The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year - Volume Eight by Jonathan Strahan [Editor] Read Free Book Online Page B

blackboard behind her. Latifa grabbed an empty Erlenmeyer flask and held it in the beam, tilting it until she managed to refract some light down into the crucible.
    As she turned the flask back and forth, shifting the angle of the light, she could see a dark circle moving behind the magnet. Lit from above, an object barely a millimetre high couldn't cast a shadow like that.
    The magnet was floating on air.
    The door began to open. Latifa pocketed the crucible. She put the Erlenmeyer flask back on its shelf, then turned to see the cleaner eyeing her suspiciously.
    "I'm all done now, thanks," Latifa announced cheerfully. She motioned towards the staff entrance. "I'll put the key back on my way out."
    Minutes later, Latifa strode out of the science wing. She reached into her pocket and wrapped her hand around the crucible. She still had some money Amir had given her last Eid; she could buy a replacement that afternoon. For now, all she had to do was get through the day's lessons with a straight face, while walking around carrying the world's first room-temperature superconductor.
    2
    E zatillah was said to be the richest Afghani in Mashhad, and from the look of his three-storey marble-clad house he had no wish to live down that reputation. Latifa had heard that he'd made his money in Saudi Arabia, where he'd represented the mujahedin at the time of the Soviet occupation. Wealthy Saudi women with guilty consciences had filed through his office day after day, handing him bags full of gold bullion to help fund the jihad – buying, they believed, the same promise of paradise that went to the martyrs themselves. Ezatullah, being less concerned with the afterlife, had passed on their donations to the war chest but retained a sizeable commission.
    At the mansion's gate, Latifa's grandfather paused. "I promised your mother I'd keep you out of trouble."
    Latifa didn't know how to answer that; his caution came from love and grief, but this was a risk they needed to take. "Fashard's already started things rolling on his side," she reminded him. "It will be hard on him if we pull out now."
    "That's true."
    In the sitting room Ezatullah's youngest daughter, Yasmin, served tea, then stayed with Latifa while the two men withdrew to talk business. Latifa passed the time thinking up compliments for each rug and item of furniture in sight, and Yasmin replied in such a soft, shy voice that Latifa had no trouble eavesdropping on the conversation from the adjoining room.
    "My nephew owns a clothing business in Kandahar," her grandfather began. "Some tailoring, some imports and exports. But recently he came across a new opportunity: a chance to buy electrical cable at a very fair price."
    "A prudent man will have diverse interests," Ezatullah declared approvingly.
    "We're hoping to on-sell the wire in Mashhad," her grandfather explained. "We could avoid a lot of paperwork at the border if we packed the trucks with cartons labelled as clothing – with some at the rear bearing out that claim. My granddaughter could run a small shop to receive these shipments."
    "And you're seeking a partner, to help fund this venture?"
    Latifa heard the rustle of paper, the figures she'd prepared changing hands.
    "What's driven you to this, haji?" Ezatullah asked pointedly. "You don't have a reputation as a businessman."
    "I'm seventy years old," her grandfather replied. "I need to see my daughter's children looked after before I die."
    Ezatullah thought for a while. "Let me talk to my associates in Kandahar."
    "Of course."
    On the bus back to the apartment, Latifa imagined the phone calls that would already be bouncing back and forth across the border. Ezatullah would soon know all about the new electrification project in Kandahar, which aimed to wire up a dozen more neighbourhoods to the alreadystruggling grid – apparently in the hope that even a meagre ration of cheap power would turn more people against the insurgents who bombed every convoy that tried to carry