Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 200 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction - Short Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy, science fiction magazine, short fiction, short stories
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2023-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Suzanne Palmer is a multiple Hugo Award-winning author whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and other magazines. She is currently at work on the fourth novel in her Finder Chronicles series, and thinking about what comes next for Bot 9.

LOL, Said the Scorpion

Rich Larson

“Does it come in any other colors?” Maeve asks, eyeing herself in the smart glass.

“No,” the salesperson admits. “You look quite elegant in eggshell, though.”

She’s undecided. The holiday suit is a cooperative swarm of microorganisms, a pale paramecium shroud that coats her entire body, wetly glistening.

“Full-spectrum UV protection, internal temperature regulation, virus filtration, water desalination, emergency starch synthesis.” The salesperson has a comforting sort of murmur. “Ideal for any sort of live tourism. Where will you be off to?”

“Faro,” Maeve says, and saying the name conjures immaculate white buildings and deep blue waters onto the smart glass behind her, displaying the paradise she’s dreamed of for entire weeks now.

“Faro,” the salesperson echoes. “Oh, I’m so jealous.”

She buys two: one for her and one for Charlie, who is predictably unimpressed by the sleek black designer biocanisters and their not insignificant price tag.

“The whole point of live tourism is authenticity, Maeve,” he says, with that little bruised catch in his voice. “We want to see Faro the way the Faroese do.”

“We will,” she says, unsealing his canister for him. “Just with less sweat in our eyes, and less worry about contamination and whatnot.”

The glistening putty slumps out onto the granite countertop, feeling its way toward Charlie’s fingers. He was tapping them in a tetchy circuit, but now stops. He watches its approach with a bereaved expression, likely thinking how Hemingway or some other dead person would have never deigned to wear a holiday suit traveling through southern Portugal.

“It likes you,” Maeve coos. “Go on, Charlie. Let it taste your gut flora.”

She wears her holiday suit to the airport, just to be safe. In fact, she has worn it about the house for the past few days as well—partly because the salesperson recommended letting the swarm familiarize itself with her biorhythms, and partly because she has grown to enjoy its soft scurrying.

The holiday suit is compatible with the airport’s membranous scanners, so she wafts through security in her own private breeze while Charlie gets stuck behind, giving a pharyngeal swab and blood sample. He catches up to her at the gate, which is dutifully flashing ads for carbon sequestration as the travelers embark.

“The trick is to imagine yourself as a cow in an abattoir,” he says, rubbing his irritated, capillary-red nose. “Then the whole process feels quite fitting, rather than degrading.”

“But that’s less authentic, isn’t it?” Maeve asks, busy experimenting with the holiday suit’s sound filtration. She can slice out the background chatter of the other passengers if she likes, or the whirring of the armed security drones.

Charlie’s voice comes in clear. “Hand me my canister,” he says, with resignation in his beautiful blue eyes. “The air’s horrible on airplanes. Desiccating.”

She beams.

No chilly gust at her ankles, no bone-dry air scraping at her face.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.