// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
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E. J. Kavounas lives in Los Angeles and works in media. His near-future fiction has appeared in Infinite Worlds and Uncharted Magazine. More at ejkavounas.com.
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I always start with my hair. Scalp, eyebrows, the fuzz on my upper lip. I swear if I make it out of here, I’ll never touch tweezers again. In the shower, I scrub every flake of dead skin. A single cell could give me away.
Next, make-up. Luckily, newer bots have lab-grown skin with humanizing blemishes, so I can leave the mole on my chin. The wig’s nylon fibres used to itch but I barely notice now. Body heat is the tough one. We run hot. The yellow jumpsuit passes for a standard uni, but aerogel-infused lining makes it stiff in all the wrong places. When I check the mirror, I’m a mannequin version of me. Talons of guilt hook into my gut. I never used to lie. Now it’s my whole life.
A strip of text slices my reflection. My lenses parse a few words from their endless updates. Our code embedded in theirs. I open the map with an eye-swipe. My pulse kicks up. The rendezvous is clear across town. The only way to make it is mass transit.
In the maglev, I’m shoulder to shoulder with bots, swaying as we bank. The trick is to smile while focusing on nothing. I’d feel lonely if it weren’t so terrifying. I dwell on the absurdity: a train filled with bots in matching unis. Yellow for logistics. Blue for repairs. Green for horticulture. Like the old ads. Ubiquitous companions ushering in an era of clean abundance. Which they did — once we were out of the way.
The city scrolls by. Bullet holes patched. Blood scrubbed clean. We pass a gutted skyscraper. Floor after floor of hydroponic racks. We glide over avenues once choked with traffic, now lush greenways. Their city is both garden and ghost town.
One day, I’ll ride this train to the end and simply walk away. Into the desert where there are no bots. But today, I’m to meet a conductor of a different line. It’s taken months to get the invite and I’m late.
“Can you help me?” The voice is glitchy. A courier bot stares at me with foggy eyeballs. It lurches forward, gears grinding, blocking the exit. “I am lost.”
I could push it out of the way and reach the doors before they shut. But bots don’t push each other. I miss my stop.