Microbiota and the Masses: A Love Story: A Tor.com Original

by S. B. Divya

Overview

Moena lives in a world of her own making, sealed off from the deadly pathogens of Bangalore in her own personal biome. But when she meets Rahul, a beautiful man working to clean up his city, her need for him draws her into danger. She will risk her health and her work to satisfy her lust for Rahul, and may find love along the way... in S.B. Divya's Microbiota and the Masses, a Tor.com Original.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765393036
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/11/2017
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

S.B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She enjoys subverting expectations and breaking stereotypes whenever she can. In her past, she’s used a telescope to find Orion’s nebula, scuba dived with manta rays, and climbed to the top of a thousand year old stupa.
S. B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She enjoys subverting expectations and breaking stereotypes whenever she can. In her past, she’s used a telescope to find Orion’s nebula, scuba dived with manta rays, and climbed to the top of a thousand year old stupa. She is the author of Runtime.

Read an Excerpt

Microbiota and the Masses: A Love Story

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By S. B. Divya, Jasu Hu

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2017 S.B. Divya
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9303-6

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CHAPTER 1

The scents of earth — loam, pollen, compost, the exhalation of leaves — permeated the inside of Moena Sivaram's airtight home. She stood near the southeast corner and misted the novice bromeliads. The epiphytes clutched the trunk of an elephant ear tree, its canopy stretching up to the clear, SmartWindow-paned roof and shading everything below.

Moena whispered to the plants: "Amma's here, little babies. You're safe with me, but you must grow those roots." With her isolated life, these would be her only children.

She walked barefoot to the sunny citrus grove in the western side of the house. The soil beneath her feet changed from cool and moist to hard and gritty. eBees buzzed among the flowers. She hummed in harmony, a Carnatic song about love birds that was a century old. The heady perfume of orange and lime blossoms filled her up and made her blood sing along. This was home; this, and not the traditional jasmine and rose gardens of Bangalore; this, where her eyes didn't water nor her nose itch.

Diffuse sunlight shone through the SmartWindows paneling the walls. One rectangle stuck out like a cloudy diamond in an otherwise glittering pendant. Moena pulled her tablet from her pocket, brought up the diagnostic software. Red letters delivered bad news: faults in the air and light filters.

The latter mattered little. The plants would get enough sun from the functional panes. The former, though, meant that outside air had infiltrated the house.

Moena's throat closed. Her heart raced. Stay calm! But her hands wouldn't listen, clutching each other, fingers twisting like vines around branches. She couldn't breathe! All those microbes: she imagined them invading her sanctum, those wriggly, single-celled prokaryotes.

She shuddered, dropped to the ground, lay prone. Her cheek touched beloved dirt. Safe dirt. Inhale! Exhale! Again! She tilted her face, lowered her tongue, and licked. The potent esters of her domestic biome worked their magic, taking over the hamster-wheels in her brain and applying the brakes.

Her hands unclenched. Shoulder blades fell back. Heart slowed. Stupid brain. We can deal with this.

The eBees agreed. "Yes, yes, yes," they sang.

Moena went to her supply closet. The air-filter mask inside looked like an insectoid alien: tinted plastic across the eyes, and three jutting cylinders over the mouth and nose areas. Moena pulled it on. The clean air lacked the comforting odors of home, but at least she was protected.

She sealed the offending window pane with heavy plastic and duct tape, then rolled the sensor cart over. Good! All air now flowed from the inside out, as it should. She sent a message to SmartWindows Incorporated, requesting a repair person and marking the issue urgent.

* * *

Rahul the repairman arrived looking like Moena's favorite porn star: faded jeans, tight white t-shirt, cinnamon-bark skin, boyish black curls. She admired the image on her tablet, fed from the door camera. Too bad she couldn't touch him. Her face flushed. The space between her legs tightened. Not now, and not him, idiot body. Not any man or woman infested with outside microbiota.

She slapped her cheeks lightly and blew out a hot breath.

Syed — her outside man — was away at his second cousin's wedding in Mysore. She would have to deal with Rahul herself.

"Please wait there," she said, a delayed audio reply to his intercom buzz.

