Analog SFF, April 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Come on, Ginny,” I said. “We have to go. You can work on your project when you get back.”

  She waved at me as if she meant to slap me. Virginia was angry because our projects were due that day and she didn't have hers done. She wasn't even started.

  “No one told me it was due.” She sniffed.

  I pointed over her head. There was a big timeline on the wall, spotted with dates. At the end of the arrow was a big red PROJECTS DUE.

  “The teacher only told us once, like a month ago,” she added.

  I didn't see how that was a bad thing. It meant we had a whole month. But Virginia got really angry when I corrected her, so I said nothing and just grabbed her arm and pulled.

  “Besides,” she said, “I don't care about the stupid ocean. Penguins are stupid.”

  Finally she came, sulking along behind me. We went to the little auditorium. We were last so we had to sit in the front row. Uncle Ressar was there, standing with folded arms, staring out at us. He was scary, even though he was really old, like sixty something. He looked at each of us in turn, as if he were sizing us up for a fight. Our teacher, Ms. Phoebe Gillet, went and stood next to him.

  Someone closed the doors and all the kids fell silent.

  “You have all been told by your parents that you're special,” Ms. Gillet said. “That's why you're here at the Marrion School. Because you're special. But there are many different ways to be special. What is the thing that makes you special?”

  Then she told us: we'd been made to be different, not just born different. Someone had changed our genes so that we cared about the future more than other people did. That was very special. That made us the Marrion children.

  “Being made is not unusual anymore,” Mr. Ressar said then. “Now many people have manufactured genes in them. But in all the world, no one has been made to be like you have been made to be. No one else even thinks to do it. We ask you to keep this a secret. But it's up to you. It's not a bad thing to be special like you are, but we think that if people knew about you, they would make it harder for you to do the things you hope to do. So if you keep this a secret—and only talk about it with your parents, or with older children here in the school—then no one will bother you, while you try to make the world a better place.”

  Back at the classroom, kids spoke in whispers, as if we were still in the auditorium. It was like after a funeral I once went to, where all the kids acted like the adults, serious and silent. The teacher asked us how we felt. Tommy spoke first and he said he felt proud. Then Karen raised her hand and in loud, clear speech she said she was going to keep the secret just like all the older kids had kept the secret before her. Karen could be annoying but still everyone nodded at that, agreeing. Everyone except Virginia. Our teacher pointed at my sister. Virginia still sat in the back, head down, lower lip thrust out, cutting blue construction paper to shreds.

  “Virginia,” Ms. Gillett asked her, “how do you feel about what you learned today?”

  “It didn't work,” Virginia said.

  “What, Virginia? I didn't hear you, honey.”

  “I said it didn't work. For me. It didn't take. I'm not any different.” She cut a strip of paper and let the halves fall to the floor. “I don't care about the future. I don't care about any of this.”

  Over Edgar's strenuous objections, after denying his request to accompany me, I took a Hudson Line train north, up the river valley, to get to my home. When the train stopped in my village, I rented a car and parked it on the side of the street below the woods that abutted my vineyard. Then I headed up the hillside through the forest as the sky turned yellow and red with the sunset.

  It was dark by the time I came to the bottom of the vineyard. Along the banks of the Hudson, fires started. It was the first day of autumn, and the people who lived in the valley performed, with a devotion that seemed ancient, a September ritual only two decades old: they bound dry stalks of corn into tall pyres; balanced on their pinnacles obese effigies made of corn stalks but dressed in scraps of discarded clothes, each meant to represent a president or prime minister or CEO of the past; then they put the whole heap to flame while dancing around the conflagration.

  I've danced with them, in past years. The people looked beautiful in the soft golden light. Their hair smelled like smoke. Children laughed and stood so close to the flames that steam rose from their dew-damp clothes. But now I watched from a distance, climbing through the vineyards. There were no other lights in the valley, no electric lamps burning all night and bleaching the universe from the sky. The dark forests behind the fires were black hulks. The hilltops were dental outlines that ate into the bright haze of stars. The river was invisible but for the long reflections of the flames that wavered over its smooth surface.

