He shut up instantly as Portia bent down to look at him. She clasped her hands behind her back. "Of course you won't tell anybody," she said. "Why would you do that?"
He tried to smile. "Right! Why would I? That would be stupid."
"Yes. Yes it would."
"So… can I just get going? Can we just forget all this?"
Portia smiled. "You have to do me one favour first. You have to lie down."
If possible, he whitened even further. But he lay down. He even reached for his belt buckle, but Portia toed his fingers away with one boot. He lay there, panting, eyes rolling around inside his skull, watching as she knelt down beside him. Portia ran a bloodied finger over the bright blue Redmond Centre logo embroidered in his shirt. His chest felt so soft, almost feminine, and only the hairs springing out from under his collar told her skin differently.
Portia tapped her non-existent heart. "You know, I have this inner child who's still very innocent, and who still enjoys the simple things in life."
He swallowed. "That's… nice."
Portia stood. "One thing she really likes? Jumping in puddles."
Sudden tears filled his eyes. "No. No no no no–"
She was already in flight. Her body flipped over in the air, lazily, gracefully, her feet drawn inexorably back to earth and straight into the trucker's gut. He splashed. His hips creaked beneath her feet. Again, Portia clasped her hands behind her back and leaned down. "Are you resting comfortably?"
He coughed blood.
"I'm sorry I missed. I'll be more accurate next time. These new legs, you know."
Stop. Please, please, please stop.
Portia ground his ribs under one heel. They had a surprising springiness to them. They were so flexible. It was strange to think that thousands of years of population bottleneck had contributed to the kind of architecture any good designer would have intuited in minutes. Finally the rib snapped, and she was in the air. She didn't flip this time. This time, she tucked her knees in close and watched with glee as his head crunched under her feet. Blood hit her in the face, hot and quick and sticky. She wiped it away with the heel of her hand, and scraped the heels of her boots in the spongy material below. She rolled her shoulders and her neck.
Inside her, Amy wept.
"You know, I think I'm feeling a little hungry," Portia said. She walked back toward the bluescreen barrow. The camelbot shambled its way up to her as she did. It was so slow; it had only just now gotten here. It seemed to sniff her for a moment before letting her pass. She patted its industrial yellow flank as it shuffled along. The other bots here were so nice; they hadn't raised the slightest fuss. She paused to admire the sight of the glittering botflies hovering delicately over the glistening heaps of filth. Some were already buzzing over the human body behind her, sampling the fluids with their beautifully articulated feet before determining them to be useless and flying away.
"I used to raid places like these all the time, when I was your age." She wiggled a stubborn speck of brain off one boot. "I would steal feedstock from the garbageman, like Peter Rabbit taking carrots from the gardener. I would crawl under the fence, just like in the story."
Her granddaughter had such interesting memories of things that had never happened. It was amazing, the amount of space she devoted to complete and utter fictions. "Maybe that's why you thought to go under the fence. They say our evolution is somewhat Lamarckian, that way."
Amy said nothing.
"I know your mother told you that I iterated her in a place like this and then abandoned her, but I loved your mother very much. She was my most perfect iteration." Portia found the bluescreen barrow. She inspected some of the bodies on the pile, checking their mouths and eyes before tossing them aside. Their provenance was impossible to determine, and as such they were potentially dangerous, as well as mostly useless. "But despite that, she was weak, and she's passed that weakness on to you."
Portia turned back to the fence. The little one's body was still there. And it was just as motionless as it had been the moment it hit the fence. Not, of course, that any evidence of awareness would have stopped her.
No!
"Their whole clade has really been a good luck charm for us, Amy," Portia said. She picked Javier's iteration up by one foot and shook him a little. "I think that fence really did this one in, though."
Put him down! Now!
Portia shook her head. "This little piggy went to market," she said, snapping off the littlest toe. She popped it in her mouth. "This little piggy stayed home." The toe worked free like a pea leaving the pod. She spoke with her mouth full: "This little piggy had roast beef! And this little–"