The Barber of Manaus
Felipe Santos da Silva swallowed. His palms were slick with sweat—whether due to the tropical heat or his nerves, he couldn’t tell. He looked at the city that, twenty years earlier, had been a boomtown, the jewel of the Amazon rain forest. Before the population decline that started in the early 2020s began to take […]
This is an Optimistic Science Fiction Story About the Future
We all have jetpacks. I’m an old, overweight man with hairy legs, and I have a jetpack. No one judges and the jetpacks don’t care. They run on clean energy and smell like sesame seeds. The right-of-way laws are complicated. The danger of jetpack injuries results in a new type of “helicopter parent,” though some […]
False Alarm
The bickering voices behind him, Mayor Edmund Parker stood at his study’s west window. He looked down Belmont Hill, out over the rest of his city, Boston, and to the pepper fields beyond. Tall, lean, famously blue-eyed and grey-haired, he allowed himself a scowl. He was a politician, yes, but a businessman first. He didn’t […]
The Evac
The landing craft shook like an ancient washing machine as it broke the planet’s atmosphere. Staff Sergeant Jacqueline “Jax” Caruthers, 5th Planetary Beachhead Division, 3rd Space Wing, United Nations Marine Corps, sat cool as a cucumber, gnawing her bubblegum. The dropship, unwilling to land without a fight, gave one final lurch before touching down. Jax […]
Home Sick
I was encoding a batch of classic ebooks when the ulu-aliki walked in to the library, the outdoors scent of gardenias and overripe mangoes following him. “Afternoon, chief,” I said, pushing my chair back a bit. Joseph Seru spoke Tuvaluan with his family and the other council members, but his English was so much better […]
Free The Sky
It shouldn’t feel like the end of the world. Drew paid for his morning coffee and paper mechanically; held them numbly. He did not count his change. He slogged down the stairs of the Metro, forcing himself to go to work. Work? That elicited a bitter laugh. His occupation was already obsolete. Physicists and rocket […]
A Verdant Heart
Father’s leaves are wilting again. The bright green sprouting from his temples is tipped with crusty brown along the margins. He runs a finger across his scalp, parting the foliage on one side, treating it with as much respect as a comb-over. “Father, you need to get outside,” I say, although I may as well […]
King Tide
Some particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth's closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord was smart […]
To the Havens
“Sarge? There’s a—thing—I’ve found at Pier Seventeen. I think you need to see this.” The voice on the other end of the line held just a hint of a quaver. George Aklaq grimaced at his screen. Trust the new kid to find trouble twenty minutes before the end of shift, and just before his holidays […]
Adiona Falters
Shelby hefted the door across two old sawhorses and measured it out against the drafty slab they’d been using. That done, she went back to her workshop for a screwdriver, her electric sander, and the portable generator she'd rigged from odds and ends. The new door would be a good one with a little effort. […]
This could be you