When Sandra collapsed, so did my world.
“I can’t keep working during chemo. It’s killing me,” she wept, bracing against my side. “But without health insurance, cancer will kill me faster.”
Inspiration and desperation converged in an idea. My latest android was trial-ready, needing only a testing ground. “What if we model X-10 after you? And have it… stand in, at OmniCorp?”
“Send X-10 to work instead of me?”
I shrugged. “It’s just answering phones. Programming is simple. You don’t have friends there. No one would notice.”
“Giving me time to heal.”
When her smile broadened, so did our future.
Jenna Hanchey is a critical/cultural communication professor by day and a speculative fiction writer by…um…earlier in the day. Her stories appear (or will) in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Apex’s Patreon, Stupefying Stories, and Page & Spine. Follow her adventures on Twitter (@jennahanchey) or at www.jennahanchey.com.
themartianmagazine.com 