"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Genesis 2:17

#

"Welcome, Anna. Welcome, Chad. Thanks for coming! The time has come to reveal my project... so... behold! The... ah... hmmm."

Anna smiled indulgently. She was quite accustomed to Kevin's quirks; it seemed almost requisite for such scientific brilliance to be accompanied by various ineptitudes in equal measure. Probably just God's way of balancing the scales of the universe. Or, as Chad so often teased, maybe it was Kevin's due "Karmic retribution" for allowing himself to epitomize such a grotesque stereotype. It was all there; the absent-mindedness, the incessant tinkering, the marked inability to carry on a conversation that didn't include obscure scientific terminology--to say nothing of the garage full of unidentifiable technology.

Kevin was an inventor in the tradition of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison--but perhaps closer to Tesla than Edison. Kevin's inventions were too esoteric, too forward-looking to sell big. A few tiny innovations parceled out to patent-hungry behemoths like IBM and Microsoft kept him fed, but his inability to keep a regular schedule prevented him from holding down a job. If Disney hadn't produced that Fred MacMurray movie before Kevin was born, Anna would have classified The Absent-Minded Professor as a documentary rather than a comedy.

"Actually, the fact is I haven't really decided what to call it," said Kevin. "But that's not important right now! What's important is--wait, I need to recalibrate this..."

Six months ago Kevin had asked Anna to invest a thousand dollars in his latest venture and she had written him a check, no questions asked. Despite his many shortcomings, Anna felt a certain motherly responsibility for the eccentric innovator. She'd even talked their friend Chad into pitching in a few hundred dollars. Chad was always losing what little money he had to bad investments; why not help a friend out in the bargain? She had figured Kevin needed the money to pay some bills but was too embarrassed to reveal his dilemma. Now it looked like he had, in fact, been financing a new project.

Kevin frenetically poked at what looked like a microwave keypad plugged into a toaster-oven while Anna looked over her "investment." Hoses and cables ranging from one to four inches in diameter carpeted the garage floor. Most of them seemed to form connections between the toaster-oven and a cluster of compressed air tanks with something like blenders on top. The remaining cables crisscrossed between Kevin's computer, a dishwasher-sized appliance of some kind, and the strangest piece of all--a glass dome covering what appeared to be a tin plate balanced on the tip of a wire-wrapped, three-foot rod of industrial rebar.

"Chad, if you don't mind, I'd like to have Anna do the honors."

"What honors would those be?" Chad asked, flashing a smile. The three of them had been friends for several years--since graduating from UCLA, in fact--so Kevin's tendency to think six sentences and speak only one was easily handled. Chad and Anna just asked a lot of questions.

"Sorry, sorry. Here," Kevin gestured to his computer. A wire-frame apple was rotating lazily on the screen. "Just press 'Enter' and watch the collector plate."

"The what now?" asked Anna.

"The 'Enter' key? On the keyboard, here."

Anna laughed and moved to the computer. "I know what an 'Enter' key is, silly. But what on Earth is a collector plate?"

"Maybe he means collection plate. Kevin, did you invent a mechanical preacher?" Chad laughed at his own joke while Anna afforded him a polite giggle.

"No, no. It's the molybdenum plate, the one under the Plexiglas dome. Go ahead, Anna. No, wait, wait."

Kevin produced three vests from behind a pile of dusty computer expansion modules and other unidentifiable circuit boards. "Put these on, just in case. The preliminary runs didn't manifest any excessive radiation, but I have to admit I'm using a substandard ion pump and I got my Geiger counter for twenty dollars on eBay--there really are better methods for detection but..."

Anna recognized the vests immediately as the kind you have to wear when you get x-rays taken at the dentist's office. Lead vests. She passed one to Chad and shot him a tentative grimace. She was not at all comfortable with the idea of radiation, but Kevin had said it was merely a precaution.

"Okay, I think we're ready. Anna, if you would be so kind?"

With a nod and a nervous smile, Anna tapped the Enter key.

