Iris, the protagonist through whose eyes the story is told, gets caught out in some weird rainstorm during a trip, and contracts something - something? - via her eyes, it seems. And it gets weirder as it (and the story) progresses...
This is a story which on the one hand feels very deja vu, with old and slightly tired tropes - a new virus. an alien (?) invasion. somehow very much harking back to the Peter Watts take on John Carpenter's 'The Thing' (titled 'The Things').
And on the other hand this feels very up to date, and 'now' - with a pandemic, with road blocks and provisions to stay indoors. with Iris' job of sanitising AI training inputs (one of the few jobs, besides waiting tables, which humans still do better).
To me this story somehow felt like it had hope for the future. I know, I'm weird. And for Peter Watts this is unusual.
But read it yourself, the link is below. This was initially published in Lightspeed Magazine. The picture on the right is pulled off the web, and purely my own reflection on the title, which itself has at least 3 distinct meanings in the story (well done, that man!)
Links: Peter Watts - Contracting Iris - The Things - Lightspeed Magazine
