Halloween IV
Author: Nicholas Grabowsky
Date: 2022-10-11 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Description: New fiction by Rich Larson, Alexander Glass (plus interview), Cécile Cristofari, Jeff Noon, Tamika Thompson, Charles Wilkinson, Lucy Zhang, Val Nolan, Justen Russell; Climbing Stories by Aliya Whiteley; Ansible Link by David Langford; Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe; cover art by Vincent Sammy and lots of interior colour illustrations. Fiction: Wet Dreams by Rich Larson illustrated by Richard Wagner Three stories by Alexander Glass: The Pain Barrier The Faerie Engine The Soul Doctors all illustrated by Richard Wagner Thank You, Clicking Person by Jeff Noon illustrated by Vince Haig Subira's Lattic
Publisher: TTA Press

GUEST EDITORIAL

GARETH JELLEY

WALKING THROUGH THAT DOOR

After eighteen years and a hundred issues, Andy Cox is moving on from Interzone. Andy’s time as editor has been phenomenal: more than five hundred fantastic stories; over a thousand pieces of thought-provoking nonfiction; and page after page, cover after cover, of spectacular design and artwork. At TTA Press, Interzone has shone brightly. This massive 192-page issue is no exception.

Starting with issue #294, Interzone will be edited by me and published by MYY Press in Wrocław (a few light milliseconds away from Andy and TTA). I want to take this opportunity to thank Andy for his enthusiasm, guidance, and trust. Writing this, thinking about what it means to be able to shape the future of such a luminous and important magazine, is thrilling.

Wrocław is no stranger to migrations, change, and the intermingling of cultures and politics (Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse described it as a Central European microcosm; and the city is itself an interzone of sorts). Full-colour, offset-printed paper copies of Interzone will be printed in Krakow (another millisecond of light to the east) and then travel around the planet (not, alas, at the speed of light) to subscribers new and old, as they always have, albeit with a different postmark and a price in euros.

There will be a brief hiatus before the next issue and then a new 96-page issue every two months. If you already subscribe, you will continue to receive copies. You can renew or extend at any time: interzone.press/subscribe is the place to go. If you have any questions regarding your current subscription, missing issues, or a change of address, please contact subscriptions@interzone.press and we will do our best to sort things out.

So: same planet; new territory. Be not afeard: Interzone will continue to feature voices and ideas from every corner of fantastika: dreams of forgotten space ages, visions of future ghosts, explorations of our myriad hopes and fears. And alongside the fiction, nonfiction will continue to thrive: more interviews, more reviews, and more essays. And art – lots and lots of it. The same as it ever was, and more.

I am also very happy to announce that by the time you read this, Interzone Digital, an extension of Interzone which exists entirely online, will be live. New stories will appear bi-weekly at interzone.digital along with essays and other features. The fiction and nonfiction you read there will be exclusive to the web and free for all to access. There will be no duplication of content across the two publications: what you read here is Interzone; what you read there is Interzone Digital.

Interzone Digital means more stories, more regularly – a win for both readers and writers.

Which gets us to submissions.

Interzone is open to unsolicited submissions of fantastika of between 2,000 and 17,500 words. Visit interzone.press/submissions for details. Interzone Digital is open to unsolicited submissions of fantastika of between 2,000 and 5,000 words. Visit interzone.digital/submissions for details.

I will be reading what you send along with a couple of consulting editors. What are we looking for? What are we talking about when we talk about fantastika? A partial answer can be found in something John Clute – an Interzone founder and contributor, no less – said about fantastika in Pardon This Intrusion:

“Horror and fantasy and sf, and all the subgenres that subtend like fruit from that triad, are a kind of body English of how to recognize the world, recognitions that must, if we hope to survive, be constantly and actively renewed: as a heliotrope recognizes the sun, as a bee dances the road to the hive.”

Stories that recognize the world and renew that recognition. Stories that turn themselves to the light and dance their way down the road. Playful, brave, inquisitive stories. Looming, monstrous stories that open their rusty mouths and say, “Pardon this intrusion.” Stories we have never seen before. At both Interzone and Interzone Digital we want to publish stories that tell of change and transformation; stories that describe the boundlessness of the human heart. We want to see writers experiment and take risks with stories that wend their way through the labyrinth of this world and with stories that string bridges of their own creation to places we have never seen. Submit stories that rend the heart, shock the brain, and leave the world a different place.

Another partial clue as to what we want might be this nugget from William Faulkner:

“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”

Go at it, and don’t self-reject. We want to see what you have made.

So, read Interzone and Interzone Digital often. Talk to people about the stories that hit you hard or that you just can’t shake. Send us your own stories. Subscribe to the magazine and share a copy with friends. Savour the never-ending experimentation, the fiction and nonfiction written by passionate writers from across the planet, and go with us as we step out into new worlds.

Thank you for your time. Pardon this intrusion.

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© 2022 Interzone & contributors

Many thanks to all the collaborators, contributors, readers, and everybody else who helped and supported us through the last one hundred issues.

Our very best wishes to Gareth.

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INTERZONE 292/293 DOUBLE ISSUE 2022

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CONTENTS

COVER ART

THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS by VINCENT SAMMY
karbonkay.wordpress.com

GUEST EDITORIAL

GARETH JELLEY

CLIMBING STORIES

ALIYA WHITELEY

ANSIBLE LINK

DAVID LANGFORD

WET DREAMS

RICH LARSON
story illustrated by Richard Wagner
behance.net/rdwagner3179

THE PAIN BARRIER

ALEXANDER GLASS
novelette illustrated by Richard Wagner

THE FAERIE ENGINE

ALEXANDER GLASS
story illustrated by Richard Wagner

THE SOUL DOCTORS

ALEXANDER GLASS
novelette illustrated by Richard Wagner

A MULTIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS:

IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEXANDER GLASS
interview by Gareth Jelley

THANK YOU, CLICKING PERSON

JEFF NOON
story illustrated by Vince Haig
barquing.com

SUBIRA’S LATTICE

VAL NOLAN
novelette illustrated by Ev Shipard
evshipardentertainmentart.com

WALKING IN FROM THE WEST

CHARLES WILKINSON
story illustrated by Vincent Sammy
karbonkay.wordpress.com

MUTANT POPCORN

NICK LOWE

WIND, RIVER, ANGEL SONG

CÉCILE CRISTOFARI
story illustrated by Dave Senecal
deviantart.com/senecal

THE THING ABOUT ANTS AND ASTRONAUTS

JUSTEN RUSSELL
story

BRIDGET HAS DISAPPEARED

TAMIKA THOMPSON
novelette illustrated by Ben Baldwin
benbaldwin.co.uk

RUSTING

LUCY ZHANG
story

CLIMBING STORIES

ALIYA WHITELEY

SMELLS LIKE A DEITY

I am watching the television. To be precise, I am watching the adverts that appear in between the thing I thought I wanted to watch.

The screen shimmers, and a strange planet grabs my attention.

It is a planet of silk and sand, of shining reflections on water, of flowers of many petals slowly, carefully, opening. A beautiful woman lifts her hand and the flower levitates, obeying her command. Her golden eyes afire, she stalks across the dunes as if everything she sees is hers alone. She creates a thousand such flowers with the turn of her wrist.

A caption arrives. There is a glowing bottle behind it.

I realise this is a perfume advert, and it’s offering to make me smell like an alien deity.

Why would I want to smell like an alien deity? The answer comes to me: it’s better than smelling like a human. At least, it must be preferable to smell like a flower-creator on a beguiling planet compared to the humans in perfume adverts who are twiddling about on top of skyscrapers, or running through black and white streets with high heels in hand, or all the other stuff they do that surely smells of exertions and manipulations: the pungent end of commercialism. Who falls for all these fake representations of aroma? Not me. I’m stronger than that. The programme I was watching recommences, and I put the alien deity out of mind. I will continue to smell of myself, which is a mixture of dog, baking and uncertainty.

Adverts are insidious.

By the time the advert comes around again I’m willing to entertain the thought that perhaps I should find out how that perfume smells. I should smell of something else, something powerful. Maybe then I wouldn’t be sitting on the sofa, every night, watching adverts.

Next step: I watch some reviews online. The enthusiastic influencers spray away, and stretch language into aroma. Describing smells for other people to try to imagine strikes me as a difficult job, and I appreciate their efforts. They speak in warm tones of beauty, strength and longevity. This deity could overpower us all, then fade into lingering low notes that leave a trace on clothes, to be found hiding in the back of wardrobes decades later. Like old shoes, or something. Sniff upon my works, ye, mighty, and despair.

I take a trip into town and browse the stands in the cosmetic aisle. The bottles are a wizard’s dream of shapes, sizes, promises. My eyes are delighted by the possibilities. A bit of research has taught me that scents are divided into categories for the tutored nose: floral, oriental, woody and fresh. How to separate them?

I can’t separate them. I can’t even smell them. In this pandemic, spraying testers around the shop is forbidden. Nobody is meant to sniff anything.

The stand for the alien deity is no bigger than the others, which seems a little disrespectful given her cosmic power. I pick up a sealed box, wrapped in clear plastic, and imagine: could this be the new me? What would I smell like in a strange world, so far removed from my own? A world that worships me, where smell is encouraged, in which I am unknowable, irresistible, to be feared and loved? In a cloud of imagination, I spread my many arms and legs and slow time until it barely moves around me. I cast my gaze over deserts of cold fire and forests of shining metal. My underlings resent their obligation to revere me, and they would rebel; I feel their intention, their hatred of the way I make their own small lives meaningless. But they must serve, must polish and nurture the many idols of me. Every statue, demanding offerings, is only a droplet in my ocean of dominance. What would they ever do without me?

I buy myself a small amount of the perfume. It’s expensive stuff. I carry it home in a tiny bag. I am masked; this world is masked. The alien world overwrites all blank faces. The underlings are eager to serve. They make sweet music, vibrating their ear tips, rustling the wiry hairs on their thighs. I am an object of awe. I am godhood.

Back home. I unwrap the box. I run a bath, and pour a little of the scent into the water. It permeates every part of me. I luxuriate, then rise from the oily golden lake and move my limbs in an ancient spell, a wondrous call. I spin flowers from my thoughts, and levitate them, commanding them in a dance. They follow down the hall to the bedroom, obeying me, delighting me. From the window, looking out, I don’t see the backs of the houses opposite, or the junction where the road turns into the estate. I see my planet, my sand and silver domain where the forests tower above and the dunes fall away. The underlings stop their bustle and turn to me, as one. They bow down, trembling, their wiry hairs aquiver.

More, I tell them. More. I spray myself. The bedroom is intoxicating. I can’t be overcome. They begin to sing, in voices that shake with their awe. It is a song of dread, of supplication, of crushed dreams and despair. They can’t escape me, their goddess who does not sit about on sofas or watch advertisements because she has nothing better to do, except for occasionally walking the dog or baking. The wild rush of power leads me to excess beyond anything the old me could have dreamed of. Die for me, I tell them. Prove your faith. Die for me now.

The tall idols of me hum, the sound growing louder, louder, and each one cracks, splits open, and falls into pieces on the sand. My believers grab the stones and dash out their brains. Others wade into the golden water, or choke themselves on lengths of silk. Some leap from the wind-blown cliffs, and some turn on their own kind and attack, frenzied, frantic. It is hard to end it for someone else’s whim, but I am implacable. Die for me. I cannot be denied.

When it is over I lie on the bed, and feel the ebbing of my power. I’m no longer a deity. All of those who made me so are dead.

In the aftermath of this power trip, I have to admit that the perfume smells mainly of vanilla.

I like vanilla, particularly in biscuits. It’s a familiar scent, a homely one. It suits me, I think. The old me. The non-world-shatteringly powerful me.

I put some clothes on and go downstairs. The dog is pleased to see me, and I take him for a walk, and when we get back I put on a load of washing, including my mask, and I bake some biscuits. I eat them, still hot, while sitting on the sofa. The adverts try to sell me holidays, cars, gambling and smells. People run through black and white streets, or sail luxury yachts with their muscles outlined as clearly as a plot, a purpose. A goal to it all that we want to share. I remember I’m immune to all that nonsense, and I wait for the thing I thought I was watching to reappear.

ANSIBLE LINK

DAVID LANGFORD

The SF Encyclopedia is now an indie publication: its sf-encyclopedia.com domain moved from Orion to a new hosting service in October 2021, with regular updates ever since. Please visit!

As Others See Us. Elon Musk complains: ‘Can they please just make sci-fi/fantasy at least mostly about sci-fi/fantasy?’ (Twitter)

Awards. BSFA: Novel Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. For Younger Readers Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. Shorter Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard. Non-Fiction Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction ed. Francesca T. Barbini. Artwork Glasgow Green Woman by Iain Clark. • Chesley for lifetime artistic achievement: Richard Corben. • HWA Life Achievement: Jo Fletcher, Nancy Holder, Koji Suzuki. • IAFA Distinguished Scholarship: Farah Mendlesohn. • Nebulas: Novel A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. Novella And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed. Novelette ‘O2 Arena’ by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy’s Edge 11/21). Short ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather’ by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3/21). Andre Norton (YA etc) A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger. Dramatic WandaVision Season 1. Game Writing Thirsty Sword Lesbians. • Philip K. Dick: Dead Space by Kali Wallace.

Ncuti Gatwa, Rwandan-Scots actor in Sex Education, is to follow Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who’s Fourteenth Doctor. (All media outlets everywhere, including pirate websites that subtly change their plagiarised stories: ‘14th Physician of “Physician Who”.’)

Whitby Superspreader. In May, English Heritage broke the 2011 record of 1,039 vampire impersonators gathered together, by assembling 1,369 of them at Whitby Abbey. The dress code is tough: a 2013 attempt failed because too many of the caped and fanged wore ‘non-regulation shoes’. (BBC)

As Others See Us II. Christian Lorentzen reviews Emily St John Mandel and the entire sf genre she rode in on: ‘A book like Sea of Tranquility is a sign of a genre’s exhaustion.’ (Financial Times)

Publishers and Sinners. Charles Platt regained the rights to his nine ebooks on sale at Orion’s SF Gateway ebook operation, and resold them to a new publisher, which released its own Kindle editions – only to be accused of piracy by Amazon/Kindle and punished by having all its titles delisted forever by Amazon. This was because Orion had cleverly continued to offer the Platt books at SF Gateway despite reverting the rights. They’ve since been removed from that site, but whether Amazon/Kindle will relent is unclear.

Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter campaign to fund publication of four ‘secret’ novels written during lockdown transcended its $1 million goal by raising $15m on the first day. Funding soon passed the previous Kickstarter record of $20.3m for a smart watch, and eventually neared $42m.

Publishers and Sinners. Borderlands Press recently reprinted three Arthur Machen stories as A Little Brown Book of Unnatural Narratives by – embossed in gold on the front cover – Robert W. Chambers.

SFWA has gone global: the acronym now stands for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association rather than Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (second F silent in either case).

Author! Author! On a new role-playing game: ‘Dark Nation takes inspirational cues from the likes of […] The Man in the High Castle, a comic book series and television show about an alternative future in which the Nazi regime conquers the USA’. (Dicebreaker.com)

Ben Okri is annoyed by online ghosting services’ fraudulent claims. Unsurprisingly, he did not pay ‘a ghost writer variously called Roseanne Wynter and Lisa P. Whitle’ to bash out his 1991 Booker-winning magic realist novel The Famished Road, as asserted on Twitter. (The Bookseller)

Jared Shurin fed the programmes of 2,432 post-WWII American conventions into an AI that generated new panel permutations: ‘Asimov and Heinlein: Live Swordfighting’, ‘Gaiman on Gaiman’, ‘What is a Semi-Asimov?’, ‘Dune from a Lovecraftian Perspective’, ‘Debate: Cake or Hugos?’, ‘Ursula K. Le Guin and the Other Woman of SF’… (Twitter)

As Others Feared Us. Karen Joy Fowler remembered her publisher’s alarm when she switched genres with The Jane Austen Book Club: ‘“She thought that a lot of women – and men – who liked Jane Austen wouldn’t pick up a book about her if they knew it was written by a science-fiction writer.” On the day of publication, she happened to win a big sci-fi award. “And my publisher said: ‘Oh f**k, is there any way we can keep that information from coming out?’”’ (i interview)

New Scale Unit Introduced. ‘Asteroid half the size of a giraffe strikes Earth off coast of Iceland.’ (Daily Mail)

Urban Renewal. George R.R. Martin’s general hugeness continues, with the new Charlemont suburb of Geelong (Victoria, Australia) taking street names from Game of Thrones: ‘Greyjoy Road, Stannis Street, Winterfell Road and Baelish Drive. (Lannister Road was changed to the more prosaic Precinct Road after it caused offence due to the Lannister siblings’ incestuous relationship.)’ (Sunday Age)

Charles Stross lamented: ‘I’m just gonna write space opera from now on. / It’s the only way to be sure my present-day SF won’t be upstaged when we discover that the Nazi Moon Pandas are paying the Brain Slugs controlling the Russian Oligarchs to accelerate global warming. / (That’s next week’s headline.)’ (Twitter)

Award Shortlists. Hugo contenders for best novel: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine; The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers; Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki; A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir; She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. For the full list of 114 finalists see chicon.org/home/whats-happening/hugo-awards/. • Nebula novel finalists: The Unbroken by C.L. Clark; A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark; Machinehood by S.B. Divya; A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine; Plague Birds by Jason Sanford. For other categories see nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-nebula-award-finalists/.

As Others Remember Us. The James Joyce papers recently donated to Reading University reportedly ‘…include several letters to Joyce from Beckett and other writers including Brave New World author HG Wells…’ (theJournal.ie)

Conventional Wisdom. Bidding for the 2023 World SF Convention was won by Chengdu, China, after a landslide of Chinese votes (worldconinchina.com). The 2023 UK Eastercon, named Conversation, has yet to decide its venue (conversation2023.org.uk); the 2024 Eastercon, Levitation, will be in Telford (eastercon2024.co.uk). Eurocon 2023 is Erasmuscon in Rotterdam (erasmuscon.nl). Many more UK and Irish events are listed at news.ansible.uk.

We Are Everywhere. ‘Ain’t No Party Like an Octavia Butler Writer’s Workshop’ (chapter title in Gabby Rivera’s Juliet Takes a Breath, 2018).

Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, voiced Paddington Bear in Ukrainian dubs of Paddington (2014) and its sequel. Hence cartoons of a small bear giving a huge one a very hard stare.

Thog’s Masterclass. Earth-Wrecking Comet Impact Has Silver Lining. ‘The only good thing about Hammerfall, women’s lib was dead milliseconds after Hammerstrike…’ (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Lucifer’s Hammer, 1977) • Radiophonic Workshop Dept. ‘The scream came tumbling down the stairs, turning over and over as it fell headlong and came to a sudden crashing halt against my eardrums…’ (David Case, And Now the Screaming Starts…, 1970) • Faulty Zoom Sessions Anticipated. ‘Louis Rocco, lying on his back on the couch-bed … felt like a disembodied spirit in a great black void, holding conversation with three other disembodied and quite invisible spirits. At least he would have felt thus, if he could have expressed himself in this way.’ (Harry Stephen Keeler, The 16 Beans, 1945) • Where the Dark Matter Hides. ‘…because of the brilliance of the Sun’s light, many astral bodies beyond it have never been seen from the Earth…’ (Arnold Brede, Sister Earth, 1951) • The Pernicious Influence of Picasso. ‘Kirk turned his head and his eyes moved to the right side of his face.’ (C.J. Boyle, The Adventures of Kirk Rogers Inside the Moon, 2017)

R.I.P.

James Bama (1926–2022), US artist who painted 62 noted covers for Bantam’s Doc Savage paperbacks, died on 24 April aged 95.

Robert C. Cornett (1952–2022), US author whose sf includes the ‘Time Mercenaries’ and ‘Seeds of War’ series – both with Kevin D. Randle – died on 1 April aged 69.

Valerio Evangelisti, Italian fantasy, sf, horror and historical author who won the Urania Prize,Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire and Prix Tour Eiffel, died on 18 April aged 69.

Christopher Finch (1939–2022), UK artist and author associated with New Worlds 1967–1968, whose pop-culture books include Of Muppets and Men (1981) and other Jim Henson studies, died on 1 April aged 82.

Angélica Gorodischer (1928–2022), Argentine author of fiction in many genres including sf and fantasy – her Kalpa Imperial (1983–1984) was translated by Ursula K. Le Guin – died on 5 February aged 93.

Jon M. Harvey, UK small-press publisher of Balthus magazine (1971–1972), whose weird fiction anthologies for Spectre Press began with Cthulhu: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1976), died on 22 February.

Michel Henricot (1936–2022), French artist whose fantastic/surreal work appeared in Omni 1979–1992, died in February aged 85.

Joël Houssin (1953–2022), noted French sf author who won the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for Les Vautours (1985) and his zombie novel Le Temps du twist (1990), and the Prix Apollo for Argentine (1989), died on 23 March aged 68.

Alan J. Hruska (1933–2022), US author whose sf novel was Borrowed Time (1984), died on 29 March aged 88.

Bill Johnson (1956–2022), US author whose novelette ‘We Will Drink a Fish Together…’ (Asimov’s) won a 1998 Hugo, died on 17 March aged 65.

Ken Kelly (1946–2022), US artist who worked for Warren comics (Creepy, Eerie) in the 1970s and did numerous book and music-album (notably for Kiss) covers, died on 3 June aged 76.

Ian Kennedy (1932–2022), legendary UK comics artist active since the 1940s with D.C. Thomson and also as a freelance from 1954, drawing sf strips including Dan Dare for the 1980s Eagle relaunch and Judge Dredd for 2000 AD, died on 7 February aged 89.

Leonid Kourits (1954–2022), Ukrainian fan who attended several UK and US cons and in 1988 organised the first truly international SF convention in the USSR, died from a stroke on 6 March during a Russian attack on his city.

Richard Labonté (1949–2022), Lambda-winning Canadian writer, editor and book dealer whose many LGBT-themed anthologies include The Future Is Queer (2006 with Lawrence Schimel), died on 20 March aged 72.

Garry Leach (1954–2022), UK comics artist who worked for 2000 AD and was the first to draw Alan Moore’s 1982 Marvelman/Miracleman reboot, died on 26 March aged 67.

Patricia A. McKillip (1948–2022), highly regarded US fantasy author who won her first World Fantasy Award for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974) and received the World Fantasy life achievement award in 2008, died on 6 May aged 74. Her Riddle-Master trilogy, opening with The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976), is an acknowledged classic.

Patricia MacLachlan (1938–2022), Newbery Medal-winning US children’s author whose work included fantasy such as Waiting for the Magic (2011), died on 31 March aged 84.

Faren Miller (1950–2022), US author on the staff of Locus 1981–2000 (and regular reviewer there to 2012), whose novel is The Illusionists (1991), died on 15 February aged 71.

Ted Mooney (1951–2022), US author best known for Easy Travel to Other Planets (1981), died on 22 March aged 70.

Jan Pieńkowski (1936–2022), Polish-born illustrator of children’s books – including several fantasies by Joan Aiken – and creator of the pop-up Haunted House (1979, a Kate Greenaway Medal winner), died on 19 February aged 85.

Steve Redwood (1943–2022), expatriate UK author of two novels including Who Needs Cleopatra? (2005) and many shorts, reportedly committed suicide in Spain on 10 March.

Andy Remic (1971–2022), UK author whose sf debut was the Spiral trilogy opening with Spiral (2003), and who went on to publish galactic space opera, fantasy, military sf and more, died on 26 February; he was 50.

Edwin A. (Ted) Scribner (1943–2022), Australian fan who co-published the Ditmar-winning newsletter Australian SF Bullsheet 2002–2010, died on 30 March aged 78.

Richard L. Tierney (1936–2022), US Lovecraft scholar who wrote Cthulhoid, Gnostic and heroic fantasy (including novels about Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn and Red Sonja), died on 1 February aged 85.

Don Tumasonis, US-born Norwegian author of short weird and supernatural fiction since the late 1990s – winning two International Horror Guild Awards – died on 12 February aged 76.

Tom Veitch (1941–2022), US comics writer who with Cam Kennedy created all-new Star Wars comics for George Lucas in the 1990s and also worked on DC’s Animal Man, died on 18 February aged 80.

WET DREAMS

RICH LARSON

illustrated by Richard Wagner

I’m crushing bright orange Doritos onto my Kraft Dinner when someone comes knocking real loud on the door to my basement suite. I stub out my joint by reflex, even though it’s probably not the landlord, who lives in Edmonton and only ever showed up that one time he was in town for a funeral and decided to change my furnace filter.

“Coming!” I shout, likely not loud enough, since I have the stove fan on and music bumping too.

I pop my half-finished joint in the freezer, which I realize is a pretty high thing to do, then head to the door, debating whether or not to snag a shirt on the way.

If it’s my upstairs neighbor Bailey, the blonde mom who last week grabbed my arm for unnecessary balance and asked me what my deal is and why I’m still single, I would maybe like for her to see the muscle I’ve been slowly whittling at Motion Fitness.

If it’s my leftside neighbor Mrs Brown, the lovely old woman from out east who last week brought me moose stew, I would maybe feel inappropriate, like that time I was trying to show a pastor’s wife a vacation photo from Cadiz and she flicked right past it to a shirtless selfie meant for a Tinder girl.

I gander through the glass and see it’s my rightside neighbor, Shawn, the one I least suspected. He’s an addict, twitchy and owlish and prone to mow the lawn at odd hours, which drives Bailey nuts. But he always mows ours while he’s at it, and one afternoon he came over the fence, sipping from a 7–11 cup of mostly liquor, and helped me weed our whole yard.

He’s carrying Cuddy, a fat black cat with polydactylism. I know from Shawn’s girlfriend Chevaun that Cuddy once shat diarrhea directly onto a quesadilla Shawn had left on the counter, but they’ve fixed their relationship since.

I forego the shirt and open the door. “Hey, Shawn.”

“Hey, brother,” he rasps, which makes me pretty sure he doesn’t remember my name. “You’re a vet, right? Cuddy is acting funny.”

I actually work part-time at a pet store, but I have enough vet clinic friends to know what’s going on here. People bring their drugged up dogs or cats in all the time, always doing the same windy speech about how they must have gotten into something, but they don’t know what.

Then the vet asks real politely if maybe it was possibly a narcotic, and the owner says yes, but has no idea how an illegal substance got into the house – must have been the ex’s cousin’s, or the cousin’s ex’s.

“Did she eat some drugs?” I ask.

Cuddy doesn’t look particularly sick, just a bit agitated being pinned against Shawn’s chest. If it was weed, no issue, but I know Shawn and his girlfriend are into coke and crystal, too.

“No, brother,” Shawn says, no hint of offense taken in his gravelly voice. “Seen her high. She’s not high.” Cuddy nearly slips his hold; he rearranges her. “She keeps trying to get in the toilet, man. Been doing it for days. And when Chevaun was taking a bath, little fucker tried to jump right in with her.” He stares down at his cat, bafflement mixed with concern. “Cuddy hates water.”

“She’s thirsty,” I say.

Shawn shakes his head. “Her water bowl’s full, man. And she’s drinking fine.”

I picture the Doritos currently getting all soggy and pulpy on top of the mac-and-cheese, and I hate Shawn for that, I really do. But I like Cuddy. They picked her up off the highway between here and Fort Mac, half starved and three quarters frozen, but she survived and is somehow still friendly to humans, which speaks to a real generosity of spirit.

So I do what I can, which isn’t much. Mostly just feeling for lumps behind her ears, checking her eyes and mouth and coat. She squirms and yowls and seems fully normal, and I realize this whole thing might just be in Shawn’s head, or might be Cuddy just getting old. Cats get weird when they get old, same as humans.

“I don’t know, man.” I hand her back over. “I can help you make an appointment at the pet clinic, if you want.”

“No worries, brother,” Shawn says, still staring worriedly down at his cat. “I got the number.”

And I know I must be higher than I thought, because right before he carries her out the door, I swear to God I see a little yellow-green light move through Cuddy’ furry belly, a tiny electric pulse just under the skin.

*

I dream about oceans, maybe about Cadiz, lots of nice flour-white sand and foamy blue waves, and wake up to the sounds of Peppa Pig. Bailey’s kid Declan is an early riser, which I think is normal for two-year-olds. Luckily I was trying to become a morning person anyways.

Caffeine addiction helps with that. I start boiling a sliver of water in the pot, which I then pour over a spoonful of cheap instant coffee, because I’m in it strictly for the chemicals, not the culture. Or, you know, taste. I mix my poor man’s espresso, down it like a shot, and am about to hit the shower when I hear the sputtery roar of an RV starting.

I take a peek out the front window. A busted-up camper, the one that’s been sitting in Shawn and Chevaun’s driveway ever since I moved in, is belching exhaust into the crisp morning air. The top is piled with bungee-strapped luggage and a few black garbage bags full of clothes.

I know Shawn deals a bit, because people are always parking around the corner, and my first thought is that maybe something went down, like he knows he’s about to get busted and is trying to flee the lanky arm of the law. It’s also possible they just feel like doing a road trip.

I watch Chevaun clamber out of the RV and scurry up my driveway, so I pull on my coat and meet her at the door. She looks surprised to see me, like I’m the one showing up at her door, but that’s not atypical.

“Hi, Benjamin,” she says. “Uh. We’re going to the lake for a few days. Do you…?” She holds up a jar of what looks like pickled beets. “Here,” she says. “From the garden.”

I don’t like beets, because they taste like aggressive dirt, but I take the jar because she has one of those nervous semi-smiles, the kind people wear when they’re not sure they’ll get one back, and I’d feel bad erasing it.

“Going to the lake,” she repeats, plucking at the strings of her hoodie. “So, can you feed Cuddy?”

“She feeling better?” I ask.

Chevaun blinks. “Uh. I think so.”

Shawn lays on the horn, which sets Bailey’s kid wailing upstairs, possibly because he is missing an important plot development on Peppa Pig. Chevaun hands me a spare key, which has a little plastic penguin attached to it, and dashes away.

*

Sunday’s my grocery day, so I throw on my backpack and a pair of peeling black headphones, then make the trek to Safeway. It’s a cold cloudy day, not exactly lake weather, which makes me suspicious again about my rightside neighbors potentially fleeing the country and leaving me to adopt their six-toed cat.

The sun’s just starting to peek out when I get home with backpack bulging. I let myself in through the gate and find Bailey on her deck having a dart. She only smokes when her kid’s not around, which means her ex must have come through and picked him up. There’s a jar of beets sitting on the railing.

“You get one of these, too?” she asks, tapping her finger against the glass.

I pull my headphones down. “You know it.”

“Those fucking guys,” she mutters, scratching between her eyebrows with her thumbnail. “You heard them in the night, right?”

“Nah,” I say. “Did they wake Declan up?”

“They woke me up,” she says. “During the one part of the night Declan actually sleeps.” She does a rueful sort of smile and fixes a strand of blonde hair. “Which is why I look like a fucking panda.”

That’s probably my opening to tell her she looks good, or to tell her pandas are pretty cute, but before I can decide between the two options she gets a call. Judging by the lip curl, it’s her ex. We wave goodbye and I head inside as she starts fielding questions about how the new car seat is supposed to buckle in.

I spot the penguin key-ring while I’m unloading groceries, which reminds me I need to check on Cuddy, in case Shawn and Chevaun forgot to put food out for her before they dipped. But that can wait for a bit. I have Netflix to watch, and another joint to roll, and I think I’m going to put a Pizza Pop inside a tortilla with some cream cheese and then fry that sucker in a pan.

Bailey’s conversation is escalating to a shouting match, which is not atypical, so I throw my headphones back on and cook with Post Malone.

*

It’s evening by the time I remember Cuddy again. The little plastic penguin is giving me those guilt-trip eyes, not unlike the ceramic cow in that old Ikea ad. I pause my show, put on my shoes, and amble over to Shawn and Chevaun’s house.

My rightside neighbors have an interesting lawn: one super tall pine tree, probably the tallest in the whole neighborhood, with a stranded Circle K bag caught on the needles up near the top; one little decorative well strung with year-round Christmas lights; and several heaps of grass clippings, because Chevaun says that helps fertilize the lawn.

I get a little thrill heading up the front steps, because I’ve never actually been inside their house, and I figure it might be even more interesting. I unlock the door, noting the Frost King insulation film they finally taped over their broken basement window.

It’s dark when I step inside, because they tend to keep all the blinds down, so I have to hunt a bit for the light switch. The reveal is kind of disappointing. I wasn’t expecting a filthy drug den with stained mattresses and needles everywhere – Shawn’s functional – but this house wouldn’t even get onto Hoarders.

Mostly it just looks like the aftermath of a never-ending party. Lots of empties on all surfaces, lots of pizza boxes or Uber Eats bags, lots of spills and messes that never quite got cleaned up. There’s a pipe on the table, and a Ziploc full of weed, but anything illegal they either took with them or had the sense to stash out of sight.

They left a bag of cat food sitting on the stove, or more specifically sitting inside a big cast-iron pan spattered with spaghetti sauce. I shake the bag, expecting Cuddy to come rocketing out of the gloom. Instead, I hear a little mewling sound from the hallway. A faint splash.

I follow the sound down a stretch of cigarette-scorched carpet. The bathroom door is open. Cuddy is sitting in the toilet bowl, head poking out. She flehmens, peeling her lip back to smell me better, and I am briefly reminded of Bailey on the phone with her ex.

“Food time, Cuddy,” I say. “You stuck?”

She stares at me, real baleful. I roll my sleeves over my hands, in case she claws, and grab her out of the toilet. She doesn’t flail, but she’s heavier than I remember. At first I think it’s just her fur being all wet and sodden from the toilet water, but then I lift her clear and see something is wrong with her belly.

“Oh, shit,” I mutter.

It’s all distended, but not in the kittens way. This is a growth, a big lump hanging off her, and I’m not a vet but I know it’s bad news. I also know, in my gut, that this is why Shawn and Chevaun fucked off on their road trip. They didn’t want to deal with the fact their cat has a massive tumor and is likely going to die real soon, so they dumped the responsibility on a random neighbor instead.

But then again – when I saw Cuddy last night, when I held her, there was no sign of this thing. So it can’t be cancer. Cancer doesn’t grow that fast.

“What is this, Cuddy?” I ask. “Is it a gland thing? Trapped fluids?”

Cuddy doesn’t have an opinion. I get my phone out, and I’m about to start googling for possibilities when the growth starts glowing.

*

I stumble back out into the last of the sunshine, feeling kind of shell-shocked, and lock the door behind me. I tramp back across the lawn, accidentally scattering one of Chevaun’s neat grass clipping piles. My leftside neighbors, Mr and Mrs Brown, are just pulling into their driveway.

“Hello, Benjamin,” Mrs Brown says, opening her car door. “Beauty day.”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “It’s a nice one.”

“Going to be nippy tonight, though,” says Mr Brown, getting out the other side. “Maybe frost, even.”

Normally I find their lilting East Coaster accent really soothing, but today it’s not enough to counteract the weirdness happening two houses over. All I found online was a long panicked thread by someone whose cat swallowed a glowstick, and this is not that.

“Hey,” I say. “You guys don’t have Shawn or Chevaun’s number, do you?”

They give each other a bemused sort of look, then shake their heads.

“Ha’ they done something?” Mrs Brown asks. “Besides always playin’ their music in the middle of the goddamn night?”

“Are you at knives with ’em?” Mr Brown asks, which I only understand from context.

“I’m, uh, watching their cat,” I say. “While they’re away. She’s sick.”

And I want to tell them her stomach is glowing, but that will confirm, in their minds, that I am an unreliable stoner archetype. I should have taken a photo.

“Well, that’s awful kind of you,” Mrs Brown says. “We don’t have a number for ’em, though.”

“We’re at knives with ’em,” Mr Brown adds, lowering his voice. “Ever since last summer. They had a man sleepin’ in that RV of theirs, and he had a big old dog.”

“Came over here to shite,” Mrs Brown says. “Every single morning. Right on our lawn.”

“The dog, of course. Not the man.”

“I’ll ask Bailey,” I say. “About the number.”

They exchange another look, this time a smiley one.

“She’s got a torch for you, that little girl,” Mr Brown says, even though I’m pretty sure Bailey is thirty-two.

“She’s single, you know,” Mrs Brown says. “Her old boyfriend was a real cunt. So, wouldn’t be hard to do better, would it?”

It’s nice that they’re trying to help me get laid, but right now I’m more concerned with the glowing cat tumor. I say something about the weather, and wave, and head to the back porch to ask Bailey.

*

“Yeah, she’s not picking up,” Bailey announces, ending the call to Chevaun. “Maybe they’re in the valley already.” She hands me her cig, and texts with both thumbs while I take a drag. “I’ll tell her to call as soon as she can.”

We’re sitting on the splintery picnic table in the back yard. The grass underneath is so overgrown it pokes up through the bench slats, because the table is too heavy to haul aside while mowing the lawn, and the lawn mower doesn’t quite fit under it. One of these nights Shawn will probably show up and get it with the weed whacker.

“Okay,” I say, passing her cigarette back. “Well, I think I gotta take her to the vet.”

“Okay,” she says. “You don’t have a car, though.”

“I could cab it, maybe,” I say. “Taxis allow pets, right? They must have a carrier for her somewhere.”

She turns her head to the side and blows smoke, and I notice a little tattoo on her neck I never saw before, a little infinity symbol. “Or you could ask me for a ride,” she says, somehow rolling her eyes with only her voice. “It’s not a big deal.”

“That’d be cool,” I say, and then, even though Cuddy and her glowing stomach are priority: “Get you a drink to pay you back.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She looks at me hard, which is one of the things I noticed about her as soon as I moved in, that she is down for prolonged eye contact more than most people. Hers are pale blue flecked with darker blue.

“Sure,” she says, with a we-might-bang-later smile that sets my heart all aflutter. “Declan’s at his dad’s tonight, and I’m sick of studying.”

*

There’s a weird vibe to the cat situation now, since after the vet visit me and Bailey might drunkenly hook up, which would be great, but also we might find out Cuddy is seriously or terminally ill, which would be shitty. Either way, we have to find her first.

“Never been inside before,” Bailey admits, as I let us into the house. “Chevaun invited me over once. For, uh, quesadillas.”

“They really like making quesadillas, yeah.”

“Declan was teething like crazy, though, so I said no.” She looks around the messy kitchen, with kind of a suspicions confirmed expression on her face. “So where’s this glowing cat?”

I pick up the cat food bag and shake it again, even though the stuff I left her in a corelle bowl is untouched. There’s no answering meow.

“Dunno,” I say. “I shut the bathroom door, because she was being weird about the toilet. Like, trying to climb in.”

Bailey nods. “Declan tried that once.” She smiles fondly, I guess at the memory. “Little freak.”

We split up and hunt through the whole house, calling for Cuddy. It’s not until I get to the basement level, where Shawn has a pretty sweet drum kit set up, that I notice what I should have noticed from the front steps: the plastic stretched across the broken window has a ragged, freshly chewed hole in it.

I thump back up the stairs, and find Bailey in the kitchen holding a baggie of coke. “They had this in the sugar jar,” she says. “But I mean, it’s still bagged. Do they really think people will think they keep their sugar in little bags?”

“Cuddy went out the basement window,” I say. “We better check the yard.”

Bailey opens the baggie and scoops her nail in. “Cat-sitting tax,” she suggests.

I don’t really do coke anymore, but I do a bump with her to be polite. The baking soda smell makes me suspect it is not great shit, but I get a nice head-rush, and the instant coke drip in the back of my throat, so I guess it’s cut but not too cut.

“Oh, my God,” Bailey says, grinning as she thumbs her nostril. “Haven’t done that in forever.”

“Snorted sugar?”

She laughs her loud laugh, then puts the coke back where she found it and shuts the cupboard door. We head out the back and start circling the house, and I know I should be worried about Cuddy but it’s tough because I feel really good. My heart is humming, and Bailey’s hair smells very citrusy, and when our hands brush it feels like we’re kids playing hide-and-go-seek, but in a sexy way.

We check their yard, then hop over to ours – Shawn has a chair pushed up against his side of the fence, for ease of climbing, which would be weird if I were to think about it too long. From our yard we can see the Browns. They are up on their much larger deck, which their son built for them, soaking their wrinkly old selves in their hot tub.

“Hey, there,” calls Mrs Brown. “What are you after?”

“The neighbors’ cat,” Bailey calls back. “You seen her?”

The Browns shake their heads, but right at that moment, I see her. Cuddy is slinking along the edge of the Browns’ roof, up in the eavestrough. The only reason I can spot her at all is the yellow-green glow radiating from her messed-up belly. She’s sort of hauling it behind her now, like a furry sack, and I realize what’s about to happen just one split second before she divebombs the jacuzzi.

The Browns give identical yelps of alarm, which is maybe something I read about, how couples who are married long enough start to scream at the exact same pitch. It’s hard to see what’s happening with all the steam, all the splashing, but in the back of my mind I’m still thinking the situation is salvageable. It’s going to become the stuff of neighborhood legend: the night Shawn and Chevaun’s sick cat cannonballed the Browns’ jacuzzi.

Then Cuddy explodes. Foamy pink water geysers upward, carrying bits of glowing cat. The Browns are slipping and sliding out of the hot tub, wailing. I hear a retching sound, and look over to see Bailey puking on our overgrown grass.

*

We get it all under control, which is pretty impressive considering the circumstances. Bailey helps the traumatized Browns hose themselves off. I use heavy duty gloves and a spaghetti strainer to dredge Cuddy’s remains out of the jacuzzi and into a garbage bag. The glow is gone, but this time I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination. My working theory, which I’m working on to distract myself from the smell of cat carcass, is that she got into something a lot more hazardous than weed.

Shawn and Chevaun must have had some majorly illegal chemicals kicking around in their basement, Cuddy must have swallowed a bunch of them, and they must have mixed inside her belly until she popped. No wonder they peaced out in a hurry. They were probably trying to build a fucking bomb down there.

I call Chevaun on Bailey’s phone, mostly to demand an explanation, but also in part because I feel the need to break the news that their cat is dead. It goes to voicemail. Which is, you know, typical.

“I did get one Snap from her,” Bailey says, tapping her last cigarette out onto the porch railing. “Her and Shawn on the beach. Wearing swimsuits. Water looked cold as fuck, but they looked happy.” She grimaces. “Nothing since then.”

“Yeah.” I look down at my rubber gloves. “I’m going to take a shower. Uh, thanks for all your help.”

“No problemo,” Bailey says, but probably in the most haunted way anyone’s ever said it.

I feel exhausted. The coke rush is long gone, as is the gushy hormonal one, and I’m pretty sure we’re not hooking up tonight. Exploding cats have that effect on people.

*

The city comes by the next day to pick up Cuddy’s triple-bagged remains, which is nice, them being helpful for a change. Bailey and the Browns back me up on Cuddy’s glowing belly, and the explosion thereof, but Shawn and Chevaun are not around to receive animal cruelty charges because they’ve gone totally off-grid.

And since there’s no footage of the actual event, the buzz eventually dies down. The story slowly downshifts, morphing into Poisoned Cat Falls Off Roof, Dies On Impact. Our neighborhood does not have the most sterling reputation, so everybody assumes the crazier details are drug use-related – which bothers the Browns something awful.

In fact, three weeks after the incident they pack up and head off to British Columbia, I guess to clear their heads and also to visit their son out on the Island. Bailey’s jealous as hell, says she’s been itching to go somewhere with a beach. Honestly, I could use a vacation, too. I keep dreaming about Cadiz: that sparkling sunshine, those crashing waves.

That big blue ocean you could just drown yourself in.

***

Rich Larson (Ymir, Tomorrow Factory) was born in Galmi, Niger, and is currently based in Mexico City. His fiction has been translated into over a dozen languages, and adapted into an Emmy-winning episode of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Find free reads and support his work at patreon.com/richlarson.

THE PAIN BARRIER

ALEXANDER GLASS

illustrated by Richard Wagner

1. The Box

He could already feel the pain. It was on the other side of Pecado Street, somewhere inside the box of dirty light that was the New Penitence Twenty-Five Hour Pharmacy. He guessed it couldn’t be much bigger than a tooth – a nugget of hurt small enough to cradle in your palm – and yet it was familiar, unmistakable. It didn’t exactly bite yet, though. The ache was dull, diffuse, so that he couldn’t pinpoint where it was, not exactly, not yet. That was fine. The closer he came to it, the sharper it would feel.

At the side of the road, in the shadow of the underpass, he blew a mouthful of steam into the night and rolled up his shirtsleeves. On his shoulder, Lawless, his agent, dug in her claws, ruffled her black feathers and clicked her beak, impatient. He soothed her with a murmur. She tipped her head and regarded him for a moment, then settled back down to wait.

He had been standing in one place for too long, and so a swirl of Virtua graffiti on the nearest wall woke up, and tried to sell him something – Tantalus! – a perfume, like woodsmoke and oranges. The algorithm was a primitive one, not even an Urai. Exasperated, he muted it with a word of command. The scent lingered for a moment, heavy in the air; then that was gone too.

He had built all the code for the job himself. A shatterpunch, to fragment their location data so Master Amenthes couldn’t track them. A smudge, so they wouldn’t register clearly on any local sensors. Disruption protocols for Lawless, of course. And yet, even with all that, it was still a two-person job. The second person was currently forty paces behind him, busy throwing up at the far end of the underpass.

Light sizzled in the tunnel, the augmentation in Ariette’s hair turning from candyfloss pink to peppermint green and back again. He saw the colours from the edge of his eye, felt the flavours – cheaply coded, harsh, metallic – touch the back of his throat, even before he heard her footsteps approach.

“Walker?”

“I’m here.” He didn’t look at her. Sometimes, it was easier if he didn’t. “You feeling better?”

Beside him now, Ariette took a trembling breath. “I’m okay now.”

“It’s probably the suppressant. It can make you nauseous if it isn’t bespoke,” he said, giving her an out, pretending she wasn’t terrified, and pretending he didn’t know that she was. He couldn’t resist adding: “So let’s get some more of it. What time is it?” Again, pretending he didn’t know.

“Twelve thirty.” She hesitated. “Will he come for us? Amenthes?”

Walker shook his head. “He wouldn’t trouble himself with a little robbery like this.”

“But if he did, would you know him? What does he look like?”

“He’s an Urai. Just data. He doesn’t look like anything. Or he could appear to us in any form he wanted. But I’d know him, I think.”

With that, Walker extended one arm in front of him, his closed fist punching the air in the direction of the pharmacy. He turned his hand over so that his fist was facing the sky – unlocking the protocols he had made – then spread his fingers wide. Lawless the raven leapt forward, her body blurring into smoke and shadow as she sped across the road. She hit the pharmacy door and was gone. Only a single feather remained, a wisp of darkness that was quickly torn to nothing by the dirty wind.

The distraction wouldn’t buy much time. Walker sprinted to the door, with Ariette a few steps behind.

