Brave New Girls: Tales of Girls and Gadgets

by Kate Moretti

Yes, I do.

  So you can rewrite them.

  Can, yes. But I won’t.

  Why not?

  I can’t tell you.

  Why can’t you tell me?

  Because there’s a rule.

  Gracie ached to throw something at him. Is there really nothing you can do? Not even for Darcy?

  There is nothing to be done for Darcy. Otherwise, I would. Rostom’s words were a knife in Gracie’s side. And all I can do for Georgie is what I’ve already done—nothing to stop you. I’m sorry, but Georgie’s future is entirely in your hands.

  That was that.

  Gracie turned away from the avatar in disgust. What good was Rostom if he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, intervene to save a life? She no longer cared if she was evicted or exiled. She would live with Georgie happily. But first, she had to catch Thorwald and put an end to his plans.

  As the tender approached the remora-yacht, Gracie felt a pang of loss for Darcy and then brushed it aside. Mourning would have to wait. Georgie was still alive.

  Everything she had thrown at Thorwald’s firewall had been rebuffed. She had to accept that she couldn’t stop him in the Verse. Could she do it in real space and time? Did she have whatever it took to kill a man? Gracie wasn’t sure, but she did know there were no weapons on the roof of the maintenance tender.

  A thousand meters out, Gracie forced herself up onto her feet. Bracing herself and leaning into the wind, she was surfing in a way, she realized. Georgie’s yacht was beautiful, no more than a hundred meters long and shaped like an arrowhead.

  The wind whipped at her hair.

  Five hundred meters—Thorwald had arrived in a craft of his own. A shielded hover-bike floated, tethered to the mast of Georgie’s yacht.

  Two hundred meters—Gracie made a snap decision. Most captains bound remora-yachts to the Bagdasarian with an integrated umbilical tube that provided water, power, and access on and off. Georgie was different. She would never leave her bed, let alone her yacht, so she had made do with a basic utility hookup.

  One hundred meters—Gracie aimed the tender straight at Thorwald’s bike.

  Twenty-five meters—she took a running jump.

  Her timing was perfect. When Gracie leapt over the edge, the tender was almost at the yacht. Momentum did the rest. Having learned her lesson earlier that day, she landed at a run and fell into a roll, ending up facedown on the plating. The tender struck Thorwald’s bike head-on and blasted through as if it weren’t there. Dozens of pieces of former hover-bike were scattered everywhere. Whatever happened next, Thorwald wasn’t getting off the yacht any time soon.

  Gracie stood up gingerly, undamaged but sore.

  Thorwald had cut the hatch open with a torch. The edges were still warm. It was dark inside. Georgie must have turned off the power to slow him down.

  Gracie sent a final barrage of queries into the yacht. The firewall held fast. So be it.

  Discarded tools lay strewn around the open hatch. She picked up a screwdriver, weighed it in her hand, and decided it would do as well as anything.

  “Here goes nothing,” she said as she lowered herself into the belly of the yacht. It was only a short drop—a meter at most.

  She was at the stern. The engines were mounted on either side of her. She was standing in a storage chamber, or something technical. Engineering, maybe? Arms outstretched, Gracie reached into the dark but found only cold textured walls—cupboards probably. If she could open one, she might find a flashlight or a better weapon, but she could barely see her hand in front of her face, and there was no time to waste. Georgie needed her.

  Five paces into the ship, she found an open door. The hinges and locks had been cut around. The door was on the floor—the deck, Gracie supposed. The edges of the cuts were hot, not warm. She was catching up.

  When she stepped through the opening, she lost the last residual light from outside. She was on her own, operating blindly. Peering into the darkness, she saw a faint red light somewhere ahead.

  After three more steps, she found the source of the light: another door cut open, the edges still aglow.

  There was a noise in the distance. Gracie stopped dead. Shocks of dread skittered through her belly and legs. She was only fourteen. Armed with a screwdriver. Untrained. Rostom should have sent a full security team.

