Free Revolution World by Katy Stauber

pick their way through a muddy field in as civilized a fashion as possible and meeting with little success.
    "Sure," Seth replied. "The new office is going up very quickly. I can't believe we've already been here three weeks." He turned to look at her as he said this and stopped paying attention to where he was going.
    Seth slid across a mud patch like a surfer, only to trip over a shoelace and scrape his elbow on the one patch of grass as far as the eye could see.
    "I begin to see the point of those uncomfortable looking cowboy boots everyone wears," he said as he slipped again. This time he planted both knees in the mud. Clio had to help him up.
    "Watch out for that rock," she replied.
    He turned to look and promptly tripped over the rock, anyway. He did a wobbling little dance to keep from falling and then blushed with embarrassment. "The past few weeks have gone much smoother than this," said Seth with a self-conscious laugh, looking down. "I just put this shirt on."
    Seth turned to look at the lights strung up just ahead like a mirage in a mud desert. The parking lot was just a field and after hard rains and heavy trucks, the field had gotten fed up and struck back with a resentful tide of sticky muck.
    "Whose birthday party is this again?" Seth asked her. "I felt I should bring a gift, but what do you get for someone you've never met?"
    "Oh, sugar," laughed Clio. "Nobody here ever met the birthday boy. Bigfoot Wallace has been dead for over two hundred years. He's not even buried here." Seth turned to face her. He could seeby the amused glint in her eye that she was serious. He raised an eyebrow.
    Clio answered his unasked question. "He's a local folk hero. He fought in the war against Mexico for Texas independence. He was one of the first Texas Rangers. They say he kept the peace by being the scariest man south of Dallas. We celebrate his birthday because, well, I don't really know why. Mostly I guess we like having a reason to have a big barbeque and a band. We all get together to drink beer, eat ourselves sick and dance until dawn."
    "Ah." Seth said. That sounded reasonable to him. "Sure. So, is the rest of your family here?"
    "Oh yes, they all took the day off and got here when the party started this afternoon. I had some work to do so I'm late. I always have some work to do so I'm always late," Clio said with a sigh. "What about you? Didn't anyone else from your new office come? I can't imagine your uncle missing a party."
    Seth laughed. "No, Max would never miss a party, especially one with food at it. I too was working late so Max came with some of the others around eight. No doubt he is lying in a food coma in some corner of this field now. We've had to install some of those treadmill generators at the new office. We have to walk far enough to generate the electricity if we want to play globenet games. And we all love our games. Otherwise we'd have to build a bigger office because we'd all be enormously fat from eating all the delicious food."
    "It's a problem that's hard to complain about, what with so many parts of the world having problems getting enough nutrition. But yeah. Those treadmill generators are very popular around here. I have one at home for gaming too," Clio replied as they walked into the laughing crowd of townspeople.
    Clio put a hand on Bob the Money Guy's shiny new convertible to steady herself as she cleared the last mud puddle. Where did he get the money for things like this? She knew Floracopia paid him well, but she thought he'd need a lot more money to support his expensive habits. Maybe he got money out of his many lady friends? She didn't like to think about that. She turned to survey the scene. At one end of the big field a band was playing swinging honky-tonk to an enthusiastic crowd of dancers. A line of large black barbecue pits filled the field with delicious-smelling smoke. An enthusiastic crowd milled around in meaty bliss.
    "What games do you play?" asked Seth. His eyes had