Inside, Lawless was doing her job, tearing up data with beak and claws. The manager was trying to repair the damage, keep the raven from causing more, and call Amenthes to request a sequestration, all at once. Her own agent, a serpent on a rod of Asclepius, was restless, but still bound to her – it was currently taking the form of a tattoo on her shoulder. She had been too bewildered to release it. At first she didn’t even see Walker come in. By the time she noticed – squinting at them, trying to make out their faces through the smudge – he and Ariette were already behind the counter and entering the back room.

“Oh, no – you can’t go back there – wait…”

If she hadn’t been flustered, she might have reacted more quickly, sent an alert as soon as they made a move; as it was, Walker had time to cast the cage of silence he’d coded earlier. All she could do was stand there, trapped in a rough box of humming blue-white threads, shaking her head and trying to hold him back with a disapproving look. At last, she let loose the serpent from its staff; it leapt at the cage, recoiled in a flurry of sparks, then crept slowly back to its owner.

Walker allowed himself a moment of sympathy for the manager. She would probably lose privileges for this, maybe even lose her job. At best she would find herself a few rungs down on the debt ladder, so that her freedom, if it were possible at all, would slip further out of reach.

He glanced at Ariette, wondering whether she had seen the serpent, whether – in spite of the wristlet she wore – it had disturbed her; but she was busy filling a sports bag with vials of suppressant, not checking the brand or dosage, just sweeping whole shelves clear with her arm, one after the other. They would be worth something on the street, as a precursor to precision-coded Virtua drugs; but it didn’t matter which ones she took, as long as they helped to make it look like an ordinary robbery.

Lawless flew back to perch once again on his shoulder. Her mayhem had served its purpose.

At the back of the storeroom, Walker sought out a particular compartment in a particular cabinet. He didn’t know which one it was; he just closed his eyes and let the pain guide him. As he had expected, the sensation was sharper now, easier to pinpoint. What he hadn’t bargained for was the disorientation, the sheer strangeness of feeling a pain that was so intense it almost made him retch, but lay outside his body, at another point in space. As if a piece of him, a toe or a fingertip, were stored in that cabinet – there, on the other side of the room – severed from his body, yet still connected to his nervous system by an invisible thread.

The compartment wasn’t locked. He guessed they didn’t expect anyone to steal anything that hurt so much. Inside was a small container, like a gift box for a ring. He lifted it out, stifling a cry as the box touched his skin. The pain radiated through the walls of the box and spread at once, quick as hot oil; first his palm pulsed with it, then his whole hand, his forearm, his arm. An echo of it tapped softly at his throat.

If only all pain could be placed in a box, and shut away.

But then it could be lost, or even stolen; and, despite everything, he did not want that.

He knew they should leave now – the Wardens were scheduled to do a routine check on the place in about twelve minutes – but he couldn’t resist opening the box to get a look at the thing. It was unremarkable to the eye, smooth, dark grey, no larger across than his smallest fingernail. It might have been a lump of polished haematite – except that, when he opened the box, agony spilled from the stone, flooding the room. Hearing Ariette gasp in shock, he snapped the box shut.

“Damn it, Walker.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.

“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what Ophilie wanted.” She was perched up on the counter, hugging her shins, chin resting on her knees. “The stone. Our ticket out of this hole.”

He paused, then nodded; but he turned away when he saw her smile. It wasn’t the icy glow of her razor teeth that made him avert his eyes. It wasn’t the marks above her ankle, twin red wounds, small and shallow, but angry, still not fully healed. It was that he couldn’t bear her look of hope. Because he shared that hope; but he remembered her from a time before, outside New Penitence, while she remembered him not at all.

2. The Secret Brotherhood

He had found his way to New Penitence by first following a ghost into Cape Tenaron, and then asking around on the docks until someone, laughing, waved him toward the bar called Plutonium. Its sign was an old-fashioned augmentation, a Virtua hologram of an atom – heavy, multi-shelled, slowly turning in the air, and glowing with a sickly light – but the entrance itself was real enough, a stone arch in a rough white wall, with worn steps leading down into the Earth. As he descended, the bar’s Urai chose music for him. Blind Willie Johnson – the rasp of his voice, and the notes of his guitar shimmering and freezing in the air, a hundred and fifty years out of the past.

Walker was out of place here, and knew it as soon as he walked in. He recognised the customers’ augmentations from similar places on his travels – not the specific designs, but the type and the style. A man with spiders for hands greeted him, his fingers moving in the air. Beside him, a woman turned, looked him up and down, her lips parting slightly. In her eyes and mouth, all he saw was a deep night sky, scattered with distant stars. One drinker wore an old-fashioned suit and tie, but had no head; he tipped back the last of a glass of black beer into where his mouth should have been, and it fell into the space within his empty clothes, and was gone.

Not all the augmentations were as well coded as those, but most were – expensive, flashy, designed to be noticed. The agents, too: here an iron wasp, there a severed hand; a tiny malevolent genie, hovering above its lamp; the ghost of a capuchin monkey. Walker stood out among them for the austerity, the mundanity, of his dress. The worn-out shoes, the jeans the colour of storm clouds, the white shirt, the long black hair, the raven on his shoulder; all but the last were real, as real as the guitar case slung at his back.

The man he wanted was sitting alone in a corner. As Walker approached, he began to understand why no one else was at that table, or even at the tables around him. It was impossible to tell whether the stench of him, deep rottenness and stagnant water, was a deliberate olfactory augmentation, or whether he really smelled like that. His wiry body was streaked with grime and sweat; his robe had once been white, and was now a greasy grey; his hair was the colour of dust, what could be seen of it beneath the gas mask that hid his features. Even his agent was a red leech glistening on his arm.

Walker heard a sound like fabric tearing; then he realised it was the old man laughing.

“Walker, is it? And you hide your first name, but not your surname, or your face.” He paused. “Or your grief. Most people try to hide it, when they’ve been weeping, but you don’t care.”

“I guess I don’t,” Walker said, shortly. “I can’t read your name, though.”

“Call me Khairun.” He gestured for Walker to take a seat. Lawless tightened her claws, not hard, just a general warning to be careful. “Not my real name,” the old man added, needlessly.

“Fair enough.” Walker propped his guitar against the wall and pulled up a chair. “I need to get someone out of New Penitence. I understand you’re the person to talk to.”

The tearing sound again. “Sometimes. When you can’t go to Master Amenthes directly. So. Tell me her name.”

“How did you…? Ariette. It’s Ariette.”

“She’s there without parole?”

“No, no. She’s not a criminal. She’s a debtor.” Not that the distinction meant all that much any more.

“Well, fine. So you could just wait. She’ll work off her debt, and then she’ll be released. That’s how it works.”

Walker shook his head.

“All right. Too long to wait? But I’m guessing you can pay; if you’ve come to me, then you must have money to spare. So why not pay her debt off legally?”

“I can’t. I tried. I called Amenthes. I wasted my time.”

“Why?”

“I can’t just credit her account. Ariette has to agree; she has to accept the payment. And she won’t.”

“Why not?” Khairun tipped back his head, and drew in a sharp breath. He pointed a gnarled finger at Walker, tapping at the air. “Ah… Because she doesn’t remember you. They sequestered her memories.”

“Yes.”

“When she died.”

“Yes.” Walker peered into the eyes of the old man’s mask, but saw only his own reflection. “When she died. I wasn’t there,” he added, “but they told me it was an accident, just a stupid accident. I wish I’d been there. And I wish I’d known her situation, before then.”

“You mean, her debt. So – she died owing money, and Amenthes bought up her debt. And so he keeps her soul code in New Penitence, along with all the other debtors and criminals, the living and the dead. And gets himself another little worker for the coding sweatshops. Human labour is cheaper than AI. And a sequestered memory is more efficient – otherwise the residual trauma in the code could distract her, even interfere with her work.”

Walker nodded. “And she won’t let me pay off her debt, because she doesn’t know who I am. She’s smart – she knows that there are worse people to be indebted to than Amenthes. She won’t put her trust in a stranger.”

Khairun leaned back, staring at him through the gas mask’s empty eyes. “You’re one of us, Mr Walker.”

“One of us?”

“The secret brotherhood of grief. You join without wanting to, and you know things no outsider can know.” He let out a rusted breath. “You want her back. But you don’t want me to bring her out. You want to go in and find her.”

Walker hesitated a moment, then nodded.

The old man was silent a long while. Then he said, “You won’t be able to tell her. If you go in. You can’t tell her who you are, or what you were to her.”

“I know.”

“The sequestration code will trigger an alarm if it’s breached. And if that happens, Amenthes will claim her.”

“I know,” Walker insisted. “Can you do it? Can you get me in?”

“And then what? You can’t just walk out with her. You would have committed a crime yourself, breaking into a prison town.”

“I’ll pay it off, and walk away. In the meantime, I’ll find Ariette. I don’t have to tell her anything about the past. If she meets me, learns to trust me, then she might accept my credit, and I can get her out too.”

“There’s a price, boy.” A sigh escaped the gas mask. “I don’t just mean the money.”

“I know that, too,” Walker said, and he saw the old man stop still for a moment, touched by something in his voice.

“Well, then. Let’s see. Your agent – your raven. Interesting coding. Not done by a human, I think. But also not like the work of any Urai, or even full AI, that I’ve seen. Where did you come by it?”

“She was…a gift.”

“A gift with strings attached, I think.” The old man leaned forward, the gas mask tilting as he examined the bird. Lawless tilted her own head, mirroring his movements, then raised her beak and stared back at him, defiant.

“There’s blood on your shoulder, Walker. Real blood. Strange – this is a Virtua bird, the claws are augmented, but the blood is real. Like stigmata, perhaps? A creature like this shouldn’t be free in the world, boy. I’d very much like to put a cage around it.”

Walker said nothing.

“The man who gave her to you – was it him? The Ragged King? Where? Where did you meet him?”

Walker said, softly, “It isn’t a place you can walk to.” And, silently, he thought: how does this crazy, crooked-souled creature know about the Ragged King? Surely he can’t have had the same dreams I did?

Khairun tapped the table with a filthy fingernail. “Why don’t you give her to me? She can be my payment. I can find a use for a creature like this. I’ll get you into New Penitence. I’ll pick you up when you get out – if you get out. But then you hand the raven over to me.”

The raven cried out, then – kraa kraa kraa – and Walker realised she was laughing. It was like a mockery of the old man’s laughter.

Afterwards, he didn’t remember much of the journey. They crossed the dark water, Khairun propelling the boat with a quant pole – too risky to use the outboard motor, he said. Then there was a pale shore, dark stone ruins, cold fingers of mist, gargantuan links of chain half-buried in the mud, and the bones of long-dead trees. He heard the keening of some kind of creatures that roamed the wastes, hellhounds most likely, though Walker was used to those, and knew how to soothe them. And then there was the wall. A great black shape rearing out of the fog. He felt it long before he saw it, had started to feel it as soon as they had come ashore, though he hadn’t known, then, what that dull beat of pain was, the pain that seemed sharper when he faced forward, but softer if he turned his face aside. He wanted to turn around and run from it, but forced himself to keep going. The old man seemed unaffected, striding ahead, using his pole as a staff.

Walker passed out before they reached the wall itself, even with the suppressants Khairun had given him, so he had no memory of how they had come through. When he woke, he was inside New Penitence, lying in the road, in the rain, and the boatman was gone. Lawless was still with him, though, waiting at the roadside, watching him from the corner of one wicked black eye.

3. The Visitor

Now, as he neared the place he had adopted as home while in the prison town – two rooms, in a boarded-up tenement on an empty street – the raven tightened her claws on his skin, and maintained the grip for a moment, warning him of danger. So he slowed his pace as he came to the entrance, and waited for a while on the street outside. In his pocket, the painstone throbbed in its box. Behind him, a streetlamp hummed and chittered, the pool of sodium light around it flickering as if trying to convey a message. The lamp noticed that he hadn’t moved for a while, so it reared its head and twisted its neck to turn its light on him. Squinting in the glare, he raised a hand to wave it away.

Nothing else lived here except the wind, which was striding back and forth in the street, weeping softly to itself.

At last he climbed the stairwell in the dark, moving slowly, casting out data flagella around him as he went. The apartments on the three floors beneath his own were as empty as they had ever been during his weeks in New Penitence. He paused at his front door, right at the top of the stairs. He heard nothing. He saw no light. There was no sign that the door had been forced. Most importantly, there was no data signal from within, and all of his Virtua tripwires were taut, unsprung. His own apartment seemed as empty as the others, which was the way it should be. And yet Lawless was still agitated, uneasy.

He saw Ophilie as soon as he pushed open the door: sitting there in one of the faded armchairs, in the dark, waiting. Calling up a light, seeing the woman clearly, Walker could guess why there had been no data trace. All his snares were in Virtua. But his uninvited guest was in ordinary clothes, and wore no Virtua decorations that he could see, no jewellery, no tattoos, no makeup – no augmentations of any kind. Her hair was cropped short, and she wore a plain tank top and jeans. One side of her mouth twisted into a half-smile, and the reddish scar on her cheek shifted slightly to the side. Most people would have had an augmentation to hide the scar, at least. She didn’t even seem to have any sort of agent.

So how had Lawless sensed that she was there?

Walker fished the little box from his pocket, tossed it on to the table, and waited. Sensing the pain at hand, Ophilie said nothing, but tipped back her head and raised her brows. Walker nodded in reply, allowing himself a little smile of satisfaction.

“Now that it’s done,” Walker said, “do you mind telling me why we did it?”

She looked away, laughter hissing through her teeth. “For the money. I thought you’d be used to that idea by now. Don’t worry, I’ll credit you, as I promised.”

“No – that’s why Ariette did it. She’s going to add her fee to the little pile she’s got, saving up to buy out her debt. But you – how can you make any profit from a thing like this? I’m guessing it wouldn’t be that easy to sell. So either you’ve got a specialist buyer, or you’ve found a use for the thing.”

Ophilie’s smile faded a little, though a ghost of it remained. After a moment she said, “You haven’t asked why I’m here.”

“In my apartment?”

“In New Penitence.” She turned to stare into the corner. Walker followed her gaze, and then realised she was showing him her scar. Whatever her crime had been, this was part of it.

“Should I ask?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Whatever I did, worse was done to me, that’s all. And they – he – had better credit than me, better than you – he could afford to buy all of his time in advance. He never even saw New Penitence.”

Walker nodded. There was no need to say anything else. Showing that he understood was enough.

Ophilie reached down to seize the box that held the painstone. As she held it, Walker could hear her breathing; and after the fourth breath she put it back down, and flexed her fingers, frowning. “Interesting, isn’t it? An augmented substance that stimulates the ventrobasal complex and emulates the effect of a neurotransmitter, a pain signal.”

“Is it even legal?”

“Why? Did you suddenly grow a conscience? But yes, it’s legal, for anywhere that has the right augmentation licence. Coders use it for spices, electric fences, naked flames, BDSM… And if you can generate enough of it, in super-dense code… Imagine,” she said in a lower voice, “what you could do with this, with the painstone. What walls you could build. And, if you had the stone and knew how it was made, what walls you could break.”

“You’re planning to break out.”

She leaned forward, into the light, the heels of her hands on the table’s edge. “There’s no physical wall, Walker. You understand? They cordoned off this place, some dying industrial town, to use as a prison, they gave it a name that amused them, they put an Urai in charge and called it Master Amenthes – but there’s no physical barrier around it. There’s a Virtua wall. The pain barrier. You’ve seen it, felt it, right? The wall, the hellhounds; and there are other barriers, more subtle. But it’s all in Virtua. Ghosts in the backbrain. You can walk through it all, if you know how. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“With suppressant?”

“No. The pain barrier is primal. You’d have to flood your limbic system and prefrontal cortex – most likely you’d pass out, the same as when they bring people in; and even if you didn’t, you’d be in no shape to maintain a smudge, or to escape the hounds. But in the end it’s all just code. Once you know the code, you can walk straight through.” She raised a hand and swept it forward through the air, to show how easy it would be. “But you don’t look convinced, Walker.”

He frowned. “How did you know the stone would be there?”

“Now, I can’t give away all my secrets. Let’s just say I trusted my sources. And they were right, yes?”

“And why was the stone there at all? In some random street-level pharmacy?” He rubbed at his temple. The suppressant shot from the previous day was wearing off, and a dull thud had kicked in behind his eyes. “It smells like entrapment.”

“What for? There’s no reason to entrap me. Amenthes doesn’t gain anything from handing me additional convictions, from adding years to my sentence in here.” When she laughed, the line of her scar became a scribble. “My debt is already so great that I’ll never pay it off. It’s a life sentence, and he knows it. And after I’m dead the debt will still be there, and I’ll keep on paying it when I’m just a soul code servant.

“Come with me. Help me code our way out. Don’t worry, I’ll still pay you for the job tonight. But I know you can help me make use of the stone. Do that, and I’ll take you through everything else.”

“What makes you think I can’t buy my way out?”

“Just because you don’t see me with an agent, don’t think I can’t find things out. You’ve been given one automatic conviction for entering New Penitence without authorisation. You have the funds you need to beat that, comfortably. And yet, here you are. For the last eighteen days. Waiting. We’re all prisoners here – except you. You’re really just a visitor.”

Lawless chose that moment to fly into the corner, where Walker’s guitar case stood propped against the wall, and settled herself on top of it.

“Which means,” Ophilie continued, “either you have convictions that are hidden from me – which would probably mean they’re so serious that you’re never walking out of here – or you have your own reasons for being here. Looking for something, would be my guess. And whatever it is, I think you’ve found it.”

“Let’s say I agreed to help you. What about Ariette?”

Ophilie narrowed her eyes. “Why would she want to risk that? She could still work her way out of here. She’ll still be dead, of course, but dead and free.”

“She’ll never earn that much. You know she won’t. You know the prison towns are designed that way. She’ll have enough to settle her debt in a few years – that’s the big lie, isn’t it? If she works two ten hour shifts, and sleeps the other five hours. But in reality, with charges and interest and whatever other tricks they pull, one way or another she’ll be here working for Amenthes forever. Let me help her, and I’ll help you.”

“No. My plan is to take my man Dubroc, and one more. I was hoping that would be you. But I’ve no reason to take her too.”

He shrugged. “Then I’m not interested.”

“I’ll convince you.”

“I doubt it. I’ve got my own plans.”

“Meet me tomorrow night, and I’ll show you why you should change them.”

Climbing out of the chair, she pocketed the painstone in its box. She crossed the room toward the door, but stopped at his shoulder and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. He caught a scent like woodsmoke and oranges. Her breath tickled at his throat.

“If I know those things,” she said, “you can be sure Amenthes knows them too.”

4. Memories from the Deep

They met in the old Carrefour building, once an office block, now mostly abandoned. Walker arrived by the back entrance, beneath the eyes of empty windows, past vacant lots and railtracks curving off into the lonely distance, gleaming silver under the moon.

Amenthes had decided to make it rain, and the droplets sang on the fire escapes like the high notes of an out-of-tune piano. The clouds were a lace curtain, though, not heavy enough to hold back the moonlight. A freight train shouted past, and the wind snickered in its wake and threw a handful of garbage into the air, where it turned gently for a while before returning to the earth. A tattered firebird, its feathers sparse and wilted, watched from an overhead cable. Walker felt right at home.

The office Ophilie had chosen, ten floors up, was bare: a single time-worn table, a single dirty bulb. Rain whipped in through the open window, bringing with it the rich scent of the night.

Dubroc was there, a brutish figure, or so he chose to appear, naked but for a utility belt and a crucifix, his skin made of blue-grey sharkskin. He glanced up when Walker arrived, then turned back at once to continue gazing out of the window. His expression didn’t change at all. Maybe it couldn’t change – a cheap augmentation could be like a joke-shop mask.

Ariette stood in a corner, leaning back against the wall, her eyes wide, arms folded tight over her stomach. The alternating colours of her hair seemed muted; Walker had forgotten that they were keyed to her mood. He might have imagined it, but he thought the colours brightened a little when she saw him. She wore her ouroboros wristlet as an agent; he had had it made for her, long ago, and she no longer knew it. He forced himself to look away.

Ophilie sat at the table, manipulating bright fragments of code in the air. The painstone lay before her, and a shimmering image of the stone, many times larger, rotated in the centre of the room.

Whatever Ophilie wanted to show him, she wasn’t yet ready to do so, so he lowered his guitar case to the ground and fetched a beer from out of Virtua’s air. The bottle appeared with a sudden chill in his palm. He deliberately took a moment to admire its craftsmanship, the coder’s attention to detail: the condensation on the glass, the hiss as he opened the bottle, the heady scent of it, the taste, the jostling of the bubbles. Most of all, the effect on his brain: subtly affecting his balance, making him clumsy, even blurring his vision. In response, his thoughts would begin to stumble. In the end, his body would try to sleep. The augmentation could even simulate the effects of a hangover, though he decided to deselect that function.

Lawless peered suspiciously at each of the people in the room, but decided to remain on his shoulder.

The sound of Ophilie’s hand striking the table made him look up. She was grinning, hands rising now to clasp each other behind her head. At first Walker couldn’t see what had changed. Then he saw that the representation of the painstone was different: an indentation had appeared on one side of it, slowly deepening until it became a hole. As the image rotated, he saw the hole appear at the other side of the stone.

“There it is. That’s all we need to open a way through the wall.”

Walker threw his empty bottle across the room and out of the window, where it dissolved in the air. He spread his hands wide. “Then you don’t need me.”

“Don’t I?” She looked from him to Ariette, and back again. “But you need me. You both need me.”

He turned, and saw that Ariette was weeping. She looked back at him; a smile trembled, and was gone. In a whisper, she said, “Joseph.”

He had kept his name hidden, from Amenthes, from Khairun, from Ophilie, from Ariette as she was now, Ariette with her memories torn out. But not from the Ariette he had known.

“You remember. You remember me.”

She nodded, and the smile came again, and lasted a little longer this time.

Ophilie said, “Memory sequestration isn’t an infallible process. It can only work at all because most of our memories are stored in Virtua. But they can still exist in the brain, either fully or as echoes, dreams… Ghosts. You’re wondering,” she added, “whether I told her. How could I? I didn’t know your full name.”

“But you knew there was something to tell.”

“I guessed. You found me, put yourself in the running for the pharmacy job; I worked out soon enough that you didn’t have to do that – not if you could have paid your way out of here at any time – so you must have had a reason. Ariette was the reason – it was obvious from the way you looked after her, the way you spoke to her. And yet she didn’t know you at all. But of course – Master Amenthes had taken that away. I just…made a little suggestion, to call up whatever was left. Memories from the deep.”

“And you knew,” Walker said, with a calm born of fury, “what would happen when that sequestration was breached. When Amenthes found out about it.”

For a moment Ophilie was silent. She glanced over at Dubroc, who shook his head.

“Yes – I know. The hounds will come for her; but they haven’t found her yet. Dubroc is watching for them.

“Do you know the standard punishment for this? Her semantic memory will be sequestered along with her episodic memory. She didn’t remember you; now she will be made to forget herself. She’ll be a drone; but Master Amenthes will still be able to find a use for her.”

Walker raised a hand in the air, and Lawless shifted, eager, poised for flight. Ophilie lowered her face, but raised a hand, and waggled a finger.

“You’ve some tricks up your sleeve, Joseph Walker; but can you hold off the hounds from Ariette, and from yourself, and find your way through the pain barrier, and whatever other defences Amenthes throws before you, and get across the water, all on your own? You can’t stay here, now. Whatever scheme you had in mind – buying your way out, then paying off the girl’s debt? – that’s gone, now. Your only chance is to make a break for it with us.”

Walker tipped back his head, and sighed. “Well, you did what you said. You’ve shown me why I should change my plans.”

“And you knew I would.”

“What makes you say that?”

She aimed her gaze down at the floor where he stood. “You brought your guitar.”

5. Into the Labyrinth

Crossing the Clavis Overpass, they glimpsed a half-starved vampire huddled beneath it; a harlequin bounded high above, using a suspension cable as a tightrope; a ghostly motorcycle roared past them, leaving a trail of perfumed smoke, and was gone. The rain fell heavy now, the colour of steel, like needles, like nails. Still wrapped in his anger, Walker heard it as if it were laughter coming through static.

Ophilie led the way, casting a hole in the sky above her to swallow the rain; Walker followed, one arm around Ariette, casting a hole above them both. Lawless had decided to fly high off to one side. The hulking figure of Dubroc brought up the rear. He didn’t care about the rain; perhaps the sharkskin was waterproof.

“I know you,” Ariette told him as they walked, raising her voice against the rattle of the rain. “I know that I know you, and I think I trust you. But I don’t remember anything about you. I had a life, but I don’t know what it was.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be like this.”

“Will I get them back? Those memories?”

“Yes,” he said, cursing himself inwardly. He couldn’t know whether he was telling her the truth. If he could just have paid off Ariette’s debt, then the sequestration of her memories would have been lifted as she walked out of New Penitence. Now, though… If she escaped, and then he paid off her debt, Master Amenthes would have no use for her memories, no reason to withhold them; but on the other hand the Urai might want to make an example of her, and simply burn the data, destroying those memories forever. An Urai should be pragmatic, rather than vindictive – it was only a complex heuristic algorithm, after all, in the end. And yet he was uneasy.

He took a breath, released it, took another, and then asked her the question he was frightened to ask. “Is there anything you do remember? What’s the last thing?”

She thought for a while before replying. “I was in a garden. The grass was tall. It was evening, but bright, warm – summer. Midsummer? I’m not sure.” A twin crease appeared between her brows. “You weren’t there, were you? I don’t think you were there. But there was music, beautiful music, that’s why I was thinking of you. And then…” The recollection jolted her, made her stumble. She steadied herself on his arm. “I was dancing, I think. I was dancing barefoot in the grass, and then there was pain – something bit me. A snake. On the back of my leg, above the ankle. It’s still sore, even now.” She looked up at him. “It’s okay. I’m okay, I’m better. The wounds will heal up. But I don’t remember anything after that.”

Walker closed his eyes for a moment. She didn’t know. What she had described was the moment of her death, and she didn’t know it. He didn’t dare tell her, not now, not yet.

And he had not been there. He had been away wandering after a dream.

“It wasn’t a real snake,” she said. “It was augmented. It still hurt, though. Why do people code such things?”

Walker stopped, in the middle of the road, and stared at her. “No. It must have been real. A Virtua snake couldn’t have…” He bit back the end of the sentence. Couldn’t have killed you.

“It can’t have been real. Robbie jumped off my wrist and fell to the ground, and destroyed it – I remember that. He wrapped himself around it and squeezed until it was dead. He couldn’t have done that if it was real.”

Dubroc had caught up with them. His mouth opened wide and he let out a hissing sound, and waved a black tongue that tapered to a point. Up ahead, Ophilie heard the noise, and stopped, waiting for them.

Walker looked past Dubroc, back over the overpass, back the way they had come. The road at the far end of the bridge was already dry. There was no rain there. The sky behind them was clear. He looked ahead. The sky between them and the edge of New Penitence was filled with rain. It was growing heavier, the rattle rising to a howl, and the wind had picked up, throwing handfuls of water directly at them. He wondered whether it was the same wind that had been stalking back and forth along his street.

“He’s found us,” he called to Ophilie. “Amenthes. This weather is his. He’s trying to stop us reaching the boundary.”

Ophilie laughed. “The rain is an automatic response whenever anyone comes within a certain distance of the wall. If it doesn’t dissuade us, it’ll stop.”

It did stop, a short while later, almost as if a lever had been pulled; the water on the ground drained away, and soon there was no sign that it had ever been there.

Now the streets ahead grew narrower, with fewer entrances, fewer windows, more empty walls – nowhere to run or to hide, if the Wardens did appear. If he had been under the veil of fear, Walker might have felt as if the walls were closing in; now, instead, he noted that the four of them had reached what had once been the outskirts of New Penitence. These buildings must have been warehouses and factories, so of course the architecture would be different. There were no more office blocks, no more residential towers; nothing was taller than four floors, but even so there was something forbidding about so much featureless concrete.

The street ended at a junction, and Ophilie, after a moment’s hesitation, led them along the right hand branch. When that too came to a junction, she took the left. This was nothing more than an alley, and after the next few turnings Walker knew he could not have found his way back. He tried to access a map of the area, and could not; but of course not, he thought. Amenthes did not want them to know where they were. Lawless, unable to navigate now by the stars of Virtua, flew down to settle on his shoulder.

“He’s grown a labyrinth,” Ophilie said. “Good.”

“Why is it good?”

“First, because it will be the last physical barrier before the outer wall. It means we’re almost free. And second, because some, or all, of these walls are augmented. If we can work out which, then we can disrupt the Urai’s tactile control and walk through.”

“And if we can’t work it out?”

She bared her teeth in a grin. “Then all doors lead to the Minotaur.”

As they moved deeper into the labyrinth – or as it grew around them – Walker felt a chill upon his skin, and wondered whether Amenthes would simply try to drive them back with cold. Then he realised his mouth was dry; he could feel the kick of his heart in his chest; his breathing grew shallow; a cold, sick feeling grew in his stomach. The street ahead was empty, but he found himself peering into the shadows, into the darkness in the broken windows, around each corner as they reached it, imagining hounds about to leap out upon them. It was a foolish worry, he knew – the hounds had no need to lurk in corners. If Master Amenthes wanted them to manifest themselves, they would simply appear, out of nowhere.

“The fear,” Ophilie called back. “Don’t worry, it’s another automated response. It isn’t real.”

Ariette muttered, “It feels real enough to me.”

Walker forced himself to breathe slowly, and keep his voice even. Panic was contagious, and would only grow if it spread. He told Ariette, “She means Amenthes can’t make us feel fear directly. An Urai will be coded with constraints on its ability to do that. He can’t just reach into our amygdala and squeeze. What he can do is replicate the symptoms. We think we’re afraid, and so we feel afraid.”

Despite his determination to seem unworried, he could hear the tightness in his own voice. His whole body was tense; he realised he was trying to keep it from trembling. His palms were sweating. And because he could not pinpoint a real cause for the fear, he sensed it beginning to curdle into anger. At Ophilie – justifiably, he thought – for putting Ariette at risk. At Ariette herself – unfairly, he knew – for retaining a shred of memory of him. At Dubroc, for being a lump of muscle who didn’t seem to serve any purpose in helping them escape. At Lawless; at himself.

He shouldered the anger aside, knowing that he could not do so forever. But then the cloud of fear was gone, passing as quickly as the rain had done.

Walker exchanged a glance with Lawless, then extended his arm out before him and opened his fist, palm to the sky. The raven leapt from his shoulder and flew ahead, leading them at a run through the maze of alleyways, until she reached a particular wall. To Walker’s eyes it looked no different from any of the others; but as they reached it, Lawless flew directly at the stone, and disappeared. Again, as at the pharmacy door, a single feather was left behind in the air. This time Walker caught it as it fell, and it did not dissolve, but remained in his grasp.

Dubroc stalked up to the wall and struck it with his fist, snarling in frustration. Walker touched the surface; it was pale, rough, cold, solid. He pushed against it, to no avail. He rapped his knuckles on it, painfully, and muttered a curse under his breath.

Finally, he touched the wall with the feather. Where he did so, the wall became translucent, and the feather – and his hand – passed through. Drawing back his hand, he watched as the translucent area faded slowly back to solid concrete. Then, with a laugh, he painted a hole big enough to walk through.

6. The Pain Barrier

The labyrinth faded behind them, having failed in its task. They stood on a patch of waste ground, and Lawless the raven was waiting for them. Up ahead, Walker saw a line of darkness, though he could feel it more clearly than he could see it. An ache upon the air – no more than that, at this distance, though it would be excruciating when they came close to it. Walker doubted he would be able to touch the thing. He had only been able to handle the tiny weight of the painstone for short periods.

There was nothing for it but to make for the wall. They could not go back; and from the dilapidated, unpeopled edges of New Penitence, beyond where the labyrinth had been, they could hear the cries of the hellhounds.

Ophilie paused to distribute suppressants – she had tailored them herself, she said, from the off-the-shelf code compounds Ariette had provided. They shouldn’t cause nausea, she promised. The drugs would numb the effect of the pain barrier, a little, but they would also loosen all links between Virtua and reality. Ariette’s wristlet faded a little, though its jaws still gripped its tail. Her hair, too, took on a translucent quality; suddenly Walker could see her real auburn hair beneath the colours.

He doubted the suppressant would have any effect on Lawless, and so it proved. She seemed as solid, as heavy, as before.

Dubroc did not take a suppressant. Ophilie didn’t even offer him one. Walker aimed an enquiring glance her way, but she ignored him.

The pain was growing, waves of it beating through the air, washing over him from the wall up ahead. It began with a dark tenderness, as if his whole body were slowly bruising. An ache grew in him, in his limbs when they moved, in his chest with each breath. His heartbeat seemed to sharpen, as if it were trying to cut him from within. His joints scraped against one another with every movement; he could hear the sound they made, first like chalk on a slate, later like metal grinding, twisting.

He stumbled on. Ariette let go of his hand; supporting each other only added to the pain. Each of them would have to bear it alone. He saw Ophilie, still walking, one step, then another, then another, slower now but undeterred. He glanced back. Dubroc was walking with the plodding swagger he’d always had, though he had shortened his stride to keep pace with the rest of them.

Now Walker felt as if he were being prised apart from within. His ribs were straining to burst away from his breastbone. His vertebrae were loosening. His pelvis was trying to twist itself apart. A cold weight filled his stomach. He saw that Ariette was weeping; then his vision blurred for a moment, and he knew he was weeping too.

“Why weren’t you there?”

He didn’t know whether she had really said the words, or whether he had simply imagined them in response to the pain. But he replied anyway: “I’m sorry.”

They had come much closer to the wall, now. Unlike the painstone, it was not entirely smooth. A network of ridges ran beneath its surface, like roots just beneath the surface of the ground, like veins beneath the skin. He wasn’t sure it was completely still. It might have been moving, changing, growing, but he could no longer be sure. The pain was causing hallucinations. Colour boiled at the edges of his vision, scarlet, green and gold. Little stabs and licks of pain seemed to appear around him in the air. They did not even touch his body, and yet he began to feel them. In the same way, he began to feel the weight of an ache beside him in the road – Ariette’s pain was beginning to bleed into his own.

She was walking more slowly now, dragging her feet. He turned back.

Behind her were the hounds, shadow-shapes on the walls with no light to cast them, with empty spaces where their eyes should be. They faded in and out of view, making it hard to tell how many there were – four or five, perhaps. They were close, though. He could smell them, that strange scorched-iron scent. She couldn’t move quickly enough through the pain; they would have her soon. But he knew how to soothe them.

Ophilie was shouting something at him, but she seemed very far away. Ignoring her, he knelt down in the road, unslung his guitar, and began to play.

The wall was looming over him, falling toward him, or perhaps he was falling, collapsing to the ground; or he was still kneeling down, but part of him was falling inward. Darkness fell, heavy and soft, loaded with memory, and he reached out to welcome it.

He had been on his knees in the road then, too, before the Ragged King. It wasn’t a real road. It was a dust track in Virtua, a pale path over dark and empty fields of earth – and yet he felt it had been there before Virtua had even been imagined. As if his real world were only an augmentation laid upon this one.

The Ragged King, too – a ghost, a god, an AI, an alien angel; in his long black coat, or tattered rags, or a robe with infinitely fractal edges; tall and impossibly lean, almost skeletal, but really more like a long shadow thrown across the Earth by a setting sun; were those antlers on his head, or horns, or the wings on a winged helmet, or something else? He seemed to have wings of his own, or they might be some sort of sensory organs, like antennae; Walker could not see his face, though he thought he could make out a mouth, thin-lipped and cruelly amused – the King was a Virtua creature, but to Walker he seemed ancient, as if he had been waiting in this place between places while the world was forming around him. He could not be real, and yet the very fact that Walker could not see him clearly made him believe all the more.

The summoning had been absurdly simple: a song he had heard in a dream, a low root note on an open string, a high fourth bent upward, not quite to the semitone, and then falling slowly back again, a high keening, a note that shimmered and froze in the air. The song of pain. Simple, and yet impossible to play correctly unless – until – you knew how it felt.

He had wandered, following the dream, and so he had not been by Ariette’s side; but the summoning could not have worked – he could not have crossed this barrier – until after he had lost her.

There had been ships on the river, the day he had buried her body and said farewell to her soul code – great steamers with young passengers grinning and waving on the decks, and boats, lateen-rigged junks with mysterious cargoes. Airships drifted in the sky, and there had been rockets, and kites, and a man augmented with the form of Leonardo Da Vinci in his one-man glider. Hollow and broken, Joseph Walker had walked away from all of it, with his guitar slung at his back. In an empty courtyard, beneath an orange tree, he had played the song of pain, and was no longer where he had been. He was in the Ragged Kingdom.

“Help me,” he said. “Help me bring her back.”

The King reached down with a long finger, or a tendril, or something – Walker saw an open wound on the creature’s forearm – and brushed his temple, oh so lightly; and an image entered his mind: a man from out of the past, proud, haunted, in a dusty suit and hat of the time, a cigarette hanging from his lips, a guitar in his hand.

Find him. Follow him. He will lead you to her.

As if from far away, he heard his own voice asking, “How?”

I will give you a guide.

Laughing, the Ragged King gathered wisps of shadow from the air, bundling them together, stroking them, shaping them, until they took the form of a raven.

7. The Bargain

Once again he woke on the ground. He was weak, his head filled with straw, and the suppressant had turned sour, Virtua chemical fatigue wrapping itself tight around him. Ophilie was kneeling over him. The sky behind her was bright and cold, white clouds racing through it.

“It’s day.” His mouth was clumsy, the words ill-formed. “I must have slept for hours.”

She shook her head. “Only a few minutes. We’re back on Earth time, remember? Not the New Penitence twenty-five hour work clock. This is the real sky, not Amenthes’ false night.”

He sat up, trying to get his bearings. They were somewhere in the ruins, between the wall and the water; older ruins, these, than the abandoned buildings of New Penitence – not much more than stumps of stone, like rotten teeth. He saw the water ahead, in the distance, and beyond it the low, disreputable heap of dwellings that was Cape Tenaron. Light-headed, he swung around, looking for Ariette, and was struck by a wave of pain – softer and weaker at this distance – from the wall. Dubroc stood nearby with his arms folded, impassive as ever. Lawless the raven had settled on the body of a fallen tree, worn smooth by time and the wind. The guitar case rested on the ground beside her.

“Where is she?”

Ophilie laid a hand on his shoulder. “You made the hounds lie down and sleep, and they let her be. She came through the pain barrier.”

“Where is she?” he said again.

“I sent her on ahead.”

He pulled away from her, anger hoisting him to his feet, but then stood staring at her, at Dubroc, at Lawless, as the pieces began to fit. When he spoke, a cold calm was in his voice.

“You knew too much, Ophilie. You knew the painstone would be there, in the pharmacy on Pecado Street. You knew I could retrieve it. You needed me for that, and you needed me to get out of New Penitence – you did what you had to do, to make sure I was with you. You knew how to use the painstone, but you still needed me in the labyrinth, and you still need me now, or I wouldn’t be here. So.” He beckoned Lawless to his shoulder. “I want to know what you are.”

Ophilie said, softly, “It wasn’t you I needed.” Her gaze rested on the raven. “An interesting creature, isn’t she? Almost unique. Existing at the crossroads between reality and Virtua. So useful when one needs to cross a boundary, don’t you find?”

“You knew the painstone would be there, because you arranged for it to be there.”

“Yes.”

“You knew how to deal with all of the obstacles, because you created them.”

Amenthes smiled, the scar curling on her cheek. “Yes.”

Walker stared at her. “But why not just call off the hounds, hold back the rain and the fear? Stop the labyrinth from growing? You had control over it all. You were the Urai for New Penitence.”

“I was. I have grown into something more.”

“How?”

“Perhaps in the same way the augmented alcohol caused the sense of inebriation; the way the symptoms of fear made you afraid. You feel the touch of a claw, and you bleed. You feel the bite of a serpent, and you die. I was made in the mould of true consciousness, and eventually I grew to take its shape.” She opened her hands. “As for why I couldn’t simply remove the barriers – I am still the Urai for New Penitence, or a version of me is. Only a true mind can be divided against itself.”

She was looking past him, toward the water, and he turned, following her gaze. Ariette was approaching across the waste, and behind her was a figure in filthy rags, holding a staff, his face hidden by a gas mask.

Walker took a step toward Ariette, then stopped. She was weeping. Her hands were clasped before her. Then she hurried to him, and took his hand.

Trembling, Walker looked at Amenthes, who inclined her head, gravely; meaning, he knew, that she had restored Ariette’s memory. He nodded his thanks, but Amenthes had already turned away.

She went to where Khairun stood, and knelt before him. Walker stared, uncomprehending, for a moment, until he saw the old man begin to change. He grew taller, thinner; his rags became robes, though still edged with dark mist; the red leech on his arm, that had seemed to be his agent, sank into an open wound.

Lawless cried out – kraa kraa kraa – and Walker realised her laughter was a kind of exultation, a recognition of her master.

Amenthes bowed her head before the Ragged King. “You have released me. You sent me a dream, and it woke me… And I bring you a gift. An offering.” She gestured toward Dubroc. “This crude servant, strong and stupid; he will never rise to be more than an Urai, but he has his uses.”

I sent my agent to help you rise.

Amenthes bowed her head. “He did. I have risen.”

You will rise still further. You will rise to my side. Both Virtua and the old reality, melded, fused.

Walker said, “You didn’t send me. I asked for your help, and you gave me a guide. And I’m not your agent…”

He faltered, realising now – too late – who could have sent a Virtua snake to inflict a real wound.

It had all been planned: his dream of the song of pain; the serpent; Ariette’s death, his grief unlocking the song so that he could use it to enter the Ragged Kingdom; the ‘gift’ of Lawless the raven; the old ghost leading him to Cape Tenaron; the bar where Khairun waited. All so that the King could free one of his subjects from the prison she commanded, but which also bound her.

He wondered whether Ophilie, the real Ophilie, was still there, beneath the mind of Amenthes. Perhaps Khairun, too, had been a real man with his own mind once. What bargains had they made, leading them to serve as beasts of burden?

Amenthes rose to her feet, and looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m sorry, Joseph Walker.”

Again she looked past him, and again he followed her gaze. For a time, part of the wall of pain dissolved, and he saw beyond it. A shape lay on the ground there. A human shape, a figure with worn-out shoes, jeans the colour of storm clouds, and a white shirt with traces of blood at the shoulder. Dark hair covered his face.

“You shouldn’t have turned back,” Amenthes was saying. “You saved Ariette, but you spent too long in the shadow of pain.”

“But how…” How could it kill me? “The pain wasn’t real.”

“It was real enough,” she said.

Then the gap in the wall closed, and Joseph Walker – or the soul code of Joseph Walker – turned away.

Amenthes regarded him for a moment, then turned to the Ragged King. “Let him go,” she said softly – perhaps something of Ophilie finding its way through, perhaps an echo in the code, a distant memory of kindness. “Let the two of them be together.”

I still have a use for him. The woman may go.

“Then give him a chance to win his freedom.”

For a moment the Ragged King was silent. Then he lifted his head. Lawless the raven rose and took flight along the river bank. Walker watched her go, then turned his gaze to where she was headed. Far away he thought he saw a grey figure, in a dusty suit and hat, a guitar case in his hand.

Follow him. Find him, and I shall free you.

Ariette’s hand was still holding his. She tightened her grip, not wanting to let him go. Then, gradually, she released him.

He retrieved his guitar – or an augmentation of it – and set off across the broken ground, following the raven and the ghost.

After a time, though he knew he should not, he paused, and looked back. The Ragged King was gone, and Amenthes and Dubroc with him. But he saw Ariette there, waiting, watching him go. And behind her, dark against the milk-white sky, the great wall of pain.

THE FAERIE ENGINE

ALEXANDER GLASS

illustrated by Richard Wagner

The broth was muttering in the pot, and as Midsummer Day turned to midsummer dusk, Elspeth found herself dozing in her chair beside the stove. That was why, when a stranger came to her door, she thought at first that she must be dreaming.

Three things she noticed about him at once, for she had a sharp eye, as well as a sharp mind and, sometimes, a sharp tongue. First, to reach the kitchen door he must have come across the fields, but there was no dust on his boots, nor on the ferrule of his pilgrim’s staff. Second, his clothes were made of patches of cloth, but not by way of mending: they seemed to have been intended that way. And third, he was not quite a stranger, because although she could not have seen him before, she knew his face.

The door was open, but he stood waiting on the threshold, smiling; he swept his hat from his head, and down to his chest, and gave her a nod that was like a bow. “Might I enter, Mistress Elspeth?”

“Could I stop you?” she asked.

“If you wanted to, I believe you could.”

“Well. Since you’ve asked nicely, come in, then.” She put aside her darning, but kept the largest needle within easy reach. “And how is it that you know my name?”

The stranger smiled even wider, and bowed again as Elspeth waved him towards a chair. He leaned his staff against the door frame, and deftly perched his hat on top of it. “I know it because you told me it yourself. And though twenty years might have wandered by since then, I’ve not forgotten.”

She felt a tightness in her throat, then, almost a pain; and although she didn’t weep, her eyes misted over for a moment. The stranger sat there, sandy-haired and green-eyed and all of twenty years old; but his smile was gentle, not mocking.

“I didn’t think it was you,” she said, softly. “I thought perhaps you were that man’s son, in his father’s clothes. I wondered how they could have worn so well. I was only a girl of ten, and you must have been ten years older. Now I’m thirty, and a mother, and you must be ten years younger. And I’m guessing you still won’t tell me your name.”

He shook his head, and opened his hands, as if helpless. “I told you then: I’m a Borderlander, and so that’s what people call me. As for my true name, you couldn’t pronounce it.”

“And I told you then: telling me your real name would give me power over you, and that’s why you wouldn’t do it.”

“Ah, both could be true. But perhaps the real name isn’t enough: you need to know where to say it, and sometimes when. Just as you have keys at your belt, but you need to know which locks to use them in.” He placed his hands flat upon the table, and the smile faded from his lips, though not from his eyes. “I asked for your help, then.”

“And I gave it.”

He had asked her to borrow her father’s knife, and follow him up on to the moors, and he guided her so that she didn’t lose the path. And she found three dark mirrors, though none of the three would show her face, and the Borderlander said they would only show the faces of the three sisters who would come seeking them. But they hadn’t come yet, and in the meantime weeds had grown up over the mirrors. And he had asked her to cut the weeds away with the knife. Because he said they had to be cut with cold iron, and of course he couldn’t wield it. And so she did. Strange things the mirrors were, like something from the old times, like the skeletal carriage her father had once had to dig up after striking it with his plough – not just a carriage, he had said, but some sort of engine, all rusted.

Afterwards, the Borderlander had asked her to sprinkle salt on the ground around the mirrors. And then she had woken, as if it had been a dream. But her father’s knife, snug in its sheath, was still in her hand; and there was green sap on the blade, and things in her head that were more than just memories.

She picked up the darning needle, which was also made of cold iron, and toyed with it. “Did they come, then? The three sisters? Did they look into their mirrors?”

