After a fourteen month break for very good reasons, Gabrielle Taylor has posted two new parts of Fish Swim in the Lake, a story ("Ottawa based cyberpunk post-blog serial") you, as a reader of Cory Doctorow, might like, serialized with Movable Type. Start reading with part one.
alphaDana knew Sergeant Pijai's desk was expensive. It was translucent red plastic on aluminum webbing with poured metal legs. The lot of it was obviously recycled, but George Carlin's claims to the contrary, every time plastic was re-used, there was a speck less of it. The impurities were filtered away and, she didn't know what was done with the dregs exactly, but she thought there were shot into space. In any case they were gone. Where did it go, she wondered, now that landfills were outlawed? A quick vog would turn up current law; Pijai probably wouldn't even notice she wasn't giving him her full attention. Most people didn't expect full attention anyhow.
She was mentally formulating the search when Sergeant Pijai snapped his fingers in front of her squarish nose. She blinked, stopped, and looked around: worn grubby melamine walls; chipped linoleum; sickly blue flourescent overhead lights behind wire cages. On the desk was a pink coffee cup with a permanent brown layer inside.
"Sit up. I know that expression," Pijai said distastefully. "I have an aunt that's one of you. Stay focused while you're here: if you're capable of that." The word "capable" was loaded with recrimination -- anger -- why? Steve Pijai, age 37, born in Carleton Place, Ontario--
"I said STOP THAT! If you can't control yourself I'll have to cut off this room. I don't know about you, but I hear your kind finds that unpleasant."
