Planet Scumm Issue #7: "A Wrinkle in Slime" Digital Magazine

Reader — are you in a secret place, far from suspicious eyes? Can you hear the buzz of drones above? Are the shades drawn? No? Quickly, quickly, close them NOW before you crack open this latest directive from Planet Scumm.

By now you surely know the Powers That Be will KILL to conceal these tales. Tales of subjugated planets forced to dance for their conquerors’ entertainment. Of lonesome space wanderers who abandoned their generation ships. Of rebels trying to overthrow oppressive governments. Some use science. Others, sympathy. Most fail.

There’s rumors of a lonely place where dead and defeated revolutionaries serve a sentence of sorts, waiting out the end times in a haze of cigarette smoke and bureaucracy. But that way is not for you, Reader. Not yet.

Look to your left, to the steel door at the end of the hall. The door that wasn’t there a moment ago. I fear They’ve found you, Reader, and now you must flee. Run to the door, open it, step through. Close it behind you. Just a few seconds. Just long enough to feel the dirt beneath your feet and a warm, ancient sun on your face. Then turn and come back to the Cause.

But be warned. The world you return to won’t be the same as the one you leave.

Featuring the stories:

Zone 59 by Rebecca Gransden • Dance Dance Apocalypse by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt • Reptile by Hailey Piper • The Perpetual Empire by Aaron Emmel • The Nearest Far-Away Place by Frank Smith • At the Border Post by Noah Lemelson • Original artwork by Erika Schnatz and Alyssa Alarcón Santo