The Gaijin Girl — E.E. Giorgi

A Mayake Chronicles Short Story

Twenty years ago the Gaijins lost the battle against the deadliest and most infectious bacterium ever engineered. To save themselves, the few survivors retreated to complete isolation, surrendering their lives and all human interactions to computers and artificial intelligence.

Now, two decades later, a sixteen-year-old girl eagerly awaits the New Queen's ending of the mandatory quarantine, allowing the Gaijins to finally step out a of their forced segregation. Lilun longs to start a new life, away from the sterile prison of her virtual world and the control of her robotic mother. But what she doesn't know is that the outside world has irreversibly changed …