Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin (Summary) (2024)

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Plot Summary

An individual from a faraway, elitist space colony receives messages regarding how he is supposed to travel to a planet called Tellus (Earth) and see the remnants of society, as climate change has wiped out most of humanity, but only the wealthiest and most mentally fit were saved by the chance to live in the new colony. Only 6000 people were saved. However, when the human man travels back to Earth, he is surprised to see that the Colorado River is flowing again; there are also new ice caps. The seas are cleaner and there are billions of new people. He ends up in Raleigh, North Carolina and begins to explore. As he witnesses Earthen civilization for the first time, it is revealed that he has no face. Currently he wears an artificial skin that increases his chances of survival and reduces his need to perform simple bodily functions, like eating and using the restroom. But the leaders back home who are speaking into his thoughts let him know it's possible for him to take on the appearance of a human. However, before he can undergo the process of beginning to look like a human, which he does not appear to want, he is tased and his operating system that feeds him the leaders' voices temporarily shuts down. A man approaches the individual and tells him that the reason he was tased is because his artificial skin requires a higher dose to subdue it. It is revealed that the individual tried to grab a woman to get cell samples to take back to the colony, so now he is being monitored. The man gives the individual a container full of cell samples, which is shocking because he clearly seems to understand the complex technology of the space colony. He even understands how the artificial skin functions and explains that they use them on Earth as well. The "man" shares that he is actually a woman — the voices in the individual's head interpreted her as being a male because she is unattractive, and back on the colony, specialized pleasure robots exist with the sole purpose of having sex and being beautiful. Women do not exist on the colony because the Founders were misogynists. The woman, Jaleesa, tells the individual that these cell cultures can be cloned so that operatives will not have to return to Earth for more samples. The individual believes humans with natural skin are beautiful and becomes angry at the voices of the leaders in his head. He wanders away to look at a sunset. The leaders are disgusted by life on Earth because there are a lot of women and people of color. They let it slip to the individual that they use the cell cultures to rejuvenate their own bodies and keep themselves young and strong for centuries, but they still insist that it is not possible to clone enough cells to give everyone skin. The individual activates an emergency protocol that gives him a human face and skin, which presents as Black. Undergoing this process means that he loses access to the translating device his artificial skin had, so he can no longer understand humanity.An elderly human man takes the individual to a city and a museum. He begins to take care of the elderly man, but realizes one day that he has a product number written on his back, a strain used in the colony thirty years prior. The older man explains that the Earth survived because the founders left, so the rest of the world rallied to support and take care of each other. He says that the leaders kill individuals fetching cells as soon as they arrive back on the colony: they never had any intention of giving their servants human skins. The individual wants to sneak back into the colony to give cells and human skin to all those who want it. The man disconnects the leaders' voices from the individuals head so that he can plan his revolution.

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