At a booth in Milliways sits a woman in her thirties, stirring a cup of tea, watching the stars explode. There is a fat boring-looking lawbook under her elbow, and a barcode across the back of her right hand.
Mark (with kappa)
Ruth (with Maggie)
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give it all you got, go
A brunette in an oddly-styled yellow-and-green blouse and skirt comes in.
She notices the woman and decides to approach obviously enough that if she has any interest in being bothered she can initiate conversation; if she doesn't she won't have to choose between being interrupted and being rude.
She notices the woman and decides to approach obviously enough that if she has any interest in being bothered she can initiate conversation; if she doesn't she won't have to choose between being interrupted and being rude.
Barcode lady glances up. Blinks at her.
"Hello," she says. "What are you reading?"
"Case studies."
"On what?"
"Cloning." She holds up the book so its spine is visible: Reproductive Cloning Law and Opinion: Six Case Studies.
"Oh, is cloning very common in your world? Most people prefer to have kids the old-fashioned way where I'm from."
Lawbook lady looks at the barcode on her hand. "No, people who want kids do that the old fashioned way in my world too, almost all of the time."
"Um. Would it be rude to ask why you have a barcode tattooed on your hand?"
"Because somebody wanted a source of compatible organ transplants, not a kid." Her voice is distant, level. She has explained this so many times that it's only hurting scar tissue.
"...Oh. Fuck, I'm sorry. Do you--you probably don't want a hug from a stranger."
"No thanks."
"I, um. I should have known better. My parents and brother...having a tattoo with a number like that is, um, not a good sign."
"No? Not a fashion statement in your world?"
"Definitely not."
"I get people asking if they should go into tattoo parlors," she says, stretching out her hand, looking at the ink. "And get their own."
"...Is this a common thing? Are there not, like, laws against cloning yourself just for organ transplants."
"No. Quite legal."
The book briefly becomes heavier, before returning to its normal weight. Green-and-yellow girl's hand is forming a white-knuckled fist, and her jaw is clenched.
Lawbook lady drops her lawbook, startling enough to jostle her tea with her other hand. Splish. She saves the book but has to dab some tea off her hand.
"Sorry, sorry, fuck, I haven't lost control like that in years."
"What did you do?"
"Gravity. I do gravity. It's a thing in my world, people having powers, my brother and one of his daughters do magnetism."
"You do gravity?"
"I...alter the universal gravitational constant of two objects with respect to one another."
Lawbook lady shakes her head. "The people who show up here," she mutters. "Is that all you do?"
"...Do you mean is that the extent of my powers or do I do anything with my life besides powers, because the answer to both of those questions as I have phrased them is yes. As far as I know, anyway."
Snort. "I meant the first."
"Yeah. It amounts to something that looks a lot like a very idiosyncratic telekinesis. Or so I've been told, anyway."
"Wasn't aware that was a thing with idiosyncrasy to it. My world doesn't have any magic."
"It is...technically not magic, actually."
"Well, my world doesn't have science fiction in real life, either."
"Fair enough. Although what counts as science fiction depends heavily on things like when you are and where you stand relative to baseline early-twenty-first-century Earth, but since the X-Gene showed up while it was still the twentieth century it qualifies more comprehensively than many things."
"I'm in 2015."
"I'm pretty sure that's earlier than normal for cloning technology to be developed, so kudos, you do have science fiction in real life. I'm from 2123."
"Cloning's been around for longer than that. I'm thirty-two."
"Congratulations! You are from a sci-fi world. Probably not as sci-fi as mine, though, it's true, my older brother's a hundred and ninety-seven."
"How is it decided whose worlds are sci-fi? Who gets to be normal?"
"I'm mostly joking. Milliways tends to attract Earths more often than anything else, and twenty-first century Earths more than most, and there's a sort of cultural and technological standard that you'll probably come to understand if you come in to Milliways often enough. I'm characterizing sci-fi as anything significantly more advanced than standard."
