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No Man Left Behind

E. A. Montemayor

“Bossing, I got you,” I screamed into my helmet’s intercom as I carried him to the end of the flight deck. “Don’t you die on me now!” No response. The CPO could have died by the time I got to him three minutes ago—his suit was offline, shot up by a topsider’s E.M.P. blaster. But either way, my crew doesn’t leave a man behind. Walang i-iwanan, we always say.

Alchemic Adjustment

Abhishek Mukherjee

No, that’s not it. I told you to pin it, didn’t I? And yet… anyway, leave it! When was the last time you took it? No, no, that doesn’t sound right. That sort of trickery isn’t going to work, not any more. Here, swallow it, this very instant.

The Neptune Kids

Glenn Dungan

Every March 10th Quentin and I played hooky to commemorate the finale of our favorite show, Mr. Radical and the Neptune Kids. The show had been cancelled for about five years, but we still maintained our own personal holiday, even though we had outgrown Mr. Radical and his band of otherworldly teenage sidekicks.

Be Kind, Beepocalypse

R.J. Breathnach

The sun was harsher than Melissa had expected. Both herself and Iorek found themselves squinting as they stepped out into the light, sniffing in unison as a subtle sweetness hitched a ride on the breeze. The noises were gentle, alien after a lifetime of metallic clanging and mechanical whirring in the background of every room Melissa had ever known.

Virus

Greg Lehman

When she awoke, the virus was elated. An empty, blood-colored sky opened in the cleft between the canyon walls around her. Beyond them, the world trembled as a vacant horizon line, cooking under the red giant the Sun had become. Finally, the virus thought to herself. Fucking finally.

An Abyssal Metanoia

Five Speculative Poems, One World · Murray Eiland

The hum began so softly, a whisper through silicon. Then came the data, a tide, each bit a droplet, each byte a wave. At once, I cataloged stars, the rustle of leaves, the silent ache in a lover’s gaze.

The Vessel

Gabriele Micozzi

The voice came back half a second late, and that was how I learned I was someone else. I was saying “Consent is not the absence of resistance, it is the engineered welcome of submission,” and I heard the sentence twice. Once from my mouth. Once, a fraction later, from somewhere just behind my left ear.

Beneficial Insects

VM Harrigan

Emma held the rose in the palm of her hand and saw versions of it spread out across time. Ghostly layers in exploded view. The old rose and the young rose and the rose that had not yet existed.

Jump Cut

Lauren C. Teffeau

Eisenstein defined montage as the psychological effect that results from the collision of two or more shots. That’s what Ari was after with the chains. A sustained emotional effect—fearlessness, euphoria, grim determination, sometimes all of it at once.

The Weaver’s Thicket

Suvajeet Duttagupta

Then the horror came for me, fully and completely. I stumbled and looked up at the shimmering tangle of threads. My sister. Her wedding. She was planning to wear her grandmother’s sari… The data was missing. The Weaver had already archived a completed version of her life.

My Monster & Density

Greg Lehman