by Karl Schmieder
“You get the package?”
Alex says, “Yeah. A cassette tape labeled ‘Dead Fruit. For Rotting Vegetables.’ From Chiasso. Where am I going to get a deadtech cassette player?”
“Where's it at?”
“Just a second." Alex hands me a plastic cassette case and shakes his head.
I take a deep breath to calm myself.
“You got a mini-Phillips?”
Alex walks over to his desk. It’s piled high with papers, books, crap. He starts rifling through the drawers.
A moment later, I'm unscrewing four tiny black screws on each of the corners of the tape. Carefully, I pry the two halves apart to reveal the magnetic tape had been removed. Carefully crammed between the two spools, a hermetically sealed plastic bag glows a brilliant green. The slime inside a sealed plastic tube has been squished into the empty space.
“Click SCORE!”
It takes Alex a minute, then he goes, “Chinga tu puta madre. This is so illegal in California.”
“And most of Western Europe.”
He says, “Don't open that here. They'll trace it.”
“The DNA barcode’s deleted. But if they do trace it, it'll be me they nab. I'm the one just flew in from Zurich.”
Alex says, “I don't care. I'm not going to some Inland Empire jail for growing skateboard wheels you stole from the Swiss military. Not to mention the bioengineering and intellectually property laws you’re breaking. It's not worth it.” He shakes his head, “You trying to be ironic with that dead fruit thing?”
I take a deep breath to hide my frustration. He doesn't see the opportunity. “I thought you'd laugh. Justified Action crossed carambola with chitin to get the right durometer. Dead fruit, get it? Carambola’s extinct.”
Alex shakes his head.
I say, “I shoulda sent you Tomorrow's Harvest.”
Alex shrugs and turns away, “Just don't open it here. Please.”
“I’m sure you know at least one skater in Escondido willing to put this on a synthesizer and flood the skateparks with the most righteous skateboard wheels ever engineered to speed down mountains.”
Alex shakes his head but I know he knows someone who knows someone and that someone turns out to be a girl.
The next afternoon, Rita's got a batch of the slime in her fermenter and the first four wheels on her Organovo Printer. She pulls off her EyeStorms and smiles huge. “No barcode,” she says. “Prepare to make serious coin.”
Alex shakes his head.
# # #
This one's based on a true story. Only it didn't happen in California, it happened in Switzerland. Dead Fruit. For Rotting Vegetables is a play on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, the Dead Kennedys debut album. Tomorrow's Harvest is an album by Boards of Canada. Did you enjoy this story? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
YOU ARE READING
Three Pool Rhumba
Science FictionFor some, the technology to bioengineer skateboards exists now. So, what happens when novel genetic engineering technologies hit the empty pool and new issues arise: What does it mean to ride a biohacked board? How do you keep it alive? And, what if...
