Permutations
Data Stream 0
8 stories
Biotech or Mutation Apocalypse Stories
A biotech or mutation apocalypse is driven by altered bodies, genetic engineering, synthetic biology, laboratory accidents, human enhancement, biological experimentation, or runaway evolution. These stories often blur cure and curse, progress and contamination, human and nonhuman. Their apocalypse is intimate as well as global: the end arrives through flesh, inheritance, adaptation, and the question of whether survival still counts if it changes what people are.
Read original biotech or mutation apocalypse short stories on this page from world-class authors, selected from the Ash Tales archive.
Open All Stories → Open Type Guide →
Twenty-Seven Minutes
In this line of work, you think about death every day. You have to. You sign the waivers and the non-disclosures, you take out the insurance policies and attend the procedural briefings. Every day is another opportunity to die.
Teacup Werewolves
“What you have to understand is this: Some wolves are smaller than you.” He paused. “Some are bigger.”
Vodka and Coke
‘Ah, Doug,’ the Hawaiian said, shaking his head as he unbuttoned the tobacco leather sheath that held the knife at his waist, ‘This is going to sting.’
The Diggers
I am a digger.
Death Sentence
It’s early evening when you finally get home. You look at the place where your rear view mirror used to be and wonder whether you should get it fixed soon.
The Gentle Man
The emptiness of the library was as unsettling as always. Most of the books lining the shelves around her had been written by academic men, a seemingly extinct breed.
Awakening
I stand in the elevator, watch the floors click past: 22, 23, 24. Outside, the sweeping vista of Singapore’s neon nightscape flashes and sparkles.