by Hugh Howey
Before I enter his office Sara Trujillo, his chief of staff, gives me a piece of advice: “Run if you have to.”
DISHER
(Speaking to Spence-Shilling)
You’ve made some pretty large allegations, Representative, and some — namely Ms. Pierce’s lawyers — claim that you have only the thinnest of evidence to substantiate your position. What’s your reply to that?
HUFFINGTON SPENCE-SHILLING
Pierce knows, okay? She knows, and she knows that I know she knows. The shills in the courts, in the FDA and the Health Department, they’re all on her side but I know, okay?
DISHER
What exactly do you know?
SPENCE-SHILLING
Listen, buddy. My son went into the offices of Fallan Pierce and company as Huffington Spence-Shilling the third, and came out as D-Money Brown because of some strange juju that Pierce somehow slid past the review boards of the FDA, the Health Department, and the Department of Agriculture! Everybody’s a pawn in her game, and there’s no telling how deep her claws are sunk in. Deep enough to make herself untouchable, that’s for damn sure.
DISHER
President Kim has said that she considers Fallan Pierce a close personal friend and that she doesn’t believe that any of your claims are true.
SPENCE-SCHILLING
Ji-Eun Kim is a flaming feminist liberal nutjob and the reason why America is always down on its knees begging from the United Asian Powers. Ji-Eun… you know that in college she went by “Diana” and she experimented heavily with recreational drugs and had wild orgies with her girlfriends? You know that, right? She’s the worst thing to happen to the country, and Fallan Pierce bankrolled her, a liberal nutjob… lesbian who runs on nose candy!
DISHER
I… well, that’s some strong language to use in reference to the President of the United States. And there’s no evidence of a bankrolling operation from Pierce in conjunction with the campaign of President Kim.
SPENCE-SCHILLING
Boy, for an investigative journalist, you sure suck at following the signs. Look at all those dummy companies and foundations that she’s got going! All the connections that she has at the highest levels of government — even the president goes to her for advice on purses! You mean that nothing smells fishy to you with that? Pierce started setting this up in the late aughts! The paper trail is all there.
DISHER
Let’s switch topics for a moment. Where is your son? How is he holding up?
SPENCE-SCHILLING
He’s in a safe place, somewhere you sharks won’t be able to reach him. Under constant surveillance, and protected from any further harm.
DISHER
Testimony from him would go a long way in verifying your claims.
SPENCE-SCHILLING
Sure, and whack my balls into paste while you’re at it. Hell no. This is over. Get out of my office before I rustle up a couple of Marines to throw you out!
NARRATOR
An unnamed urban location.
DISHER
We meet at a take-out restaurant on the south side of town, where the population skews African-American and impoverished. The restaurant specializes in heavy fare — seats and tables are covered in a fine film of grease. My contact doesn’t appear to be a man in hiding when he walks in the restaurant. He is dressed simply in jeans and a dark hooded T-shirt. The only concession he makes to hiding his identity is a black hat with the logo of a well-loved local basketball team across the front, the brim pulled down over his eyes. Still, beneath the disguise the lower half of his face is visible — particularly his deep brown skin and his wiry beard. I have been instructed to call him Trey, instead of the name he was given at birth.
TREY
For the first time I’m not the one out of place.
DISHER
What do you mean?
TREY
Look at you. You’re an outsider. You don’t belong here, not really. Nobody will turn you away because white men always get what they want, but you’re not really welcome. You never are.
DISHER
Your use of “they” when you refer to white men is an interesting choice of words considering… your history.
TREY
Look at me, bruh. I ain’t white no more. I’m black. Like them.
DISHER
But some would argue that you’re actually not black. You weren’t born a black person, and you have a pedigree that, if investigated, proves that your connections have actually been damaging to black communities.
TREY
That was before this shit happened. Now, I just do my best to get in where I fit in. There’s shit that I don’t do, like I don’t try the latest dances or run pickup basketball, but there are black people who can’t do that shit well either. Every once in awhile I’ll do the electric slide because it doesn’t require too much hip movement.
Since being around them though? Let me tell you… Before, I was just doing a bit of high-tech slumming, you know? I wanted to get a taste of the black experience, just for a little bit. Those first days, I was in a different club every weekend, with a different woman every Saturday night. That was back when it only lasted 24 hours.
DISHER
When did you know things were changing permanently?
DISHER
(Voiceover.)
Trey shrugs before answering me.
TREY
There were signs. Blackening, as they called it, normally only lasted either 24 or 48 hours, depending on your dosage. At first I was just turning back later than normal, 72 hours off of a 48-hour dose. Started missing work because I couldn’t go into the office as a black. Then Ayleigh — my ex-wife — found out. Turned out she was okay with it, except for that whole sleeping around thing. We got past that, though, and who’d’ve fuckin’ guessed, being a nigga spiced up our shit in the bedroom. We even did a couple of role plays. Ayleigh takes the BBC, you know? She’d meet me in the ghetto and act like she didn’t know who I was. One day, I didn’t change back.