  My house was dimly lit. I entered from the back door. Juno came running, tail thumping the walls. A big black neo-shepherd, his head slammed into me and nearly knocked me over. His words streamed across my glasses. JANET JANET JANET JANET HOME JANET HOME.

  “You scared me,” Steven said, coming into the den. Steven was a boy from the village who helped with the vines. He'd been housesitting. He pulled at his tatty T-shirt, spotted with holes, as if sorry to be caught so informally dressed. Then he thrust his big hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “Sorry, Steven. I didn't mean to surprise you. There's a bit of trouble. Frankly, I didn't trust calling you on the phone. I need you to get home as quickly as possible. Don't take the road. Walk down the trail to your house. Don't talk to anyone you don't know. If a stranger comes to your house, any stranger at all, don't open the door, and call the police. Just tell the police you're being harassed. I'm going to take Juno and go away a few days. But I'll call you.”

  He frowned. “Did someone threaten you? Should I call the police now?”

  “I'll take care of the police. You go on now.”

  He hesitated, but then nodded and left.

  I packed nothing. Instead, I went to the tool shed. Juno trailed along as I prepared for the possibility of a visitor. Then I waited, in the vines, and watched the last of the fires dim, the silhouettes of distant dancers blurring before the red embers. Midnight approached. Maybe no one would visit this night. Maybe I should just leave now.

  Juno, asleep at my foot, jerked awake. He looked up the hill, through the vines, and gave a faint growl.

  A footstep cracked a dry stick behind me. The assassin was coming down toward the first row of vines. I supposed he'd been through the house and was now expanding his search. Or he had infrared and had seen me waiting in the vine rows as he had approached the house.

  I sighed. So begins a different autumn dance.

  “That's close enough,” I called. He was just a silhouette, a dim outline in the field with stars behind his head. My height, perhaps heavy, with short hair.

  He stopped.

  MAN NOT AFRAID MAN DOESN'T SMELL AFRAID, Juno sent. MAYBE NICE MAN.

  “He's here to kill us,” I whispered to Juno. “He's a special man. A strange man. He won't be afraid before he attacks.”

  BITE HIM BITE MAN streamed across my view. Juno gave a hint of another growl but then obeyed my order to be still and quiet.

  “Ms. Reed?” A polite voice. He seemed comfortable with talking. He must have been told, of course, that I lacked a teep chip. “I'm looking for Ms. Janet Reed.”

  “Yes, of course you are.” I was next in line, in the hierarchy of the Marrion conspiracy. I'd been right to think I'd be next in line to be killed.

  “Ms. Reed, sorry to come at this late hour, but I have a summons. I—”

  “Stop right there. There's filament barbwire between us. Invisible in the dark. But it'll wrap you up like a spider's meal if you take another step.”

  He stopped. I could see the outline of his arms, and so infer where his hands were. His right hand was open, gesturing as if to plead with me. The left was stuffed deep in his pocket. “I don't think you understand, I just—”

  “What is
your name?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not a difficult question.”

  “Uh, Cal Sever.”

  “Ah,” I nodded in the dark. “Your masters have a grotesque sense of humor.”

  “Ma'am?”

  I should not taunt him. The man I talked to didn't know he was an assassin. “Now,” I told him, “is when you tell me that you only want to talk with me.”

  “That's right, ma'am. I'm here representing several groups that would—”

  “Wait. I agree to a dialogue. I'll tell you my story, if you tell me yours. Not a rushed conversation, either. A leisurely stroll together. I'm heading east, Mr. Sever. We'll talk again, on our way. So tell your masters. That's the cost of getting close to me: you have to listen, and you have to talk. You have to tell me what they want. I'm going to tell you what we want.”

  He hesitated, then took a step forward. He must have felt the filaments, because he backed away. “Ma'am, I think you've misunderstood.”

  “New York, Mr. Sever. Let's talk next in the city.”

