“Thank you for giving Anza my eyes,” he said. “And that hair. You did a really great job with her hair.”
Amy fussed with his belt. Men’s belts were really tricky, it turned out. He did the last little bit quickly, and started inching out of his jeans. She decided to assist with the socks. Socks in bed were weird, she decided.
“Do you feel any different?” Amy asked, balling up the socks.
“No,” he said, “but you look even more beautiful.”
She rolled her eyes.
“No, seriously! You have a certain glow about you.”
“That’s because I’m about to have sex with you.”
“Well now you’re just blushing. Blushing doesn’t count.” He appeared to think about it a second time. “Though, I suppose, as Voight-Kampff tests go…”
Amy threw a pillow at him. While his eyes were covered, she climbed atop him and started tickling. He yelped, and flipped her over. Amy was glad to have incorporated tickling, in the new body. She had missed it, too.
“I think I’ve wanted this since the first time I tickled you.” Javier kissed her. “There’s just something about your laugh.”
Amy licked her lips. “Wow, that apple really is sweet.”
“Hey. Focus. I have a delicate ego, over here.”
She squirmed. “It doesn’t feel very delicate, to me.”
He grinned. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She kissed him very quickly, just to get the taste again. “I’m just glad. More people will eat the apples, if they’re sweet. So it’ll get out faster.”
Javier’s progress downward paused. He lifted his face up from her stomach. “Excuse me?”
“The apples. The food. If it tastes good, more vN will eat it. It’s no use if it’s too disgusting to eat, right?”
“What apples? What food?”
She pushed herself up on her elbows. She gestured around the room. “All the apples. All the food. All the vN food, anyway.”
Javier’s eyes narrowed. “You changed the FEMA rollout. It’s not poison, anymore.”
“Well, yes. Obviously. But, I mean, why stop there? All the printed food, all over the world, uses basically the same machinery to prepare each mix. Some of the recipes are proprietary, you know, eleven secret metals and minerals, but corporate security is really lax, and–”
“And you changed all the food. To the formula you just gave me.”
Amy nodded. “Pretty much.”
“So… you’re wiping out the failsafe? For everyone?”
“Everyone who eats.” She fell back to the bed. “You didn’t think I was just letting Portia run rampant because I felt like it, did you? I needed the distraction.”
Javier hove into her vision. He braced his hands on either side of her head. “You’ve started something huge, here. You realize that, right? I mean, war could break out. Real war. On our species.”
Amy looked outside. “I was under the impression that particular war had already started,” she said. “I just wanted all of us to be able to fight back.”
Javier covered his eyes. He flopped back on the bed. He stayed that way for a long time. Eventually, she rolled over and cuddled him. “If it makes you feel any better, I have a plan.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
“It is good. I think so, anyway. I think you’ll like it. It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“Well…” Amy sat up. “How would you feel about the biggest forestry project… ever?”
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of several people. Among them: my very patient editors Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris; the stellar publicity staff at Angry Robot Books and the Robot Army; my agent Monica Pacheco of Anne McDermid & Associates; Brian David Johnson at Intel Labs and Joe Zawadsky of The Tomorrow Project; the best former roommate ever, Theresa Taing; Sandra Kasturi and Brett Alexander Savory and everyone who makes the ChiSeries what it is; my parents; the Cecil Street Irregulars; my teachers Marc Gabel and Kaya McGregor, and Jessica Langer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Madeline grew up in a household populated by science fiction fans. She graduated from a Jesuit university in 2005, after having written a departmental thesis on science fiction.
After meeting Ursula K. LeGuin in the basement of the Elliott Bay Book Company that year, she decided to start writing science fiction stories. While immigrating to Canada from the United States in 2006, she could not work or study and joined the Cecil Street Irregulars – a genre writers’ workshop founded by Judith Merril – instead.
Since then she has been published in Tesseracts, Flurb, Nature, Escape Pod and elsewhere. She has two masters degrees: one in anime, cyborg theory, and fan culture, and the other in strategic foresight and innovation. She has written on such matters for io9, Tor.com, BoingBoing, The Creators Project, SF Signal, and others. Currently she works as a consultant in Toronto.
madelineashby.com