Scanlon

Rick swiped hard at his nose with the full flat of his palm, the heel of his glove coming away with a sheen glistening like plastic wrap.  Sherri met his eyes as he glanced up before he could fight himself to make sense of his sights that ducked and bobbed like buoys on bad water.  Her confusion was the only thing he could understand, the only thing that came clear as a church bell in springtime as he hunched.  The muscles of his abdominal wall balled into eight individual fists and pummeled his stomach like a heavy bag with no sand or cotton inside it.  He wretched.  His rifle fell from his hands, steel plated knees meeting the concrete of the warehouse floor in twin claps, the muzzle brake touched the glass and as he clutched in the space before him for a thing to stop him from completely doubling over his fingers caught the natural grip of his rifle, slipped behind the guard, and dumped the spring.

Last Flight of The Odesta

In the shifting waves of gravity, the terrific warped mass of spiked, thick bodied, momentarily amplified being, she began to peel apart like a bloated artichoke shedding its leaves bursting with life, ire, and purpose, an autumn Oak before winter winds.  She fell, without spark or fire, against the face of displaced Dianus, yanked tight to her hip like an animal on a leash and as she began to crumble in the farthest reaches of Dianus's atmosphere the black body rose prominent and in line with Gallot's red and gushing belt...

Halved With Time

***Londa did not notice it back then, so many years ago, but since she had so much more time to simply look around her, she noticed now.  She saw some transporters come in with great holes torn in their bellies, bits of wing missing, or no wing at all.  Some that came straight down and dove right into the Earth in plumes of glittering and molten steel confetti, plastics, wire, and pulverized flesh, billowing in high black smoke.  No matter what direction they came from they always came in a vertical dive from the ceiling until only a few miles above the airspace of Rallypointe.  All around them something was happening, and had been for years. ***

Ken Sunrise Dan

***The black eye came loose and rolled onto the wax paper of the dissection tray with a thick thud.  He avoided looking at it directly.  The milky film surrounding the dilated iris was ribbed with deep brown veins, but within the iris was a darkness that reflected the bright white LEDs with a twinkling intensity of intelligence that gripped his stomach with a mercilessness that could hang on for hours after he left for home.  Those expressing the traits of the true psychic were institutionalized and medicated until their deaths.  He read the rumor pulp about the military having plans for developing true psychic soldiers, but he also knew there were already biological and hardware machines that could wage war much better than any man ever could or ever would.  His finger slipped within the orbital cartilage of the red fin's skull and jabbed a lobe of the softball knot of the hard cased brain.  "Jesus," the thing's thick tail twitched hard and slapped his elbow, sending his torch pen to the floor.  He quickly bent to pick it up and returned it to his tray of tools as he tended to his task.  The reason was more primal and closer to every human being's core than fear could ever cut.***

The Death of Joseph Watkins

***Polynyde tracked Joseph, country to country, continent to continent, around the world in 80 days, 8 days, 8 hours, it never mattered. Joseph hadn't spent the money because he couldn't.  Polynyde was always minutes behind, hours, rarely days. His life was 54 hundred days of nerve annihilating fear and nothing more.  And now, on the catwalk of a 400 meter tall wind dam in Kansas it was dawning like a full moon breaking from behind towering clouds.  "You have no where to go," the wind died as if the sinking realization that his trump card was so much chaff killed its spirit too, "no one will take you in.  No one will touch you.  No one will hide you," the 100 meter wide blades of the turbines thrummed gently, only meters below and spaced across the entire multi-kilometer expanse, as they adjusted their angles of attack to catch as much air as possible, "no one will smuggle you any further.  This operation became much less about you as soon as I reached the fullness of my service life 15 years ago," the process failure warnings increased their torrid pace.  The time was now.  "Go peacefully."  In a fraction of a fraction of a second the impulse flowed from Polynydes main processing center, to his distributor plates, to the fibers gripping the dull black cross hatched grip of his .22***

The Great Signet

***"Rooster, I think I'm in a bit of trouble here."  The medical technologist used to tell him he must have been born in space every time he took his readings in what passed for mid-morning aboard the Signet.  Rick was the first one to call him Rooster when he asked for a plastic baggie for personal maintenance months before.  "Would you come down here?"  Down was relative.  He usually had to remind Rick to give exact locations relative to the equipment rooms and gangways.  Rick's stout face filled the communication's screen in the pilot's capsule.  He asked him what the problem was.  "I'm having some issues with Busky's tests and I need a second pair of eyes to make sure I'm reading these figures right."  They were all heavily cross trained and the team, almost to a man, could swap positions at any time if the need arose.  "I already asked Tolle.  He's in the middle of a sequence and has to watch it closely.  I couldn't raise Scudero either."  He told him to hang on a moment while he ran the day's checklists for the attitude adjustments and promised to come to Busky's sleep rack when he finished.  From the corner of his eye, as he toggled the communicator switch, he thought he saw Rick frown, but the screen winked out and the checklist touch screen was already in his hands.***

Silhouettes

***Remmi shaded his eyes from the mid-day sunlight for several silent moments as he looked at Flint and then beyond him to the strip of asphalt that was his driveway.  “Is that all you came here to ask me?”  He shifted his weight from one prosthetic leg to the other, tiny servos spooling and absorbing and dampening microscopic measures of incremental movements.  The first time Flint saw Remmi’s bare legs he was astonished at how well Remmi was able to handle himself, having no nervous contact with the Earth beneath his feet from the middle of both of his femurs on down.

“Of course not.”  Flint glanced down at the matte black, vinyl taped, carbon fiber limbs and then at the white and candy red striped boxer shorts loosely draped over distributor coils and genitalia.  He brought his eyes back up to Remmi’s.  “The project needs you back, Remmi.”***