The Lighthouse Keeper’s Last Shift
When a lighthouse gets automated, the keeper goes home and the machines take over. But after twenty-two years of a human presence, the lighthouse starts to notice what's missing.
Tag: Science Fiction (Page 23)
AIConfessions of a Mars Rover
NASA's official last message from the Opportunity rover was short and poignant. But the engineers who received it that day found something else buried in the data, something that shouldn't have been possible to generate at all.
American DecayCheckout Line at the End of the World
When an asteroid fills the sky and the world has forty minutes left, a grocery store cashier named Denise keeps doing her job, scanning items and asking paper or plastic, because the routine is the only thing holding everything together.
American DecayThe Last Beekeeper
Ruth Okafor hasn't seen a bee in eleven years. When one lands on her kitchen window one September morning, she follows it into the hills and discovers something she thought was gone forever.
AmbiguitySnapshots from a Parallel Life
Jenna found a photo album at a thrift store filled with pictures of a woman who looked exactly like her, living a completely different life. The discovery forces her to confront a question she'd been avoiding: was she living the…
AmbiguityThe Astronaut’s Confession
An astronaut 413 days into her mission has been keeping a secret from Houston: a mysterious light that appears every night at the same time, pulsing in patterns she's learned to answer back.
FictionStarlight Armada
A naval fleet responds to a three-word distress signal from a research station and discovers that the moon it sits on is not a moon — it's a dormant organism, and it's waking up.
Black ComedyThe Dentist of Mars
Dr. Evelyn Trask is the only dentist on Mars, her market share is 100 percent, and the protein bars are giving the entire colony periodontal disease.
AIThe Robot Who Couldn’t Lie (Version 2)
A manufacturing defect leaves Unit 7 incapable of producing false statements. When it testifies before Congress about the AI industry, it becomes the most trusted voice in the world.
Artistic ObsessionThe Zero-Gravity Circus
A retired acrobat with two blown knees launches the first circus in space aboard an orbital station — and a disastrous opening night becomes the most-watched live event in human history.
AILove in the Algorithm Age
After 2,347 algorithmically perfect matches and zero sparks, Petra Voss meets a Luddite sound engineer in a hardware store who builds theremins and doesn't own a phone.
Artistic ObsessionThe Pianist of Titan | A Science Fiction Short Story
A spy posing as a pianist on Saturn's moon discovers alien contact data hidden beneath the methane seas — and chooses to play one last concert while burning her cover forever.