Read Asimov's Science Fiction: July 2013 for Free Online Page B

perfect.
The dude puts the I in triangle, to lift a phrase." "I and I," said Cammy gaily. "Leave me to my faux fugu, oh dog-tagged sage." Olala Ogallala lived in a conceptual art project. He and some of his layabout computer hacker buddies had, by studying snitched blueprints, discovered a sealed-off, oddly non-Euclidean, empty windowless space in the upper reaches of a local mall. They'd covertly broken through into the concrete chamber, then furnished it by stealthily trucking in cast-off furniture via the attached parking garage. Tapping into the mall's electricity and water completed their homesteading. And waste management consisted of a reeking chemical toilet. But Olala's pals had soon tired of the inconveniently situated playroom, leaving the industrial-strength burrow to its lone eccentric tenant.
    Having conf irmed via jah-coded message that Olala was accepting callers, Bengt essayed the twisted path to the man's living quarters. Up oil-strewn ramps, dodging departing and arriving carloads of consumers, through toxic exhaust fumes, past the deliberately misangled video cameras, around an insulation-foam-slathered pillar. Lift aside a draped piece of tarp camouf laged to look just like the wall, and bingobango, home sweet home!
    A man of indeterminate ethnicity and race, Olala sported a massive crop of dreads. He'd twined bits of wire into the locks, giving him the look of a dark dandelion. Olala claimed some Native American and Romany blood, among numerous other strains. Today, as he often did, he wore filched coveralls bearing the logo of the mall's maintenance squad: useful camouf lage.
    Olala waved hello to Bengt without taking his eyes off his funky old laptop's screen. "Make yourself at home, ligand. Catalytic helper molecule that you are. Bind onto my magnif icence. I got sorghum beer in the fridge."
    Olala had picked up a learned style of discourse during his senior year at Brown with Bengt. He'd shown up, seemingly out of nowhere, and had somehow conned the university into letting him earn a BS degree in computer science during a single year, during which he'd redesigned the school's entire network for them. Olala's year of wonder had overlapped with Bengt's senior year, and the two of them had some wild times together. Bengt had always seemed to amuse his freewheeling friend.
    Bengt popped the cap off an unlabeled bottle of homebrew and chugged. Tasty, but lacking some of its usual kick and savor. A patina of ghost f lavors from Lifter remained on his tongue, rendering common foodstuffs bland. "So Cammy and I went to Lifter last night," said Bengt. "I'm still a little twisted." "Good," said Olala. "That's what we like to see. Let me push you a little further. Look at this documentary about chix and shedders." He f lashed Bengt a sly smile. "Chicks and shredders? Like the skateboard scene?" "Way wrong, Dong Dong. The lobster industry. Chix are the youngsters, illegal to trap 'em. Shedders are the somewhat f lexible soft-shelled lobsters. They're a good catch at certain times. But how do you think the fishermen filter out the chix, huh?"
    Knowing Olala's penchant for high-tech gadgets, Bengt ventured, "Underwater laser interferometry tape measures?"
    "Ha! They use a simple slit! All size lobsters enter the alluring trap. But only bitty ones can squeeze out the slit. Self-selecting! An elegant hack!
Feast
your eyes on these images, you tasty dude. Let your mind roam."
    Olala slider-slid the video backward and Bengt looked over his shoulder while it ran again. Why exactly was Olala showing him this?
    Just to be saying something, Bengt asked, "So what happens if a lobster enters the trap at chix size, but then stays and eats so much bait it gets too fat to escape?"
    "Tough titty, bro," said Olala. "It gets all
Hotel California
weepy. The consumer is trapped by greed." "If lobsters were smarter, it wouldn't work," said Bengt. Olala stared pityingly at his friend. "God, you're slow, Bengt. Free food? Big box? Hard