Posthuman Blues

I started writing what I hope will become a completed short-story/novella this evening. Here are the first two paragraphs:

"Dep stopped climbing and extended her legs on the narrow concrete balcony, only peripherally aware of the lichen prickling her knees. She breathed deeply, smelling dust and the nuanced odors of decaying machinery from far below. Although comfortable with heights, she dared not look down. Fatigued from her long climb up the shaft, she narrowed her eyes at the dimness above, imagining she could see a hint of daylight. Nothing. She reached up, appraising her calloused hands, peering through the spaces between her thin brown fingers. She tried to envision the next stage of her climb, cursing her unfamiliarity with the shaft.

"She counted to twenty and stood, ropy brown hair pendulous with sweat, her gear unexpectedly heavy in the cool metallic air. She reached into the shapeless polymer sac cinched around her naked waist and withdrew a lamp. Like the majority of artifacts she was used to, the lamp was sleek and seamless and smelled faintly of biomachines: a vegetable smell that reminded her of the factories and their endless ranks of semisentient attendants. Squatting briefly at the edge of the balcony, she traced fissures in the concrete with a wary fingertip. She nestled the lamp into place; its cilia plunged into the tiny crevasse with a moist popping sound and the bulb activated, throwing her surroundings into pastel relief."