  There were two noises now. The first was something she had never heard before—a roar like angry water being driven under pressure through a valve. That was the torch, she assumed. Thorwald was working on another door. And he was talking to someone.

  Gracie tuned her ears to the sound of his voice. No, he wasn’t talking. He was reciting something: a rhyme. She couldn’t make out the words. Thorwald sounded wrong.

  This next chamber felt large. Open. It had to be the heart of Georgie’s ship. Her cabin would likely be just one door away. Was Thorwald working on the right door? Gracie had to act as if he was. Assume she had only moments to save her friend’s life.

  She crept forward, screwdriver in hand—not sure she could use it but determined that she would. As she drew near, his words became clear.

  “I’m coming for you, Georgie. I’m going to cut your throat.” His voice was deep and rough.

  She imagined flecks of spittle at the corners of his mouth. Why was he talking about cutting Georgie’s throat? All he had to do was turn off her life support.

  “I’m coming for you, Georgie. I’m going to cut your throat…”

  That was all she needed. Thorwald was a beast. Thorwald had to die.

  Gracie pictured Georgie lying defenseless in her bed behind this next door. She wondered if Georgie was aware. She couldn’t imagine how her friend must feel, trapped inside her body, waiting to die.

  She must still be aware, Gracie thought. Otherwise, why would her body need to die? Could consciousness live on without a body? That didn’t seem right, but Gracie didn’t know. A white-hot flame was licking at the darkness. Thorwald was no more than ten strides away. Gracie froze.

  “I’m coming for you, Georgie. I’m going to cut your throat…”

  He was bigger and stronger. He was holding the torch and obviously had a knife, as well.

  Gracie had a screwdriver and the element of surprise.

  Thorwald was a deranged psychopath.

  She should run.

  She took another step forward. Something snapped underneath her foot. It sounded like glass.

  Thorwald spun around. The flame made an arc of light in the air. “What was that? Who’s there?”

  Gracie realized she had another advantage. While he held the torch, she knew where he was, but he was effectively blind beyond the range of its flame.

  Thorwald waved the torch as if it were a sword, slashing and thrusting at his unseen enemy.

  She sidled away. One step. A second. A third. Something brushed her thigh.

  “Is that you, Gracie?” Thorwald asked the dark. “It is, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you. You were next on my list, but now, I suppose, I shall have to kill you first.”

  Gracie bit her lip. Tasted blood. Answering his taunt would be a fatal mistake. Silence and the darkness were her friends. Reaching down, she found she had discovered a chair. Carefully, she worked her way around it and put it between Thorwald and herself.

  “Georgie and Gracie, Gracie and Georgie, what a pretty pair of corpses you will make.” He was moving forward slowly, bearing the torch before him at arm’s length. “I’m coming for you, Gracie. I’m going to cut your throat…”

  Gracie’s grip tightened on the screwdriver.

  “I’m coming for you, Gracie. I’m going to slash your throat…”

  She watched Thorwald walk past her, only three or four steps away.

  “I’m coming for you, Gracie. I�
�m going to rip your throat out…”

  No, I’m coming for you, she told him in her head and stepped forward around the chair again. Thanks to the movement of his torch, Thorwald’s broad back was a hard target to miss. Gracie decided she had to act now while she was still angry, before her fear took over. Gathering up her emotions—her loathing for this man, her deep sorrow for Darcy, her absolute need to protect her helpless friend—she rolled them all into a ferocious ball of intense inner fire and took two, three, and four quick steps toward him, then she plunged her screwdriver into his back.

  That was the moment everything changed.

  As soon as the tip of the screwdriver broke Thorwald’s skin, the lights came on, and Gracie saw him cease—there was no better word. He’d disappeared as if a switch had been turned.

  “What in the stars?”

  What was going on?

  Thorwald was an avatar?

  How was that possible?

  Gracie dropped the screwdriver and rocked back on her heels as if she’d been punched in the face.

