Issue #12

"The Best Path" by Tim McDaniel

The wind screamed past her, rippling over Spant’s skimship in tiny, flashing waves. She shot between two Andean mountain peaks at Mach four. One of her telescopic eyes swept the sloping grey and brown foothills below for anything unexpected, and an ear slid through the crackling radio bands. Another ear listened to the wind. There was no particular reason to do that; Spant just enjoyed it.

Thirteen-year-olds don't need any more reason than that.

"Overclocked" by Don Norum

I noticed that my watch had frozen at 7:43:47. As I watched, the crystals flickered over into :48 before freezing once more. I saw the black line of my eyelids fall like a solar eclipse, and when I opened them again my watch was running, my dinner was burning, and my head was splitting.

"Forgotten" by Brian Salyards

Even in such an advanced age of man, there were still those who looked forward, and the apparatus had all the trappings of a science fiction writer's cold-sweat nightmare. It looked like a demonic cyborg that had been enticed from its own sinister plane and bound against its will. Everything about it screamed terrible, terrible wrongness.