The Girl in the Road Read Online Free PDF

synthetic silk modeled on the draglines of Darwin’s bark spider, native to Madagascar, which is not only the strongest substance known but weighs about twelve milligrams per thousand meters. And thanks to HydraCorp’s partnership with China Telecom, the anchors parallel the SEA-ME-WE 3 undersea cable that carries data between Mumbai and Djibouti before veering up the Red Sea. And how does the TALG survive the many intrusions of maritime traffic? Well, gentle viewer, it turns out that the segments are programmed to sense oncoming ships and take on seawater, sinking up to thirty meters to let the ship pass, and then pumping the water back out to regain buoyancy.
    The Trail is a conspiracy of ideal materials. I am fucking amazed.
    When the presentation is done, a static map of the world appears and the narrator urges me to explore it with my fingers. I jump up to the screen. If I press my finger to any city in the world, a pie chart surfaces next to it, detailing the breakdown of that city’s energy sources. This is marvelous. I press my finger to Djibouti. Thirty percent of their electricity is currently sourced from the TALG. The results are promising. And now I have a theory brewing in my mind, something I want to tell Mohini, a new field of study altogether, about how the source of a society’s energy must necessarily shape their language, art, and culture. In the case of Djibouti, their people will be wavelike. Should I call it the sociopsychology of energy?—that then infuses its culture, even its individuals. Mohini was of a solar nature, certainly.
    I need to find out my own.
    Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe the universe is conspiring in my favor.
    After waiting a polite amount of time the narrator invites me to explore the rest of the museum and I take her up on it. I need to remember to ask the attendant who the voice actor is. I feel sentimental.
    I descend a stairway that is slanted, crystalline. For each type of energy the narrator named, there’s a dedicated floor, scientifically, technically, stylistically. I lose my intention of researching travel methods. I give myself to wonder. It’s a palace of human invention. The Wood Gallery is paneled in sweet-smelling cedar and features a hologram of proto-Dravidian nomads chopping wood and throwing it onto a fire. They’re wearing skins and pelts. They introduce a carcass of some woodland animal, which they roast, and it smokes and blackens. The hologram cuts away before they begin eating it, and resets, to one lone nomad wandering in the forest. She’s gazing at the trees in wonder. She selects one, thanks it, and then chops it down with her stone ax. The sequence begins again.
    I turn away and look at the exhibits against the wall. There’s a display where you can select a wood chip, insert it into a clear box for burning, and then watch how much energy is generated. I burn six wood chips. I don’t get tired of it. Everything is amazing to me. The display informs me that this gallery is powered by high-efficiency wood combustion, that in fact every floor is powered by the energy source it features. Next to the display there’s a pair of immersive goggles that, when I put them on, casts me as a molecule of groundwater sucked up through a tree root. The journey up through the xylem is exhilarating. When I enter the leaf and get split up, I’m presented with a choice: If you would like to go with the hydrogen atoms, say “hydrogen.” If you would like to go with the oxygen atom, say “oxygen.”
    I say, “Oxygen.”
    I’m released from the tip of the leaf and float out into the air. This is like flying. I look below me and there’s a forest floor dappled with sunlight. I expect the simulation to pixelate and dissolve. But it doesn’t. The trees are sharp and clear and I can see every leaf and flower. I keep floating. The programmer imagined a whole world for me. She’s