Angels

Stones slipped just beneath the skin, smooth surfaces pressing against dermis, soaking up subcutaneous warmth; opals and moonstones and quartz, agate and topaz and jade all shining in the body’s light, chunky beads filling skin with texture beneath your touch. Once you asked why she went to so much effort, all those tiny cuts and carefully treated scars, all those beautiful things hidden away for no one to see. She always healed so quickly, but she still felt pain, and it always seemed like one or another of her gems was infected. ...

When scientists first started experimenting with genetically programmed radical body plan modifications (which isn’t what they called it—they had a catchy acronym and a billion-dollar PR firm and everything you don’t), the first dozen generations did not go particularly well. They jabbed needles into eggs and grew monsters: pathetic, mewling things with their bones on the outside or no bones at all, with the wrong number of limbs or the wrong number of hearts, things which were little more than bundles of cancer clawing at the womb that held them. ...