DISHER
What did you do then?
TREY
I went up to Pierce’s offices. You know what that mothafucka said? That I was the 0.0001%. Odds of this happening were less than one in ten-thousand, and I’d drawn the shit stick. Spelled out in the agreements that I’d signed. We’re sorry, sir, thank you for your business sir, get the fuck out of here you’re a nigger now, sir. She had me escorted off the premises, like I was a threat! On the way out, one of her guards said that if I knew what was best for me, I’d get lost before the police came and — I swear to God he said this—“before they shoot you by mistake.”
DISHER
I assume that your life is very different now.
TREY
Damn real! I mean, I can say “nigga” without the backlash. But I swear, some of them see through me. They call me “white boy” and they know that something’s off. I’ve been trying to adopt some of whatever it is that makes black people so damn cool, but those ones that know? It’s like they have like a second sight or something.
DISHER
What does your future look like from here?
TREY
This is Kool G Rap, you know? But it sucks too. Being black is hard as shit, bruh. Every day is like suiting up and going to war. I… fuck it, keeping it 100? I can’t handle this shit, yo. Even with the music and the food and it being acceptable to dress like a rapper, it’s still a whole lot to deal with. You know how often I get stopped by the police when I’m just out minding my fucking business? I can’t even go see my family unless someone sends a car to pick me up. I’m Ivy League, you know? I’m from a family who can trace their ancestry to Plymouth Fucking Rock. But now, if I go to buy a pack of cigarettes I’m likely to get shot for it. I don’t see how people can live like this, man.
We’re taking the fight to Pierce. My d— my contact is getting his ducks in a row. His lawyers are squadding up. She’s not teflon, you know what I’m saying? We ‘bou
t to go to war, and the shit won’t be pretty.
But anyway, we up in here talking bidness and ain’t even broke bread yet. This place has the best fried fish, bruh, oh my god. Aye! Aye Nette, give us a plate of fish and two large cups of Southside Punch, extra red! Yo, this food here is bangin’, bruh.
NARRATOR
Tokyo, Japan
DISHER
DeMonterrius Jackson looks like a stereotypical nerd: slender frame, thick glasses. He’s disheveled, shirt three sizes too big, jeans a size too small. His haircut is short on the sides, asymmetrical at the top, and his nose and lips take up most of his brown face. His partner in crime, Ameena Wang, has a wild mane of rainbow-hued curls, and a gold hoop in her septum that sets off her light brown skin. A patch of acne attacks her cheeks, and intelligence flashes in her amber eyes.
The two of them are most recently known as the heads in charge of POC.ME, a social network that bridges virtual and real life meeting space by hosting pop-up networking events (accompanied by live streams) that are only accessible to young non-white people. They are hailed for their start-up efforts, but they are responsible for something greater: the discovery and development of Nubianite, the genetic enhancement cocktail that is responsible for changing the racial appearance of Huffington Spence-Shilling III, among hundreds of others who took the drug. We meet in a bar filled with books and twenty-somethings. Every so often, one of the expat patrons recognizes them, but they are laser-focused on our session. They are so familiar with each other that they often finish each other’s sentences.
DISHER
(Speaking to Jackson and Wang)
So, what was it like working for Fallan Pierce?
AMEENA WANG
Fallan is like a storm. She doesn’t really deal in “no,” not when she has a vision — or when she believes in you, you know?
DEMONTERRIUS JACKSON
Right, like the fact that she sought us out. Me, a statistic from the poorest zip code in Alabama, with no skills to speak of—
WANG
—and me. I used to get called either an “African Booty Scratcher” because my dad was from Senegal, or “chinky eyes” because of my Chinese mom. Shit drove me to a real identity crisis, and I wanted to rock that shit out. Turns out, chemistry was my rock and roll. The odds weren’t in our favor, but she put us on, and I’m grateful for that.
DISHER
How did your relationship with her start?
JACKSON
We had an article published in this journal—
WANG
Blackened: An Investigation of The Effect of Increased Melanogenesis on the Epidermal Makeup of Individuals Typed Non-Black was the article. Published in the Negra Obscura Journal of Black Studies, the Fall 2026 volume—
JACKSON
And it didn’t get much love, probably because our sample used stem cells and unconventional genetic stuff. But Fallan saw an opportunity. She called us up. I was doing a postdoc at the University of Alabama—
WANG
— and I was doing pharma research back home in Cali—
JACKSON
Fallan offered us four times our combined salaries to come in and be her R&D squad. Said she had something huge for us and that we’d be crazy not to get in on the ground floor. So I called Meen up—
WANG
Yo I thought he was full of shit at first, told him as much too.
