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 Wendy, I d love a ginger ale.
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And sniff-sniff-sniff, pad-pad-pad, in under a minute the glass appeared on a
tray in Wendy s jaw.
The crowd cheered; Abel gleefully snatched the ginger ale and poured it over
my head. But I didn t notice or care. I was on the floor with Wendy-girl,
weeping.
And Wendy s contentment was unsurpassed. She seemed to remember none of
the agony she d endured only hours before, nor to notice that she was
younger, sprier, healthier. All she knew was that she d been a good, good dog,
with whom I was well-pleased.
January 15, 2066
 Major League Baseball Commissioner Aki Fujiama decrees that all
outfield fences be moved to a minimum distance of 485 feet from
home plate, citing eugenics as the primary cause.  Over the past
six years, Fujiama explains,  the in-crease in home runs has created scores
best described as laughable. The commissioner made his final deci-sion
shortly after the San Antonio Silver Spurs defeated the Beijing Dragons
44 to 26 in the opening game of their all-night double header. A
recent ground-breaking announcement by Einstein Laboratories is eclipsed
by revelations from competing organizations. Yesterday the Bakersfield,
California, firm demon-strated a nuclear fusion process that safely and
effi-ciently converts ordinary water into energy, allowing a single gallon to
supply the annual power needs of a city the size of Denver. But teams in
Bombay and Caracas now claim to have developed similar tech-niques which do
not overlap the Einstein patents. Einstein s stock, after rising 317%
on yesterday s trading, loses most of its gain by midnight s close
as a result of the previously unanticipated competition. Teamsters Union
President James Hoffa IV threatens to call a general strike of human VR
imagineers unless their work week is reduced to 21 hours by the end of
February.  We ve endured brutal 23-hour schedules for almost two years, while
other vocations have con-sistently afforded their workers increased
leisure time. A
strike would have far-reaching repercussions across every industry and
government branch, but could also backfire against the union by
accelerating the cyber-ization of those jobs.
I glanced at the terrain screen and caught the Dallas skyline whizzing by. It
would be another twenty minutes before I d reach Los Angeles. Time to burn.
Might as well be polite.
Besides, she was very attractive. I wondered how old she was. Virtually
every adult I saw now appeared to be in their early twenties. But common
perspectives and levels of maturity continued to serve compatibility, and
there was still no way to arrest the cell-death clock. Therefore true age
remained an im-portant factor in the mating ritual.
 You and I are second cousins actually, the woman on the 3-D screen told me,
dashing all fantasies.
 Which means we share a set of great-grandparents. Not that either of us knew
them, of course, but I
think I met your grandmother once. Re-becca Crane, right?
Cousins? Oh well.  Yes.
 She was uh,  my grandma Jan s sister. The slip was quite understandable;
both matriarchs is were now in biostasis, in-habiting that fuzzy tract
between  are,  were, and  would be.
 Sorry, what did you say your name was again?
 Alica Banks.
 Well, it s nice to meet you, Cousin Alica Banks. And to what do I owe the
pleasure of this call?
 Desperation, actually. You re the only one who can help me. At least I hope
you can.
 I hope so, too. But how?
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 My daughter s about to earn her diploma. Harvard Graduate School of Design
...
 Congratulations!
 Thanks. Sorry to brag; just can t help it! Lysa graduates in June. She s
already been commissioned to design the lobby mural for BioTime s new
headquarters in Calcutta.
 Impressive. Must be those Gary Franklin Smith genes. So what s the problem?
 Her other mother, Virginia. Virginia Gonzalez ...
 The neuroscientist? A brilliant woman, I thought if it was the same Virginia
Gonzalez. What an honor it would be to help revive her
.
 Why, yes! We were married. That is, until her skiing acci-dent nine years
ago. But I was wondering if maybe, well, I ve seen all the news reports about
nanorepair ...
 Yes?
 Can you fix her injuries, bring her out of biostasis in time for our
daughter s graduation?
I closed my eyes. I already had over a dozen revivifications scheduled for
April, and thirty-eight more in May. I guessed I could squeeze in another
routine reviv, but ...  As I recall, she suffered a brain hemorrhage ...
 Yes, but it was in cold weather, and she was vitrified within six minutes of
the accident.
 Intriguing. My mind began to race. Why the hell not?  They begin issuing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]