Eye of a Needle
"Are you afraid of needles, Fran?" Fran had always vaguely hated hospitals. This must have been a fairly widespread sentiment all over Earth, she imagined. Of course, you go to the hospital because you need to, not because you want to, she told...
The Tortoise and the Hare
Rakim felt a cold bead of sweat dripping down his back. "Feel your 'sins crawling down your back,' buddy?" The bat looked up at her, mouth agape. "Huh?" The hare winked at him. "Relax, I'm just kidding around. Good luck, man!" she chirped. ...
Phone Home
_ "Thank you, Fran." Her best friend and her roommate had been there to welcome her in her hospital room after she'd woken up. It had made her glad to be back._ _ "For what?" She'd tried to sit up in her hospital bed. Harder than it looked._ _ "For...
Mean You No Harm
_Fran had worked the nightshift at a convenience store. It had suited her in some ways. After a short, mercifully optimistic period of settling into it, it had become customary for her to think of herself as hating her job. Most people hated their jobs...
Off Limits
_"Time for bed, sweetie."_ _ Fran looked crestfallen. "Can't I just stay up until the next commercial?"_ _ Her mother grinned, endeared yet still reproachful. "You always say that." The days always seemed so short. Whenever they were at an end, all...
Die A Thousand Deaths
'Everyone has secret words that can save them. Everyone has secret words that can kill them.' (Unknown) "So they weren't slaves?" "Not technically," Fran's best friend had answered. "I'll be gosh-darned," the jackal had shaken her head....
TransPlant
* * * "So she never got to finish it," Fran's best friend had told her. "Halfway through," the jackal had shaken her head. "They wrote the rest based on her notes," her best friend had gone on. "I hate that." "You do?" Fran had tilted her...
Cockroach Motherfuckers
"There's two kinds of work in the world." Fran's roommate was a communist. "First, there's work-that-stays." She was also a writer. "Then, there's work-that-goes-away." The jackal didn't write, herself, but she'd asked about what made her roommate...
27 Ounces: A Story of Eight And One Half Ponies
Like a transhuman? everybody's a little transhuman these days..." syrup! glorious syrup. vaguely maple flavored but there was plenty of it. oh, god that's good, she thought. "no, doc. what i mean is..."
For Sore Eyes
Rakim had met Dana after he'd already gone out with Ogun, Soma, and Scylla. He'd still been pre-op at the time. Fortunately, they hadn't had any hang-ups about it. They were an... equal opportunity employer, as far as such matters were concerned....
Indebted SFW omnibus edition; parts 1-5 of 10
I was taken out from bed, the iv port and all my other wires removed, putting an end to my time as a transhuman, a person improved through machines. no, i now had to go back to facing real life. "how much is the bill?" black-arms asked.
Second Nature
"Oh, they came up with something new in prosthetics just last year, it turns out," his dragon head turned to the bat as they gamed, back to sitting side by side in his apartment facing his screen, just as they'd been before. "Oh, what?" he tilted his...