Nature Futures 2

by Colin Sullivan

  “I know! What do I do?”

  “That’s a tough one! Give me a minute to think…”

  “What? No! Don’t hang…”

  Too late. Clark checked the volume of space around Bob on his computer and switched to the next call in the queue.

  “Hi, this is Clark Maxwell, the cleverest man in the world. Ten seconds, €10,000. Hit me!”

  “This is James Sunderland, chief executive of eToys. Clark, we’ve got a spy in the company. Every new product we develop, our competitors get to market weeks before we do.”

  “Spies aren’t your only problem then, you must be very inefficient in terms of product manufacture.”

  “Oh. What should we do?”

  “That’s two questions, James. Just give me a second…”

  Clark called up eToys on a second monitor. Keeping one eye on Bob’s rapid descent, he ran a number of searches in quick succession.

  “James! You’d have had the answer yourself if you’d taken the trouble to check your network audit trails. The plans are being deliberately downloaded onto games cartridges as part of the background scenery. Your competitors are buying your secrets wholesale. Now for your second question, may I suggest that you make an appointment with my PA to discuss looking at your company from top to bottom.”

  “Uh, sure. Thanks, Clark.”

  “Don’t mention it. Bob! How’s it going?”

  “Still falling, Clark.”

  “I see that. Bob, I want you to look down. Do you see the big lake?”

  “Yes. Should I aim for it?”

  “No! But don’t you find it beautiful? Calming even?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Back soon, Bob … Hi, this is Clark Maxwell, the cleverest man in the world. Ten seconds, €10,000. What’s the problem?”

  “This is Lewis. Can’t seem to get a girlfriend, Clark.”

  “Hmm. That’s because you’re so self-obsessed. Get a hair cut and start paying attention to someone beside yourself.”

  “Hey, can you see me?”

  “No. Never seen you in my life, Lewis.”

  “Then how do you know that’s true? About the haircut and everything?”

  “You’ve got €10,000 to spare and you’re using it to ask a stranger how to get a girl. Anyone who thinks that money solves all their problems is probably pretty self-obsessed. Time’s up!”

  “But…”

  Clark tapped at his keyboard.

  “Hi Bob! I can see you now.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve taken control of the plane you jumped from.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Did I mention I was the cleverest man in the world? Hold it, Bob, I’ll be back in a minute!”

  “I don’t have a minute!”

  “Hi, this is Clark Maxwell, the cleverest man in the world. Ten seconds, €10,000. How can I be of service?”

  “Clark, this is your wife, the smartest woman in the world. Have you walked off with my car keys again?”

  “Sorry, Lois. Will you be home tonight?”

  “Assuming I get the supercollider fixed. I think I know what’s causing the problem. It’s not its future self it’s interfering with, it’s its past self.”

  “Sounds cool, dear. Got to go! Hi, this is Clark Maxwell, the cleverest man in the world. Ten seconds, €10,000. Hit it!”

  “Clark, this is Tessa Walkiewicz, Acronym News. We’re doing a report on the acceleration of change and we’d like a few words…”

  “Certainly, Tessa. Just a moment … Bob, you’re falling too fast. Hold your arms and legs wide. I’m sure you’ve seen people do it in films!”

  “It looks easier in films, Clark.”

  “I know! Just do your best! Marianne is jumping out of the plane, right now. She’s got a spare chute for you.”

  “What plane?”

  “Your plane, Bob. The one you jumped out of. It’s right behind you!”

  “Oh! That’s clever!”

  “That’s my job … back in a moment, Bob. Tessa! What’s the question?”

  “Well, Clark. Given the growth of the Internet and the new paradigms of inter-connectivity, people such as yourself are emerging as a powerful force for social change. Plugged into the world’s data streams, you have a view of everything changing from minute to minute.”

  “That’s not a question, Tessa.”

  “No, that’s an intro, Clark. The question is this: given that people are using services such as yours more and more, does that mean they are getting less intelligent?”

  “I hardly think that many people are using my service, Tessa. Not at the prices I charge!”

