Category: issue 1

Dear sir, This is a matter of utmost urgency and I do hope you can help me.

There are two types of androids available in the market. Organic robots, made for couples who want to see their artificial babies grow, and static ones, made for commercial use, always stuck with the same original appearance. Soriano is the later, and his middle-aged exterior has intrigued me since the first day we met: outstanding blue eyes, a receding gray hairline, a hooked nose, a face full of lines.

The light from the Weaver’s aurora illuminated the dirty smoke rising from Chinatown; the snaps of the dhobis slapping linen against river banks cut through the early morning mist like rifleshots.

The train car stunk. Lakeishanna crinkled her nose at the scent of urine and someone who hadn’t seen a bar of soap in a month of Sundays.

I approach the painting like I have a thousand times before, curving my spine down so that my aperture views it from the correct height. Everything about the piece makes me quiet, all but the low, internal humming of my parts as they phase in and out of sync. Complex processing slows to a halt, only basic operations and system necessities chirring along.

When she is old enough that she’s allowed to use her mother’s tablet, Emma watches old news footage of the first battle between a gargantuan alien monster and Mondo, the monster that protects the Earth.

Corwyn stared down the old man at the hotel’s front desk. He took his sweet time sizing them up, turning his disapproving squint on her, Gwen, and the clockwork driver—who held their trunk on one shoulder—in turn.

Last night you were a great black cat, larger than me, with shining green eyes. You stretched out on the bed and I curled against you, the back of my head against your belly. Your purr of contentment vibrating through me. I fell asleep, so happy that I nearly didn’t think of your former self.

She said she’d come to warn you, but you’ve read enough time travel stories to know that the time stream is mostly self-correcting.

The late-afternoon sun hovers above the wall as I kneel on the earth, weeding tomatoes. Beyond the wall, yellow-orange light reflects off the clean sharp lines of the apartment blocks. Boxes for safe people, people who are provided for. People who matter. People who I knew, once upon a time. People who could afford the vaccine before the gates closed. The plague’s gone now, but the wall’s still here.