The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction JulyAugust 2019 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 137) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale Inc.
Published: 2020-01-05T23:00:00+00:00

—Arthur Masear

Nice for What

By Dominica Phetteplace

We expect that regular readers of this magazine will remember Dominica Phetteplace's previous story for us, "Spells Are Easy If You Have the Right Psychic Energy" (July/August 2016), about magic and one young woman's struggle to be a good person. Her new story for us is a science fiction piece about another young woman and a different kind of struggle.

AFTER LULIANA WAS RELEASED from prison, she decided to pursue her dream career: professional influencing. Her partnership with Tactyan was her most important deal yet. They weren't paying her in money, they were paying her in life-saving medicine that she couldn't otherwise afford. In exchange, she was supposed to help them with their image problems. But two weeks after the campaign started, the biomedical firm remained as unpopular as ever. It didn't help that Luliana only appeared to be getting sicker.

Everything she said during her publicity interviews was put through a paparazzified machine analysis, where some know-nothing neural net used her tone, her pauses, and her word choice to guess at her physical and mental state. There was no evidence that these algorithms were real, much less accurate, but this type of pseudoscience generated clicks.

Her last television appearance had been on ¡Wendi in the Mornin'! She was trying to explain how Tactyan wasn't just going to cure her cancer, they were going to help her live her best life.

"Their clinics are so chic. You can even get MedSpa treatments while they run tests. I got Botox last time." Luliana smiled with her mouth only. She would receive a bonus if a certain number of patients signed up for MedSpa treatments in the next six hours.

"You're hardly old enough for Botox," replied Wendi.

"I'm hardly old enough for cancer. Yet here I am." Luliana then laughed a little too loudly and pushed her smile a little wider as the muscles around her eyes stayed frozen in place.

Ronny had done her makeup, so of course she looked beautiful. But she couldn't credit her look to him, that would violate the terms of the deal she had signed. She thanked Glossismo for the products and pretended she had done it all herself. She was contractually obligated to say "Glossismo" at least three times, but each time she fumbled it, either giving it too much ("Gloissisismo") or not enough ("Glossmo"). They were probably going to deduct a penalty from her fee, which had already shrunk since her last interview.

With perfect posture, she wore her pink lace Self-Portrait dress as if she liked it. As if she had picked it out herself, when really it had arrived in the mail after her agent had negotiated her payment. The dress was lovely except for the color. It should have been black, to match how she felt on the inside.

Tactyan had told her to expect minimal side effects. She asked them if she would lose her hair and they had said she wouldn't. When it started to fall out anyway, they blamed it on stress.

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