The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year - Volume Eight by Jonathan Strahan [Editor]

replacement parts to the hydroelectric plant.
    International donors had agreed to fund the project, and with overhead cables strung from pole to pole along winding roads, some discrepancy between the surveyed length and the cable used was only to be expected. But while Fashard really had come to an agreement with the contractor to take the excess wire off his hands, with no family ties or prior connection to the man he had only managed to secure the deal by offering a price well above the going rate.
    Latifa didn't expect any of these details to elude their partner, but the hope was that his advisers in Kandahar would conclude that Fashard, lacking experience as a smuggler, had simply underestimated his own costs. That alone wouldn't make the collaboration a bad investment: she'd structured the proposal in such a way that Ezatullah would still make a tidy return even if the rest of them barely broke even.
    They left the bus and made their way home. "If we told him the truth –" her grandfather began as they started up the stairs.
    "If we told him the truth, he'd snatch it from our hands!" Latifa retorted. Her words echoed in the concrete stairwell; she lowered her voice. "One way or another he'd get hold of the recipe, then sell it to some company with a thousand lawyers who could claim they'd invented it themselves. We need to be in a stronger position before we take this to anyone, or they'll eat us alive." A patent attorney could do a lot to protect them before they approached a commercial backer, but that protection would cost several thousand euros. Raising that much themselves – without trading away any share in the invention – wasn't going to be easy, but it would make all the difference to how much power they retained.
    Her grandfather stopped on a landing to catch his breath. "And if Ezatullah finds out that we've lied to him –"
    His phone buzzed once, with a text message.
    "You need to go to the house again," he said. "Tomorrow, after school."
    Latifa's skin prickled with fear. " Me? What for?" Did Ezatullah want to quiz her about her knowledge of retail fashion for the modern Iranian woman – or had his digging already exposed her other interests?
    "Most of the money's going straight to Fashard, but we'll need some cash at our end too," her grandfather explained. "He doesn't want me coming and going from the house, but no one will be suspicious if you've struck up a friendship with his daughter."
    L atifa had asked the electricians to come at seven to switch on the power to the kilns, but when they hadn't shown up by eight she gave up any hope of making it to her history class.
    For the first hour she'd killed time by sweeping; now she paced the bare wooden floor, optimistically surveying her new fiefdom. Finding the factory had been a huge stroke of luck; it had originally produced ceramic tableware, and when the tenants went out of business the owner of the premises had taken possession of the kilns. He'd been on the verge of selling them for scrap, and had parted with them for a ridiculously low price just to get her grandfather to sign the lease. The location wasn't perfect, but perhaps it was for the best that it wasn't too close to the shop. The separation would make it less likely that anyone would see her in both places.
    When the electricians finally arrived they ignored Latifa completely, and she resisted the urge to pester them with odd questions. What would you do if you cut into an overhead power line and found that its appearance, in cross-section, wasn't quite what you were used to?
    "Delivery for Bose Ceramics?" a man called from the entrance.
    Latifa went to see what it was. The courier was already loading one box, as tall as she was, onto his trolley. She guided him across the factory floor. "Can you put it here? Thank you."
    "There are another two in the truck."
    She waited until the electricians had left before finding a knife and slicing away the cardboard and styrofoam – afraid that