Lightspeed: Edited by John Joseph Adams

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Science Fiction

#TrainFightTuesday

BARISTAR – 5:09 – Polarity just magnetized my train. On a Tuesday night. LUNASAM – 5:10 – @BariStar: You’re lying, no one goes after the green line. BARISTAR – 5:11- No, I’m not lying!! I’d post a pic but she’s riding on the roof.

The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced

Judy says, “It’s snowing.” I look out the window. The sky is the same dirty grey as the snow left from last week’s storm. I stand up to look closer, to find a backdrop against which I might see what she sees.

A Debt Repaid

Some people will do almost anything to wipe out a debt. You, Jessica, are no exception. When the casino men came to your dingy apartment to collect, what did they threaten you with? A bat to break your legs?

See DANGEROUS EARTH-POSSIBLES!

You are fifteen when you get the brochure. See DANGEROUS EARTH-POSSIBLES! Become a Hero! The ad blinked at you online, between the x-ray glasses and the grainy picture of how to lose fourteen pounds and get real wings

A Guide to Grief

You love someone. A boyfriend, who hogs the covers and pisses with the bathroom door open. Your mother. Your little brother—he never calls, communicating instead via selfies verging on the ridiculous and too-brief texts.

Salvage

“You two ready?” I ask. “Yes, ma’am,” Gert says with forced brightness, and Rally nods quickly, a shake of motion behind her helmet’s faceplate. She’s nervous, but she always seems to be a little nervous, so I’m not too worried.

Walking Awake

The Master who came for Enri was wearing a relatively young body. Sadie guessed it was maybe fifty years old. It was healthy and in good condition, still handsome. It could last twenty years more, easily.

Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death

—I am hugely black and hopeful, I bounce on six legs along the mountains in the new warm! . . . Sing the changer, Sing the stranger! Will the changes change forever? . . . All my hums have words now. Another change!

Each to Each

The smell of damp steel assaults my nose as I walk the hall, uncomfortable boots clumping heavily with every step I force myself to take. The space is tight, confined, unyielding; it is like living inside a coral reef, trapped by the limits of our own necessary shells.

A Word Shaped Like Bones

The dead man sits in the corner of the chamber enclosed by spaceship on all sides. He takes up a lot of space. He has been there for three days.

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