  “Maybe not yours, Clark, but given that the answer to any problem you have is only a phone call away, why should people think for themselves anymore?”

  “Let me turn that around, Tessa. When they stop thinking, they stop being people. Got to go!”

  “But…”

  “Hi, this is Clark Maxwell, the cleverest man in the world. Ten seconds, €10,000. I’m listening!”

  “Uh, Clark, this is Marianne. I jumped out of the plane, I’ve attached myself to Bob.”

  “Well done Marianne! What’s the problem?”

  “It’s my ’chute. It’s failed to open, too. The ground’s looking awfully close.”

  “Marianne, thank you! I do like a challenge! Now, listen to me carefully…”

  Tony Ballantyne is the author of the Penrose and Recursion series of novels as well as many acclaimed short stories that have appeared in magazines and anthologies around the world. His latest novel, Dream London, was published in October 2013. He is currently working on the follow up, Dream Paris, due to be published in September 2015.

  Formic Gender Disorder

  Barrington J. Bayley

  The waywardly named formic gender disorder (FGD) is the foremost of a growing number of ailments some physicians still refuse to recognize. The Encyclopaedia of Psychocentric Dysfunctions, compiled by Hortense Constantia, MD, in 2025, lists it alongside other disorders dismissed as imaginary. The first case to come to attention was that of Hattie Jacquefils, a 45-year-old housewife of Rootesville, Louisiana, who in 2022 ran screaming from her house in terror of her husband, a man of known placid and loving disposition. Mrs Jacquefils was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Rootesville General Hospital where she cowered and tried to hide from certain members of staff. In the following months a cluster of similar cases occurred in a swathe of countryside to the east of the town.

  Determination of the aetiology has been slow. Initially investigation was psychiatric and the condition classified alongside other phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Moves to carry out physical examinations were delayed by political objections, particularly on the part of a feminist faction in the Association of American Psychiatrists. Even now sufferers universally withhold consent to microbial studies. Only after some years was the disorder dignified with a diagnosis of somatic pathology as the view gradually began to prevail that it is a fungal infection of the nervous system. Relevant references are appended.

  Federal authorities have now been forced to admit that an eastern suburb of Rootesville is home to the Canine and Feline Accidental Injuries Statistical Institute (CFAISI), a clandestine micropathology research laboratory funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. The laboratory had for 20 years been studying a nervous disease affecting the solitary stink ant, a denizen of the Western Cameroons. Occasionally the stink ant breathes in the spores of a fungus, which then grows inside its body, attacks its brain and controls its behaviour. Under the influence of the fungus the stink ant, for the first time in its life, climbs the stem of a plant, sinks its mandibles into it and clings there until it is consumed by the fungus, having gained sufficient height from which to spread fresh spores.

  A behaviour-controlling infectious disease has obvious political value. Formic gender disorder was named in honour of the African solitary stink ant by Doctors Humbold Gresgud and Ebenezer Sc
hwartz, both workers at the CFAISI. The initial swathe of infection did, it is true, radiate from a point coinciding with the location of the institute, and the laboratory where Doctors Gresgud and Schwartz pursued their research is situated on the tenth floor of the building, an ideal height from which to spread a plume of windblown spores over the cotton plantations east of Rootesville.

  A comprehensive history of the disease should mention that Doctors Gresgud and Schwartz were allegedly infamous for their unbending misogyny. It should also be stated that they both vehemently denied being responsible for the epidemic, claiming that they merely identified the cause of the disease where other medical laboratories had failed. Both refused to voice any sympathy for the epidemic’s victims.

  Symptoms are insidious at onset, but progressive. The early phase resembles Tourette’s syndrome, the patient being unable to refrain from outbursts of extravagant language. Male sufferers first mutter then shout with increasing frequency: “Fie, fie, fickle female!” Female victims in similar manner splutter: “Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!” The preliminary phase typically lasts three days. A vehement revulsion for the opposite sex then sets in, both psychologically and physically, developing in not less than 48 hours into a dread which equals the intensity of rabid hydrophobia.

