Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  “Ha! Don’t be sneaking off before the job’s done! I seen you!”

  “I wasn’t sneaking off!”

  “Sure you was. You’re bone lazy, Pete. A wild one for sure. Go spread that bucket.”

  When Bridget died, Pete wished it had been Darlene instead. “Where should I spread this?” He picked up the bucket of fertilizer. “On the soy?”

  “Them ain’t soy,” she said scathingly. “Them are some concoction the Tesslies dreamed up and don’t you think nothing different, boy! Them plants will probably poison us yet!”

  “Yeah, right,” Pete said. Darlene was crazy. The Tesslies keeping humans alive for twenty years, giving them Grab machinery to get fertile kids to make more humans, just to poison the whole lot.

  Then he realized that Darlene’s craziness was driving him to defend the Tesslies, and he threw the brown gunk—it still looked like shit!—harder than necessary onto the soy. Or whatever it was. “High-protein, dense-calorie plants,” Jenna had told him once. McAllister was teaching Jenna and Paolo all the science she knew from Before, so it wouldn’t be lost. The other Survivors had done the same, but they hadn’t known nearly as much. “We must save everything we can,” she always said.

  Pete spread the fertilizer through the soy. There was enough for half the onion bed, too. Then he rinsed the bucket. Darlene watched him every minute.

  Darlene was in charge of the farm. In a way that was weird because Eduardo was the Survivor who had been studying plants when the Tesslies put him into the Shell. “Ecobiology,” McAllister had called it. But that just meant that the plants Eduardo knew about were wild ones, and he told Pete that no special knowledge was needed to grow the vegetables on the farm. Besides, nobody wanted Darlene anywhere near the Grab children. She was too mean.

  The farm was the biggest room in the Shell, with rows and rows of raised beds holding various crops, crossed by long metal pipes that leaked water. The farm also housed the disinfecting waterfall and the clean-water waterfall, from which endless buckets of water were hauled for drinking, washing, cooking. Here, too, stood the raised section of the floor that could be turned hot by pressing a button. Bridget had been especially good at simmering vegetable stews on the hot box, in buckets. Now Eduardo did it, less well. The farm smelled good, of dirt and water and cooking, and it would have been a lovely place if it hadn’t been for Darlene.

  “ ‘Rock of ages,’ ” she sang in her tuneless, scratchy voice while Pete spread fertilizer. “ ‘Cleft for me’ . . . You spread that even, Pete, you hear me? Bone lazy!” He escaped as soon as he could and went to see Petra.

  She was awake, lying on a blanket, kicking her fat little legs. Caity was on duty in the babies’ corner behind its wall of buckets. At the sight of her, Pete again thought of sex, but Caity didn’t seem interested, and after a moment he realized that he wasn’t, either. Not with Caity.

  She said, “Did you hear about Xiaobo?”

  “What about him?

  “He’s dying.”

  It took Pete a moment to take it in, even though the news wasn’t unexpected. “Where?”

  “His room.”

  McAllister would be there. Pete walked back through the children’s room. At the sight of him, Kara started screaming. How long was that going to keep on? Kara would just have to get over it. The older children, three to five years old, were clustered around Jenna in a learning circle, being taught to count buckets and read letters and sing songs. When they were older, McAllister and Eduardo would teach them about stars and atoms and the digestive system. “We must save everything we can.”

  McAllister wasn’t with Xiaobo, but Eduardo and Paolo were.

  Eduardo was the oldest of the Survivors, and looked it. Only a few years older than McAllister, he seemed to Pete to be older than time. Thinning gray hair straggled around a deeply lined face. Eduardo, a quiet and courteous man, had never lost his soft Spanish accent, and when Pete had been little, he’d loved to have Eduardo tell him stories. He was Paolo’s father, and the two looked alike, although even now Eduardo was stronger than the sickly Paolo. The two sat one on each side of Xiaobo, who lay on a pile of blankets in the bare little room. Paolo held Xiaobo’s hand. Next to these three, Pete actually felt strong and whole.

  He knelt at the foot of the nest of blankets. “Xiaobo.”

  The dying man opened his eyes. When Pete had been very small, Xiaobo’s eyes had fascinated him: small, slanted, hooded by a fold of skin. At the same time, Xiaobo had scared him because he spoke so weird. English had come slowly to him, and now that Pete was grown himself he realized how lonely Xiaobo must have been in the Shell, the only Survivor of his people, the only one who could not talk to anyone else.

  “Xiaobo, are you hurting?”

  “No.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Nothing. I go now, Pete.”

  “You don’t know that you—”

  “It is time. I go.” He closed his eyes again, and smiled.

  I will never go that quietly. The thought built itself in his mind, solid as the Shell itself. I will not.

  He didn’t know what else to say, but then there wasn’t time to say anything else. Tommy, at seven, the oldest of the children and the only one yet permitted to leave the children’s room alone, raced into Xiaobo’s room. “The Grab is bright!”

  Pete leapt up. “Where’s McAllister?”

  “I don’t know!” The boy throbbed with excitement. Unlike Kara, Tommy was one who’d adapted easily to his new life.

  “It’s Ravi’s turn to go on the Grab,” Pete said. “Where’s Ravi?”

  “I don’t know that either! Anyway Terrell was supposed to go because McAllister said he’s twelve now but Terrell got sick again and threw up and Darlene came over from the farm and told him to go lie down in his room like a useless stone.”

  Darlene wasn’t supposed to tell Grab watchers anything. Pete, Paolo, and Eduardo looked at each other. How much longer would the platform stay bright? Paolo said, “You just went, Pete. Caity can go.”

  “She’s on baby duty,” Pete said. And he was off running down the corridor, cursing Ravi for being—where? Doing what? It was Ravi’s turn, not Terrell’s! And why had McAllister changed the duty roster?

  Tommy raced at his heels. “Can I go, Pete? Can I, huh? Can I go, too?”

  “No!”

  The boy stopped cold and shouted after him, “You’re selfish! You’re a selfish piggy who doesn’t care about the good of all! I’m telling! I am!”

  Pete reached the Grab machinery and climbed onto the platform.

  DECEMBER 2013

  Julie sat on her new sleep sofa in her living room, which had grown smaller with the addition of her desk, smaller still with the broad sofa, and yet again smaller with the Christmas tree crowded into a corner. The scent of Douglas fir drifted through the room. She was wrapping presents in bright metallic paper. Jake was flying in from Wyoming and although they weren’t particularly close, each was the only family the other had since their parents had died in a plane crash three years ago, and it was Christmas. For Christmas you gathered family, even if half your heritage was Jewish. Jake, who would sleep on the extended sofa with his feet against the tree, was about to discover that he had one more family member than he thought.

  She hadn’t told him earlier about her pregnancy because he was going to disapprove. Not of her getting pregnant, although he would undoubtedly consider that careless, but of her having and keeping the baby. Jake, deeply ambitious, had risen rapidly through the ranks of the U.S. Geological Survey. He was proud of both her career and his own, and he would frown at the year-long sabbatical she was taking to even have the baby, let alone the professional sacrifices that she knew perfectly well would follow. Julie did not intend to have her child raised by a succession of nannies, Even if she had had room for a nanny. She would make the transition from brilliant professor to brilliant consultant and work at home, perhaps teaching one course per semester as a sideline.
Already she had feelers out for potential projects with various industries and government agencies.

  She taped wrapping paper around a Bunny Mine, the current hot toy for toddlers. Her daughter, now a four-and-a-half-month fetus, wouldn’t be playing with a Bunny Mine for at least a year, but it would look cute on the shelves that Julie had put up in the nursery. The nursery was finished. The layette was complete. The childbirth classes began in January. It was all planned out, everything under control.

  Julie had just begun to wrap a sweater for Jake when her cell rang. “Hello, Julie Kahn speaking.”

  “This is Gordon.”

  Her lips pursed. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a month, since she’d given him her best stab at the revised data on the kidnappings. Since then she’d watched the Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine newspapers; no child had been reported as missing. Plenty of burglaries, of course—theft always picked up as Christmas approached—but without Gordon’s input, Julie had no way of knowing which ones fit the MO that the task force had been pursuing.

  “Hello, Gordon,” she said neutrally, hoping this call wasn’t personal.

  It wasn’t. He said, “I wanted you to know that the A-Dic pulled the plug on the task force. Each kidnapping has been assigned to a local Special Agent in Charge. The A-Dic just doesn’t believe a connective enterprise exists.”

  “The mathematical pattern exists.”

  “Maybe. No more kidnappings since Kara and Jennifer Carter. No store burglaries with that MO, either.”

  “Before this there have been long stretches between incidents.”

  He made a noise she recognized: the verbal equivalent of a shrug. Gordon was moving on. He was not a man to hold on to what he could not control.

  She said, “The pattern exists, Gordon.”

  Instead of agreeing or arguing, he said, “How are you?”

  “Still pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Can I come see you?”

  “No. You’re married, Gordon.”

  “There were two of us in those motel rooms, Julie.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I take complete responsibility for my actions, and for this result. It doesn’t involve you.”

  “Damn it, I’m the father!”

  She drew a deep breath. “Only biologically. I don’t mean that to be nasty, Gordon. You have no room for us in your life, and anyway I don’t want that. I don’t think you do, either, not really. Please just leave me be.”

  “If you need money—”

  “I don’t. Bye, Gordon. I’m sorry about the task force, because I still think there’s something there.”

  “But Julie—”

  Gently she pressed the disconnect button on her cell.

  Within her body, the baby moved, and she put her hand on her belly and watched the lights twinkle on and off on the little Christmas tree above the festive packages.

  2035

  It wasn’t dark, and it wasn’t light. It wasn’t anything. I’m dead, Pete thought, as usual, but of course he wasn’t, as usual.

  When the nothing receded, disappointment warred with relief. There would be no little girls here. But there would be no fighting or dying, either. He stood in dim light inside a store filled with objects he couldn’t even identify until he saw a big doll, life-size, with no head or arms or legs, wearing some of the objects. Oh—it was clothing! Skimpy filmy pants, strips of fancy cloth across the breasts, racks and racks of this stuff . . . All at once he pictured Caity wearing it, and then McAllister, and his cock rose and he groaned. He couldn’t bring back stuff like this!

  He glanced at his wrist to see how much time he had left, but of course he wasn’t wearing the wrister. Terrell still had it. Now what?

  He ran past the headless dolls wearing fancy skimpy things and discovered that around the corner were other parts of the store, that in fact it was as big as the children’s room, maybe even bigger than the farm. The other areas held different stuff, as well as shopping carts. He grabbed one and started throwing things into it from under a sign labeled HOMEWARES. Blankets, towels, rugs—damn this was good!—and then pots and a big red tray and boxes of spoons and—

  A dog came racing down a set of metal stairs, snarling and barking.

  Pete screamed and climbed on top of the shopping cart, nearly slipping on the red tray and falling back off. The dog leaped and its teeth closed on Pete’s leg, although only for a moment before the animal’s weight sent it crashing back to the floor. Pete screamed, grabbed the tray, and held it in front of him. With his other hand he yanked a pot free of the stuff in the shopping cart and threw it at the dog, missing it. How much time was left—how much? Blood streamed down his leg.

  The dog leapt again, but it couldn’t reach Pete on top of the cart. However, the impact of its body sent the cart skittering across the floor. Alarms sounded and lights came on. The dog barked and Pete shrieked at it.

  The cart rolled past a display of DIGITAL FOTO FRAME, heavy-looking metal squares. Pete grabbed one. Before he could throw it at the dog, the Grab took him back.

  On the platform, the rolling shopping cart kept rolling. It crashed over the edge and tipped on its side. Pete fell heavily amid pots, rugs, blankets. For a moment his head rang, but nothing on him broke and he staggered up out of the debris, clutching the DIGITAL FOTO FRAME and more furious than he’d ever been in his life.

  He roared at Tommy, “Where the fuck is Ravi?”

  The child was not a weeper. He stared back, scared but not budging, and said, “Where did you go?”

  Others rushed into the Grab room: Darlene, Paolo, Eduardo. From down the corridor Caity and Jenna, who could not leave the children, screamed, “What is it? What is it?” But no Ravi, and no McAllister.

  Pete pushed past everyone and ran down the corridor to the unused far end. Behind him Darlene cackled, “Oh, lovely, an electric fryer! Just what we need!”

  Paolo, unable to keep up, called, “Wait, Pete! Wait!”

  Tommy, easily able to keep up, ran beside him saying, “What is it? What, Pete? What?”

  He found them in the maze of rooms near the tip of the Shell. A blanket had been spread on the floor. McAllister had just slid her loose dress back onto her body, but Ravi was still naked, lying on the blanket, too drained and heavy to move. Pete recognized Ravi’s sated heaviness; he’d felt it after sex with Caity. But never with McAllister: never, never, never.

  She said, “Pete—”

  “You fucking bastards.”

  Tommy gaped. “What is it? What?”

  In rage and hurt and frustration, and before he knew he was going to do it, Pete threw the DIGITAL FOTO FRAME at McAllister. It grazed her on the side of the head and she cried out. Ravi leapt up and threw a punch at Pete. Pete dodged, Ravi missed, and Pete kicked him in the balls.

  “Stop! That’s enough!” McAllister shouted. But it wasn’t her words, or even that she shouted—McAllister, who never raised her voice! It was the blood on her head, streaming down one cheek. He had hurt McAllister. He collapsed to the ground in tears.

  Ravi was up and charging, but McAllister stopped him with a word. She bent over Pete. Now Paolo and Eduardo and Darlene were all there; Pete could see their bare feet from where he huddled on the floor. McAllister sent them all away with sharp commands, even Ravi, who snatched up his clothes as he left.

  “Pete,” she said, her voice soft again, “listen to me. Ravi—”

  “You never would with me! You said it would cause trouble! You said for the good of all—”

  “I know what I said. But listen to me, dear heart. Please listen, I know you’re strong enough to listen. This is for the good of all. Ravi is fertile.”

  He stopped ranting, too desolate even for rage.

  “You know I checked all of your sperm with the little microscope Jenna got on her Wal-Mart Grab. Ravi is the only one of you who is fertile. He’s had sex with both Caity and Jenna, and neither got pregnant, and now Jen
na is too fragile. This is the only chance left among ourselves.”

  “We have the Grab kids!”

  “Yes, of course. But we need every soul we can get, you know that. The Tesslies could end the Grabs at any time. And we miss some of them.”

  “Well, Ravi just missed his. And so did Terrell because he was throwing up—did you know that? So I just did the Grab and nearly got killed!” He tried to wrench free of her, but McAllister held on and the truth was that he didn’t want to get free.

  He wanted what Ravi had had.

  He put a hand on her breast. When she removed it, he forced her down onto the blanket.

  “No, Pete,” she said, calm as ever, “I know you wouldn’t do that. That’s not you. Dear heart, please try to understand. You have a deep, sweet nature and I know you can understand. For the good of all.”

  He let her up, gazing bleakly at the blood on her face. “I hurt you.”

  “And I hurt you. I’m deeply sorry for that, but we need to survive.”

  He said fiercely, “Did you like it?”

  She touched his eyelids, one after the other, a delicate finger-kiss.

  “Because Ravi liked it! I know!”

  “I love you, Pete. I love you all.”

  He got to his feet and seized the DIGITAL FOTO FRAME. Something had to be his, something had to be outside of the “good of all,” something had to be . . . He didn’t know what his confused thoughts meant. But he said defiantly, stupidly, “I’m keeping this!”

  “All right,” McAllister said.

  “It’s mine! Just mine!” Nothing ever belonged to one person, nothing.

  “All right,” she repeated.

  He clutched it, scowling at her, hating her, loving her. The silence stretched on. She waited, but he didn’t know for what. For him to say something, for him to look away.

  He looked away, down at the object in his hand, and said, “What is it?”

  APRIL 2014

  Under the Canadian glacier, molten rock bubbled up from a fissure in the earth. When the pressure became great enough, the ground erupted. Lava met ice, which instantly boiled into steam. The magma hitting the steam exploded into miniscule fragments, sending pillar after pillar of ash billowing overhead. The magma was heavy on silica from the chamber it had breached earlier, which made it much more viscous and sticky than usual. That prevented air bubbles from escaping quickly and so pressure built relentlessly, leading to more and more explosions.