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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Economics has always been referred to as "the dismal science." But that term hardly applies to Adamina Smythe, otherwise known as "the Market." This stunningly beautiful woman is the cybernetic mastermind behind the running of the global economy. But can finance compete with romance? And what happens when the Market begins to feel her hormones?

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Interzone, ed. David Pringle, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2003

23 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [82 KB], eReader (PDB) [34 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [21 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [19 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [69 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [95 KB], hiebook (KML) [74 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [47 KB], iSilo (PDB) [17 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [22 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [50 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [32 KB]
Words: 5751
Reading time: 16-23 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The price of gasoline had fallen to twenty-five cents a gallon, and a pair of low-end Nikedidas would set you back only ten dollars. You could enjoy a three-course meal plus dessert at many of New York's better restaurants for a prix fixe of fifteen dollars, and get change back from a fifty when purchasing a top-of-the-line Palm Pilot XXII, complete with video-conferencing features. The nation's trade deficit had been wiped out, and the global economy had just posted its sixth consecutive quarter of five-percent growth. The entire continent of Africa resembled California during the Gold Rush. New millionaires were being minted in nearly every country faster than a Martian settler could duck underground at the news of a solar flare.

We were living in boom times such as the most bullish speculator of no other era had ever dared dream of, even after consumption of a fifth consecutive bottle of Veuve Cliquot, and we owed it all to the Market.

The Market's name was Adamina Smythe. She was nineteen-years old, utterly untouchable, and she was sitting across from me.

Built like the ultimate offspring of some clandestine supermodel-breeding program, the Market wore a red dress that was more suggestion than fabric. Her long thick platinum hair was pinned up by a couple of delicate and tasteful tortoiseshell clips, with a few stray tendrils wisping her brow. Her face, all subtly intersecting planes and arcs, evoked both madonnas and starlets. Her complexion conjured up comparisons to exotic orchids, snow tinged by a sunset and milk tinted with cherry juice. As we waited for the arrival of our meals, the Market's delicate hands cradled her drink--straight sparkling water in a champagne flute--so sensually that I thought I might climax just from contemplating her fingers.

All I had to do tonight and over the next several days was to interview the closest thing the world of 2022 boasted to an actual, breathing goddess, for a profile in Neuvo Vanity Fair. And so far I had barely managed to stutter out my name, shake her warm, soft hand, and croak out my dinner order. Not an auspicious start.