  “Ma'am I think thaaa . . . ah . . . ah. . . .” His voice died away. I was waiting for this, for the man's language ability to retard into muteness. Fluidly, his left hand came from his coat, holding something, raising to aim at me. I squeezed my eyes shut hard and dropped to the ground, folding over Juno. With one hand I covered Juno's eyes, and with the other I pressed the button on my handheld. A huge boom sounded out from the house, followed by a second and third explosion.

  Crow cannons. We fire them to scare away the birds that eat the Riesling grapes in the fall. The muzzle flash was blinding, the sound thunderous. If I was lucky, Sever would have reflexively looked at the cannons when the first went off, and so would have been staring straight at the next flashes. He should see nothing now but retinal burn, and hear nothing but the ringing of his ears. Crouching low, I ran to the left, the right, and then down the hill between vine rows. Juno kept up easily, tongue lolling. Nearly silent gunfire hissed behind us, fired aimlessly. Ceramic bullets ripped through the fading leaves of autumn vines, making a patter like rain.

  * * * *

  On the edge of the village, I picked up the electric car and Juno and I set off for Manhattan. Juno loved it: he sat in the front passenger seat, window down, eyes squinting in the wind. I don't think he understood that we were shot at by the man, though my fear had upset him. But that was over. Now he was thinking about New York. The future, and the past, did not trouble Juno much. Sometimes I envied him.

  SEE DAVID? he sent to me.

  “No, sorry, Juno,” I told him. “We can't see David.”

  YOU SMELL LIKE DAVID. NICE SMELL. SEE HERA SISTER HERA?

  “No. We won't see Hera either.”

  The cool night air was damp and smelled of the forest. After an hour, the trees gave way and we got onto the highway, squeezing onto the single lane that remained, now that tram cars ran in the old passing lanes. Juno stretched out in the narrow back seat and went to sleep, only rising when we dropped the car at Times Square. I checked us into the Sheraton using the robotic kiosk; I didn't want to force any of the boys working late behind the counter to use speech. I splurged and got a suite, paying with a cash chip in the hopes it couldn't be tracked as easily as a credit number.

  In the room Juno wrinkled his nose at the smell of cleaning solvents, and then went to the tall windows facing Times Square. I stripped to my underwear and climbed into the king-size bed. Juno stared outside, not much amused by the flashing lights of advertisements and the dancing holograms. He only got interested when the dog food commercial played every five minutes or so, a Godzilla-sized yorkie chasing food pellets across the sky.

  MISS HOME. He sent. SEE DAVID? SEE HERA SISTER HERA NOW?

  “Come get on the bed,” I told him. “Let's sleep a while.”

  GO FOR WALK?

  “Soon,” I said.

  CITY SMELLS FUN LOTS OF SMELLS ALL DIRTY SMELLS. He climbed on the bed, turning circles for a comfortable spot, his thin legs sinking awkwardly into the soft mattress. WATCH TV?

  “Sure. I think they even have neo-dog TV here.” All squirrels all the time.

  There was no remote; you were supposed to teep to the wall screens. Using my glasses I went through the laborious process of working the backup menus they leave on these systems for luddites like me.

  The next morning we walked over to Grand Central. A guard stopped me just inside the station. He stared at me for a long time, then realized with exasperation that I didn't have a teep chip and he was transmitting to what he considered a deaf mute. “Ma'am,” he said slowly, struggling with his voice, “we don't allow normal dogs in the station.”

  “Juno is a neo-dog,” I said. “I just keep his telepathy chip transmissions private. They go to my glasses.” But I blinked through some user screens and sent a signal to Juno's teep chip, letting it broadcast wide-band for a moment.

  MAN SMELLS FUNNY LIKE GIRL SOAP LIKE DONUTS, Juno sent to both of us.

  I suppressed a smile. The guard frowned and waved us on.

  We went downstairs to the cafeteria. I got us a heaping tray of food, including three sausages for Juno.

  GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD, he sent, nose twisting in the air, as he eyed them.

  “We're on a trip,” I told him. “To see my sister Virginia. A little splurging is due. You can eat whatever you want. Just tell me.”

