Could Kaitlyn be the last native Earthling left? #ScienceFiction #YA

Alone I Walk
by Julie Wenzel


I would like to start off by saying that I wore the ugliest shirt I owned that day. And for that, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I'm not a fashionista by any means, but I do like to look at least half ways put together.

It wasn't that I was running late for class and grabbed the wrong shirt. I didn't even show up for class that day.

The problem was the washing machine...again.

I had the quarters. I went to the campus store, bought a notebook and a box of pens, and then asked the cashier to give me five dollars worth of quarters while she was at it.

But, like any other typical day there was an “Out of Order” sign written in faded marker on a notebook piece of paper, across the machine.

So at the end of my washing machine production, wearing my ugly shirt, with a pocket full of quarters, I missed my parents all the more. College wasn't the easiest thing in the world. It wasn't the classes, or making friends. It was the homesickness. I missed the home cooked meals.

As a kid, I took the washing machine in our house for granted. Laundry detergent and fabric softener always magically appeared the next day when we ran out.

I missed how my dad would fill my car up with gas every time I ran low in high school. For a while in my life, I was able to pretend that the world was a happy place. Sure there were bad in the world, but it was comforting to know my parents would be there for me.

Problem was, no one was there to take care of my parents.

New Kindle Science Fiction: "Isadora DayStar" by P.I. Barrington

Isadora and Iphedea escape a monster and find a place to sleep:

"Yeah, okay, truce for tonight. I’m tired too. Look, there’s a bed and a couch. Which do you want?"

"I don’t mind the couch," Isadora said with gratitude. "I’ve slept in worse places."

"I’ll bet." Iphedea smirked.

Isadora would have argued with the girl if she could have. But she had slept in worse places and done a lot worse to do it than the girl could probably imagine in her most disturbing nightmares. Instead, she ignored the barb, and concentrated on shaking out the small, soft blanket that served as a cover for the couch. Iphedea concentrated on stripping down to her undergarments and sliding under the thick blankets on the bed. She moaned happily and pulled the covers up to her chin. Isadora pulled off her boots and gingerly probed the wound on her leg with two fingers.

"Yeow! What happened there?" The girl asked, staring at Isadora’s leg.

"Just my own stupidity. I shot myself accidentally."

"You have a gun?" That fact shocked Iphedea more than the fact that Isadora had shot herself with it.

"Yes. I do."

"You mean you could have shot that Imanthyr instead of letting me try to whack it to death in the dark?"

"First Cause: A Novel About Human Possibility" by Paul West

“Angela?”
 

            Angela swallowed hard; in the sudden confusion, she had momentarily forgotten that Adam was on his way. She returned quietly to the door and peeked around the edge of the doorway into the hall.

            Adam had entered the hotel just behind the three policemen; recalling his earlier conversation with Angela, he wondered if she was part of the reason for their presence. He trailed them cautiously, several steps behind so as not to arouse their suspicion. Near the middle of the staircase, she heard one of them call her name--had he even known her last name was Smith?—and noted with mixed feelings that he had guessed correctly about their business there. A hard- faced woman was silently but insistently at the officers’ heels, a few steps in front of Adam.

            As the policemen neared the top of the stairs, Adam saw a tall man loom into view. Adam called Angela’s name, to no avail, and was about to call her again when the man moved toward the three officers with alarming suddenness. What the man did next was among the last things Adam was to see with open eyes for over a week.

"The Baby" a Short Story by Karen A. Wyle

Ellie has given birth to a clone of her deceased husband Daniel...

Ellie sat in the rocking chair in the dim light, nursing Daniel. There was no sound but the quiet creak of the chair and the quiet sucking of the baby. She breathed slowly, calmly, almost drowsing.

The baby was falling asleep. His little mouth loosened and let go of her breast.

"I feel like a mother, Daniel. You made me a mother. Isn't that funny?" She rocked and stroked the baby's thin hair, lightly, gently. "You were going to make me a mother, and you couldn't, and now you have."

The baby was snoring, a barely audible sound.

"Did your mother hold you like this, Daniel? What else did she do? What did she do to make you grow into the man I loved? How can I make you into what you should be, if I don't know what she did, one day after another, all those days until you were grown?"

A soft hissing noise came from outside the window. It was starting to rain. Ellie sat, listening to the rain and rocking the baby. Finally she bestirred herself, got up and laid Daniel gently in his crib, next to their double bed.

"Twin-Bred" by Karen A. Wyle

The humans on planet Tofarn have ongoing difficulties communicating with and otherwise comprehending the native Tofa...

