It was Christmas Day, which may have been more obvious if the world hadn’t ended seven years ago.
I missed the holiday season, when people still debated over whether decorations should go up before or after Thanksgiving. Now, people discussed how to avoid the disease slowly consuming all of humanity.
“Rapunzel,” Midas said, shifting
Elianna released two bursts from her jet pack and realigned with Polaris.
The jarring incineration alarm blared on her exosuit, triggering her heart to beat a staccato. She suppressed a squeal. I’m actually saving the North Star!
Geysers popped and spewed gas on the yellow giant’s surface, hundreds of miles away, but she could
I stood beside a cliff’s edge above the Pacific Ocean, preparing to jump.
Theoretical physicist Wanda Pepper stood between me and the edge. Her cropped, raven-black hair had a stray, orange-dyed curl in front that bounced when she moved toward me.
Wanda patted the electrodes on my chest. “You’re all set.”
I scratched the
“Quarantine means no going outside, old man,” the guard growled beneath his face mask. Well over six feet with a vice-like grip, he dragged me inside as his name tag bobbed in and out of my peripheral vision. Pickerman was clearly stamped in sparse utilitarian lettering.
“Just going for a walk, sonny,” I said…
November 9. The best and worst day of my life.
I paced my minuscule apartment, plagued by a frenetic excitement that made my fingers twitch and gut clench. Outside, a frigid, torrential downpour assaulted Portland, obscuring the cityscape.
Dad’s ringback music played in my ear. On the last note, he picked up.
“’Ello?” He sounded almost… groggy.
“Ladies and gentlemen, step right up!”
Darcy O’Connor winces as a loud female voice bursts out of the AI interface speaker. Her robotics lab used to be such a peaceful place.
“Only one ticket to learn your future!”
This is the AI’s way of requesting paper. Darcy keeps turning off Carnival Mode, but it always reverts.
Dion isn’t yet twenty-four hours old, and he’s causing more problems in real life than he does in my story.
The six-foot-six holographic Atlantean warrior snorts, scanning the conference crowd. “These posers reek of weak character arcs and chosen-one tropes.”
“That’s rude,” I whisper.
“This place is crawling with tropes.” Dion points at people
By Alicia Peterson When my grandkids ask about the Halloween Blizzard Invasion of ’91, I do what everyone my age does. I lie through my teeth. “Did Great-Grandpa Dave really let you run the flamethrower?” Six-year-old Nora asks the same question every time. I can practically see fire reflected in her hungry eyes as she
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October 29. National Cat Day. Once a holiday for sharing feline photos on social media but now a day of remembrance. The day I singlehandedly averted an interplanetary crisis and the world changed forever.
It started out as a normal, autumn morning. Felix and I had just finished breakfast on the patio.
Mom used to tell us stories about October on the Old Planet. Like clockwork, the autumn breeze would billow across the valley, tugging leaves from their branches and filling the yard with ember orange and gold. She’d gather them into piles for her siblings to launch into, the foliage crunching and crackling beneath…
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The holes in the bottom of my shoes don’t irk me no more. My feet had gotten tough even before all this walking. ’Cause when the honeybees got sick—Mama said they was dropping like flies—food got scarce. People got hungry and then sick like them honeybees. And when people didn’t know…
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I crept up the driveway of Sara Wyatt, aka Suspect 4B, who confronted me with a hideous scowl.
“Who dares disturb me?” Sara cackled and waved her broom toward the gap in the thick black curtain blocking off her garage. “Seek you treats on this dreariest of days? Then don’t be tricked by the
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