#scifireads

The Auditorium — In the Afternoon

Theo and Koee — In the Cafeteria

The dining hall of the Eastern Military Academy breathed like a living machine. The sound of cutlery clattering against aluminum mingled with the smell of warm bread and disinfectant. Every student…

The cafeteria still smelled of coffee when the commotion began. It was routine for the military school to turn any spark into a spectacle; that day was no different. Theo walked with his tray in his…

The armored train cut through the streets of Ceres like a silent blade of steel. Black glass windows protected the passengers, but did not conceal the magnitude of the city. Fidel, immaculate in his…

The Mother Ceres Tower rose like a monolith of black glass, reflecting the sky and the city below. In the central seat , surrounded by a 360° view of Ceres, she watched every point of her domain,…

The corridor of Ceres Central College dawned beneath artificial dew, the floor still damp and the light far too white. There was a suspended silence before the siren. Theo walked slowly, his arm…

Gris walked through the silent corridors of the full-time school, the rhythmic sound of combat boots striking against the cold floor. The air carried that smell of iron and chalk that never left the…

She did not punish sex — even when it resulted in pregnancy. Pietà, despite protecting all mothers, was frightening in its logic: hell inside paradise.

In the humid silence of the locker rooms, each one alone, the fight still ran through their veins.

For every human being, colors carry different meanings. For a politician, red is ideology. For a programmer, it is a hexadecimal code. For a doctor, it is blood cells. For an astronaut, it is the…

We see a world that is constantly at war; peace is just an accident. Peace is a sweet illusion, but superficial in the face of survival. Some say we live in war. Others say we do not. There are even…