"None of it was here before, and time is short."
December 9, 2021 7:49 AM   Subscribe

"I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes." "Best for Baby" by Rivqa Rafael takes us into an unusual workday for a geneticist fixing a mess under time pressure -- and under a pressure she had not expected.

From "Best for Baby":
For all that it’s a science, there’s an art to working in the interface. The prion scalpel is tiny—obviously—and delicate; it needs to be handled with care, the type of care that only comes from being completely in tune with your neural implant and the system it’s connected to. It’s something Hayden seems to lack. Keeping my movements graceful (thank you, Lena), I begin to repair the damage. In here, I’m both the pipette and the hand depressing the button; I’m the prion scalpel; I’m the machine. The translation overlay is just a guide; I’ve been able to recognize bases by shape for a long time now. When I started, I thought I’d never remember the sequences, but I know our most common mods by heart now.

Finding my rhythm, I begin to work a little faster; I’ve almost forgotten about Hayden and his insistence on getting his grubby hands all over this project. I don’t have forever in here—the zygote needs to go back on ice—but I’m in the zone now and there’s still plenty of time. I’ve got this. Sure, I’m not going to get any credit for it, but Hayden’s going to owe me. I’m logging everything, so he can’t conveniently “forget.” If I play my cards right, this might be the last step to me finally getting a promotion. Goodness knows I deserve one. Maybe Hayden would even back me up.
This post is part of a week of highlighting short speculative fiction stories published by online magazines that are no longer publishing, or that are on hiatus, but whose interesting archives remain online! Today: Glittership.

Glittership, "a science fiction and fantasy podcast devoted to publishing audio versions of LGBTQ stories from authors of all backgrounds", started to publish sf/f fiction and poetry, in both audio and text, in January 2015. The most recent episode in March 2020 indicated that the current hiatus is temporary. Anthologies and back issues (print and electronic) are available for sale.

You can browse the Glittership archives chronologically. Authors published include Aimee Ogden, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Alison Wilgus, K. M. Szpara, Bogi Takács, Sonya Taaffe, Vajra Chandrasekera, Sarah Pinsker, and more.

Glittership previously on MetaFilter: stories by Susan Jane Bigelow, Alex Yuschik, Claire Humphrey, R.B. Lemberg, and Amy Griswold.
posted by brainwane (2 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 


I am LOVING your short stories Brainwane. Coming to look for them most days. Thank you. Delighted again by this one and those you linked in the comment.
posted by amaire at 9:38 PM on December 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


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