Green-Up on Aisle 13
A wave of pollution rolled into the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I held my breath, fighting the urge to cough against the caustic air. A bundled-up man pushed through the doors, bringing with him the reek of petrol and a bluster of cold from the arctic temperatures outside. I leapt to attention behind the counter, […]
Digital Pyre
Eileen stared at the dialog box. Such a little thing standing between her and an irrevocable act of destruction. Did she want to delete records, massive quantities of records painstakingly maintained by herself and the archivists who had preceded her? “OK” and “Cancel” didn’t seem like adequate choices. This was an essay question, not true […]
Solitude, in Silent Sun
Chérie Duvalon was second-generation Terran, and proud of it. She sat on hard-packed sand and squinted against its white glare. The afternoon sun dried her stretch thermal sheath and crystallized salt on her skin. Her fair hair fluttered in the breeze, and her diving helmet, weight belt, and fins lay on the sharp sand at […]
Field Trip
A body is only as healthy as its weakest link, my grandma says, but when I look at Duck Sink and then I port into a class in Saskatoon or one of the other big cities ... well, I dunno. Saskatoon looks pretty healthy to me. It has topsoil cooperatives and VR production companies. If […]
Ghost Fishing
I'd just finished inspecting the bilge, rudder control, and the levels on our batteries when Captain Ellen Stubb’s voice rang out over the intercom. “Pam, I need you up here.” In the Incentive’s wheelhouse, Stubb was bent forward in her blue and white flannel, ominous as Hokusai’s Great Wave. She was glaring at the Earth […]
Encroachment
The couch in the experimental botany lab is too short even for me. I sit up with a groan, the tinfoil emergency blanket crumpling in my lap, scattering the light from the overhead fluorescents. I stretch my arms above my head in a vain attempt to get my back in working order. Time was, I […]
The Desert in Me
I was going to be a desert. They’d designed this recliner for conductivity, not comfort. I lay down, feeling cold alloy through my shift because it was either “rehabilitation” or relocation. “Where did they assign you for Environment Week?” the guard asked. “I don’t remember.” It was twenty years ago. You turn eighteen, and they […]
Seeing Clearly
The water in the tank that circled the Mermaid Dining Room had gotten brackish and thick. Edwidge crawled onto a plasticine rock inside the tank. Her turbine sputtered and whined as it broke into the air. Papery algae slid under her silicone-coated fingers. She had to get to the performance cave. From the performance cave, […]
The Pinecone Lady
We were suffering through the hottest, thirstiest, cruelest season yet when the Pinecone Lady came through town. I’ve heard a lot of theories about her since then, about who she was or what she was, but those theories are all missing the point. I only care what she did—because what she did meant everything. In […]
Good Hunting
Karin Eklund sauntered casually toward the staff entrance to the Gyrodigital building. The sun had been down for nearly an hour, but Gyrodigital was one of those companies that expected long hours from their employees. No one would think twice about someone arriving at this time. If anyone had stopped to ask her for ID, […]
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