Sometimes at night, when Mark isn’t drunk enough to forget the day’s work, he has the urge to pray. He hasn’t believed in there being anything out there to pray to in years, but he dimly remembers his childhood awe of God and the comfort of being able to confess your sins to a faceless presence. The things he’s done, the things he’s watched, they weigh on him. He knows they don’t weigh on Renward. Renward is innocent.
Read MoreHow to Be Good
“Velvet and buttons, yes,” Pudgy says, his voice gone soft. He draws his left hand against his empty belly, fingers of his right hand scrabbling over the itchy skin on the back of his left. Michael blinks, then looks up to the trees that arc over them, bare-branched and thin. It is summer, yet nothing grows.
Read MoreWithout Wishes to Bind You
He is at a console, his hands running over the keypad. His fingers are faster than anyone else’s. His mind cannot reach the capacity of my processing power, but the way he thinks, computing thoughtlessly, is akin to my own. The other reason he is my second choice is because he has a 57% chance of being murdered within his first year as captain, but I can work to make him safe.
Read MoreEilam Is Forever
The phone rang, had been ringing; his family calling early. He relaxed and reached out along the electromagnetic connections in the air, pushing his will across the apartment’s network to open a connection directly into the OsNun CR permanently embedded in his skull. The conductive receiver, buried beneath the layers of carbon filaments and reinforced ceramics that replaced most of his brown skin, buzzed with every word.
Read MoreUniform
She stood in a brass doll stand on the window shelf in Mrs. Lovey’s Irresistible Toys and Candy Store looking out on Eighth Avenue and 72nd Street.
Read MoreDoll Seed
Run didn’t always hate Demon Fighter. She used to love it. But she also used to have a mother. Lots of things change.
Read MoreDEMON FIGHTER SUCKS
Nobody ever says we have coal in our veins; they don’t have to. We have black half-moons under our nails when we wake in the morning; we ooze like oil when we skin a knee, split a knuckle fighting. We aren’t afraid of the dark or closed spaces.
Read MoreAll This Darkness
Golem waited patiently outside for months. Sometimes she would tend the garden when Magda’s mother wasn’t watching or send a twin to bring back scrap metal for an ad hoc repair, but mostly Golem stood still. Magda had not given her leave to come back inside.
Read MoreMishpokhe and Ash
Then he pops back up. I should stop the match but the kid seems fine, and I’m only a little worried when I blow the whistle again and the boys go back at it. Again, Wham! And Umi is pinned again. And again. And again. And each time I’m sure that he has a busted rib or a ruptured spleen, but each time he gets back up.
Read MoreThrow Rug