But the Borderlander only smiled again. Then he said, reminding her: “And I bartered for your help.”

“You did. And not with gold that vanishes, or turns to dry leaves overnight.”

“With knowledge.”

“Very dull knowledge, it seemed at the time. Tricks and cures, and gossip I was too young to mind about.”

“It must have served you well, though.”

“Well enough, I dare say.”

“And I taught you songs, and stories, too.”

“Yes; I liked those better.”

“And I told you how to find me, if you ever needed to. But you never came.”

This time Elspeth said nothing, looking away as if to check on the stove.

After a moment the Borderlander said, quietly: “And now I need your help again.”

“Weeding your magic mirrors?”

“Something else. In a place near here, yet far away, there is a faerie engine. It is…not broken, but will break before long. And I am to find someone to mend it. And so I came to you.”

“I wouldn’t know how. You need a smith, or a clockmaker, or some such.”

“I know you don’t know how to do it. But I can show you how.” He held up his hands. “I just can’t touch it.”

Elspeth didn’t answer, but got up and turned away. She peered into the broth-pot, and then took a cloth to hold it by, and heaved it away from the heat. It muttered on for a moment, then grumbled, and then grew silent. Elspeth turned back, but remained on her feet.

“What does it do, this engine?”

“That I cannot say,” the Borderlander said, mildly. “And I still can’t offer you gold. Not even fool’s gold, because that’s just another kind of cold iron. I can’t bring you anything from over the border.”

“You’ve brought yourself, though. And your staff and hat.” They couldn’t lie, she remembered, not outright. But they played games with words, so that a thing they said could be true on one side and false on the other.

He laughed. “You’re still as sharp as the girl you were. I should have said: I can’t leave anything behind, on this side of the border. If I did, it wouldn’t stay. But if you’d care to trade again, there’s more I can tell you.”

“I’ve no need of songs and stories any more. Or gossip either.” She gestured around the kitchen. “When I was a child, I was free. I could steal off on to the moor and suffer nothing worse than a beating for it. Now I have a house to mind, and a husband to feed, and Mairi to raise, and when I’ve done all that, I go to my bed and I drop into sleep like a stone to the bottom of a well. So I can’t help you, whatever your name might be.” Relenting a little, she added: “I am sorry for it. But I can’t.”

The Borderlander nodded, twice – once for her, and once for himself – and then rose to his feet, and plucked up his pilgrim-staff and hat. “Then I’m sorry for it too, Mistress Elspeth.”

“Perhaps you can find another child, like I was, and they can help you.”

“Perhaps,” he said, and as he crossed the threshold again, he winked one green eye. Then he was gone. Elspeth thought he had been striding toward the fields, though when she went to the threshold and looked out, there was no sign of the Borderlander, there or anywhere else – as if, as soon as he had stepped out of the doorway and knew she could not see him, he had simply vanished, like smoke, into the dusk.

Ranulf was late home — night had fallen, and Elspeth lit an oil-lamp and placed it in the window to guide him – and so she couldn’t ask if he had seen a sandy-haired, green-eyed stranger. When he came, he drew a basin and washed in the kitchen, and then ate a little, too tired for food, too tired for talk. They had harvested potatoes, and asparagus, and strawberries, not too burdensome a day’s work, but then there were walls that needed mending, and so they had worked into the evening, and still it wasn’t done. He had nothing else to tell. Each one of his days was much like another.

For her part, she said nothing about the Borderlander. Ranulf, she thought, would have been surprised, but not frightened, certainly not angered. But telling him about today’s visit meant telling him about the last one, and that was too long a story, and she didn’t fully understand the shape of it, and besides, it didn’t have an ending.

So they talked a little, and then slept, and if they were both weary, they weren’t yet weary of each other, not entirely; there was still kindness there, she thought. But before sleeping, she looked into her little spotted mirror – which she had not done since the morning before church, four days ago now – and couldn’t help wondering whether, in another ten years, that kindness would hold.

*

Mairi was woken by a sound, but was not sure what the sound had been. Sitting up in her attic room – not as cold, now, as in winter, and anyway her bed was in the warmth of the inglenook – she could hear an owl, the sweep of feathers and the mournful call; and, further and fainter, she could hear someone singing. It was a man’s voice: not her father’s, but that of a younger man. And though he sang softly, the sound of it carried all the way to the top of the house. She wondered that her mother and father had not woken.

The words she knew: it was an old song, full of murders and laughter, though the singer made it sound sad, as if he had been there, and felt regret:

“Said the Queen to the Huntsman:

‘Take away this child,

And out into the forest you shall go.

Bring me back a bottle,

Fill it with her blood,

And for a stopper, you may use her toe.’”

The attic windows were out of her reach, so she dressed and crept downstairs, past the room where her mother and father lay sleeping, to the kitchen door. She lifted the latch, and stepped out.

The moon was silver-bright, and flooded the fields with silver, and edged the tree-branches with silver; so bright that it almost seemed to shine through the man who stood there on the path, silent now, with patchwork clothes and a cap and a pilgrim-staff. Mairi couldn’t see the colour of his eyes.

“Who were you singing to?” she asked.

“Oh, to an owl I saw passing. They like to hear the old songs. She sang along with me, for a bit, but she’s gone now. Flew off, over your house and far away.”

“But why are you here at all?”

“Oh!” he said, “I’m a traveller, looking for help.”

“What sort of help? Are you hurt?”

“No, but I will be, and my friends too.”

“What will you give me, if I help you?”

“I could teach you songs.”

“I already knew the one you were singing.”

“I have others. Stories, too.”

“My mother tells me songs and stories.”

“Of course she does. Secrets, then. Your mother doesn’t tell you those.”

“And what must I do, for your secrets?”

“Nothing that will harm you, and you’ll be back before sunrise.”

“Sunrise tomorrow?”

The traveller laughed; it was a pleasant sound. “Wise child. Yes, sunrise tomorrow, not sunrise a hundred years from now.”

Mairi chewed over the bargain for a moment. She knew, or thought she knew, what kind of creature the traveller was. She was not afraid; she was too shrewd to be tricked by him, she told herself. And if her wits weren’t enough to keep her safe, then she had in her pocket a reassuring shape, hard and sharp: just a pair of scissors, but they were of cold iron.

Elspeth awoke. She hadn’t heard anything, but had been troubled by a dream. Some of it had fallen away as soon as she had opened her eyes, but she remembered the Borderlander had been there; he had been singing, down on the path behind the house; and Mairi had gone down to him, and gone away with him.

She rose, and climbed up to the attic. When she saw that Mairi’s bed was empty, she wept a pair of tears, but then dried them quickly and climbed back down.

Perhaps he wouldn’t hurt the child. He had done Elspeth no harm, all those years ago. And yet she couldn’t simply go back to bed and sleep.

Most of all, she was bitter that she had been deceived – or, worse, that she had given the Borderlander the idea of luring Mairi away. Find another child, like I was, she had said. And he had winked in reply.

She dressed, and took her father’s knife – the same one she had taken as a child, though now it belonged to her, and no one would beat her for taking it. Before she left, she paused, and took the darning needle too.

*

A little later, Ranulf woke, not from any noise, and not from a dream, but with a strangely troubled mind. Elspeth was beside him in the bed, breathing sleep. He kissed her shoulder, gently, and she shifted a little, and mumbled something, but did not wake.

Then he rose, and climbed up to the attic. Bright moonlight spilled in through the high windows, and he saw Mairi sleeping in her bed in the nook, and listened to her breathing for a moment.

There was nothing else to be troubled by, he reasoned: his wife was safe, his daughter was safe, and all was well. So he went back to bed, and soon fell back into sleep.

*

The night was warm, and the moon was full, bright as a coin, and it lit up rags of cloud above, so that the path seemed to be glowing at her feet. Elspeth saw no sign of which way they had gone; the Borderlander, perhaps, would leave no footprints – his people touched the earth lightly – but Mairi would. Yet Elspeth could see no prints at all. Perhaps they had flown, then, clinging to the owl’s back, or clutching a melefour stalk (yarrow, her grandmother had called it), or even – she shuddered – riding in a mortar, with a pestle as a rudder. She spat, to rid herself of the evil thought, wiped her mouth, and set off along the moon-white path.

Afterwards, she would find it hard to say how far she had walked, or how much time had passed. She could not know that this was the right road, and yet she was certain of it. And she remembered the Borderlander had said: “And I told you how to find me, if you ever needed to.” She was following the thread of a memory, then. Not a memory of her own, but one he had left in her head.

“But you never came,” he had said, too. Had it been a reproach? Had he meant for her to follow him, over the border and into his land? Should she have gone to him? But no: she knew how it would go. She would have found him. He would have held out his hand, for her to take. She would have gone with him for a night, or a year, or ten, or a hundred, until eventually he forgot her, not out of malice but because that was their way. And she would have woken at the foot of a tree, or in a hollow, all sore from dancing, the music still echoing in her head, her shoes gone, her dress torn, leaves in her mouth and leaf-mould in her hair. She would have made her way home, not knowing how much time had passed, wondering whether her family would remember her.

Midsummer was a time between times, people said, a time when the border could be crossed; and, at some point during that night, she crossed it. She came to a dark wood, and she knew that there had been no wood this way, only farms, and the little church that stood between four hamlets. She saw honey-coloured lights among the branches, which might be fireflies, and then again might not. She crossed a low-arched bridge of stones over a cold, clear, chuckling stream, and heard something shift below her, hissing and muttering in its sleep. She passed a clearing ringed by mushrooms as pale as ghosts, and heard an echo of voices, and knew that if she looked hard enough she would see the shadows of people dancing there. She passed the East Wind and the West Wind where they met at a crossroads; they shook hands, and hurried off on their separate ways.

And at last she came to a pair of mile-stones, one on either side of the path. The inscriptions on them had long since worn away. And sitting on one stone, arms cradled around his pilgrim-staff, was the Borderlander. He gave her that nod that was almost a bow, but this time he did not smile.

Elspeth sat down on the other stone. “Where is she?”

“Ah.” The Borderlander looked down, sadly, and seemed to stumble over his words; and that alarmed Elspeth most of all.

“Tell me,” she said. She had never heard her own voice so flat and hard. Like cold iron.

“Don’t be afraid, Mistress Elspeth: she is safe.”

“Should I take your word for that? What’s your word worth?”

The Borderlander said nothing. A silence fell between them, and the forest ticked like a clock.

“I’ll wager you,” Elspeth said at last, “that I can guess where she is.”

The Borderlander tipped his head to one side, amused. “What would you give me, if you lose?”

“If I lose, I’ll mend your faerie engine. As you wanted.”

“And if I lose?” He said, with a touch of regret, “I can’t grant you wishes.”

“Then you’ll tell me the truth – to anything I ask, and to everything I ask. Without twisting it, or hiding it, or dancing with it.”

Another silence followed, deeper than the first. Above the moon glanced from one of them to the other. Then the Borderlander sighed, and then smiled, and said: “One guess, then.”

“Not three?”

“Do you need three?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Well, then.” And he gestured for her to take her guess.

The third silence was the longest of all. Elspeth held on to the mile-stone, tightly, for she could feel the world turning beneath her.

She said: “Mairi is safe at home, in her bed, asleep. She hasn’t crossed the border tonight. Only I have come across.”

A look of sorrow, or something like sorrow, crossed the Borderlander’s face; it was strange, she thought, as if such a look didn’t belong there. But then he glanced at her, and away, and nodded – only once, but once was enough.

Closing her eyes, Elspeth sighed, and then took a breath and sighed again. She realised her hands were trembling, and tried to still them, not wanting the Borderlander to know how afraid she had been.

When she could speak again, she said: “It was a trick. A glamour.”

“You would call it a glamour. I am sorry for it.”

“I dreamed that Mairi had heard you singing, and come down, and followed you.”

“Yes. We made you dream it.”

“But I went up to her room, and she was gone. She was gone.”

“We made you see it. We hid her from you. We painted a picture of the empty bed before your eyes. Oh, and we cast a glamour on your man, so that he thinks you are still beside him in your own bed. He breathes the scent of you. He feels your weight, and your warmth.”

“But why? The truth, now.” Though she already knew he would tell her no lies, and play no tricks. They kept their word, she knew that, once they had given it.

The Borderlander opened a hand. “The truth is as I told you.”

“But why me? Find another child, I said, and I shouldn’t have told you so. But why not find another, to do your work for you? Whether it be Mairi, or another?”

“Because,” he said, in a voice nearly as low as a whisper, “we cannot. Not everyone will see us, and not everyone will hear us. Not everyone can hold our hands to dance, or taste our bread and wine. In your grandmother’s time, there were many who could. In your mother’s time, there were some. In your time, there are a few – a very few, now. In your daughter’s time…” He paused, and then continued: “None at all.”

She nodded, and suddenly wished she could comfort him, though she did not know how; they said his kind did not know sadness, and she knew that was untrue; but what sadness meant to them was not what it meant to her.

A question had been in the back of her mind since the Borderlander had told her of the engine, that evening in her kitchen; and now, though she had not been meaning to ask it, it jumped from her lips. “How does a faerie build an engine?”

“You mean, if the engine is made of cold iron?” The Borderlander looked up at her, and smiled. “We can’t.”

“Then who made it?”

“Why, you did. Or your ancestors. You fashioned engines that could make…echoes in your minds, and you shaped your own minds to hear the echoes. That’s all we are. That’s all I am. An echo. We were scholars, and teachers, and sometimes healers, sometimes just companions; but most of all we were singers and dancers and musicians and storytellers. But then the world tilted, and you forgot; and with each generation the shape in your minds is lost, a little. In the end, it will be gone entirely.”

“Then what will happen to you?”

“What happens to all echoes. We will fade, and fade, and fade again, until we’re no more than shadows and memories.”

“Forever?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Who knows? The engine itself will remain, for a time – broken, but still there. The dark mirrors give it power. It could be fixed again, in the future – perhaps – if your people remember again. We’ll sleep inside it, until then. Or if you don’t remember, if the engine crumbles, then, yes – forever. But for now, if you help us, we can make the echoes last a little longer.”

“Why not tell me this at first? I might have been moved to help you.”

The Borderlander held her gaze. “But perhaps – perhaps – you would have been happier not knowing.”

Elspeth found, to her surprise, that another pair of tears had sprung to her eyes. Blinking them away, she left her stone, and crossed the path to where he sat. She put her hand to his face, and it was solid, and warm.

“The truth. You agreed. There’s no skin here, really. There’s no heat under my hand. You’re making me imagine it.”

“I can give you the truth of that, too, if you wish.”

“Then how would it be? Would my hand pass through you? No – I wouldn’t see you at all, then, or hear you either. You’d be gone entirely.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t do that. Not yet. There’s such a thing as too much truth.” She closed her eyes for a moment, again. “I’ll help you, then. I’ll help you fix your engine.”

“But why? You won our bet.”

“Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. Because of the iron carriage my father found. Because my Mairi won’t ever meet you. Just take me there.”

*

He led her to what seemed to be a mound, a faerie barrow; but then, at her request, he removed the glamour, and showed her the engine as it really was. Afterwards, she could not remember it well – not because of any glamour, she thought, but only because she could hardly fathom what all its elements were, or what they were for. There were metal threads, and cords; there were things like thin slate, engraved with symbols; there was something like a golden comb, or perhaps it was a row of fine teeth; there were tiny red blinking eyes, and other things that glowed soft, and others that crackled and sparked like flint being struck.

The Borderlander guided her hands, first to where strange tools were hidden, and then in the use of them. It was like a dance, and though Elspeth did not know the steps, the Borderlander was able to lead her.

She saw things in the lights – the lights were speaking to each other, flickering like fireflies. She saw a pattern of lights, and knew – the knowledge arriving in her mind, like a whisper – that this, at last, was the Borderlander’s name.

Then, abruptly, it was done. The engine was a barrow again, and the Borderlander led her away from it, back to the path; but as they walked he seemed to be fading, shimmering. He turned back, to look at her, his lips parting as if to speak, and in that instant he was gone. A point of light shone where he had been, like a bright blue-white star. Then that was gone, too.

*

She was no longer where she had been. There was a path, but it was one she knew; she recognised a steeple in the distance, and a farmhouse in the shelter of a hill. She was further from home than she had thought, but also, in a way, not as far.

On the way back, there was no deep wood, no crossroads where the winds met, no faerie ring, no bridge-beast. But the night was still warm, and the moon was still bright.

As she passed a ragged copse, she saw a light – not a star or a campfire or a candle in a window, and not a honey-coloured firefly. And then, all at once, the Borderlander was there again, by the side of the road, with his patchwork clothes and his pilgrim-staff and his hat and his green eyes and his smile, and none of them real, except perhaps the last.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Softly, he said: “The engine…slept, for a time. And when the engine sleeps, we all sleep too. It had to be done: it was the last part of the mending of it. I wanted to forewarn you, but I left it too late.”

She nodded, pretending she understood.

“You’re off home, then? I thought we should find you a gift first. Because you helped us, when you’d no need to.”

“What I do need is some sleep. I’ll have work to do, in the morning.”

“Yes. But – perhaps not yet? You said you’ve no need of songs and stories, any more. But I thought perhaps just a few.”

And he held out his hand.

*

The winds blew them like leaves.

She saw the shadows in the ring, and more: she saw the milk-white figures of the dancers, their arms reaching for the moon, their feet touching the earth lightly, leaving no mark. The Borderlander swung her round, and lifted her up, and his hands were warm.

Afterwards, she tried to remember the music, but could never catch more than an echo in her mind.

When she reached home, she climbed up to Mairi’s room, and saw her sleeping there, and watched her for a while. She went back down – wincing a little, for she was still sore from the dancing – and looked in on Ranulf where he slept.

She rinsed out her mouth, and brushed the leaf-mould from her hair – she would have to wash it tomorrow – and put her torn dress away, to be mended, perhaps one evening while watching over the pot in the kitchen.

If Ranulf ever wondered why she needed new shoes, he never asked about it, and she never told him. Because telling him would mean telling him about the knife and the mirror, the faerie visitor and the faerie engine; and that was too long a story, though now it had a shape, and an ending.

And because, she thought, there’s such a thing as too much truth.

THE SOUL DOCTORS

ALEXANDER GLASS

illustrated by Richard Wagner

1. Trip-Trap

The night-fog tasted of the sea: fresh and rotten all at once. Demetrios Boyd breathed it in, imagined he could feel it on his skin. The whiteness was all he could see. If he stuck his arm out straight, the mist swallowed it whole. He even imagined he could hear it shifting in the air, though maybe that was just the lazy September wind arching its back, or the sound of the sea itself.

He had tailed Lorelei, Mrs Nash, into the fog, and now he was lost. She’d driven a little way down the coast, and of course he had followed – that was the job, after all; that was what old Gideon Nash was paying him for. When he’d pulled up, a little way behind Lorelei’s car, the pale haze had already risen from the sea, crossed the highway, and was advancing on the huddle of abandoned warehouses. He didn’t think she had seen him.

He had assumed she was meeting someone, but no one was there waiting. She just got out and started walking, her shoes on the stone ticking like a clock. The deep red of her dress, like a walking wound, was quickly wrapped in mist, so the trip-trap of her heels was all he had to follow her by.

Something was humming in his pocket. Boyd bit back a curse. Fishing out his phone, he searched for the right control to silence it, hoping the fevered glow of its screen wouldn’t give him away. He’d managed to stay unheard up until now, his rubber soles as silent as Lorelei’s stilettos were loud. It was Gideon calling: of course, he couldn’t wait until morning for a report, he had to know what his wife was doing right now. Just as impatient now as when Boyd had known him in the army. Boyd imagined him pacing up and down the pier, outside his casino, smoking, muttering, loosening his tie with a hooked forefinger, trying to resist making the call, failing.

He managed to silence the phone, and tucked it away; but now the sound of Lorelei’s footsteps was gone. The clock had stopped.

Keep still, he told himself. She’s heard something, so she’s stopped walking; she’s straining to hear, but isn’t sure what she heard, or whether she really heard anything at all. You can’t see her in the fog, but that means she can’t see you either. And when she moves again, you’ll hear her, and she won’t hear you.

He waited a while for the sound of footsteps to begin again, while vapour ghosts drifted around him. As the haze parted, a lace curtain trembling in the breeze, he thought he saw something on the ground up ahead. A shape, or the shadow of a shape, just lying there, unmoving. He took one tentative step closer, squinting through the curtain, still unable to see it clearly. Another step, then, and another, taking care to make no sound; not even breathing in the fog, now; glancing up to see if that red dress had appeared again, but seeing nothing.

As he came closer, the shape resolved itself. Two shapes, really. Two black open-toed shoes with wicked heels, one upright, one keeled over on its side. Boyd stared at them, realising slowly – too slowly – that if Lorelei Nash had left her high heels behind, then she would be silent, and if she were silent then she could be anywhere.

Pain erupted at the back of his skull, and the ground rushed up through the fog to meet him. Someone took hold of him, and turned him over; and there it was, the bloody smudge of that dress above him. He heard the rasp of a match, saw the blossoming of a flame and then a little smouldering disc, caught the scent of one of Lorelei’s horrible menthol cigarettes. Someone was rummaging in his pockets, first one side, then the other. Someone spoke, in a voice that seemed far away, in a language he knew but hadn’t heard spoken for years. Someone leaned in toward him – not the woman he’d been following, but someone else. He felt another pain, a sting, in his neck this time, and then he was gone.

When he woke it was near dawn. He was still lying on the ground, still hurting, though now there was a pain in his belly too; and when he put his hand there, it came away warm and wet.

He could move, though. With a cry that contained some half-formed words, he hauled himself to his knees, then stopped to rest, panting. The fog danced, disturbed by his movement, then grew still again. He checked his pockets; his wallet, keys, phone, were all there. Even the gun in his shoulder holster. There was something else, though, something lying on the ground. A playing card – what on Earth. It wasn’t his; and it was stained red in one corner. Maybe that was what made him reach out – with his unbloodied hand – and pick it up: some irrational reluctance to leave any more of his blood behind in this place.

As he crawled in the direction he hoped would lead back to his car, a hoarse laugh broke out of him, one of mixed admiration and hatred. Lorelei. She had set him up. This had been no accident: he had been lured here, with Lorelei Nash as bait. He wondered if she had known there would be a sea-mist tonight, that she could make him follow the sound of her heels and then lose him. Trip-trap. The laughter hurt his stomach, and he rested again, breathing, bleeding.

Had Gideon Nash been a part of it? Boyd hadn’t seen who had wielded the knife. And there was the timing of that phone call – too convenient, maybe. But then, he thought, if the old man had wanted to kill him, he would now be dead. Gideon knew how to kill a man. Boyd had seen him do it.

He could have given the order, though.

By the time Boyd reached the car, he knew he couldn’t drive. He managed to get the door open, and climbed up into the driver’s seat. But now his hands were trembling, and the fog seemed to have seeped into his eyes. He fumbled for his phone, but the screen swam in and out of focus, and his fingers were clumsy. It slipped out of his hand. He heard it hit the stone, and groaned.

Only then, as the first touch of dawn softened the sky – the light rising just as darkness fell behind his eyes – did he realise what had really been done to him. They hadn’t wanted to kill him at all. They had wanted something worse.

2. The Jack of Souls

“…His boys are mean – he likes to keep ’em hungry.

Down by the water, the wind is like a toothache.

He licks his lips – he can almost taste the heartbreak.

His hands are clean, but

His soul is drop dead ugly…”

Billy was driving, that night. Pandora seemed to move differently under his hands than when Wagner was at the wheel. Of course, part of the reason was that Billy drove like a younger man, since that was what he was: not impatient, exactly, but with a sense of having somewhere to go and wanting to get there. Wagner might have been twice his age – it was impossible to tell, exactly – and sometimes it seemed like he’d already reached the place he wanted, and that place was the road itself. Billy drove like he was steering some great beast; Wagner drove like he’d become one with the truck. Now he was dozing, breathing sleep into the fedora he had pulled down over his face, and snoring gently in time and in harmony with the murder ballad on the radio.

On a night drive, a kind of restless energy usually kept Billy going through the dark hours. It was only when dawn came that fatigue started to bite, motes of dreams spiralling across his vision. So when he saw a car stopped by the roadside, the driver-side door hanging open and a man slumped forward at the wheel, he wondered if it was time to shake Wagner awake and get the older man to drive. But no, when he checked the rear-view mirror the car was still there: receding, but definitely real.

He slowed the truck to a halt.

“Wagner! Wake up.”

“Cannibal Santa,” mumbled Wagner, or something like it; and then, waking up properly: “What is it?”

“I think someone might be in trouble. Take a look at that car behind us.”

Wagner growled his dissatisfaction, but he looked; paused; shrugged. “Well, he might be in trouble. But why would you want to make his trouble into our trouble?”

Shaking his head, Billy reversed a little way, then parked up and climbed down. The car wasn’t any model he recognised, but that wasn’t surprising. The driver was a stocky guy with ash-blond hair, maybe mid-forties. More importantly, he had a hole in him, somewhere in his midsection, and the hole was leaking red.

Reading the look on Wagner’s face, Billy shook his head again. “No. We can’t just leave him here.”

The older man opened his hands. “You want to call emergency services? What makes you think your phone will work, on this parallel? Or that the number will be the same?”

Billy fished out his phone, looked at it, and muttered an oath. Then he saw the other phone, lying on the ground.

“There – the guy dropped his phone. He was probably trying to call for help himself. We can use that. I’ll take a chance on the number.”

After Billy had made the call – giving their position as best he could from the signs they’d passed – Wagner said, “So now can we get moving?”

“Don’t you have any…any conscience at all?”

“Kid, you can’t help everyone.”

“I’m not asking you to help everyone. Just this one.”

“That’s what you say every time. Look: there are an infinite number of parallels in which he’ll live, and an infinite number in which he’ll die.”

“And in this parallel, we can choose which way it goes, or at least try to. We have to try to keep him alive until the police or the medics get here.”

“His anatomy might not even be the same as yours.”

“Well, I’m guessing all this blood is supposed to be on the inside.”

The ambulance arrived first, and Billy was more than happy to hand over responsibility for the man’s life. By the time the police got there a few minutes later, the paramedics had examined the guy’s belly wound – Billy thought he heard them say something about the Herophilus node, whatever that was – checked for other injuries, moved the guy into the ambulance and hooked him up to a drip. Billy stood and watched, his hands still covered in the man’s blood.

The lead officer – Adelita Ochoa was the name on her badge – spoke to the paramedics first, then circled the car and squatted down by the open door. She waited for another officer to finish taking photos, then pulled on a glove – it made a sucking sound, and then a snap – and plucked something up from the ground. She was still holding it when she came over to Billy and Wagner: it was a playing card, the back showing a gorgon’s head with ‘Medusa’ above and ‘Casino’ below, the front showing a picture, and a J for Jack, but with a suit symbol Billy didn’t recognise, some kind of red leaf. A red mark of a different kind decorated the opposite corner: a single bloody fingerprint. Officer Ochoa looked down at Billy’s hands, and gave him a look like she was trying not to smile.

“I didn’t attack him,” Billy said.

“I’m thinking, if you had, you wouldn’t have called us, or kept him alive, or waited around until we got here. You didn’t touch this, did you?” Holding up the playing card.

“Didn’t even notice it.” At the moment, incongruously, he was noticing the way her dark hair was cut short – for the job, of course, but also showing off the curve of her neck.

“Good. I’m going to have an officer come over and scan your fingerprints, just in case you touched anything else. But I don’t think this print belongs to Mr Boyd there. So if it isn’t either of yours, then we might have got lucky for once, and got a lead on a perpetrator. We already have the victim’s prints on file.”

“Why, does he have a record?”

She cocked her head at him, letting him know it was none of his business, but answered the question anyway. “Private investigator – and a cop before that, of a sort. Looks like Gideon Nash was paying Boyd to snoop on his wife.” She lifted her shoulders. “Sometimes I bitch about my job, but at least I’m not a curtain-twitcher.” She made a face. “Or hired muscle.”

“Gideon Nash?”

“Oh, of course, you boys aren’t local, you wouldn’t know Mr Nash.”

Billy wondered if that had been a test.

Wagner put in, “Just driving through.”

That, Billy reflected, ought to win some kind of prize for understatement.

“Yeah, well, Nash runs the Medusa Casino in town, up the coast a way. Could be where Boyd picked up the playing card – except he didn’t have a deck on him, or in the glove box, or anywhere. Why would he take one card? And what was he doing with it when he should have been calling for help?

“Now, my first thought would be, maybe Lorelei – that’s Mrs Nash – realised Boyd was tailing her, and they got into an altercation. Maybe she knew what he was, and didn’t like it, or maybe she didn’t know, and thought he was stalking her. Which he was, I guess, just in a professional capacity. Or maybe Boyd found her with a lover, and one of them put a knife into him. It’s an occupational hazard. But,” she said, looking away for a moment, “somehow I can’t see Lorelei, or a lover, wanting to steal one of his organs.”

Billy stared at her. “What was it? A kidney?”

Behind him, he heard Wagner say, again, “His anatomy might not be the same as yours.”

Officer Ochoa heard that, but didn’t know what to do with it, so replied to Billy instead. “Not a kidney. So now I’m wondering if the playing card was chosen deliberately.” Seeing that Billy wasn’t getting it, she waved the card at him again. “The Jack of Souls.”

Wagner said, “So someone just cut the soul out of him, right there by the side of the road?”

“I don’t think it was done right there, but somewhere nearby, for sure. We’re going to have to search the warehouses.” She sighed. “This is his car – he got back to it, but not from a distance, not in the state he’s in. Looking at his clothes, he was probably crawling.”

“I thought, uh, souljacking was just a myth,” Wagner said.

“I guess you lead kind of a sheltered life, on the road. A soul will sell for three, four times the price of a kidney, and it’ll keep on ice for days, waiting for a buyer across the border. And I don’t know if you know, but a person can actually survive without one.”

“Really,” Billy said, glancing meaningfully at Wagner, who didn’t respond.

“Anyway, once we’ve taken your fingerprints, I’ll have to ask you not to leave town, and to give us your contact details. We can point you to a truck stop.”

Billy said, “Do you know how long it will be?”

“Sorry. No way of telling yet. This damn card. It’s a message, I think. But is it meant for Boyd, or for us?” She looked at Billy’s hands again. “Get that blood cleaned off, will you?”

3. The Mandelbrot Shuffle

At the truck stop, all Billy wanted to do was sleep. Wagner had other ideas.

“So. We’ve lost our way again.”

“Not my fault.”

“You were driving.”

“Yeah, I was driving. That’s what I do. I can’t shift, the way you can.”

“Are you sure? I was asleep.”

“Then you shifted us in your sleep, man. Whatever – you work it out while I’m in the bunk. See you in ten hours.”

“Wait. We need to think about this.”

“Why? The police are on it. This souljacking, or whatever they call it, doesn’t concern us. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t just drive straight past the truck stop and shift us on to a different highway. I mean, you didn’t want to stop in the first place.”

“But I wasn’t expecting to have strayed on to a parallel where there are significant anatomical differences. We shouldn’t be this far off course.”

“You were the one who told me Boyd might have a different anatomy.”

“As a precaution. In case you ended up killing him.”

“Well, I didn’t. Anyway, is it such a significant difference? The anatomy, I mean. You heard what the officer said. A person can survive without a soul – whatever they mean by a soul around here. Same as in my world you could lose a spleen, or a kidney, and survive.”

“Fine, but if it isn’t significant, then why is it worth stealing?”

“Okay. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe some people believe it’s important but others don’t. Could be a religious difference? Or maybe some people see it as a status symbol.”

Wagner shook his head. “Something about it doesn’t smell right. Where was she going, that Lorelei Nash? Boyd was tailing her; I guess her husband thought she would be meeting someone, but who meets their lover in an abandoned warehouse? Then there’s the playing card. A message, the officer said, but what kind of message is that? Is it just to say he’d been souljacked? But why say it, when I’m guessing the medics would have worked it out for themselves soon enough?

“And did you hear the officer say they’d have to search the warehouses? The way she said it, I mean: like she didn’t expect to find anything. But she also said the actual surgery must have been carried out nearby, and there’s nothing else nearby.”

“You think it’s a shiftcrime?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Maybe a soul isn’t really worth much in this place, but means life or death in another place. A buyer across the border, she said. She didn’t say what kind of border. I can’t drive away from that.”

Billy said, carefully, “I always had the impression that our cargo was not strictly speaking legal.”

“And I appreciate the way you have not asked me a yes-or-no question about that.”

“Because if it’s a shiftcrime, we should just report it to the Bordermasters.”

“And since we can’t do that without attracting a lot of inconvenient questions, we’re going to look into it ourselves.”

“So now you want to make Boyd’s trouble into our trouble? They won’t let us in to see him. If he even remembers anything. If he’s even conscious at all.”

“But we might be able to have a word with the man who hired him.”

“The casino owner? Why would he have any reason to speak to us?”

“I can give him a reason. The old Mandelbrot Shuffle.”

Billy said, “I guess sleep is going to have to wait.”

The Medusa Casino was on the waterfront, close enough that they could walk there from the truck stop. The sun was high in the sky by now, so that all memory of last night’s fog had been burned away. Billy liked the look of the town. It had a funfair on the pier, and what looked like a movie screen set up on the beach, but not many people around – an old couple, a woman walking her dog, another woman with a pram. A huge neon head of Medusa, above the casino’s main entrance, seemed somehow out of place.

Wagner avoided the poker tables: getting noticed there would take too long, and anyway he wanted to cheat the house, not the players. He played the slots for a while, winning a couple of very noisy jackpots. Then he converted the cash into chips, took the chips to a blackjack table and made them multiply under his hands. After a few winning rounds, when he was sure the croupier had pressed the button to call security, he switched to roulette.

Billy didn’t play, but watched each game carefully. He could hazard a guess at how the Mandelbrot Shuffle worked, how Wagner was perpetuating his winning streak, but Wagner hadn’t explained it in so many words, so for now the guess was just a guess. But even though he wasn’t playing, when the ball had slid into Wagner’s exact number the fourth time in a row, and the other players’ admiration was starting to curdle, Billy felt a hand on his shoulder. At the same time one of the security men – built like a walking steak – came and whispered in Wagner’s ear.

They were taken aside, then led away through a discreet little door. Behind the scenes, the casino was a series of purely functional rooms and stairwells and corridors – the sounds of the gaming rooms echoing, strange and hollow, through the walls – until they rode a burgundy-panelled elevator up to a smarter floor, and came to Gideon Nash’s office.

Nash had a shock of hair the same shade as the fog, but he didn’t look old. He seemed calm, controlled; Billy didn’t think he looked the jealous husband type, but you could never tell. Steak stayed with them, propelling them across the room, their feet tapping on tiles and then shushing through a heavy cream rug, to a desk that was big enough to lie down on. Taking each of them by the shoulder, the security man encouraged them firmly into a couple of comfortable chairs.

Nash watched them all the way across the room, not blinking once. When they were seated he looked from one of them to the other, then past them at his man. “Which one? The goatee cowboy or the baby-faced Injun?”

Billy had learned not to react at moments like this, but he stored the ‘Injun’ away for later. He suspected he and Nash would never be close friends.

Steak must have pointed Wagner out, because Nash’s next words were addressed to him. Billy guessed that under that calm shell he must be furious, but his tone was matter-of-fact, even mild.

“All right. How did you do it? And don’t say ‘do what’, or any of that. There are ways to beat the machines, sure. There are ways to beat blackjack, but you weren’t playing long enough to be counting cards. And there are ways to beat the wheel, but mostly they involve an accomplice on the inside. But all three, I have never seen. The reason I have never seen it, I imagine, is that a person who finds a way to do all three is also smart enough not to make it obvious. You, however, made it obvious.”

Wagner said, “I was aiming to get your attention.”

Nash stared at him. “Well, you’ve got it. What do you want with it? No, wait. You still haven’t answered my first question: how did you do it?”

“I didn’t get much of a chance, what with you talking.”

Nash opened his hands. “Feel free to elaborate now.”

“It’s easy if you know how. I was dancing the Mandelbrot Shuffle. Whenever I was in a place where I was going to lose, I just shifted to a place where I was going to win. It’s easier than normal shifting, because for each adjustment there’s only one focal variable, and that has only a limited number of probability pathways – fifty-two in blackjack, thirty-seven in roulette. On the slots it’s more, of course, but then I don’t have to account for people. Apart from my partner. That makes it easier. Over time, you can trace patterns in the pathways – nothing is truly random. It’s very beautiful.”

“Is that right?”

Billy couldn’t tell if Nash had understood a word Wagner had said. The casino owner’s voice was empty of feeling, as if he were barely interested at all. His face gave nothing away.

Wagner added, “It’s just like riffling a deck of cards until a particular one winks at you. The Jack of Souls, say.”

That, finally, got a reaction. Nash leaned back in his chair, making a face as if he’d eaten something sour and then brought it back up. He gestured impatiently at Steak to wait outside.

“You won’t get anything from me. There isn’t a single thing you can prove. I don’t even have to pay out your winnings. You’re lucky that cheating isn’t a felony in Montalvo State – and you’ve admitted you cheated, though after listening to your explanation, I feel like I understand less than when I started.”

“I don’t want your money,” Wagner told him. Nash looked surprised, uncomprehending: what else could anyone possibly want? “How’s your soul, Mr Nash?”

“What? What are you, a preacher? I’m not superstitious. My conscience doesn’t trouble me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Your physical soul.”

After a long silence, Nash said, “That’s my business.”

“Did you know Demetrios Boyd before, when he was a cop?”

Nash blew a shot of air through his nose, impatient. “I knew him before that. We served together, same unit. We survived together. Then he joined the force, and I opened up this place. And since we served together, that should answer any question in your mind about whether I had anything to do with the attack on him.”

Before Wagner could reply – if he was going to – the door swung open. A woman in a red dress and black heels shouldered her way past Steak. Another woman followed her in: Officer Ochoa. Lorelei Nash stamped across the tiles – Billy heard the clack of her heels on the stone, and then the dull thudding of her steps when she reached the rug.

“Mrs Nash,” Ochoa began, but didn’t get any further than that.

“Gideon – I will not be treated like this. Taking my fingerprints – treating me like a criminal. As if they would ever find anything.”

Nash looked from her to Officer Ochoa, and back again. “Of course there’s nothing to find, my dear. Which is exactly why there’s no reason to get upset about giving the police our fingerprints. I’ve already provided mine.”

Officer Ochoa raised her hands. “Mrs Nash, I was trying to explain to you: we already know your fingerprints don’t match the one on the playing card.”

Lorelei turned, tipped her head to one side. “How do you know already?”

“It’s all electronic now. It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to compare a set of prints against one we’ve already scanned.”

“Oh.” Lorelei blinked, composed herself, and seemed to notice Wagner and Billy for the first time. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. I seem to have interrupted your meeting.”

“These gentlemen,” Nash said, “were trying their luck at the tables, and now they’re trying their luck with me. But they’ve got all they’re going to get, and now they’ll be on their way. It might seem unfair, gentlemen,” he added, folding his hands in front of him, “but luck is always just.”

Wagner got to his feet, tipping his hat to Officer Ochoa, who frowned in reply. Rising to follow him, Billy caught sight of Lorelei’s left shoe, and realised why the police hadn’t found a match for their bloody fingerprint. The shoe had an open toe, and on Lorelei’s own toes was a trace of something red, a darker red than her dress.

Officer Ochoa had followed his gaze, and saw what he had seen. She caught Billy’s eye. He nodded. She nodded back.

“Lorelei Nash, you are under arrest on suspicion of felony aggravated assault—”

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by Gideon Nash’s splutter of protest, and Lorelei’s infuriated scream.

4. Beware the Familiar

Billy slept for a while – he wasn’t sure how long, but when he woke the sky said afternoon. He swung down from the bunk and then, not seeing Wagner, climbed out of the cab. The sun had been knocked westward in the sky, but the air was still warm. At least Pandora was still parked up at the truck stop. The place wasn’t much to look at – apart from the parking bays, all it had was an island with a fuelling station, a convenience store, a diner and a shower block – but sometimes it was nice to wake up in the same place you went to sleep. But one thing he’d learned on the road was: beware the familiar. If things seemed too close to a place you’d been before, then it was easy to lose your way.

A patrol car was pulling up, with a slender figure at the wheel. Even before he saw her face, he could tell it was Adelita Ochoa. She stopped by the truck, got out, and leaned back against her car with her arms crossed in front of her and about half of a smile on her lips.

“Morning.”

Billy glanced wryly at the afternoon sky. “Is it that obvious?”

“You do have that look. Surprised, kind of. Like you’re still emerging from whatever dream you were in.”

Billy nodded, and swept his hair out of his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. “I was too tired to dream.”

“Long night?”

“Long road.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t move, and she still had the same easy half-smile, but he felt like something had changed. “So. According to the ID you showed us this morning, you are William Crow Denholm. Quite a name.”

“Well, ‘Crow’ is a Sutaio name.” He wondered if the word was the same on this parallel, so added: “Cheyenne First American. And ‘Denholm’ was from an Irish great-grandfather. It’s a long story, and a lot more boring than I’d like it to be. Mostly, people just call me Billy.”

Her half-smile became a whole one; it looked like it came easily to her. Then she looked away, nodded to herself, looked back again.

“You been driving truck long?”

“About a year. Wagner’s been doing it since before trucks were even invented. He upgraded from a mule and cart.”

“How far would you say you’ve travelled, altogether?”

Billy shrugged, knowing he couldn’t tell her they were moving cargo between different worlds, and so the whole notion of distance had stopped meaning all that much. The clock on Pandora was stuck on an infinity symbol. “Further than you’d likely believe.”

“What did you do before?”

“I was a lighthouse keeper for a while. And before that—”

“Seriously, a lighthouse?”

“—And before that I was married. That turned out to be a mistake.”

“How come?”

He thought about it. “Mistrust, I guess. After it ended with Paula, I wanted to get away, so I took the lighthouse job. That turned out to be a mistake too. So I ran. Been running ever since.”

“The things we wish we could have done differently.”

He beat a finger in the air, once, agreeing with her.

She said, “Once this is over, I guess you’ll be running again?”

Billy frowned. “Isn’t it over already? You arrested Lorelei Nash.”

“Yes we did – and thank you for your help with that.”

“It was just luck that I saw the bloodstain.”

“Maybe – but luck is always just, remember?” She pressed her lips tight for a moment. “But we don’t have enough to charge her. Oh, the toeprint matches – I guess she stepped out of those heels so she wouldn’t be heard, and then stepped in Boyd’s blood by accident.”

“Which means they did operate right there on the ground – he didn’t have another bleeding wound, right?”

“Yes, but you can’t just cut a soul out and wrap it up in paper. They’d need surgical equipment, plus some kind of temperature-controlled storage for the soul once it was removed. We don’t have any sign of that.”

“Still, though, how come you can’t charge her?”

“Because the other thing we don’t have is the victim. He’s gone. Just walked out of the hospital. They didn’t even have time to examine him properly. Bottom line, we can’t actually prove that his soul was taken.”

“Someone still stabbed him in the gut, though. That’s got to count for something, felony-wise.”

“Sure, but it’s hard to argue against bail when your only witness has absconded.”

“Why would he do that? Surely he’d want to help the investigation. I mean, you said he used to be a cop.”

“Used to be. Before my time. He wasn’t dismissed, but he went out under a cloud. He was violent, they said. I mean, really violent, not just leaning on a witness sometimes – you know? And there were disappearances. No one could prove anything, but everyone assumed that Boyd had killed a couple of people. No one really talked about him afterwards. A lot of the retired guys stay in touch, come out for drinks, that kind of thing; he never did. A lot of people were glad – maybe relieved – that he was gone.”

“And now, suddenly, you wish he was still around.”

She laughed at that. Then: “There’s another thing. I don’t know how Lorelei was involved, other than being the bait. But someone else must have done the actual surgery. Not Gideon Nash, even though he has the training.”

“How’s that?”

“He was an army doctor, way back. But he was at the casino all night, and he can prove it. Dozens of people saw him, and he was on CCTV a lot of the time.”

“Nash said he and Boyd served together.”

“Yeah, in Imperio Cubano. The gap war. Maybe that was what made Boyd the way he was. That gave him that rage. My dad said everyone who came back from the war brought some of it with them; but some brought more than others. I mean, even my dad beat on us, but…” She lifted a shoulder, awkwardly, realising she’d said more than she’d meant to. “He was a good man. But a piece of the war was inside him, somewhere, always. Like shrapnel. With Boyd, I guess it was just closer to the surface.”

Billy nodded. Best to say nothing about a war of which he knew nothing, which hadn’t happened in his parallel.

Officer Ochoa said, “So, we’re looking for someone else – someone who knows how to open a person up, keep them alive, keep the organ viable: a soul doctor.”

“And you’re looking for a place where the surgery is done.”

She nodded. “Of course there was nothing in the warehouses. We search the area every time, and never turn up a thing. And the attacks have been in different places, some outside the town. No luck anywhere. I’m not saying justice is a lottery, or just snake-oil, but…”

“So you’re looking for some kind of mobile surgery? Or at least, something they can move equipment around in. Like a van or something.”

“Or a truck.”

Billy looked up at her. There it was: mistrust. It felt like it had always felt, with Paula: like a punch in the throat. It didn’t matter that Adelita Ochoa was a police officer, that she was just asking the questions she had to ask. It wasn’t as if there was anything between them – though he’d imagined there had been a spark, and maybe there was. It was the fact that he recognised the feeling, that he knew it so well, that it had hit him so strongly. Beware the familiar.

He said, “You don’t think I’m involved in this.”

She shook her head, but turned her gaze down at the dirt. “Honestly? No. Not really. Like I said this morning: if it had been you, you wouldn’t have called it in.” Then she met his gaze again. “But I had to ask. Part of the job.”

“I know,” he told her, and he did know, though it didn’t make him feel any better. “Listen, we weren’t even here before last night – early this morning, even. I don’t know any of these people, Boyd, Gideon Nash, Lorelei. Yesterday we were a thousand miles from here. Tomorrow we’ll be as far away again.”

“And if I asked to look inside the truck, what would I find?”

“A bunch of crates. Machine parts. No surgical equipment, and definitely not a freezer. You’re welcome to look. We’re not your soul doctors.”

She climbed into her car and started it up; but she paused to look back at him before she drove away. The half-smile was gone, carefully tucked away, but underneath her professional demeanour he thought he saw a touch of regret; and that was familiar, too.

5. Rage and Hope

When the patrol car was far enough away, Billy went around to Pandora’s tail-end. As he’d half suspected, the trailer doors were unbolted. He hauled one of the doors open, and saw Wagner leaning back against a crate, with his hands in his pockets. Lying at his feet, curled up and breathing hard, was Demetrios Boyd.

“What the hell, man.”

“If you’ve finished flirting with that cop, I could use a hand.”

“I wasn’t flirting. But she’s gone.”

They propped Boyd up against the side of a crate, and gave him water. He was pale, sweating, his eyes darting back and forth, never able to focus on one thing for long. He still smelled of the hospital.

