Category: issue 10

A butter-cold dread gripped Deli as she stared at the display case and the glass shards scattered around it like dusted sugar. No doubt about it, she was face to face with a quadruple decker, frosting-covered nightmare. I’m dead. I’m so dead. Jams is gonna kill me dead. Glisten Glittercakes’ champion, a four-tiered, ombre damask-stenciled,… Continue reading Deli and the Glamcake Breakout, by Amanda Saville

Cycle Systems Analysis Complex Rings Habitat XRW24-2201-MA (Designation: Azul) Cleanerbots: Check in 23451-1-23; cleaning complete Sectors: Silent Primary Ring: Functional Secondary and Tertiary Rings: Functional, interlocked Atmosphere: [ERROR, NONE DETECTED] Gravity: [ERROR, RING GRAVITY MALFUNCTION] Error Override, Code: Azul Primary Reason Provided: An empty ring does not require gravity or atmosphere I present my data… Continue reading Sending Signals, by V.M. Ayala

WELCOME TO WIKIREPLY: HUMANITY’S RESPONSE TO THE HD 294752 TRANSMISSION THAT ANYONE CAN EDIT TALK: THE REPLY Auto-translation enabled: English How representative are we really? [edit] I know our goal is to try to craft a collaborative communications package that’s as representative of the global population as possible, but is a Wiki really the best… Continue reading Talk Page, by Tessa Fisher

i. I recall where I was when we found out we were in our final days. Each morning, I’d join the other children my age and forage for food on the great mountain back. I pulled stumpy carrots and mushrooms from the shaded side, where just enough moisture collected that such things grew. I did… Continue reading Still the Earth, by Christopher Marcatili

I’m in Barney’s, waiting on a drug-loving squid. Got my whole life riding on this job. Been killing time on my arm-tablet, programming viruses. Never know when you might need one. Barney’s is a neat joint. Mugs crawling with lichen, pesky sea mice scavenging the dank floors. Nautiluses negotiating grimy tanks. Bums mumbling about the… Continue reading Inker Blood, by J.L. Jones

cw: suicide “Benny—where the hell are you? We got half the town here waiting for crab legs,” my brother Gavin shouted into his phone over children’s laughter and picnic revelry. Behind the cloud of grill smoke, his face was troubled. He caught my eye and shook his head, stuffing the phone into his pocket. He’d… Continue reading Home Safe, by Kiran Kaur Saini

Vesha Bittertongue (or so the ungrateful called her) made her home in an old flint mine, too remote for casual visitors. Far enough, indeed, that visitors tended to disappear if they got casual about little things like gratitude. No matter what they wanted—love, strength, comfort, safety—they ignored her warnings that magic tended to betray. They… Continue reading The Eternal Torch, by Jonathan Olfert

First it was the nightmares. Months of nightmares. Sisyphus would be standing at sunrise, at the top of a hill with wildflower-sprinkled meadows and the edge of a forest spread out before him. He would bring his arms out wide, stretch them out to the fingertips and inhale the fresh draughts of spring. The wind… Continue reading Personal Mythology, by Betsy Aoki

The endless sweep of jagged glacier unfurled below the autohawk, as sharp and shining as fishscale. The autohawk needed no guidance, but Zezi preferred to guide it ximself, xis piloting as swift and sure as xis thunderscourge. In the breast pocket of xis robe sat the moirai engine’s prophecy: At Tamre xe finds four: Fugitive,… Continue reading At the Spire of Tamre, by Louis Evans

Nalini Boudin couldn’t remember the damn incantation she needed to turn Jimmy back into a man. She put on her spectacles, flipping through her dusty spell book. Her fool of a husband—who she’d turned into a popsicle—sat melting on the counter, dripping grape juice onto the checkered linoleum.  Jimmy’d been nagging her about her “salty”… Continue reading Popsicles & Jambalaya, by Sabina Malik