The Apex Book of World SF

by Mahvesh Murad

  “You didn’t get these thanks to a gambling debt,” Eve said. “The financial dilemma was caused by other vices.”

  “But…”

  “Trust me, knowing people’s darkest secrets is my…specialty.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry!” Gustav felt rather slow. He really should’ve guessed, after the knife. “I didn’t mean for you to go through something like that without due warning…”

  She smiled at him again, warmly. “Don’t worry. My ‘gift’ doesn’t trouble me. I just thought that you ought to know.”

  Without withdrawing her arm from Gustav’s firm grip, she twisted her wrist to move the glass to her lips again and touched the rim with her tongue. It was soft, pink, and moist from the cognac. He swallowed hard.

  “He was quite a character, your nobleman.” Her voice had a dreamy quality. “Deviant, depraved, and ruthless. Most delightful.”

  As she set down the glass, she let her hand travel along his sleeve to the cuff, where she rested it and looked at him.

  “Would you be willing to negotiate the knife for what I have brought? Or should we leave it for another time?”

  “Ah…yes. I mean, let’s have a look at the item before we discuss that, shall we?”

  Gustav cursed his trembling voice and the dryness of his throat as she placed the briefcase on the table and opened it. Set into the middle of the padding was a small box. She took it out, closed the briefcase, and placed the box on the table before taking a small key from her jacket pocket and unlocking it.

  “Now, I would like to see the payment before proceeding.”

  Gustav retrieved a large carton box from the sideboard, and opened the lid. With two sets of tweezers he peeled back the tissue paper inside to reveal a faded, embroidered waistcoat.

  “One piece of clothing, worn by Marquis de Sade.” He couldn’t control the wave of shivers going up his arm.

  “Excellent.” Eve opened the box. “Mother Teresa’s head-cloth. Guaranteed authenticity.”

  Gustav could barely think straight. His ears were buzzing and his fingertips itched. Would he finally experience true goodness? Unaware of his movements, he reached for the box and was surprised when she grabbed him by the arm.

  “I would prefer that we finalised this transaction first. We don’t want to risk damaging any future dealings between us, do we?”

  He, reluctantly and with some difficulty, tore his attention from the tempting glimpse of white. It was no more than a piece of fabric, but it had been part of something bigger. A wholeness. A life.

  “Of course.”

  “You contacted my client, through an agent, and made an agreement regarding Mother Teresa’s head-cloth, in part or whole, in exchange for clothing worn by Marquis de Sade, of which you have given previous proof of authenticity.” She placed a small stack of documents on the table. “As per the agreement, these documents give a detailed account of all locations that the head-cloth has passed through since Mother Teresa last took it off. The people who have handled it have been kept anonymous for…business purposes. That, too, is in accordance with the agreement.”

  Gustav scanned the documents, not really caring, and nodded, looking up at her. “Everything seems to be in order.”

  “Good.” She slid the box over to him and, for a brief moment, her fingers touched the back of his hand. Gustav caught a short glimpse of an obsidian blade caressing a woman’s leg, over a stocking and naked skin before cutting a garter in one swift motion.

  When the vision had faded, he found her sitting with her legs primly crossed and her gaze fixed on the knife display.

  “Ah, yes, about the knife… Perhaps we could reach an agreement?”

  “Perhaps.” She smiled warmly at him as she pulled her glove back on, wrapped up the large box, and stood up. “But I can see that your mind is elsewhere, and that knife deserves complete attention, wouldn’t you say?”

  Since Gustav could not let the glimpse of white out of his mind, he had nothing to say, but her comment still made his mouth go dry. As she stood, Gustav rose immediately, got her coat and held it out for her.

  “It has been a pleasure doing business with you. I do hope to see you again soon.”

  That was a weak version of what he would’ve liked to say, but he stumbled over even that.

