Unwelcome Bodies by Jennifer Pelland

Author:Jennifer Pelland [Pelland, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2013-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

* * * *

She did her best, but so much of it didn’t make sense.

“There’s ice everywhere because it got too hot?”

“Pollution caused global warming, which shut down the North Atlantic current, which disrupted the flow of warm water to the northern hemisphere, which produced an ice age. It all happened much faster than anyone predicted.”

“You’ve put an entire city inside a glass dome?”

“Not technically glass, but yes. After the ozone layer catastrophe, we needed a way to shield our city from the sun. Plus, we needed to seal the system so no genetically damaged people, plants, or animals could get in. The downside is that nobody can get out either. Because of that, the population is strictly controlled. No one gets to have a baby until someone else dies.”

“You bring people forward from the past?”

“Yes. We use their ova and sperm to bolster our gene pool. But we only take people moments before twentieth- and early twenty-first-century disasters that history tells us they didn’t survive. Dresden, Halabja, New Orleans—they’ve all provided us with fresh DNA. Any earlier than the twentieth century, they have too difficult a time adjusting to our present; any later, we risk letting damaged DNA into our gene pool.”

“And me?”

Naia shook her head. “Your case is an example of how every system can be corrupted by the very rich. A sealed society like ours only provides so much variety. There’s been a trend toward radical body sculpting among the well-off. They give themselves dorsal fins, head ridges, all sorts of things. Jean-Pierre Paredes de García has spent his life leading that trend. His father is one of the most renowned body sculptors in the Protectorate. But it looks like he decided to up the stakes. He wanted to wear an infamously grotesque body. No offense.”

Joseph said nothing. How could he take offense at the truth? So he simply put his hands in his lap and once again wished that they’d been able to find longer pants for him. He felt positively indecent in this short-sleeved tunic and knee-length trousers. His surgical gown at the imaginary hospital had covered more than this.

“He created a lifeless copy of your body to leave behind, set the machine for April 11, 1890, and took you. History records that you died trying to sleep lying down.”

“No. That would have been suicide. I would never have—”

“Maybe you were tired,” a voice slurred.

Oh God. No.

Joseph looked up in horror at the nude monstrosity staring back at him from the door.

“Life wasn’t worth living anymore,” his old face said. “You just wanted to go to sleep forever.”

Joseph surged from his chair and flattened himself against the back wall. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a rattling squeak.

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never seen yourself from the outside before.” He ran his grossly deformed right hand along the lumps and knobs of his skull. “It’s magnificent. I love it.” His normal left hand grabbed his unblemished genitals in a tight grip and said, “And so do all my dear friends.

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