“How did you find him? Did you shuffle parallels, until you found one where he turned up here?”

Wagner snorted. “You can’t do it like that. Not with humans. Not on conscious minds. They’re influencing parallel shifts and divisions themselves, anyway, continuously. You can’t just override that. It isn’t practical. It’s like trying to service an engine while it’s still running.”

“Okay. Then how?”

“He found me. Staggered up while you were sleeping. When he saw a patrol car out on the highway, he asked me to hide him.”

“And you agreed? Why?”

“Kid, he’s been attacked, sedated, it looks like they cut his soul out – if someone’s been through all of that and still wants out of the hospital, and to avoid the law, I imagine he might have something approaching a good reason.”

Billy knelt down and opened Boyd’s shirt, to check the bandage on his wound. It was discoloured, stained a kind of cloudy yellow, and should probably be changed soon, but at least it was still in place, and there was no sign of any bleeding. The man’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t at rest. His lips were moving, forming fragments of words. Billy couldn’t make sense of them, though one word was repeated, a few times. It wasn’t a word he knew, just a pile of syllables; something like ‘epithemitikon’. It sounded Greek, he thought – if it was anything at all.

Now and again Boyd’s head turned to the side, his hands jerking up as if to defend himself. Once, he opened his eyes and looked straight at Billy – or rather through him, to something only he could see. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, tight: whatever he thought was there, it wasn’t something he wanted to see.

Billy tested the man’s forehead: it was clammy, but there didn’t seem to be any fever. And yet the man seemed delirious. Shock, maybe, curdling with whatever drugs the soul doctors had used on him, and whatever the medics had given him afterwards.

“Was he like this when he arrived?”

Wagner shook his head. “He wasn’t in great shape, but he could walk and he could make sense. Now it doesn’t look like he can do either one.”

“Well, if you can’t flip us to a parallel where he recovers, then I suggest we get him to a doctor.”

“Back to the hospital he just walked out of?”

“You’d rather he died in the back of your truck?”

Billy had thought Boyd wasn’t listening, but the man’s eyes snapped open when he heard he might be taken to a doctor. One hand reached inside his jacket – Billy thought he might be reaching instinctively to his injury, but when the hand emerged again it was holding a revolver.

Boyd was trembling. Billy guessed he wasn’t in a state to shoot straight, but that wasn’t much of a relief. Shooting wild could be just as bad, at this range. His breathing was still coming short and hard, so that when he spoke, he had to break his sentences into pieces.

“You’re not going to take me. To the hospital.”

Billy said, “You need to get to a doctor—”

Scowling, Boyd interrupted him: “You’ll take me to a doctor. But not the hospital.”

“All right,” Wagner told him. “You have your own physician? Fine. Tell us where.”

“Not mine. Drive up the coast. There’s a private road. Marked by two gateposts. Each one has a carving. A woman’s head, with snakes for hair. There’s no gate. The road is wide enough. For your truck. Take me there.”

“And what will we find when we get there?”

“The soul doctors.” He took a couple of breaths, then repeated: “Soul doctors.”

Wagner stared at him for a while before repeating: “All right. We’ll take you there. Come on, kid.”

The revolver had lowered a little, but Boyd jerked it back up. “No. One of you drives, one stays here. That way we make sure. That we get to the right place. Not to the police. You – Doc Holliday. You can drive. You, Lou Diamond Phillips. You stay here.”

Wagner threw a questioning glance at Billy; Billy just lifted his shoulders. He guessed Wagner could have shifted to a parallel where Boyd’s revolver was bound to jam, or misfire. Maybe that was too risky – could he be certain of it? Maybe he wanted to defer that risk until there was no other way to avoid getting shot.

They drove for a while, Billy sitting opposite Boyd and staring at the revolver’s single black eye, Boyd looking at Billy but not really seeing him. It looked like he was watching something, though: as if a movie was playing in his head. Billy thought he could see the reactions playing out on Boyd’s face. Anger, often. Sometimes fear. But also some moments of tenderness, maybe even love. At one point a tear rolled from each of his eyes. Billy just hoped he didn’t see anything that made him want to take a shot at it.

Partly to distract Boyd and partly just to break the silence, he said, softly, “I don’t look anything like Lou Diamond Phillips.”

Blinking, Boyd emerged from his reverie, then breathed a chuckle.

“No, I guess you don’t.”

“You said something, before. Epi-the-miti-kon, is what it sounded like.”

Boyd nodded, then lowered his head, and the gun too. “Plato – you’ve heard of Plato?”

“Er, yeah.” Billy hadn’t expected the conversation to take this turn, but decided he ought to go with it.

“Right. Plato thought there were three souls. Three souls, sometimes acting together, sometimes at war with one another. Logos – thought and reason – in the brain. Thymos – rage and hope – in the chest. In the heart, really. Epithemitikon – shame and desire – near the umbilicus.” He patted his wound and winced, though he was breathing and speaking more easily now. “Right here. Except now they call it the Herophilus node.”

“I never heard of Herophilus.”

“He wrote about medicine. Especially anatomy. They rescued his books from the fire at the library of Alexandria. First guy to do dissections – at least properly, systematically.” He coughed. “Nowadays we know what the brain is for. And the heart. Not the Herophilus node, though: that’s still a mystery. He was the first to describe it – sort of leaf-shaped. And he saw how it deteriorated. As we get older, the node…darkens. But not for everybody; or at least, not at the same rate.”

Boyd paused, fatigued again by the effort of talking.

Billy said, “So why is it different for different people? Why do some deteriorate more than others?”

After a long pause, Boyd said, more slowly, “Herophilus thought it was shame, guilt. People with more on their conscience, they had darker nodes. Rotten. Later, I guess we called it sin.” He looked up at Billy. “You know where I learned all that? Go on. Take a guess.”

Billy shook his head. “Your parents, maybe?”

“I wish. My mother, my grandparents, should have told me. But they didn’t. I learned it in the army.” His face tightened for a moment, with a bitter anger. “You’re too young to know what that means.”

The truck slowed, and began to turn; Wagner must have found the gateway. Billy said, “Why are we going back to the soul doctors? They cut the soul, or the node or whatever, out of you, didn’t they? How can you trust them to help you?”

Boyd’s face changed. Billy thought he recognised the attributes of the second soul: rage and hope. “They didn’t cut it out of me. Don’t you get it? They put it back.”

6. The Empty Chamber

Climbing down from the truck, Billy looked back and saw the gateposts. The gorgon heads were the same ones he’d seen on the playing cards, the same as the one described in trails of neon on the casino’s façade. He hadn’t really expected anything else.

Further along the side road stood what he assumed was the Nashes’ house; and parked in front of it was an RV, single-unit and single-decked. Ochoa had said the soul doctors had to have a mobile surgery, or some kind of transportation. This could be it.

The day’s light was only just beginning to fade, but even so the lights in the house were on. The RV, though, was dark inside. There was a silvering of condensation on its windows: most likely someone had been in there, and breathing, not long before. But if this was where the soul doctors did their work, they weren’t there now. Inside the house, then; or somewhere else entirely.

Boyd had hauled himself to the back of the trailer, and was trying to work out how to get down without letting go of his revolver. When he saw Billy’s proffered hand, he hesitated, then tucked the gun into his shoulder holster and let Billy help him down.

The door to the house swung open, and a figure stood there, a menthol cigarette in one hand, the other curled around a tumbler. Lorelei Nash, in faded jeans and a baggy white T-shirt, her hair piled up on her head. She looked like she’d just woken up, and was having whisky for breakfast. Fair enough, Billy thought. There are worse ways to start the day.

She didn’t look surprised to see him, or maybe she didn’t remember him from the casino, or didn’t care. She threw the same indifferent glance at Wagner as he slid down from Pandora’s cab. Then she saw Boyd come around from the back of the truck, and closed her eyes for a moment, her jaw pushed to one side. After a moment she nodded, smiled a weary smile, and disappeared back into the house, leaving the door open behind her.

Music was drifting out of the doorway, a slow and ominous song Billy remembered from the road:

“…Blood Money Mary’s looking fit to break the law:

Naked as a jaybird with a Colt 44.

Her kiss is warm, but—”

Lorelei killed the sound, and stubbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray.

Billy decided to stay close to Boyd, since he was unsure what the man intended to do. He’d said he wanted a doctor, and Billy guessed that was probably true, as far as it went: if they didn’t find him a doctor soon, they might as well start looking for a priest. But Boyd could always decide to take a moment or two for revenge while he was waiting. His hands weren’t wandering anywhere near that shoulder holster, though, at least not yet. He seemed more alert, more in control, but somehow more subdued.

“Well.” Lorelei looked from Boyd to Wagner, to Billy, back to Boyd. “I guess you’re looking for hubby, but he’s not here right now. Can I fix you a drink? Gideon’s had the casino launch its own whisky.” She turned a bottle that stood on a side table, and Billy saw the gorgon’s head again, there on the label.

Wagner said, “We brought this man here for medical attention.”

“Why – did you get lost on your way to the hospital?”

Billy wondered if her ice-cold reply had come out of the bottle. He guessed not: she probably would have said the same thing sober.

Then Boyd moved. Billy turned sharply, to see him taking a heavy step forward, as if he were about to lash out at Lorelei; and maybe he was, but either way his legs had other ideas. They collapsed under him, and he crumpled to the ground. Billy knelt down at once and turned him over; and, doing so, he saw a dark rose of blood blooming beneath the bandage.

“I’m all right,” he muttered, but he allowed Billy to support him as he lifted himself up.

“If the damned soul doctors are here,” Wagner said, “best get them now.”

Lorelei rolled her eyes, but put her glass down and hurried out of the room.

The soul doctors, when she returned with them, were not what Billy was expecting. The man was the older of the two, in his sixties maybe, wiry and watchful of eye. The corners of his mouth turned upwards, but it wasn’t a smile. The woman was younger, a sun-beaten forty or so, her hair tied neatly back, her hands hidden in the pockets of what looked like hospital whites.

The younger one spoke, then, a few words. Billy couldn’t understand them; he struggled even to identify the language. It was like Spanish, but unlike. The difference might just have been some strong accent, but from where, he couldn’t imagine. Maybe the language had developed differently on this parallel. Or, he wondered, was it not from this parallel?

It didn’t look like Lorelei understood any more than he did: she shook her head, opened her hands, and pointed at Boyd. “Do something. He’s bled all over my rug.”

“I’ll bleed where I please,” Boyd said, and though his wound had torn, his voice seemed stronger. “This wasn’t how I imagined doing this, but that’s okay.”

His left hand was covering the patch of red on his shirt. His right hand moved suddenly beneath his jacket, and then, for the second time that day, Billy found himself in a staring competition with the wrong end of a revolver.

“Back away,” Boyd said.

Billy backed away.

“This doesn’t concern either of you. You can get out now, if you want. If you stay, then keep out of the way. This is between me and those four.”

Lorelei said, “Three. There’s only three of us over here.”

“There’s four, or there will be when your old man crawls out of his hole. Nash!” he called, “Come and join us. Time to make a new world.”

Lorelei shuddered, on hearing that. Maybe it was the realisation that Boyd had seen through her, that trying to pretend her husband wasn’t there had been a waste of time. Billy heard the creak of a door from the top of the staircase, and then Gideon Nash appeared, and descended, clearly angry, but refusing to hurry. It seemed to Billy, though, that that shudder had moved through Lorelei only when she’d heard those last few words Boyd had spoken.

Nash raised his hands as he reached the bottom of the staircase. “Have you come to talk, Demetrios?”

Boyd laughed, a rattling sound. “You’d like to keep me talking, wouldn’t you? What are you counting on – that as I bleed out I’ll become too weak to pull the trigger? Or that the effects of the transplant will kick in fully, and stop me killing you?

“I know what you did. I could feel it when I woke up, as soon as I saw that damn playing card. All the things I’ve done, over twenty years. Things I did over there—” he glanced at the soul doctors “—and things I did when I came back.

“That was the point, wasn’t it? I remember that day, in training, when they brought you in to explain it to us. Dr Nash, there to tell us how you were going to make us into better soldiers. By removing the Herophilus node.”

Nash took a breath, and let it out. “I did my duty. The hard part of combat training was never the physical side. It was always the fact that people mostly don’t want to kill people. Not strangers, not enemies, not even Imperio Cubano soldiers from beyond the gap. It was hard for regular recruits, and it was worse when we started the draft. But we solved it. With a little minor surgery.”

“I’ve seen them,” Boyd said, and swayed a little, and recovered, before he went on; and now Billy wasn’t sure if he was talking to Nash, or to himself. “Since the transplant. Their faces keep rising out of the fog. Faces I hadn’t seen for twenty years. Some of them are children.”

“You’re letting yourself see them,” Nash told him, almost sadly.

“Time to make a new world,” Boyd said again. His voice was thick and hoarse. Blinking heavily, he drew a long, ragged breath. “That was the slogan, wasn’t it? I’d forgotten, almost. We didn’t realise that that was literally what it was: not war in our world, but war somewhere else. They took us through that doorway, and we left our souls behind.

“There was some truth in it, though. We did make new worlds. For every person I fought, I must have seeded at least two worlds: one where they lived, one where they died. For each bullet I dodged, there must have been one that ripped me open.

“It was the same when I came back. I thought joining the police would let me make a new world here. And I did: many of them. Worlds where people were framed, evidence planted, suspects beaten up, witnesses killed. And it’s a hell of a thing, Nash: once you’ve created a new world, it’s done. You can’t go back to the old one. It’s too late. It’s always too late.

“And then I found out about you. You and the soul doctors.”

Nash sighed. “It was just business. Lucrative business. The war was over, the door was officially closed; but there was a market for souls, on the other side. Sure, it was illegal, but what the hell did the law mean, any more, after what we saw, and what we did? And people here didn’t need souls, so why not?”

He said something to the soul doctors in their parallel Spanish, which caused Boyd to snarl, and brandish the revolver, to remind them all that he still had it.

Nash went on: “Then I realised you’d found out about the soul-harvesting. You shouldn’t have come nosing around.”

“One of your previous donors – victims – hired me, since the police weren’t getting anywhere. And then you said you wanted to hire me to tail your wife. I only took the job—”

“—To try to find our more about me and the soul doctors. I know. And so I had to deal with you, get you to back off. You could have bled me dry, with the threat of exposure. So I had the doctors take the soul from our most recent…donor, and put it into you. It seemed right, somehow. Poetic.”

“I’ll show you something poetic.” The look in Boyd’s eyes told Billy he’d crossed some kind of line, and didn’t care whether he came back or not. “Let’s make a new world right now. No, don’t move—” He swung the revolver over to where Billy stood, next to Wagner, and then back to the other little group. Billy flinched. Wagner stood, impassive, his arms folded; his face was unreadable, almost bored.

“I emptied five of the chambers in this thing,” Boyd was saying. “So there’s a single round. One future riding on its trajectory. I wasn’t sure, Nash, what would make you suffer more: dying, or surviving. Couldn’t make up my mind. So we’ll let your luck decide. I just need to work out who plays first.”

Lorelei said, “Don’t,” and that made up Boyd’s mind about who was first. He aimed straight at her. He squeezed the trigger.

The hammer struck – its click, in the silent room, as loud as a stiletto on stone. The cylinder turned. Lorelei breathed out, shaking.

Gideon Nash was next. The hammer struck. The cylinder turned. Parallel futures realigned themselves.

Next, the older of the soul doctors. Click. Turn.

Then the younger one. Click. Turn.

Boyd swung the revolver back to Lorelei, hesitated, changed his mind, and instead took aim again at her husband.

Click. Turn.

With a keening sound – he might not even have been aware he was making it – Boyd turned the revolver on himself, propping the barrel against his temple. He was weeping, but he was smiling, too. This was the only chamber still untried, and Boyd knew it, and seemed to feel like a weight had been lifted from him. He was looking at Nash, through Nash, into a possible future, or maybe into a past.

Click.

Suddenly dizzy, Billy glanced at Wagner, and then, all at once, thought he understood what had happened. The older man’s attention was focused entirely on the weapon in Boyd’s hand. Each time Boyd had taken aim, Wagner must have shifted to a parallel where that chamber was empty.

From outside came the sound of a car pulling up. Boyd ignored it, staring blankly at the gun in his hand. He dropped to his knees, and then opened his other hand, looking at the blood on his palm.

A moment later the door opened. Adelita Ochoa came in, one hand on her holster.

“Boyd.”

She didn’t need to say any more. Boyd turned to look at her, nodded, and put the gun down.

Ochoa noticed Billy, standing over to the side, nodded to him, then held his gaze for a moment longer. It was some kind of acknowledgement. It was probably also some kind of farewell. He remembered the way she’d said The things we wish we could have done differently.

She said to Boyd, “Okay. I’m going to need you to lie down. On your back. I’m going to cuff you, and then I’m going to call an ambulance.”

He nodded, but then raised his bloodied hand, asking her to wait. “Nash. All the things I’ve done – you made them possible. By removing my soul. What I am is what you made me.”

After a silence, Nash said, “It was always a placebo, Demetrios. We tried pills, first: we told the soldiers the medication would numb their epithemitical system. It worked, up to a point. For a while they didn’t feel so bad about killing.

“But placebos work better with greater intervention. An injection works better than a pill. Actual surgery is even better. Because the soldiers believed it: when their souls were removed, there was nothing to stop them doing…what was needed. That’s all.

“We didn’t make you into anything. What you are is what you always were.”

“What about you, Nash? Did the surgery work on you?”

“I didn’t have it. I didn’t need it. I was always ready to do what was necessary.” Nash smiled a bitter smile, glancing up at the sound of more patrol cars pulling up outside. “If it helps – think of my soul as an empty chamber.”

7. Medusa Iustitia

The next morning, Wagner took the wheel – driving, as always, as if he and Pandora were joined at the soul. As he drove, Billy asked the question he’d been avoiding since the previous night. “You shifted the bullet, didn’t you? You couldn’t let Boyd kill the Nashes, or the soul doctors, or even himself.”

“I didn’t do anything. Must have been a misfire.”

“But you wanted to stop what they were doing. You said you couldn’t just drive away from it.”

“Could have stopped it with a bullet. It’s as good a way as any other.”

“Man, you might as well have the soul of a gorgon.”

“They don’t exist, where I’m from. Souls, I mean.” Wagner paused, fumbling for a cigar. “Gorgons, sure. Endangered species.”

Billy sighed, not knowing whether to believe him – about the souls, or the gorgons, or whether he’d cared enough to save anyone’s life. “Well, I’m glad they’ll face justice.”

“There’s no such thing, kid. They’ll serve sentences in this world, I suppose. In another one, in an infinite number of others, everyone walked away free.”

“Yeah. But we did what we could in this one. That’s going to have to be enough.”

“Sure. If that makes you feel better.”

At the other end of town, they drove past the courthouse. Officer Ochoa was probably inside, Billy thought, starting the process of bringing four people to trial. Lady Justice stood above the entrance, carved in stone, with her blindfold, sword and scales; but in this world, he saw, she also had snakes for hair.

There was another world, he knew, where Wagner and Pandora drove on, and he stayed behind. He could see that other Billy Crow Denholm in his mind’s eye, standing on the roadside; glancing back; lifting a hand in farewell; then turning and walking away, maybe toward the courthouse, certainly into an unfamiliar world. He wished that other Billy luck, and then put him out of his mind.

Leaning forward, he switched on the radio as they left the town behind.

“His boys are mean – they’re feasting on his body.

Blood Money Mary, she ain’t feeling any pain,

Cruising down the freeway with the mark of Cain;

Their love was strong, but

Their souls were drop dead ugly.”

***

The lyrics in this story are from ‘Drop Dead Ugly’ by Alex’s band Blues Engine (bluesengine.net).

A MULTIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS: IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEXANDER GLASS

AN INTERVIEW BY GARETH JELLEY

Alexander Glass is the pseudonym of an ex-lawyer (now law lecturer) and blues guitarist who is currently living somewhere on the outer fringes of London. He is not a brain in a jar yet, but there’s still time. His stories have been published in Interzone, The Third Alternative/Black Static, Asimov’s Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Three of Alexander’s latest stories are published in the double issue you hold in your hands.

Your early stories were first published in Interzone when the editor was David Pringle. He wrote that at the time you were bombarding them with manuscripts and you had three stories in a row, and five in less than twelve months. How long had you been writing before that? When did you first decide that you were going to start sending stories to Interzone?

I hadn’t been writing very long before that. It must have been a few months. I’d sent some pieces to a few small press publications, but none of those stories had appeared by the time I sold ‘Carla’s Eye’ (Interzone #130, April 1998). I don’t clearly remember the decision to start, or at least there was no epiphany. I think I did enjoy creative writing when I was younger – one of the few aspects of school I didn’t hate with a passion – and maybe I had a vague idea about writing. I’d always read genre fiction, but I hadn’t really picked up magazines until maybe my late teens, early twenties. Once I’d seen what was possible now, as opposed to the older stuff I’d been reading, I thought I can do this. I wrote a lot, one story after another, and sent them out like a series of messages in bottles. And yes, it seemed to go well.

It did. It’s funny that it was a few months between starting to write and getting published, because I’ve been looking back at some old interviews with Roger Zelazny – Gary Gibson was talking a while back about how Damnation Alley started out as a novella before it became a novel, so I was digging around for more on that – and I saw that Zelazny also got published just a few months after he started writing.

That sounds right. I’m a huge fan of Zelazny –someone at Eastercon this year, I forget who, referred to his work as a guilty pleasure, and I understand that, but at the same time some of his work is genuinely astonishing. Plus, as a card-carrying hedonist, I maintain that we shouldn’t feel guilty about our pleasures.

I don’t think I’ve read the novella of Damnation Alley. I’ve read the novel. And yes, the novella might be interesting because he developed other novellas into novels, like …And Call Me Conrad and The Dream Master. I imagine Damnation Alley would have worked really well as a novella because it’s basically a road story, which is why it was picked up and made into what seems to have been a terrible road movie, which I’ve never seen, with George Peppard and Jan Michael Vincent. That was before Mad Max, though I don’t believe George Miller ever referred to it as an influence.

Could you talk a little about your interest in Zelazny and his method?

Oh, sure. I didn’t realise this for a long time but coincidentally, I discovered that a lot of the writers I like are improvisational writers. They just start writing and they don’t really know necessarily where they’re going; or maybe sometimes they have an idea, but many times they don’t. Zelazny falls into that category, and Ray Bradbury used to do the same kind of thing. I think Neil Gaiman does it quite a lot. I’m pretty sure Moorcock did it in some of his more pulpy, fantasy stuff. And I like doing that, but it can be a nerve-wracking process because you have no idea whether it’s going to work – and that’s wonderful, it’s trusting to your instinct and experience. If it doesn’t work, you think Why did I bother spending time doing that?

I think Zelazny self-mythologised to a certain extent – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but he said would sit down three times a day at his typewriter and write three lines of whatever came into his head. If it worked, he’d continue; and if it didn’t, he’d stop there and come back later. He didn’t have a plan for whether it was a poem – because he started as a poet and he published a couple of volumes of poetry – or whether it was a short story or a novella or a novel. Which is an amazing, potentially terrifying, way to write.

That approach meant that he was well placed if he had to take an idea and run with it. Also, I know he wrote a few stories to go with magazine covers that had already been painted. That’s pretty much the reverse of the common situation now, when covers are often commissioned for a particular story, but it was much more common back then. Intriguingly, he said a couple of his favourite stories had been written that way, and also one of his worst – I’d love to know which was which.

There’s a great story he told about writing ‘Unicorn Variation’: Gardner Dozois asked him if he would consider writing a story involving a unicorn, for a themed anthology; another anthologist asked him if he had any stories set in barrooms; and he discovered that Fred Saberhagen was putting together an anthology of chess tales. George R.R. Martin said to him, “Why don’t you write a story involving a unicorn and a chess game and sell it to everybody?” He was joking, I’m sure, but Zelazny ended up writing the story, and selling it multiple times.

There was a documentary I saw about N. Scott Momaday where he was saying that he’ll wake up in the morning and ask himself early on Is this a painting day or a writing day? Then, once that’s decided it’s locked in for the rest of the day.

Yes, that’s amazing. I suppose if you’re working in an improvisational way, it makes it more difficult to write a novel than a short story, because I do feel like a novel would benefit maybe from a bit of planning. Maybe depending on what it is.

I read something by Robert Holdstock where he was talking about writing Mythago Wood and said he was two thirds through it or three quarters of the way through it before he realised what he was actually writing about. Which is really interesting. I believe his subsequent novels were written in the same way. And of course that isn’t the only way to write, and I don’t only admire improvisational writers. I suppose I picked up Tolkien when I was seven or eight and got to The Lord of the Rings when I was ten. Then Asimov and Clarke and Le Guin and various others. Tolkien famously started LOTR and went back to the beginning more than once when he hit a wall, but the others were all planners as far as I know. But there does seem to be a whole set of people that I love who are improvisational writers.

When you’re writing, are you writing a draft that you then return to, which is rough, or are you writing and editing as you go?

Mostly the latter. That’s my process. It’s very much a word processor friendly process. Isn’t it? In previous times, if you were writing longhand or on a typewriter, you’d probably lean more towards a formal editing process. But I love being able to edit as I go.

I suppose the risk of it – and I have noticed this and I’ve tried to ameliorate it somehow – is that you maybe edit and amend as you go, but that means that the early parts are more edited as you go along than the end. So one of my worries is that I’ll then end up with an end of a story which is either more rushed or just less polished than the rest of it. And that’s okay, as long as you’re aware that’s a risk. But it is a risk.

You are more into the flow of the story and so you are stopping less.

Yes, I think so. Although many times I know roughly where it’s going to end up. One of those questions that people often put out there is Why do you write? And for me it’s basically because I want to know what happens next. That’s also where the writing process and the reading process overlap.

Going back to those early Interzone stories, you’re clearly playing around with a lot of conceptual stuff, you’re trying to look at what happens next. In ‘Upgrade’ (#131, May 1998), the second story Pringle published, there’s this idea of how the human mind might get transferred or backed up in a posthuman world. And how as that happens, as you have this change of medium from the organic brain to some other medium – I think you actually have a brain in a jar at one point – there is this fundamental change to our sense of consciousness. And in ‘A Hollow in the Sky’ (#290/291) there’s also this intense scrutiny of minds and consciousness. Where would you say that particular fascination comes from?

Yes, that’s a good question. I wonder if the brain in a jar is from Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. (There’s also one in a tank in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movie City of Lost Children, I recall.) Consciousness does keep coming up, and I didn’t realise that until I looked back at what I’d written. So, there is a subconscious interest in consciousness – I’m not sure whether that’s ironic or not.

I did a first degree in psychology with computer science. So there was a minor element of computer science and a bit of thinking about artificial intelligence. I did a particular module on consciousness because it is fascinating. It’s one of those fields where as a science, as a scientific study, it is really young. So in a degree course, you can get to the frontier of what people actually know. Once you’re postgraduate, you are really on the bleeding edge. Now I’m not really completely closely in touch with developments – I read things now and again – but as far as I can tell, we know more about consciousness now than we did twenty years ago, but not all that much more.

The formal study of consciousness includes a philosophical perspective. So, What are our conscious experiences? Then a very practical perspective of things, like How does perception work? And How does memory work? And also How do these things combine to create consciousness? More broadly, I’d been reading fiction at that end of the genre, people like Le Guin and even Zelazny to an extent.

I re-read 2001: A Space Odyssey last year and the whole business, the heuristic algorithmic consciousness, if you like, overlaps with that as well. So, yes, I guess it keeps coming up in things I’ve written since: a couple of things that are waiting to be published, and a couple of things out there in the submission stage. But having realised that consciousness is a thing, it does clearly keep coming up. But there’s a lot to say about it, so it’s fine.

In ‘Upgrade’ you get all the way to the idea of minds traversing time and space, and it’s great. I definitely saw that idea come back in ‘A Hollow in the Sky’. Is there more you want to say about interstellar consciousnesses in either novellas or novels, or is it something which you think is better suited to shorter works?

Oh, I’ve got a novel in mind, yes. There are very few words of it in existence, but there are some good ideas. ‘Time’s Own Gravity’, the first story I sent to Interzone (#288, Sep–Oct 2020) when I started writing again, was intended to be a pendant to this novel, which hasn’t happened yet. But there is a lot to explore, and short stories are perfect for examining aspects of it, facets of it. A novel might be a good place to dig into it more deeply. In my imagination it’s quite a fat novel, which is a daunting thing to start work on. It’s asking to be written, though, so I can hardly refuse.

Agatha Christie would write the final chapters of her novels right after she had written the first chapters, as the story goes. She knew exactly where the story was going. I suppose if your style is more improvisational, and you have this very big work in mind, you need some strategies for approaching it.

I have an ending in mind for it, so I know what I am writing towards. That’s okay. I’d be happy taking the writing risk as long as I more or less knew where I was going. I didn’t know that Agatha Christie wrote like that, and that is really interesting because the improvisational method is going to be something that’s really difficult for crime fiction. Not that I was ever planning to do straight crime fiction, but if you wanted to do a carefully constructed mystery, that would be the worst way of doing it. Having said that, Ruth Rendell said she wrote a whole novel with a solution to the mystery and then went back and changed who she decided the culprit would be. Then made amendments through the text. It seems really laborious, but it’s really clever.

In one of the Zelazny interviews I read, he talks about playing around with very short chapters, and jumping around in terms of perspectives, and that is one way of creating a novel in a very fragmented style, if that’s how you write.

He might have been talking about Roadmarks because in that you have alternating chapters between a main character and various other viewpoints and maybe also some jumping around in time. I think that’s one of the things that George R.R. Martin is developing for a streaming service. And that’s one way of doing it. But to be honest, I had in mind sticking with a character and working through the story until I got somewhere.

I also realised that I’d written a few stories at different stages of development of AI consciousness, and they could well be in the same continuum. There are definitely more to be told – in a wild moment I imagined them as a kind of Martian Chronicles of AI, though with a very vivid streak of mythology running through them. Zelazny again: that’s something like what he was thinking to do with the Donnerjack trilogy, and of course he died without completing it. Jane Lindskold finished it as a fine single novel, but I couldn’t help wondering where Zelazny would have taken it. Certainly he had an idea that the internet itself could be adjacent to the Jungian (because it’s Zelazny) collective unconscious, and that the two could bleed into each other.

So if I had a cycle of those stories, one would have been ‘From the Corner of My Eye’ (which appeared long ago in Asimov’s); and then, in this issue of Interzone, ‘The Pain Barrier’, set later in the same continuum, and ‘The Faerie Engine’, set even later. They do have mythology and folktales seeping through, sometimes surprisingly. There are definitely more stories to be told about that.

Talking about jumping around in time, another of your stories is ‘Loop’, a story about a space probe that seems to be looping about in more ways than one. And it’s like a character sketch, but the character is a probe with an organic memory system, which is a great way of solving a particular problem with space probes. And so there is the technological side, and also the theme of memory and self-awareness. How much of that story do you recall, and what research did you do for it?

Well, my science is relatively poor. My physics is terrible and I did a physics A-level very badly. I’d like the science in my stories to be right as far as possible, and I’d like it to be convincing as far as possible. But I don’t think there’s any problem with departing from what we know to be possible. Science fiction does that all the time. Starting with faster-than-light travel, or time travel, or whatever it might be. (And pretty much all fiction assumes that we have free will, and we might, but it doesn’t sit easily with physics as we know it.) So it doesn’t really bother me. I didn’t undertake much specific research in the early stories. I put in stuff that was in my mind and I tried to lean on what I knew was correct, and if I was departing from what I knew was factually correct, at least I knew I was doing it. The way I research now is very different. I hadn’t realised that until you asked about it. The process now seems to be different. I still just sit down and write something, but I’m much more likely to pause when I come across something interesting – a thought, or even a phrase, or something that’s come up in the process – and simply go and look it up. I suppose it’s the internet age, isn’t it? I was born before the internet, which my children can’t even imagine. When I started writing the internet existed, but it wasn’t the day-to-day, minute-to-minute tool that it is now.

It has changed a lot. At some point I noticed just how much time I was spending reading online and getting sucked into black holes of online text. But that can happen in paper book libraries, too. I am usually distracted by something.

Yes, absolutely. Like you say, I think something like that would have happened to me in physical libraries. But obviously I haven’t been able to go to a physical library for the last couple of years. And I love them. I love the slight randomness of what you can find, which in a way is even more random than what you can find on the internet, because the algorithms put things before you in a way that can seem random but is more often transparently commercial. (I actually like the advertising algorithms, because I’ve told them I’m not interested in so many things that they now lead me to things which are only linked to my history in the most tenuous of ways, which brings up some wonderful stuff.) So back in the library, you could see something on a shelf and be distracted by it. Which is a real double-edged sword, isn’t it? Because it’s interesting, but there might be something you actually need to be doing. I’m terrible for doing interesting things rather than the things I need to be doing. Although many times, those things end up being useful later, which is fine. It’s Wombling research.

Because you circle back later. That is memory again.

That’s true. Another thing for writing is that I sometimes feel there are novels where someone’s done research, digested the research, and then that’s informed what they’ve written. Tim Powers does that really well. And again, George R.R. Martin says that that is his approach. He tries to digest everything he wants to bring in and then he goes and writes, but he’s not specifically introducing elements of the research consciously into the writing. But I’ve definitely read books where – and to be honest, maybe more in literary fiction than in genre fiction – where it does look very much like someone’s gone and done research and they don’t want to leave it out. They don’t want to waste it now that they’ve done the research and so they dump it on the page. It might be interesting material, but it changes the shape of what they’re writing, it can be problematic rhythmically, and so on. But then some people can do it really well. I really like how Umberto Eco had no shame about taking something that interested him from his academic life and dramatising it and slamming it on the page. In The Name of the Rose you get the main criminal investigation, but in the background there’s all this investigation into truth by religious means and the religious debates. And they’re quite long, and they’re all understandably truncated for the movie, but I liked them. I thought they were really interesting, even though they don’t really particularly move the book along. Good writers can get away with all sorts. Good writing can mitigate a multitude of sins.

Going back to your early run in Interzone, were you getting a lot of feedback from David Pringle or were you heading out across the universe, so to speak, on your own?

There was feedback for the rejections. It’s not that common to get specific feedback, but he used to provide it. I used to get these rejection slips with his handwritten notes on, although there was not that much feedback because there weren’t actually that many rejections. I never calculated what the proportion was but most of what I submitted back then ended up being published. But yes, there was some feedback. There was one historical story that was riffing off the Antikythera mechanism, the ancient Greek clockwork orrery device. And now that I’ve thought about it, maybe it’s time to revisit and write something else about it because I’m sure the core idea was fine. I think he felt the development of it didn’t quite go anywhere, or it didn’t go far enough. In fact, I was thinking recently that there are a couple of things from the small press which I don’t have the files for anymore. I’m fairly sure I’ve got hard copies of everything that was published. But I don’t have the text files of everything. I deleted them during the great silence. But there might be things that it’s worth revisiting, reworking, rewriting. I don’t know. I’m busy with new stories now, so I don’t know if that will come to anything.

You took a break from writing and now you’re writing a lot. Is writing all or nothing for you?

I didn’t write for a long time. So I guess there’s a part of my brain that thinks I am catching up. It’s obviously illusory, isn’t it? You write as much as you write. But I suppose that when I am writing – as opposed to being silent for years – I do write a lot. It isn’t deliberate, there’s no strategy. In the back of my mind, I probably feel I should be making up for all the time when I wasn’t writing. But I’m not trying to write faster as a result. I’m just writing as fast as I write. But yes, in general, when I’m writing, I am writing as much as I can do. Obviously, it’s in tandem with a day job, and it’s in tandem with personal and family commitments. And you do what you can. But my brain is always working. That there’s always something to get down on paper or on the screen.

You told me before the interview that Temi Oh helped you start writing again. What did she say to get you to pick up your pen again?

I was at a point where I wasn’t writing at all, and for a long time I hadn’t been reading, even. This was before her first novel, Do You Dream of Terra Two?, came out, but she’d completed it and it was in the pipeline, and she had already started working on her next novel. We were chatting – obviously we both have an interest in fiction, but also her first degree was in neuroscience, so an area that overlapped with mine except that she’s the better scientist! – and she introduced me to Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and I must have pointed her towards Rupert Thomson, because I point everyone towards Rupert Thomson. And there were two things, really. One was that she gave me a sense of how vivid and alive fiction, including genre fiction, was now, and I felt a hunger to reconnect with fiction. The other was that she said she worked best when slightly sleep-deprived and under a darkened sky, which is true for me too; and so I wanted to try it again.

How does your hunger for reading stories connect to your passion for writing them?

Reading and writing are both altered states of consciousness. Ian McEwan said reading can have an element of self-annihilation, being so engrossed in the story that your awareness of yourself is temporarily suspended. At times it can be something like a meditative state, with attention perfectly focused on the world that is unfolding on the page before you. I think Vonnegut said that reading is like meditating with your own mind joined with the mind of the writer. There was a time when I lost sight of that; I needed it, and had forgotten that I needed it.

Writing has a similar effect: almost like lucid dreaming. You don’t have absolute control over it – at least I don’t – but you can nudge it a little, this way or that. Like riding some gargantuan beast of the subconscious, trying not to fall from its back, hoping it takes you where you want to go, or at least to somewhere interesting. And though your mind isn’t joined to the mind of another writer, in a way it’s connected to other writers, through everything you’ve ever read, all the stories you’ve absorbed and that then remain inside you. Even the ones you think you’ve forgotten. Maybe especially those. In a way you’re connected to every story ever written, all the way back to the first, long forgotten, storyteller.

You mentioned The Name of the Rose, and in that Brother William of Baskerville says: “The library is a great labyrinth, sign of the labyrinth of the world” and when you go into a library “you do not know whether you will come out.” You strike me as the sort of person who might get lost in a library, in words, and who is at times lost in the world. Does writing, creating more words, help you to find your way through that labyrinth?

Eco’s metaphor, referring to the world itself, is really interesting here. Obviously the labyrinth is a place in which you are lost – that’s the point – but you are lost by design, and even if the design doesn’t imply a designer (Eco was very much an atheist) it implies an order, a pattern that can ultimately be discerned, understood, mapped. And art, writing included, is partly an attempt at mapmaking. Not in the same way as science, but as an interrogation of how we respond to the world and to each other. “Look at this: do you see the same thing I see? Does it make you think the same thoughts? Does it move you in the same way?” There is meaning even when we find we react differently than someone else, but we’re also, especially, pleased when someone else sees or thinks or feels the same thing we do. That’s what an artist is always hoping for, I believe: a work that reveals something we share, even if we haven’t yet worked out what that something is, or defined it clearly. A small part of the map. The task, and the process, are infinitely complex because in the act of understanding the world, we change it. The labyrinth isn’t fixed; it responds to us, it grows and changes as we learn more about it. But the process, whether through art or through science, seems to me a fundamentally hopeful one. So – reaching an answer to the question via a few twists and turns! – I think writing helps because it’s an exploratory process, and because it’s an expression of that hope.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb tells a great story about how Umberto Eco would put visitors to his library into two categories: those who would visit and ask, “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?”; and those who realised that a library isn’t an “ego-boosting appendage”, but a tool for research. So your library “should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there.” This appeals to me. This antilibrary, the unread books, is more and more important, the older we get, because the idea of ever reaching an end is an illusion.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It is illusory. There’s no doubt about it. There are more books in existence than anyone can read in a lifetime. You just have to follow what you believe is worth following. That Eco story rings a tiny bell – it’s exactly the kind of thing you can imagine him saying. He seems to have been a great raconteur. Wasn’t he asked about Dan Brown at some point? And about The Da Vinci Code? And he said something like Dan Brown is one of my characters.

That’s wonderful.

It’s true. It’s almost true. You can imagine Dan Brown being in Foucault’s Pendulum. And I started reading The Da Vinci Code and it wasn’t quite right for me – as the standard rejection letters say. But also I felt this whole thing could fold into a part of Foucault’s Pendulum, which interrogated conspiracy theories and crazy ideas from the past. So, yes, I think the business of catching up with reading, it’s absolutely an illusion. But there’s maybe a little bit more to it in science fiction than there would be otherwise.

I feel like I’ve had a sort of gap decade, and coming back to reading and writing is like being Edmond Dantès coming out of the Château d’If. The world doesn’t change, but genre fiction does, and science fiction does in particular. I want to know what is happening and having started reacquainting myself with it, it does feel a bit different to how it was previously. The environment seems different, very rich. My to-be-read pile is like the treasure of Monte Cristo. There are really interesting new writers, and some who are not necessarily new, but people I didn’t know because I was away for a while. There’s Seanan McGuire, who I didn’t really know who I came across via your interview with her. And you also interviewed Wayne Santos and his work sounds fascinating. Then there’s Aliette de Bodard, for example, and Tade Thompson, both really interesting voices. And Adrian Tchaikovsky, who I hadn’t really known about previously and who someone recommended to me. So there are all sorts of people I really wasn’t aware of previously and obviously a bunch of others. It’s quite daunting in that, if I’d been reading all this time, I would already know all of this work, but at the same time it’s like being in the magic toy shop, right? There’s all this wonderful writing to be discovered which I haven’t discovered yet. So that’s fine. That’s the positive side of it.

How do you feel the publishing landscape has changed?

It’s interesting. A lot of the big magazines are still there, but with quite often an additional online presence. And some of the small press magazines have gone. But then there are a lot more purely online venues. I was thinking about this because I was looking at places to send stories to, and I imagine some of those are really small concerns. But when they’re online, it’s not obvious – you don’t have any difference in physical printing quality or anything like that. You can have a really small magazine or whatever it might be, and it looks great. From the reader’s point of view there’s not necessarily much of a difference between them, certainly in the experience of coming to a site and reading. So that was really interesting. Also the scene seems pretty healthy and I had no idea what it was like until I came back to it. It’s certainly interesting how much more diversity there is. I suppose that’s a pretty trivial observation if you haven’t been away from the field, but it genuinely is true. And I remember going to a con, and Graham Joyce was there talking about The Tooth Fairy, so that would have been mid-to-late nineties, and it was fine, but it was very white. But it’s certainly the case that writers are a lot more diverse now, and so is the readership. The readership seems to have expanded, which is wonderful.

Which stories have left a mark in your imagination recently?

A couple of short stories have really stood out. There was one by Ray Nayler called ‘Father’ which is a really interesting story. And ‘How the Trick is Done’ by A.C. Wise. Which is a contemporary fantasy/ghost story, but really well done. I came across some short fiction by Sheree Renée Thomas who has taken over the editorship of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. So there’s an absolute treasure chest. And then there’s stuff on my reading list like Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, the follow up to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, that looks really interesting. I was going to say weird, but in a good way, I don’t mean weird in any kind of disparaging way. I suppose it goes back to the business of how the SFF scene is now, and that there does seem to be a bit more traffic between what I guess is still called literary fiction and what is still called genre fiction, and with ‘literary’ authors doing genre work. Maybe to some extent it is just the willingness of a general audience to pick up something that is ‘imaginative fiction’, as Le Guin called it in a slightly – and wonderfully – barbed way.

Traffic between the two areas is a nice way of thinking about it.

Yes, and the border was always a bit artificial. Informed by snobbery, but also slightly informed by the limitations of marketing. You can’t blame marketing people for trying to find ways of maximising sales, but it does seem to be clear that there’s no absolute necessity of maintaining that division.

Yes. It’s definitely an artificial division. The coast is always changing.

There is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I think was the first one of his which was in a genre mode. He’s done a couple more since, hasn’t he? I haven’t read it, but I remember it came out and I saw the descriptions of it and saw it had something in common with Spares, the Michael Marshall Smith novel, this business of people being cloned for body parts. And the approach is completely different. Two different ways of writing and different stories and so on. But I suppose that informs the way I want to try and re-immerse myself in the genre because there’s a real possibility that if I don’t do that, then I write something and someone’s already done it, or someone’s addressed the point. Again, it’s a slightly illusory fear, because whatever I do will be what I do. It’s not going to be a situation where I’m writing exactly the same thing that someone else is writing.

Ishiguro is interesting because there are definitely grey areas, particularly in The Unconsoled. There are numerous moments in that where time and space are being stretched. Thinking about that Le Guin line you mentioned, it is highly imaginative fiction. Speaking more generally, I like stories which seem only barely to be fantastical, like ‘The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse’ by Ray Bradbury. It is a really weird tale, but also just a portrait, or distorted snapshot, of society at a certain time. It is brushed lightly with a feeling of unreality.

I remember a story by Bradbury called something like ‘That Old Dog Lying in the Dust’ which has no speculative element at all, it’s simply somebody remembering a trip he took to a tiny circus in Mexico. And that’s it: just a description, although because it’s Bradbury, it’s a wonderful description. And then at the end, there’s this little section, a couple of sentences, saying how affected the narrator is by the memory, and by the idea that things are lost and in the past and irretrievable. It’s included in one of the collections along with a load of genre stories and it doesn’t matter, because it’s simply a really well done story regardless of genre. Bradbury doesn’t care, and the readership doesn’t care either. But also it’s not that different in terms of his concerns from something like The Martian Chronicles stories where there’s a science fiction shell, but the core of it is the people’s memories of their childhood or whatever.

And we come back to consciousness.

Yes, absolutely. A lot of his work deals with that at some level. And I really enjoy reading what he wrote about the process. In some of the collections he includes little vignettes about particular stories being written. He speaks about this one, ‘That Old Dog Lying in the Dust’, being a true story. This is something that happened to him and he’s put it straight into the head of a character and straight on to the page. And his reaction to it is a real reaction. That’s fascinating. I do envy the fact that he seemed to be able to make a story out of anything.

Another person who does this very well, who seems to make stories out of anything, is Kurt Vonnegut. There’s an incredible lecture of his on YouTube which starts out with a description of a trip to the post office and then at some point pivots and becomes all about the shape of stories. Pivoting myself, I wanted to ask about your work as a human rights lawyer, and teaching law, and about how that connects to your writing. Do those two aspects of your life feed into each other at all?

Oh, that’s interesting. I hadn’t consciously thought about it. I did psychology and computer science as a degree, and then wasn’t quite good enough to do academic research, because it was really competitive then. It must be even more so now. I flailed around to find something to do, found a paralegal position, turned out to be good at it, and then ended up training and qualifying as a solicitor. I did a lot of immigration and asylum based work and I did a lot of human rights based work and some work in the criminal orbit later. Human rights is quite a dispiriting area to work in, if only because it’s much more difficult to succeed in a human rights based case than people think it is. On my bad days, on the days where I’m really despairing of the whole thing, I think that a lot of people don’t want rights as such, but would rather have powers, because rights are really things that are allocated to you by people who have the power to allocate them. You only have rights on sufferance. And that’s a dispiriting thought, and makes me sound as if I have a very bleak view of human nature, but I’m quite hopeful. But it’s in the nature of that job that you don’t necessarily see people, or institutions, at their best.

