Rhinoplasty.
The first line of the algorithm streamed through his brain and he felt a burning sensation in his sinuses as the pattern formed itself in his mind’s eye. The job wasn’t going to pay, and it wasn’t particularly challenging in itself, but he felt it was a worthwhile thing to be helping these refugees. They were from London this lot. Not the worst affected area certainly, but everyone knew that there was barely anywhere in Europe that wasn’t a frozen wasteland, and people were saying that the Glaciation – nobody had come up with sexier a name for it – was bound to get a lot worse, till the Gulf Stream shut down completely, and then who knew what would happen.
So here they were, squatting in ruined McMansions on the city fringes. But here, the problem wasn’t ice, it was fire. Mutant strains of genetically engineered soy, wheat, cotton and corn had cross-pollinated with pesticide resistant super-weeds and taken over the empty suburbs years before. And each summer, massive fire storms raged, reducing it all to ash only to propagate and spread again after the autumn floods. And here among the rubble, people like him came out of the safety of the city to help them rebuild.
I say people, but this latest upgrade made even him wonder. These days his face was almost unrecognisable. In place of a forehead and nose, all that was visible was an eruption of specialised glands, the result of years of genetic grafts and bio-electronic therapy. The secretions produced were bio-textile fibres, the building materials the people of this age had come to rely on. The ultimate in personalised, rapid manufacturing. Completely recyclable and requiring no heavy industry to produce, just sneezed out of the face of the designer himself. And inside his brain, bio-chips capable of millions of calculations, able to synthesize cellulose, silica, polymers, adhesives, metallic fibres, any colour, texture or density required. And of course the hands, the fingers, like spider’s legs, able to manipulate and spin out any structure or form at incredible speed and never get caught in the web.
He finished spinning out the new entrance between the faux-Italian columns of the ruined house and prepared to leave. One of the kids got up off the dusty ground where the family sat with their eyes closed playing a game of scrabble over their internal wi-fi and dragged her parents inside out of the harsh sun.
thnx : )
The text appeared in the air in front of him.
He turned and smiled.
wlcm
But there was no-one.
sergey
Hi Girish,
I have three points on your novelette after reading it.
Firstly, I like the combination of short story and striking images.
Secondly, some of the facts you describe seem very real and terrifying – especially the freezing of the northern hemisphere. (I would love to visit England before anything could happen, though I do not wish this
)
At last, the idea of telepathic communication is very challenging, interesting and at the same time revolting – due to the artificial interference into nature and digitalising of speach. There are real possibilities of such a practice, which I personally will not welcome.
In general, it is a successful article and quite involving.
Sergey
Mar 15, 2009 @ 12:30 am
anita
I was surprised to come to the last paragraph and read words like ‘kid’, ‘family’, ‘parents’…
I think that the institution of family will be dead by the time these predictions happen.
We are embracing the innovation but we are not aware of the threat of degeneration of the basic institutions, such as church, school(education), family and motherhood, that our history and tradition have always relied upon.
It is both sad and inevitable.
Otherwise, I enjoyed reading your story and I am jealous of your beautiful writing skills
haha just joking 
Mar 15, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
girish
Great comments. Thanks!
Anita’s point particularly made me reflect on the use of such conventional imagery at the end of the story. Honestly in the rush to bring the narrative (such as it is) to a conclusion I failed to examine these issues. But now on reflection I wonder if the terms themselves will begin to take on new meanings as gender, sexuality, reproduction and the social and domestic systems within society continue to morph and blur. Perhaps the words “kid”, “family” and “parents” will come to represent something else altogether. Anyway, thanks again for the observation – it seems very obvious to me now.
Mar 15, 2009 @ 11:28 pm