  Once the early phases are gone through sufferers are able to function normally provided they meet with no visual, auditory, olfactory or verbal stimuli reminding them of the opposite sex.

  The disorder has defied attempts at treatment. Segregation of sufferers is the only recourse. The rapid spread of the disease is surprising. It can be transmitted by skin contact, sneezing or even by breathing heavily in the same room. It also comes as a surprise that the sexual link binding the male and female sides of the human race can be so drastically severed. New forms of social organization have perforce arisen in those districts where the epidemic has taken hold, leading to the emergence of a new study in the field of sociology.

  For all that, it is necessary to interject a professional note. Criticism must be levelled at those who step outside medical bounds and spread alarmist prognoses, stating that should it come about that males and females no longer reproduce in partnership they are henceforth, by definition, separate species; predicting the division of the planet into male and female hemispheres, and so forth. It is admittedly fortuitous that nonsexual methods of reproduction are now available. But it should be stressed that medical science has faced greater challenges than simple gender phobia before now. If formic gender disorder introduces any novelty into the medical record it is that this is the first contagious disease in history whose sufferers unanimously proclaim it an inestimable boon to humankind.

  References

  Baker, C. N. M. Bacteria and fungal spores in neural tissues of east-of-Rootesville field rodents. Quarterly Journal of Immunology (spring 2030).

  Department of Neuropathology, Fremen Hospital, San Francisco. Cellular examination of formic gender disorder cadaver. Quarterly Journal of Immunology (fall 2030).

  Department of Neuropathology, Fremen Hospital, San Francisco. Aberrant dendritic growth and its agents. Neurological Science Review (spring 2031).

  Submitted by: John Barrington, MD.

  Barrington J. Bayley’s science-fiction production spanned half a century until his death in 2008. The novels The Soul of the Robot, The Fall of Chronopolis and The Zen Gun are typical of his work.

  Annie Webber

  Elizabeth Bear

  Because I’m an idiot — and because my friend Allan is the coffee-shop owner and my girlfriend Reesa works there — the Monday after Thanksgiving was my first day at a new job.

  Total madhouse. Me and Pat foamed milk and drew shots like a flight-line team while Reesa ran the register. It only worked because I’d barista’d at Starbucks and most of the customers were regulars, so they either had their order ready or Reesa already knew it and called it out before they paid. Never underestimate a good cashier.

  Allan’s has a thing, a frequent customer plan. So Reesa knows the regulars by name.

  “Hey, Annie,” Reesa said. “Medium cappuccino?”

  Annie was petite, ash-blonde hair escaping a seriously awful baby-blue knit cap. She handed Reesa four dollars, then dropped the change into the tip jar.

  Cappuccino is nice to make, but it’s amazing how badly some people butcher it. I ground beans and drew the espresso. Then I foamed cold milk, feeling the pitcher for heat. When the volume tripled, the temperature was right. The sound of the steam changed pitch. I poured milk over the shot, ladled on foam, and sleeved the cup. “Cinnamon?”

  “I’ll get my own.” She held out her hand. I put the cappuccino in it and set the shaker on the counter.

  “You’re new here?”

  “First day.”

  “You’re good.” She sipped the drink. “Annie Webber.”

  “Zach Jones.”

  I’d have shaken her hand but there was a coffee in it, and another customer was coming.

  * * *

  That night, Reesa’s cat Maggie tried to dig me out of bed by pulling at the comforter. I pushed her off, which woke Reesa. “Wha’?”

  Which is all the erudition you can expect at two in the morning.

  “Damn cat,” I explained.

  Reesa pushed her face against my neck. “I only keep her because of the toxoplasmosis.”

  Running joke. Toxoplasma is a parasite that makes rats love cat urine. The parasite continues its life cycle in the cat after the cat eats the rat. According to some show we saw, it affects people too. And the same show had this amazing stop-motion photography of dying bugs, moist fungus fingers uncurling from their bodies. The fungus makes the infected ants do things so it can infect more ants.