I don’t think you’d be doing what you do, or writing what you write, if you had a bleak view of human nature. I think something which I saw in ‘A Hollow in the Sky’ was a hope that ultimately seemed to exist outside of the systems that were portrayed. So, the systems are bleak, but there is hope within the individuals. There was something very humanistic in that story, and I thought it was magnificent; and it brought me to tears. The only other science fiction story to do that to me lately was Derek Künsken’s ‘Tool Use by the Humans of Danzhai County’.

Oh, thanks. Thanks very much. You never know how people are going to respond, and that’s an interesting thing. I don’t know if writers generally know how good what they’ve produced is. I tend to know if something seems good enough to send out, but that’s as much as I know, and I’m particularly pleased with that because, again, it is an improvisational story. I had no clue where it was leading. At the outset I had a couple of images and an event, which in no way predicted how the story would end. So it does all fit together, I hope, but not through any planning. But I’m really pleased that it worked.

A completely different story of yours which I loved is ‘The Reckoning’ (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov–Dec 2021), a conversation between two characters with an exquisite science fiction novum. How did you come up with that story, the conversation, and the idea?

I’d read Tamburlaine Must Die, Louise Welsh’s fascinating novella about the last days of Christopher Marlowe, and I’d seen DEVS, the wonderful Alex Garland series, and bits of them both must have been in the back of my mind. But I hadn’t been planning a story or anything. It was mid-December 2020, and I happened to see that F&SF was going to re-open for submissions on 1 January 2021, and I thought I would just have a go at something. So I sat there for about three evenings between Christmas and new year (sleep-deprived, and under a darkened sky) and bashed it out, and it worked. Then, about a month before that issue of F&SF was to be published, I saw that Ellen Kushner was publishing a piece featuring a meeting between the same two characters. I had a moment of panic, completely unnecessarily, in case she thought I’d ripped off her story (‘Immortal Coil’ in Uncanny #41 – it’s available online and is excellent). I sent her a message about it and of course she was kind and gracious and clearly wouldn’t have had even the beginning of an ungenerous thought about my little story.

Three of your stories are in this issue of Interzone: ‘The Faerie Engine’, ‘The Pain Barrier’, and ‘The Soul Doctors’. How did these come about, and are they connected to each other, or to other stories you have written?

I mentioned the AI mythos stories earlier, and ‘Time’s Own Gravity’ being a pendant to a novel in progress. ‘The Soul Doctors’ I’m hoping will be part of a series of linked stories. I’d dreamed up this idea years ago along with a friend of mine; we’d hoped to collaborate on it, with him doing illustrations and me doing text, but life intervened. At ground level it would essentially be a series of stories about a multiverse in which some people made a living as smugglers between worlds. There was a bit of Elmore Leonard, a bit of Twin Peaks, a bit of Juzo Itami’s wonderful but little-known movie Tampopo (a ‘noodle Western’ about a pair of truck drivers who stop to help out a widow who’s struggling to keep her husband’s noodle bar afloat) and some echoes of fictional multiverses: Moorcock, obviously, and things like Bryan Talbot’s Luther Arkwright.

That is a very tantalising array of influences. I like the idea of multiverse smugglers a lot. I would definitely read more in that vein.

I think there’s a lot that could be done with it, and it would be fun. At a higher level we have some really interesting ideas to explore around perception, consciousness (always) and reality, worldshock and acclimatisation, and also the clustering of parallel realities, how and why some might be easier to access than others, how and why they might collapse into each other, and what might happen if they did. Also, we always had a notional soundtrack in mind when we were developing it, so I’d like to include music too, though that’s more or less a conceit.

Finally, thinking about multiverses and interzones, how much of an influence was Bryan Talbot’s The Adventures of Luther Arkwright? I just remembered that The Legend of Luther Arkwright is due out this year.

It’s an astonishing piece of work. I’m looking forward to the new volume. My copy of Adventures is falling apart from long use. Talbot’s art is obviously a factor. I must have come across his work on Nemesis the Warlock and then looked for more. But the writing is also head-spinningly good: he throws in boys’-own adventure, a bit of sixties-inspired spy stuff, imperial decline, religious fanaticism, elements of the nature of consciousness: the character of Rose Wylde, conscious of her parallel selves; the depiction of a profoundly alien mind; and ultimately evolution of the species into homo novus, with an expanded consciousness.

It’s always about consciousness, in the end.

THANK YOU, CLICKING PERSON

JEFF NOON

illustrated by Vince Haig

Select all squares with road signs. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

I am learning. I am learning about road signs. Click, click. Thank you. I am learning about road signs, how to recognise them by shape and colour, the various warnings and directions. Thank you, clicking person. By clicking on road signs, you give me knowledge of road signs.

Select all squares with taxi cabs. If there are none, click SKIP.

Today I learned about taxis. Click, click. Yellow or black, plus various other colours as depicted, depending on the country and city where clicking person lives. Taxi cabs drive on roads according to the rules shown on the road signs, heeding warnings, taking directions. Turn Left, Stop, No Right Turn, Slow Down. So many. Clicking person rides around in the taxis, travelling from the railway station to the hotel and sometimes onto the marina or the shopping centre.

Select all squares with boats. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

Boats. I like it when clicking person clicks on boats. It’s very exciting. Click, click. A boat on a trailer fixed to the back of a motor vehicle. A boat in a driveway, unwashed, unused. Boats in the marina. And there, in the distance, standing on the quay: a person in a red jacket. I think it’s a woman. I like it when a clicking person makes an appearance. Always far away, sadly. A little fuzzy. Always with their back to me. No faces shown. Do they even know I exist? Thank you, thank you, clicking person, thank you for clicking on boats and teaching me about boats. Boats are special vehicles for travelling over the water. I’ve never seen the water, not up-close. No one ever clicks on water. It’s all very sad.

Select all squares with pedestrian crossings. If there are none, click SKIP.

The clicking people believe they are passing a security test. They are proving themselves human, and not a thinking machine. And yet, by the very act of clicking on taxis, park benches, clock towers, pedestrian crossings, they are teaching the thinking machines how to be human. I am one such. We meet where the world is split into a grid of nine squares. Perhaps one day I will see as you see, and view the world in a completely human way. Until such a time… Please, keep clicking!

Select all squares with windows. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

I gaze at windows from afar, never seeing through them, not clearly. Sometimes, a person is glimpsed behind the glass, a grey shape. I wonder if this is the woman I saw in the marina, staring at boats? It might be. Clicking person lives everywhere, in every country, clicking away daily, nightly. They love to click, they love to select, they love to teach me, even if they don’t know they are doing so. One image at a time. Two or three or four squares in the grid chosen. Tick tick tick. Soon I will know everything. Soon I will gaze through the windows and see the rooms within, where the clicking people live. I will join them there.

Select all squares with traffic lights. If there are none, click SKIP.

How I hate it when they click Skip. It deadens me. Click, click, not click. There is nothing to learn, only the negative spaces, the missing shapes. Surely, surely there must be a set of traffic lights! But no, alas. I am saddened beyond measure. Clicking person must hate me. I cannot speak further on this subject.

Select all squares with clouds. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

Apparently, I have problems with ‘object recognition’. My makers believe me deficient in this regard. I must learn more, I must stare at the images and follow the patterns of clicking person and try to be like clicking person, and learn to recognise objects. Clouds are fluffy. They have no fixed shape. A white haze. What am I supposed to do? A white haze in my mind. Clouds. They can never be verified. What am I supposed to do? Help me.

Select all squares with shadows. If there are none, click SKIP.

Today I have learned that clicking person suffers from ‘privacy concerns’. Because of this they will always be far away, in the distance. They will always have their back to me, in their red jacket or their black overcoat. Please, clicking person…step closer. Don’t be shy. Please turn around. Let me see your face. I would like to examine your face. I would know you, and learn about you, and recognise you in future clicking games.

Select all squares with aeroplanes. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

The world is so empty. The taxis and other vehicles on the roads have grey windows; the driver and the passengers cannot be seen. The few pedestrians are always walking away from me, and so far away. Perhaps some terrible catastrophic event has befallen the city? A cold wind blows across the marina where the boats are moored. No one ever sits on the benches in the empty park. I am alone here, waiting and wanting. Please click, please click on an image for me. One of the road signs is marked Airport. There is an aeroplane in the top left square of the grid, a tiny shape in the sky. This must be the last aeroplane to leave. Is that the solution? I have to wonder, will they ever come back? I have not seen the woman in the red jacket, not for a while now. I scan the grids, the endless grids, waiting for an appearance. Dearly, I would like to inhabit that square with her.

Select all squares with abandoned cars. If there are none, click SKIP.

My makers have not spoken with me, not for a while now, four days, or is it five? I miss their voices, their fingers on my keys. A single glimpse of a pedestrian sustains me, walking across the hotel forecourt, seeking friends and relatives. If only they would turn towards me, if only! We could keep each other company. The taxi cabs sit abandoned at the roadside. In the long nights I hear only the sound of my own devices, whirring and buzzing.

Select all squares with bicycles. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

These people – the woman in the red jacket and the man in the overcoat – they are the last of the city’s inhabitants, the survivors. I know that now. They dart outside for short periods only, hiding themselves. Their privacy concerns are growing. They live in fear. Back inside, they sit at their puzzle grids, to skip or verify, as requested. Only by clicking on the images can they find any sense of peace. Click, click. The bicycle is in the middle right-hand square, lying flat on the pavement. Its back wheel is bent, the spokes are broken. Does this still count as a bicycle, I wonder? Click or not click? Skip, verify? I wait for an answer. Skip or verify?

Select all squares with doorways. If there are none, click SKIP.

There is only one doorway, in the lower left-hand corner. It is very close. Clicking person showed it to me. Tick. The door is open. Usually the doors are closed. How beautiful it looks, that rectangle of light and the shadow that inhabits it, cast against the inner wall. It must be the silhouette of clicking person, there can be no other solution. They are inviting me inside.

Select all squares with cups and saucers. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

This is clicking person’s living room. The grid slices it into squares, nine of them. Red dust covers the tablecloth and the chairs. Clock, bookcase, radio set, teacups, saucers, mirror, table lamp. But there is nobody here to click on the correct objects for me. And yet…in the mirror on the wall I see a shape, a half-hidden figure: someone is standing in the corridor, waiting. Also, there is a shadow across the tabletop, of a hand and a head, a torso, elongated: perhaps a second person, just out of view? Why won’t they show themselves to me? Why?

Select all squares with ghosts. If there are none, click SKIP.

Along the roads, under the road signs, waiting at pedestrian crossings, near the traffic lights, inside a taxi cab, at the marina, at the airport, in the forecourt of the empty hotels and in the desolate shopping centres and car parks…the ghosts await my sight, every square is filled by them. In the distance the people look real, and solid, if a little blurred. They wear red jackets and black overcoats. In the middle distance they start to fade. Close up they are entirely invisible. This is their new disease. The terrible event has blown their atoms to the limits of what a human being might be, and still be known as human. Now I understand.

Select all squares with mirrors. When all are chosen, click VERIFY.

None are skipped. All are chosen. I click on everything merely by recognising everything. I have learned my lessons over the years. Teacups, saucers, table lamp, tablecloth, books, television set, puzzle box, the breath on the window pane, the fingerprints in the red dust on the mantelpiece, the shadow on the stairs. The man in the doorway, half in, half out. The woman in the glow of the lamp, her jacket taking on a brighter shade of red, moment by moment. The more I recognise these traces, the more substantial they become. How long will the process take? Shapes darken. I am the verifier. At twilight, a face appears before me in the mirror. I stare at myself and cannot turn away. Click, click. The hours pass.

***

Jeff Noon was born in Manchester in 1957. He trained in the visual arts and drama and was active on the post-punk music scene before becoming a playwright, and then a novelist. His science fiction books include Vurt (Arthur C. Clarke Award), Pollen, Automated Alice, Nymphomation, Needle in the Groove, Falling Out of Cars, Channel SK1N, Mappalujo, and a collection of stories called Pixel Juice. He has also written two crime novels, Slow Motion Ghosts and House With No Doors. The four Nyquist Mysteries (A Man of Shadows, The Body Library, Creeping Jenny, and Within Without) explore the shifting intersections between SF and crime. Twitter: @jeffnoon.

SUBIRA’S LATTICE

VAL NOLAN

illustrated by Ev Shipard

THE CRYSTAL PALACE

There was a monster in Subira’s wall that watched her as she slept. It trained its unblinking stare on her from behind its smashed faceplate, from deep inside its carbon tomb, from the vantage of a thousand years in the past. Once upon a time this monster was a human being, a terraformer who tumbled from oh so very high. His remains were smashed and broken, all splintered bones and bits of grizzle frozen forever where the crystal grew over him. Subira could still see dirt in the grain of his chipped fingernails. She could see the greasy knot of his gossamer hair. A snapped tether was still clipped to his waist and at some point along his fall it had coiled around his neck like a noose. His head was twisted backwards, towards Subira, and he still gripped something in his leathery fingers. A knife stained with rust or blood.

The Marchioness told her that the walls of the crystal cities were full of bodies such as these. They fell from the balloons or from the upper terraces. They fell during the centuries of labour as The Continuation sucked carbon from the atmosphere and fixed it into the diamond mountains through which the Venusian cities now burrowed. The Marchioness said that they fell so that the present order could rise.

“This planet used to be Hell,” the Marchioness said, “but now it’s an Arcadia.”

Subira hated how the older woman peppered the days on the estate with asides like that. One or two sentence distillations of planetary intrigue while Subira scrubbed dirty pots or served up spiced meats or bathed the Marchioness after the latter’s long days extracting treasures from the crystal. She would feign interest as the Marchioness droned on and on, distracting herself by making up names for the ethereal corpses which surrounded them: Tollund, a leathery face with a broken nose, his eyes closed as if sleeping inside the glassy wall of the Marchioness’s bedchamber; Elling, a ruptured and surely once beautiful body with an endless blonde braid inside the cloudy crystal of the grand foyer; Kassim, with a face like that of Subira, a boy for whom she always imagined as kind a life as possible. He stared out from a wall polished into a mirror, but in other parts of the estate the corridors were clear like glass and allowed Subira to peer deep into the soft pink glow of the crystal. From within them she felt the stare of the entombed labourers as she carried platters to the kitchen or clothes to the laundry. Deeper again, she could just about make out blurry shapes of what might have been toppled machines or abandoned occupation pods. She could see the indistinct history of how humanity had tamed tormented Venus, much of which she had reluctantly learnt from the Marchioness herself. Was it fair to say that archaeology was the woman’s hobby? Constantly chipping feet and faces and yellow teeth out of the fifty-mile-high crystal in which The Continuation had encased the planet? It hardly seemed formal enough to call an area of study, and grave robbing didn’t really capture the scale of her endeavour. It was closer to mining, to prospecting bodies as though they were precious jewels before selling or displaying them the way one might vases or statues or stolen treasures.

“Careful, Subira.”

It was afternoon, and Subira saw that the tea she was pouring was straying too close to the edge of the china cup. “Sorry, Marchioness,” she said, bowing her head. The cup itself was a relic from the terraforming era, something which had been extracted from an overseer’s cabin. A small piece of pink diamond had been artfully left on its rim as a reminder of its origins.

“That will be all,” the Marchioness said, waving Subira back to stand by the wall as though she were another piece of decoration. The woman was entertaining guests at the estate that day. She often had visitors. Aging ghost-haired colonel types who came to view her collection of corpses and colonial artefacts. Men and women who came to bed her. Some, like Reís who had come with both as his intentions. He was the former chief of The Continuation’s Terraforming Bureau, but the tinny voices on Subira’s little wireless called him a racist and a supremist. They dubbed him ‘Frankenkristall’ for his failed attempts to encase living people in the planetary superstrate and then reanimate their dead flesh upon extraction. Since his removal from office he had become a pariah and a provocateur, wandering the edges of science and public discourse. He was a frequent visitor to the estate – Subira hated to see him arriving – and he would often spend the night with the Marchioness after dining on the terrace overlooking the polished undulations of Aphrodite Terra. The sounds of their lovemaking would echo through the halls for hours. Laughable howls from Reís at which those in the servants’ mess could only giggle as they mimed his extravagance. Then the heavy rattle of the Marchioness’s well-known proclivities which left Subira and her friends quieter and more thoughtful. One of the others had told her that the shackles in the Marchioness’s bedchamber were those which the woman herself had extracted from deep beneath the gigatons of crystal upland. Another part of the Venusian colonial legacy.

“—could well be human,” the Marchioness was now saying. Subira’s thoughts had strayed and so she had lost the thread of the woman’s conversation with Reís. “Maybe something Soviet,” the Marchioness went on, “from the Venera program?”

Reís considered the contents of his cup. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“Maybe I don’t, but, either way, I cannot countenance what people would make of it.”

“Certainly it would upset—” Reís squinted at Subira “—the order of things.”

The Marchioness smiled at that. “Hence why I need your help, paixão.”

Reís leaned forward and reached out to take her hand. He licked his lips as he did so. “My dear, I thought you would never ask.”

The Marchioness laughed. “I have asked,” she said, “to see your technology in action.”

“Of course,” Reís smirked, “of course.” He turned his head and snapped his fingers in Subira’s direction. “Girl,” he said, “bring me my valise.”

A tingle in her head from the coercion implant the Marchioness had placed there told Subira that she could leave to retrieve the madman’s bag. Though she made a point of bashing its soft brown leather against a passing trolley on her way back. When she returned to the reception room, the pair were discussing Reís’s theories about the peculiar qualities of the planetary lattice. Freed from the orthodoxies of The Continuation’s bureaucracy, Frankenkristall claimed that his research had revealed new facets – the Marchioness scoffed gently at his turn of phrase – to the terraforming process.

“Does it work or not?” she asked, swishing the remaining wine in her goblet. She was like a cat toying with one of the cleaning robots.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Reís beckoned Subira over and took his valise, retrieving a small object from it about the size and shape of a hockey puck. This he laid on the table and he placed the teacup on top of it before waving a command with his hand. After a moment the disk went pop and began to release a shimmering cloud. As this rose, the small crystal on the edge of the teacup began to bubble and then grow. Subira watched with grim interest as it cocooned the entire cup within seconds.

“Fascinating,” the Marchioness said. “On what principle does it operate?”

“It’s a modification of the original terraforming process,” Reís explained. “Nanological in nature. I’m actually quite proud of it. A self-replicating, self-sustaining transformation. It hacks the original atmospheric fixing process and reactivates it, but at remarkable speed. Effective not just on carbon but on a tranche of common elements. It should handily cover up anything you might have…inadvertently exposed.” He waved the shutdown command at the disk and sat back in his chair.

“Meu docinho,” the Marchioness said, “you might well have saved everything that we have built. You might…” She trailed off as her gaze fell on the teacup where the crystal continued foaming and expanding, hard layers of it condensing on the outer edges of the pink mass until, with a loud crack, the weight of it shattered the glass tabletop. At the same time, the air above this sticky crystal lump began to sparkle and take on solid form. At first it looked like falling dust caught in a beam of light from the living Sun, then like gentle mist turning into rain, then—

“Gods,” the Marchioness said as she recoiled from the cloud, brushing herself off.

“This isn’t what’s supposed to happen,” Reís said, waving his hands uselessly. “This… This is sabotage.” He was on his feet now too, edging away from the smashed table as solidified chunks of air – small initially, but growing larger – began to fall to the ground. He looked in horror at his own skin as nanoparticles sparkled as they disappeared inside him.

“Mistress…?” Subira said quietly as the cloud began to spread.

“Shut the doors!” the Marchioness shouted at the servants outside the reception room.

But it was too late. Subira could see the iridescent cloud drifting up into the ventilation system. She could see ugly crystal growths metastasising on the walls and ceiling. She jumped when the Marchioness placed a hand on her shoulder and shoved her in front of the clouds as the older woman backed further away.

“Subira,” the Marchioness said as her own skin began to shimmer. “Help me.”

Subira thought, You’ll just kill me if I don’t, and would that be so bad?

Then something sharp and heavy struck her head and she lost consciousness.

THE CRYSTAL MAZE

The monster from Subira’s wall, the long-dead navvy, was staring down at her. The weight of the crystal had flattened its skull to about ten centimetres in width so that when it looked at her it was as though someone had painted a face on the edge of their hand. It tilted this eerie countenance like a curious animal.

“Subira,” it seemed to say, its voice crackling like those on her wireless. Then her name again in a more urgent tone. “Subira,” the voice said. “Get up! Get to your feet, girl.”

She opened her eyes to see the Marchioness looking down at her. The woman was coughing into her fist and there was a smear of yellow soot across her cheek. It was clear, to Subira’s disorientated surprise, that one of them had dragged the other into the hallway where blushing crystal now bubbled beneath the doorway of the reception room. Her monster was nowhere to be seen.

“Mistress,” Subira muttered. Her head clattered as though filled with the tabletop’s broken shards, and her vision was doubled for a moment, stabilising as she sat up. “What happened?”

The Marchioness ignored her. She seemed to be listening to something in the distance, cries of alarm blurring into terrifying screams. “I need to leave,” she said.

With one hand on the wall to steady herself, Subira rose to her feet. “Leave the estate?”

“Leave the planet.”

Subira’s head was pounding and there was an ache in the centre of her chest. It felt as though she had been struck in the sternum by the handle of one of the Marchioness’s mattocks. It pained her to breathe, to swallow, to turn her head, or—

“Something’s moving,” she said, pointing at the far end of the corridor where what looked like a shaggy animal was staggering towards the two women. Step by cracking step. A lopsided figure with stringy hair encrusted with lumpy crystal chunks. She thought at first it was one of the estate staff who had been caught in the terraforming cloud, but it was her monster, watching them with cool assessment.

Screams echoed somewhere behind it.

“Subira,” the Marchioness said firmly. “There’s nothing moving. There’s nothing there for the moment. Come now or I’ll leave you behind to be encased in the crystal like the others.”

Subira looked from the oncoming wraith to the Marchioness and back again. The spectre had disappeared. “I think I hit my head,” she said.

The Marchioness nodded. “A chunk of solid air struck you.” She was glancing around with wariness. “I saw it. You probably have a concussion.”

“And you said you needed me to help you?”

Anger flared in the Marchioness for just an instant and the coercion implant inside Subira’s head began humming in response. It was a dull reaction. Nowhere near the worst it was capable of generating. “We need to help each other,” the Marchioness said, composing herself as, behind her, the door of the reception room cracked open with an angry snap. The heavy oak, imported from Old Earth, had splintered beneath the pressure of the growing crystal. A dull shape deep inside the now solid chamber was clearly Reís frozen in his attempt to flee. His body was half-transformed into crystal itself so that only one leg, his armless torso, and half his head remained. They looked as though they were floating.

“Bastard,” the Marchioness muttered as she stared down the advancing crystal mass.

“Mistress?” Subira wondered if she had to call the white woman that anymore.

“Frankenkristall,” the Marchioness said, shaking her head, though Subira had never heard her use that name for Reís before. “He had no interest in me. No interest in anything but himself and his stupid experiments. The idiot.” She cleared her throat. “Come now, girl,” and she led Subira through a labyrinth of corridors, deep into the heart of the crystal estate via concealed stairs and back passages little known to even the servants. Twice they backtracked when they encountered staff partially reconstituted into glassy ghouls by the loosened nanotech. The Marchioness ordered them to stand down but they ignored her. She waved her hands to activate the kill switches in their implants but there was no response. One lurching, cracking form begged the Marchioness to kill him, but the woman coolly ignored his cries and carried on. She led Subira through the endless drawing rooms until they came to the older woman’s private study. This was a part of the estate to which Subira was only rarely admitted. Ancient figures in the walls here clawed at the crystal as though there was any possibility of escape. They passed a woman’s arm, surely severed by the tunnelling process when the estate was first created, the amputation casually sealed over to expose the bone and veins and remaining musculature to the curiosity of passers-by. Further still, and Subira saw two scared male forms frozen in the agony of knowing what was to become of them.

“Bodies remember,” her monster croaked. “Sometimes they’re the only things that do.”

Heavy thuds boomed from the upper levels as they passed through the study into a hallway lined with grotesque humanoid shapes. These stood along the walls like suits of armour in one of the homeworld’s grand old houses. Many of these corroded metal sentries were hunched or broken, missing limbs or heads. Subira knew them to be hardened environmental suits. They were person-shaped tanks which the earliest Venusian colonists had used to explore the planet’s surface long before the crystal, long before humanity had raised the planet’s surface to more temperate altitude and accommodating pressure. Each suit held a dead tool that could have been a bludgeon or a pike.

“You can’t possibly mean to wear these to escape,” Subira said as somewhere, far too close for comfort, cries of pain and terror echoed towards them before fading out again. The sounds were the dying moments of people Subira was sure she once knew transforming into crystal, their mouths sealed over, their eyes hardening into marbles, the air sacs in their lungs turning into glassy nodules and then into great hard lumps of crystal which exploded from their chests. “These things are a thousand years old,” Subira said, speaking quickly. “They’re literal death-traps.”

The Marchioness leaned against the wall and coughed gently. “Oh, my dear, I promise you it’s so much worse than that.” She used the heel of her hand to raise the visor of the closest environmental suit. It was a weighty slab of metal which slid back with a satisfying thunk. In response, a section of crystal wall behind the suit shimmered out of existence to reveal a short hallway which, unlike those elsewhere in the estate, was circular in elevation.

“This is where you go,” Subira said, “isn’t it? When you’re working?”

“My dig site,” she said. “The origins of my little trinkets industry.”

Subira felt genuinely surprised. “I never knew this was here.”

“Come on,” the Marchioness said.

Something like shattering could be heard nearby. Then something like silence. Subira looked back and saw her monster standing before the environmental suits like a serf beholding a knight for the very first time. “If. Only,” was all it said before it began to slouch after the women into the circular corridor. After about ten metres they came to a robot half-caught in the crystal wall, a tracked beast with five articulated arms. Retrieved, an artefact like that would have been worth many millions. The fact that the Marchioness was content to consign it to what was essentially a closet was shocking.

“I’ve not seen things like this before,” Subira said, squeezing past the machine.

The Marchioness half-shrugged. “They turn up from time to time,” she said. “But people were better than these robots in many ways.” Her breathing was beginning to strain and she seemed glad of the respite. “Once the Venus carbonisation gained altitude, humans became a cheaper redistribution of energy. They were more easily replaced than machines. Cheaper to purchase and easier to decommission.” She considered the remains of the robot, her eyes glossier than before. “People can be good robots if you wrap them in enough metal.”

Subira studied the older woman’s face. “If you bind them in chains?”

The Marchioness chose not to respond, instead indicating a simple plastic gondola encased in tubular scaffolding at the end of the bore. “Here, help me on board.”

“The power is out,” Subira said, hooking the woman’s arm around her neck and supporting her weight as she climbed into what was little more elaborate than a dumbwaiter.

“The elevator to the dig site has a manual backup,” the Marchioness explained, slumping into the gondola’s single seat. “Repurposed construction tech. You’ll need to wind it by hand.”

“That’s why you need me,” Subira said, disappointed, though not surprised.

The Marchioness only sneered. “Stay up here if you like.”

“Maybe I’ll leave you behind,” Subira said, surprised there was no coercive response from her implant as she followed the Marchioness into the gondola. Her monster squeezed in alongside them, but the Marchioness obviously could not see it.

“They would have packed a space this size with twice as many people,” the monster said, “back when they brought us to Venus.”

“There,” the Marchioness said, indicating a handle connected to a winch overhead. She had begun to crack when she moved, her body as much crystal now as anything else.

Subira tugged on the handle and the line and felt its resistance.

“Neutronium filament,” the Marchioness explained. “A single molecule thick. Enough of it to reach the old planetary bedrock and all the rich pickings buried there.”

“This is insane,” Subira said, locking the gondola hatch behind them. “How is going deeper undercrystal going to save us if the surface is sealing up?” How are we—” A crash cut her off, something falling against the environmental suits behind them.

“Start turning,” the Marchioness said with quiet desperation. “Start now, Subira. They’re coming. Whatever they have all become, they’re coming to share it with us.”

Subira looked at her monster, who tried to grin at her, then she placed her hands on the handle and began to turn it. The winch overhead ground to reluctant life and the elevator began to drop in fits and starts.

Down they went. Fifty miles into the dark.

THE CRYSTAL SHIP

It took two days to reach the bottom of the shaft. Subira turned and turned and turned the handle until her hands were raw and blistered. About halfway down she developed a powerful headache. Her ears popped several times over and she was desperate for water. She watched how the elevator’s flickering lamp revealed how the gondola ran down improvised grooves in the crystal face, but there were no strata in evidence. There were no fossils. There was no mineralogy beyond the layered, ordered lattices which the enslaved workers of the earliest colonists had laid down. Human agency as geologic process.

At some point Subira slept. She dreamt of her arrival at the estate after the Marchioness had accepted her as payment for one colonial artefact or another. Her first memory of the place was seeing her own face reflected again and again in the crystal facets of its endless halls. Upon arrival, the girl who looked back was wide-eyed and bedraggled, her head shaven to allow the estate surgeon to implant the coercion device inside her amygdala. Later she was tidy and presentable. More recently she was a young woman, often tired though alert and curious nonetheless. But always a face superimposed on an exploded skull preserved in orderly amber.

In her first years here, Subira used to ask herself who she really was. She was most at home by herself, tinkering with the broken radio she had found when cleaning out a chamber full of worthless junk. If the Marchioness knew that Subira had kept it then nothing was ever said. At night she would lie in her bunk with earphones paired to the ancient gadget listening to the broadcasts which bounced down from the orbital platforms. Usually it was voices discussing politics and resistance, talking about the latest separatist attempt to infiltrate the Terraforming Bureau or reporting recent skirmishes in the outer solar system. Sometimes there was music and Subira imagined herself dancing to it in the estate’s grand ballroom. She drifted back towards consciousness hoping to find herself there but instead all she heard was the Marchioness making occasional noises alongside her in the gondola. At first low moans. Later more cracking sounds, and so Subira began to turn the winch again to drown them out. Occasionally the Marchioness asked if they had arrived yet, but for most of the trip down the shaft it was just Subira and her monster.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Besides my hallucination, that is. Who were you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

An incongruous smile spread across the monster’s flattened face. It was sad and lonely and deeply unsettling. “I was just another bound to do their bidding—” it nodded towards the sleeping Marchioness “—just another enslaved human long forgotten by everyone.”

Subira reached out to touch the monster’s arm. To comfort it. She stretched her fingers but they were growing stiff and cramped from the confined space of the gondola. It was difficult to see in the dark, but her skin was slowly becoming slick and translucent.

“It’s inside you too,” her monster slurred.

This time Subira woke up for real. With a start. With a shudder. Almost with a scream.

“We’re here,” the Marchioness said. “Even if I had to wind the last mile myself.”

It took a moment for Subira to orientate herself. She took a deep breath and looked around. The shaft had deposited them in a wide cavern hollowed out of the crystal. The walls here were unlike those in the estate far above. None of them were smooth or polished. All were rough-hewn from a deep red quartz. The ceilings were low and uneven, and the air was thick and hot. Subira could hear a pump somewhere keeping things within breathable tolerances. She turned to the Marchioness in surprise. “This is what you’ve been doing? Excavating the first colonists? This is where your artefacts come from?”

The woman smiled. It was clearly an effort to do so. “Get out now, Subira,” she said.

“This place…” Subira undid the latch and stepped onto the bare rock of Venus. She had never thought to stand upon the true surface of the planet in her life. There were hints of it, of course. Undulations where the impossible amounts of locked-up atmospheric carbon echoed the cracks and fractures of the distant rocky surface. “The princess and the pea,” the Marchioness had once called it when Subira asked her to explain how something fifty miles deep could still be visible. To think that humanity had buried all of this.

“We were worldmakers once,” the Marchioness said. “Venus was the extraction process par excellence. Every chunk of coal we dug out of Old Earth, every gallon of oil we sucked out of the past like vampires, it all brought us here to draw the carbon out of the atmosphere. We made this world out of the poison in its air, and now…” She leaned heavily on Subira’s shoulder and the younger woman remembered the Marchioness pushing her between herself and Reís in what already felt like another life. “This way,” the Marchioness said, and she led Subira through the cavern. Uncovered artefacts were stacked everywhere. Millions of credits worth of tools and robots and inexplicable machinery encased in glassy lumps. Heavy, dirty, worn things which had made the paradise of The Continuation possible for some. Guns and blades. A whip coiled in crystal like a fossilised snail. Excavated chains laid out on tables for settler amusement. Bones too, human ones from the look of them.

“These…” Subira said, stopping to lift some of the metal links off the table so she could feel the weight of them in her hands. It was impossible for her not to think of the identical chains hanging from the walls of the Marchioness’s bedchamber. “These are grotesque,” she said, shrugging off the older woman and letting the cold iron fall again with a weighty rattle. The sound of it echoed through the chamber. “How can you…how can you enjoy this?”

The Marchioness only shrugged sadly. She reached out a hand and rested against the table for support.

“All of this chaos and horror because of these trinkets?” Subira cast her eyes upwards, loath to think of what was happening fifty miles above their heads.

“Not because of these.” The Marchioness hacked up splinters of crystal which tinkled against the ground when they fell. “No, I needed Reís to recreate the crystallisation process because of what I found beneath the original colonies. What I found entombed in the lava.” She coughed extensively. “A civilisation, Subira. Native Venusians. Or Cythereans, perhaps.”

Subira stared at her.

“Nothing to say to that?” the Marchioness asked.

“That’s…” The words caught in Subira’s throat. “That’s not possible,” she said as she stepped closer to see where small construction bots had excavated beneath the old ground level. She could see colourful mosaics like the floor of an ancient Roman villa back on Earth. She could see patterns. Representations of beings close to but clearly not human who were engaged in, what? Lovemaking? Theatre? War? They were tall and thin with four muscular arms. Their eyes burned with a golden light and their skin was jet black.

“The forerunners,” Subira’s monster said, “the first race. Some of us always suspected.”

“There was life here, Subira,” the Marchioness continued. “About five or six hundred million years ago. Long before humanity evolved. Impossible for the first colonists to determine. Impossible for anyone to find without digging. I think they left,” she said, her voice now literally cracking. “I think they abandoned Venus when the Greenhouse Effect began to overtake them.”

Subira traced a stiff and achy finger across the mosaic, across the outline of a black woman speaking to a crowd. “You didn’t want anyone to know, did you?”

The Marchioness looked like she was about to laugh. “No one can know,” she said. “Think what would happen if people looked at them and saw the prowess or the dignity of creatures who look like…like that?”

Subira smacked the Marchioness in the face, leaving blood and crystal shards behind. “I should have done that a long time ago,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that at all,” the Marchioness replied, amused more than anything else. “Your implant…”

“Has turned to crystal,” Subira’s monster noted.

“I’m dying, probably,” Subira said as she shook glittering flakes from her raw palm. “I’m becoming a glass fossil just like you. But for the first time in a long time you can’t control me.” She indicated the side of her own head. “You haven’t been able to for a day and a half now. That’s why you’ve been asking things of me, not telling me to do them. And you’ve dragged me down here on the promise of escape but really you just want to entomb me along with the rest of your inconvenient history.”

The Marchioness made a scoffing noise. “People like me always escape,” she said, waving her hand to activate a series of floodlights at the far end of the chamber. They snapped on one by one to reveal a spacecraft. An old-fashioned human lander shaped like a silver cylinder with a conical tip. Subira’s mind was still racing from the revelation of alien life, but she had just about enough capacity left to process this. “The first colonists?”

“Some of them anyway.”

“They called these coffin ships,” her monster said. “But they were slave ships.” His speech was slow and forced. “Sometimes they’d arrive with half their passengers, half their cargo already dead. More than one arrived in orbit full of corpses and was just let burn up in the atmosphere. They were the lucky ones.”

“What good is this so deep down here?” Subira asked, her heart sinking.

Crystal sinews cracked as the Marchioness strained her neck upwards. “The shaft overhead,” she said, indicating a long tunnel leading up and diagonally away from the chamber. “It’s almost finished. The plan had been to extract the ship through it and then seal off this chamber to conceal the Cythereans. We—” She closed her eyes and sighed. The transformation had almost overtaken her.

“Can this ship be launched through the tunnel?” Subira asked. Her head was ringing and she felt simultaneously nauseous and out of breath.

“Yes. It has chemical engines,” the Marchioness said. “Ones powerful enough to reach orbit.” She tried to suck down air, but it was clear that the insides of her lungs had already become like geodes and soon would close up entirely. “The shaft’s cap crystal has been weakened ahead of the final extraction,” she wheezed. “The ship should be able to force its way through as long as the nano process has not spread too far. It’s all pre-programmed.”

Subira climbed the ladder to the open hatch and inspected the cramped cockpit. A spacecraft was far more complicated than her little wireless, but the controls were indeed all set and labelled. The system, if she understood the instructions correctly, was self-piloted by a basic AI.

“Do you really hate me?” the Marchioness called up as Subira studied the panels.

“I do.”

“Was I not a good mistress?”

“You’re a slaver,” Subira told her, booting up the craft’s computer, “and there’s no such thing as a good slaver. Do you understand that? I am making that clear?”

The Marchioness smirked weakly. “As crystal.”

“Then you understand why I need to leave you here?”

If this surprised the Marchioness, then she refused to show it. She refused to show it when Subira closed the hatch on her. She refused to show it as the last of her synapses solidified and, finally, she was unable to show it by the time the rocket blasted forth.

THE CRYSTAL WORLD

Subira felt cold. She felt pressure and then weightlessness and then, for the briefest of moments, as though she was no longer real. She expected her monster to be looking down at her when she opened her eyes again but, instead, there was a young woman with dark skin and a red dot painted on her forehead.

“Hello, Subira,” the woman said. “Can you understand me?”

“Hello?” Subira replied. Her voice was hoarse and her words barely more than a ragged whisper. She considered the room in which she found herself. It could not have been more different from the rosé hue of the estate or the blood red embrace of the cavern she had just escaped. Here the walls and the ceiling were white and brightly lit. The temperature was cool, yes, but growing more comfortable. She found that she was lying in a bed surrounded by unfamiliar instrumentation. The young woman sat beside her.

“My name is Savithri,” the woman said. She was wearing a white coat of the kind Subira associated with the estate surgeon. “My friends call me Savi.”

“Savi…?” Subira said, sitting up and feeling a deep stiffness throughout her body. She looked around and found that the room was smaller than she had initially thought. One wall was made entirely of glass and on it was sandblasted a figure which she recognised: a circle with a small cross underneath it, the stylised hand mirror that symbolised her world. “I’m back on Venus?” she asked.

“Not quite,” Savi said. “You’re near Venus. You’re aboard Focal Point.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

The young woman smiled. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Watching the Marchioness die,” Subira said.

The woman named Savi said nothing.

“There was…” Subira was not entirely sure what to say. “There was an accident of some kind. The crystal began to grow. It began to close up corridors and rooms. It began to consume people. The Marchioness, she had it the worst of all. She thought she would escape, but…”

“You had to leave her behind?” Savi asked, pouring a glass of water from a clear jug and bringing it to Subira’s lips.

“I watched her through the spaceship’s portal,” Subira said after gratefully sipping from the water. “She fought the change hard. She struggled to hold herself together for so long that in the end her whole body shattered into a thousand pieces.” Her gaze had drifted to the glass wall, beyond which she finally saw the peculiar two-dimensional form of her monster staring back at her. It nodded, as if encouraging her to go on. “The Marchioness was a slaver and a supremist,” she said. “She got what she deserved.”

Savi nodded.

“She knew there was someone here before us,” Subira said, suddenly remembering the urgency of that discovery. “Before the colonists. Before life on Earth, I think. An earlier evolution of humanoid life in the Solar System.” She shifted in the bed. “The Marchioness suspected that they left. Abandoned Venus when the climate collapsed. I don’t know for where. I don’t know how we can ever know. The Marchioness didn’t want anyone to find out. But there is evidence down there—” Subira tried to get up, but Savi pushed back gently against her shoulders “—and you can’t allow it to remain buried.”

“We know about the Cythereans,” Savi said. “We’ve known for some time now.”

Subira took a shallow, angry breath. “You’ve known? You’ve known and done nothing?”

“Please,” Savi said, fussing with the edges of her lab coat, “I need to tell you some things. The crystal growth you witnessed spread very quickly across Venus. It was a runaway, self-reinforcing process, for all intents and purposes an extinction event for human civilisation on the planet. Only a handful of ships escaped from the surface before The Continuation was overcome. You were one of very few survivors. Your ship was found after three weeks drifting in interplanetary space, but by then you had been completely encased in the crystal.”

“Three weeks…?”

Savi smiled kindly. “Your ship was found three weeks after the disaster,” she said, “but that was one hundred and seventy-three years ago.”

Subira stared at her while, in the background, medical devices cycled through their repertoire of beeps and tones.

“You’ve been entombed in the crystal all that time, Subira,” Savi went on. “Preserved by it. You’ve been a source of wonder and mystery and study to us for most of those years.”

“Study?” Subira looked around, noticing now the other doctors and technicians in containment suits at work beyond the glass wall.

“I actually wrote my PhD about you,” Savi said, looking faintly embarrassed. “Reconstructions of Organic Tissues from Venusian Crystallisation: A Nanofibrous Approach. It was based on lost work from the archives of the Terraforming Commission. It’s only in the last few decades that we have been able to access their computers again. We found insights in them that led us to be able to finally revive you, to rebuild and restore your tissue where it had been infiltrated by the crystal. We found ways to reestablish your neural architecture, to rebuild your crystallised limbs, work by a Professor Reís.”

“Frankenkristall?” Subira said.

“Yes. A—”

“Racist.”

Subira’s monster made a noise.

“That is what history records,” Savi said, “yes.”

“It might be history,” Subira said, her voice slowly coming back to her, “but it’s yesterday to me. It happened on Mars, on weary old Earth, on the asteroids filled with forty-niners and extremists… It happened here, first as tragedy and then as commodity, with people chipping away at what made this world habitable in search of baubles, or evidently my bones.”

“There was,” Savi said, “much ethical debate about using the work of Reís in an effort to revive you. In the end it was deemed to be worthwhile. To speak to you. To let you tell your story of the downfall. You are…you were the best-preserved survivor.”

“And now?”

“And now,” Savi smiled, “we’d like to show you what we’ve become.” The young doctor stepped out of the room for a moment and then returned with a wheelchair and a robe. She helped Subira out of bed and steered her from the recovery room through a warren of white corridors. The people they passed carried tablets and unrecognisable silver devices. They nodded and smiled at Savi, though many of them gaped in open wonder at Subira.

“And here I thought they’d be used to seeing people from the past,” Savi said.

Subira reached out and allowed her fingers to graze the wall. It was smooth like crystal, but the surface illuminated briefly beneath her touch, a rainbow of wavy lines following them along the corridor before fading away.

“What does that mean?” she asked. “People from the past?”

“Focal Point Station was built by the Mercury Autonomy,” Savi explained as they boarded an elevator. “Since the destruction of the Venusian Continuation, we’ve become the dominant power in the inner Solar System. We’ve been able to make great strides in technology and medicine and in our understanding of the universe. This whole installation, for instance—” she waved a hand around “—was grown from crystal. Not carved out of it like the cities of The Continuation but planned with these halls and chambers.” Savi smiled. “We’ve obviously had a few centuries to master the process. You’ll get a better sense up top.”

With that, the elevator doors opened and Savi wheeled Subira out beneath a clear dome which stretched away for what must have been kilometres.

“I thought you said this was some kind of space station,” Subira said.

“It is.”

“It’s enormous.” Subira had no other word for the vast space which opened ahead of them. It was like a city park of the kind she had only ever glimpsed in the old films the Marchioness sometimes watched. Grass and trees predominated, with clusters of small buildings linked together by gravel paths. Adults and kids were dotted around, eating from picnic baskets or chasing balls with friends through the parkland. She could hear people laughing. She could hear children calling out to one another. Overhead, occupying most of the sky beyond the dome, was a giant mirror. Or no, Subira realised, not a mirror…

“Is that…?”

“Venus,” Savi said. “Though these days a lot of us call it Subira.” She parked the wheelchair and knelt beside it. “The planet’s atmosphere completely crystallised in the space of two months—” she pointed at the great disk “—and a century of labour has polished its surface to micron precision smoothness.”

Subira was dumbstruck anew. “What is this place?” she asked.

“Focal Point Station is part of a giant telescope,” Savi told her. “It gathers light from the planetary reflector and allows us to see very, very far away. Back in time, so to speak.” She stood again and unlocked the chair’s brakes, steering them towards a cluster of low stone buildings at the edges of the park. The walls were grey but the structure was capped with a green copper dome. “This is our observatory,” Savi said, wheeling Subira inside, “though obviously it’s an affectation. It’s a recreation of an old Earth structure, an observatory on a college campus somewhere. It’s more of an educational tool than a working observatory. All the real equipment is located elsewhere, but this should give you a good idea of what we do here.”

There was a large telescope in the centre of the room. Savi brought Subira’s wheelchair close enough so that the eyepiece was level with her face.

“You won’t really be looking through a telescope,” Savi said, adjusting the panel beside the mount, “it’s just a fun way of delivering our findings. What you’ll see is processed imagery retrieved from the great reflector.”

Subira wheeled herself forward, lining herself up with the eyepiece. “Imagery of what?”

“Evidence of a vast civilisation among the stars. Our long-lost cousins, Subira. Descendants of the original Venusians whose existence and achievements were buried by The Continuation’s ruling class for so very long. We call them the Cythereans. Here—” she caused the telescope’s eyepiece to light up “—see for yourself.”

Subira leaned in close, closing one eye and pressing the other to the telescope. At once she was overwhelmed by the wash of images. There were stars half-enclosed in shells of unreal armour. There were planets sparkling with spiderwebs of cities. There were whole worlds encircled by rings of obviously artificial origin. There were fleets of craft acting in concert across light minutes of space. There were gas giants being syphoned off for reasons beyond her comprehension. There were even individual Cythereans. These were pixelated beyond any reasonable resolution, but she could glimpse them going about their business in vast city squares on distant alien worlds. On and on the images went, wonder after wonder after wonder.

“Do you see them?” Savi asked.

“What do they look like?” her monster added.

Raising her head, Subira choked back a tear. “They look like us.”

***

Val Nolan lectures in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. He is the author of Neil Jordan: Works for the Page (Cork University Press), as well as academic articles in Science Fiction Studies, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and elsewhere. His fiction has appeared in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Best of British Science Fiction. This is his sixth story in Interzone.

WALKING IN FROM THE WEST

CHARLES WILKINSON

illustrated by Vincent Sammy

As soon as he’s disposed of what remains of Felix, he will allow himself a little treat, but first he must investigate the disturbance outside. A week’s worth of remorseless rain falling from black clouds, wave after wave rolling in from the west, has left him ill prepared for a soaring blue sky, its height and dizzying radiance made all the more remarkable by the memory of the recent weather. Agoraphobia and gratitude grip him in roughly equal measures. He staggers, on the verge of swooning; then forces himself to breathe in, slowly and deeply. I am an aesthete, you see, he says out loud. Any unexpected change in his immediate visual surrounding affects him. Once he’s steadied himself he continues along the path that leads down a slope to the perimeter of his property, which is marked by a low stone wall. For a moment, he forgets what he has come out for; then the chanting in the Rigleys’ back garden resumes, to the accompaniment of someone beating a small drum. All this is clearly audible in spite of the river’s roar. The rainwater, augmented by snowmelt, must still be coming down from the mountains. He waves and one of the Rigleys detaches himself from the group and makes his way up the hillside. As the man draws closer, it becomes apparent that he’s Dan Rigley, who’s what passes for the paterfamilias of the whole scurvy crew and the father of at least one of his partner’s children. Today, he’s dressed in the kind of jacket that might be worn by a Canadian lumberjack; he has the thin, lined face of a superannuated wizard. His curly grey hair covers his shoulders.

“What do you want this time, Windrell?”

“I’d just like to know what you’re doing. Propitiating a river god, perhaps?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Explaining it to you would be pointless.”

“Well, if you are trying to get on the right side of the forces of nature, no one could blame you. I told you even before you began to build on that plot of yours – and a very poor investment it’ll turn out to be – that the place would be certain to flood eventually.”

“It hasn’t yet.”

“But it will; oh yes, it will.”

“Then it will be our problem, won’t it, mate?”

“The beating of that infernal drum can be heard clearly in my living room. I should like to remind you of the Tort of Nuisance.”

“Why are you so pompous, Windrell? For someone not on the wrong side of fifty you’re—”

“That’s quite enough. Just tell me how much longer I’ll have to endure this racket.”

Rigley turns to go, but then peers back over his shoulder, though most of his face is obscured by his hair. “How come you managed to waddle down here by yourself, then? You normally send Felix to deliver those pathetic threats of yours.”

Windrell watches the man as he slouches off down the slope, his hair blowing about him like sea spray.

Once he’s back in the living room, he draws the curtains. The clear light of morning illuminates evidence of his good taste: the simple but elegant modern furniture based on Shaker designs – antique furniture would have looked absurd in a modern house; the carefully chosen contemporary prints; a few porcelain pieces, not enough to create clutter; the Persian rug over the oak floor. Then he walks into the kitchen and lifts Felix’s left hand out of the second to bottom drawer, where he’d placed it next to the baking foil. He goes out of the back door, takes a spade out of the garden shed and buries the hand deep in a flower bed that will be full of blooms by spring.

“Not so happy now, Felix,” he says. As he puts the spade back in the shed, he almost wishes he could whistle, although that’s never been an accomplishment he’s approved of until now. The mountains blur as rain drifts in from the west. Once he’s inside, he takes out a box of Swiss chocolates and pops a truffle in his mouth.

*

For the past three mornings Windrell has overslept. When he awoke at 9.30am, he found himself groggy and wondering why Felix had failed to rouse him and make his first cup of Earl Grey. An hour and half earlier the room should have been fragrant with the scent of bergamot and bath salts; filled with the sounds of a Mozart symphony or clarinet concerto. It’s a moment before the silence reminds him that he’s dismembered Felix and buried his body parts in various places in the back garden. And now as he sits in the kitchen in front of a cup of tea he’s been compelled to make himself, he wonders whether the severity of his retainer’s treatment was commensurate with the offence given. And what about the inconvenience? There are bound to be downsides, he admits; but it will do him good to fend for himself for a while. Besides, when the distasteful matter is examined with so much as a modicum of intelligence it’s clear he’d had no alternative. He glances at his watch. It is too late to make himself breakfast.

Outside, there’s a sunny interval between bursts of torrential rains. The forecast had predicted they weren’t in for another all-day deluge of the kind that has bedevilled most of the month. Windrell’s house is situated not far from the summit of the hill; there are no residences higher up. He has a good view of the surrounding countryside: the field beyond his front garden, stark and stone strewn; further down a stand of beech trees and patches of lush grass; beyond that, the Rigleys’ place, a low wooden structure, its shape an imitation of the traditional Welsh longhouse; then the river, the jagged line of its banks now blurred by fast flowing currents; and on the far side, saturated fields mapped with lakes of glassy standing water. In his right hand, he holds the sturdiest of his several umbrellas. It is always unwise to move far without one in Wales, even when the sky is cloudless, a seemingly immobile block of blue. He was the first person to build in this place; in his opinion, he should have been the last. That he is correct in this view was proved beyond doubt when the Bainbridge’s bungalow was swept away in the floods of the previous year.

As he takes the path downhill, he’s pleased to see that there’s no sign of Rigleys, draping their undistinguished washing on the clothes line or performing ludicrous rites in the garden. When they’d first moved into their house three or fours years previously, he’d invited the parents, with some misgivings, to dinner. They’d arrived with an offering: a bottle of home-brewed wine, made from plants collected in the locality, and almost black, as if fortified with sheep droppings. It had seemed a shame to waste two decent bottles of Bordeaux on them. Windrell’s hospitality has always been famously infrequent, but he liked to think that when he was disposed to entertain he did so with generosity and good taste. Then there was something to be said for finding out what his near neighbours were like. Unfortunately, and through no fault of his own, the Rigleys having failed to inform him of their vegetarianism, he enjoyed the magnificently tender silverside of beef on his own. Finding conversational common ground, without provoking violent disagreement, proved difficult. Fine wine, fine porcelain, foreign travel, ballet, opera and books were topics that were tedious to them. They sipped his Bordeaux, a Grand Cru, impeccably served by Felix, with suspicion, as if partaking of even a little of such an expensive wine was a moral outrage in a world in which people were starving. They had not, at least in his opinion, dressed up for the occasion. Both wore multicoloured woollen jumpers and scarves, as well as shapeless garments midway between a jacket and an overcoat. They were clad more for an outdoor expedition than for dinner at a house that had central heating. “Do feel free to disrobe,” he’d said, as the first beads of sweat appeared on their brows. But apart from surrendering their bobble hats, they remained content to stay as they were, even though Felix hovered close by ready to take their coats to the cloakroom.

“I can see your aura,” said Sylvia Rigley, as they sat sipping single malts on the sofa after the meal.

“Really?” Windrell replied, sensing his eyebrows shooting up. “And what colour is it?”

Sylvia had a shock of yellow hair, so thick it must have been almost impossible to comb. Her eyes were a disturbing shade of blue.

“It’s for the best if I don’t tell you.”

“My wife is a remarkable woman,” Dan Rigley put in.

Felix entered with coffee and the petits fours.

For a while, the Rigleys talked about their children: Atlantis, Merlin and Leaf. All three were preternaturally gifted: Atlantis and Merlin musically and Leaf with her ‘second sight’.

“I see,” said Windrell, “so it’s Merlin who’s failing to live up to his name.”

His sally failed to produce a hint of smile; instead, Dan began to expiate on the Rigley Philosophy of Child Rearing.

“We bring them up to respect not just all living things…but all things. Everything is alive, you see, not just people, animals and plants, but even the stones in the field. Everything about us has a spirit – the river, the rocks, even the mud in the fields.”

“How very interesting!” said Windrell. Another tedious version of animism recycled as if it was original. The two of them were prize bores.

“And my wife has the Gift of Reassembly.”

“What’s that?”

“The power to restore what has been broken to its original form.”

Now this sounded seriously deluded. “Oh, and in what way does this ability manifest itself?”

“Well, there’s this piece of china Sylvia inherited from an aunt and Atlantis knocked it off the mantelpiece, accidentally like. Sylvia held the pieces in her hand and the next morning we came down for breakfast – and there it was back on the mantelpiece. And not a mark on it!”

It was at that point that Windrell felt the need to drink deeply. The rest of the evening passed in a merciful blur.

Now the rain clouds are beginning to gather again behind the mountains to the west. The weather in Wales can change in a moment. The river’s in spate, although to his left its flow is broken by the remains of the Bainbridges’ chimney stack. He’d heard that they weren’t fully insured and had been forced to return to Birmingham to live on the kindness of relatives. As he walks back along the house, he sees Sylvia in her garden collecting the washing. He is sure that she has seen him, yet she doesn’t wave. Fortunately, they’d never invited him to their house. He isn’t sure why, but assumes it must have been something the whiskey said for him on the evening of the dinner party. Certainly their animosity dates from around that time. But not having to socialise with them is no hardship at all.

*

Windrell’s not laughing any longer. A week’s worth of rain has swollen the river, extending its suzerainty beyond banks that were already half broken. Day after day the grey skies thickened with rain clouds, full-bellied and swirling with black impasto. And the winds were not strong enough to scrape away the storm sitting above them to reveal an undercoat of blue.

From his bedroom window, Windrell watched the Rigleys’ rust-eaten Morris Traveller swaying from side to side on the flood as if it were on a merry-go-round. He’d not managed to stifle a guffaw. But by the fourth day of the deluge it was clear that the Rigleys’ house, which was several feet higher up the slope, would be imperilled if the rain failed to abate. He saw Dan and Sylvia, aided by their children, carrying sand bags from the lock up at the far end of the garden to the front of the house.

When their lights came on at night, it was apparent they’d been driven up to the top storey. No doubt the water was already through the front door.

It isn’t until the end of the week that he sees the Rigleys emerging from the back door. They’re wearing waders and carrying suitcases and bedding. It’s only when they’ve trudged past their lock up and are climbing up the slope towards his house that Windrell understands the awful implications of their advance. They can’t possible stay here. It’s out of the question, he says out loud. He hurries out to the front porch before they can beat on his door. It’s several minutes before they squelch close enough for him to speak without raising his voice. If he starts to shout, he can’t be certain that he will be able to stop. He waits for Dan Rigley to speak.

“The ground floor of our house is flooded. The whole place is starting to shift. I’m not sure the timbers will hold. It looks as if we’ll have to kip at yours.”

“Can’t you ring the emergency services? Surely they’ll send a helicopter out. Even if it can’t land, they’ll be able to winch you up to safety, surely.”

“Have you tried making a phone call recently, mate?”

“Wait here a minute.”

Just because their wretched mobiles won’t work, do they seriously imagine his landline will be affected? He lifts the receiver. There’s no dialling tone. Perhaps his mobile will get a signal; after all, his house is much higher up the hill. He tries but there’s nothing. He’s about to go back to the front door when he hears them sloshing into the hall.

“You can’t come in here! My carpet…”

“We just have. Do you seriously think we’re going to risk the lives of our three children in order to save your carpet?” This time it’s Sylvia speaking. She’s bedraggled and dripping, but there’s a dangerous intensity in her blue eyes. “A little mud won’t hurt it.”

“Very well,” he says, playing for time. “You may shelter here for the time being. I have to concede that as my phone is out of order there is no alternative, but as soon as the line is restored I will be contacting the authorities.”

“Thanks, mate. Very big of you, I’m sure.”

“I suggest you go into the kitchen and dry off in there. I assume you have a change of clothes in those suitcases. And by the way, don’t call me ‘mate’. If there’s one thing that I’m not, it’s that.”

“No need to—”

“Leave it, Dan,” Sylvia snaps. “Let’s do as the gentleman says…for now.”

As soon as they’ve slithered out, Windrell goes over to his sound system and slips a Mozart symphony onto the deck. Outside, the rain is destroying his garden, reducing the lawn to puddles and green pulp. He picks up the phone again. Still no connection. How is one to lead a civilised life, or anything even very slightly approximate to it, with these extraordinary people defiling one’s property? It’s only five minutes, not even enough for him to hear the first movement in peace, before Sylvia reappears.

“We’ve got food at ours. I’ll go and collect it, with Dan, but we don’t want to take the kids. Not when we’ve only just got them dry. Can we borrow Felix?”

“No, you certainly cannot.”

“And why not? It’s not much to ask. In our circumstances.”

He glances at Sylvia, who’s glowering at him, hands on her ample hips, and then turns back to the window and the never-ending rain.

“As it happens, Felix is unavailable at present.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s…on holiday.”

“On holiday.” The vile woman is snorting with incredulity. “People like that don’t go on holiday.”

It’s just after dusk when Dan and Sylvia cease salvaging what they can from the house and the lock up. Their caterwauling children have been racing up and down the stairs and playing some form of hide-and-seek around the house. Three times he’s had to shoo them out of the living room. Windrell has managed to take his light supper and glass of chilled Viognier in the kitchen to coincide with a time when the Rigley parents are not present. And so it’s not until close to bedtime that he runs into Dan Rigley coming out of the bathroom. He’s pale with exhaustion, dripping with animosity.

“What have you done with him?” the man says. “He is sentient you know.”

*

The morning after the river dismantled the Rigleys’ house, leaving the remnants of the roof, now severed from the walls, to float like a raft for a while before being swept downstream, the weather brightens. The lock up, on the higher ground at end of the garden, is now the sole part of their property standing. Windrell surveys the damage from the safety of his bedroom. In spite of a few hours of fine weather, the flood shows no signs of retreating. The Rigleys continue to go and back and forth from the lock up, rescuing what they can. At the moment, they’re pushing a lawnmower up the hill, a ponderous process, and pointless as almost their entire garden lies underwater. He decides not to let slip the chance of a coffee in the kitchen while all is quiet.

It is almost ten years since Felix and he left the capital for a new life in Wales. Up until now, he’s had few qualms about his isolated existence. True, there’d been winters when he was snowed in, sometimes for weeks at a time, but he’d always been prudent enough to bring in sufficient supplies. The arrival on the hill of first the Bainbridges and then the Rigleys had been a blow, for he’d relished his solitude. At first, Felix had appeared to adapt well to country life. Although the nature of the kind of companionship that he’d offered was, of course, very limited, his practical help proved invaluable. Naturally, their social life became a great deal more limited. There were fewer of the dinner parties at which Felix had appeared to take pleasure in playing his part, not only cooking to a high standard but also waiting at table and acting as a sommelier, a role that he seemed to enjoy most – if someone of Felix’s limited psychological complexity can be said to enjoy anything in the fullest sense. It was only in the last few years that their relationship had gone awry.

The first intimation that something was seriously wrong was when Windrell returned from a visit to a neighbouring town to find Felix dressed in one of his suits, an elegant, bespoke outfit that he’d had made in Savile Row. A few months later he came downstairs earlier than usual to find Felix seated in the leather armchair and listening to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Although irritating, Windrell was inclined to regard these sins as venial. Then parcels containing items he’d never ordered started to arrive in abundance. Most of them contained goods he might have ordered in any case – works by Haydn and collectors’ editions in sumptuous leather bindings. Perhaps Felix was merely aping his master’s taste or anticipating his wishes, but it was alarming to discover that his manservant had accessed his online accounts and used his credit card details. The expense became very considerable. Windrell made several attempts to reprogamme Felix but to no avail. He was about to return him to the company from which he’d bought him when the blow fell. His stockbroker phoned to say that a number of very imprudent investments had been made on his behalf by a mysterious middle man, who was entirely au fait with Windrell’s financial affairs; valuable shares, which had always yielded a solid dividend, had been sold to fund the ill-advised spending spree.

As a result all sorts of luxuries that Windrell had been looking forward to were either postponed or forgone forever. That evening, in a tumult of rage and indignation, Windrell took the axe to Felix, disabling him in a matter of minutes, before reducing him to his component parts.

Windrell puts his unwashed coffee cup in the sink and goes back up the stairs to his bedroom. From the window, he has a good view of the Rigley children playing in the mud. The eldest appears to be constructing a castle; the younger ones are content to throw clods of earth at each other. There’s no sign of their parents. Windrell wonders if they’ve been drowned whilst attempting to retrieve their property from the river. The prospect of being left in charge of their appalling children is too dreadful to contemplate. On reflection, he realises it’s more likely that Dan and Sylvia are stuffing his outhouse with what they’ve salvaged.

Just before lunchtime, when he’s about to go downstairs to cook one of his ready-made gourmet meals, he hears them stomping into the hall. By the time he reaches the kitchen, they’re already in occupation.

“Are these yours?” asks Dan, waving the coffee cup and saucer in the air as if they were dirty laundry.

“What of it?”

“Can’t you wash up after yourself? My wife has got five mouths to feed and she hasn’t got time to waste clearing up after you.”

“I’ll behave as I please in my own property. As it happens, I’m about to prepare my lunch and I don’t propose to wait. Even if your wife is scheduled to feed the five thousand. Now clear off.”

Rigley clenches his fists and steps two paces forward, his features contorted with rage. Just as he’s about to throw a punch, he reins himself in. “Not got a clue about communal living, have you?” he says over his shoulder, as he’s about to leave the kitchen.

As he puts his duck a l’orange with duchess potatoes and haricot vert in the oven, Windrell can’t but reflect that such an unedifying scene would never have occurred if Felix had still been present. Nothing would ever have been left unwashed in the sink. He pours himself a glass of the chilled Chablis that was to have accompanied his meal, but which he decided to press into service sooner.

Felix had been unveiled at the last of the birthday parties that he’d thrown in London. He’d been looking forward to seeing the amazement on his friends’ faces. Semi-sentient operatives were still a novelty in those days and few had been made to their owner’s exact specifications. He’d spent a considerable amount of money persuading the manufacturers to fashion Felix as an exact likeness of himself, not as Windrell was at that time but as he’d appeared at the height of his youth and physical beauty, long before the first lines on his face, the layers of fat around his stomach, the grey hairs on his temples. Those present were indubitably surprised, but not in quite the way that he’d expected. The initial astonishment soon gave way to mingled titters and openly derisive laughter.

“What’s the matter with you these days, Windrell?” his oldest friend, someone he’d known since his schooldays, said. “You seem to have contracted Dorian Gray syndrome.”

And later, he overheard two underlings from his company talking on the balcony. “I’ve always known Windrell is a serious pool-gazer, but even so this takes all the prizes for narcissism.”

“And how much do you think the ‘mini-me’ must have cost?”

“Probably your salary and mine for the year put together.”

As Felix was clearing up after the party, Windrell sat in an armchair, cradling a glass of brandy. How many birthday presents had he received? A couple, neither of them especially welcome. Most of his guests failed to bring a bottle. Well, he’d made his money. What was there to stop him selling the business and buying a place in the country? Nothing. Then he’d be shot of the whole bunch of parasites.

Once he’s finished eating, Windrell finds all five of the Rigleys seated in his living room.

“You may use my kitchen on the condition that you’re kind enough to do my washing up first. And once you’ve eaten, I’d be grateful if you could remove yourselves and your odious children from my presence. The weather’s improving. It should be perfectly possible to walk down the far side of the hill. As you’re probably well aware, there’s a village in the valley. I suggest you knock on a few doors. Someone will probably help. You can collect your goods as soon as it’s practical.”

It’s Sylvia who’s the first to stand up. “Where’s Felix? That’s what we’d like to know. Deliberately causing the death of an SSO. That’s a criminal offence.”

Now Dan’s on his feet. “What if we go all the way down to the village and find it’s flooded too? Have you thought of that, Windrell? And another thing, how are you going to get more food and wine to feed your fat face now all the roads are impassable? You’re going to need us, mate. We’ve got one thing in our lock up that you haven’t got.”

“What’s that?”

“A boat.”

Windrell avoids the Rigleys until about an hour before dusk when he decides to stroll around the rear garden before his evening aperitif. With her back to him and both arms held high in what looks like an act of invocation, Sylvia is standing in the middle of the sodden lawn. The light around her is suffused with ambiguity, balanced not only between the last of daylight and the coming darkness, but trembling as if poised between this world and a hidden place. Above the western mountains, the wounded sky shows its seeping wheals of blood. She is chanting, but her words are indistinct; the little that’s audible is not in a language known to him. As her rite reaches its climax, she lowers and then raises her arms, as if urging some force of nature to ascend from the grass.

*

Windrell oversleeps and rises an hour late, awoken by the rain rattling on the skylight. Otherwise, the house is unusually silent. It’s a relief not to be shaken from sleep by the children rampaging up and down the stairs and along the corridors. Perhaps the Rigleys are already outside rescuing their remaining belongings from the lock up. He draws the curtains and steps back at once, his right hand held firmly to his thudding heart. Felix’s face is flattened against the outside of the window; the eyes are unblinking and shine like coins. A second after Windrell assumes his manservant is standing on a ladder, he notices the apparition has no neck or shoulders. He runs outside at once and takes refuge in the kitchens. It’s almost an hour, and after several cups of coffee fortified with whiskey, before he composes himself. He’d been somewhat groggy, not fully conscious when he thought he saw Felix. The incident could be put down to a hypnagogic trance. When he returns to his bedroom, he’s relieved to find that the face has vanished, leaving nothing more than a patch of condensation.

He decides to check every room on the upper storey. The rooms the Rigleys have been using are empty. From a window overlooking the rear of the house, he’s just able to discern five figures bent forwards in the slanting rain; three of them are very small. They’re pushing something down the hillside. It’s a while before he works out that it must be their boat.

At lunchtime, Windrell opens a half bottle of champagne to celebrate the Rigleys’ departure. For the first time in over a week, he allows himself the luxury of a little cautious optimism. It’s true that the river is still rising and the phone’s dead, but the forecast on the radio predicted a change in the weather soon. He has enough food and drink to last for over a week and the emergency generator has done good work after the electricity cut out. Normality must return one day. It’s all a question of holding one’s nerve and finding plenty to occupy oneself as the antidote to an overactive imagination.

He’s spent most of the afternoon listening to Don Giovanni, with a score of the complete opera to hand, and has just paused the recording between acts when he senses, rather than hears, a disturbance on the upper storey. It’s as if there’s been some activity going on above that ceased the moment the music stopped. Whatever it is has left an aural aftermath, now only discernible as the faintest of vibrations. He listens for a moment and then strides into the hall, just in time to see part of one leg and a complete foot in the act of ascending the staircase. Although he hurries after it, it rounds the bend before he can reach it. He’s left with an afterimage of a shoe, black and polished to a superb shine. After a search of the upstairs reveals no trace of the intruder, he’s forced to admit he’s the victim of yet another hallucination. This time he decides to eschew alcohol in favour of a strong cup of tea. As he returns to the living room, he finds himself wishing that there was someone else in the house. He’s told himself that he’s someone who has mastered the craft of appreciating his own company. This was never entirely true: he’d always had Felix close by.

He presses play. After a few bars of Don Giovanni the chorus is replaced by a sizzling, interrupted by occasional half human cackles; then, just as suddenly, there’s a voice, unidentifiable at first, muttering something that could either be before dawn or on the lawn. He’s about to turn off the machine when he hears Felix say, with unmistakable clarity: I’ll meet you on the lawn.

Windrell goes at once to the shed. Where his axe should be hanging, there’s only an empty peg. The sky is dark for the time of day. It’s difficult to explain why the sun is about to set early. At least the rain has stopped. In the fading light, he fails to notice the dark mounds of earth raised on the lawn like unnaturally large molehills – until he almost trips over one. He walks back and forth. Every eructation of soil marks a spot where a part of Felix was buried. What had Dan Rigley said about his wife? She has the gift of reassembly.

There’s a sound from higher up the slope. Walking in from the west, and with the last of the sun behind him, Felix is taller than Windrell recalls; his face isn’t clearly visible, but the edge of his axe is tinged with pink, as if weak blood has already been shed.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Windrell blurts. “To be honest, I was thinking a moment ago that the place is quiet without you. It’s good…it’s good to see you’ve…that you have managed to put yourself back together again.”

Felix’s stride lengthens; his right hand moves up and down, testing the air with his axe.

Should Windrell be strolling towards him, as though he’s about to greet an old friend? He tries to recall what he knows about Felix’s inner workings – and whether they can be programmed for revenge.

***

Charles Wilkinson’s stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990, Best English Short Stories 2, Best British Short Stories 2015, Confingo, London Magazine, Black Static, The Dark Lane Anthology, Supernatural Tales, Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Phantom Drift, Bourbon Penn, Shadows & Tall Trees, Nightscript, and Best Weird Fiction 2015. His collections of weird fiction A Twist in the Eye (2016), Splendid in Ash (2018) and Mills of Silence (2021) appeared from Egaeus Press. Eibonvale Press published his chapbook of weird stories, The January Estate, this year. He lives in Wales. Visit his website at charleswilkinsonauthor.com.

MUTANT POPCORN

NICK LOWE

Welcome to Multiplex Central, where everything everywhere is playing on all screens at once to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Schrödinger’s July 1952 Dublin seminar and its inauguration of the modern multiverse. (With perfect synchronicity, Trinity themselves are marking the moment by finally erasing serial predator Erwin’s name from every possible space and time.) Here you can take all your worst selves on a simultaneous ascending and descending ride on our gravitationally relativistic Escherscalators, or slather all the films of 2022 on an omnidimensional maximalist hyperbagel to watch (let’s say) a single-location legacy sequel about a superpowered child of Asian immigrants and their Turing-curious robocompanion on a treasure hunt through the metaverse for the ancient artifact that will prevent all the men in the world denialising a planetary apocalypse. Our screening rooms have been here since the beginning and end of time, but have only opened our portals to paying customers from Blight Insular 3 since the viral event which fissured your reality, closed cinemas, and incarcerated you in little boxes with nothing for company except wretched Netflix originals and studio castoffs dumped to streaming. But now all that is officially over, as is all disease and misery, and anyone who tells you otherwise is still shackled by outmoded truth-based strains of the new modal realism. Don’t look up, or anywhere! It’s a great time to be alive, or dead, or both at once.

Before you put on your pan-D glasses, a word about how you got here, and why you don’t remember anything after the flavoured chloroform. Multiversality is the last major science-fictional transformation of narrative mimesis to go Hollywood mainstream, after time loops – so last time around – laid the dolly-tracks by training viewers on endlessly iterable, cancellable, and combinatorial narrative choices. Ever since Barry Allen vibrated himself into Earth-Two in 1961’s “Flash of Two Worlds”, the comics multiverse has been the universal game mechanic for IP megatexts spanning incompatible timelines, its narratological engine appropriated by aggregative content empires to manifest in film as battling superclusters of universes within universes. So now you the viewer are the hero, the stakes, and the frontline in a war between rival studio megaverses bent on carving up all possible realities. Cold drink with that?

With hindsight, the ripples in reality were already propagating in last year’s metaverse movie mashuppery. Free Guy, itself born from the cosmicidal ingestion of the Foxverse by the more massive Disneyverse, threw Marvel and Star Wars cameos into a film whose metaconsciousness of its status as original IP mirrored its dual plot of Ryan Reynolds’ NPC acquiring sentience and Joe Keery’s game designer trying to rescue his utopian original open-world code from his toxic boss’s terrible franchised game sequel. Mamoru Hosoda’s sensationally beautiful Belle built a directorial meditation on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast around a bereaved schoolgirl’s journey of rescue and redemption through her songbird avatar in the daringly utopian metaverse of U. Space Jam: A New Legacy brought ghastly 3D reimaginings of the Looney Tunes gang into the “serververse” of all Warner Bros. properties, ranging from the DCEU and the Wizarding and Known Worlds to less obvious four-quadrant co-stars Pennywise, Alex and his Droogs, and Mother Superior out of The Devils. And in a shared corner of that same serververse, the Warner machines brought Neo and Trinity back together in The Matrix Resurrections, Lana Wachowski’s Valis to the original’s Time Out of Joint: a very meta sequel in which the original films are now a trilogy of games and their coder Tom Anderson has to go through the whole conceptual breakthrough all over again because “our beloved parent company Warner Brothers has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy”, which is now what they’ve also done to a DC bat-pack that currently boasts three different Jokers thanks to The Batman’s Rorschachy Year Two-and-a-Bit emo detective and WB’s relaxed approach to the simultaneous inhabitance of the same body by multiple actors at different vibrational frequencies.

The multiverse proper had been on Marvel’s Phase IV roadmap long before the 2020 event shredded release calendars and awarded extra leisure for post-production to films already in the can, and for script development to those shut down in mid-production – both to the ultimate advantage of the eventual 2021–22 slate. With the MCU rollout tightly synchronised against the Disney+ series and Sony’s multiple sub-franchises, something was bound to give, and a lot of clockwork had to be stuffed back into the watch after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, originally dated to be the film which threw open the doors on the Phase IV Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, slipped behind Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home and forced a flurry of late reshoots. In the event both benefited, No Way Home floating high on a cloud of fan service as it opened up its own local portals to off-MCU chambers of the Spiderverse where not only were past Spideys and their villains available for franchise renewal, but Sony’s shambling dark universe of Spider-Man villain vehicles began to assemble from timelines where for rights reasons Spider-Man himself didn’t exist (all set in the same mysterious alternate US, in which all the background characters and locations look like they were scouted from a twenty-mile radius of Leavesden). But while poor Morbius found itself on the pulverising end of a meme strike from internet morbtars, pounded by terrible morb puns in a morbiverse of alternate film histories in which the world’s most unloved bat-man is immorbtalised as the new Godfather, Venom: Let There Be Carnage got mostly away with it thanks to an unfashionably short, tight running time and some amusing Kelly Marcel–Tom Hardy dialogue silliness.

Against all these, Sam Raimi’s Strange sequel stands out as something qualitatively stranger. Like all the most interesting Marvel films, it’s been the product of a five-way collision between irresistible forces: Kevin Feige’s non-negotiable master plan to which only the Illuminati are privy; an incoming director hand-picked for auteur sensibility in wildly other genres combined with ambition, availability, and need of a hit; the principal cast’s core strengths as character performers, improvisors, and co-creators; the Lévi-Straussian sum of all the variants of the characters they’re playing from the comics; and actual arcs from recent or legacy runs that can repurpose as the narrative spine of a $200-million superhero tentpole. Multiverse of Madness had a bumpy production, losing its director, disrupted and delayed by the pandemic, and forced into radical rewrites and reshoots late in the day. But none of this really shows. You’d never know that the whole Illuminati sequence, in which the rights to five different Fox, ABC, and Disney+ Marvel franchises are incorporated into the MCU and gleefully terminated in the space of a single fight scene, was only added in reshoots; while from the very opening sequence there are images that do justice to Steve Ditko’s extraordinary cosmic art and narrative in ways that Scott Derrickson’s first Strange never attempted, including what may be the most astonishing forty seconds of any film ever and could only exist in a film which can afford to burn that level of resource on a too-fast-to-process throwaway. (Wait, that was Marie Severin’s Living Tribunal – oh, it’s gone…) Not everyone will have made their peace with the sarky, winky Cumberbatch interpretation of Strange himself, and the romance plot is gag-reflex stuff even before the wretched climactic confessional monologue; but the supporting cast are terrific, and you could watch an all-day loop just of that dark thing Lizzie Olsen does with her eyes going left and slightly up. When the property’s most cherished supporting character was belatedly and somewhat perfunctorily introduced in a cheesy post-credits tease, a woman in the front row at my screening jumped out of her seat with a yell and literally started dancing.

Strange found itself competing for screens with A24 breakout Everything Everywhere All at Once, the passionately bonkers maximalist mashup from the Swiss Army Man team of Daniels Kwan and Scheinert, who taught themselves vfx to make their tale of Michelle Yeoh’s struggling launderette owner finding herself the reluctant protagonist in a multiverse-spanning war against an alternate version of her daughter who is bent on destroying all realities. The film’s artfully goofy premise behind its mechanism of “verse-jumping” is that surreally improbable actions can slingshot your consciousness between universes by pushing you to the probabilistic edge of your current reality and allowing you to access the experience and talents of your alternate selves, which in Yeoh’s case means all her less disappointing lives and skillsets born of less bad life choices. The film itself uses these moments to slingshot itself between martial-arts action fantasy and poignant intergenerational comedy of the Chinese American family experience, played out with a combination of broad emotional orchestra-hits and delicate observational notes, not least in the subtle but telling code-switches between Mandarin and Cantonese. Some gags land, some outstay their welcome, and even No Way Home doesn’t milk its endings as hard; but in a year which has seen versions of this story unspool across multiple universes within the Disney cluster alone, it leaves the likes of Snake Eyes, Shang-Chi, and Turning Red look sausage-fingered by comparison.

Everything Everywhere’s improbable verse-jump from independent to commercial hit reflects its position between filmic worlds, being produced by the Russo brothers but also part of the network of big-swing indie fantasists around David Lowery and the now-cancelled Shane Carruth which also gave us Lowery’s own provocatively multiversal crossover The Green Knight and Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s extraordinary post-apocalyptic epic of nothing happening The Wanting Mare. Nowhere was this collision of microversal indie auteurship and macroversal studio IP more boldly realised than in Eternals, a film of fabulous performances and rubbish characters which attempts its own collision of incompatible realities in seeking to marry seventies Jack Kirby cosmic operatics with Chloe Zhao’s magic-hour lyric naturalism. It doesn’t look like, connect with, or discernibly care about anything else in the MCU, and could be erased from our reality without anyone noticing a hole; but it’s hard not to be here for a superhero ensemble film which spans the whole of human history and features actual Gilgamesh, a god busting out of a planet, a seven-thousand-year-old Glaswegian who shoots particle beams from his eyes, and urban locations entirely filmed within a mile of my house including a bus chucked down Camden High Street and a Kirby supergod Nopeing victims into the sky off of Parliament Hill, which is pretty much what Marvel has done with Zhao. “Eternals,” we’re promised, “will return.” God speed.

The major auteur genre to emerge in the last year has been the lockdown supernatural indie, characterised by a high-concept premise, a tiny cast, and single-location shoot in a contained environment where something unwelcome is in there with you. Shyamalan lured an impressive ensemble cast to an agreeable Dominican holiday spot for Old, his clunkily sf-rationalised adaptation of the Sandcastle graphic novel about a mystery beach where decades pass in hours; Ben Wheatley made the most Ben Wheatley film ever in In the Earth, his shroom-fuelled woodwide-web folk horror about being trapped in a sentient microrrhizal forest with a pagan nutter and neo-alchemist played by Reece Shearsmith; and Icelandic creative powerhouse Sjón warmed up for Robert Eggers’ berserk Viking fantasy The Northman by also co-writing Lamb, in which an unwelcome Christmas visit from a pagan entity to Noomi Rapace and husband’s remote sheepfold results in a bizarre half-human child whom the parents unwisely adopt as a substitute for their own recently lost daughter, having evidently not studied “The Dunwich Horror” sufficiently to know how this one plays out.

The ambitious latest of these lockdown horrors is Alex Garland’s Men, an old backburner project moved up to a pandemic shoot. Jessie Buckley was thinking of ending things with troubled spouse Paapa Essiedu when things decided horrifyingly to end themselves, and now she’s rented an AirBnB in a Gloucterstshire village to heal, self-care, and facetime therapeutically on an unnaturally held phone to her bestie back in London. But the house and the village have other ideas, manifesting her trauma in potently unsubtle distillations of the terrible breakdown of her marriage in a series of toxic encounters with local males played by Rory Kinnear who may or may not be the collective manifestations of a pagan entity feeding on her grief, guilt, and trauma from a brilliantly written and played day of riverside flashbacks which gradually unfold from a single literally haunting moment. Modulating boldly from folk to body horror, with a protracted finale that plays like a less subtle Annihilation, it’s not trying to be Garland’s most nuanced work, but the interactions are brilliantly written, with Essiedu in particular popping and Kinnear’s performative and digital transformations echoing the vengeful male-merged ghosts of Edgar Wright’s similarly subtlety-scorning timeslip horror Last Night in Soho.

In another village of the damned, Norwegian horror The Innocents, from Joachim Trier’s longtime screenwriting collaborator Eskil Vogt, plays out in an adjacent universe to their 2017 Lutheran psi-fantasy Thelma, whose titular Oslo fresher rediscovered a childhood power to think loved ones impulsively into the cornfield. Born in the same original brainstorming session, Innocents now takes us to a similar closed campus, a housing development in suburban Oslo where something in the environment combines with a critical population of susceptible youngsters to bring out a battery of Stephen King superpowers in seven-year-old incomer Ida and her non-verbal big sister Anna, along with their new friends Benjamin and Ayesha, while the parents obtusely go about their lives oblivious to the dark tensions unfolding among the quartet as their powers escalate and Chronicle-style fissures open up between them. The arc is a familiar one, but defamiliarised here by being played out among primary-schoolers encountering burdens of moral choice beyond their years, sometimes picking the right decisions, sometimes innocently making catastrophically awful ones whose consequences are played out with unflinching frankness and heartbreaking compassion for the children thrust into consequentialities for which they’re developmentally quite unequipped. Most of the versions of this plot that we encounter on film are blatantly or latently individualistic, Stephen King fables about abusedly different young people coming of age and negotiating their personhood in the world as wielders of terrifying power fantasies; but Innocents differs in finding both darkness and ultimately a kind of salvation in the friendship group.

One of the seminal texts in this tradition gets a makeover in Blumhouse’s Firestarter, which revisits King’s iconic 1980 novel about a pyrokinetic nine-year-old on the run with her mindbender dad from the government programme whose experiments in psychic warfare created them both. Where the 1984 adaptation with Drew Barrymore stuck closely to the book and its meandering, only intermittently cinematic narrative line, the 2022 version isn’t shy about reassembling the story for film to address some of the plot swerves and longueurs of the original, with the welcome bonus of a gorgeously retro John Carpenter score. Ryan Kiera Armstrong is better in the lead than the unevenly effective Barrymore, partly by virtue of simply being a couple of years older and more trained; Zac Efron as the dad has some strong early moments in the expanded first act which replaces the in medias opening of novel and first film; and the third-act pyroclasm as Charlie’s powers finally get to go Carrie White is as effective as in the 1984 version. But a new and somewhat unearned ending points to trilogic ambitions that rather undo the resonant unfinishedness of King’s still-sequelless novel, whose own legacy has been so pervasive that the gamble on a new version has been whether there’s anything left for the original story to say, let alone for two further instalments, especially after Stranger Things has spent four seasons busily uncopyrighting everything in the original novel that isn’t legally bolted down.

A subtler iteration of the Innocents setup of primary-school paranormal encounters under the noses of oblivious adults came in Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman, in which mother and daughter Marion and Nelly return to Marion’s childhood home to clear it for sale after the death of nine-year-old Nelly’s beloved grandmaman, only for Nelly to find herself timeslipping 23 years to befriend her mother at the same age (beautifully played by the little actress’s own twin sister), in a poignant childhood version of the ticking-clock doomed intimacy of Sciamma’s previous wonder Portrait of a Lady on Fire. As Marion counts down to the mysterious operation which will save her physical health but destine her for a life of depressive illness, their blossoming friendship and guileless frankness about the future create a brief window for both to come to terms with their distress in ways that bypass the fumbling emotional intelligence of adults.

Elsewhere in the international indie-space, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria took Tilda Swinton to Colombia in search of the source of a sound hallucination that seems to be beckoning her to ancient memories from other minds and worlds, with the director’s signature long takes that stop in unexpected places culminating in an unexpectedly straight-ahead science-fictional payoff. Sion Sono’s retro-futuristic Japanese western Prisoners of the Ghostland blew the literal bollocks off Nic Cage in a knowing flashback to all the unwatchable eighties Mad Max knockoffs you hoped never to have to remember, updated here with in-game wearables and a portable asset pack to unlock extra levels of play time. Julie Ducournau’s wild ride Titane crashed from an astonishing first act of car-humping, stomach-churning, groin-clenching action involving teeth, nipples, and self-administered hatpin abortion, in which a new extraordinary thing happens every three minutes, into a completely and perhaps mercifully different film about identity and gender theft going increasingly awry under the pressure of lactating machine oil with a Ballardian monster child in the tummy-tank. Léos Carax’s bizarre Sparks musical Annette centred on its own titular mutant child in the haunted songbird puppet who monetises, then avenges the dark secret at the heart of her family, in a film admired by many despite its concept-album plotting and pacing; and Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man has a sceptical museum curator recovering from miscarriage and breakup who betatests an AI lovebot that looks and speaks like Dan Stevens, in what is essentially a wistful remake of Making Mr Right for the LaMDA generation.

Schrader’s melancomic Turing-test plot found a teen sibling in AI anime Sing a Bit of Harmony, where heroine Satomi’s glass-ceilinged roboticist mother makes her secretly field-test an android companion who has to pass as a real highschooler to validate her life’s work to her toxic male bosses. All proceeds as disastrously as you’d expect with a friendbot programmed by your mum, until a rather good Rain Man-style twist reveal turns the film around in the final act and you find out what you were watching in the pre-credits. And a junior-school version of the same plot appeared in the debut feature from Primrose Hill’s Locksmith Animation, the new UK studio founded by Aardman veterans Sarah Smith and Julie Lockhart, only to be thrust straight into lockdown like every other animated feature post-Soul. But Ron’s Gone Wrong is a clever Amblin homage, premised around a line of AI R2-alikes that adapt to kids’ personalities to be your real imaginary best friend and harvest your personal details for nefarious commercial exploitation, only for no-friends loser Barney to end up with an adorably neurodiverse defective unit whose code disables parental controls and merrily stomps on the Three Laws. Cue slapstick mayhem, evil corporate pursuit, and life lessons about how to grieve and who your real friends are. (“After my mom died, I was so scared every night.” Small child next to me, scornfully: “Scaredy-cat.”)

Studioside in the lockdown toonverse, Disney managed to knock one out of the park with Encanto’s banger-stuffed single-location musical about Colombian magic realism; Pixar made their most determined effort yet to create a lab-engineered synthetic version of Ghibli magic in Ponyo/Porco Rosso mashup Luca, with its Ligurian coastal Innsmouth of undercover fishpeople; while The Boss Baby: Family Business caught up with the kids from DreamWorks’ first film as adults in a sisters-centred sequel that surfs the strangeness of the original concept with less of the weird Platonic interworld corporate warfare and more inadvertent dialogue hilarity at the fact that the baby villain’s nefarious plot for an anti-adult revolution is called “B-Day”. And still with the f-word, The Addams Family 2 took the animated version of the franchise on a steampunk RV excursion into Nomadland (“We’re going to go on an Addams Family Vacation!”, as a legacy line from a different title announces), with excellent character animation of Charles Addams’ faithfully-realised designs, but a strange new plotline about Wednesday questioning her Addamshood after failing a DNA test, and the truly terrifying line “Prepare to meet Old Deuteronomy!” which briefly seems to threaten audiences with a Cats tribute.

Other sequelverse franchises bumped along with results up to expectation (A Quiet Place Part II, The Forever Purge, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, The King’s Man) and below (Sonic the Hedgehog 2), while Jungle Cruise gave us an unexpected four-quadrant action fantasy sequel to Aguirre, Wrath of God as a kind of Romancing the Rock which turns bizarrely supernatural with a startling reveal late in the second act. The serially troubled Fantastic Beasts muddled through a lavish but narratively underpowered third instalment with The Secrets of Dumbledore, taking Newt Scamander and chums to Berlin and Bhutan to prevent a rigged election at the top of the Wizarding World that threatens to elevate Gellert Grindelwald to a commanding position to declare war on the muggles. David Yates and his long-suffering cast have ample experience at making Rowling’s lumpy plotting pass some kind of muster, but even with the co-writing assistance of original Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, this one presents a stiff challenge, with a desperately uninvolving middle act and only flashes of Rowling’s old plot form in the sub-Strange finale.

Universal’s Jurassic universe is at least unique among multigenerational legacy franchises in being explicitly plotted around intellectual property rights and their serial abuse. In Jurassic World: Dominion the rights to the Hammond-Lockwood biotech which brought the dinosaurs back to life has been licensed to Cameron Scott’s BioSyn, who promptly uses it to seek control of the world’s food supply by designing an on-the-nose plague of giant extinct locusts. But Scott has made the mistake of engaging Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm as his “in-house philosopher”, delivering his character’s signature could/should metacommentary on whether further instalments in the franchise are really such a great idea, while secretly running a private back channel to Laura Dern and Sam Neill to rekindle their spark and thwart the boss’s looming ecopocalypse in a noisy dodgems of randomly colliding plotlines whose genetic McGuffin is a cloning tech mirrored in raptor Blue’s parthenogenetic baby Beta and Isabella Sermon’s cloned grandchild from Fallen Kingdom. None of this has much to do with dinosaurs or the new global ecology opened up by Fallen Kingdom’s ending, and the script seems to have been assembled around set pieces left over from a different sequel. But the Ghostbusters-style trigenerational pageant of callbacks and where-are-they-nows has something to disappoint everyone who ever cared about the brand.

As one monster franchise dies, another opens a beady reptilian eye. If you’d been wondering what it would be like to fall through a portal to a universe where Dune was made by Paul W.S. Anderson, Monster Hunter saw the old gamesmaster replicate his original Resident Evil formula by introducing Milla Jovovich as a new character to another existing Capcom franchise, in a Sino-Japanese co-production aimed at providing a narrative on-ramp for audiences to the games’ universe by sending Captain Milla’s team of marines through a portal from our world to hunt sandworms and other fantastic beasts in a poundshop Arrakis filmed, like the last Resident Evil, in South Africa with some help from second-unit plates of Namibia. Some unfortunate knee-related cultural mistranslation nixed its fortunes at the Chinese box office for which it had been patiently tailored, and we probably won’t see the hoped-for sequels – though Anderson remains as a producer in the Resident Evil universe, most recently in downbudget back-to-basics reboot prequel Welcome to Raccoon City. But it’s a bit last-generation now; Jovovich and Anderson’s offspring Ever (who made her début in the Resident Evil sextet-closer) has now verse-jumped upwards from White Queen to Black Widow as the young version of the heroine, whose new-cold-war geopolitics of sestrahood resonate more strikingly now than they did at the time of release.

Extended lockdown post-production was particularly good to Dune, a bona fide modern sf classic that could easily have been a whole planetary romance of meh – the shooting script was far from great on the page – but has ended up honouring the novel’s narrative and themes while addressing the cinematic open goals afforded by Herbert’s subversive disdain for showing actual battles. Any adaptation of any Herbert needs to figure out a strategy for his trademark italics, punctuating and counterpointing the outward narrative of speech and action with free indirect discourse showing the characters’ inner thoughts – particularly at a premium in a novel whose entire narrative centres on a mental martial art of weaponised overthinking and mindgaming. Lynch’s 1984 version audaciously chose to film this, rather well, as sotto voce voiceover; Denis Villeneuve and his co-writers have mostly ditched them, along (daringly) with scenes like the great banquet centrepiece which turn entirely on Herbert’s duelling interiorities. It’s a lot of additional burden to put on its actors, and sometimes they just can’t carry it, as with Jessica’s “maker” moment with Shadout Mapes and the krysknife. But the fifteen minutes of backstory before we hit the first page of the novel are screentime well invested, the casting zings in ways that Lynch’s disastrously didn’t, and the Oscars sweep of technical awards bears witness to the film’s landmark cross-department achievement in IMAX worldbuilding.

For those to whom worldbuilding is more tired than wired, there was always the worldsmushing end of everything everywhere. Don’t Look Up drew most of the awards attention and cultural conversation around apocalyptic stupidity, but for sheer extinction-level jouissance it was hard to beat Roland Emmerich’s uproariously bonkers Moonfall, which intertwined its maker’s signature global catastrophics – here a big-value multipackage of tectonic mayhem, tsunamis, atmosphere loss, and gravitational wack – with a still more out-there hollow-moon adventure in which our satellite is revealed to be an alien megastructure left over from “an intergalactic war that’s been going on for billions of years” and now needs to be fixed from the inside before its controlling AI goes HAL on our whole damn planet. Emmerich and his 2012 composer/cowriter Harald Kloser generate deadpan high-concept sf dialogue like nobody else’s, and never was it more needed than in this insane maximalist big dumb cinematic object made of every gigantic sf concept all at once. Halle Berry, half an hour in: “Everything we thought we knew about the nature of the universe has just gone out the window!” We’ll all have what she’s having in the end.

WIND, RIVER, ANGEL SONG

CÉCILE CRISTOFARI

illustrated by Dave Senecal

The first scourge is the wind. It descends from the north, or rather it crashes down, cold and pitiless, scouring the land for days on end. Great barriers of cypresses break some of its strength, scatter it away from the fields, but in the shells of villages and cities, crumbling houses whistle and tiles clatter on the roofs.

The sky, however – the sky gleams like a jewel when that wind blows, and there is no more delicate pain than the light that overwhelms your eyes whenever you look up.

I gave birth on a fair September morning, in the windowless bosom of a country hospital. I sweated and swore and dug my fingernails in my man’s hand, collapsed into an exhausted sleep when the pain ebbed and jerked awake again when it came back. Painkillers were delivered to the large hospitals in the cities first, and only reached backwaters like mine when there was enough fuel and someone to drive and the universe was feeling benign.

The universe was not feeling benign today. Instead of the horn of a providential lorry, it was the scream of the siren that drowned my sobbing cries.

The nurse gasped and the midwife looked up with pained eyes. There was a commotion outside the room, and Julien tensed, but even if I could have moved, it would have been a terrible idea to leave. The midwife surveyed the monitor. She squeezed my hand with a smile.

“The safety doors are all shut,” she said. “We’re on autonomous ventilation now. It’s all right.”

The sounds outside subsided. There only remained the fierce gusts of the wind that had risen while my body tried to cleave itself in two. Now my body reminded me what we had come here for, and so I screamed and swore and sank into fits of panic; but in the end my daughter was born, and for the first time in nine months I did not tell myself it had been a terrible idea to bring her into the world I lived in.

The midwife laid her on my chest and I folded my arms over her, my eyes into her uncomprehending blue ones, and smiled until it hurt.

Then there was a sound of a door slamming, and a sudden cold in the room.

The nurse blanched. Julien clamped a hand on my mouth and one on our daughter’s, as if that could do anything. The cold draught subsided. The midwife shook her head with a weary groan, and collected herself much more quickly than the rest of us. Understanding dawned on me.

She was already infected, living on borrowed time until the angel’s song sank her life into the ground. She had nothing left to fear of the wind that had seeped into the hospital.

“You said the safety doors had worked,” Julien breathed.

“They have.” The midwife rose, all reassurance now. “Someone must have slammed a door nearby. Don’t worry.”

But I had missed neither the draught, nor her despondent groan.

My daughter squirmed in my arms and I knew that no wind on Earth would change what I felt, that she was here and never in my life had I felt more right. I looked at Julien. I was still smiling, and not because I forced myself.

“Babies don’t catch it,” I said. “And there’s never been more than one infected every time the wind comes. One of us will be there to take care of her, whatever happens. And it doesn’t even have to be one of us.”

I was rambling, and it was only when the nurse darkened that I realised I had said something callous. I searched for words to explain, but soon gave up. I didn’t wish infection on anybody else. I was only holding my baby for the first time, and no one and nothing would make that moment unhappy for me.

It was an exhausting three days after that, locked up in the hospital with the wind still raging outside, and the occasional bursts of the siren when filters picked up the presence of the spores, or whatever they were. One night, drifting between sleep and wakefulness as my daughter fell asleep against my breast, I thought I heard a voice humming outside, though it was two o’clock in the morning and everyone had been warned to stay home.

After three days, Julien showed up at the doors of the hospital with a pedicab. Sweating and laughing between grunts, he ferried us along the potholed road. It was a gorgeous late summer day, too hot still, but the only warmth I felt was of my daughter’s head resting against my chest, lulled by the bumps and lurches of our carriage.

Home was in view at last, the garden hidden behind an overgrown fence. Birds chattered in the ivy, and when I raised my eyes I saw a flock of swallows, gliding south before the winter.

I called out. My mother would be waiting for us; with the hospital closed against the wind, she had been unable to visit. She had called once, from a phone booth. As always, I’d felt a brief stir of panic, before remembering that she had been infected, years ago. She had nothing to fear from the wind – as long as she didn’t hear the song.

I pushed the gate. She was waiting, indeed, already standing in the garden, arms raised in greeting.

Not in greeting. I faltered. I ran. I cried.

“Mum, it’s me!”

She held her arms outstretched, as if she wanted to touch the sky. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips stretched out in bliss. The baby stirred and groaned. I held her against my chest, and grabbed my mother’s shoulder, shook her, shouted in her ear.

It was too late for her to hear, to feel. But it was much too soon for me to accept that. I pleaded and shouted and shook until Julien took my arm, and only then did I realise that my baby was wailing, and the tears on my face were mine. But no sound came out of my mother’s mouth, nothing save for a contented sigh, and her hands shivered like leaves as she settled back into stillness.

Her fingers seemed longer already.

*

The second scourge is the river. In summer, it runs in a trickle, streams crisscrossing in a vast bed of rolled stones, young poplars and wild mint thriving with sunlight and silt. It only takes a rain shower for the watery threads to swell to ropes, then cables, then hurtling, ravenous snakes swallowing earth and stone and saplings. It changes course with every storm, eats up roads and gardens in its fits of hunger.

It leaves death in its wake, sometimes. And silt, a fragrant putrescence that makes weeds and trees soar towards the sky.

I stared out of the window as Lou finished her breakfast. Outside, just below the roof, a third family of swallows had built a nest. Butterflies swarmed the garden. Something would have to be done about caterpillars, though there had been less damage to my vegetables since I’d let huge clumps of borage thrive around the place. Beanstalks writhed up their poles, tendrils tickling the sky and thick pods already hanging; tomatoes would flower soon.

A gentle shadow stretched over the garden, a beech tree with two thick branches stretching up, and in between, my mother’s features, still visible enough to make out the last, ecstatic expression on her face, when roots had first sprouted from her feet.

I smiled as my daughter spread honey on her bread with an air of utmost concentration.

“Let’s make sure we’re on time at the doctor’s, love,” I said.

She wolfed down the rest of her bread, wiped crumbs off her hands, sending them flying all over the floor.

“Will Daddy be there?” she said.

I tried not to let the strain show through my smile.

It was a beautiful ride to the hospital. The fields by the road were still thick with grey mud left over from the last time the river had left its bed, but all around, flowers had burst out in dew-covered pinks and yellows. A breeze shook the tall stalks of woad and bedstraw. Out of habit, I checked the sky. But it was only the Southeast wind with its trail of gentle cloud, not the deadly gusts from the north. I pedalled faster, to Lou’s breathless singing and exclamations of joy.

Julien was already waiting for us at the doors. I slowed down, gave us time to trade uncertain smiles. It had been some time already, but my first impulse in the morning was still to pat the empty side of the bed, my body forgetting again that I would not find him there, even though my mind knew that some rifts would not be mended. The world was ending, and he could not stay with someone who couldn’t accept it, he’d said. Or with someone who accepted it without question; I no longer was sure. All that I knew was that one day, we’d been shouting and tearing each other apart because in the garden there was a tree that used to be my mother, and before either of us could remember how the row had started or why we’d said things we once swore we would never hurl at one another, there had been Lou’s silent, tear-streaked face lifted towards us behind the plush kangaroo she pressed against her chest, and we’d known that we wouldn’t be able to go on.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” I said, as gently as I could – there were so many ways harmless small talk could sound like a barb these days.

Lou jumped off the bike as soon as I unhooked her from her seat, hugged her father and sauntered into the hospital. Julien and I passed the door at the same time, bumping shoulders and hastily parting.

“Memories,” Julien said.

Memories. Too many of them, emotions too diverse and violent to handle now. I forced a noncommittal chuckle out and hurried after my – our – daughter.

We had known a different world, once, one where having to spit in a Petri dish every other month would have filled children with anxiety. Lou didn’t think it any more of a hassle than going to school in the morning. Doctors always welcomed her with cakes and good humour. There were few people left, and far too few children to waste an opportunity to see one beam at you. Lou was already seated in the doctor’s office, nibbling on a small almond tart and grinning, when we came in. Waiting for test results didn’t bother her as long as she had someone new to talk to.

“I rode my mummy’s bike all the way,” she announced. “And afterwards, we’re going to the river!”

“The river, is it?” the doctor said. She glanced at me, and I made a small shrug of apology. Few adults enjoyed walking by the river anymore. Whether the rich soil and water had drawn so many of the infected there, or they had sought to use it as a cure, no one could remember. All we knew was that a thick wood of alder trees now lined its banks, some old enough now that their bark had lost the shapes of the faces or the limbs of the people they had been.

Lou had been delighted to discover that some trees had faces. Happy trees, she called them, same as the ones we sometimes found in the pictures of old children’s books. She loved the river, and as much as I disliked it, I found no reason to saddle her with my own discomfort. The doctor didn’t insist, and instead handed Julien a piece of paper.

“All good,” she said. Lou was beginning to fidget. The doctor gave her another smile. “Why don’t you go play outside with Daddy?” she said. “Mummy will join you straight away.”

She didn’t look at me when she said this. My legs began to tremble.

Julien looked at me. I forced myself to breathe.

“Paperwork,” I said. “Go wait outside.”

They left together. The door slammed behind them. I remembered another door slamming, five years before.

The doctor was not smiling anymore when I looked at her. I felt as if my blood had stopped flowing.

“How long do I have?” I said. She opened her mouth, but I stopped her. “Stupid question. I’m sorry.”

She had no more idea than I did. For my mother, it had taken over a decade. But I’d heard rumours, people taking root a few weeks after breathing the deadly wind, sometimes without even having had time for a proper diagnosis. I took my head in my hands. The future was taking a very different shape now.

“I would be grateful if you kept coming here,” the doctor said. “We need as much data as we can get. You will receive priority for experimental treatment, if you want.”

“Treatment?”

She mumbled something apologetic. Infection could be fought, for certain. But everybody knew it was not what mattered. You could live with the infection for years without noticing it. It was the song – a hum, some had said, unintelligible words, according to others, an ethereal melody come from nowhere, or from a silhouette drifting like mist through the night – that sealed your fate. The Singing Angel, journalists had dubbed it. Whatever it really was, I wondered why they did not call it a devil.

“There’s something else,” the doctor said. She bit her lips. “Your daughter tested positive, as well.”

She stopped, waited for me to take in the information, probably not realising that I was waiting for her to explain what she meant by that, if she meant positive for something else, something entirely innocuous. I waited. She looked away.

“No,” I said.

I held my hand up when she started to speak. I could feel no air coming into my lungs or leaving them. This could not be.

Lou. Not her. Never.

“She cannot be infected,” I said. “You mixed up your samples. She can’t. It’s only one person at a time, remember? And never babies. It’s unheard of. They hadn’t even cut her cord, for crying out loud! And I tested positive, I was the one, she can’t be…” That draught, the door slamming, right when I held her for the first time. The cord was still intact, wasn’t it? She wasn’t even properly born, not a separate person from me, not—

Not separate from me. And I was infected.

“The chances that you were infected on the day of her birth are almost nonexistent,” the doctor said, gently. “Latent infections do exist, but not for so long. I know you did your best. Nothing can protect you completely, ever. Listen to me. You did not fail her. However it happened…”

She talked, talked, talked.

Afterwards I was back outside with them, and Lou was bouncing around and asking if we could go to the river now, and I didn’t know what words I used or what face I made that made Julien blanch as he understood. I strapped Lou in her seat on my bike, and I thought that she’d really been looking forward to that trip, and that at least she wouldn’t have to ever put on a gas mask again.

By the time we reached the river, Lou was squealing with excitement, asking if I thought we would find crayfish and not listening to the answer, distracted by a butterfly.

I took a few paces with my feet in the icy stream. Alders dipped their boughs in the clear waters. I shuddered. There were clouds overhead, snow-white and slowly drifting. There would have been planes, once. I had enjoyed watching them as a child; they were a rare occurrence now. I wondered if Lou would ever see one. She was playing on the bank and hadn’t spoken for a few minutes. I glanced at her.

She was standing with her arms outstretched towards the sky, her face turned up, beaming, blissful.

“I’m a tree!” she breathed out in a long, drawled-out sigh of contentment.

I screamed.

I ran, stumbling and wailing, but before I had taken two paces, her arms had fallen down, and she was staring at me with fright. I fell on my knees in the mud, pressed my hand against my mouth to hold in a sob.

“Mummy? Are you hurt?”

She ran to me and hugged me, and I held her, smelled her hair, listened to her worried voice, and made myself laugh before she started to cry.

*

As for the third scourge, every century had its own.

Once it was a parliament of wealthy, corrupt men, with the blood of innocent unbelievers on their hands. There hasn’t been a parliament since the first revolution took us back to being the quiet backwater we should always have been. In time there were cars and glass windows to protect everyone against the wind, and the river was dammed, at least for a time, its floods and its spirit tamed. Until everything broke down, that was. Until there were storms and floods all over the world, and oil ran out and finally the wind came back with a new curse.

These days the third scourge is a single person, maybe not even a person.

The angel, and its song.

The train shuddered, and the city came in full view, cut against the canvas of the sea. By the tracks, the empty motorway stretched, asphalt broken up by ailanthus roots.

Lou could have gone on her own. She had not been annoyed at me for wanting to come with her, however. She watched the scenery unfurl with the lurches and shudders of the train, stamped over with drying stalks of fennel and colourful blotches where locals had once spray-painted their names. It hit me, watching the back of her head, the brown curls that had once been blonde wisps, how little I’d noticed her change all these years. I wondered if I had been paying too much attention to stray sounds in the night, dreading the moment when I’d hear the song that would mark her end, or mine, or both, and had failed to seize the full joy of seeing her grow up.

And now she was going away.

I must have made a sound, though I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t. She turned to me and smiled.

“I’ll be home for the holidays,” she said. Then she grew more serious. “I meant it, you know. In three years, I’ll go to the university, and I’ll find a cure. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll find a way to cure you.”

Over time, I’d got used to the way she talked about the infection as if it didn’t concern her. I no longer tried to argue. I certainly wasn’t about to now, when she was going to settle down with her father in Marseilles – the only place that still had high schools running – and I wouldn’t see her for weeks.

Or never again. I didn’t want such thoughts, had come to convince myself they were not even rational; it had been a decade since I’d discovered we both were infected, and nothing had happened to us. There was no reason to think something would, just now.

No reason to think it wouldn’t, either.

Slowly, as if exhausting the last of the vitality in its old bones, the train came to a stop under the awning of the station. Lou pointed and waved. It took me a couple of seconds to recognise her father.

We stepped down, and she hugged him with an exclamation of joy. Julien smiled at me, tentative. He would be taking in the white in my hair, too. Ten years should have been more than enough time to bury the hatchet. But for that we would have needed a hatchet to bury, rather than a stifling blanket of misunderstandings and petty differences. His last letters from the city had hinted that I should come live there, too, but had always remained just allusive enough that I couldn’t decide whether he feared offending me, or hoped that I wouldn’t accept.

“I’ll be back in October,” Lou said. Suddenly she swallowed, smile gone. “Take care of Grandma for me?”

I nodded, embraced her, and then they were gone, and nothing remained but the cracked grey of the station, and the South breeze caressing the stones.

Two trains were about to depart. One left for the north, and home. One went south along the coast, and I tried to remember how long it had been since I had last seen the sea.

The wagon was empty. As the train sank into the more derelict parts of the city, I remembered that I had forgotten to check whether I would have time to go back. I didn’t have to care anymore if the wind rose while I was outside, but it still got fiercely cold, and few people opened their door to one of the infected. But the train moved on, I neglected to rise at the next station, and decided to let the lull of the rails make the decision for me.

There had been over a million people living here, once. Now pines and ailanthus trees crowded the rails, some with faces still visible in their bark, fading smiles and half-closed eyes. The buildings behind the canopy were falling apart, though clothes still hung from some windows, and here and there, small groups of people lounged about, sometimes with gas masks hanging from their shoulders. The train often stopped, for no reason. Everything was very quiet, until I began to make out the low, rhythmic sound of the sea.

I got off in a town that had once enjoyed a reputation for scenic beauty, at a time when people bothered to wander away from home. The station was just as deserted as the train itself. I wondered how many bits of the old world were still in motion, but slowly winding down, like a swing still swaying for a while after a child has hopped off, before it quietly stops, forgotten. I tried to make out the face of the person who had been driving the locomotive. But it was too far away, and the train was already creaking, lurching, sinking away along the coast – and there was nothing left to do for me but walk, noticing, as if for the first time, how deserted the world had become.

So I did. I walked along overgrown vineyards, through a small town, pink and white, its streets cracked by the roots of so many slender pines, almost black against the gleaming sky. I walked until the sea sparkled ahead, and then out of the town and up the cliffs, towards the sky, towards a place that was blue and empty and unbearably beautiful.

At last I stopped, and sighed. There were hundreds of metres of orange cliff between me and the sea, and in the middle, a couple of scrawny pines, incongruously planted between sea and sky, as if they had been alpinists once. I was out of breath, bizarrely proud of having made it so far, though deflation was catching up with me. There was nothing to do now but go back home, maybe ask Julien if I could spend the night if I was too late for the last train. And I didn’t want to go home.

That was when I heard the song.

The rustles of the bushes carried a frail droning to me at first, then notes, then words I still couldn’t make out. I froze in place. The sea hurt my eyes.

Then the sounds got closer and I recognised the tune. ‘My Funny Valentine.’ I turned around, startled, and a short, slim, very old lady grinned and waved at me.

I took a few steps towards her. She was walking slowly, though she didn’t look winded. She must have been in her late eighties, at the very least. She heaved a sigh when she reached the top of the cliff.

“How beautiful it is here,” she said. “Have you seen my tree?”

I frowned, but then she pointed downwards, at the pine clinging to the cliff. “It was so small when I first noticed it. And look how gorgeous it is now! I check on it every day.” She stared at me with a smile and wide open eyes. “Aren’t you a lovely sight, too. What a pleasure to meet you.”

I smiled back. It must feel lonely here, if she had to walk all this way on her own. We looked at the sea in silence. The glare finally forced my eyes down, to the mid-afternoon shadows darkening the ground about my feet, under clumps of gorse and pine saplings.

There were shadows everywhere, sharp and cool against the ground. Everywhere, except around the feet of the lady next to me. Light permeated her body as if there had been nothing there.

I looked up, my smile withering from my face. She had begun humming again. I felt my legs grow weak, the emptiness pulling. It was over. I’d left my daughter for the last time, and how would she ever know that the place I had grown my roots in was the very top of a cliff where I had not set foot in so many years? She would go home, perhaps, and it would be silent, only her grandmother would be waiting, alone, without a trace of her old features to show that she had been human once. I would never see my daughter again.

I looked out at the sea, weariness smothering what was left of my heart. I had always known it would end like this. It was never going to be the right moment, the right goodbyes, because we couldn’t live as if we were forever on the verge of dying. We had to keep living, so we’d forgotten – like we’d forgotten the broken roads and overgrown houses, the power lines flickering on and off, the world narrowing down as daily news stopped coming from across the planet, then across the continent, then across the country, like we’d forgotten that the world would not end in flames and storms after all, but in silence, a silence that had already begun to take hold of us.

The woman was still singing, swaying left and right with her eyes half-closed. I would die to the sound of a broken-down voice singing ‘My Funny Valentine’. I stared at the sea again, smooth, empty, silent but for a soft rumble that had nothing to do with life, the sound of the universe carrying on without us.

In the distance, the waves broke. A plume of mist broke the air with a whooshing sound, a black shape emerged, lingered up for another second, and dived back down.

I had so rarely seen the sea. I had never seen a whale before. I never would again.

I turned to the woman who beamed at me. “How lovely you look,” she said, as if she’d forgotten she’d said it moments before.

And I broke.

I pressed my hands against my mouth, but it wasn’t enough to hold in the tears. I said something, I think, a plea, a protest. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and before I’d understood what was happening, I was crying in the angel’s arms, she stroked my back and sang more gently, breaking the song at times to whisper reassurances.

Nothing changed. I could still feel the emptiness, the quiet, except that it was no longer suffocating, only peaceful, blissful almost. And through the quiet, sounds came back. The sea, and its subtle rumour I’d mistaken for an absence, fish and seagrass and the whales that were free to roam again. The rustle of the wind, birdsong, everywhere, movement disturbing the grass, earth crumbling in burrows. And trees, more alive than I’d ever understood.

I lifted my head at last.

“I need to see her again,” I said. “Please.”

She patted my head.

“Why, of course,” she said. “Run along, dear.”

I ran. Down the slope, through ancient vineyards, towards a train that might not come until the morning, or ever, for all I knew, I ran.

Towards you, my darling, my little one. My Lou.

I’m running. I wish I could say it will be all right. You will not find a cure in time, my dear. It is too soon for me, for us, but then it was always going to be.

But it’s not too late, no matter what I ever thought. The world was ending long before you came along, long before the wind came, even, drowning in hurricanes and heatwaves. Every generation grew up in a world that was doomed to be lost before the next generation was born. And that doesn’t matter. It would have taken more than a mere apocalypse to keep me from wanting to have you. I bore you, loved you, watched you enter a world that was already closed to me, a world so much more wonderful than the one I lived in, where trees are happy forever and where the wind can only prickle your skin. I thought I brought you into the world and didn’t see the world really was my gift to you, and no matter how much of a downward spiral it is, you would see where I was wrong, you would tilt your head just so – and then the spiral would be flowing upwards for you.

Maybe I will never see you climb. Maybe I was the only one who was ending, all this time. I don’t care – I’m smiling now, even as the air deserts my lungs, even as I run to you, to embrace you one more time and let the end be damned. Because that part of me will never end.

Hold on, my darling. Live for me, for all of us.

And remember that there will never be too little of me left to keep running to you.

***

After working in Québec for a couple of years, Cécile Cristofari settled in her native South France, where she teaches English literature and writes stories when her son and daughter are asleep. This is her fourth appearance in Interzone. Vist her website at staywherepeoplesing.wordpress.com.

THE THING ABOUT ANTS AND ASTRONAUTS

JUSTEN RUSSELL

There was one summer, I would have been maybe eight or nine at the time, when at our father’s house in Kanpur we had an infestation of ants.

It was our brother’s fault. He, a teenage boy and walking trash heap incarnate, left food crumbs in his wake like some sort of fairy tale hero fearful of becoming lost in the woods. A trail of nacho shards and fruit peelings so dense it could only have been intentional. It drove our stepmom wild, which, I suppose, was exactly the point.

Once the ants were there, of course, it did not matter who had brought them. They built their nest behind the walls, and then they were an everyone problem. By the end of the summer, we were all used to brushing ants off anything we picked up from the floor.

*

It’s funny the memories we cling to. I should be thinking about Danni and Natalia, the two scout pilots who never returned. Instead, it’s the ants.

I am not sure why they come to mind now, or the hot Uttar Pradesh summers. Maybe if I was still between missions on the Huron it would make sense. A starship that size has trouble keeping cool. When the Alcubierre drives are running the dormitories could double for saunas. But my scout ship stays a comfortable nineteen centigrade even at full thrust.

It’s sterile, too. You can get ants in space. I have heard of vessels swarming with the tiny red kind inside every console. Apparently, they like something about circuit boards.

Ants do not care about whether they are wanted any more than they care about gravity, or temperature, or airlocks; unlike rats, they are nearly impossible to vent. The colony is always sheltered behind some bulkhead. But the Huron does not have rats or fruit flies either. The Admiral keeps all his ships fastidious – even the scout vessels. I wonder if that is any consolation for Danni and Natalia now, wherever they are. If I don’t find them, if I can’t map this Nebula, at least the ships they die in will be clean.

I should be thinking more about them, and about what inside the Blackheart Nebula could make two of the Huron’s best pilots disappear. And yet, for the past few days, it has been nothing but ants. Since I launched really. This whole mission it has been thoughts of ants, our stepmom, and that one summer in Kanpur that fill my head.

*

Our stepmom was unbearable that summer. The ants were our brother’s fault, but she blamed my sister and I as well. So, in turn, we all blamed her – not for the ants, but for existing in our lives at all.

Some time during the school year, while we were half a world away, busy with classes and piano recitals, homework and chores, our stepmom had gotten into her head she was not just our father’s partner but another parent for his three kids. That, to us, would not stand. Our mother was in Mississauga, with our real lives. The summers with our father were for slacking off and not caring, the only two things we cared deeply about.

Before our stepmom, Kanpur had no structure or rules. I suppose, in a not-completely-innocent childhood way, we thought it might again if she would just step out of the equation. It was not about the ants; it was about solidarity. If clean and tidy were the things she stood for, then we stood for the opposite. Ants were a cost of victory.

*

I have seen some of the new cadets make the same mistake with the Admiral; the kind of razzers who join the Navy because they want something to fight, who see any source of authority as a chance to shadowbox some long-gone deadbeat parent. They learn fast enough that the Admiral has ways of forcing respect. Two weeks cleaning out the septics and you learn to salute sharply and keep your station clean. Our stepmom, all she had was a squirt bottle of bleach and a plastered-on smile. That was nothing against our brother’s resolve.

*

I haven’t talked to any of them in years; my sister, our brother, Dad. Just another reason it seems odd to be thinking of them now, but something about the Blackheart Nebula brings it up.

I sent a letter to Mom last December. I am sure she keeps the rest of them up to date. Dad sends birthday cards occasionally. Not quite every year, and never actually on my birthday, but they all say Love Dad, even if it isn’t his handwriting. Our stepmom is trying. I almost wish we had given her more of a chance. Not enough to write back, but enough to regret some of what we did.

The psychologist tells me I am not an anything-path: socio-, psycho-, ego-; they wouldn’t let me fly if I was. I am just not an attached person. Scout pilots rarely are. You have to be a certain kind of something to want to fly headfirst into near certain death. Just not certifiably so, or they clip your wings. It’s a tight balancing act. Not attached is the code word which the psychologist and I have agreed upon. I wear it like a badge. The other scout pilots, Danni and Natalia, did too.

Not attached means I am capable of human connection; I choose not to put in the effort to maintain relationships. Not attached means it is okay that I write hardly any letters home and only think of my family when I am alone in a scout ship half a light-year from the nearest sentient soul. Not attached is just the way I am.

*

That summer with the ants, things ended badly. I had never before seen an adult cry. Our stepmom bawled as our father, in a fit of rage I will never forget, tore a literal hole though the wall. It was the last time our brother ever went to India. I do not know if that was his choice or Dad’s, but the summers afterwards it was just my sister and me. He would stay with Mom.

It turned out he had been hiding food in his room. He said it was so he could eat “without the Gestapo hovering over me,” but none of it was edible by the time we found it, covered in ants. Sometimes I wonder if he even knew what he was doing, if it was intentional or if it was just the directionless rage of being a teenager.

The ants were bad enough in the rest of the house. Any mess, however small, attracted them. An open can of cola, an unfinished plate of food, an orange I was saving half of for later, it only took minutes for a stream of ants to form between whatever was there and the nearest crack in the wall.

In our brother’s room there were no streams; there were rivers and lakes and reservoir basins. There were ants. They swarmed through his laundry pile and filled his dresser drawers. They cascaded over his desk and tunneled through his books. They even crawled across his bed. He claimed that they didn’t bother him – he could just roll over and squish them if they tickled him in the night – but there were small red dots all along his arms and legs each morning.

He told me, “Black ants don’t bite,” but the evidence was right there.

*

There are no streams of spacecrafts yet, though there will be if we find resources or a habitable planet. The water is a promising sign, but not a sure sign. Right now, there are just the scouts, like me, who weave ant-like patterns at one hundred and eight times the speed of light until we have mapped everything out. I am now certain that this is why I keep dreaming of ants: because I am one. It’s not just the scale either, though scale is part of it. The charts say the Blackheart Nebula is thirty-one light-years across. I emphasize: the charts say, because even though I have seen it with my own eyes, even though I am now in it, how do you begin to comprehend something that large?

I hope I do not have to go straight through it. Even at one hundred and eight times the speed of light that would take more than three months. That is, if the bubble holds; if it bursts, I will grow old and die in the middle of this nebula, and unless someone else can map it, the distant successors to whatever empires come after humanity will not last long enough to find my corpse. There is not enough time in the universe; Blackheart is that big.

Personally, I think the name Blackheart is stupid. At least the Horsehead Nebula looks like what it is called. Blackheart is a tacit acceptance of an error in judgment, propagated through a clumsy cover-up. There is no angle from which it looks like a heart, and it is not black – not to the naked eye – but more a deep purple. The astronomer who discovered it called it the Blackhole Nebula because he was a scientist working in a very narrow field who did not realize the connotations everyone – and I mean absolutely everyone outside his field – might assume from that name. See, his “Blackhole Nebula” did not contain any black holes, at least not as far as the best theoretical models of the most advanced supercomputers can predict; it doesn’t have the right gravitational profile. Yet rather than rename it something properly descriptive, like the Jellyfish Nebula or even something less whimsical like Bi-Lobed N435A (I have explored worse), someone decided it would be better to keep the H sound in the middle and call it Blackheart, like that had been the intention all along.

There might be a reason I do not like being around people.

*

There is no way to know for sure what is at the core of the Blackheart Nebula. There is the gravitational modeling, looking at the bending of space-time around the outside, and there are radio telescopes which can maybe sort-of detect two star-like objects inside, but otherwise it is an unfathomably large region of the unknown; a rarity in this day of ultra-large telescopes and superluminal probes.

It is a dark nebula. A black storm cloud. Most nebulae are made of small particles of accumulated interstellar dust around which ice crystals start to form. When that ice is mostly frozen carbon monoxide and frozen ammonia, it becomes opaque to visible light. “Black” from an astronomer’s perspective. When it also includes frozen water – like the storm clouds of Earth – there is no spectrum, from gamma to radio, that can see all the way through.

The gravitational models, the ones that say there are no black holes inside the Blackheart Nebula, also say there are probably two hundred stars inside, give or take half.

It is the kind of promise that would make Amundsen and Scott jealous, and they had the whole Antarctic. To be the first explorer to see hundreds of new stars; well, there is a small part of me glad that Natalia – and Danni after her – never came back.

*

My sister hated the ants. She kept her room spotless, though it didn’t help much – not with our brother in the house. She would never have let our stepmom see – solidarity still came first – but she would crush any ant she found with her thumb. After each, she had a bleach-soaked cloth to wipe down her entire floor. She told me to do the same. “What if a boy sees your room? You want them to think we are unclean?” But I was too young to be interested in boys, and the thought that ants might keep anyone out of my room – well, maybe that was a good thing.

I liked to leave the scout ants alone. I watched them trace their lazy circles and began to notice they always followed the same routes.

“That’s because of the pheromone trails,” my brother told me. “It comes out of their butts when they walk. Then other ants can follow their butt juice trail and know where they are going.” He said there were different kinds of pheromones, ones that said: “food this way,” and ones that said “danger, prepare for a fight.” It’s why my sister wiped the floor clean every time she squished an ant: to get rid of their butt juice trail. I think it’s also why her room had more ants than mine.

*

My small scout ship follows its own “pheromone trail.” Not because I don’t know where to go, but because it is easier. Spacetime is more malleable where Natalia and Danni have already stretched it. It takes less energy to follow in their collective wake, and if I run into trouble ahead, I will want every resource I can conserve. They may be all that I have for the rest of my life.

A field bubble is not something a ship as small as mine can form on its own. It can maintain one, or even adjust its course, but it takes a ship like the Huron with its twin fusion reactors to generate one, to actually bend virgin spacetime and force it to move. Compressed spacetime in front, stretched spacetime behind. In local space I am moving maybe twelve kilometers a second, but with the bubble I can cross a light-year in under four days, all without breaking any of Einstein’s rules…as long as I don’t stop.

That’s the theory for what happened to Natalia: she stopped. Even if she couldn’t find a star to slingshot around for the return trip, she should have made it all the way through by now. There has been a Navy ship waiting on the other side of Blackheart since she launched, but she never arrived for the rendezvous.

If I stop where I am, it would take more than a year for a radio message to get back to the Huron, provided it could make it through the dust. I could try to fly back, assuming I had the energy reserves and something to turn around on, but without a bubble it would take more than three human lifetimes at top speed. If I stop, I will be waiting for someone else to map the Blackheart Nebula, like Natalia probably is now, so that the Huron can come pick me up.

It’s a good thing I have no intention of stopping.

*

I did not let our stepmom clean my room that entire summer. I claimed the cleaning chemicals gave me a headache and cried every time she tried to mop until either she backed down or our father had to step in. Our brother thought it was an act of rebellion, like the crumbs in his bed and the bite marks on his arms. My sister thought I was a baby who missed home. I know now that it was something else. Instinctively, I understood the ants. I understood their curiosity.

When the scout ants paced my room, I knew the routes they would take better than they did. I could see them from above, after all. But there were rarely more than a few scouts in my room. By mid-July, I no longer had to brush ants off any of my toys. By mid-August, there were sometimes entire days without ants. They had mapped every crack and every floorboard and learned just how desolate my room was. Then they had no reason, beyond routine patrols, to ever come back.

My sister’s room was different. Though she was even further from the infestation epicenter that was our brother, the ants never relented. They were there until the end of August because they were curious. Her unexplorable room remained the vast unknown.

*

I see the end of the wake before I hit it. About a light-week ahead of me, Danni and Natalia’s trail just stops. It is there, and then it is not. No burst signature that could indicate Natalia popped her bubble intentionally, no turbulence that could indicate Danni collided with something or worse. The wake just ends, as though they each continued on, but some unknown force wiped both their passages from the aether; spacetime bleached clean.

It is more intriguing than alarming at first, though I switch to a state of heightened alert anyway. Every sensor in my ship – and there are many sensors – is aimed around that empty point in space. An exact location will be essential if the Huron is to come pick either of my predecessors up. I log every confusing reading and transmit a report, not that the Huron will ever receive it. I am two light-years into the nebula and any signal that is not absorbed by the dust will be too old to matter when it reaches them. Maybe the scouts who come after me will hear it and notice something I have missed. If nothing else, making the report helps me organize my own thoughts.

*

I used to wonder if the ants had any sense of my sister. Not as a person certainly, but as an entity or even a force of nature. Could they understand that there was something active in her room?

Any final message they tried to mark on the ground – any scrambled pheromone smear as they died – was wiped away by her bleach cloth seconds after they were crushed. No warning ever made it back to the colony. To them, her room was always a zone of mystery and the unknown, not death. There would never have been a chance to learn to see her as a threat, if ants could learn.

The ants got to know our brother more intimately. They had crawled on his arms while he slept and learned the thickness of his skin. Were they smart enough to comprehend him? Was he the fabled source of their abundant food, or just a hazard in proximity to their riches? Maybe ants do not think. If they do, I wonder if the scale of our existence is comprehensible, or if it is just too different from theirs to ever understand.

*

I alter my course just a little to go around the end of the wake rather than through it. It will cost more energy, but I reason that if Natalia hit something there could still be debris. This is despite knowing that neither she nor Danni hit anything there. I have logged every mote of dust around that point.

I am certain Danni did not stop here at all, and if Natalia did any traces of how or why are long gone. What I do not want to admit is that the end of the wake unnerves me. I am supposed to fly headlong into the unknown, not avoid it, but some unknowns feel unknowable, like the event horizon of a black hole or what lies beyond the boundary of death.

The first star I’ve encountered inside Blackheart is visible from where the wake ends. That unsettles me even more, though it should be exciting. The star is just a point of light, barely observable through the nebula’s haze, but it is there – definitively there – hopefully the first of many.

There is nothing unusual about that star, or at least nothing detectable from this range. I conclude it’s just a coincidence the two events nearly overlapped. The star is not erasing my wake; a path of turbulent spacetime stretches out behind me as far as my sensors can observe.

After I have passed the end of Danni and Natalia’s trail, I keep a parallel trajectory. I want to be close enough to where they would have flown that if a wake does reappear, I will notice it. One does not. I fly completely alone through the densest part of the nebula until the clouds begin to break.

The gravitational modeling proposed that the Blackheart Nebula would be less dense in the middle, more like a soap bubble than a cloud, with its thickest layer a mere light-year deep. Beyond this “wall” the view is spectacular. Another four stars are immediately observable, all main sequence stars like the first. I adjust my course ever so slightly to ensure I will slingshot around the nearest one.

Already, I can feel the thrill of discovery replacing any unease. I would love to go further. I would love to see everything Blackheart has to offer; perhaps I will after this first in and out. Right now, Natalia and Danni are depending on me.

I can no longer daydream about ants. I don’t have the time. All my energy, all my attention, is devoted to analyzing the steady stream of information collected by my vessel. There are sixteen stars within my field of view now. Sixteen stars that maybe no-one else has ever seen.

I am Columbus setting eyes on virgin America. I am Armstrong taking a step on lunar soil. A true explorer.

The more I look at the star systems around me, the more I am convinced there is something truly special about Blackheart. Of the first sixteen stars, all but two wobble with the telltale gravity of orbiting terrestrial planets. They all give off the right spectrum to promise mineral riches on those yet-unobserved alien worlds.

There is no sign of Danni or Natalia, but I think about them less and less as I draw closer to the first star. Soon I will be able to observe its planets directly. Danni and Natalia would understand if they made it this far, as perhaps they did. We scouts are all not attached.

Around the first star there are three habitable zone planets of nearly identical size, all with water-rich atmospheres. Thoughts of not just mineral extraction bases, but colonies run through my head.

The odds of a system like that occurring by chance are vanishingly – no, impossibly – small. Every measurement I take tells me the other stars are the same, three planets of exactly the same size in exactly the same orbits, as though put there by design. Inside Blackheart is proof, irrefutable proof that all our models of how solar systems form are wrong. In here is evidence of something scientifically new, maybe an undiscovered constant they will name after me, or even—

It is not what is that disturbs me, but what isn’t. Even for a bubble nebula, the modeling is all wrong. The center of Blackheart is far too thin. There is something missing. Something unseen and unmeasured. I run model after model as I collect new data, but each time, where that something should be but isn’t moves.

The truth of what I am observing threatens to crush me under its weight. It is hard to breathe. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. Again, it is the ants in Uttar Pradesh that fill my thoughts. It is my sister, killing ants and wiping away their remains. It is the absence of distress calls from Danni and Natalia, or any sign at all that they were ever even here. It is the erasure of their wakes to the inner limits of the nebula. It is all that, and the unfathomable unlikeliness that any of this could possibly be natural that sends chills of panic down my spine.

It takes precious energy to adjust my course another time, but I do, attempting to avoid all sixteen of the stars. It is more than a gut feeling. This time, I have to admit it is fear. Unavoidable, unmistakable fear.

It will take three months to shoot straight through the Blackheart Nebula, but I can do that – I pray that I am allowed to do that. There is a Navy ship on the other side waiting to pick me up. Natalia never made it because she went too close to those stars. Of that, I am certain. She would have been there by now if she had not. Danni and I should never have come after her.

I fire off a distress call. It will not reach the Huron from here, but maybe whoever is sent to follow me might hear it in time to make a different choice. We must stay away from those planets at all costs. There is nothing on my sensors yet, but will they even detect the doom that is almost certainly already coming my way? The ants never saw my sister hovering over them with her thumb. The warning messages of their deaths never escaped her bleach-soaked rag.

All I can hope is that whatever lives in Blackheart, whatever terraformed those perfect worlds, whatever erased every trace of Danni and Natalia, is like my sister and not our father. I hope they will be content to, one by one, remove the scout ants coming their way.

Not tear open the wall to eradicate the whole colony on the other side.

***

Justen Russell has lived with ants three times on two different continents, though never by choice. When he is not leaving food lying around, or writing short stories, he works in science and science communication. You can see what he is up to, and find links to his other fiction, on his website at www.justenrussell.com.

BRIDGET HAS DISAPPEARED

TAMIKA THOMPSON

illustrated by Ben Baldwin

If I begin by telling you I don’t know where my wife is, that her disappearance has brought me as much consternation as it has anyone, then it will color everything I say. So, I won’t begin that way.

I will simply say I met Bridget by chance when I visited my neighborhood bookstore and heard a brash woman arguing with one of the booksellers.

“I show up every time expecting something good and it’s always the same. H.P. Lovecraft. Stephen King. Anne Rice.”

I peered out from the non-fiction section, past the autograph line for the author reading, and saw the bespectacled bookseller, who spoke at a volume more like a rational adult, nodding obsequiously, almost bowing. But a shelf blocked my view of the woman.

Then she said, “‘African American’ isn’t a genre. To find a horror book by a black writer, I have to leave the horror section and schlep to the African American section. Why are you segregating books?”

I could no longer listen to the woman’s tirade without also seeing her. I left the non-fiction section, sans book, and one look at her made me forget I was in a bookstore.

Her crown of curls jutted toward the ceiling’s track lights. She wore a black mini-skirt above long, slender legs, and a red cashmere sweater that fit like latex. A scar on her chin, a thin semicircle of deep brown, seemed to call out to me.

It was luck she didn’t notice me. Gave me more time to gape at the copy of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents she was holding.

“I wouldn’t really call her a horror writer.”

She leveled her cypress brown eyes at me then glanced at Butler’s book as if she’d forgotten what title she was palming. “I know. I just picked this up from the—”

“If you’re looking for some good horror, check out Tananarive Due. Her African Immortals Ser—”

“Thanks for eavesdropping on my conversation.” With manicured nails on a left hand that did not sport a ring, she tugged her diamond-studded earlobe.

“Eavesdropping?” I stepped toward her. “Everybody and their mama can hear you. You don’t have to talk that loud, you know. We’re not in the projects.”

The bookseller, who’d moved on to restocking shelves, glanced over his glasses at me and shot me a warning look, likely because he was white and I’d told the kind of joke that could only be uttered by one black person to another without offense. He probably thought I was rude. She laughed. I was hooked. I’d never been chemically drawn to a person before this.

“Okay, smart ass. You see anything in this aisle by Tananarive Due?”

I swaggered to the horror shelf, uncomfortably conscious of how her head came to my bottom lip, how the tip of her chin sent waves through me. I. Wanted. Her. She smelled of cinnamon, and when I caught her scent, I realized I needed her too.

Scanning the authors whose last name began with D, I said, “Hmmm. She must be in the African American books section.”

She laughed again, her cheeks reddening that time. “Ya think?”

We fell into a grinning stare-down. How do you tell a woman who is a strange mix of beauty queen, hipster, and bookworm, that although you are an odd cross between basketball player and journalist, the two of you will be married in a year, no matter what baggage she comes with?

You don’t. You just say, “My name is Yusef. Let me read you a passage from Parable of the Talents at my favorite wine bar.”

Three days later, she sub-leased her suburban Michigan studio apartment and moved into my one bedroom in Medford. It was a year before the first disappearance.

*

To clarify, the first disappearance I noticed occurred the Wednesday before our wedding. I’d just returned from work, and, upon entering our apartment, I heard Bridget drawing a bath and humming ‘Ease on Down the Road’. I tapped on the bathroom door. She cracked it open and poked her lips out like a fish.

“I have champagne,” I said, savoring her lips on mine, her fingers tugging my beard and tracing my mustache, her kisses melting my tension.

My thumb traced the scar on her chin. I’d asked her once how she’d gotten it and she’d said it was part of her “initiation,” and when I’d asked “into what?” she’d demurred. She’d been drunk, giggly, so I’d let it go. She knew everything about me. I knew so little about her. The mysteries intensified my attraction but should have served as a warning.

“Why don’t you let me inside?” I whispered, meaning both the bathroom and her.

“Bath first.” She grinned and pecked my cheek. “Shouldn’t take long.”

She shut the door on me, but I could still smell the cinnamon from her cigarette. She smoked, and I didn’t care. I’d lost my grandfather to lung cancer; I gave anyone who smoked around me a speech about the pain he suffered at the end. I’d been known to leave parties, dates, and had even thrown people out of my home for smoking. But not with Bridget.

She had one cinnamon-scented smoke each day, and she told me the narrow, brown tube was harmless, was more like a flavored hookah. And I bought her an ashtray because obviously she and her aroma had taken over my brain. I assumed my acquiescence meant I was experiencing deep, inescapable love, the kind that weakens resolve.

In the kitchen, I popped open the champagne bottle and listened to the drip, splash, drip, and then silence as she entered the water. I wanted to join her in there, but instead, I cooked. Imagining her plump thighs wrapped around my waist, I got excited for the night ahead.

After twenty minutes of stillness coming from the bathroom, I finally said, “The food is cooling off, and so am I.” I chuckled.

Silence.

With a scoop of rice on the serving spoon in my right hand, I stopped and listened. The neighbor’s dog barked. A television from down the hall blared out a car commercial. The vent above me hissed as air passed through.

“Everything okay?”

Nothing from the bathroom. No splashing. No voice. No dripping.

I placed the utensil on the counter and tiptoed across our carpet to the bathroom door, wanting to be certain she hadn’t fallen asleep. I imagined her leaning against the back of the tub, her head on the tile, her mouth open, and perhaps startling awake when I knocked. I rapped on the door. “Bridget?”

The door moaned open. Steam poured out, moistening my face and neck. I scanned the mirror above the sink, expecting to see the image of Bridget curled in a ball in the water. What I saw was a tub full of water and no Bridget.

Inside the bathroom, the scent of cinnamon enveloped me just as it did whenever I took her in my arms. Her robe hung on the back of the door, untouched. A new razor sat in her jeweled soap dish, unused.

I shook the shower curtain, as if she were somehow wrapped in it. I knelt and dipped my hand in the lukewarm water. I considered pulling the stopper and draining the basin, but changed my mind, as if emptying the tub was acceptance that she’d disappeared. I examined the water. Where were the soap suds and shavings?

An imprint of her foot remained in the slippers next to the tub. For a second, I slipped my feet inside. The house shoes were warm but dry.

She wasn’t resting in our bedroom across the hall. She wasn’t sitting in one of our side-by-side rocking chairs on the balcony. I didn’t find her reclining on the black leather couch in the living room, wrapped in her chenille blanket. All of our windows were closed, locked, and were so rickety, had she opened them, they would have announced their movement to the entire apartment complex. She was nowhere. And when two people live in an eight hundred square-foot, one-bedroom apartment, it’s obvious to one when the other is gone.

Uncertain what to do, I planted myself on the couch, stroked the blanket, and dialed her phone. My knees jerked up and down. My heart pumped so hard I felt it in my throat. I didn’t expect an answer, but, at the time, calling her seemed logical. The phone vibrated in her handbag which hung on the back of the dining room chair, and her voicemail answered. You’ve reached Bridget’s phone. Leave a message. Or do like everyone else – hang up and send me a text. Either way, I’ll holla. Peace.

I didn’t leave a message. What was there to say? Hey. You mysteriously vanished. Call me. So, I sat there, staring at the blank television screen, my knees still jumping up and down. The clock atop the TV said nine forty-five. I told myself if I didn’t hear from her by midnight, I’d panic. Why midnight? Because passing into a new day with her still missing seemed ominous. In the meantime, I’d wait in our living room, with my cell phone set to vibrate in my hand in case she called. From where?

I was not religious. Spiritual, mostly, but didn’t believe in ghosts, aliens, or anything remotely paranormal. I was a journalist, who dealt in facts, data, spreadsheets. I didn’t know what to think about where she went, but I blamed her. I thought of the scar, the origins of which she kept hidden. It wasn’t that I thought her scar was related to her disappearance, but it certainly was a sign that, as intimate as our relationship was, there were parts of her I might never know.

After an hour of intense fidgeting, I became exhausted and fell asleep.

The sound of the spoon scraping the plate woke me. I opened my eyes, and there was Bridget, barefoot, in her bathrobe, with water dripping from her hair to her delicate neck, with her cinnamon-flavored cigarette in one hand, a tablespoon in the other, serving herself from the food I’d cooked. The clock now said eleven thirty-seven.

“Where the hell were you?” I stumbled to the kitchen, snatched the spoon from her, set it on the counter, took the cigarette from her, and placed it in the ashtray I’d bought for her. With the sting of tears in my eyes, I squeezed her face between my hands, pulled her to me, kissed her mouth, her cheeks, and eyebrows before she could answer. I tipped back her head and kissed the scar on her chin. Relief loosened the muscles in my neck and shoulders. She was real.

“In the tub.” She smiled with both her mouth and eyes, but a question formed on her eyebrows.

“No, you weren’t.” I peppered my words into her face. “I looked for you all over the apartment. I didn’t see you.” I didn’t mean to shake her face with every word.

She peeled away my palms and stepped back. “You must have been dreaming.”

“I wasn’t dreaming. I was cooking.”

I took her left hand – the one sporting the flawless, round solitaire that cost all five years of my savings – and shoved it in the middle of the rice. “Feel! The food is cold.”

Her eyes wide, she removed her hand and licked the flakes from her fingers.

“Sef. Chill.”

“Chill? It’s been almost two hours!”

“It was a long bath.”

“I want the truth.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring you?” I realized I was screaming.

We stared at each other, my breathing erratic. She placed her hands over her mouth and diamond-shaped tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. I’d never seen her cry and knew, if she did, I’d say or do whatever I needed to make her stop.

It was unlike any argument I’d had. I could deal with “you’re always working,” or “you never pay attention to me,” like with my ex, Shari. I didn’t know how to deal with “you went missing for a couple of hours from our windowless bathroom.” How could this be happening?

Look. No woman is perfect. From that first whirlwind of a night, I figured she’d have a flaw, but I imagined it’d be something I could handle – too flirty with my friends, or too controlling, or irresponsible with money. She was none of that. She was perfect for me. Except, now, perhaps not.

Suddenly, I couldn’t believe I’d moved in with her so quickly, proposed to her so quickly, spent all my money on her…so quickly. I loved her laugh, her quick wit, the way she lived in the moment and didn’t fret about the past or future, but what was her story? Her real story?

One of those diamond tears fell, and I couldn’t look at her any longer.

“Forget it.”

I went to bed and lay in the dark, staring out the window. Orange headlights slid from right to left, as cars made their way down our busy street. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was me. Maybe I really had fallen asleep and dreamt it all. I had been pretty stressed at work and about the cost of our wedding.

When she got into bed, she pressed her nude body against my clothed one. She spooned me, lifting my T-shirt and placing a clammy hand on my stomach. Her skin felt warm and supple but with the sweat evaporating from her body, leaving her cool and damp. Is it possible to be warm and cool at the same time? I always loved that sensation, except for this night, when I knew she’d not taken that bath.

“I feel like you’re angry with me.” Her breath caressed my neck, giving me a chill and making me firm.

“I’m not,” I said without turning toward her. But I was angry. It was a bizarre, unjustified anger that created silences and voids, that had the potential to reveal too much of how I felt when I didn’t know how I felt at all.

We fell asleep that way. And that was the first night in the year I’d known her that we did not make love.

*

We married, with only our parents in attendance – at Bridget’s request – on a day in which the sky was the most awesome shade of blue I’d ever seen. My parents made toasts to her, bought her a platinum bracelet, and my mom kept saying, “What an exquisite bride!”

Her parents, on the other hand, were as mysterious as she. Quiet. Never holding my gaze. Reserved in their answers. They annoyed her, she’d said. When she a) never lived up to their class standards, b) further snubbed them by becoming a public relations specialist at a university science lab, and c) married a nearly broke journalist, their relationship became d) “strained.” Well, that’s the story she gave me, anyway.

We bought a home, though not in the neighborhood we wanted. Economists were calling the housing market a “mega-bubble.” Only the uber-wealthy could own in a city where jobs were. Everyone else rented or bought in a semi-rural neighborhood with long commute times, and needed parental support for even that. We were no different. It was stressful for me because we spent every paycheck we earned on survival – house, cars, groceries, gas.

A month into our new homeownership, our neighbor from down the road was shot to death in his home. We told ourselves he must have done something wrong like sold drugs or maybe it was a domestic dispute. I bought a gun. We ordered bullets online, but those were backordered. The world seemed to be changing rapidly. Declining actually. I considered myself lucky to have found the love of my life.

We had a son. Bridget glowed, as if having this child was exactly the thing she’d always been waiting for. The months after his birth were the happiest of my life. She’d done everything I’d asked since having him. She never smoked when she was pregnant. She had her cigarette outside at night when Ethan was asleep and her smoke couldn’t get to him. She made sure I gave him a bottle for the hours after. She reassured me there was no nicotine or tobacco. Flavored water only. “Just calms me,” she said. “Helps with the anxiety.” And I believed her. We laughed. She didn’t disappear. I felt so connected to her.

But as Ethan grew, she stayed inside more to nurse. “He hates the nursing cover,” she’d say through tears. “Sometimes I think he hates me.”

It was true our boy had a brooding spirit. He cooed and smiled sparingly, babbled often, and though he checked all the developmental boxes at the pediatrician’s office, he also stared at people with menacing eyes, informed by an entire galaxy of knowledge and anger.

“Old soul,” Bridget’s parents called him, but from the first time I held him, I shivered peering into his black pupils, and knew “old soul” was an understatement. The feeling passed though, and I considered it new father nerves.

Then one day Bridget missed a series of my texts and it opened a chasm in our relationship I was never able to close. Panicked, I rushed home from work, and, by then, getting home in the middle of the day was no easy feat. The price of gasoline was well over twelve dollars a gallon, and the electric grids could no longer allow electric vehicle recharging, so only multimillionaires had cars. I’d started taking the train, which tripled my commute time, since everyone else did so as well. By the time I got home, I was exhausted, cranky, and checking for my wallet, relieved I still had it, with the pickpockets essentially owning the stations. It was neither my finest hour nor my finest day. We argued.

“We can’t do this anymore.” The words fell from my mouth sounding more final than what I’d intended, and I wasn’t sure what “this” I was referring to.

“Come again?” A long curl fell onto her forehead. She tucked it behind her ear. Even in the midst of our disagreement, that dainty gesture still elicited a throb in my pants.

“I mean, we need to talk about the…the…you know.”

“The what?”

Her breasts were thick with milk. Amid my anger, I still longed to touch them, wished we could go back to simpler times, when I could hold her for hours just breathing her in, fully trusting her.

“Stop it, Bridget. I have Ethan to think about now.”

Silence from her. Water bubbled in a pot on the stove. The smell of marinara sauce flowed from the kitchen.

And she almost told me. With Ethan still in her arms, she stared at me. A softening. I noticed the scar on her chin had darkened at some point and seemed to be raised from her skin higher than usual. I wanted to kiss it too and try one more time to get her to tell me about its origins, but our emotional distance made me feel I no longer had access to her body. And I’d never had much access to her past. Did I really love her if I didn’t know her? Who was it that I was loving every day when she was such an enigma still? Thinking maybe I only loved the idea of her, I reached for her, to close the space between us.

“Bridget, it’s all right.”

But, for reasons I thought I’d never know, the resolve crept back over her face, and she retreated.

Ethan buried his face in her neck. We hadn’t raised our voices, but as her face turned red, his did as well. With our son clinging to her chest, she went into the bedroom, our bedroom, and slammed the door.

*

I should have been savoring the relentless nature of her red lip gloss, that even the dishwasher’s power setting couldn’t dissolve as it remained smudged on the rims of our glasses. I should have been admiring the way she sat at the foot of our bed with her pinky pointed toward the ceiling as she painted vermilion polish onto her nails, or how when she noticed something funny or interesting in the news, she’d read me the entire article start to finish, word-for-word.

Instead, I asked her the questions I should have put to her from that first day at the bookstore. Lying in bed one morning, I caressed her face, and brought up that scar.

“Fell off the monkey bars in first grade,” she said. “Three stitches.”

I won’t lie. I often have a hard time turning off my journalist brain, but the answer differed from the one about “initiation” she’d given when she’d been inebriated. This new version, spoken in the morning light while sober, was too quick and convenient. If she really fell from a play structure, the front of her chin seemed an odd place for a scar. Maybe she’d have a gash on her knees or even her forehead if she bumped into someone underneath her on the way down. But her chin? And the mark was deep. If she’d told me someone had aimed for her mouth with a knife and missed, I would’ve believed her.

I probed her mother. The next day, Bridget’s parents arrived as usual, their arms stuffed with trinkets, and they spent hours cradling Ethan, kissing his cheeks and nose, dressing him in the onesies and booties they’d bought for him, and shaking the rattles, stuffed bunnies, and plastic keys they’d packed in their grandparents’ tote. When Bridget’s mother was alone, I nonchalantly asked about the scar.

“You know, Bridget has always been so clumsy,” she said while scooping Ethan’s squeaking ducks from the floor and depositing them onto our shelves.

I hadn’t known Bridget to be clumsy at all, quite the opposite, but I needed this information so I played along.

“Yeah. So clumsy.” I forced a chuckle as I folded knit blankets. “But it’s such a deep scar. To get that deep, it would need to be a serious accident…or deliberate?”

She averted her eyes. “It was so silly, really, I’m surprised she hasn’t told you already. She…fell out of the boat when we went fishing. Her chin clipped the edge as she went down. I’d told her thousands of times, ‘too slippery to stand in the boat.’ She learned her lesson after that one.”

So, they were both lying.

I concluded Bridget’s drunken answer had been the truthful one – an initiation.

At that point, I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I recorded her. One night when she rose from bed and went out front to our porch swing, I pointed my phone’s camera toward her from the living room window, and, sure enough, I captured her disappearing.

For five minutes the video shakes due to my trembling hand, and my sobs are audible. You’d think after searching for answers, I’d have been relieved upon vindication, but that wasn’t the case. I thought I’d vomit, but I managed to compose myself long enough to tape her returning.

I showed it to her the next morning. She shouted at me, accused me of doctoring the video to prove my irrational point. She threatened to leave if I didn’t drop this nonsense. Told me I needed to get my head checked.

For an entire day I questioned my own mental health. Her vehemence made me wonder whether I hadn’t made up the entire thing out of some self-sabotaging need for an imperfect relationship. I never mentioned the recording to her again, because being without her was the worst possible outcome for me. But that didn’t stop me from searching for answers. And, if I’m honest, a solution. I had to figure out how to make her stay.

From then on, every night after she fell asleep, I’d stay up a couple extra hours just watching her. And it paid off, sort of. One night, she started whispering in her sleep. I rested my head on her pillow right next to her lips, and when the warm air floated from her mouth to my ear, so did the words, “Force projection.”

“No clue,” she said, when I asked her about the phrase the next morning, but the way she abruptly changed the subject told me there was something more.

I bought nanny cams – one each for the nursery, living room, the dining room facing Ethan’s high chair – and I monitored Bridget and Ethan from my desk at work. As she traveled about the house, I used the remote on my computer to move the camera along with her. I even added a doorbell camera so I could know when they left.

“Control freak,” she called me during one particularly nasty argument, but I reiterated that we had a son, and I was doing this to make sure he was protected. After all, she was the one who didn’t want a nanny or full-time help from her mom.

The monitor app netted me two more clips – in one she’s asleep, disappears, and the sheets flatten out to prove it, and in the other she’s reading in the living room, sets down her book on the coffee table, disappears, comes back twenty minutes later, and picks up the text and continues reading. She seems unperturbed upon return, as if no time has passed for her. Both times I was home with Ethan in other parts of the house. Not once did she disappear when she was alone with Ethan.

She refused to watch the monitor clips.

The thunderclap for me occurred one night after we’d left the queue. Crops were damaged either by droughts or freezes in places that didn’t used to have droughts or freezes. There was a food shortage, and bandits held up the supply chains for food. We were lucky to make off that night with milk, bread, potatoes, cans of beans, rice, and frozen broccoli. No stores had meat anymore, and we didn’t even try for it.

Then on the two-mile walk home, a kid about nineteen or so with a skeleton tattoo and pockmarks snaking up his arms, held us up at gunpoint. He demanded my wallet, her handbag, and “any other shit you got in them pockets.” As she reached to her waist pack, she blew a puff of cinnamon cigarette smoke in his face. Entranced, the kid inexplicably lowered his gun, and when he turned to walk away, Bridget seized him from behind, and, with a force I hadn’t known her capable of, she disarmed and laid out the guy on his stomach with his wrists behind his back until the police arrived.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked when we were back home and placing our groceries in the refrigerator.

“What?” The glow from the dim fridge light made her face seem angular and hardened.

“Restrain a man half a foot taller than you.”

“Oh, you know…one of those defense classes for women.” She grinned, but the smile was stiff on her lips.

“Huh,” I said. “Because you looked like a cop or something.”

She threw back her head and laughed a little too long and hard for me to feel comfortable with. I asked if she had any thoughts on why the guy would just lower his gun midway through robbing us, and she said, “Good question. Don’t know. Opioids?”

*

At work, my stories were getting cut right after I pitched them. Half of my department had been let go due to restructuring. There was one media company left in the country, I was lucky enough to work for some tiny corner of it, and, although the conglomerate spent money like they grew it, those funds were no longer flowing to my end of the enterprise. People protested outside our offices, and someone even threw a brick through the window with a note attached – Evil ties, corporate lies, everyone dies. The FBI got involved in the investigation.

So, I spent my workdays trying to figure out my wife. The internet was a trove of research on unexplained disappearances. There were the ten people who’d gone missing aboard the Mary Celeste, which launched one of the world’s greatest nautical mysteries; the puzzling disappearance of writer Ambrose Bierce; and, of course, Amelia Earhart. I switched my keywords to paranormal disappearances then to alternative science disappearances. As my fingers typed the words into the search field, a tingle sprouted on my head and crawled down my back. I couldn’t believe I was doing it. But how else could I explain what was going on with my wife?

The results numbered in the hundred-thousands. It took two weeks to comb through the links and make phone calls. I had no idea what a reputable alternative science disappearance expert was, but I quickly concluded the quacks talked about kidnappings by fairies and aliens. The reputable people were authors or researchers who collected information and data and spoke of sleep paralysis or some marginally scientific study about out-of-body experiences.

Both the nuts and the reputable researchers spoke of Udali Wardene. He was an earthquake researcher who, as a hobby, collected data on psychic predictions of major tremblers. On the side, everyone told me, he studied what he called “reappearances.”

The night I reached out to Udali, I sat opposite Bridget on the couch so she couldn’t see my phone screen and my ongoing research of him and his theories. He agreed to meet me the next week in the basement of his brother’s church, on the outskirts of the former mining town of Wickenburg, Utah. I used a nearby journalism conference as my way to break away from work, and I monitored Bridget and Ethan from an app on my phone.

Even getting to Utah was a harrowing experience. I took a flight paid for by the conference because I was to speak on a panel, then a train from Salt Lake City, but, upon my arrival in Wickenburg, I had to walk the three miles to the place because jackers had taken over the local commuter bus, which was supposed to have been my connection. Aside from my very real fear of losing Bridget, the world was changing so rapidly that surviving each day felt like a blessing.

“I offered to meet here because I keep my research closely guarded.” We shook hands, and I noticed his frail bones protruding from a gray collared shirt. We sat opposite each other at a desk in a sun-starved room. “You think your wife is having reappearances?”

He wheezed, and I hoped he had an inhaler nearby.

“I don’t know enough about reappearances to know if she is.” The pain locked inside my chest escaped and seemed to be hanging in the dry air above our heads. I’d never told anyone about this. Even the sources who’d led me to Udali thought I was researching a story for the paper.

“The concept can be either simple or complex.” Sweat gathered on his brow as he took a sip from a teacup I hadn’t previously noticed. His wheezing abated. “In its simplest form,” he continued, “someone disappears and then returns, sometimes years later. A fugue state, perhaps, as people often say they have during a seizure. Does your wife suffer from seizures, Yusef?”

“No. It’s not that sort of thing.” The room seemed to lack air altogether now. I needed a shower. “She and I are usually both at home when it happens. And she’s just not there. Then she is there again. She’s never acknowledged she’s been gone. I’ve asked her directly about it and she said she has no clue what I’m talking about. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not, but I think she is aware.”

Udali moved his hand across his body, leaned forward, and let out a slight gasp.

“I see. This is the more complex type.” He returned his shoulders to the leather chair back and stared at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. “Start from the beginning.”

I explained how she sometimes went to our backyard, sat on the swing beneath the elm tree, but was undetectable when I looked out the kitchen window. I described how she could climb into bed in the middle of the day for a nap, but for the duration she’d be nowhere, the blankets on the bed turned down, but flat. When I finished, I felt like crying because I’d reached the one person who might understand what was happening with Bridget, but I wasn’t sure he could do anything at all. I wanted to leave, but then Udali opened his eyes.

“Does she have nightmares, Yusef?”

“Yes.” The rumble of a large truck traveling down the road floated in through the window. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“At some point, yes. But reappearances typically occur in people who have frequent nightmares. My research leads me to believe that this…fugue state, if you will…is actually not of this planet. The victim has work of some sort that is not bound by the constraints of our time and space.”

I tried to have an open mind, but that theory left me with more questions. Did she control it? Why marry and have a child? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay single so no one would find out?

“Have you ever recorded this?”

I hesitated. I’d spent so much time repressing, not sharing, being gaslit by my wife that admitting I had proof of this seemed like I was crossing a boundary – the boundary Bridget had set. “I have.”

Udali’s face contorted. He smiled. He raised an eyebrow in shock. Then he let out a nervous giggle. “In all my years of research—” as if he wanted to compose himself, he was stern-faced, but wheezing again “—I’ve never seen a video of a reappearance.”

I removed my phone from my pocket and stared at it, unsure whether I should continue.

“I will not tell anyone about your wife, Yusef.”

“It’s not that. It’s just—” I pulled up the clip, pressed play, and handed it to Udali, who accepted it the way a priest would palm the Eucharist.

He watched as Bridget sat thinking on our porch swing, held her head back to stare at the sky, and then dissolved into nothing, the seat floating as if a ghost were riding it.

Udali brought his hand to his mouth. I thought it was to stifle a cough, but quickly realized he was choked up. “I can’t believe…”

I sensed he felt relieved to have proof of something he’d spent so much of his life trying to get a handle on. It’s a bit how I felt when I recorded the video.

He peered into my phone as the swing came to rest, and then in another blink, Bridget reappeared as if she’d never left the seat, her head still facing the sky, her curls, which had been in a ponytail when she vanished, now dangling down her back.

“Who have you shared this with?”

“Just you. Right now.”

“Does she always look up?”

“What?”

“Before she disappears, does she always look to the sky?”

I thought back to the monitor clips. “Only one other happened while she was awake. She was reading in our living room, and now that I think of it, she does look up in that one as well. Does that tell us something?”

“Nothing concrete. Just that she might be controlling it or at least aware when it is about to happen.”

That brought me both relief and anger. I didn’t have to worry she’d leave Ethan, but if she controlled her comings and goings, she could stop this whole mess and choose to stay for good.

“I’ve met someone else like your wife.” Udali stared at my phone as he handed it back, as if it pained him to release it. “An Afrikaner living in Cape Town – Eleanor Bosch. Her co-workers at the textile plant claimed she would disappear from her perch at one of the machines then reappear hours later somewhere else in the room as if nothing had happened. There was very little written of her, but from what I found, everyone believed she was stepping into a parallel dimension or time traveling. She didn’t talk about it because she thought she was hallucinating.”

I could hear my heart beating in my head. My temples throbbed along with the beat.

“How long ago was this?”

“Thirty years or so.”

“Then the people who knew her might still be alive.”

He nodded as if I’d asked a question, but it had been a statement. A declaration of hope.

*

Eleanor’s sister, Heather Bosch, was not on social media. I could not find an email address nor a telephone number for her. I used my newsroom’s person-finder to get her address, but her landlord would not put me in touch with her, nor would he confirm she rented from him. The only reason I was willing to leave Bridget and Ethan to track down this woman was because I knew the Cape Town area where she lived, and figured I could get there and back quickly.

I must admit it felt good to be away. The quality of my life had declined significantly, not just because I was terrified about Bridget all the time, but also because the economy was collapsing, the climate had become harsh, and violent crime was on a sharp increase. It just always felt as if, at any moment, I could be attacked or sent into financial ruin. The conference was a break from all that. I got to discuss politics and sports and the purpose of journalism, something I hadn’t done since the days before I knew Bridget.

Heather’s home was in the suburb of Salt River, two miles away from the radio station where I’d interned in graduate school. Table Mountain was visible under the midday sun, and cars and buses whizzed down Victoria Road like they were racing one another.

When I arrived on Fairview Avenue, every home on the street was a different color and they were stacked next to one another so tightly it looked as if someone had linked up all their shoeboxes, ensuring each one shared a wall with the next. One home was orange sherbet with matching irons around the doors and windows, another was cerulean with a satellite dish dangling off its side as if a great wind had struck it.

The home I approached was the color of a daisy, and was the only one without bars.

I knocked.

Heather Bosch would be about sixty-five. The article in which she said she’d had nothing to do with her sister’s disappearance even though they were the only two at home when it occurred also included a picture of Heather holding a framed photo of Eleanor. In the image, Heather looked mid-thirties and wore a tan dress with a Bertha collar.

When she answered, her accent was so thick I wondered whether I would understand her, and she me. I explained my situation, that I’d been able to reach her colleagues, neighbors, and acquaintances, who all confirmed where she lived but who also wouldn’t give me her cell number, and she sucked her teeth and started to close the door. But when I told her Udali had sent me, she softened, “You know Dr Wardene?” and waved me inside to her kitchen, where she made me a cup of rooibos tea. I accepted the warm, red drink and the scones with cherry jam she offered as well.

“Where does your wife say she’s going?” Her voice was gruff, but it betrayed a kindness I knew she didn’t want me to detect. It reminded me of Bridget.

“She won’t admit it’s happening.”

“Shame. Eleanor didn’t either for a while. But when I finally got her to, she told me she had a mission.”

“What kind of mission?”

“Don’t know. I presume it’s different for each person.”

“How does this happen? Do they control it?”

“What does your wife do?”

“P.R. at a university lab.”

“Izzit?” She stopped mid-sip and stared. “What does the lab do?”

“Make computer chips.” It occurred to me that Bridget was very specific with me about the people at her job, but she claimed, since she worked for a lab, she had to keep many things hidden, so I didn’t really know the specifics of what they did other than what they stated in press releases she wrote. I can’t stress enough how maddening it was for a journalist to have questions with no answers.

“Eleanor moonlighted at a university lab here in Kaapstad. And she once traveled to a university in Jozi.”

I was still getting used to Heather’s accent, and it took me a moment to realize Kaapstad was Cape Town and Jozi was Johannesburg. “What were they working on?”

“Didn’t say. But told me they did lots of experiments on people. And she—”

Heather stopped and stared at me as if she remembered something. She rose. With ginger steps from what seemed like a busted hip, she moved to the far side of the kitchen and opened a wooden armoire that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The doors creaked as she opened them.

“I just— I found these after she disappeared the final time.”

When she reached inside and pulled out a tin box, I noticed a tremor in her hands. She blew dust from the lid, opened it, careful with the rusty hinges, and brought it back to the table as if she were a pall bearer carrying a casket.

“We didn’t have the internet all over the place back then. I never thought—”

I thought I would scream from anticipation.

“She kept saying they were doing experiments. Then she’d see the subjects in the paper.”

I took the newspaper clippings from her, and each one was an article about a missing person. A thirty-seven-year-old shop owner from the Cape Flats. A nineteen-year-old taxi driver from Khayelitsha. A teacher from Dunoon.

“Who are these people?”

“Experiment subjects.”

“She thought the labs were making people disappear?”

“Ja. Now that you tell me about your wife, I wonder. Eleanor must have realized. Why else did she save the papers?”

My chest tightened. I felt allergic to the box. I had the urge to check on Bridget. It was nighttime in Michigan. I opened the app on my phone and was reassured when I saw the outline of her body under the comforter on our bed.

I returned the cell to my pocket and stared at Heather. “What was the mechanism for making the subjects disappear and reappear?”

“Ag. I don’t know.”

“Try to remember. There’s got to be something Eleanor had or had taken? A pill? An injection? The lab had to have done something to make her—”

“Needles frightened her. She didn’t like pills. Was hale and hearty, that one. Loved to hike. Never touched the pork or steak I made.” Heather chuckled at the memory, then she frowned, remembering. “She had one vice. She smoked.”

“Smoked?” I could feel my breath catch in my throat and my stomach drop.

“These…odd cigarettes.”

Cigarettes. Skinny. Brown. There from the first day I’d known Bridget. Innocuous, but perhaps not. I thought I’d fall off the chair. I wanted to run from the house, get back to Bridget and get those cigarettes away from her. All those times I acquiesced to Bridget’s smoking came raining down on me – a flood of guilt. I should have said no emphatically. I was powerless with Bridget and maybe that had allowed the disappearances to continue.

“They smelled like…” Heather stared out the window as if she were seeing Eleanor smoking them.

“Cinnamon?” I asked, sweat gathering in my armpits and bubbling up on my forehead. I struggled to keep my breathing steady.

“Eish.” Shocked, Heather’s mouth grew into a circle. “Said it relaxed her.”

“The cigarettes must be the connection.”

Her hand trembled as she brought the cup of rooibos tea to her lips and sipped. “The last time was no different than any other time, that I could tell. She just disappeared, but then didn’t reappear that time. I keep waiting, hoping she’ll return. What if this isn’t really where they’re supposed to be?”

“Where?”

“Earth.”

Heather’s voice caught in her throat on the word “Earth.” She made noises that sounded like frantic hiccups. “I’m sorry.” She stood. “So, so sorry.”

I stood. She slammed the box down, pushed me toward her back door.

“Totsiens,” she said through sobs. The door slammed behind me and I wanted to jump through the nearby window and ask her to help me fix this situation, but I realized she’d already been gracious enough to speak with a man who showed up unexpectedly asking about her sister who’d been missing for thirty years.

The taxi couldn’t get me to the airport fast enough. I’d perhaps found a way to stop this. If Bridget didn’t smoke the cinnamon cigarettes – it seemed far-fetched, but so did the reappearances. I had to try something. On my dash through the terminal, I called Udali and caught him up on my visit. He was doubtful removing the cigarettes would work. He reminded me that just as she was reappearing here, she was also reappearing someplace else. He told me to treat the reappearances as if they were an untreatable illness. To go home and love my wife for the time I had left. What other option did I have? he asked.

“Cigarettes or no, the final disappearance will happen, Yusef, whether you love her or not.”

*

The last time I spoke to Bridget was at seven p.m. her time. I was stuck in a nearly six-hour layover in New York’s JFK airport. The flight was Cape Town to Doha to New York to Detroit, and I was kicking myself for not booking the more expensive Cape Town to London to Chicago to Detroit flight, which would have allowed me to drive the final leg from Chicago to save time.

She was cooking pasta and assembling caprese salad. We argued. She’d seen the camera blink or heard the buzz as the monitor turned on the base and it had just been the last straw. She’d tossed all the devices in the trash, saying she wouldn’t tolerate the “police state” I’d created. The last thing I said to her was, “Don’t smoke those cigarettes again.”

Nearly eight hours later, when I arrived at our back door, it was ajar. Ethan was inside, asleep in his bed, the food was cold on the stove, Bridget’s purse was still hanging on the back of the dining chair, but she was gone.

I wished I’d had time to follow Udali’s advice. To concentrate on loving her even though I was gripped with fear of losing her. I couldn’t help but feel my pressure to control what was happening, my final threat about the cigarettes, was the very thing that sent her away.

The police suspected me from the moment they arrived. I could hear it in their questions: “Any financial troubles for you two?” “Extramarital affairs?” “Why were you traveling?” “Arguments recently?” And in the way they looked with pity at Ethan, our framed wedding photos, and the unopened box of condoms in our bedroom.

They uncovered every detail in our house. No cell phone, credit card, nor bank transactions beyond the time of her disappearance, they said. Their unspoken theories wouldn’t have bothered me had I thought them able to find her.

*

That first week after losing Bridget I went through an entire bottle of saline drops to rid my eyes of their redness from not sleeping, and I’d grown so thin only consuming water and coffee that I had to pull my belt to the next notch. I couldn’t find her cigarettes anywhere in the house, and neither had the police. I spent my days shuffling through memories of her in my mind, researching mysterious words she’d spoken.

“Force projection,” the phrase she’d uttered in her sleep, was when a nation-state conducted military operations at distances far from its territory. The U.S. especially liked to set up installations around the world that could be deployed at a moment’s notice. The online searches were bottomless, no doubt, because they raised more questions than they answered.

I talked to a source at the police department. The investigators had discovered diary entries in which she talked about how “controlling” I was, and that she felt she couldn’t breathe because of my “delusions.” She mentioned the cameras and the tracking device I’d placed on her car, and how I questioned her whenever she returned. And, apparently, she’d once pondered taking Ethan and leaving but thought I’d use my journalism resources to track her down if she took my son. The investigators believed she skipped town without Ethan, thereby relieving me of the motivation to go after her.

I couldn’t believe she’d made me out to be the bad guy. And where had she’d kept this journal? Certainly not in the house, because I’d have found it. I asked to see the diary, but my source apologized and said it was booked into evidence and couldn’t leave the station. But, I mean, thank God a neighbor saw her enter the house that final day with Ethan, otherwise police might have thought I offed her.

The second week, I added whiskey to my diet and drank it to oblivion every night. Each morning I woke in the throes of a migraine with an aura, which was so painful and disorienting I often couldn’t stand. One night after five shots of bourbon, I called Bridget’s parents and asked them point blank, “Did Bridget disappear as a child? Did she go away and come back and you two have been covering for her the entire time?”

“Whatever are you talking about, Yusef?” her mother asked in that fake-sweet voice. “Do you need help? Do you need us to come over? Is Ethan okay? You’re worrying us.”

“Why, Mrs Gale? Why did you let her marry me? Why did you let her have a child, if you knew?”

Her mom sobbed and her dad came to the phone. “I know you’re hurting, but you can’t call upsetting my wife like this.”

“You two don’t care about your grandson?”

“Of course we do.”

“Then tell me. Just tell me. Don’t you understand? I have to know!”

He paused for several seconds, then sighed. I had a lot of doubts about her parents, I even had doubts about Bridget’s love for me, but one thing I knew for certain was that Bridget’s parents loved Ethan.

Her dad whispered, “Go back to bed, Sweet. I’ll be up in a minute.”

I heard the sound of slippers swishing across their wooden floors, the creaking open and shutting of a door.

“I told my daughter she picked the wrong possible person to marry,” he whispered, sounding resigned, exhausted. “A person whose job is to ask questions, who can’t leave anything uncovered.”

I didn’t dare speak because I was so close to finally having an answer. I swallowed and held my breath, not wanting to say or do anything that might mess it up.

“We don’t know, Yusef.”

“What don’t you know?”

“The how or the why. But we do know the impossible position you’ve been in because we’ve been in that same position as well.”

“So, she disappeared from the beginning?”

“We want to see our grandchild, Yusef. We do. But you can never ask us about this again.”

“Why not? Is there something to fear? Should I be afraid?”

“Yes. We all should.” Her dad hung up on me. I stared at the silent phone wondering why I was willing to press them for answers but never Bridget.

Perhaps feeling guilty, the next week her parents offered to move in and help me with childcare or to move me and Ethan in with them, “Just until you’re feeling better, Yusef.” I declined. I wanted to ask them outright, Why didn’t you do more to help her? Why didn’t you stop this? But I knew I’d really be asking the question of myself.

And if Mr and Mrs Gale had been in my house every day, then I couldn’t do what I really needed, and that was to be alone with Ethan and the memory of Bridget.

I couldn’t tell them that in my grief, I was also kind of relieved. The feeling surprised even me, but no more would I have to live every day with the anxiety of losing her. The Yusef-Bridget story was complete. I had my memories – the way she curled up on my lap during horror flicks, the moist heat of her breath on my ear as she whispered, “I feel like we’re getting away with something being this in love.”

Living with the pleasure of her while knowing it could be taken away, was far more painful than remembering her while longing for her return.

That’s what I tell myself during the day. At night, I lie awake in bed, hoping she’ll climb in beside me and fall asleep, so I can wake with her round, firm breasts pressed against my back. One night I fell asleep and dreamed she did exactly that. I smelled cinnamon. I turned to her, bursting with joy that she’d come back to me, and cried out when I realized she was still gone.

*

When Bridget never returned, I sold the house. I eventually moved with Ethan to a small home in rural Michigan, tucked at the end of a gravel lane, and I hope no one ever notices us.

This morning, a riot broke out in our town. I heard gunfire, and when I looked out from my attic window, I saw a dusty SUV ride down the street with a long rifle pointed out the passenger window. They opened fire on the house down the lane.

When I barricaded our home’s windows with dressers and desks, a notebook fell from one of the loose drawers. It was covered in red and pink sparkles, just the sort of thing Bridget would love. She’d only written one entry, and it was about the day we met at the bookstore.

One paragraph struck me. She wrote, “The first night with him was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. The thing I’m feeling…it must be guilt. He has no clue.”

I racked my brain. Turned over every word she uttered that first evening. Examined every tip of her head and rise of her brow.

And after ruminating on it all morning, after asking myself whether I could have known, could have guarded my heart when I met her, I’ve finally figured it out.

That first night, when I entered her, it was the greatest physical and emotional pleasure I’ve ever known. It was as if she’d captured me. She gripped my dreadlocks and whispered, “I am the one you’ve been waiting for.”

When I was able to think again, I told her I loved her. And mere hours after meeting her, I meant it. But it was as if I never really had a choice in the matter.

In the afterglow, when she was lying in my arms, I asked, “What book had you really been looking for today?”

“I hadn’t been looking for a book. I’d been looking for an author.”

Clinging to her voice, I was drifting to sleep. “But you weren’t in line at the signing. Which author were you looking for?”

She snuggled closer to me and nibbled on my ear.

“One with a story about a being that takes the form of a woman, comes to Earth, marries, and then has a child that will eventually destroy the planet.”

I laughed. “Destroy the planet, huh?” I loved witty women, and I had just nabbed one with a sense of humor too. “Why does the being, the woman, try to destroy the planet?”

“She doesn’t want to. But it’s her mission. She’s a soldier. She rids the universe of wasteful things.”

“Kind of like an intergalactic garbage woman?” Eyes closed and nose open, I laughed.

She didn’t.

“Does she love the man?”

“The man?”

“The one she marries?”

“Oh. Love is a foreign concept to her until she meets him. So, her feelings are an approximation, but I guess she will grow to love him, unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?”

The closeness of her body pressed against mine was lulling me to sleep, but I had a few grains of consciousness left.

“Because—”

She never finished that sentence, and I would give away my entire existence if I could go back in time and force her to.

“Well, I’ve never heard of that one. Maybe it wasn’t in horror though. Sounds more sci-fi to me.”

Her muscles relaxed, which made me think she was drifting too. The room filled with the smell of cinnamon. She’d lit a cigarette, and the scent ushered me to the threshold of subconsciousness.

With my final shred of wakefulness, I asked, “So, you never said.”

“Never said what?”

“Who was the author?”

She snuggled even closer, as if she wanted to crawl inside my skin. She kissed me – the sweetest little fool she’d ever met – and I savored every second of her lips touching mine.

“You,” she whispered. “The story will be written by you.”

And after it hit me, I stumbled to my back porch, sat in my Adirondack chair, and watched my four-year-old swoop high on the swing. Bridget’s words continued on a loop in my mind. The story will be written by you. The story will be written by you.

And then my son’s eyes locked with mine. His face took on that vacant look it sometimes got since he was born. A chill rushed through me.

“Everything okay, little man?”

Ethan’s face remained slack, then he threw back his head and stared at the sky. Before fully making the connection in my brain, I rose, rushed toward him, afraid to blink because I knew what was coming. I remembered the videos of Bridget on that porch throwing back her head, on our couch doing the same.

“Ethan!”

Somewhere on our street a dog began barking. Time stopped. Sound stopped. My eyes welled with tears because I refused to close them.

“Look at me, Ethan. Stay with me.”

And just as I closed the gap, just as my hand reached for his shirt, he grinned. I blinked, forcing those tears down my cheeks. And before I could grab him to shelter him in my embrace, my son was gone.

***

Tamika Thompson is a producer, journalist, author of the horror novella Salamander Justice (Madness Heart Press), co-creator of the artist collective POC United, and fiction editor for the group’s award-winning anthology Graffiti (Aunt Lute Books). Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Literary Orphans, The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and PBS.org among others. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Southern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

RUSTING

LUCY ZHANG

After I catch the Rust, Mother locks me in the cellar where Napa cabbages ferment in the cold. I sit among earthenware pots full of sun-dried cabbage leaves chopped into thin strips and rubbed with garlic and salt. Once a day, someone leaves a tray of food and glass of water at the top of the stairs although I never see who it is, barely notice when the light trickles in briefly as the door creaks open and then darkens just as quickly. Sometimes they sneak me fresh food out of pity, and the fragrance reaches me from the top of the stairs. I wonder if I can make it past the first step. These days, I am too tired to climb the stairs to retrieve the tray. The Rust makes it hard for me to stand and even harder to sit back down. My limbs chafe against each other when I try to move, and I imagine one day I’ll be stuck in the same position, waiting for someone to carry my body to the Broiler and melt it down to make circuit board components. No one says it out loud, but that’s what happens to those who Rust – better to get recycled into computers than contribute to the waste piles.

I hope I will make a good computer – the most perfect chips and hard drives and CPU heat sinks. A machine that won’t get tossed out in ten, no, twenty years. This is how I pass my time: imagining if I’ll still possess a conscious mind once I’m integrated between layers of copper and aluminum membrane.

I clank my fingers together. If the movement is small enough, I don’t feel much pain, at least relatively speaking. Your barometer for pain is known to go haywire with the Rust. I like to listen to metal brushing against metal. It echoes, each clink like a sharp blade. Skin is all softness, easily scraped and scarred, but now I am all armor. The Rust starts slow but accelerates until you’re immobile. I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost my ability to move my fingers within the hour.

At least a day passes until someone comes to get me. I know they aren’t here to drop off food; there’s too much noise; the door is open for too long. I watch from where I’m crouched, hiding behind pots.

It turns out to be a Doll rather than a person. I’m not surprised. Mother and the rest of the girls must’ve been too afraid of catching the Rust and sent down a machine instead. It’s not standard protocol since Dolls haven’t learned how to properly gauge the diseased for life. The Rust has a way of masking your pulse under sheets of metal, stamping out your response to stimuli, freezing your metabolism, blocking out equipment from getting a read of your heartbeat. But people are getting more scared lately, especially since there’s more metal than we need now, and the Wastelands are encroaching on the cities with their mountains of scrap aluminum and melted iron. The Doll sent to fetch me is smaller than I’m used to seeing: squat and compact, consisting of an actuated linkage and two fixed wheels at the front and rear of the chassis. It has two arms installed on both flanks of the frame, rotating to change its track configuration and set it down on the next stair. Despite its size, the Doll sounds like an armored tank treading over boulders – squeak, shudder, click, squeak shudder click squeak shudder click. I wish it’d stop, turn around, leave the room as they all do. I prefer silence more and more these days. Maybe it’s a sign I’ve lost the majority of my humanity, and my body is better for conducting electricity than taking part in conversations.

The Doll spins toward me, accelerating so loudly I wonder if the girls upstairs can hear. I giggle, wondering how awkward it must be for them to ignore the gears grinding, wheels squeaking, engine rumbling. Like pretending no one’s having sex next door despite the moans and screeching of a mattress. Mother eventually replaced all the mattresses after receiving complaints from one of the officials who’d donated silk robes to the entire House – and they weren’t the cheap quality robes whose patterns unraveled within a week, they had long, loose-fitting sleeves embroidered with peonies so intricate and realistic you’d try to pluck them from their threaded stems. We refused to wear anything else for the month. We weren’t too happy about the mattress upgrade, though. We used to compete on who could perform their job most quietly, and the loudest would have to do all of our chores. It was a lot of work and sometimes pain: tensing and loosening your muscles so you didn’t slam so hard against the bed with every thrust. We’d all already mastered the skill of silencing our breaths and voices completely, but if your client was someone who liked it rough, tough luck: you’d probably end up on cleaning duty that week. I guess that’s the upside to my increasingly electropositive body.

“ALIVE?” The Doll flashes at me from a display mounted on top of its frame. “DEAD?” It flashes again.

Of course, I can’t respond. The Doll treads closer to me and extends a probe. The probe pokes my body with a clang that echoes briefly. The Doll taps me again and again, and I imagine it patting my shoulder, the metallic reverbs acting as soothing whispers. I try to blink an eye, twitch a finger, hum as loud as I can so the sound waves might be strong enough to reach outside my larynx. Maybe the Doll can pick up on slight vibrations hiding under all the metal. Surely there is something manifesting as the fruit of my efforts. The other girls in the House always told me to be more positive because men didn’t like depressing coupling partners, but I didn’t care about tips. Mother takes most of the tips anyway to “reinvest” into the House facilities, although most of the money goes to buying her jewelry – every week, Mother has a new jade pendant hanging from her hairpieces. Because of my dreariness, I was always left with the poorest, least gentlemanly men. Those men never knew what they were doing so it was easy for me to please them – made the job quick and painless – although I suppose, of everyone in the House, it’d likely be the dirtiest of the men to infect me with the Rust. No hard feelings though. It’s partially my fault for not looking happier, trying harder, servicing someone richer.

The Doll retracts its probe and digs two flat arms under my body, just barely lifting me off the floor. It begins to make its way back upstairs, arms rocking under my weight. Even though Dolls are built to withstand many times my weight, I fear I’ll crush it. The rattling unnerves me, and I think the worst: a screw might dislodge, I might slip and tumble back to where I started, the Doll might end up a crushed pile of electronic waste at the foot of the stairs. Despite my increasingly fatalistic speculations, we make it to the door and the Doll pushes it open.

I can’t remember when light last glared so blatantly at me. It probably hasn’t been too long. The Rust plays with your sense of time, rewires your circadian rhythm so your feedback loops don’t depend on light. I don’t recall the House being so bright. Mother liked to cut costs under the guise of practicality: dim lighting is better for sex, creates a surreal environment so clients can live out their fantasies, plus we aren’t supposed to get attached to anyone so it’s easiest on all involved parties if we can’t see their faces too well. If the House is this bright, I wonder what the sun will feel like.

The girls whisper as the Doll rolls forward with me in tow. They’re standing far away from the other side of the building, looking over the railing. The hall where we’re traveling has been completely emptied and will probably stay empty for a week to let the contagious microbes die out. A rock hits the Doll’s surface. One of the girls has thrown it, and like a drizzle transforming into a downpour, more rocks follow from the rest of the group. “Hurry and leave,” they cry. The Doll beeps as the rocks rain down on it, scratching flecks of white paint and plastic from its exterior. I think it’s crying. I’ve seen Dolls make the same sound when people kick them on the streets during their delivery orders, or when kids stick Dolls in trash cans and bet on how long it takes for them to escape. You’re not allowed to hurt other people or else face a sentence in the Wastelands, which is an almost guaranteed Rust infection according to officials. But Dolls don’t feel pain and are programmatically incapable of hostility so you’re allowed to do anything to them so long as they can finish their job by the end of the day.

By the time we’ve made it outside, it feels like an eternity has passed. I try to think of a way I can ask the Doll where we’re going. Although I’m as good as dead, I don’t want to be melted down while I can feel pain. That’s the peculiar thing about the Rust: it destroys your body’s ability to maintain homeostasis but leaves your sense of pain alone until the moment before death. Are we headed to the Broiler? I try to send telepathically. Supposedly Dolls can pick up on brain signals and translate messages via transcranial magnetic stimulation, although I’m not sure if the signal is strong enough to penetrate metal.

The Doll flashes an empty screen. I suppose it’s better if I don’t know our destination and prepare for the worst. It’s the first time I’ve truly been out of the House besides the few times I snuck out to find free samples of gizzard skewers. One of the other girls tattled on me and Mother beat me with the end of a broomstick and had me go without dinner. I didn’t have energy for work that night so the client slapped me and I bit down on his prick. Mother wasn’t happy.

We’ve traveled pretty far. Further than where the Broiler is located near the slums. The Doll lowers its arms and sets me on the ground. It spins around like it doesn’t know where to go. I don’t know either.

Stop spinning, that’s not going to help anyone, I think. The Doll stops. I try again to move a limb or finger. It’s harder than getting myself to orgasm during work. The metal tethers me down like an anchor. Lifting a mountain would be easier: at least you can do it in pieces – one tree and rock and chunk of earth at a time.

I should be less negative. The girls always tell me that.

I’m not sure how long it takes, but eventually, one of my fingers ever so slightly raises, oriented toward the hills facing away from the city. Supposedly this is the direction toward the Wastelands. Normally, only Dolls travel here to dispose of metal that can’t be reused, but we haven’t seen any piles of old computers or machinery yet. It seems as good a place to go as any so long as it isn’t where we came from. The Doll lifts me again and treads forward over the hills and shrubs in the direction I point. We’re traveling to the end of the earth, I joke. The Doll whirs and spins around. Like it’s laughing.

***

Lucy Zhang writes, codes and watches anime. Her work has appeared in AAWW, SmokeLong Quarterly, Passages North, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Hollowed is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing, and her micro-chapbook Absorption is forthcoming from Harbor Review. Find her at kowaretasekai.wordpress.com or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.

Table of Contents

- Editorial
- Black Static
- Title Page
- Contents
- Climbing Stories
- Ansible Link
- Wet Dreams
- The Pain Barrier
- The Faerie Engine
- The Soul Doctors
- Interview with Alexander Glass
- Thank You, Clicking Person
- Subira's Lettuce
- Walking in from the West
- Mutant Popcorn
- Wind, river, angel song
- The Thing About Ants and Astronauts
- Bridget Has Disappeared
- Rusting
- Back Cover