The woman exiting the building eyed me with amused caution. Her thin neck and dilated nostrils left little to speculation: a Piece of Art. “High Art,” and she knew it. Her lips barely moved when she spoke, giving the illusion of telepathy. These once-popular variants—dubbed the Lithes—were beautiful in their youth. But the strain of their biology lengthened with age. I put her in her early thirties, in that transition from bliss to desperately clinging on to mortality.
