Selected Stories: Volume 1

by Kevin J. Anderson

  She’d always known the treatment was a gamble, and it would take six months, perhaps the last six months of her life. She clung to hope, clung to her faith in science and medical research, knowing that these colleagues wouldn’t let her down. And they hadn’t let her down; the treatment hadn’t let her down. