Story Excerpts

Weather Duty
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Amala Navarro pulled one of the damp wipes from the dispenser above the counter and wiped the sweat off her face. She’d had to walk the last few blocks in the 110-degree heat because the light rail broke down for the fifth time this week. At least they’d managed to get the doors open. The last time, the doors stayed shut and rescuers had to smash their way in—taking nearly a dozen cars out of commission at a time when the city needed them most. READ MORE

Quantum Ghosts
by  Nancy Kress

Part I
“This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.”
—Plato

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PROLOGUE
The motorcade was late. Security, Robert Dayson thought. You couldn’t have too much security, not since the bombings in Atlanta and Portland and Austin. Not with so many fringe groups so threatening about . . . everything. “The Unrest” the media were calling it, a term that seemed to Dayson unfortunately mild, as if country-wide seething dissatisfaction were no more than a bad night’s sleep. No, you couldn’t have too much security. READ MORE