Rachel’s Reviews > Sourdough > Status Update

"The airfield...was an uncanny spot: really truly in the center of everything--with San Francisco's skyline visible across the water, the great bustle of the Port of Oakland across the channel, Oakland's own downtown rising in the other direction, the Marrow Fair beneath us--yet it felt utterly desolate and disconnected. It was amazing to see the goats grazing here in the calm eye of a storm of trade and transit."

"The lights above snapped off. We'd sat talking for too long.
'Does that happen often?'
'A fair amount, yes,' Horace said. 'I don't mind. It gives me a minute to think.
We stayed quiet. Thinking.
'You must seek her out,' Horace said at last.
He was right.
The lights snapped on again, revealing Horace on his feet, caught mid-gesticulation. 'It takes a bit of a leap to wake them up.' He straightened."

"I followed him as he plunged down the corridor, which was not wide to begin with and made narrower by the shelves and legal boxes... Cold white lights above...snapped to life as we approached...
I saw annotations on the fronts of the boxes. The years ticked back like a time machine: 1992, 1991, 1990...
Behind us, the motion-activated lights snapped off.
We passed through a tunnel of memory in a bubble of light."

"In this new darkness, I stood behind the ping-pong table, considered the Clement Street starter in its crock and my partner the brawny Vitruvian. The hardy Faustofen, too. I looked out across the depot, awash in pink light, the tang of tube-fish rising, and realized it was the hidden root of something interesting and maybe important, and I, improbably, was part of it."

"I rose earlier than ever before and experienced a portion of the morning that was new to me. I heard the chirping of unfamiliar bird species--negotiations that had, until now, been concluded long before I woke."

"'Actually,' I said--oh, it felt good--'the Vitruvian 3's motors are exactly the same as the V4's.' ...
The wraiths noticed me for the first time. 'Wait,' said the first. 'I know you, right? You're . . . one of our marketing people?'
My face burned hot, but through force of will, I cooled my gaze to absolute zero kelvin. 'Actually.' Yes. It felt very good. 'I work on Control.'"

"It always begins with the humming...It sneaks up on her. In another minute, she'll be singing with her full voice. She can't help herself. Right now, she's humming her favorite song, which is about leaving places behind, and how it's sad but also happy."

"'Why not just leave it liquid like Slurry?' I asked.
Jaina Mitra ticked off the reasons: 'Mouthfeel. Dental health. Market research indicates people associate liquid superfood with pessimistic science fiction.' That was a good point."

"'I think of them as microbial cathedrals,' Jaina Mitra said.
I wondered if that comparison made her the architect of the deity."

"'What's it supposed to taste like?'
Jaina Mitra's gaze sharpened. 'Nothing. It's not intended to be a simulation. I think food should taste like what it is, don't you? And what this /is/, is a super-nutritious cellulosic suspension manufactured in situ by a community of microbes.'"