The Story
W / O M E N is a speculative fiction
First conceived and completed as a stand alone novel, W / O M E N has since been adapted into a completed 1st season of eight hour-long episodes to be sold to networks and streamers.
LOGLINE:
In the near future, after a sex-chromosome linked virus kills all cis-human males, our heroine Fin must save her sister, who was abducted after discovering a cure.
SYNOPSIS:
Twenty-five years have passed since the Red Death pandemic wiped out all cis-men, and the world has become a near-utopia. With an abundance of housing and resources, nature thrives, and war is extinct. The majority of the population identifies somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, and those who don't often choose to live in co-housing communities to raise IVG babies together. Humans live in peace with the AI and androids who helped with a swift recovery. However, this idyll has begun to blemish as pro and anti-cure factions clash over whether research on the virus should continue to be prohibited.
Fin always dreamed of becoming a detective, but with cis-men gone, the police—now called peace officers—are largely defunct and defunded, mostly working with social services to take care of drug users and mediate spats after one margarita too many.
After saving an internationally renowned synth named Thales from a shooter during a keynote speech, Fin feels on top of the world. News of her heroic act spreads like wildfire and she is soon in line for a promotion. But her dreams of becoming a detective are shattered when she has a PTSD-induced dissociative episode and accidentally tasers her partner Kimo during a drug raid.
As if this wasn't enough, Fin gets into a fight with Julia when she is asked to move out of their shared townhouse to make room for Julia’s new girlfriend. The argument turns ugly and Julia disappears for days. Worried sick, Fin realizes that Julia is missing. Her colleagues in the force are going in circles—and there’s nothing Fin can do because she’s been put on indefinite leave. Her best friend Kayo, a hot nonbinary programmer, and her crush, Cliff, a beefcake synth bartender, sympathize but agree she should stay out of the investigation. Fin finds it difficult to stand back and wait for her sister to be found—especially when she begins to suspect that her captain is purposefully misleading the search.
So Fin decides to take matters into her own hands. After breaking into Julia's lab and stealing her research assistant, Willow, Fin learns that Julia has been illegally researching the live Red Death virus for years and has found a viable cure. However, the cure is tacit knowledge and Willow holds the key to its creation. Fin has been untethered for years, and now finds herself with a ward whom she must protect with her life.
Fin is now faced with the daunting task of uncovering the true culprits behind the plot to prevent the cure’s release. Fin initially suspects the Anti-Cure Faction, an alluring lifestyle-cult. But as she tugs on that thread, she discovers Blackstone, a group of wealthy elites, are sponsoring the anti-cure movement—and their fingers are in every pie, from Congress to the FBI.
Fin doesn’t know if men should be brought back, but she knows for certain that people deserve the right to vote. Ultimately, she must sacrifice the thing that matters most to her, her relationship with Julia, for a woman’s right to choose.