As she left her house for work, Emily checked her makeup, checked that her wrist device was charged, and one last time checked in the mirror that her hair looked hot.  It did. 

Outside, Emily put her hand up and twisted her wrist. A small cab rolled up all the way to her door.  She got in. 

“How are you today, Tony?” 

“Eh.  Same as yesterday.”

“Anything special planned…. You know, for tonight?” 

“Maybe.  Wife hasn’t decided yet.”

“Understandable.”

The car stopped.

“Well, it’s been swell, Em.” 

Emily waved her wrist at Tony, and a beeping melody sounded from his car’s dashboard.  

Tony nodded and smiled.  “Take care of yourself.”

Inside the office, the commotion was intense.  Everyone was busy with preparations for tonight’s big event. 

“Oh my gosh, Emily!  You’re here!”  Jennifer’s smile was wide, too wide, and her eyes were wet.  She grabbed Emily’s hands, and squeezed tight. 

“Jen!”  She wriggled out of Jen’s tight grasp in alarm.  “What’s the matter with you?”

Jennifer looked confused. “Oh. I’m… I’m sorry. I…”  She rubbed her face with her hands and took a deep breath.  “I’m just excited.  You know… about tonight.”

“Yeah, so am I. Did you take your tablet?” 

Jennifer shook her head, and her smile sagged for a moment.  “No.  I wanted to be present today.  Aware.” 

“Oh, well, that explains it. Do yourself a favor, queen. Take one of mine.”  Emily took a tablet from her wrist device and pressed it into Jennifer’s hand.  “There’s no point in torturing yourself.”

Jennifer nodded and took the tablet. 

Emily joined the rest of her team in the nearby conference room.  There was no time today for separate offices and cubicles.  She grabbed a donut at the door and took a bite. 

“We’re all just glorified party-planners at this point, essentially.” Greg told Emily when she asked for an update. “That’s what we have all been reduced to.”  He laughed mirthlessly.  

“Alright, well we just got to make sure the entire country can see how positive and happy we are when we go live.  That’s the most important thing.”

“Easier said than done, sweetheart,” David said. Emily’s number two walked in, lacking his usual perky no-nonsense attitude. “Do you feel positive and happy?” 

Emily sighed.  “David, I told you to take your tablet. Today of all days.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to.” 

“You want to feel miserable?”

“No one wants to feel miserable, Emily.  But at least it’s real.” 

“Oh, David. Come on. Real emotions belong to the past.”

David’s jaw flexed and his nostrils flared. Before he stormed away, Emily could hear him mutter: “Tablets!  Should’ve been banned.”

Emily got the rest of her team on track with the preparations.   

At lunch, she found herself alone in the lunchroom.  She was one of the few who still had a stomach to eat. 

David burst in.  “Emily, we need to talk.” 

She stared at him. “Why?”

“You know why!”  He grabbed Emily’s hands. She tried to pull away, but he hung on. “Don’t do that mindless stare at me, honey. I know you’re in there, with all your feelings.  You just refuse to feel them because we can’t talk about any of it anyway.  But I need you to know, I’ve always loved you.  I always will.  Even after tonight.  Nothing can stop my love for you, Emily.”  

“I don’t want you to.  Emotions make everything harder.”

David stared at her, not sure what to say. He let her hands go.  “You don’t mean that.”

“You haven’t been listening.” 

“Jesus, Emily. Is nothing sacred?”

“Go take your tablet, get your work done, and leave me alone.”

A tear pooled in the corner of David’s eye. He sniffed and angrily wiped his reddened face. 

“Yeah.  Maybe I will.” 

He left the lunchroom.

That night, thousands were tuned in remotely to watch the event of the century. Emily and her staff stood in the wings.  They had a front row seat to the end of the old and the beginning of the new. Emily could feel her morning tablet finally wearing off as her stomach started gurgling. She pulled out another one from her wrist device and swallowed. 

Her head buzzed with anticipation… and something else just underneath.  Emily had worked for years to prepare for this night, this moment. She was the very picture of composure. Emily smoothed her brown hair, curled just so.  She knew it still looked hot, that she looked hot.  Everything was perfect. 

She looked below and all around at the beautiful high-ceilinged hall from her balcony near the stage.  Everything was decorated, all the facilities were fully staffed.  The banquet tables below were perfectly arranged and delectably catered for the guests. The stage to her left contained one man standing at the podium, ready to usher in the change they had all hoped for. Her immediate supervisor, the leader of what was once the known world.

“Thank you all for tuning in tonight. This is a big night for all of us.”  President Donnelly began, his voice boomed in the cavernous hall. “We have made our plans for this change for the past ten years. We all knew it was coming.  Most of us have accepted it long ago and softened the blow with tablets.  Others have chosen to remain in our feelings.  Whatever your choices, we are all in this together. We will step boldly forward into this new world together, despite the challenges we may face.”

A pressure began to settle in Emily’s chest. Suddenly, breathing became more difficult and her throat tightened. She swallowed and tried to ignore it. 

“So many people said it was a bad idea.  They said we should fight.  We finally had to ban any discussion or talk of this day because certain words triggered terrible contention among us. Among our families, our brothers, our sisters, and our friends, we all have our awful experiences to bear, fighting with our loved ones when we should have been spending that precious time more wisely.”

Sweat popped out in beads along Emily’s hairline.  She felt her heart pound and she moaned quietly to herself.  Oh no.

“But now we can speak openly again. It’s finally time to put all that strife firmly behind us forever. My Vice President, Emily Sanchez, has orchestrated this gorgeous celebration for us to enjoy while we say goodbye forever to war, famine, sickness and economic woes.  Let us welcome a new world - a new universe of possibilities - and our new leaders in a peaceful relinquishing of our humanity and the old way of doing things.  This is the event of the century, of all humankind's history!”

Emily screamed.  All of her emotions came back all at once in one big avalanche as panic overwhelmed her. Every feeling she hadn't felt over the past ten years, all her hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties, flooded in.

“The Oblivion!  We’re all going to die!”  Tears streamed down her face.  Few acknowledged her, though, with all eyes and ears tuned to President Donnelly’s speech.  A great roar of cheers and claps rose from the gathering below, a throng of a thousand people who were physically present for the event. 

No one heard her. No one cared.

Just then, David ran up from the gallery behind her, a tablet in his hand.  “Emily!  I switched your tablets.  I’m so sorry.  It was so self—.” 

“David!”  Emily had never been so happy to see anyone in all her life.  “Oh, David!  I’m so sorry!  Can you forgive me?  I want you.  I love you! I always have. Oh, I wasted so much time!” She grabbed David around the middle and squeezed him. He dropped the tablet. “What’s going to happen to us?” 

David grabbed Emily’s face and kissed her firmly. “It doesn’t matter.  As long as we have each other, nothing matters.”

All at once, their wrist devices glowed brilliantly.  Every person in the hall could be counted by the bright blue neon glow on their wrist. President Donnelly shouted in excitement, but Emily wasn’t listening to what he said. She only had eyes and ears for David now. 

A single metal arm, as thin as a spider’s leg, emerged from the side of her wrist device’s band, as it did on David’s. A single needle penetrated a vein on the inside of each of their elbows.  They gasped, but not in pain. 

They were surprised at how easy it was, how painless it was to change.  Emily and David watched as the other’s skin sloughed away and was immediately replaced with the metallic nanoskin of the extraterrestrial race that had introduced them to the idea of accelerated evolution, to the futility of being human, and to what the rest of their eternity would look like.