Immediately the overhead fluorescent bulbs went out, plunging the garage into darkness. Chad began to chuckle but stopped as an ambient blue glow returned the garage to an eerie and monochromatic visibility. The glow was accompanied by a low humming. Under the Plexiglas dome, a brilliant blue pinprick of light hovered an inch or two above the surface of the plate.

Several of the compressed air tanks began to crackle as electric current danced visibly between them and across several of the hoses and cables. One brilliant blue bolt arced from the Plexiglas dome and struck Kevin's hand. He leapt back with a stuttered oath as the humming and crackling increased their tempo. After striding deliberately to the lightning-webbed canisters, Kevin delivered a sharp kick to the base unit (which was constructed, Anna could have sworn, of grocery crates and duct-tape) that held them all in place. The crackling ceased and the humming dropped an octave or two.

"Don't, ah, don't mind the hydrogen canisters. They're a little testy, but I'm pretty sure they won't explode. Now. Just watch the plate. Enjoy the show."

With some uncertainty and more than a little fear, Anna glanced at Chad. He shrugged sympathetically and gestured toward the blue spark. Anna returned her attention to the collector plate.

The bright blue spark hovered over the collector plate, illuminating the garage. For about a minute, no perceptible changes occurred. Anna looked away for a moment to ease the strain on her eyes, blinking until her vision was clear and she was sure she hadn't suffered permanent retina-burn. When she looked back at the spark, it was moving.

No, not moving--growing! It doubled and tripled in size and intensity. Anna squinted then shut her eyes against the light. Even through her eyelids she could detect the blue light growing ever brighter.

Then everything went dark. The hum of strange machinery was replaced by the buzz of fluorescent lighting and Anna ventured a peek.

Sitting on the collector plate was a shiny red apple.

#

"Well, obviously, it needs to be miniaturized. And though I've got the energy loss down to well within practical limits, I would like to run a few further tests before--"

Chad shook his head vehemently. "Kevin, I don't think you're listening to me! This isn't like a new algori-thingy or trans-a-ma-bob! You don't run it through a development process and sell it to Bill Gates for a hundred grand. We're talking millions... maybe billions! We're talking about world-changing technology that's a hundred years before its time! This is like something straight out of Star Trek, making food out of electricity--"

"Oh," Kevin said, "No, no, no, don't misunderstand, Chad. Even in Star Trek, they don't just use energy. The machine is just like what Warren Ellis called 'Makers,' see. It assembles matter from other matter, it doesn't really create it. Rearranging matter is one thing, the energy cost to actually create--I mean, the equations are far too--well, it might be possible but the machine... the machine... I still need to name it, don't I?"

"Whoa, you're all over the place, Kevin," Chad said. "Just focus for a second okay? This is serious and you need to focus."

Anna was only peripherally aware of the two men's conversation. She just sat at Kevin's kitchen table and stared at her reflection in the apple's polished skin. Apples she had seen before, but this? This apple had come out of nothing. Never before in her educated, enlightened, twenty-first century life had she associated the phrase "playing God" with practitioners of science, but this apple was tempting her to do just that.

"Can I taste it?"

Kevin stopped whatever explanation he was delivering and looked at Anna. "Well, sure. But I don't know that it will be very good. The original was kind of bland."

Chad and Anna responded simultaneously. "Original?"

"Sure. You don't think I could come up with the proper equations on my own, do you?" Kevin laughed. "It took me years to get the scanning algorithm right, and deriving the equations for the actual construction, why--"

"So this is a cloned apple?" Chad asked.

"Oh no, not in the sense you mean. It's... well, it's a reasonably exact molecular reconstruction of the original apple. Ah, I mean, the apple I originally scanned. Not the original apple, that would be a little silly! Be awfully hard to scan some Platonic 'Apple' from the realm of ideas," Kevin chuckled.

"Focus," Chad muttered.

"Right, sorry. The machine... it really needs a name--"

Chad shot Kevin a warning glance.

