Microstory 2475: Fashiondome

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If you’ve ever been to Bot Farm, you know how much work goes into creating all the androids that populate the domes to make them feel real and lived in, even when there aren’t very many visitors. Eventually, I believe the droid population will begin to decrease as more and more people move here, but for now, production does nothing but ramp up. That’s not about the bots themselves, though. It’s about their clothes! It’s also about your clothes. Every garment worn anywhere on the planet—unless you brought it with you—has been manufactured here. We’re talkin’ IMS units. We’re talkin’ themewear. We’re talkin’ bathing suits. If you go to Wild Wild Dome, you’re gonna see a lot of cowboy outfits, won’t you? Well, they made those here, and shipped them off when they were ready. You get it, I don’t need to list any more examples. You know what clothes are. In one sector, there are just rows and rows of industrial printers, fiber class. In another sector, there are rows and rows of racks where the finished products are stored. It’s precisely what you would expect out of a place like this. They don’t only make 3D printed clothes. It’s not even just about the products that need to go out to other domes. You can actually come here to design and fabricate your own clothes, at whatever level of technological advancement you prefer. They have electrical sewing machines, mechanical machines, and even just needle and thread. You can knit a scarf or crochet a hat. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just has to be fun. They also have fashion shows. Some of them are recreations of real shows from the past, while others are entirely original. They’re all produced by visitors like you. Nothing is made by a superintelligence, because that wouldn’t be very interesting, would it? If anything you can think of is even remotely tied to the fashion industry, both past and present, it’s here somewhere. Come here, and find your bliss. Funnily enough, however...clothing optional, just as it is anywhere.

Microstory 175: Ormonda Brooks

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The problem with anomaly abilities is that they are generally limited to the biology of the anomaly. Fictional representations of special abilities more often than not have a character who can somehow magically use potentially destructive abilities without damaging their clothing—or rather, they won’t even bring it up at all. If a character can transform themselves into liquid form, but can’t transform other objects, then why exactly is it at all believable that their clothes are somehow exceptions to this rule? Sometimes, the person with powers, or an associate of theirs, will science their way into a special kind of clothing that adapts to the wearer. A pyrokinetic will, for instance, always be wearing a special suit that can withstand extremely high temperatures. Which is great, except that they make no mention of the fact that such an astonishing invention could have other uses, like—oh, I dunno—for firefighters? Gee, thanks for making an impervious suit of armor for our hero to wear. Think you could make more, and maybe pass them out to law enforcement officers, and other first responders? That’d be great. Ormonda Brooks was one of those kind of anomalies whose ability only helped other anomalies. Whenever she sewed a garment, a special kind of oil was excreted from her hands that imbued that garment with the properties of whichever anomaly wore it first. This oil would combine itself with the natural oils of the wearer, and become literally tailored for them. This was, by its very nature, not useful to all anomalies. Hosanna can sense other people’s emotions, regardless of what he’s wearing. Quang can autocalculate measurements of things around him, but that never has an effect on his clothing. In contrast, however, Blake Williams would benefit from one of Ormonda’s pieces, because the vibrations from the earthquakes he absorbs and dissipates damage normal clothes, and force him to change after every one. This example isn’t that big of a deal, but for Diane Ghoti, who can spontaneously generate fire, the gift of a Brooks suit was extraordinarily helpful. These garments always took a long time to make, because Ormonda was not a particularly gifted sewer. And at first glance, the oil could not be used for preexisting clothing, or harvested and utilized by someone else. But with time, such harvested samples were studied and replicated beyond her death from old age. And they gave rise to a host of other applications.

Microstory 30: The Job

I had been looking for a job for months, about to run out of unemployment money, when an interesting ad catches my eye in the newspaper that says only, Cool job. I call the phone number listed. An automated voice directs me to an industrial zone. I wander around for a while before settling on a parking garage. Only a handful of cars are scattered throughout, but none of them appear to be in working order. I do notice a semi truck parked neatly in a corner. My instincts compel me to open the side door to the trailer. It smells awful, but still I feel the need to move on. I walk to the back and through the wall of the garage. Using my phone’s screen as a flashlight, I see many doors, but choose the one that feels right. It’s locked, but I see a glimmer on the ground. It’s the key. It opens up to a room with a flickering fluorescent light. I knock on the door on the other side but no one comes. On a lark, I take out a punch card for a sandwich shop rewards program and swipe it through the card reader. The door opens. The next door has a keypad. I punch in my birthdate followed by my social security number. Next to the fourth door is a screen. What looks to be nothing but a random scribble appears on it. For some reason, I associate the image with my right hand thumb and my left hand ring finger. I place them on the screen and wait for it to complete the scan. The fifth room contains dozens of eye scanners. I let my instincts continue driving me, choosing one that seems random to me. It turns out to be the right one. I lean gently towards the microphone in the sixth room and say my name, followed by the code word Madea. The door opens. I find the secret compartments in the seventh, eighth, and ninth sections; providing my spit, skin scrape, and blood sample respectively. I pull the giant helmet from the ceiling in Section Ten and engage the machine. A woman opens the door and leads me into Section Eleven. “How did it go?”

“It didn’t work,” I reply. “No matter what, we cannot erase my memories completely. I always find my way back to the base.”

Microstory 29: Stash

You struggle up to the door and knock on it faintly, leaving a bloody handprint behind. A man opens it and instinctively pulls you into his house. “I’m sorry,” you say through gasps. I’m empty and need to get my old stash.” He tries to call the police but you stop him. “No cops. Just get me something to stop the bleeding.” He goes to the kitchen and retrieves some hand towels. You press them against your stomach and head for the bedroom. You laugh when he says something about never having found drugs when he first moved in. You gather your strength and kick through the drywall, revealing a black bag. Before you can pick it up, though, unconsciousness overcomes you and you fall to the floor. When you wake up, you find your stomach patched back together. The sewing kit you had left in the wall is sitting on the bed next to you. “Where’s my bag?” you ask. The man returns the bag to you and says that he doesn’t want any trouble. Unfortunately, he has no choice. You pull the gun out and point it at your target. “After I defected, I have no idea why they continued to use a safehouse that I already knew about. But my new employers want you gone.” You squeeze the trigger but nothing happens.

“No,” the man says. “They want you gone.” He lifts the other gun from your stash.

“Why did you sew me back up if you were going to kill me anyway?”

The man walks towards you, revealing a scared and teary-eyed woman standing in the doorway, holding a glass of water. “This isn’t a safehouse anymore. It’s just her house. And I said they want you gone. I never said I was going to kill you.” He leans down until he’s at your level, and shoots the woman in the head. Then he removes your shooting gloves, revealing latex gloves underneath. You can hear police sirens in the distance as the man walks out.