Asimov's Science Fiction: March 2014 by Penny Publications Read Free Book Online

tubes and oddly heavy plastic cubes, and "mermaid seeds." Each of the last was a bead-sized round that the instructions told Petra to insert in a spongy disk of matching color.
    She set it all up in the breakfast nook for now. They could move the mermaids into Kerry's room when she got back.
    If it ended up being worthwhile. Often Leonid's schemes sounded better than actuality.
    That was part of life.
    She'd ordered Sea Monkeys when she was twelve. From the back of a comic book, one of those full page spreads of marvelous things, X-ray spectacles and itching powder and prank gum and above all, the wonder of Sea Monkeys. The illustration showing a King Monkey flanked by two smaller females.
    The reality of brine shrimp, not humanoid at all, crushed her. In a fit of pique, she flushed the monkeys down the toilet and suffered subsequent convulsions of guilt, envisioning the monkeys trying to find their way home out of the sewer's sticky darkness.
    She put down the plastic pipe and went to the window. October through March, the Seattle sky was gray.
    Gray like a city pigeon's Quaker coat, respectable.
    Gray like a waterlogged page.
    Gray like her mood, most days.
    She was going to coffee with Marla tomorrow. That was what kept her sane, despite the isolation of working at home, the daily coffee or lunch that she rotated among her group of friends. She was looking forward to catching up with Marla, her oldest friend.
    She splayed her hand on cold glass. On the other side, raindrops trickled down, silver as the distant clouds.
    Returning to the table, she consulted the instructions. She filled two tanks and prepared two coral seeds, one orange and the other turquoise. She put each in a separate cup of distilled water beside the tanks.
    The pamphlet was oddly thick and badly proofread. The second half was a listing of mermaids that could be created. Apparently you bred them with each other to produce new color combinations. Like guppies.
    A name and a tag line accompanied each thumbnail-sized picture.
    Mela: Her sweet nature mirrors the honey color of her hair. Watch her create harmony in a troubled tank.
    Sirena: A tawny songstress, this mermaid loves the wilds, and is often seen riding a shark among the waves.
    Voluptua: Black scales and red hair for this marine vixen. Don't put her in the same tank as an Angela!
    Petra snorted. Someone had put a minimum of time into creating this mythology.
    "My Volupta ass," she said aloud. She returned the pamphlet to the table and went to work on her latest collage.
    Marla took the latte from Petra to put it on the checkerboard sized table. Petra settled tled herself and her own black coffee in the opposite chair. She was glad Marla had opted for Soul Food Coffeehouse, with its comfortable darkness and strings of Tibetan prayer flags. Their mugs mirrored the place's eclectic nature: Marla's sported a large skull and crossbones on the side, Petra's the words "Seneca Falls Ladies Auxiliary" in bright red Gothic lettering.
    "What are you going to do about this woman?" Marla said. She was a small person, but a fuzzy one, her graying hair never containable, her clothing always textured by wrinkles and cat hair.
    Petra shrugged. "I've asked her to lunch. I'm sure this mix-up with the gallery isn't her doing."
    "They announced that they were pulling your show for hers pretty late in the game, didn't they?"
    Petra leaned back in her chair, looking over the coffee shop. They were too near the speakers, which were playing folk music a couple of levels too loud. A woman near the front bent over a hand of Tarot cards while the woman across from her watched. Her expression jittered between anxious and hopeful.
    "That's how it is with artsy types sometimes," Petra said. "Last minute and haphazard."
    "You think it's just that? You said you'd had some trouble with her before."
    "Maybe. I'm just not sure. But let's talk about something pleasant. How are your classes going this semester? Are you molding the next