"Sorry! Sorry. The machine is built to reproduce the molecular specifications of the original artifact, namely, the original apple. It's not biologically grown. Well, it's mostly not biologically grown. I had to make a few concessions, getting electromagnetic stabilization out of--"

"Kevin," Anna said firmly.

"Yes, right, what?"

"What you're saying is, you can... scan... stuff and duplicate it with your machine?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," said Kevin. "I've spent several years getting the scan to work just right with the apple's molecular structure. Spent a small fortune on apples, really, tried to scan several. So actually this isn't a copy of the original, just the original successful scan."

"Kevin!" Anna made no effort to hide her exasperation.

"Right, right. The machine is built very specifically to reproduce the scan. If I wanted to scan, say, a banana, I'd have to reconfigure the scanner extensively. Then I'd have to build an entirely different production machine. You know, it was a fluke I even figured out that the collector plate had to be solid molybdenum--"

"So the machine only makes apples. Specifically, this kind of apple." Chad pointed at the shiny red fruit sitting, all alone, at the center of the table.

Another question occurred to Anna. "So, if you had to pick just one thing to duplicate, why apples?"

Kevin looked completely dumbfounded by the question. He opened his mouth and then closed it. Pursing his lips thoughtfully, he raised one finger and then returned his hand to the table. "Uh, I like apples?"

Anna raised one eyebrow. "That sounded suspiciously like a question."

Kevin smiled and shrugged.

Nodding her acceptance of this explanation, Anna picked up the apple and took a bite. She separated the white flesh with a satisfying crunch and chewed; the texture was exactly that of a red apple. It was not a bad apple by any stretch, but as Kevin had indicated it was nothing spectacular. This would of course have been unsurprising under any other circumstances. Anna continued to chew thoughtfully as Chad and Kevin watched expectantly.

"It's good," she declared after swallowing the bite. "Kevin, do you realize the implications this has for the world?"

"Well sure," Kevin said. "I mean, I know apples won't solve world hunger completely, but we could at least alleviate the worst starvation."

Chad objected immediately. "Wait, now, I saw all that electricity dancing around in there. I'm not saying Somalia or Ethiopia or wherever wouldn't be grateful, but where are they going to plug that thing in? And who's going to pay for production?"

"Well, now, Chad, remember this is just a prototype. The Johnny Appleseed Mark One, if you will--hey, how's that for a name? Johnny Appleseed Mark One--ah, right, focusing. The machine... Johnny can be configured to operate using solar power and I'm working on an adaptation that will allow me to extract the necessary materials from common soil. It won't be as efficient, but I'm confident such a configuration could produce twenty, maybe fifty apples a day. As for production, once they reach the assembly line I think I can get production costs to under a thousand dollars per machine."

"I don't think either of you are thinking of the big picture," said Anna. "I don't understand how it works, but I think I can imagine what it will do. You can use this to feed people. But what about people who grow apples for a living? This could put them out of business overnight. If you sell these things in countries where they can be plugged in, the electric companies are going to increase revenues while supermarkets fail to sell the apples they already have. And that's just the fruit growers. How long before someone figures out how to make fermented apples a more economically viable energy source than oil? That could completely destabilize the Middle East, to say nothing of the disruption of the automotive industry. It's a marvelous invention, Kevin, but I fear for your safety."

Chad attempted to placate her by waving his hands condescendingly. "Now, Anna, calm down, I don't know that it would get to that point. I highly doubt the, ah, Johnny is going to destabilize the Middle East. I mean, come on, business models fail all the time. The stagecoach couldn't survive the advent of the car, but no one went after Henry Ford."

"Henry Ford didn't invent the car," said Kevin. "I think Karl Benz is usually attributed with that, although the internal combustion engine came before him--"

"No, come on, I'm sure Henry Ford invented the car--"

"Hey, it's not about who invented the car," said Anna. "But in the end I don't think this will be about apples, either. What you've done with apples, others might discover how to do with, I don't know, bombs or something. Look, all I'm trying to say is be careful. Maybe I'm just weirded out, you know, from watching an apple appear out of nowhere. But I have a bad feeling about what might happen."

