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By Root 239 0

of Z-lenses. It seemed to work. Then I got interested in them myself and realized I could make them shift into the nonvisible spectrum, so I could see infrared or ultraviolet. I didn’t know how exactly this would be useful but I could see it could be done. I spent a few days hacking out a prototype, in glasses rather than lenses because the technology was the same but without the delays of miniaturization, and put them on. In infrared, the world flared red and purple and people looked like glowing brains and hearts. My Contours had three hot spots around the battery and hooves, but were otherwise frozen black. In ultraviolet not much was different except lab coats and some lights and surfaces, which shone. That was a little disappointing. But I felt better about Z-lenses, and stopped trying to delay them.

I CAME out of Lab 3 and they were waiting for me. Mirka, who used to infiltrate me with needles, stood awkwardly at the front. She looked different. I mean, besides the fluorescent green eyes. Jason nudged her, but she didn’t speak. “We did it,” he said.

“Did what?”

“Found a way to regulate the spleen.” He reached for Mirka, then hesitated. “Show him.”

Mirka lifted her shirt. She had a very toned stomach. I noticed this first. Then the metal patch.

“Basic electrical stimulation,” said Jason. “The tricky part is hitting the right nerves. But of course we could leverage a lot of our earlier leg work.”

“Leg work,” sniggered somebody.

“Notice Mirka’s skin. We’re flooding her with estrogen and thylacine. Can you see the difference?”

I looked her over. She didn’t smile. But she looked good. The difference I had noticed was health. She was a more attractive version of herself.

“Her hair is thickening, too.”

“You went to human testing without asking me?”

“Um,” said Jason. “Yes. Sorry. We were going to ask. But you said not to disturb you.”

“You could have waited.”

“We could have. Yeah. Sorry.”

I stared at Mirka.

“Did we do wrong? Because we just wanted to be like you. Be our own guinea pigs.”

Mirka said, “I am happy to do it.” Against her flawless skin, her eyes shone like a cat’s.

“It’s just a harmless way to test our organ-management techs,” said Jason. “Just proof of concept. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

I couldn’t think of a way to say no. “Yes.”

Jason looked relieved. There was some laughter. “I thought it would be.” Somebody elbowed him. “We’re so excited about where this is going.” I nodded, still distracted by Mirka. “It’s all happening,” said Jason.

SO OF course by the end of the week half my lab assistants had beautiful skin and glowing hair. I kind of saw this coming but still it was a surprise. In the sciences, looking good was usually a negative. It implied you wasted time on outdoor activities instead of building something useful. Even using hair product or makeup suggested misguided priorities. Like you thought how things looked mattered, instead of how they worked. We liked to look at attractive people. We expected it of our movie stars and TV characters. But we did not respect it. We knew physical attractiveness was inversely correlated with intelligence, because look at us.

I was used to gazing around a lab and seeing acne and dark-ringed eyes and skin the color of a corpse dragged from a lake. Hair all over the place, or strangled in ponytails. These were signs of a good lab. Now it was like a laboratory in a TV commercial for skin-care products. Not quite. They were still awkward and poorly dressed and overweight or deathly thin. But still. It didn’t look right.

CASSANDRA CAUTERY left a message. When I didn’t respond she left three more and eventually a young guy in a neat suit with thin glasses came into the Glass Room and knocked. Everyone looked at him because nobody knocked in the Glass Room. You came in, did what you had to, and left. He looked from one assistant to the next and finally his eyes landed on me. “Dr. Neumann?” I stared at him, because come on, I had titanium legs. The suits were like that, at pains to not notice me below the waist. It made me yearn for engineers, who stared