  He knew that she had seen his desire at the same time as he had seen the vision of hers. So, he made an effort to quiet his mind and think of nothing but the woman in front of him. Of her ability, of the knife, of everything that two people with such similar, but still opposite, gifts could have to offer one another. She stood very still as he put the coat over her shoulders, and with her subtle scent in his nostrils he caressed the skin right above her pearls with the tips of his fingers. She gasped and stepped away.

  “I believe we will meet again,” her voice rough around the edges, “soon.”

  Without a second glance she took the large parcel and walked out of his sanctuary. He heard the chiming doorbell over the front door as she left the shop.

  Gustav sat down again, reached for the box, and set it on his lap. The wood was cool and smooth. He made himself sit with it just so, closed, for a little while. If this was to be the end of his quest, he wanted to treasure this moment of anticipation. And if not?

  Well, there was only one way to know.

  With trembling fingers he opened the lid, gripped the delicate fabric, and lost himself. The world fell away and turned into minute details: vegetable fibres, processing, weaving, sewing, then the daily use, the gentle touch of hands shrivelled with age. Snapshots of prayers, wishes and pleas for mercy flickered by. Desperation, rapture, deep love. Worship. Kindness. Mild and tired. It filled him to the brim and he flowed over.

  But it was not what he had been looking for.

  Not a pure, unadulterated feeling of goodness.

  Gustav wiped his cheeks with the backs of his hands, stroking away the tears that kept rolling, before he carefully put the fabric back in its box and locked it.

  Better luck next time, he thought, draining the last drops of cognac from Eve’s glass.

  Pepe

  Tang Fei

  Translated by John Chu

  Tang Fei is a speculative fiction writer whose fiction has been featured (under various pen names) in magazines in China such as Science Fiction World, Jiuzhou Fantasy, and Fantasy Old and New. She is also a genre critic, and her critical essays have been published in The Economic Observer. Her stories have been published in Apex Magazine, Clarkesworld, and in The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014.

  “Let’s go to the amusement park.” As Pepe speaks, a ray of red light scratches her face. Her face looks wounded then healed, welcoming some other color of light.

  “But we’re already here.” I look silly holding the cigarette, but I’m holding it anyway.

  We stand in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. Pepe’s white, silk skirt billows in the wind. Her long, slender legs never seem to touch the ground. I have to keep hold of her. This makes me look stupid, so it makes me angry.

  Even more annoying, when she hits me with her lollipop, I can’t hit back.

  “Hey, idiot, let’s go to the amusement park.”

  “But we’re already here.”

  Her eyes grow wide. She grabs my cigarette, take a deep drag, then realizes I’ve only been pretending.

  “Pepe.” I want her to look at me.

  But her scarlet lips pout, then she blows a smoke ring at the sky. The way she looks at the sky always make me nervous. Our creator put a tightly wound spring into our bodies. But, in the end, even he forgot where each spring’s key went to. By the time he died, rust covered our springs like lichen on his tombstone. Because we’ll never have tombstones, our creator gave us springs.

  He was fair. I tell myself that a lot. I know that was me telling a lie, but who cares. I only lie when I’m telling stories and, whenever I speak, I can only tell stories.

  We were created to tell stories. On a good day,
a person can tell so many, many stories. They ought to have some principles in them—storytelling principles. But we don’t know any. We’re driven by tightly wound springs. Once they start turning, stories spin out of our bodies. We scatter them like seeds wherever we run to. When we tell stories, our lips wriggle as fast as flight. The people listening to us get dizzy. It’s better when they close their eyes as they listen. When they close their eyes, they can understand better the stories we tell. However, they can never fully understand.

  This is how our creator first designed us. People called him a drunk. One day, after he poured his thirteenth shot of tequila (he’d downed only twelve shots at most before), suddenly, he smacked his head, then rushed home. Black and white blocks of ideas collided in a great dark and bright river inside his body. Pain shook his hands, twisted his back, and made him howl. The night our creator downed his thirteenth shot of tequila, he went home, then he created us.

  He said we were salt. The salt of his palm. The salt of the earth.

  When he finished speaking, he drove us all away.

  The scene was so chaotic. So small a house. So many people. Everyone craned their necks. So crowded. Bodies squeezed against bodies. All of them alike.

  The hot air was insufferable. My skin hurt. My nose hurt. The pain in my throat rushed down into my heart. We exhaled the burning air then inhaled again. Everyone hurt but no one left. We were waiting for our creator to speak again but he didn’t. He rose brandishing his fist to drive us all out of the house. Everyone ran, pushing and squeezing their way to the door, the extremely narrow door. Random shadows and screams rose from inside the room. Rocking and swaying, we collided onto the street.

  The outside was so cool. The wind poured into my head through my ears. It blew away the screams but our shadows continued to scramble up the walls. My head opened like a gate and let the wind scream into an empty darkness just like how the room I’d just left was now.

  Without a thought, I ran and ran and ran.

  Before I realized what had happened, it had happened. Pepe’s hand was in mine. Her hair and skirt fluttered backward in the wind like outstretched wings. We ran hand in hand into the darkness.

  This is exactly how it happened.

  I was wearing khaki shorts. Pepe was wearing her white skirt. We ran hand in hand into the darkness.

  We are story-telling machine kids. We’ll never grow up. Forever wearing khaki shorts. Forever wearing a white skirt. Forever, except for telling stories, unable to speak.

  The crowd waiting to ride the pirate ship parts in two. The people in front scatter to make room for us. Adults, children, even infants all look at us with friendly expressions. I’ve told them Pepe is my kid sister, that she has a serious illness and that she doesn’t have many days left to live. Pepe is thrilled because she doesn’t need to wait in line to ride the pirate ship. She runs dragging me to the front. I hear some people sigh. Pepe definitely doesn’t look normal. This makes them believe my story even more. In the story I told these kind-hearted people, she’ll die soon. So no matter what she does, it will be forgiven. So long as she doesn’t say anything.

  “Before this world could yet have been considered a world, thirteen witches passed through here. As a result, they chose here to settle down. As a result, they became this world’s first witches. They predate this world.”

  I cover Pepe’s mouth and drag her away from the woman taking tickets. Pepe’s white skirt rustles as it grazes the woman’s red skirt. The ticket woman is still thinking about what Pepe said. When people speak, it must be for some practical reason. She can’t understand what Pepe’s words mean.

  “Your tickets?” Her gaze lingers on me.

  I hand over the tickets. At the same time, I compliment her eyes. “Once, I met a girl. Her eyes were extremely beautiful. Just like yours.”

  She smiles a little. She can understand my words. Or so she thinks.

  Pepe and I sit at the prow of the pirate ship. Soon, the entire ship has filled up. People next to Pepe and me look at our legs, which shake up and down as though we had leg cramps. They treat us like misbehaving children. If they knew who we were, they’d call the police to arrest us, or wait until the pirate ship swung into mid-air, then toss us out.

  However, that era has long passed. That’s what their grandparents had done. Back then, they weren’t that old yet and they were stronger than us. Their bloodshot eyes, flaring nostrils, angry slogans, and the loss of life. The fanaticism that fermented during day, the fanaticism that fermented during the deep purple night. I remember all those things.

  Those people were all drunk. In throngs, they searched every corner. They wanted to expose us, separate us from the other children wearing full, white skirts and khaki shorts. It always goes like this: They chase us, they block us, they surround us, they ask us questions. All the kids who can’t answer are grabbed by the ankle, lifted into the air, then shaken like empty pockets back and forth against walls, against utility poles, against the ground, against railings. Our bodies are so light. That’s how our creator designed us. Even if they smash us to pieces, we won’t leak tears.

  We also don’t have blood.

  People walked over the tumbling bits of us that now covered the ground. They never wanted to know that originally we had hearts, too. They just wanted us to die. We shouldn’t have been discovered. This world doesn’t need any stories because stories are wrong. They are dangerous and despicable. Desires meet and shine a light on the secrets of the heart. After the first time someone discovered his secret in a story, after that secret spread, people gradually fell out of love with listening to our nonsense. In it, they heard their own past, what they didn’t want other people to know. They shut our mouths. It’s always like that. This was just one battle.

