Elemental by Steven Savile Page B

loved you. She filled a capsule with the only personality she had that made the slightest bit of sense and rammed it up the tubes of this delightful little photocopy and was all ready to make the switch until we hit a snag.”

    Jared Spoon watched her lolloping form amble around the room. “She’s perfect …”
    â€œPerfectly penniless.”
    â€œThis girl doesn’t belong to anybody?”
    â€œShe belongs to us. Only she doesn’t want to. You see she loves you, Mr. Spoon, just as much as Girl 77 did. We’re very good, you see. She loves you so much she’s willing to do anything.”
    Jared Spoon finally understood. “She’s been smuggling herself out a piece at a time.”
    â€œYes. And I’m afraid that puts you in a bit of a bind.”
    â€œMe? Why?”
    â€œWe’re talking theft, Mr. Spoon. That’s very serious.”
    â€œYou’re going to have her arrested?”
    â€œHer? We can’t very well charge our merchandise with stealing our merchandise. That would just be silly. No, we’re going to have you arrested.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œReceiving stolen goods. You did receive goods, did you not?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThey were stolen, were they not?”
    â€œNot by me.”
    â€œBut by somebody!”
    â€œIf you say so.”
    â€œI do say so.”
    â€œI didn’t know they were stolen.”
    â€œThat’s no excuse!”
    â€œI believed they were legitimate and accepted them in good faith.”
    â€œFaith has nothing to do with it! We are men of science are we not?”
    â€œYou’re a man of science. I’m a man of no fixed employment.”
    Mr. Ersatz Ersatz pondered on this.
    Jared Spoon said, “Surely we can come to an arrangement?”
    Mr. Ersatz Ersatz grinned from ear to ear. “How’s your credit rating?”

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    One day she just took a knife to him.
    She said, “I’m gonna cut that up for ya. I’m never gonna let you eat that way again.”
    He was shocked, obviously. He had a mouthful of lunch.
    â€œWhat way?”
    â€œOr how about I cook you some fish fingers? Yeah, some funky fish fingers. See how you like that?”
    So he wiped his mouth on the napkin. Set his sandwich down. Almost like, should he get a good meal out of this it would still be nice to get back to the sandwich.
    In the end she didn’t cut it up for him. She threw something amazing together instead.
    It was hot.
    He responded with a kind of Parkinson’s twitch.
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    She didn’t have a name after that.
    He called her Jigsaw Janet.
    When they’d finished stitching her back together he took her home and they spent the most wonderful love-filled days together.
    They never argued. They never disagreed. She was perfect.
    And by Friday, he was bored out of his brains.
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    She found him out on the front steps, a black suitcase by his side, puffing furiously on a long Sobranie Black Russian. Cigarettes for hard bastards who laughed at their lungs. There was nothing like the real thing.
    Jigsaw Janet sat quietly down beside him. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she said.
    â€œI’m afraid so.”
    â€œWhy? Don’t you love me?”
    â€œNo,” said Jared Spoon. “I find you derivative.”

The Solipsist at Dinner
    BY LARRY NIVEN
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    Larry Niven has been a staple of the science fiction community since his first story, “The Coldest Place,” debuted in 1964. In 1970, Niven published the first novel in the award-winning Ringworld series ( Ringworld , The Ringworld Engineers , The Ringworld Throne , and Ringworld’s Children )—reputedly one of the greatest science fiction series of all time. The Ringworld titles, however, make up only a small portion of his famous Known Space world of future history, which in itself contains more than thirty short stories and novels. Niven is also the