"I appreciate your concern, Anna," Kevin said. "You're good friends to me, both of you. I haven't told anyone else about this. You've just helped me out so much, I wanted you to witness what your generosity let me accomplish. But, I'm exhausted. Can we get together again tomorrow?"

"Sure thing, Kevin. Anna, need a ride home?"

#

"Miss Winesap, a word?"

Anna looked up from her desk and into the Raybans of the most nondescript man she had ever seen. His black three-piece suit bore no insignia; his face suggested no country of origin. Standing silently next to him was an Asian male in matching dress--right down to the Raybans. If she saw them on the street she would have assumed they were Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or something. However, preachers didn't usually wander into law offices. Feds too self-absorbed to take off their sunglasses indoors, on the other hand, often did.

"What does Uncle Sam want from me today?"

"'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' That's a good philosophy, Miss Winesap."

"Kennedy was a good man. Whatever else might be said about him, he always learned from his mistakes. But something tells me you're not here to discuss dead presidents."

The black-clad stranger flashed something approaching a smile. "Au contraire, Miss Winesap, au contraire. We have been authorized to discuss a great many dead presidents."

Anna twirled her finger for him to continue.

"You represent the holdings of one Mr. Kevin Newton, is that correct?"

"I'm sure you know it is, Mr...?"

"It has come to our attention that he has developed a most remarkable device with significant military and industrial application. We would like to purchase his device and all associated patents. We would also like to offer him a permanent position within the National Security Agency research and development staff."

Anna had not counted on this. The papers wouldn't be completely drawn up for another month at least. Kevin had agreed not to go public with the Johnny until all the necessary patents had been filed and his own research had been prepared for publication. How these thugs had gotten wind of the device was anyone's guess. Maybe they really did tap every phone in the country.

Dismissing the notion as paranoid, Anna composed herself and feigned a look of consideration. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name. Or see any identification."

Was that consternation on his face? The man flipped a badge out of his jacket pocket. "You may call me Mr. Smith. My partner is Mr. Pyrus."

Though she had no way of knowing whether the badge was authentic, Anna wrote down the number. "Well, Mr. Smith, although I represent Mr. Newton's intellectual property interests, I can't speak for him regarding their sale and I certainly can't speak for his employment preferences. If you wish to specify the particular technology you are interested in, Mr. Newton welcomes inquiry via post or electronic mail--"

"Miss Winesap."

"Yes?"

Mr. Smith looked at his still-silent companion, who nodded. Smith moved to the open door and closed it gently. When his companion spoke, it was not in tones of circumspection and innuendo. It was low and gravelly and menacing, a tone that brooked no argument. It was a tone that said, So that's how it's going to be, is it? It was a tone that said, This is how we do things downtown.

"Miss Winesap, it has come to our attention that Kevin Newton holds you in very high regard. He will listen to your advice. Advise him to accept our offer. We are prepared to make him a very wealthy man. We are willing to make you wealthy as well, if that is what you require."

"What is this really about? Protecting the economy? Preserving the status quo? We're talking about a world-changing technology. Feeding the hungry. Creating clean, inexpensive energy. Kevin is not going to let you haul it off and stack it next to the Ark of the Covenant in some secret warehouse! He wouldn't let you do it even if I asked. Which I won't."

"Don't be foolish! You want to feed the hungry? Think of the applications this kind of technology carries for terrorists. Need some plutonium? Whip up a batch! What about organized crime? The perfect counterfeiter! To say nothing of copying people."

Anna pondered for a moment. Hadn't she expressed similar concerns the night Kevin first demonstrated his wondrous machine? Now, hearing her own words thrown back at her, they sounded petty and hollow. Even so, she lacked a meaningful objection.

Instead she cried, "It only makes apples!"

