Anya

Elli had been angling for an invite to the Gomiumi Genomics Compound for over a year, knowing from the get-go that adding her name to the waitlist would lead only to waiting. But armed as she was with confidence, knowledge, & several years of study in Berlin under a recent Nobel Prize winner, her nascent experiments with CRISPR had drawn the interest of numerous colleagues, to such an extent that she'd been able to secure her invitation before even having to consider resorting to less savory tactics…

The few seconds between bungling her over-practiced landing and actually slipping the black ring onto her finger were the most precarious of Hodja's entire life…

Julietta was proud of herself for making it up into the tree without injury, though considerably less proud of the reasons that prompted her to climb it in the first place…

Jania (and her Prince) ready to receive visitors in the royal aquarium…

Tiziana knew by now that she was not really in a magical forest, but she still couldn't help frequently forgetting that fact, because the forest was very good at pretending to be a forest, and even better at pretending to be magical…

Parker, in the future, on her scooter, readying to no longer be parked…

Renata, trying to stay dry after the show, beginning to wonder what's taking her driver so long…

Em, paradoxically feeling more than ever like a misfit toy…

Inka, aware of the Minders for several years now and long past cycling through self-doubt (am I dreaming? high? crazy?), had simply accepted their presence, and the fact that no one else seemed to be able to see them, as a novel fact of her life. For the most part, they just floated around, though it was clear from the get-go that they gravitated toward populated areas…