give it all you got, go

[alicornucopia]

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)

Comments

[unmarred]

"The significance of that symbol is completely opaque to me," he mentions.

[alicornucopia]

Now she looks skeptical. "The barcode?"

[unmarred]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh." She smiles a little. "I might want to leave it that way, that's an unusual luxury."

[unmarred]

"I admit I'm beginning to develop a guess, but it's based substantially in personal history which may not apply."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh?"

[unmarred]

"Mm. What sort of a world are you from? One which contains both widely available print books and reproductive cloning, apparently, but besides that?"

[alicornucopia]

"Reproductive," she snorts. "Earth, currently 2015. No magic."

[unmarred]

"Mine has an Earth also, but I don't live there. 2998. No magic. A whole galaxy full of planets with humane and reasonable laws about the possible applications of cloning, and it was just my luck to be produced on the one planet with no humane and reasonable laws about that or anything else."

[alicornucopia]

Eyebrow raise.

"I'm luckier than the average clone back home," she volunteers.

[unmarred]

"I'm luckier than the average clone made in that lab, two times over - I was a substitution plot rather than a brain transplant target, and then I got away."

[alicornucopia]

"Brain transplant," she blinks.

[unmarred]

"Yeah. For the rich and decrepit. Old body starts to wear out, no problem; just have 'em grow you a new one. The clone's brain is of course mere waste material, when the time comes. Unethical practices like that are why the rest of the galaxy looks down on that planet."

[alicornucopia]

"Good for the rest of the galaxy, far as that goes. My world's not to that point. So far."

[unmarred]

"I was getting that impression, yeah. So what does yours do?"

[alicornucopia]

"Organ harvesting. My original died outright before she needed anything I couldn't live without."

[unmarred]

...He blinks.

"Cloning individual organs, without the rest of the human attached, has been a solved problem in my world for centuries. Want me to send you home with some books? See if you can get the technology started early?"

[alicornucopia]

She drops her tea. She saves her book but not her blouse. "Yes," she says, biting her lip and looking around in vain for napkins.

[unmarred]

"I'll ask Bar for a suitable collection," he says. "And perhaps a hand towel."

He goes. He comes back in short order with a stack of slightly odd-looking books - is that plastic? - and a small towel.

[alicornucopia]

"Thank you." Dab dab. Peeeeer at the books.

[unmarred]

From introductory biology and medicine down to much denser technical volumes on the exact mechanics of partial-body cloning. It's a pretty comprehensive set.

"You're welcome," he says. "Oh - I'm Mark, by the way."

[alicornucopia]

"Ashley."

[unmarred]

"Nice to meet you. Enjoy the books."

[alicornucopia]

"Nice to meet you too. I have no bio background, but I know some charity workers who might be able to think of something intelligent to do with them."

[unmarred]

He nods.

"Shouldn't be that hard. I'd think someone would have to fuck something up pretty royally before they'd utterly fail to help. Whoever gets that technology off the ground stands to make vast sums of money obviating the need for salvaging organs from whole organisms."