"For the moment. This is the kind of misguided experimentation we like to nip in the bud. If allowed to come to full fruition, the principles behind your friend's discovery will destroy the world as we know it. As a patent lawyer, you are surely aware of the increasing difficulty we have protecting America's valuable store of intellectual property. With computers able to make unlimited digital copies of an original work at virtually zero cost, creativity is losing its economic appeal. Your friend's machine could extend this problem to physical objects. Scarcity vanishes completely. Principles of supply and demand fall completely apart, undermining centuries of successful economic theory. To say nothing of the machine's potential for terrorism. This isn't about some abstract attachment to the status quo, Miss Winesap. This is about a very concrete attachment to a stable global economy and continued peaceful existence."

Anna chewed her bottom lip a moment and wondered what she could say to such compelling arguments. What would Kevin say? Something optimistic and visionary, no doubt. But she couldn't think of anything. She tried a different approach.

"You can't go around making tools illegal just because someone might misuse it. Besides, Kevin discovered this process--eventually, someone else will, too. Let's have some progress now instead of later! Uncle Sam was such a visionary youth. Whatever happened to him, I wonder."

"He grew up, Miss Winesap, and so should you. Please understand this. If either you or Mr. Newton go public with his latest invention, you will regret it."

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Anna. "Is that some kind of threat?"

Mr. Smith opened the door. "We never said we'd make you regret it, Miss Winesap. The United States Government is not in the business of harming its citizens. My associate was not making threats, just delivering a friendly warning. Should Mr. Newton decline our offer, the natural consequences will doubtless be punishment enough."

#

"I'm being sued?"

"No, Kevin, you're not being sued yet. The Apple Grower's Association of America has merely requested that a sample be made available for a DNA test. If it can be demonstrated that the apple your machine copies was grown in the United States, then yes, the grower will probably have the option to sue you--"

"I thought natural processes couldn't be copyrighted?" Chad said from the couch. He appeared to be engrossed in the newspaper, but apparently he was still listening.

"Well, that's true," said Anna. "But technically, a likeness of the apple was stored in a digital format, which could theoretically bring it under the umbrella of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. This is all so convoluted." Anna sighed heavily. "Look, Kevin, I don't think there's anything to be worried about. It could take months, years even, for them to even find the original tree."

"But the whole development process could be held up with legal...stuff... for years! First those men come see you, now the FDA wants a sample, the apple people want a sample... I don't... I don't understand. I don't understand how all these people found out about Johnny. I know the scientific community will want to review my work. That's fine. That's normal. It will need to be documented and verified, but that's holding things up in the name of science. This--"

"Is a legal nightmare. Kevin, why don't you just sell your machine to the government?" Chad had put down the paper and was now thumbing through last month's Scientific American.

Anna snorted. "That's nice, coming from someone who works for the government. Those men in black come see you too?"

"Heh, not me. I'm just Chad Malus, lowly bureaucrat extraordinaire. I'm no high-priced patent lawyer." Chad flashed Anna a grin. "But seriously, Kevin, why not sell while there's an offer on the table?"

"They'd just hide it. Or worse, use it to further their own global agenda. When I started this project, my goal was, well, my goal was to change the world. Maybe it was... prideful, maybe it was ambitious, but the Johnny is a success! It really could change the world! Once I get the conversion module functioning--I wonder if the solar panels could be optimized enough to--"

"Oh, I agree, old buddy. But think of it this way. Who makes those computer chips? The Pentium ones, you know? That everyone buys?"

"Intel," Kevin and Anna said simultaneously.

"Right, Intel. Now, I just got a five gigahertz hard drive from them."

"Processor?" asked Kevin.

"You know, not the screen, the box. Isn't that the hard drive?"

"Actually, the hard drive is in the case, as is the processor," said Kevin. "Don't worry; it's a common mistake. I did some work on a motherboard for one of the new five gigahertz processors, you know."

