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[psCargile]

This is but one story in an planned arc of three, this arc itself a member of other arcs whose stories I'm currently working on.

3132 words.

[Sanderlee]

Very interesting!

I've seen this sort of premise before (am, indeed, working on one similar in some respects), but yours is a good take on it! Cool mix of hints and explanation. Not too much technobabble ... the universe feels lived in for the most part.

I do have some issues with the plant-like imagery in the old man's hospital room, tho. The descriptions are a bit flat. It's tough to describe the genuinely odd--especially if the CHARACTERS don't think what they're seeing is unusual or unseemly. If any one section of this needs a bit of tinkering, that scene (esp. after he leaves the brainshare) is it.

Nice job!

[psCargile]

That's the trouble with describing a nanotech "sculpted" room and the equipment within it, it's easy to picture in my mind but finding suitable comparisons with what readers would find familiar is not so easy. Mechoids look closer to biology than machinery, and they don't exactly slide across the ceiling (or floor) as they are a component of the ceiling, so they're joined seamlessly and do not form a seam where they hang when they move. Because the mechoid is only a "prop" in the room, I didn't want to spend too much time writing about it, but I could probably find a better way to describe them. The only point that I wanted to make was that they are mechanical and they look like somewhat like plants. I described medical mechoids like this one in better detail in a story I scrapped.

But thanks for the input. I'll certainly keep it in mind when I decide to do another pass. (They always need another pass.)