Category: issue 1

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.