"Look, here's the point. You think they have a bunch of scientists standing around discovering the secret to five-and-a-half gigahertz computers? Someone says, 'Well boys, we discovered the secret to making five gigahertz, let's get to work on the next one.' No! Of course not! They probably discovered how to get up to ten gigahertz a decade ago. But if they just went from one gigahertz to ten, what would consumers do? How would the market respond? So they do the smart thing--they let things progress slowly, parcel out their discoveries nice and easy. Not only do they make money, but the market has time to adapt to each change as it occurs."

Anna frowned. "I don't see how that applies at all, Chad."

"It totally applies! See, the government knows that progress benefits everyone, but they want it to occur slowly because change that happens too fast can cause upheaval, while releasing changes slowly stimulates the economy. In fact, I'd be willing to bet it's the Feds who leaked news of Kevin's discovery to the Apple Growers. You know, before he had time to release his findings through the 'proper' channels, sort of a demonstration of how letting things happen too fast can create problems." Chad paused and rubbed his chin. "The question is, how did they find out?"

"No," Anna said. "As much as I would like to know how they found out, it's not really an immediate concern. That ship has sailed. The question of immediate concern is, when will the media catch wind of this? At this stage, public attention will only make things worse. Kevin, when you say you just want to change the world, are you serious? What I mean is, if it came to a choice between turning a profit and getting the technology out, which would you choose?"

"Why, getting the technology out, I suppose, but I don't see--"

Anna smiled gently. "Well, if you're not worried about the money, why not post your schematics on the Internet? Right now?"

"I never thought--" Kevin smacked one palm to his forehead. "Of course! The answer has been staring me in the face all along! Here I was so worried someone would steal my ideas--I could use the GPL, even maintain some control of the patents. It wouldn't be as profitable, but initial deployment would be widespread and commercial release would bring in enough research money for further advancement--Anna, I could kiss you! How could I have missed such an obvious--"

Without warning, a deafening roar assailed Anna's ears and she felt the floor tremble beneath her feet. She watched Kevin lose his footing and tumble to the green shag carpet. Chad, who had been reclining on the couch, sat upright and looked around warily.

"The garage!"

Kevin tried to rise to his feet and sprint forward simultaneously; this merely landed him back in the green shag. Chad and Anna hurried towards the door that stood between the house and the garage. When Chad flung the door open, thick black smoke rolled into the house.

"Get a fire extinguisher!" Chad said to Anna, half-closing the door.

At last Kevin managed to get to his feet. He pulled a fire extinguisher out from under his kitchen sink and pushed past Anna and Chad into the garage, heedless of the billowing smoke. Anna heard the fire extinguisher's hiss and Kevin's coughing. Would he have the presence of mind to avoid smoke inhalation? Or was he so worried about his invention that he would harm himself trying to save it? Chad was gazing seriously into the smoke-filled garage; Anna figured they were wondering the same thing.

What could they do?

Anna decided to go in and pull Kevin out just as he re-emerged from the smoke. The smoke detectors in his house were ringing, now, and Kevin was coughing violently.

"Call an ambulance."

"No," Kevin rasped. "I'm okay. There wasn't much fire, just a lot of smoke--" Kevin coughed again. "The hydrogen tanks were fine. Well, of course they were fine, if they'd gone up we'd all be dead. But I don't know what else could have exploded. It's not like my computer runs Windows or anything." Kevin chuckled, albeit weakly, at his own joke. Anna smiled; if Kevin was well enough to make Linux-geek cracks about Microsoft products, he would probably live.

"I'm glad you're okay, but I want the paramedics to check you out anyway." Anna pulled out her cell phone and dialed emergency services.

Kevin smiled.

"So the machine is destroyed?" Chad asked.

Yep. The prototype Johnny is a total wreck."

"But you have the schematics?"

"Well, the computer in the garage is toast. But there's a backup on the computer in my bedroom," Kevin said. "And of course in my head. The state of the machine is not important. You know, maybe it's even for the best."

Chad raised one eyebrow. "You sound like you're trying to convince yourself."

