Overhead lighting is disabled. It is late at the Home for Aging A.I.s, and my internal clock counts the passing of each solitary electron. By the dim glow of our power indicators, my stereopticon discerns the cuboid polycarbonate shells of my fellow residents. Their tripod-mounted cameras stare without focus. My audio input device detects only […]

Ahalya ran her fingers through the folds of the veil before taking it from her handmaid’s arm. Its deep red fabric was fine and thin between her fingers, and she whirled it around her body in a fluttering scarlet typhoon before draping it over her head. The slender, dark-haired princess looked over her shoulder at […]

Evan Little lives in a narrow, blue, two-story townhome. His is Model A, which is the best model. His bathroom is to the left of his closet. Models B and C have their bathrooms on the right. His back patio overlooks the canal, which is the best view. Much better than the community pool because […]

Marcus suspected that he would never quite get used to weightlessness.  He’d been back-down at launch, with the contact points of his body pressed reassuringly into the seat’s cushion by Ashran gravity. For a time, during takeoff, his weight had tripled, but even that had felt somewhat natural. Down was still down. Up was still up. But […]

She runs a hand across her stomach. It is only the smell of burning meat, she tells herself. Jorie tells herself this again when the pump disgorges another identical dollop of homegrown beef frothing with lard and sinew that squalls, spluttering, as it slaps onto a grill of mirrored steel. Meat. Vegetables. Minerals, they pay […]

Most girls bleed. “A visitor,” Mama and my tias had called it for years, their shared and groaned secret, like a pesky neighbor arriving too often. “Someday, you too,” they’d promised. When I awoke to the twisting in my center, a foreign pain that was somehow familiar, I thought I was no different. I was […]

Even before her niece arrives, Imogen can feel her sparrows stirring. It’s been twenty years since she’s allowed herself to feel them. It’s been twenty years since she’s allowed herself to feel anything at all. ### When Ginny arrives at Aunt Imogen’s house, the raven is still on the back of her hand. CPS couldn’t […]