Science Fiction Contest

Mrs. Kim! Mrs. Kim!” People were screaming at me, shaking me wildly.

I let the cigarette smoke billow away. I can’t stop it at all, of course I can’t.

Cold fluorescent lights beat down unsteadily on the rickety, rust-bitten balcony.

I wake up and my head is pounding, my body is aching and my stomach is turning.

After a couple minutes, Mrs. Price comes back with the tablet. Willow scrolls through to make sure she’s filled everything out, and spends a little more time than she should looking at the personality specs.

I give up on TV and stroll into the kids room. Both 13, twins, sleeping comfortably in their pods. The monitor on the outside of each displays the sim they have chosen to play in their dreams.

The doctor explained the Treatment to the woman in front of me, leafing through her fMRI, gene assays, blood work, motif summaries for hormone and transduction networks, slicing along a different set of coordinates.