Moena opened the supply closet and grimaced at the gray isolation suit hanging in the back. It reeked of industrial plastic and factory esters. She grabbed a handful of soil from the floor and sprinkled it into the suit. Then she pulled it and the air mask on.

She stepped into the foyer/airlock, clinched the inner door seals, and walked out the front. To his credit, Rahul only took a half-step back. His dark eyes widened like a bud opening to rain. Questions sprouted and withered on his lips — parted to show endearingly crooked teeth — until he said, "Miss ... Sivaram?"

"Yes. Follow me, please," Moena said.

She led him across the weedy, barren dirt of her lot. They walked around the thick clay walls of the house to arrive at the faulty SmartWindow. Rahul attached his computer to it via a long cable, vine-like but for its gray color. He sat on the dirt and began typing.

"The light and air filters are set to opposite extremes," he said. He spoke English in the well-rounded tones of an educated, middle-class Indian. "Most people use these windows to reduce the ultraviolet while permitting air circulation into the house."

I am not most people. Out loud: "You don't talk like a repairman."

Rahul smiled. "I'm an F.A.E. — a field applications engineer. We repair but we also have technical backgrounds." He paused, squinted up at her. "Tell me, are you the Moena Sivaram?"

Tendrils of anxiety coiled in Moena's stomach. The plane crash that killed her parents had been well publicized, but the story had faded from the news years ago. Why would this man jab her with a question about it?

"I am."

"Your thesis on fresh water bioremediation was incredible. How come you haven't published any papers since then?"

Moena gaped behind the mask. "Just who are you?"

"Sorry, I should have explained. I'm a volunteer with Hariharan Ecological Group. They've taken your design and used it for local water pollution. It's been a great success. You're famous among us. I thought, perhaps, you might be running a laboratory in the house, what with these window settings."

Moena reeled at the orthogonality of the question and stared at her reflection in the SmartWindow. Her suit resembled the spent husk of a chrysalis. If only she could emerge a gorgeous butterfly, she could stun Rahul into silence as well.

"I am conducting experiments in the house," she admitted. "I wear this suit to keep the environment as isolated as I can."

"Could I — I mean, if it's not too much trouble — could I see what you're doing?"

Moena shook her head like a leaf frenzied by the wind. Rahul ... inside her house? Inside her? Possibilities tumbled in her mind, gorgeous and terrifying. Impossible!

"No, of course not." He turned back to his computer. "Sorry for asking."

Moena reached out to him, drew her hand back. She had no right to his body.

The afternoon sun blazed from high in the summer sky as the silence stretched. Heat built inside Moena's isolation suit. Her shirt clung to her torso. Rivulets of sweat trickled down her neck and collected at the waistband of her shorts. She sat still, channeling the atman of a tree stump.

"Aha!" Rahul said at last.

The window cleared to perfect transparency. Rahul reinstalled it and stowed his computer. He handed her a memory cube.

"You'll want to update all of the windows with this version of software. The problem is that your filter settings are below virus size. The old software kept getting stuck in an interrupt routine and eventually hanging. This version should prevent that from happening."

"Thank you," Moena said. Part of her wished every window would fail, once a week, so Rahul would come again.

"The company will bill you directly. Best of luck with the research."

Moena nodded. The mask bobbled. Rahul walked out of the front gate, latching it closed behind him. She was alone.

The sterilization wash in her foyer had never felt so tedious. Once she was fully inside, Moena yanked off the mask and took several deep, relieving breaths. She peeled away the sweaty suit, let it crumple to the floor.

Soil wormed into the gaps between her bare toes. Leaves and fronds brushed her hands as she walked — nearly ran — to her bedroom. It looked much as it had when her parents were alive: a single bed, a narrow wardrobe painted yellow, a matching desk with shelves above it. The coffin was the exception.

The adult-sized container lay between the bed and the room's boarded-up window. The device's actual name was "Virtual Reality Recumbent Booth," but the world had decided that was too unwieldy. Moena agreed.