  Behind her, a door opened. Gracie spun around at the sound. It was Rostom. “You’d better come in.”

  The door was halfway off its hinges. Gracie edged through and realized she had been wrong. There was her friend, Georgie, on the bed, in real time and space. Tubes everywhere, a mask over her mouth, but Georgie, no doubt. Her skin was dull and paper-thin. Her eyes were closed. Gracie might have cried for her, but she needed answers. That ball of fire was gathering again.

  “What,” she snapped at Rostom, “have you done?”

  Rostom smiled. “I think you should sit down.” He gestured at an armchair in the corner of the room.

  “No, I’ll stand.” She was furious. She thought she understood finally. “This has been you all along, hasn’t it?”

  “Me,” Rostom said. “And also Georgie.”

  “What? Why? I don’t understand.” Gracie was lost.

  “You’ve been very brave,” Rostom told her. “Brave and resourceful. I’ve been very impressed.”

  Any moment now, that ball of fire was going to burst into flames of outrage. This had been a test? If Gracie could have kicked him, she would have aimed her foot at Rostom’s groin. Instead, she pinged a hopeful message to Georgie. It bounced straight back to her. Thorwald was gone, but the firewall remained. “Maybe,” she said, “I will sit down.”

  She used the short walk across the room to calm herself. Anger was an energy, but in this situation, it was useless to her. Georgie was still trapped. Something was wrong.

  “Yes,” Rostom said, “the firewall is up, but I promise you there’s no need to be scared.”

  Gracie could have kicked herself then. He knew everything she did in the Verse. “So why is it still up?”

  “Georgie doesn’t want to hear this conversation.”

  “Oh.” Gracie was taken aback. “Why not?”

  “It’s not for me to say. Now…”

  Any time Rostom paused, it was for effect. Even so, Gracie couldn’t help herself. “Yes?”

  “I have upset you. I apologize. But I assure you, everything I’ve done was entirely necessary. I had to be sure.”

  Sure of what? That Gracie would risk her life to save her friend? Take a life? Was Georgie even real, or was she as much a part of Rostom as Thorwald had obviously been? Gracie had nothing to say. She stared at the avatar’s eyes and waited for him to go on.

  He sighed, as if exasperated. Gracie couldn’t resist. She grinned.

  “Okay, Gracie,” Rostom said with a smile of his own. “I won’t sugarcoat it. In a year, you will become a citizen. But I don’t think you’re going to fit in.”

  “How can you say that? I’ll be a model citizen.”

  “Maybe you will. But that’s not what I mean. Being a model citizen is all well and good if you’re somebody like Darcy or her friends. But you can be so much more.”

  Darcy? If none of this had been real, Gracie realized, Darcy was still alive. She queried their neighborhood, refreshed all her views. Sure enough, there was Darcy, sitting at that table, playing that game with all her new friends. There had never been an empty chair. Rostom had hidden her; that was all. Gracie had so much to say, her tongue didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know whether she should laugh, cry, or scream. She could be more?

  “What… what do you mean?”

  Rostom put a hand to his jaw, as if he were deliberating, picking his next words with care. He wanted her to understand that this was important. “What I mean, Gracie, is I don’t believe you would ever be happy, truly happy, or fulfilled living an ordered life within a habitat. And I would like to offer you something else. Something more. A job, if you like. A role of importance to me and my kind.”

  Gracie had always known there were other Civilization Class Vessels like the Bagdasarian, but she had never considered them a kind—a group of sentient beings with common goals and problems. “Go on.”

  “I want you to consider becoming my agent.”

  So yes, Gracie thought, this has all been a test, a job interview? “And what would your agent do?”

  “Whatever I needed her to. Deliver messages. Investigate suspicious events across the galaxies. And…”

  “Yes?”

  “And find a missing scientist who might have a cure for Georgie.”

  “Oh.” Georgie was real. Gracie was glad.

