by John Cramer The grimoire delivered as was promised. The rite has given me the acceptance I crave. Suddenly women find me attractive. My boss offered me the big promotion. And indeed, I have not been bullied a single time since reciting that incantation. No more name calling, no snickering when anyone passes by. All […]
by T.J. Gallasch I’d checked my calculations, twice, and then again, wanting to be absolutely certain before I threw the switch. I’d been working on this machine for years, but finally it was time to give it a try. “Alpha equals Delta over Gamma, carry the one…” I murmured, checking the whiteboard a final time. […]
by Tracy Davidson The other me is here. Sitting at my table, chatting with my wife and kids. I don’t know how he escaped from the lab, how he got home before I did. I gave him life, and he tries to steal mine? He won’t be the first clone I’ve had to destroy. 56 […]
by Kristin Lennox Trey marvelled at the monitor. The man in the examination room looked exactly like him, down to his unruly cowlick. “So he just goes about his life, oblivious, until I need him…?” Dr Wilmer nodded. “Yes—he has a fully implanted memory, no idea he was cloned. If you need one of his […]
by Don Money What harm could it cause? I thought. A secret two week getaway to Cancun with a clone covering my job at the office. The clone was easily enough to come by in the back alley laboratory. A month training “Steve” and everything was ready. A week later, I sat at the bar […]
by Chris Clemens When the mushroom sickness takes over, you’re conscious for a while. Awake. Paralysed. There’s a frantic back-and-forth while it seizes control of your muscles, puppeting limbs like an unfamiliar vehicle. Convulsions on the kitchen floor. If you’re lucky, loved ones will find and kill you. If not, you might watch yourself vomiting […]
by G.B. Dinesh When the contamination happens, the genetic engineering laboratory is sealed off automatically, containing the turbocharged plastic-eating bacteria and the three microbiologists within the laboratory. Ted begins hyperventilating. “It eats plastic,” John says. “It can’t survive in our bodies.” “I’m worried more about the quarantine process we’ll have to go through,” Anna says. […]
by Sophie Wagner Men and women alike writhed in pain on the ground of the birthing ward as babies slithered between them, smearing black goo everywhere. Monica screamed in agony as her arm pulsated, the purple gargantuan pouch attached to it nearly bursting. The man beside her was already cold, despite his birthing-sack popping moments […]
by Jessica Gleason Candace, using her neon polished nails, picked a cornflake-looking scab from her sallow arm. The black wound beneath smelled of rotten fruit, sweet and rancid. She dug a finger into the gaping hole and revelled in the pain it brought. Coughing, she wiped blood and spittle from her mouth, and laughed as […]
by Don Money It was only a matter of time until viruses caught up with technology. From the moment Griffen woke and his right hand clanked against his bare chest, he knew it was the virus, Metallicum Caro, metal flesh. The news coverage of the nanite virus that jumped from artificial intelligence machinery to human […]