Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 by Penny Publications Read Free Book Online

"Hell yeah, bro!"
    "And is it stable? There's no crazy heat spike or weird compression as you pass through?"
    "Safe as houses," Taylor assured us.
    "So we could drive a van full of propane tanks and blasting caps through it? Pop up at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1992?"
    "Or McDonald's headquarters back before the clown ate the world?" Rob-o asked.
    "Or Nixon's White House!" John-john marveled.
    Bill never looked away from Taylor, but he wasn't seeing him, either. He was seeing everything he could tear down with that portal to do his bidding. It was as though none of us were there. Bill seemed to mostly be talking to himself when he finally said, "Or the World Trade Center?"
    I don't think anyone else saw it when Taylor's face faltered. Just for an instant his real smile dropped, and he quickly pasted that big marketoid smile over it. But it wasn't in his eyes. His eyes were like a dog's when he jumps off a pier and then realizes how high the climb back up to solid ground is.
    "Sure!" He fake enthused, stepping up to slap Buffalo Bill's thick shoulder. "You guys
are
thinking big. I like that. I
love
that! But think about big
impacts.
You can go small and subtle, and have a big result—remember, you've got all the time in the world to run this gag."
    And then Matilda, God bless her atheist heart, said, "How far back can we go?"
    Taylor frowned as he thought about it. "All the way, I guess."
    "Okay. Because I was reading this article about how junk food is basically addictive, right? Twinkies, for example, they're all full of fat and sugar. That's super hard to get in nature, so when we find it—" she faltered.
    "I read this, too!" I jumped in. "Fat, sugar, and salt are really important when food is scarce: The fat is lots of calories in a small package, the salt is electrolytes—because so many famines are caused by droughts, dehydration is a problem—and the sugar is quick energy that's easy for the body to extract."
    "Yeah!" Matilda said, getting excited, "So this is why people love bacon, or just mindlessly munch chips or M&Ms until the snacks are all gone and they bloat up: Evolution selected for the cavemen that ate all the sugar, salt, and fat they could find because it gave them a survival edge."
    "Oh!" Rob-o suddenly sat upright. "That article from
Utne Reader!"
    "Or
Harper's, "
Matilda said. "One of them. But now the thing is that those foods aren't scarce, and it turns out that eating a ton of it is super bad for you. Cavemen never had a
chance
to eat themselves fat because they never found that much fat or salt or sugar. Like, seriously, how much bacon is on one boar? And how many folks were sharing it? But we live longer and can buy all the salty-sweet fat we want, and our prehistoric edge is killing us. Obesity, heart disease—all of that."
    Bill squinted. "What's this have to do with revolution?" It was a cagey question. I think he already saw where Matilda was going.
    "What if we go back to paleolithic Europe, or whatever, with Twinkies. Tons of Twinkies."
    "They'll pig out," Rob-o marveled.
    "And fatten up," I said. "Lots of them will, the ones most susceptible to putting on weight, like how Polynesians are. The ones that diabetes doesn't get, sabertooth tigers will."
    "We can crater the population," Bill said admiringly.
    "Exactly!" Matilda agreed. "Think about how far we'd wind back scarcity if we took just 10 percent off the base population pool forty-five thousand years ago."
    "Oh!" I shouted to be heard above everyone.
"And
—damn!—
and
whoever makes it through does it because they're genetically hardened against—shit, what did the article call it?"
    "Diseases of affluence," Matilda said with finality.
    Taylor clapped, "Hot damn! Humanity's best Twinkie
defense
is a good Twinkie
offense!
I
love
it! I
knew
you were my dream team on this. Now there's just the logistics. Sounds like we need a crapload of Twinkies. Any of you guys know a Twinkie farmer?"
    And we started planning how to finance