This story came about from the confluence of two ideas. The first is determinism—a philosophical concept I’ve always been fascinated by—which posits that every individual is apportioned a certain future, one which regardless of whatever measures we might employ to shirk or bring it to pass, will nonetheless be made manifest.

I’ve always been obsessed with shapeshifting magic. I mean Mystique is my favorite X-men character. Part of it comes from Dastaan-e-Amir Hamza and Pakistani fairy tales about Koh-e-qaaf and shapeshifting devs. Part of it comes from stories like The Last Unicorn, which is one of my favorite books ever. When I was ten years old, I actually wrote a novel about a shapeshifting character, and then consigned it to the dustbin because I didn’t believe it was any good. I plan to bring that novel to life someday.

Of all the “punks” or “SF” genres out there, solarpunk is the most functional and relevant. It’s the one we can plant seeds in right now and grow something anti-dystopian. But to do that, it needs to build itself some cultural capital. It needs to be popular. Noir is popular. Therefore, solarpunk noir. It’s not that far a stretch at all.

I was reading quantum theory nonfiction and watching Brian Cox’s black hole videos (for my own entertainment, not work-related) and all that information needed an outlet. Adding the Lovecraft mythos felt like a natural progression born of thinking too much about deep-space phenomena. I’m not a physicist and I don’t write hard SF, so when I learn about neat scientific discoveries, I have to communicate my enthusiasm via weird spec-fic flash fiction.

I had the honor to live near three of my closest elders as they were dying, my grandmother and my great-aunt, and great-uncle who were basically my grandparents on their side of the family. I wrote “Until the Cure” while they were still with us, while I could still spend a lot of time with them. We were fortunate that all three of them were themselves until the very end, but I know not everyone is nearly that fortunate.

This one started with the character of Aga—someone who doesn’t quite operate like others in her world. She thinks differently and is slightly out-of-step because of it. I find something interesting about a character like that, her commitment to her work.

A few years ago, I read an article about the Pacific nation of Tuvalu. This piece of fact emerges in the world of this story—the leadership of Tuvalu announced that it would become the first “digital nation,” in an effort to preserve sovereignty and knowledge of the physical land if the country became uninhabitable due to rising sea levels.

“The Long Goodbye” was a phrase I heard once online in reference to having to take care of elderly, ailing pets. I’ve been caring for a cat with multiple issues for years—he is now eighteen, and every day having to help him relieve himself, groom himself, and move him around has been a bit of a challenge. I think it’s not just an act of love but also of reciprocity—my cat has been there almost all of my adult life and made it better for it.

It was during an AI & Creativity Conference at Stanford that I first heard about Sam Altman’s truly horrifying next endeavor called World Coin. If you haven’t heard of this particular dystopia, it involves an eye-scanning orb that’s being sent to many third world countries to scan the retinas of those who volunteer. In turn they get world-coin credits, basically a new kind of cryptocurrency that will be based on eye-scans, and a horrific way to monetize and create a global surveillance network for the tech overlords.

The inspiration came from my own fascination with the true nature of reality and consciousness. I mean, what is this world we live in? How are seemingly psychic dreams possible? Does consciousness emerge from matter, or is it the other way round? Exploring those questions led me down the rabbit hole where ideas of panpsychism and gnosticism began to intersect in my imagination, and gradually a story started to take shape.