SF in The City Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the number one position this week?”
                  “Let me guess,” Ángel said warily, “Gynerator.”
                  “Yes, Gynerator! It’s nothing more than a glorified formulator. Chumway hasn’t proven that his new toy is actually an artificial intelligence.”
                  “You have to admit, it writes darn good books.”
                  “Even if Gynerator can adapt to parameters in ways other formulators can’t, he… I mean it, cannot write like a human.” Ananya was getting more aggressive, and Ángel would rather not have everyone at the outdoor tables looking at them. Fortunately Chuck returned to ask for his order.
                  “I’m goin’ to have the six tail meal, with the Szechwan shrimp add on, and for sides, I’ll have applesauce and Lampreado.”
                  “And for your soup?” Chuck asked.
                  “Oh yes! Ummm, I’ll have the pira caldo please.”
                  “All right, I’ll get your order back here in a jiffy.”
                  With the waiter gone, Ananya was more than happy to complain about her affairs again. For the next five minutes, she ranted about the cruelty of The City and the dangers of giving creativity over to machines. “What is there left to us” she asked at one point, “when computer technology can even replace authors?”
                    Ángel had not even spent that much time catching up with his old friend, and he already wanted to get out of there. Successful people didn’t get to their stations in life by hanging out with negative vibe people. At least that’s what the self-help books he uploaded had to say. His mind began to wander to the horse race later that day. Llameante Rayo [8] was the most popular cyber-equine race in this prefecture, and it started at 6:30 PM. Once he finished up lunch with Ananya, Ángel had a mental conference with the CEO of Sui Genesis Manufacturing Incorporated, Deandre Phan. This part of The City was notorious for poor mind-to-mind reception, so…
                  “Here you go sir,” Chuck the waiter said as he set down Ángel’s meal. “Is there anything else that I can get for you at the moment, sir?”
                  “No, that’s it for now. Arigatō gozaimasu [9] !” 
                       Ángel had plenty of reason to thank the waiter. He had spaced on Ananya’s monologue for the last few minutes. Hopefully he hadn’t missed anything important.
                  “So do you think that Dr. Oyinlola’s bionic flies would make for an interesting short story?” the writer asked as she finished her last piece of lobster.
                  “Yes, er, if anyone could pull it off, it would be you,” Ángel replied as confidently as possible.
                  “What do you mean pull it off? You don’t think that it’s a good idea?”
    “No, no, it’s fine,” Ángel cast a quick glance at Ananya’s notepad, hoping to find some information to help him out of his situation. “I just like the idea of your…um…’Energy Men’ better.”
                  “Really? I haven’t even told you about them yet,” Ananya looked down at her notepad knowingly.
                  “Well, it has a really catchy title, you know. There’s just something really, really cool about it. So…what’s it about?”
                  “It’s not a great title, but I read Dr. Maloof’s paper on the transformation of human beings into forms of pure energy recently. I thought it made for an interesting premise, especially since there are plenty of dangers that could arise from such technology.”
                  “Is that one of Central Authority’s science projects?” Ángel asked apprehensively.
                  “Yes, it is as a