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“It?”

“Yep! That’s what I call it,” said the disheveled old man who sat cross-legged on the cement floor rocking back and forth. “Don’t know what it is. Don’t know what to do about it. Just puttin’ up with it.”

The new IT support tech, Barry Monroe, scrawny in a Megadeth T-shirt, jeans and curly brown hair, raised an eyebrow. He wondered if the old man was crazy. More accurately, he wondered how crazy the old man was. He kept a respectable distance from him.

Read Beneath the IT Department Lies

July 15, 2149, Hawking

Grant noticed the lander flying toward him just when he was sure his life was almost over. A massive shot of adrenaline coursed through him as he now had hope of survival. The lander turned and softly settled down two hundred yards ahead of his current path.

Read The First Colony – Rescue

‘You called me, Doc. So what’s going on?’ I looked up at the camera and threw it a grin. When Riddles opened the fire door, my jaw dropped. His head was wrapped in aluminum foil. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I pinched my nose. ‘You look like… crap, and you smell like—’

‘I know, I know. Get in here. Put this on.’

He handed me a silvery foil hat. The hollow look of his eyes and the dark stubble kept me from hurling more insults.

Read Brain Child

July 15, 2149, Hawking

Karen looked around the decimated lander and searched for any sign of Grant. His supplies were gone, along with the picture of his daughter that she knew he took on every flight. Everything he would need to survive a new world for at least a few weeks was not here.

Read The First Colony – Translation

Times aren’t easy in academia here but our astronomers can recognise a pork barrel at 50 megaparsecs and scrape it clean from a lot further than that. So after the climate crash/panic of ’47 we focused our instruments on new pots of money.

This is our first attempt at communication. Dark matter signatures prove you are out there, and we expect each of you discovered us and our many brethren. We hope you’ll understand this or one of the accompanying translations.

Read Applied Cosmology

July 15, 2149, Hawking

Grant ducked and hoped he’d been fast enough to avoid being spotted. He knew there were dozens of the monstrous beasts in the hollowed out cavern, and he had no idea what direction they would come at him from. His stun-gun sat uneasily in his now sweating palm.

Read The First Colony – Broadcast

“You know they call us body-snatchers?”

I flicked my gaze to the rear-view mirror then back to the street ahead. I hadn’t driven for Elaine Grey before but it was obvious she needed reassurance. “As long as they stick to just name-calling, Miss, then everything will be fine.”

She twisted a handkerchief between slim hands. “Only, in the news, those stories…”

Read Waste Not

July 14, 2149 – Seeker – Solar System Outer Limits

The Seeker had reached astronomical speeds, but the problem with the technology was it couldn’t just slow down with out ripping the ship apart. The deceleration process took light years, and Karen was told it was much like a speeding car using a parachute to slow itself.

Read The First Colony – Lair

I am numb, paralysed from the neck down. Strangers over-ooze sympathy when they hear the word: quadriplegic. Family and friends avoid me, too embarrassed that they can stand on their own two feet. I hate this prison of false emotions. I want to be back in the real world, the way I was before my so-called accident.

Read Cyber Control

July 15, 2149, Hawking

Beads of sweat poured down Grant’s back as the sun beat down mercilessly. He’d been travelling all day in the heat, trying to track the creature that had been at his lander.

Read The First Colony – Tracking