  They wanted to kill us then throw us away. So, they first let themselves think we were harmful beings to be feared. If they didn’t prevent it, one day in the future, we’d become so powerful and destructive, nothing could compare to us. After they convinced themselves, they started to tell others. At last, the most eloquent of them was selected to be their leader. When they assembled, he stood on a great, big platform and roared into the microphone. The dark, dense, and turbulent crowd below, like the sea echoing the wind, roared in response.

  At last, they waged war. They won.

  Many years later, the people who waged and fought the war were placed into Intensive Care Units, slow catheters inserted into their bodies. They were old now, settled down, near to death. The deathly pale hospital light shrouded their dull, ashen skin like a layer of dirty snow on the road. They’d finally calmed down. And I still have Pepe, sitting next to the children of their children riding the pirate ship together.

  The pirate ship starts to move. Pepe squirms, tugging at my sleeve. She’s afraid of being rocked back and forth. The big machine starts to buzz. The first downswing is just a gentle sway. Pepe looks like she wanted to cry. She won’t stop beating her temples with her fists. I grab her wrists, but the disaster is about to start. Her tongue is moving, continuing the story she just started:

  “The witches loved to sing. They sang of the earth and there was the earth. They sang of the sky and there was the sky. They kept singing and this world changed into what it is now. At last, one day, the witches didn’t think this was fun anymore. They had nothing left to sing about.

  ‘I don’t think we’re needed any more,’ the best tempered witch said.

  ‘Then let’s change the game we play,’ the smartest witch said.

  ‘Are you suggesting subtraction?’ the witch who understood people the best guessed as she cocked her head.

  ‘Right. Play a punishment game,’ the most brutal witch yelled, waving her arms.

  The rest of the witches agreed, one after another. Just like that, the witches agreed to play the subtraction game.”

  I hug Pepe. No one listens to her story. Light and lively music starts to play. The pirate ship flies into the air. Everyone screams. Now the sh
ip stops at the peak of its swing to the right for a couple seconds or maybe an hour. We’re at the bottom of the ship looking at the people at the top bowing their heads and staring at us. Their mouths stretch into large, black holes, exposing their throats. Only Pepe doesn’t scream. Her soft red lips change shape. She continues to tell her story. No one listens.

  I practically clamp her under my arms. Stay still, Pepe.

  Pepe lets me. Her head droops. Just like before, she doesn’t move, not even one bit, her arms wrapped around my waist. I let go a little. Suddenly, the pirate ship falls. It swoops down from its peak on the right and inertia pushes it up to the left. I scream, pushing myself away from Pepe. She throws herself on me, choking me. Her fingernails have grown long again. I always remember to cut her fingernails. Every time, I cut down to nothing and, by the time we fight, I’m still scratched by them just the same. Her fingernails grow so fast. Pepe is just that kind of kid. Her hair and fingernails grow and grow like mad. Like the weeds in a wasteland, they never stop. When she goes crazy, she doesn’t care who she hurts or what she destroys.

  I cave under her attack. She definitely hates me to death, brandishing her arms, wanting to rip me to pieces. My hairband breaks. Black hair scatters, fluttering like snakes in the air. Far away, the sky and earth quiver and sway. The music and shouting mix in the wind. The pirate ship stops. We’re at the very top, nearly parallel to the ground, our whole body weight straining against the seatbelts. You’re OK as long as you hold onto the armrest. However, I have to hold onto Pepe’s wrists. Loosen my grip even a little and she’ll start beating me again. Next time, she might use her teeth. Pepe, stay still, stay still. I face her and gaze into her eyes. That way, she’ll stay still. However, she hides her eyes behind her hair.

  “The witches want to play the subtraction game,” she says.

  Pepe opens her mouth. A moist, warm breath rushes out. She cries. I stare at her, wordlessly. I want to save my strength.