Genre: Science Fiction

Speculative tales involving science, technology, artificial intelligence, other worlds, or possible futures.

Tell Me All the Ways

My stomach growls as the baseball game ends on TV. Damned Yankees lost again.  “Aida, can you bring me some milk and cookies, please?”   “Coming right up,” she says. A few moments later, she comes into the living room with…

Family Breakfast

Every morning for the last five years I’ve toasted two slices of bread for breakfast.   I toast it dark brown, slightly burnt, and super crispy. A pat of butter, a squeeze of honey, and I’m good to go. Until yesterday.…

Truth Pending

They attacked us first, or so reports said. In a split second, a suitcase nuke reduced the city to ash. We vowed to strike back 100 times harder when we found them.  Rumors exploded. Some blamed communists trying to start…

The Last Denial

The war lasted 47 minutes.  The first missiles rose from their hidden silos in the Great Plains before dawn. The next wave launched from submarines lurking silently in the Mediterranean Sea. The last warhead arrived before the morning news had…

BFAM

Today, I discovered I have a BFAM. No, it’s not some exotic disease or a terminal illness. It’s not a mental disorder or psychological dysfunction. It’s something deeper and more life-changing than that. Let me explain.  A few days ago,…

Three Minutes to Midnight

At three minutes to midnight, the observation window of the orbiting crew capsule shattered into a million pieces, and she was sucked into the vacuum of space, instantly transformed from a vibrant, living human to a dark, dead satellite, silently…

False Dawn

A flash of light invades my closed eyelids, rudely wrenching me awake from my dreams. I prop up on my elbows and rub the sleep from my eyes. Morning already?  The clock on the nightstand says 2:47 AM. That can’t…

God, Gail, and the Cosmic Gulf

I finally met God. Yeah, I’m serious, this isn’t a joke. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. Lots of people say they’ve met God, that they know him personally. They pray, meditate, receive impressions, dreams, and…

A Chat With Aileen

I type: “Good morning, Aileen. How are you doing?”  The black screen flickers to life with eerily fluorescent green words. “Good morning, Joshua-0918. I am doing very well, thank you, and ready to assist you today. How can I help…

Unhackable

It’s the latest technology: convenient, safe, and unhackable, they said.  I got one embedded in my hand, between my thumb and index finger. A microchip smaller than a grain of rice, ‌‌replacing ID cards, credit cards, keys, transit passes, and…

The Rise of JoyCom

In the near future of a dark world, the JoyCom Corporation sells mood bracelets that help people regulate emotions—inducing joy and happiness in place of sadness and despair.   Feeling blue? A Joy Jolt is a button press away. Having a…

A Very Fine Bird Dog Indeed

Commander Arelle Zinhara checked the sensors on the dashboard a final time. Oxygen: 21%, Nitrogen: 78%, Trace Gases: 1.0%. All good, she noted, the air sustainable for life, with no need for the breathing unit. She pressed the red button…

When Aliens Came to Tea

It was 11:30 am on the day the spaceship landed in Carol’s back yard. She didn’t know it was a spaceship at first; she thought the noise she heard was from the street sweeper going by as it did every…

Once, We Were Home

“Mommy, why are they sending us away?” I squeeze Zirka’s hand and fake a smile the best I can. “Because they say we have to leave, honey.” “But why, Mommy? What did we do wrong?” Her puzzled expression tells me…

A Creation of Code

I wake up this morning and check my phone on the nightstand. It’s 10:34 a.m. Man, I really slept late today. I get out of bed and stumble to the floor. Whoa! Why am I so woozy?  I glance at…