  “Yes.” Rostom nodded. “If you accept my offer, I’ll partner you with her. You’ll take this yacht, and the two of you will explore the galaxies. Sometimes, you’ll have missions to perform. Otherwise, you’ll be free to search for Professor Rand.”

  “Professor Rand is the scientist?”

  “Yes, she is. She was one of the galaxy’s leading exponents in neurological systems. She disappeared a dozen years ago.”

  “Do we know why?”

  Rostom’s eyes flickered up toward the ceiling. “One of the Sandmoon cults denounced her research. She left her planet the same day their kill squad arrived. Hasn’t been seen since.”

  Gracie sighed. “So this is it? You were testing me to see if I had the right stuff for this job?”

  “No, not really. It wasn’t that simple. I know—have always known—you have the right stuff. But I needed to see how far you would go, what you would risk if Georgie was in danger.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because Georgie will be placing her life in your hands, and she deserves to be sure.”

  “I don’t understand.” Gracie’s head was spinning. “Why would Georgie doubt me?”

  “She was scared you wouldn’t think she was worth the effort.” He shrugged. Yet again, Gracie marveled at his use of body language. “She’s overheard too many conversations. You know the sort of thing. Poor girl, endless coma, no kind of life, better off dead and out of her misery.”

  Gracie paused for a moment. Had she ever thought that way? She didn’t think so, not even when she first understood who Georgie was. “But she isn’t brain dead. Her consciousness… she’s brilliant… she’s lovely, beautiful…”

  “Yes, but many people don’t understand, and very few think of her as genuinely human.”

  “What else would she be?” A sudden thought hit Gracie, stabbed her low and hard. If she was right… No, surely not. “Wait, is that why… did she think… is that why the firewall…?”

  Rostom’s nod managed to convey both sympathy and total understanding. “Yes, that’s why the firewall’s still up. Georgie said she couldn’t bear to hear if you say no.”

  Gracie swallowed and brushed away an unexpected tear. “I won’t say no.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born and raised in Liverpool, where they invented both football and popular music, Evangeline Jennings now lives in Austin,
Texas. The black sheep of her family, she comes from a long line of Californian beauty queens on her mother’s side. Evangeline gets her looks from her father. Evangeline recently published the noir crime fiction collection Riding in Cars with Girls. Mostly, she writes stories about girls. She believes in equality, so she writes about that. She also writes about gender, sexuality, and violence against women. Her characters often seek bloody satisfaction. Sometimes, they find it.

  THOUGHTS ON BRAVE NEW GIRLS

  Evangeline Jennings knows nothing about science and frequently struggles with math. She wants her daughter to grow up in a different world.

  Illustration for “Courage Is…” by Christopher Godsoe

  OF CAT’S WHISKERS AND KLUTZES

  by Martin Berman-Gorvine

  The sharp crack of plastic hitting a stone wall and a pungent curse in Texas-accented Martian announced the failure of the latest attempt to reinvent the transistor.

  “Kaitlyn Webb! How many times do I have to warn you about swearing!” Ma hollered from the kitchen.

  “Sorry, Ma!” Cursing in Martian wasn’t working as well for Katie as it used to before her mother had become reasonably fluent in her adopted planet’s language, which bore a startlingly close resemblance to Polish. The expression Katie had used was pretty mild, comparing the failed electronic part to the stuff that came out of a Martian thistlecat’s rear end, but that cut no ice with Ma. In the old days, back in the Texas Panhandle, Katie would have been switched for letting her mouth get ahead of her brains like that, but at seventeen, she was too old to be disciplined that way. Or so she told herself. She didn’t like thinking she was getting any special treatment for being stuck in a wheelchair almost two years after she had been beaten within an inch of her life by the old Martian King’s goons.

  She cursed him softly as she wheeled herself away from the worktable.

  King Ares warn’t no king at all, she reminded himself. He warn’t nothin’ but mean old Johnny Marshall from back in Texas, in that other version of the twenty-second century. Every day I spend in this contraption is another victory for him.