The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books)

by Gardner Dozois

  Berit was still pulling hard for air. “I hope you’re planning to help out a little more this time.”

  Jayne snorted. “I thought it was very noble of me, to be the bait.”

  * * *

  They jumped down from the roof. Lorelei came out of the gold-foil dome of the pod. She held up a rectangular wafer for them to see. It was no more than one by two inches, thin as foil. “Light a torch,” she said.

  Jayne complied. The blue flame was a needle in the dark. “That’s it, then? That’s the source of the rogue code? And it’s the only one?”

  “It’s the only one I could find.” Lorelei laid the wafer down on the ice and stepped back. “Burn it.”

  Jayne did. Then she ground it with her boot and burned the remnants again.

  As they crossed the dusty regolith to the construction site, Jayne spotted a flock of tiny lights a few hundred yards away. “The mechs,” she announced. If not for the glowing circles dotting their legs and carapaces, they might have come unseen. “They must have been recharging in the honey hole.”

  “No,” Berit said grimly. “I think they were taking notes.”

  Lorelei stopped. “I don’t understand. Why are they hauling rebars?”

  The mechs’ legs flashed as they stepped swiftly through the dust and after a few seconds Jayne saw what Berit and Lorelei had spotted first: three of the mechs were armed with long steel rebars from the construction site.

  “Dammit, Jayne!” Berit groused. “They saw you hit that mech with a rod.”

  Lorelei turned. Jayne couldn’t see her face, but her voice sounded scandalized. “You hit a mech? I told you—”

  “This was before you told me.”

  “Did you damage it?”

  Jayne snorted. “Sadly, no. I used a plastic rod. The mechs have improved my example. They’ve got steel.”

  “We aren’t going to be able to get close to them,” Berit warned.

  By this time, the mechs were hardly a hundred yards away, and moving fast.

  “We could just walk out on the ice,” Lorelei said in a small voice. “Lead them away until they run out of power.”

  “If they’ve just come out of the honey hole they’ve got twelve hours. Our suits won’t last that long, and besides, I don’t want to give them a chance to blow the rest of the igloo.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  Jayne touched the seam that marked the healed tear in the forearm of her suit. A pressure suit was just another form of air skin. Without power, both turned into diamond-hard crystal. “We need to incapacitate the mechs without harming them.”

  “Right,” Berit said with sharp impatience. “And how do we do that?”

  “Let’s go back to the igloo. I have an idea.”

  Jayne took everyone up to the roof. With a muscle-assist from the suits, the jump was easy.

  “There are two ways we can lose this battle,” Jayne reminded. “We lose if the mechs kill us and we lose if we kill the mechs—but if it comes down to it and we’re going to lose anyway, let’s lose the second way. Agreed?”

  “We’re going to win,” Lorelei said in a hollow voice. Berit echoed the sentiment.

  Jayne shrugged. “Fine, then. Let’s win.”

  She jumped down through the blast hole into the blown bedchamber.

  During the time Jayne had been outside, the ragged edges of the room’s air skin had knit together, joining just a few feet above the floor. With the seal complete, the flexible membrane had hardened into a smooth, curved surface. Jayne kept her feet when she landed on it, but she couldn’t stop herself from sliding until she fetched up against the exposed wall of ice.

  It occurred to Jayne that not an hour before, she’d been sleeping in this room, in the cocoon of Carly’s warmth.

  “No time for sightseeing,” Berit chided gently.

  “Hush, child. Don’t annoy your elders.”

  Jayne fired up her torch. Braced against the wall, she bent low and started cutting.

  At the first touch of the flame, the air skin caved in, dropping away from the heat. Jayne bent lower and kept cutting, until slowly, slowly, the flame sliced the air skin open. The small space enclosed by the air skin had already started to re-pressurize, so for a second ice flakes geysered through the crack. Then, along the cut edges, the air skin softened, again becoming a flexible, rippling fabric as it strove to seal up the cut.

  Jayne didn’t let that happen. She jammed her foot through the crack and kicked it wider. Lorelei jumped down to help, folding the air skin back while Jayne kept cutting, separating a large sheet of it and exposing again the remains of the room.