She browsed the preset visuals under "male." This one had beetle brows. That one was too pale. Dozens had overlays with blue eyes and blond hair. She stopped at a face that was close enough to Rahul's. The hair needed more curl and the eyes wanted to be smaller, but she could adjust those when her body wasn't pulsing with need.

The coffin's interior walls cozied up to her, running its — his — hands over her body, blowing warm breath against her neck, pressing itself — himself! — into her empty spaces.

Tension wanted release, but Moena's mind refused to fall into the illusion. She cut the session short.

What would a lover feel like, for real? She shivered. Think of the microflora! The exchange of so much more than fluid. And where would it happen? Here, in her bed? In the sanctum of her home? The biome would be corrupted, and her hard work set back by years. Idiot! Forget him!

* * *

But Rahul persisted in her thoughts, like a splinter that wormed deeper the more she tried to pry it out. Moena called the only friend left from her outside days: her fellow graduate student, now Professor Das.

Ananya's broad brown face appeared on the tablet screen accompanied by the clamor of children.

"Let me get somewhere quiet."

"You have to save me," Moena said, after her friend relocated.

Ananya cocked an eyebrow. "Do you need some new cultures?"

"No. Bacteria can't help me. I've been infected by a man, a glorious specimen of male Homo sapiens!"

"Infected? What? Did you have sex with someone?"

Moena laughed at her friend's horrified expression. "No. I haven't touched him. Mmmmm ... but I want to. Am I selfish for staying in here? For using my research to benefit myself and not the world?"

"What? Mo, you're not making any sense. Are you okay? How's your biome?"

"The verdant lovelies are fine. Creepy crawlies and microbiota are good. My blood results came back in normal ranges last month. But my heart — my heart is parched for company! He said I'm famous. They're using my thesis. Should I be out there, helping? Fighting the good fight?"

"First: you're not selfish for keeping yourself from chronic illness. Second: you are brilliant, and you should be publishing your results. Third: who is this chap and how has he gotten under your skin?"

"His name is Rahul. Window repairman and eco-warrior supreme, with skin like creamy cocoa-butter."

Her friend rolled her eyes. "Get a grip. You haven't touched another human being in over five years. You want to risk everything for him?" Her expression softened. "If you get sick again, you'll have to give him up."

"Bridges, crossings, et cetera, dear Professor. Besides, I can't be myself with him so this love affair won't last. Short, torrid, over!"

"What do you mean?"

"He won't want to date Moena Sivaram, wealthy eccentric and victim of tragic circumstance. I'll have to invent a mundane secret identity, someone matched to his station in life."

"A lie isn't a good foundation for love."

"I'll keep it to romance, not love. Then can I have your blessing?"

"No. Yes. I don't know," Ananya sputtered. "Just ... check in with me, okay? I'm worried about you."

Moena agreed and ended the call. Her fingers approached the keyboard then curled away, like the leaves of a Mimosa pudica: touch-me-not. Her mother's words from a decade ago haunted her.

"When you're of age, Moena, we'll find you a nice boy to marry. Or you'll find one on your own, but keep this in mind: men desire women who can stand up to them and still remain short. They don't want women who are smarter or wealthier or more famous. Better that you forget boys and marriage until you have your own measure."

Smarter. Wealthier. More famous. Rahul lacked a doctorate. Rahul worked for a living. Rahul's name had never scorched news headlines.

Moena invented a fitting girl for Rahul to love. Meena Sivaraman (close enough that Moena would answer to it): middle class, moderately educated, modestly dressed. A proper, earnest, sane young woman with a black braid and a bindi.

Breath came easy. Fingers pattered on the keyboard. Two days later, "Meena" had a coffee-shop date with Rahul to discuss volunteer opportunities.

* * *

On the day of their meeting, Moena rejected three different outfits: a traditional sari (too stuffy), a salwar-kameez from a distant aunt (too gaudy), and a dress from her university days in London (too Western). Clad in jeans and a short-sleeved cotton kurti, she stepped out of the house.

She wasn't sure whose eyes were wider, hers or Syed's, as she bolted into the back seat of the car.

"Are you sure, madam?" he asked for the tenth time, peering at her from the driver's seat.

Heart racing, palms sweating, and breath shallow, she said, "Yes. Drive, please."

