Schrödinger's Parting Weapon? No. Just Three Short Stories

Hello dear readers! It's Friday again, so you know what that means: another bunch of stories. All of these stories you can find online, so just click on the titles if you're interested in reading them and you'll be redirected to that story.

Schrödinger's Outlaw by Matthew W. Baugh -- Daily Science Fiction
Matthew W. Baugh's "Schrödinger's Outlaw" may be the best short short story I have read in a long time. Here's why: it starts off with a gray man (one of those stereotypical aliens that people often see portrayed in mainstream fiction) walking into the sheriff's office. He then tells the sheriff that he's a bounty hunter and that he caught a criminal the sheriff had been looking for. He came now to collect his bounty. The sheriff responds that he wasn't fond of his type (bounty hunters) but was glad someone got the crook. Well, this is where the story begins to stray a little bit, but becomes extremely awesome at the same time. The alien only brings in a box that looks a lot like a coffin, and tells the sheriff that inside of it is the criminal, however there is a poisonous gas that may be killing or keeping the criminal alive, depending on the observer. The sheriff asks him why, and the alien responds that it was the only way to bring the criminal back in a state of being "dead or alive." If anything, this story is more of a long joke than a short story. But that's what's so great about it.

The Parting Glass by Andrew Penn Romine -- Lightspeed Magazine
I really like the feel Andrew Penn Romine's "the Parting Glass." It reads a lot like one of those old noir detective stories. First person point of view. Not a lot of long sentences. Short thoughts that make up a larger story. The story itself is quite interesting, with insights into how religion may live on in space, how thugs will still be around, and some implications of having clones and cyborgs in the future.

The Jupiter Weapon by Charles Louis Fontenay -- Amazing Science Fiction Stories
Charles Fontenay's "The Jupiter Weapon" is the older story I want to discuss this week. His main character is a girl who goes to a distant moon to retrieve an item for her boss. It's actually one of the moon's of Jupiter. She meets a man who claims that he comes from Jupiter, the planet. She doesn't know whether or not if it's the truth, but thinks thinks on it and believes that he could definitely come from there. Anyways, they go on a spaceship ride back to Earth, and she learns that he could be an android. This sits at the back of her mind for a while. Back on Earth, she gives what she was sent to retrieve to her boss, but the man from Jupiter comes after them. He goes after the girl's boss. The boss ends up getting in an accident and killing himself. The girl tells the man that he could be robot. I think I'll leave it there. You can read it and learn how it ends for yourself, but it's pretty interesting stuff.