  Berit stayed on the roof, watching the approaching mechs and counting down the time to their arrival. “You’ve got maybe twenty seconds. Okay, ten. That’s it! The first one just jumped to the roof.”

  Jayne passed the torch to Lorelei. “Be ready to make the last cut, but only when I tell you, not before.”

  It was too dark to see her face past the helmet, but she took the torch with steady hands.

  With a corner of the membrane gripped in one mechanical hand, Jayne jumped back up through the blast hole. All five remaining mechs were already on the roof. Berit stood facing them, with the hole at her back.

  The air skin writhed in Jayne’s grip, rolling up and down her arm. She hadn’t been afraid of the mechs before—not really, truly afraid. She’d known they were dangerous. After the first bang rod, she’d known her life and Berit’s and Lorelei’s could end as quickly as Carly’s had, but the mech assault had happened so fast she’d had no time to really be afraid . . . until now.

  Of the five mechs, three held ten-foot-long steel rebars, while two used their dexterous double arms to hold torches and drills. Jayne had a nasty suspicion the drills weren’t meant for drilling.

  “Look out!” she shouted, as a mech hurled its drill dead-on at Berit.

  Berit dropped flat. The drill spun past her, disappearing into the dark as the mechs swarmed.

  “Get up!” Jayne growled as the mechs came after Berit—a pack of mechanical zombies armed with sticks and stones and fire. “Berit, move.”

  “Stop worrying about me and do your job!” Berit snapped, still lying face down.

  “Fine, then!” Jayne tugged hard on the air skin. “Lorelei—cut it and jump!”

  Berit waited another second, until the mechs were in rebar range, then she vaulted backward, landing on her feet. The startled mechs slowed. Berit turned and ran. The zombie mob took off after her, while Lorelei shouted, “Jumping!”

  As Berit darted past the blast hole, Lorelei appeared at its mouth. She hauled herself out, clutching another corner of the air skin in one mechanical hand. They now had a sheet of it, cut free from the room. Severed from its power source, the skin had only seconds before it froze into a crystal coffin. Already Jayne felt it getting stiff in her hands. She got ready, knowing they’d have only one chance to make this work.

  Alongside the blast hole there was only a narrow strip of intact roof. The mechs bunched together as they passed around it, just as Jayne had hoped.

  “Stand firm,” she said. “I’m going . . . now!”

  With the air skin gripped in both hands, she stepped away from the mechanical mob. Lorelei held the other end and the skin became a trembling gray curtain between them. Lorelei stood behind it, but Jayne kept in sight. The mechs saw her and pursued, sweeping past Lorelei. As soon as they’d gone by, Lorelei cut behind them, bending the air skin to form a U.

  Now came the critical part. Could they close the circle? Jayne waited an extra second. Then she turned and darted back along the roof’s edge. The air skin billowed around the mechs as they turned to cut her off. And then she was past them. Lorelei was only a step away.

  “Pull it tight!” Jayne warned.

  An eight-foot rebar came spinning out of the mech mob. Jayne felt betrayed—she’d never taught them to throw a rebar! She ducked, but not fast enough. Steel slammed against her shoulder, knocking he
r down and sending her skidding across the ice—but she didn’t let go of the air skin. Her mechanical hands kept their grip, even as she plunged over the roof’s edge.

  Jayne stirred, wondering how she’d come to be in the easy room. She was stretched out on a couch, a blanket pulled up to her chin. Berit sat in a cushy chair a few feet away, watching her with a critical expression. Jayne tried to speak, but she had to swallow a few times before she had enough moisture in her throat to ask, “What the hell is going on?”

  Berit leaned back in her chair. Her eyes narrowed. “You fell off the roof. If you remember, that wasn’t in the plan.”

  It all started coming back. “Where’s Lorelei?”

  “I’m here, Jayne!” Her gentle voice came sailing out of HQ.

  “As it turns out,” Berit went on, “falling off the roof probably saved us all. The air skin wasn’t going to pull tight enough around the mechs to confine them—not until you went over. Then Lorelei jumped after you and dragged the mechs down with her. By the time they knew what hit them, the air skin had crystallized around them and they couldn’t move. All but one. It got out, but I tackled it and shut it down.”

  “And the rest?”

  “We cut them out one at a time and turned them off. Then we reset them all to factory specs. Lorelei’s loading some basic construction directives into them now.”

  “So we got lucky again?”

  “We got lucky. The Red didn’t beat us this time. You did good, Jaynie. I’m proud of you. You didn’t harm even a single enemy.”

  Jayne snorted. “Let’s both try to live a few years longer—and make up for it next time.”

  UNDER THE EAVES

  Lavie Tidhar

  Here’s another Central Station story, brought to you courtesy of Lavie Tidhar, whose “The Memcordist” appears elsewhere in this anthology. This one is an eloquent, bittersweet tale that demonstrates that no matter how much the world may change around you, some things always remain the same.

  MEET ME TOMORROW?” she said.

  “Under the eaves.” He looked from side to side, too quickly. She took a step back. “Tomorrow night.” They were whispering. She gathered courage like cloth. Stepped up to him. Put her hand on his chest. His heart was beating fast, she could feel it through the metal. His smell was of machine oil and sweat.

  “Go,” he said. “You must—” the words died, unsaid. His heart was like a chick in her hand, so scared and helpless. She was suddenly aware of power. It excited her. To have power over someone else, like this.

  His finger on her cheek, trailing. It was hot, metallic. She shivered. What if someone saw?

  “I have to go,” he said.

  His hand left her. He pulled away and it rent her. “Tomorrow,” she whispered. He said, “Under the eaves,” and left, with quick steps, out of the shadow of the warehouse, in the direction of the sea.

  She watched him go and then she, too, slipped away, into the night.

  In early morning, the solitary shrine to St. Cohen of the Others, on the corner of Levinsky, sat solitary and abandoned beside the green. Road cleaners crawled along the roads, sucking up dirt, spraying water and scrubbing, a low hum of gratitude filling the air as they gloried in this greatest of tasks, the momentary holding back of entropy.

  By the shrine a solitary figure knelt. Miriam Jones, Mama Jones of Mama Jones’ shebeen around the corner, lighting a candle, laying down an offering, a broken electronics circuit as of an ancient television remote control, obsolete and useless.

  “Guard us from the Blight and from the Worm, and from the attention of Others,” Mama Jones whispered, “and give us the courage to make our own path in the world, St. Cohen.”

  The shrine did not reply. But then, Mama Jones did not expect it to, either.

  She straightened up, slowly. It was becoming more difficult, with the knees. She still had her own kneecaps. She still had most of her original parts. It wasn’t anything to be proud of, but it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, either. She stood there, taking in the morning air, the joyous hum of the road cleaning machines, the imagined whistle of aircraft high above, RLVs coming down from orbit, gliding down like parachuting spiders to land on the roof of Central Station.

  It was a cool, fresh morning. The heat of summer did not yet lie heavy on the ground, choking the very air. She walked away from the shrine and stepped on the green, and it felt good to feel grass under her feet. She remembered the green when she was young, with the others like her, Somali and Sudanese refugees who found themselves in this strange country, having crossed desert and borders, seeking a semblance of peace, only to find themselves unwanted and isolated here, in this enclave of the Jews. She remembered her father waking every morning, and walking to the green and sitting there, with the others, the air of quiet desperation making them immobile. Waiting. Waiting for a man to come in a pickup truck and offer them a labourer’s job, waiting for the UN agency bus—or, helplessly, for the Israeli police’s special Oz Agency to come and check their papers, with a view towards arrest or deportation . . .

  Oz meant “strength,” in Hebrew.

  But the real strength wasn’t in intimidating helpless people, who had nowhere else to turn. It was in surviving, the way her parents had, the way she had—learning Hebrew, working, making a small, quiet life as past turned to present and present to future, until one day there was only her, still living here, in Central Station.

  Now the green was quiet, only a lone robotnik sitting with his back to a tree, asleep or awake she couldn’t tell. She turned, and saw Isobel passing by on her bicycle, heading towards the Salameh Road. Already traffic was growing on the roads, the sweepers, with little murmurs of disappointment, moving on. Small cars moved along the road, their solar panels spread like wings. There were solar panels everywhere, on rooftops and the sides of buildings, everyone trying to snatch away some free power in this sunniest of places. Tel Aviv. She knew there were sun farms beyond the city, vast tracts of land where panels stretched across the horizon, sucking in hungrily the sun’s rays, converting them into energy that was then fed into central charging stations across the city. She liked the sight of them, and fashion-wise it was all the rage, Mama Jones’ own outfit had tiny solar panes sewn into it, and her wide-brimmed hat caught the sun, wasting nothing—it looked very stylish.

  Where was Isobel going? She had known the girl since she’d been born, the daughter of Mama Jones’ friend and neighbour, Irina Chow, herself the product of a Russian Jewish immigrant who had fallen in love with a Chinese-Filipina woman, one of the many who came seeking work, years before, and stayed. Irina herself was Mama Jones’ age, which is to say, she was too old. But the girl was young. Irina had frozen her eggs a long time ago, waiting for security, and when she had Isobel it was the local womb labs that housed her during the nine long months of hatching. Irina was a pastry chef of some renown but had also her wild side: she sometimes hosted Others. It made Mama Jones uncomfortable, she was old-fashioned, the idea of bodysurfing, like Joining, repelled her. But Irina was her friend.

  Where was Isobel going? Perhaps she should mention it to the girl’s mother, she thought. Then she remembered being young herself, and shook her head, and smiled. When had the young ever listened to the old?

  She left the green and crossed the road. It was time to open the shebeen, prepare the sheesha pipes, mix the drinks. There will be customers soon. There always were, in Central Station.

  Isobel cycled along the Salameh Road, her bicycle like a butterfly, wings open, sucking up sun, murmuring to her in a happy sleepy voice, nodal connection mixed in with the broadcast of a hundred thousand other voices, channels, music, languages, the high-bandwidth indecipherable toktok of Others, weather reports, confessionals, off-world broadcasts time-lagged from Lunar Port and Tong Yun and the Belt, Isobel randomly tuning in and out of that deep and endless stream of what they called the Conversation.

  The sounds and sights washed over her: deep space images from a lone spider cra
shing into a frozen rock in the Oort Cloud, burrowing in to begin converting the asteroid into copies of itself; a re-run episode of the Martian soap Chains of Assembly; a Congolese station broadcasting Nuevo Kwasa-Kwasa music; from North Tel Aviv, a talk show on Torah studies, heated; from the side of the street, sudden and alarming, a repeated ping—Please help. Please donate. Will work for spare parts.

  She slowed down. By the side of the road, on the Arab side, stood a robotnik. It was in bad shape—large patches of rust, a missing eye, one leg dangling uselessly—the robotnik’s still-human single eye looked at her, but whether in mute appeal, or indifference, she couldn’t tell. It was broadcasting on a wide band, mechanically, helplessly—on a blanket on the ground by its side there was a small pile of spare parts, a near-empty gasoline can—solar didn’t do much for robotniks.

  No, she couldn’t stop. She mustn’t. It made her apprehensive. She cycled away but kept looking back, passersby ignoring the robotnik like it wasn’t there, the sun rising fast, it was going to be another hot day. She pinged him back, a small donation, more for her own ease than for him. Robotniks, the lost soldiers of the lost wars of the Jews—mechanized and sent to fight and then, later, when the wars ended, abandoned as they were, left to fend for themselves on the streets, begging for the parts that kept them alive . . .

  She knew many of them had emigrated off-world, gone to Tong Yun, on Mars. Others were based in Jerusalem, the Russian Compound made theirs by long occupation. Beggars. You never paid much attention to them.

  And they were old. Some of them have fought in wars that didn’t even have names, any more.

  She cycled away, down Salameh, approaching Jaffa proper—

  Security protocols handshaking, negotiating, her ident tag scanned and confirmed as she made the transition from Central Station to Jaffa City—

  And approved, and she passed through and cycled to the clock tower, ancient and refurbished, built in honour of the Ottoman Sultan back when the Turks were running things.