in the middle of the night. We’ll infiltrate like ninjas, darting from the soda machine to the water fountain to the […]