“Sir? Sir, we have a problem.”

The mayor of Varley looked up from his monitor. “A problem with whom, or with what?”

His assistant considered whether to offer an opinion on whether the Tofa were Who or What, and decided against it. “It’s another complaint from the Tofa, sir. They say that humans are shaking hands.”

“People are trying to shake hands with Tofa? Which hand, I wonder.”

“No, sir. With each other. The Tofa are upset that humans are shaking hands with each other in public. Quite upset.”

“How can you tell? Oh, I know, they vibrate, or smell different, or something. If a job dealing with Tofa has done anything for me, it’s made me appreciate faces, proper ones that tell you what’s behind them. . . .”

"Worldmaker" by A. C. Ellis

"I guess we're both pretty lucky," Steven said. "Even at its worst life is preferable to death."

"Under most circumstances, maybe," Hansen said, "but certainly not under all." Then he smiled a strange, haunting smile. "But this doesn't have a thing to do with death.

"What are you talking about? This is the end of the whole damn world!"

"That's true. But I don't think all those people died."

"You're insane."

"Perhaps I am," Hansen said calmly. He smiled again.

"Lisa's Way" by Robert Collins

Lisa stared at the trio of armed young men standing in the middle of the road. They wore ragged clothes; their weapons were scuffed by age. She could hear movement in the woods on either side of the road. These three had allies under cover.

How many she didn’t dare to guess. She had fourteen on her side, not counting Wayne’s and Dave’s young children. If they were willing to confront her group they would need at least ten, including those three. She had two people with bows in front of each wagon. The eight riders had hand weapons.

They could take on these outlaws, no question. The three in front of her looked pretty lean. Maybe they’ve faced warriors before, but more than likely they haven’t. While her opponents might be hungry and outmatched, they did have combatants under cover. Her side would probably win, but not without losses.

Lisa remembered Coe’s warning about outlaws and robbers. That meant that killing them could make her a powerful enemy, or it could silence a source of information she’d need. It made fighting them awfully risky. That left her to choose between turning around and trying to talk to them.

I’ll talk. They won’t be expecting that. Maybe that gives me an advantage.

"Dead Heroes" by Kae Cheatham

“What?” She frowned. “Sage Gamion was possibly going to tell about a—a war, or are you referring to the second century before the government was formed?”

“No, not pirate tales.” He stopped before her. “Your elders probably call it the conflict or deception. We went to the inner sector and fought the…the Yivenese.”

The mysterious word conjured vague thoughts about creatures of the inner sector. Unenlightened, they were called.

“I’ve been trying to learn more, but my sponsor, won’t acknowledge my questions. I know he could have been involved. Anyone over ninety surely remembers it. But all information is stored in the Hall of Memories. I can’t access that because I’m not a student any more.” He was pacing again.

“Why would you want to know about that anyway?”

“Why not? Doesn’t the concept intrigue you?”

Sinoa’s curiosity had been nudged, but she told Nathan, “We’ll learn about it when we get to the proper level of academics.”

"Isadora DayStar" by P.I. Barrington

Isadora is released from jail:

The guard stood back allowing her a wide berth to make her way to the exit. She stood on the stairs of the building portico, shrugging on her jacket slowly, trying to avoid aggravating the countless bruises covering her. Isadora's lower lip was split in three different places and she had two major black eyes beginning to swell shut. She slung her bag over her shoulder carefully and looked around realizing she had no idea where she was or which direction led back to neighborhood of the assassins' bar. It wasn't the best neighborhood in the city but at least people didn't openly try to murder her there.  A patrol cop leaned against the wall, smoking a contraband cigarette and watching her.

"Um, which way is Metro? I don't know where I am." She said.

"That way – due west." He nodded toward the lowering sun's last dirty brown-red beams. "You want a ride?" He flicked the butt with his middle finger and thumb and it arced shooting sparks onto the cement ground like a meteor shower. He kicked off the wall and stood waiting.

Isadora swallowed. She wanted nothing more than a ride out of hell at that moment but she'd just learned another hard lesson about trusting strangers blindly. She shook her head.

From "Survivors' Dreams" by Kaylan Doyle

A small metal cylinder suddenly extrudes between sixteen year-old Rak’khiel’s toes. As she works it free, another searing pain tears at the base of her skull:

Rak’khiel clapped the hand holding the bristling object over the wounded spot. She heard a snick, felt a gooey, slick sensation slipping against her fingertips.

The lozenge moved.

“Holy Forge!” Her fingertips scrabbled frantically to catch, to grip the slimy capsule. Found the tiny spikes retracted. 

