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Quantum Fox Gets The Pox, A Novella

aid so,” murmurs the doctor. “Almost wiped it out back in the twentieth, but the resistant strains are making a comeback. We can try the standard treatment, or…” She flips through a chart. “You might get into this experimental trial…”

“Really?” Sardonic hope flares in the eyes of the man in the paper gown. On others, that gown would look flimsy and degrading–yet on him, it becomes a subtle statement, an inverse cape. Only he knows the syphilis test results were faked. Only he knows his reasons for angling into the drug trial. He is, after all, QUANTUM FOX, AGEN

Jelly

Jelly treads slush, keeping her head up, flippers sliding off stacks of inkjet waste. She grabs something from waist level: “Quantum Fox Gets The Pox, A Novella.” She flips through the first couple pages.

“Does it ever occur to you,” says Douglas, bobbing nearby, “that whatever we toss away is just going to float back to us?”

“Not if we keep going deeper,” says Jelly.

JJ surfaces, right on cue, blowing paper dust from his snorkel. “Got it!” he gasps, waving a battered manuscript. “I found one, guys, I found a ten-pager that’s almost worthwhile!” Then a shark eats him.