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I think about a whole generation like Carrie, growing up all around the world. Whether aliens are trying to shape humans and screwing up the timing, or God is doing it and making a piss-poor job, or all the theories are just so many crocks of shit—whatever,
something
is happening here. These kids will grow up alongside the rest of us, the people like Sophie and me, and we’re going to be more of a danger than the bullies. We, the good people who just get frustrated and take it out, like we all do, on whoever’s closest and will stand for it—on the Carries and Kezias and DeShauns, the butts of that careless kind of cruelty, who don’t ever fight back because the impulse to fight just isn’t in them.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Sophie sobs. And she is.
For now.
I clutch Carrie closer. What’s going to happen to her and the kids like her?
And what will they turn the rest of us into?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-two books, including twenty-five novels, four collections of short stories, and three books about writing. Her work has won two Hugos (“Beggars in Spain” and “The Erdma
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
(Tachyon, 2012), a long novella of eco-disaster, time travel, and human resiliency. Forthcoming is another short novel from Tachyon,
Yesterday’s Kin
(Fall 2014). Intermittently, Nancy teaches writing workshops at various venues around the country, including Clarion and Taos Toolbox (yearly, with Walter Jon Williams). A few years ago she taught at the University of Leipzig as the visiting Picador professor. She is currently working on a long, as-yet-untitled SF novel. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle.
Seanan McGuire — SPORES
June 2028
Something in the lab smelled like nectarine jam. I looked up from the industrial autoclave, frowning as I sniffed the air. Unusual smells aren’t a good thing when you work in a high-security bio lab. No matter how pleasant the odor may seem, it indicates a deviance from the norm, and deviance is what gets people killed.
I straightened. “Hello?”
“Sorry, Megan.” The round, smiling face of one of my co-workers—Henry, from the Eden Project—poked around the wall separating the autoclave area from the rest of the lab. His hand followed, holding a paper plate groaning under the weight of a large wedge of, yes, nectarine pie. “We were just enjoying some of Joh
I eyed the pie dubiously. Eating food that we had engineered always struck me as vaguely unhygienic. “Joh
“Joh
“I’ll pass,” I said. Realizing that I was standing on the border of outright rudeness, I plastered a smile across my face and added, “Rachel’s pla
Henry nodded, his own smile fading. It was clear he didn’t believe my excuse. It was just as clear that he would let me have it. “Well, we’re sorry if our festivities disturbed you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I gestured to the autoclave. “I need to unpack this before I head out.”
“Sure, Megan,” he said. “Have a nice evening, okay?” He withdrew, vanishing around the cubicle wall and leaving me comfortably alone. I let out a slow breath, trying to recover the sense of serenity I’d had before strange smells and coworkers disrupted my task. It wasn’t easy, but I’d had plenty of practice at finding my center. Less than thirty seconds later, I was unpacking hot, sterile glassware and getting my side of the lab ready for the challenges of tomorrow.
Project Eden was a side venture of the biotech firm where I, Henry, and several hundred others were employed. Only twenty-three scientists, technicians, and managers were appended to the project, including me, the internal safety monitor. It was my job to make sure the big brains didn’t destroy the world in their rush toward a hardier, easier to grow peach, or an apple that didn’t rot quite so quickly after it had been picked. On an official level, I was testing the air and lab surfaces for a committee-mandated parts per million of potential contaminants. On an unofficial level, I spent a lot of time sterilizing glassware, wiping down surfaces, and ordering new gloves, goggles, and lab coats.
It was work that could have been done by someone with half my education and a quarter of my training, but the pay was good, and it gave me an outlet for the compulsions that had kept me out of field biology. Besides, the hours were great. I didn’t mind being a glorified monkey if it meant I got to work in a good, clean lab, doing work that would genuinely better the world while still allowing me to quit by four on Fridays.
The team was still celebrating and eating pie when I finished putting the glassware away and left for the locker room. I hadn’t been kidding about Rachel telling me to save my appetite. It had been a long day, and I wanted nothing more than to spend an even longer night with my wife and daughter.
• • • •
Rachel was in her studio when I got home. She had a gallery show coming up, and was hard at work on the pastels and impressionistic still lifes that were her bread and butter. I knocked on the wall to let her know I was there and kept walking toward the kitchen. It was her night to cook—that part was true—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little snack before di
The fruit bowl was in its customary place on the counter. I turned toward it, and froze. A thick layer of grayish fuzz covered its contents, turning them from a classicist’s ideal still life into something out of a horror movie. “Rachel!” I shouted, not moving. It was like the information my brain had was too jarring to fully process. It would take time for all of me to get the message. “There’s something wrong with the fruit!”
“You don’t have to shout, I’m right here.” My wife stomped into the kitchen, wiping her hands on the dishtowel she’d been using to clean her paintbrushes between watercolor overlays. She had a smudge of bright pink dust on one cheek, making her look like a little girl who’d been experimenting with her mother’s cosmetics. I fell in love with her all over again when I saw that perfect imperfection.
That was the best thing about being married to my best friend, as I’d been telling people for the past fifteen years: I got to fall in love with her every day, and no one ever thought I was being weird. Sometimes normalcy is the most precious gift of all.
I didn’t get the chance to tell Rachel about the fruit. Her eyes followed my position to its logical trajectory. It was almost a relief when she recoiled the same way I had, her upper lip curling upward in atavistic disgust. “What did you do?” She turned toward me, scowling. “This was all fresh when we brought it home yesterday.”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean, what did I do?” I asked, feeling obscurely offended. “I can’t make fruit go off just by looking at it.”