Category: Guest Authors

He had marshalled his forces carefully, exactingly, for just this moment. Patiently building his strength for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Troops massed along the borders. The supply chains were long, but the generals in charge knew the penalty for failure.
His early conquests had come easily, with only token opposition. But recently, his fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. Every battle, a bloody meatgrinder. Every skirmish, a near-disaster.
Retreat, regroup. Retreat again, regroup again.
Well, all that was going to change. Had to change. It was his turn now.
With the next roll, Yakutsk would be his!

It had been three full days since he had last slept.
Damn finals…and that thesis defense. One all-nighter in a row was bad enough, but two? Jesus. His teeth ached as he gulped another cup of the e-Quad’s stinking, bitter coffee.
Eyes…like baseballs of lean bacon. Crusty. Red.
The thesis defense was in two hours. Surely he would do a better job with a quick nap. He laid his head down on the cold carrel desk.
When he opened his eyes, the library windows were dark. How long had he been asleep?
Fuck this train wreck of a college career.

As usual, I’m in the middle of something when they come through.
Thursday, I was pressing a suit. Today, I was measuring Goldberg for a pair of pants. 38 waist, 30 inseam, dresses to the left, if you’re curious.
Hey, I don’t spend the whole day in here. But somebody has to be there to put up a good front, and I got picked. Maybe it’s because, in my other life, I really was a tailor.
But now, six hours a day, six days a week, I’m just the fucking doorman for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

Gart snapped a fresh magazine into his pulse rifle, hoping the soft “click” would not be picked up by the enemy sensors. He raised one eyebrow, sniffing the dank cellar air. It wasn’t getting any fresher in here, not with Jones’s decomposing torso only ten paces away.
It had been a good three days, at least until Jonesy bit it. They had made some real progress, pushing back the Jeffersonians. The city limits were secure – for now, anyway – but someone had to work recon, and it was Gart’s turn to draw short straw.
Sometimes it was hell to be Mayor.

Asparagam stood, staring off into space, a tear running down his chlorophyll-stained face.
It had been a hellish season. So many of his family cut off in the prime of their lives. Flayed. Stuffed into the brightly colored body bags, then trundled off into cryogenic storage.
But he could not mourn for them. That was…forbidden.
It was in the contract. The hellish clothing, perversely constructed of stinging nettles. The omnipresent shit-eating grin. It was all there in green and white. He was sworn to obey.
Just the same, he thought, can’t the Jolly Green Giant weep for his lost children?

Lenny Spiderman was the class clown.
We were kids together, growing up on Long Island. And Lenny used to drive the teachers nuts.
He’d build webs up by the ceiling in homeroom, and then swing up there and hide. Mrs. Hentoff never thought to look up, but he’d be hanging there making faces. It was all we could do not to laugh.
But when he got older, he got serious. “With great power comes great responsibility,” that crap.
Peter Parker? Bullshit for the reporters. It was always just Lenny.
But I’m the guy who got him to use the hyphen.