The Careful Ones — Story Index

Owen and Meera sit in a waiting room designed to not feel like a waiting room. They're choosing an embryo. They tell themselves they're choosing the healthiest one. They both know they'll look at the other columns.

A five-part story about elective genomic profiling — told from four perspectives, converging on the same quiet shift. Everyone is reasonable. That's the problem.

Chapters

1. The Form — Owen and Meera choose an embryo. The gap between "healthiest" and "best score."
2. The Argument — Bridget tells her brother. He has the trait she screened out. He says it once, and then he doesn't say it again.
3. The Waiting Room — Nadia sits in a clinic with women who already know their numbers. She doesn't scan the QR code. She puts the flyer in a drawer.
4. The Appendix — Owen, fifteen years later. A paper on the variant they screened out. Finn asking if he's the right version of himself.
5. The Profile — Ada at twenty-three. She finds the folder. She is Row B. The choice cycles back to the person it produced.

All five chapters are now available.

My debut collection Surfaced explores similar territory — seven stories about people living inside systems built to help them.