"Ah."
"But we're pretty exceptional even by that standard. Genetic super powers and rejuvenation tech and time travel oh my."
"Sounds nice for you."
"Yeah, I got decanted well after the nasty shit went down."
"Nice friendly wanted-a-kid cloning?"
"...Bad guys wanted a kid they could brainwash who would hopefully have powers as strong as my brother's and fiddled with my DNA a bit to get it, so I'm arguably not a straight-up clone of my mom but whatever, but got caught before it was time to pop the lid."
"Ah."
"I mean, Mom and Dad were awesome about it, no harm done, they didn't have the opportunity to psychologically scar me even a little bit."
"That's good then."
"The actual nasty stuff I was referring to was...remember how I said my brother was a hundred and ninety seven? And it was 2123?"
"Yes?"
"My family's Jewish. And originally from Germany."
"Ah."
"That would be what I meant about number tattoos."
"There weren't all that many possibilities unless it was a future event."
"Nope. You don't get many people appropriating those."
"I told someone asking about the tattoo to go ahead and get one," snorts lawbook lady. "Get one, go gloveless, loiter in public places, and get arrested without telling the cops they were an original. Make trouble on clones' behalf."
"Sounds productive. They take you up on it?"
"No idea. It was on the internet, not someone I know."
"Ah."
"Um, hang on, my grand-niece wrote a book I think you might be interested in."
She goes over to the bar, and comes back with a book entitled Medical Technology For The Outworlder: How To Increase Your Lifespan And Wealth by Moira Xavier. "Most people back home think she wrote it as a gag but actually it was so Milliways can sell copies to people in worlds with lower tech levels than ours. I think rejuv beds can repair damaged organs, so if people having theirs nonconsensually harvested is a serious problem in yours this might be useful." It's a thick volume.
"Um, hang on, my grand-niece wrote a book I think you might be interested in."
She goes over to the bar, and comes back with a book entitled Medical Technology For The Outworlder: How To Increase Your Lifespan And Wealth by Moira Xavier. "Most people back home think she wrote it as a gag but actually it was so Milliways can sell copies to people in worlds with lower tech levels than ours. I think rejuv beds can repair damaged organs, so if people having theirs nonconsensually harvested is a serious problem in yours this might be useful." It's a thick volume.
Lawbook lady takes the book. "And this is in English, and everything?"
"Yeah. Our family was from Germany originally but my older brother moved to the States after everything while he thought Mom and Dad were dead and they decided to stay near him after my niece managed to retrieve them via time travel."
"...You could have just said yes."
"Yes. Yes, it is in English. Technical English, even, so you don't have to deal with futuristic slang terms."
"I can't pers- I know some people who should be able to use this."
She waves a hand. "You generally. One does not have to deal with futuristic slang terms. I wouldn't expect you personally to be a medtech."
"I mean, I know who to give this to, approximately."
"Awesomesauce."
Eyebrow raise. "As you say."
She shrugs. "Future. Language's shifted a little."
"I've heard the word, actually, it just seems - of insufficient gravity."
"I suppose. I can't really think of a better way of saying it off the top of my head without descending into purple prose, though."
Lawbook lady flips to see if there is a table of contents.
There is indeed a table of contents. The foreword describes what kinds of marvels can be developed using the plans in the book. The first chapter is about calculating your respective technology level and figuring out how much of an infrastructure upshift you need in order to get to the level the book was written at. Further chapters detail individual machines and their functions and how to construct them, mostly.
That's all very nice, then.
Indeed it is. If she cares to read the foreward, there are other things available besides just repairing damaged organs.
She is mostly interested in the damaged organs part. And is a little distracted to read.
"Thank you so much."
"Thank you so much."
"You're welcome. That's what the book's for, after all."
"It's a good thing to have a book for."
"No kidding."
"I - think I've got better things to do than drink tea, now - thank you very much." She gets up.
"You're welcome."
Out goes lawbook lady with her old and new books.