Science Fiction & Fantasy
by Arula Ratnakar
As the people began to die, desperation drove us to the depths of the sea for cures. We mined mineral-rich vents until the tube worms went extinct, stripped polymetallic nodule fields bare, squeezed sludge out of sea sponges to treat the new diseases, these monstrous incurable plagues, born from our new climate, that spread through our air. But the people still died. So we dug even deeper . . .
I look at the corpse lying in the clear preservation chamber next to me. Woman, late thirties, died about four weeks ago. Normally they would have examined her body, signed her death certificate, gotten everything back to her remaining family members (her aunt and her twelve-year-old daughter), and that would have been it. But she had those things in her brain. And she died a strange and sudden death. So here we are, tied up in this investigation. Not that I’m complaining though. No, I