They drove down tree-lined streets, past skyscraping beehives of apartments and claustrophobic rows of shops. The car's fan was set to recirculate, but the scents of Bangalore crept in through imperfect seals. Moena's throat closed. She gripped the sprigs of holy basil she had brought, crushing the tender leaves. They released a pungent, soothing aroma. She plucked two of them and pressed them into her nostrils. Better.

The car lurched to the right, came up to the curb, and stopped.

"This is the place," Syed said. "But we can go home, madam. Your health is more important than anything."

"Thank you, Syed. I'll be okay. I promise I'll call you if I'm not."

Moena stepped out and drew her first breath of raw city air in five years. Dust assailed her nostrils, drying the tiny hairs and making her sneeze. Rumbling diesel trucks spewed black exhaust. A current of decaying refuse and putrid sewage ran through it all. She gagged.

Bodies moved past her along the uneven slabs of the sidewalk. They stank of hot oil, sweat, sandalwood, fish, jasmine, sex. A stray dog trotted from a cluster of trash to a half-eaten banana. A fly fizzed into Moena's ear, tickling it before moving on.

How did anyone live like this? How had she, for the first twenty-three years of her life? She could almost sense the effluvia penetrating her lungs, polluting her bloodstream. She forced herself to inhale a second time. Stand straight! Shoulders back, chin high, hands unclenched: face the city like everyone else.

Advertisements plastered the low cinderblock wall to her right, their poster colors faded by rain, their edges frayed and torn. On the other side, gulmohar trees bordered the courtyard, shading the café patrons within. She scanned the crowd. Where was Rahul?

Moena threaded her way between the tables, careful not to touch any thing or person or plant. She spotted Rahul's curly hair and white t-shirt (did he wear nothing else?) in the back corner, at a table sprinkled with pollen from the blossoms above. She pinched her nose against a sneeze.

"Rahul Madhavan?" She tried to sound as if she'd never seen him before.

"Yes. You must be Meena. Please, sit. Shall I order you some coffee?"

Moena swallowed repulsion — non-homemade coffee! — and forced a smile. "Thanks."

"You'd like to volunteer for H.E.G. and do some ecological work, yes? Let me tell you about what we do."

Rahul entered a fifteen-minute monologue with words that felt as much like home as the scent of damp humus. He spoke of water pollution, remediation, plant and bacterial seeding; of community effort and citizen science; of working with the earth and not against it. His hands moved in organic shapes — no sharp edges — and his fingertips came together and burst apart like a ripe seedpod.

Moena watched, listened, sneezed. She swiped at her drippy nostrils with a bleached white handkerchief and sneezed again. Nodded. Smiled. Sneezed. Her coffee arrived and cooled. It stayed untouched but so did his.

"How does that sound? Like something you can commit to?"

"Absolutely. Once a week. No problem."

Problems tangled her thoughts faster than she could prune them away.

"Great! I'll send you the information for next week's action."

"Why aren't you a biologist?"

"Sorry?"

You're not supposed to know that! "I mean, why are you a volunteer and not working for H.E.G.? You seem so knowledgeable about this."

"I'm too old?" He flashed his crooked smile. "I already had an engineering degree when I got interested in remediation. I'm over thirty now. I can't possibly compete in entrance exams. What about you? What brought you to this?"

"I have ... a friend. She was sick for a long time, and some of that was because of our water and air. I want to do something for her — for everyone — to improve that."

"Wonderful! Then I'll see you next week."

He held out his hand.

Shake it! Moena thrust out her own, let him wrap his fingers around hers. His palm felt warm and smooth, like eucalyptus bark in sunlight. The thrill of contact traveled through her arm and spread, tingling, throughout the rest of her body. All of him, now! Her heart raced, mouth dried. Desire gathered force, whipping from a zephyr to a tornado. Her cheeks flushed. Could he tell? Did he sense her tumult?

Rahul let go.

They exited the café together.

Syed picked her up.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Microbiota and the Masses: A Love Story by S. B. Divya, Jasu Hu. Copyright © 2017 S.B. Divya. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Begin Reading,
About the Author,
Copyright,