Tabitha Singleton

The Regression

Mavral hovers his metal-molded self along the smooth titanium ramp from the school air-shuttle down to his home. His built-in thermometer indicates that it is 114 degrees Fahrenheit outside—an average temperature for Igliber in January, although it would not have been back when Igliber was New York. He passes two other residential levels before reaching his own. Passing the chrome emptiness that centuries ago would have been grass yards with flower beds lining stone houses, Mavral wonders what it all would look and feel like in person. What was it like for humans when they roamed the Earth? And what did flowers smell like for them? Was it different from how our sensors pick up and analyze scents?