The clouds grumble and grow dark as currents push them along. They refuse to promise rain. A black beanie with "nintendo" stitched on it is a decent surrogate for the hair that I won't allow to grow. The earbuds of an MP3 player are still cold inside my head as I twine through the pastel towers of this mock city. I'm unaccustomed to shutting out the sounds of the world as I travel through it. I often hear possible threats before I see them. I am reluctant to provide the soundtrack to any blundering mishaps.

Inserting only one earbud tricks my brain into believing everything in the world is happening to my immediate left. Even more confusing. I considered using electric fields to try to detect the movement of living things around me but a bit of research on sharks revealed that the sense would be almost useless outside of water because air doesn't conduct electricity very well at all. I immediately resolved to stop attempting to grow electroreceptor cells through intense meditation. All the science classes I've taken said it was impossible anyway since the instructions are not in my genetic makeup and no amount of meditation is going to change that.

But science doesn't close a door without opening a window. I have no basis for making the previous statement as if it were true.

It's too late for me to be genetically engineered, but not too late for gene doping. All I have to do is make friends with a virus and get it to insert the DNA I want into my cells instead of all the harmful stuff viruses usually stick me with. This time will be different because this virus will be my pal.

The clouds grumble a bit more as I pick my way through the litter that accumulates in the bend in the service road. I have learned to avoid Styrofoam cups because they sometimes contain splashing liquids or boba teas that spawn little gelatin eggs when aroused by a falling foot.

My mind wanders off to find the sounds in my ears and my eyes are left alone to guard me. The wind dries my contact lenses and my vision blurs. My surrogate hair sits patiently and beams its Nintendo smile at all the other students that aren't walking this way. The ear buds are warmer now, at least. I blink furiously, stop trying to hear my own footsteps, and listen instead to the soundtrack without a story.