Feedback (Newsflesh) by Grant Mira

Author:Grant, Mira [Grant, Mira]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fiction / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Dystopian, Fiction / Horror
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2016-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

Grace was beautiful in the candlelight, a perfect ivory sculpture of a girl, with hair the color of banked embers and skin like cream. She lay unmoving on her bed, hands folded over her breasts, eyes closed. Her red lashes only made the pallor of her cheeks more obvious; her freckles stood out like they had been drawn on by some careless child, bent only on destroying a priceless work of art. For that was what she was, at least to Li Jiang: a work of art, something unique and irreplaceable.

Li Jiang sat beside her lover’s bed, resisting the urge to snatch up Grace’s hand and warm it with her own. Their relationship was not a secret among the underworld where they dwelt, but it could still cause them problems when they moved among more respectable circles, and if there was any man who embodied respectability, it was Dr. Daniel Keene.

“What’s wrong with her?” she asked. “Why won’t she wake up?”

“Your associate has been poisoned,” said Dr. Keene. “The specific toxin is derived from the sap of a rare orchid that grows only in certain climates, and blooms once every twenty years. A single drop is said to be enough to kill the strongest of men. Miss Riley is a stalwart soul, but she is not that strong. I fear it will have already reached her heart, and there is nothing I can do.”

Li Jiang felt as if it were her heart that was in the process of being poisoned, and not her love’s. She forced her voice to remain steady. “For every toxin, there is a counter,” she said. “Nature does nothing without reason. How can I save her?”

Dr. Keene was silent for a moment. “It will be dangerous,” he said finally.

Li Jiang stood. “Danger is my only balm,” she said. “Tell me what to do, and I will do it. Anything. I will do anything, except allow my Grace to die.”

“There is another flower,” he began…

—From Forsake Me, Forgive Me, Don’t Forget Me, originally published in Wen the Hurly Burly’s Done, the blog of Audrey Liqiu Wen, April 15, 2040

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