Five years ago, Future Tense Fiction started publishing a short science-fiction story each month. Our goal was simple: to give people more tools to imagine our future through tales that inspire us to weigh reasons for concern against excitement, caution against exploration. More than 60 stories later--plus accompanying response essays and art--we've covered mobility and A.I. ethics, space exploration and biometric surveillance, gig work and military tech, gender and the relationships between humans and animals … and much more. The stories serve as both alarm clocks and lighthouses, waking us up to challenges stemming from scientific and technological change and guiding us toward possible ways forward. They are written by authors and journalists, but also by researchers, doctors, and policymakers, from the U.S. and elsewhere (Hong Kong, Norway, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Nigeria, to name a few).

A journalist who covers wildfires responds to Premee Mohamed's "All That Burns Unseen." In "All That Burns Unseen," set in a dystopian but not-too-distant future, we finally get the drone sidekick we didn't know we needed. Premee Mohamed's heroine, Vaughn Collins, is a government worker gone rogue as a wildfire burns. Along the way, she rescues a dazed, glitchy fire extinguisher drone. When a funnel of flames heads for Vaughn's truck, threatening everything, her new friend dives into the blaze and sprays.