  The fungus was awful, and gorgeous. One shot showed a moth, dead — I hope dead — on a leaf, netted with silver lace like a bridal veil.

  * * *

  The next morning Reesa said: “Hi, Annie,” but a different voice answered: “Hi, Reesa.”

  I looked up from the steamer nozzle. A big guy, wearing a padded down coat. “Free coffee today?”

  Reesa checked the system. “You guys have ten.”

  He dropped coins in the tip jar. “Medium cappuccino?”

  Pat moved to draw it. I gave her a look. “They’re all Annie Webber,” she said. “By courtesy. Sharing the account.”

  “Oh.”

  By the sound, I was scalding the milk. By the time I’d salvaged it, Annie Webber was gone. Reesa waved a pinkish hexagon like a foreign coin. “Zach, what’s this?”

  I didn’t even recognize the metal, let alone the writing.

  * * *

  On day three, the original Annie Webber returned. Day four was number two. On Friday both came, not together. Then half an hour after the second, I served a third. Cappuccino, let me put on my own cinnamon. “Do you guys all drink the same thing?” I asked.

  “You guys?” This Annie was a woman, with hazel eyes and crooked nose.

  “The Annie Webbers.”

  She licked foam off her lip. “Nature’s perfect food.”

  * * *

  I caught Pat’s elbow. “How many Annie Webbers are there? How long before I meet them all?”

  She counted in her head. “Five come in regular. The blonde and her partners.”

  “Partners? Like she’s poly?”

  She shrugged. “I never asked. Maybe they’re a cult.”

  I groped the pinkish coin out. I’d looked it up online, and couldn’t find it anywhere.

  * * *

  Saturday, Annie wandered in around ten. The original in the awful toque, scarf snugged under her chin.

  I handed her the cup and cinnamon. It takes just seconds to get a good foam with a commercial machine. “You left this Tuesday.” I laid the coin down.

  “That should have been a quarter. Sorry.” She traded for a dollar bill. “Put that in the jar?”

  “Annie. It wasn’t you here on Tuesday.”

  “Wasn�
�t it?”

  She winked and turned. I yelled “break!” and dove under the counter. Her heels clicked, but this was the smallest Annie. I caught up. Coat flaring, she turned.

  “Where do you go?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You. Annie. Where did the coin come from?”

  “It was a mistake. I should have looked at the change, but I was out of you … money.”

  “So you use the free coffees when you’ve just come back? When you don’t have any, what, local money?”

  She stared. “I’ve been coming to that shop since it opened. You’re the first to ask.”

  “You go other places.”

  “Other … places?”

  “Other dimensions.”

  “You read a lot of science fiction, Zach?”

  “You’re what, kind of multiple bodies, one mind?”

  “Star Trek,” she said.

  “Am I wrong? Why us?” I wondered if I sounded as jealous as I felt.

  “Best coffee in the Universe.” She kissed me on the mouth, with tongue.

  * * *

  I woke itching. My tongue, my hands. The soles of my feet. When I stumbled to the kitchen, Reesa gave me scrambled eggs, but all I wanted was coffee. Coffee and milk and cinnamon. “Zach?” she asked. I had to bite my lip not to correct her.

  That’s not my name.

  I have to go.

  I think I’ve met all of Annie Webber.

  Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. When coupled with a childhood tendency to read the dictionary for fun, this led her inevitably to penury, intransigence and the writing of speculative fiction. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus and Campbell Award winning author of 25 novels and more than 100 short stories. Her dog lives in Massachusetts; her partner, writer Scott Lynch, lives in Wisconsin. She spends a lot of time on planes.

  The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Panda

  Jacey Bedford

  There were no two ways about it: he clunked when he walked. It was the near hind that was causing the problem. He’d noticed it days ago, soon after crossing the Bering Strait, some 85 relentless kilometres of icy salt water. Pad, pad, pad, clunk. Pad, pad, pad, clunk. Yes, definitely the hip. Too much exercise and way too much salt water.