DISHER
The public idea of Nubianite is that it “makes you black,” but what’s the science behind that?
WANG
I mean, that’s basically it. There are only a few things that determine whether or not you come out of your mom a black person.
JACKSON
Nubianite was us tinkering with those things. We figured out how to isolate the black skin determinants—
WANG
And make a person’s body accelerate their production. But there was some stuff that we couldn’t account for once we started messing around up under the hood in a real way. Strange shit, the drug was calling up stuff from way, way back in the family tree.
JACKSON
I mean, we’re all Africans, but Nubianite made that a reality for some people, changed up some of their physiology as well. We saw some subjects start to “look” more black in addition to their skin change. Fallan loved that shit.
WANG
Yeah. She actually jumped up and down. That’s how we knew we had something special. Trials were a motherfucker, though.
(Jackson laughs.)
JACKSON
Oh man. We started with white rats. Most of them just had a “flash in the pan” type of scene, where their skin and fur went dark and for a few minutes. Once we’d stabilized the formula with rats, we’d shoot up monkeys. All of this was on Fallan’s dime. She had like, ghost holding companies making money all over the world.
WANG
But there were weird moments. Like when we started human trials. We were given clearance to experiment on federal prisoners — only white dudes, though. Fallan figured that would be the target market. That was… a strange experience.
JACKSON
But not illegal. They consented, so it was all good.
WANG
Lots of ‘em received commuted sentences, time served for good behavior, or privileges in exchange for participating in the trials, which… made it feel less strange.
JACKSON
Yeah. The black prisoners were pissed about those rewards, though. Fallan’s lawyers assured us that we would be protected, whatever happened.
DISHER
Were you aware that use of your product would lead to the results experienced by Spence-Shilling and other Nubianite users?
WANG
I always hated that fucking name. Nubianite. But the instances of dermal melanocytic plasticity during trials were so small as to be negligible. Less than one in every ten thousand subjects, consistent across human trials.
NARRATOR
Nashville, Tennessee.
DISHER
After that interview, my reporting stalled. It was six months before I got another appointment to visit Fallan Pierce. In that time, Representative Spence-Shilling brought all of his power to bear on Pierce and her companies. Several individuals had gone to news outlets with claims that they used Nubianite recreationally and were unable to return to their original appearance. These individuals are almost uniformly white and male, and they have started protesting directly.
When I arrive at her offices in Nashville, I am escorted in by Ja’Nyla Lovington and a handful of Pierce’s private security detail. The protestors outside are agitated, but Pierce herself seems unperturbed. She has come out of her bunker in Georgia, gathered her corps of attorneys — all women of African descent — and moved to the top-floor office suite owned by one of her holdings, PerPro LLC. The crowd of protesters is filled with signs with messages like “It’s Time to Pierce Pierce” and “Send Fallan Back 2 Africa.” They are assembled on the sidewalk outside the offices — many of them look African-American. Representative Spence-Shilling is front and center, flanked by a young man wearing dark jeans and a cap pulled low over his face. Since the siege began, Pierce has received death threats, and several of her guards prowl the premises and guard the entrances. Someone has opened a window in the office suite, presumably to let the heat and tension out of the room. It also lets in murmurs from the crowd. The noise rises and falls like a swarm of bees.
DISHER
(To Pierce)
Representative Spence-Shilling has played his hand. Are you worried at all?
PIERCE
I’m surrounded by some of the most powerful lawyers in the land. My windows are bulletproof, and my guards are in the stairs and lobby, ready to stand their ground against anyone who pops off.
DISHER
But does Representative Spence-Shilling have grounds for this protest, for the legal action?
PIERCE
My answer hasn’t changed from the first time we’ve talked.
Everything was consensual. Mr. Spence-Shilling has an axe to grind but he’s missing the grinder… so he’s swinging his axe.
He’s trying to put me before another congressional oversight committee and have me serve time in a federal prison. He wouldn’t even give this so much effort if I were a white man. We’d have some sort of backroom deal going where he’d be the first to know if we’ve come up with a reversal procedure.
DISHER
Is one of those in the works?
PIERCE
It’s still in trials. I gave my Research and Development team a year off to decompress after the fallout, but we can’t work miracles. The issue that the affected individuals are facing is a freak accident, and one that we couldn’t control for. But we are working, and when we have a stable product, those affected will receive treatments free of charge.
DISHER
What do you think it will take for Representative Spence-Shilling to abandon his cause, to forgive your company for what he thinks you’ve done?
PIERCE
I think that’s for Mr. Spence-Shilling to say.
(There is the sound of glass shattering, and an uproar from the crowd below. One male voice in particular rises above the rest: “She should get down here and FACE us!”)
DISHER
(Voiceover)