Every week, Nature publishes a science fiction story in its futures slot.

At the end of every month, we read you our favourite.

This month's story is Outpatient, written by Dan Stout, published on July 15th, and read by Charmany Bandelle.

It was definitely a migraine.

The agony clamped down on both temples and the light from behind the curtain shot daggers through my eyelids. I twisted over to cover my head with a pillow and

felt a sudden breeze at my backside. I sat up squinting, a hospital gown tugging at my throat.

I had no idea what had happened to me. My last memory was

of being in my lab, slipping on my sensor headdress and wiring it to the neural monitors.

Pushing the assistance buzzer, I rocked back and forth trying to keep the migraine at bay.

No nurse answered, and eventually I gave up. When I stood,

I staggered a stranger in my own body. I stumbled out into the hall, relieved to see a familiar

logo on the directional signs. I was still in St. Anne's, the hub of my work, where Kim Stanley

and I were pioneering spatial resonance neurology, the expansion

of the brains network into the space around it, building awareness beyond our bodies. The halls were jammed

with patients, looking just as confused as me. Apparently, some were dealing with even worse

headaches than I was, as they leaned against walls gripping their temples or succumbing

to the nausea and vomiting on the floor. The overwhelmed staff ran back and forth. No one paid me any

attention. I picked up a white technician's coat from a chair at the nurse's station. I'd had enough

of my rear end being exposed. As I put it on, the collar flipped up. Even with a decade of

practice, I'd never quite figured out how to keep those things flat. I glanced around when I

shut against the pain of my headache and tried to figure out what was going on. So many people

with signs of headache and nausea? Gas leak? There was no odour of natural gas, carbon monoxide.

...