Welcome to the latest installment of Future Science Fiction Digest, featuring fiction from Mexico, China, the United States, and Croatia. Although I did not originally set out to pursue this theme, the issue sort-of naturally evolved around the idea of artificial intelligence—be it created by humans from scratch or uploaded into the cloud from a living being—and its impact and influence on the larger world which, according to our esteemed authors, isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows....

1 On the day of my death, we arrived at the hospital at eight in the morning. Sandra had scheduled our appointment for as early as possible. “Hi Celeste, hi Mariano,” she greeted us. Sandra was wearing a white laboratory coat and her hair was drawn back in a ponytail; she had come out to the parking lot to receive us....

April 12, 1961, Baikonur Cosmodrome Sergei Korolev stood beside the scorched and blackened launch pad. Nearly an hour had gone by since the rocket had risen to the heavens, and still waves of heat gushed up over the rim of the spaceport’s flame trench....

They call themselves office drones, but they are humans, and they are people. They call me the Office Drone: I am an unmanned aerial vehicle, but I am also a person. I say that I am a person too, even if Brad, who is from a place he calls accounting, thinks that the matter is up for debate during team lunches....

Liz stepped off the bus in her new black dress and lime-green slingbacks, feeling self-conscious. Was her outfit too elegant? Too sexy?  Did it show too much effort? She recognized him immediately from the agency photo. He was waiting for her at the waterfront, leaning on the balustrade, the late afternoon sunlight turning his hair to gold....