The Apple Growers

Lauren, the eldest daughter of a family trying to make a go of raising apples on a newly terraformed moon that, before their arrival, was only an interplanetary way station, is raped and impregnated by the captain of a ship that passes through. She runs for Sheriff of the hardscrabble farming town, in anticipation of his return in two years time.

Without a Flame

A thousand years from now, during a post-apocalyptic renaissance, a group of scientists gropes its way towards an understanding of our culture by bringing our email systems back online. For them, an email conversation between the three people involved in a love triangle, in Los Angeles, one year before the city fell, becomes the key to two concepts they've lost: anger and love.

The Last Joyride

With oil at $500/barrel, and highways closed to all but the robotic cars of the wealthy, Rainey and Jack Milk, newly wed in Vegas, steal a '72 Coupe de Ville and point it towards NYC, stealing gas as they go.

Harming Adrian Mint

Adrian Mint cannot remember anything from one morning to the next, which his schoolmates take advantage of by torturing him at night, until he steals the journal of his crush, Samantha Birenbaum and, inspired by its confidences, starts to keep one himself.

Hotpants

Checkout girl Jenna McIntyre has one ambition: to win the Ms. Atlanta Hotpants Invitational; but she's up against some stiff competition, especially international supermodel Lupe Delacroix, who swore on her talk show to make the Hotpants Cup her own; and she's got to get invited first.

The Shroom

When Mega-Mart breaks virgin ground in a small New York town, the spores of an ancient fungus, carried home in the lungs of a construction worker, mushroom from his mouth overnight, and spread, feeding on and killing the residents as it goes.

Eden

A photojournalist, a medic, and a chaplain embedded with a Marine unit in Afghanistan flee an ambush with the survivors of their patrol into a mysterious valley, teeming with edible plants. As the Marines prepare to fight their way out, the chaplain is troubled by visions of God; the photographer notices that the plants mutate at an astonishing rate; and the medic discovers that she's pregnant, though she can't think how.

Time Aloft

Theo Hauser wakes up one morning to find that a small family -- the tallest is 1" high -- intends to build a house on his head. The courts affirm the validity of their deed, and they proceed with construction, while Theo tries to get on with his life as an air-traffic controller.