The thing slid into the base of her skull, then into her brain. And settled.

Tendrils, like strands of ivy, or root systems of noxious weeds, branched through her mind. They explored the recesses of Kel’s skull, created connections and networks, became one with her.  

Nausea surged.

Rak’khiel retched. The bile held back for so long came up in a churning rush. She lifted her head and scrambled away from her hiding place. Lurched to one side just far enough to deposit the sparse remains of her supper in a nearby bush.

As with her foot, all pain disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

“Shalit,” she whispered. “Goddess forbid. What just happened to me?”

From "Upsetting the Tides" by David Englund

On a new world, stuck in a cage, Clark listens to the creatures talk . . .

“I’m hungry.”

            “I’m hungry.”

            “Me too.”

            “Yes, yes, we are all hungry.”

            “We can’t interrogate the stupid thing.  It isn’t intelligent enough to communicate with us.  We probably couldn’t learn anything from it anyway.  It barely even knows how to walk.”

            “This is all Frumptoff the ancient explorer’s fault.  If he hadn’t gone through that transcendent to other worlds, we wouldn’t have to deal with these situations.  These amateur explorers need to mind their own business and find a way to be content staying on their own miserable world.”

            “Come now, what possible harm has ever become of these strange creatures coming through the transcendent?  They only come through one at a time and never have any of them posed a danger to us.  The transcendent has done nothing but give us sport and an additional food source.”

            “This is true.  Besides, there are not as many travelers coming to visit us as there once was.”

            “Maybe that is because we have eaten them all.”

            “We have no choice with this creature.  We will simply have to leave it here to keep it from getting into any mischief until we can figure out how to eat it.”

            “I’m hungry.”

From "Surviving the Spike" by Nader Elhefnawy

October 2077

 

The observation post was in Recoleta, just a half kilometer away from Francisco Gallo's residence, not too close or too far for the team to keep a proper watch on it. The OP was also in a mostly vacant apartment building, arranged informally with the management, which helped in avoiding notice, and reducing the evidence of their ever having been there.

From "Shadow Run" by A. C. Ellis

He barked a single word, "Traitor!" then threw a karate chop at Susan's head. She deflected it and his knuckles drove into the tile an inch from her ear. Pulverized tile peppered her body. Her right hand shot out to slam into his throat. His larynx collapsed beneath her prosthetic hand.

Pain and surprise washed over his features, and he staggered back a step, then caught himself and scanned her body. He had expected neither her speed nor her strength.

Half-turning, he kicked out, his boot aimed at her solar plexus. She sidestepped enough to avoid the kick, then planted her feet as firmly as possible on the blood-slicked tiles in Luna's one-sixth standard gravity and shifted her weight, simultaneously driving her right elbow into her attacker's knee.

Bone shattered beneath flesh and his face contorted in pain. He tried to cry out, but the only sound his ruined vocal cords could produce was a gurgle. He crumbled to the floor and propped himself up on one elbow, looked into her eyes. His gaze held a seething hatred greater than anything she had ever seen.

Without a word, the man fingered the pendant hanging about his neck, and silently disappeared.

From "Soldier of 'Tween" by A. C. Ellis

*Look out!* Red-One's thought roared in Five-Red's mind, and at that instant movement to his left caught both his armor's and his own attention. As his suit's computer chimed in his ear, he drew his disrupter and spun around as best he could in the planet's excessive gravity, the mud, and his battle armor. What he saw brought a curse to his lips and sent a chill of terror rattling up his spine.

Less than fifty feet away, and closing with incredible speed, a slug thundered noiselessly through the minefield, skimming almost gracefully over the mud's surface. Miraculously, it avoided the pin-mines.

And it was coming straight for him....

This was the best campaign he had ever fought!

From "The Other Side of Life" by Jess C Scott

Ithilnin, the Elven rogue, shows off the elves' underground train system.

Nin swung himself up into the carriage, then held a hand out to lead her in.

“Our side project—it’s nice what a little bit of magic can do.” His voice was more muffled, though Anya could still make out what he said. “It’s our underground train network.”

Nin scanned a hand over a flat black screen, as a demure, programmed voice greeted him, “Hello, Nin.”

Anya stepped in as the interior lights began to come on, giving the carriage a luminous glow. The carriage could hold about ten individuals. Maybe a few more, if they were all Anya’s size.

“I could probably live here, if I had no other choice,” Nin remarked, standing before the flat black screen.

From "Embody" by Jan Tilley

It is hard to believe that it was just over a year ago in fleshling time, that I began this amazing journey. I was young, naive and inexperienced. Accepting this challenge eagerly, I had no inkling what it would entail.  The lessons that I have learned are overwhelming.

