WONDERSTORIES

The perfect companion   Marlin was sitting on the balcony of her apartment. She lived in those self-sustaining residential complexes that had a very low cost for employees within the system. There was no longer a government as we used to understand it in the past. Large corporations divided power among themselves. In fact, there was little politics in the administrative system. The advancement of science had buried forever a series of ideas, prejudices, and ways of acting. As always, there were both positive and negative aspects. There were few social concerns. The biggest conflicts were more of a personal nature, often enveloped in a terrible boredom generated by the fact that everything was predictable and resolved beforehand. People lacked a bit of uncertainty, a bit of danger, something to sharpen their senses. Also, judging from Marlin's appearance, the very look of human beings was quite different. People were slim, tall, with lean yet well-defined muscles. Their heads we...