Distress

“When people like you give it to them.”

“You know it’s not that simple. And… imagine what would have happened with feminism—or the civil rights movements, for that matter—if no one could ever be permitted to speak ‘on behalf of any group, without their certified, unanimous consent? Just because some of the current lunatics are like parodies of the old leaders, it doesn’t mean we’d be better off now if TV producers had said: ‘Sorry Dr. King, sorry Ms. Greer, sorry Mr. Perkins, but if you can’t avoid these sweeping generalizations and confine your statements to your own personal circumstances, we’ll have to take you off the air.'”

Gina eyed me skeptically. “That’s ancient history. And you’re only arguing that position to try to squirm out of your own responsibilities.”

“Of course. But the point is… gender migration is ninety percent politics. Some coverage still treats it as a kind of decadent, gratuitous, fashionable mimicry of gender reassignment for transsexuals—but most gender migrants go no further than superficial asex. They don’t cross right over; they have no reason to. It’s a protest action, like resigning from a political party, or renouncing your citizenship… or deserting a battlefield… but whether it will stabilize at some low level, and shake up attitudes enough to remove the whole reason for migration, or whether the population will end up evenly divided between all seven genders in a couple of generations, I have no idea.”

Gina grimaced. “Seven genders—and all of them perceived as monolithic. Everyone stereotyped at a glance. Seven pigeon-holes instead of two isn’t progress.”

“No. But maybe in the long run there’ll only be asex, umale and ufem. Those who want to be pigeon-holed will be—and those who don’t will remain mysterious.”

“No, no—in the long run we’ll have nothing but VR bodies, and we’ll all be mysterious or revelatory in turns, as the mood takes us.”

“I can’t wait.”

We went inside. Unnatural Tastes was a converted department store, cavernous but brightly lit, opened up by the simple expedient of cutting a large elliptical hole in the middle of every floor. I waved my notepad at the entry turnstyle; a voice confirmed our reservation, adding, “Table 519. Fifth floor.”

Gina smiled wickedly. “Fifth floor: stuffed toys and lingerie.”

I glanced up at our fellow diners—mostly umale and ufem couples. I said, “You behave yourself, redneck, or next time we’re eating in Epping.”

The place was three-quarters full, at least, but the seating capacity was less than it seemed; most of the volume of the building was taken up by the central well. In what was left of each floor, human waiters in tuxedos weaved their way between the chromed tables; it all looked archaic and stylized, almost Marx Brothers, to me. I wasn’t a big fan of Experimental Cuisine; essentially, we’d be guinea pigs, trying out medically safe but otherwise untested bioengineered produce. Gina had pointed out that at least the meal would be subsidized by the manufacturers. I wasn’t so sure; Experimental Cuisine had become so fashionable lately that it could probably attract a statistically significant sample of diners for each novelty, even at full price.

The tabletop flashed up menus as we took our seats—and the figures seemed to confirm my doubts about a subsidy. I groaned. ‘'Crimson bean salad'? I don’t care what color they are, I want to know what they taste like. The last thing I ate here that looked like a kidney bean tasted exactly like boiled cabbage.”

Gina took her time, prodding the names of half a dozen dishes to view the finished products, and screens of data on the design of the ingredients. She said, “You can work it all out, if you pay attention. If you know what genes they moved from where, and why, you can make a fair stab at predicting the taste and texture.”

“Go ahead, dazzle me with science.”

She hit the CONFIRM ORDER button. “The green leafy stuff will taste like spinach-flavored pasta—but the iron in it will be absorbed by your body as easily as the haem iron in animal flesh, leaving spinach for dead. The yellow things which look like corn will taste like a cross between tomato and green capsicum spiced with oregano —but nutrients and flavor will be less sensitive to poor storage conditions and overcooking. And the blue puree will taste almost like parmesan cheese.”

“Why blue?”

“There’s a blue pigment, a photoactivated enzyme, in the new self-fermenting lactoberries. They could remove it during processing, but it turns out we metabolize it directly into vitamin D—which is safer than making it the usual way, with UV on the skin.”

“Food for people who never see the sun. How can I resist?” I ordered the same.

The service was swift—and Gina’s predictions were more or less correct. The whole combination was actually quite pleasant.

I said, “You’re wasted on wind turbines. You could be designing the spring collection for United Agronomics.”

“Gee, thanks. But I already get all the intellectual stimulation I can handle.”

“How is Big Harold coming along, anyway?”

“Still very much Little Harold, and likely to stay that way for a while.” Little Harold was the one-thousandth- scale prototype of a projected two-hundred-megawatt turbine. “There are chaotic resonance modes turning up which we missed in the simulations. It’s starting to look like we’re going to have to re-evaluate half the assumptions of the software model.”

“I can never quite understand that. You know all the basic physics, the basic equations of air-flow dynamics, you have access to endless supercomputer time…”

“So how can we possibly screw up? Because we can’t compute the behavior of thousands of tons of air moving through a complex structure on a molecule-by-molecule basis. All the bulk flow equations are approximations, and we’re deliberately operating in a region where the best-understood approximations break down. There’s no magical new physics coming into play—but we’re in a gray zone between one set of convenient simplifying assumptions and another. And so far, the best new set of compromise assumptions are neither convenient nor simple. And they’re not even correct, as it turns out.”

“I'm sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s frustrating—but enough of it’s frustrating in an interesting way to keep me from going insane.”

I felt a stab of longing; I understood so little about this part of her life. She’d explained as much as I could follow, but I still had no real idea of what spun through her head when she was sitting at her work station juggling airflow simulations, or clambering around the wind tunnel making adjustments to Little Harold.

I said, “I wish you’d let me film some of this.”

Gina regarded me balefully. “Not a chance, Mister Frankenscience. Not until you can tell me categorically whether wind turbines are Good or Evil.”

I cringed. “You know that’s not up to me. And it changes every year. New studies are published, the alternatives come in and out of favor—”

She cut me off bitterly. “Alternatives? Planting photovoltaic engineered forests on ten thousand times as much land per megawatt sounds like environmental vandalism to me.”

“I'm not arguing. I could always make a Good Turbine documentary… and if I can’t sell it straight away, just wait for the tide to turn again.”

“You can’t afford to make anything on spec.”

“True. I’d have to fit it in between other shooting.”

Gina laughed. “I wouldn’t try it. You can’t even manage—”

“What?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” She waved a hand, retracting the comment. I could have pressed her, but I would have been wasting my time.

I said, “Speaking of filming…” I described the two projects Lydia had offered me. Gina listened patiently, but when I asked for her opinion, she seemed baffled.

“If you don’t want to make Distress… then don’t. It’s really none of my business.”

That stung. I said, “It affects you, too. It would be a lot more money.” Gina was affronted. “All I mean is, we could afford to take a holiday, or something. We could go overseas next time you have leave. If that’s what you