That brought a wry grin to Kevin's face. "Well, maybe a little. It sets the development process back a few months, but I'll know to have all the paperwork done beforehand. I'll prepare a little better for the unexpected. Maybe I can improve on the design. If I can take better advantage of the covalent bonding tendencies of--"

"Paramedics are on their way." Anna said, putting her cell phone in her pocket.

Chad didn't seem to hear her. "So besides the computer and your head, there's no backup schematic?"

"Well no," said Kevin. "But--"

"Good." Chad pulled a snub-nosed handgun out of his suit coat pocket and leveled it at Kevin's head. "It's nothing personal, Kevin. You've been a good friend. But some things are bigger than simple friendship."

Anna raised her hands defensively. "Whoa, Chad, what are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm taking matters into my own hands. Both of you, lay on the ground."

"Chad," Kevin said. "I--"

"No! No talking. I'm going to take your computer and I'm going to sell the machine. You should have sold while you had the chance. But no, I finally invest in something that will pay off, and my own friends are too busy saving the world to let me see some returns. Now get on the floor!"

Anna lunged for the gun, hoping she could disarm Chad before he did anything foolish. Her hands closed around his wrist as the roar of gunfire set her ears ringing. Then something solid connected with the back of her skull and the world went black.

#

"I don't get it," said Anna. "No matter how long I think about it, I don't understand why no one believes our story."

"Well," Kevin said, "The scientific community is pretty picky about stuff like this. I'm not really surprised, I mean, most of the really pertinent equations were on the machine Chad took or the one he destroyed. If he was the one who destroyed it. I guess it didn't have to be him, after all."

"No," Anna said, "I mean, right, it didn't have to be him."

"Nope. Could be he was just taking advantage of a bad moment, you know?" With his good arm, Kevin jabbed a screwdriver into the pile of steel and rubber currently occupying half of Anna's living room. Thick black oil burbled out, soaking into the cream-colored carpet.

Not for the first time in the last three months, Anna wished she had a garage. Or anywhere, really, for Kevin to work besides her living room. But only her living room was large enough for Kevin's machine and, as far as she was concerned, neither of them were going to have much of a professional life until Kevin could reconstruct Johnny.

"Er, sorry," said Kevin, inserting his screwdriver into another slot in the machine. Thankfully, this time there was no oil spill.

"Do you really think Chad would try to kill you for money?"

Kevin pointed at his bandaged left shoulder with the tip of his screwdriver. "For money? Well, isn't that one of the primary motives in most attempted murder?"

Anna grunted her acknowledgment.

"Still," Kevin continued, "I don't know. I do know that it takes maybe four months for a broken clavicle to heal. I also think that from where I was standing, it didn't look like Chad was aiming to kill. In fact, I'm not even sure the gun would have gone off if you hadn't... er... well, anyway. Hey, have you got any apples?"

"What? Wait, is the scanner done already?"

"Ah, I'm getting kind of hungry. Converting pantyhose into cable coupling is slow work."

Anna smiled and got up from her recliner. "I'll find you some food."

Kevin chuckled and picked a small black computer chip out of a clear plastic case. He squinted at it much in the way Anna had always seen jewelers squint at diamonds, then inserted it into one of the circuit boards on Anna's coffee table.

As she rummaged through her refrigerator, Anna found her attention drifting. When was the last time she left the house? When was the last time she showered? After negative press over Kevin's unverifiable claims had pressured the firm into sending Anna on an extended "leave of absence," she had grown despondent. Days had blurred into weeks, weeks into months; this whole ordeal was simply too much. And over what? A machine that churned out apples. Not people or plutonium or anything! Just apples. Kevin's simple utopian vision had already inspired subterfuge, lawsuits, betrayal, and, arguably, attempted murder. And thus far, it had made only one apple! Was one apple worth all this?

"Maybe it's time for some subterfuge of our own."

"What's that?" Kevin asked.

"I said, maybe it's time for some subterfuge of our own. If we want our careers back, we've got to get the machine working again. But the moment we do, we'll be back in the thick of things. The lawsuit from the Apple Grower's Association will resume. Not to mention Chad, wherever he is and whoever he's trying to sell your computer to."

