This is a podcast extra from Nature.

Each 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 Life Hacked, written by Crystal Claxton, published on May 17th and read by Charmany Bundell.

The man is and is not a god.

The prayer is not whispered in temple.

It's arranged in subatomic particles.

I want out, I say, through teeth gritted against the stale air of my tiny lab.

He is amused. His teeth are pretty naturally white.

That's an unusual request. Most people want more of, in, if you will, to live forever.

I don't remember the walk to the bus stop. the ride back to my apartment, the passage of time.

Possibly this is because I don't really walk, and there isn't really a bus, and I don't really have an apartment.

Maybe driving is the mechanism for loading this new environment.

The teleportation spell, the computation that gets me from there to hear, a loading screen. Or possibly because I'm in shock.

The man is and is not a genie. The summons is not sent by rubbing a lamp.

It is agitated by a subterranean high-powered laser.

I want to be real.

My entire life, existence, indeed the existence of everything everything culminates in this.

His smile is proud, a glint in his sky-blue eyes.

I have not only discovered the false nature of life but want actualisation.

He could be a happy father if he didn't look so like a child about to squash a bug.

I look around the faded coral walls of my cheap rental, the only thing I can afford within commuting distance to my lab.

...