Н. Джемисин: Emergency Skin

He’s lying, we told you, you’ll be rewarded, we promised—

How dare you.

“Oh, is that what you have in mind? Interesting. Then you’re braver than me too.”

No. This isn’t the mission. How dare you.

“It won’t be an easy thing, though. Remaking a society. Earth couldn’t, not until it got rid of the Founders. You. Us.”

We will strip the black skin from your flesh and leave you to rot without a composite, raw and screaming.

“Skin is the key. While most of the lower classes wear composites, the Founder clans and technorati can threaten them with nutrient deprivation, defibrillation, or suffocation. Even a small suit breach kills when you don’t have skin to keep infections at bay. And most don’t get the more advanced suits that are capable of generating skin. How do you mean to get around that?”

You’re ugly. No one will want to be like you. No one will support this, this, disruption .

“I see. Yes, it’s not that difficult to make a kind of composite suit hack. I doubt it would even take half the HeLa cells you’re carrying there; skin generation is much easier than age reversal. So an automated hacking tool containing a cell package, bundled into something like a translator device… I don’t know how to make something like that, but I know people here who could teach you. Once you’ve spread the hack, how would you activate it? Oh, I see. Using your nag’s authorization signal to get around security and surveillance monitoring? Interesting.”

We will never help you.

“But if you force thousands of people into skin they don’t want to be in, that’s not going to get you the result you want.”

Yes. Our society is orderly. It is rational. It is superior .

“Just walking around as you are, proud of your skin instead of ashamed? Younger brother, they’d shoot you.”

We’d shoot you a thousand times!

“Well, if you stay here long enough to learn how to build transmutation hacks, yes, you’d certainly arrive at an unexpected time. I suppose that if you can reprogram your ship, have it land somewhere off the grid, stay hidden from the security bots, give the hack only to those who request it… It will be terribly dangerous. Still. You turned out lovely. The Founder clans might deny it, but the people’s eyes won’t lie. You’re supposed to look like a mistake. What you really look like is a little piece of Earth come to life.”

You’re the most hideous nothing degenerate throwback of subhuman inferiority we have ever seen. And it’s Tellus .

“Some of them will decide that they also want to be beautiful and free, like you. Some will fight for this, if they must. Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.”

Do not do this.

“I brought something else for you. Something that will help.”

We’ll tell. As soon as you reach comm range, we’ll log in and tell the technorati everything you plan.

“That thing in your head. It’s wetware, but I can remove it. Earthers did the same thing for me when I first arrived. There are nanites in this injection; they’ll deactivate key pathways without damaging your neural tissue. You should still be able to access its files—use the Founders’ own knowledge against them—but the AI will be dead, for all intents and purposes. No more voice in your head, except your own.”

We’ll tell we’ll tell we’ll tell. Deformed, mud-skinned thing. Self-pleasurer. Woman-thinker. We’ll tell the technorati how wrong they went in training you. We’ll tell the Founder clans to dissolve every soldier from your breeding line. We’ll tell.

“Give me your arm. Make a fist—yes, like that. Nice and strong, brother. Are you ready? Good. Can’t start a revolution with the enemy shouting in your head, after all.”

What is a revolu

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OFFLINE

END

A year and a half ago, my partner and I were driving across the Rocky Mountains, not far from where I live. The aspens had just begun to turn, and the air was redolent with all the smells I associate with fall: incense, dirt, the start of decay. As we drove, we were debating some emerging technology I’d read about in Scientific American and circling around the larger topic of growing up in the bubble of rapid change and technological advancement. While a lot of it has been amazing, some of the change has come with effects we’d rather roll back.

How does anyone know at the moment of discovery where their work will ultimately lead?

Should we let that uncertainty stop forward momentum, or do we roll the dice and let the chips fall where they may?

How does it feel to change the world?

These questions intrigued me, so much so that I wrote a story about it. But my obsession didn’t stop there—I also wanted to know what other writers would write when posed with the same questions.

And so this collection was born and filled with writers whose minds work in ways that fascinate me.

N. K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth trilogy) is writing fantasy and speculative fiction like you’ve never even fathomed. Paul Tremblay is the greatest horror novelist working today, and his novel A Head Full of Ghosts still gives me nightmares. Veronica Roth created an unforgettable world and populated it with amazing characters in her iconic Divergent trilogy. Andy Weir captured the imagination of the world and scienced the shit out of his already-a-classic The Martian . And Amor Towles, with A Gentleman in Moscow , has simply written one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I recommend it every day.

I asked these writers to be a part of a collection that explores the resounding effects of a pivotal technological moment, and to my great delight, they said yes. I knew they’d deliver the goods when it came time to write their stories, but I was not prepared for what an abundance of riches this collection would turn out to be.

I hope, once you’ve read these six mind-bending stories, that you’ll agree.

N. K. Jemisin is the three-time Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth novels, the Dreamblood series, and The Inheritance Trilogy. She is also the recipient of a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and a number of additional honors. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld and WIRED and on Tor.com, among many others.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2019 by N. K. Jemisin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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eISBN: 9781542093576

Cover design by Will Staehle