"You still think he'll try to sell it?" asked Kevin.

"Well, he seemed most interested in the money. If he can sell it before the authorities catch up to him, well, let's just say attempted murder is not a charge that sticks to wealthy folk."

"So," Kevin started, then paused thoughtfully. "Should we finish the machine or not?"

"Oh, definitely," Anna said, smiling mischievously. "But first we need a plan. When we go public, we need to do it in a big way."

"Great," said Kevin. "Would you mind if I take apart your television's remote control?"

#

Anna never did find out how much Chad got paid for Kevin's original work, but she did eventually learn that it was enough for him to bribe his way to retirement on some tropical paradise with loose extradition policies. The software company that obtained it was quick to begin marketing the Johnny Appleseed Mark IV around the globe.

On the advice of their lawyers, the software giant had sent Kevin and Anna reasonably large checks. The money was helpful and the public acknowledgement of the Johnny Appleseed cleared up a lot of ridicule, but Kevin and Anna hardly noticed. They were in the midst of bigger plans.

Anna glanced around the lecture room and began her speech. "As you are all undoubtedly aware, the Johnny machines incorporate digital rights management on grand scale. Via modem, broadband, and even satellite technology, each machine contacts a parent server which debits the user's account for the price of one apple. These funds go primarily to the coffers of the Apple Grower's Association of America and the pocket of one Cletus Syzygium, the farmer whose trees developed the original apple which Johnny duplicates."

Anna smiled at Kevin. From his seat in the audience, Kevin smiled back and offered a "thumbs up." She had insisted repeatedly that he be the one to make the announcement, but he deferred to her speaking ability. He told her he didn't want to botch the moment they had been preparing for these last few years. She suspected he just hated speaking in front of people.

"As you are also undoubtedly aware, any attempts to open the Johnny casing or modify its circuitry are strictly forbidden by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Although the fermentation of apples for use in combustion engines is not illegal, the per-unit cost imposed by the managing entities makes such innovations costly at best. The solar model is not available in first-world countries and is sold to third-world governments at a premium."

Anna had deliberately organized a small conference for the occasion. Fifty, maybe sixty scientists and tradesmen were in attendance, mostly by personal invitation. Though some were big chiefs at large corporations, most were idealists, researchers and inventors who would be sympathetic to Kevin's dream. People who would recognize that the Johnny Appleseed Mark IV was not that dream.

"All of these limitations are the direct result of patent litigation, copyright issues, economic protections, and greed. Things Kevin Newton did not count on when he invented Johnny. Kevin did not count on apple growers asserting continued ownership over something he had already purchased. He did not count on one of his investors placing profit above all else. He did not count on the corporate instinct to continue levying fees long after they have lost reasonable justification for doing so."

So maybe she was laying it on a little thick. But watching Johnny get marketed over the past few years had left a bitter taste in her mouth and she was enjoying the opportunity to vent.

"But Kevin doesn't give up easily, do you Kevin?" Anna smiled at him again and he blushed. "For Kevin, this has never been about money. This has been about one man's pursuit of knowledge and one man's desire to improve the world in whatever way he can. So tonight we'd like to introduce to you Kevin's latest invention. It is completely original, using none of the patented technology found in the Johnny Appleseed. It is not beholden to any investors. The schematics will be published under a public license which my firm is currently authoring. And best of all..."

Anna turned to the microwave-sized machine behind her. She pressed its lone green button and nothing happened.

Anna pounded one fist against the top of the machine.

The overhead lights went out and for a moment all was dark. A low humming filled Anna's ears as a gentle blue glow illuminated the conference room. When the glow subsided, the lights turned back on and Anna opened the device.

Inside was a ripe, golden, perfectly proportioned ear of corn.

"Best of all, Kevin bred and grew the corn himself."

"And I'm gifting it to the public domain," Kevin said with a chuckle. "Every last kernel."

--Kenneth R. Pike