  He licked my hand, his tail wagging with dangerous vigor for this crowded station. LOVE JANET GOOD JANET BEST JANET BEST BEST SMELLS GOOD JANET ALWAYS BEST SMELL GOOD SMELL JANET.

  We took a corner booth. I logged into my house computer and then called Edgar's house, expecting both or at least one of these actions to leak my location. Then we started to eat. A screen on the tiled wall before us showed that the hurricane had made landfall. Reporters stood leaning into the rain on some remnant scrap of Florida, screaming for their ridiculous mandatory hurricane shot. Four years in a row hurricane season had stretched into winter. They'd stopped calling them “freak weather events.”

  Juno turned his head, ears suddenly pricking high.

  EDGAR SMELL EDGAR, he sent.

  “Wow,” I said. Even with all the trains electric now, somehow the air in Grand Central still managed to reek of nothing but diesel and the hint of urine. I was amazed Juno could smell anything else. I didn't move my head, and in the small field of vision I had, I didn't see Edgar. Hopefully he was close.

  “That's right,” I whispered. “But we're playing a game. Act like you don't see him, Okay? He's sneaking up on the man who came to the house yesterday.”

  HIDE AND SEEK HIDE AND SEEK.

  “Just wait,” I said. “And tell me when you smell the other man.”

  BITE HIM.

  “First, just tell me. Biting might have to wait a bit.” I gave Juno the second and third sausages. “Please chew,” I told him. But no: a few snapping gulps and they were gone.

  SMELL HIM NOW, Juno sent after a minute. I scanned the room. It was full, families and men in business suits and students moving in every direction. A few neo-dogs, less disciplined than Juno, ran circles around their masters.

  Then I saw the man. My house had captured a few security pictures yesterday, and I'd lifted them this morning from my house computer. He looked completely normal. A little chubby, average height, a receding hairline, probably in his late twenties. He walked toward me, across the room.

  He took only two more steps before Edgar and one of Edgar's people slipped close to each of his sides. I saw Edgar's lips move.

  “What's Edgar saying?” I whispered to Juno, whose rigidly erect ears aimed at the three men.

  DON'T MOVE STAY CALM KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR POCKETS LET'S GO.

  I watched them approach. The man looked confused and scared. He stopped before the booth.

  “You're going to put your hands on the table, and sit, never taking your hands off the table,” Edgar told him. “I'm going to sit next to you. My friend is going t
o stand behind you. Please understand, we won't hesitate to shoot you. I'd enjoy shooting you, after what your people did to David Ressar. And it will not be an inconvenience for us to do so: it will not be hard to explain why we shot a man with an assassin's gun in his pocket. We both have licenses for concealed weapons. I bet you don't.”

  “I don't have a gun,” the man said.

  Edgar frowned at this insulting pretense, and tapped the hard gun in the man's pocket with the barrel he pushed against his own coat pocket. It made a muffle clunk, metal on ceramic.

  “Please,” I said, “Mr. Sever, sit.”

  He did as he was told. Edgar slipped next to him, and then he slipped his left hand into Sever's coat. Sever reflexively pulled away but when Edgar shook his head Sever sat back. Edgar pressed a small metal box against Sever's chest. “This is a signal jammer,” he said. “It will only keep your brain box there in your chest from getting any messages. Stay calm.”

  “What's going on?” he asked. “What do you want?”

  SMELLS SCARED NOW SMELLS SCARED GOOD GLAD MAN SCARED THIS TIME NOW TIME, Juno sent. He stared, his dark eyes unwavering. The hint of a snarl on his long snout exposed his white canines.

  “Mr. Sever,” I said. “Did you tell your masters that I want to talk?”

  He didn't answer.

  “Well. I'll assume they're listening to us now. I want to tell them that killing us won't help.”

  He looked at Edgar again, then at me. “I am only a courier, you understand. But I have a message: If you stop the program, you will be left alone.”

  I shook my head. “It's too late.” I looked at his collar, his chest, wondering where the wire likely was, foolishly wanting to talk directly into it. “It's too late. You could kill us all and the program would go forward. It's already done, really.”