        There was no way Kinstep could have prepared me for what I would witness on Earth. What a magnificent place. Its ever changing, constant beauty was hypnotic. And, as lovely as the planet was, it was no comparison to the splendor of its inhabitants. 

        I discovered, sometimes the difficult way that fleshling life is not always as easy and carefree as it appears. The torture that some of my hosts endured was excruciating at times. Their suffering will linger with me, forever. Their memories are now mine as well; we shared it all, the good and the bad.

From "Corsair (Outer Pendulum, Book 1)" by Slava Heretz

The man burst out laughing.

“Slavers?” he managed to get out. “You think we're slavers?”

“I don't think you are. I know you are.”

“So why are you here?” the man asked, his laughter nearly spent.

“I go through the motions of the interview so my employer doesn't fire me for insubordination.”

The man's face suddenly turned gruff.

“Listen, Captain Saffinger. We run a legitimate mining operation in the Hydra solar system. All of our valued employees are paid fairly for their work and time.”

“Really? I used to run protection for your gas harvesting project out near Hydra IV. I didn't see a single legal Quint working there in my six month tour.”

The man behind the desk smiled, showing a row of titanium coated teeth that shone brightly in the moon's cyan glow.

“You think the Galactic Parliament recognizes the Quints as a sovereign state? Are you kidding? They have no rights.”

Saffinger slid his chair back with enough force to drive a meteor sized hole into the floor. He shook his head and stood up, spinning around and starting for the door out of the office. 

“Wait!” shouted the man and stood up as quickly as Saffinger had. “We're after a Jalar.”

Saffinger stopped short. He didn't turn around.  His face was still full of rage. He wanted to rush out of the room, but he didn't.

“We've lost six freighters in the past year alone to Jalar pirate activity.”

From "Godmachine" by Jack Thompson

Today she didn't notice the clothes at all. Today she felt annoyed and confined by the low ceiling of the shop, and smelled an unpleasant, musty odor she had never realized was there. Today was different. It was to be her last.

    She stared out through the big front picture window as Transbus 7 glided silently past the corner where she was supposed to die. She looked at her timeband. “There, it's done,” she thought, feeling an unexpectedly exhilarating sense of freedom. She cherished the feeling, if only for a brief moment, wishing it could last forever. She knew she could not hope to evade the PETs for long. The Godmachine collected a continuous stream of data from the Data Analysis Fusion Towers that covered Plixon. Her violation of her Daily Duties would be downloaded to local PETs within minutes. In what seemed to Shara like only seconds, she noticed two uniformed men approaching the store from across the boulevard.

From "Face Time With Timeface" by Ryan Everett Felton

“Splendid,” she said. She pressed a button on the wall, and the monitors shut down, then the lights. All that was left was the fast-fading radiance of the golden fountain. Graham’s stomach lurched in disappointment as the last of the sparkling mini-stars fizzled out. The door opened back up, and Ellis exited the room into the long blank hallway. Aaron was gone.

On the short trek to the end of the corridor, as their footsteps echoed like those of a spelunker’s, Graham indulged himself one more question.

“Professor Ellis?” he asked, wringing his hands.

“Yes?”

“What kind of work do you do in that lab of yours?”

She smiled, as though she’d been hoping for that question, and pressed the button that released the first door, which led onto the main campus. As the din of the student body flooded the sterile environment of the hallway leading to her lab, Professor Ellis spat her mint out into her used Kleenex and pocketed the bundle.

Then she said, “Why, Mr. Sebastian, we’re going to open a gateway to Heaven.”

From "Area 51 (Countdown to the End of the World)" by Vincent Pet

Brad Walsh could never have thought that one day he would know the exact day and time the world would end...and start again...

Brad was beginning to understand where Barker was leading him.

“Not necessarily. One would hope that a society capable of reaching the stars would have certain ethical and moral standards that all their individuals would adhere to; although this is not always the case. Man is usually able to technologically create things that we do not yet have an ethical understanding of. Like for example, genetic engineering; this whole question of whether it is right or wrong has left us in legal and moral knots. We know how to manipulate DNA, but we have not acquired the maturity to understand the benefits or deal with the consequences yet. One would hope that a private venture that comes in contact with an alien race would have certain rules to abide to. As we all know, rules are made to be restrictive, and in life we always try to bend these in our favor to get a competitive edge.  A private venture so far away from home could in theory ignore certain principles if they felt the risk of reprisal was minimal or non-existent.”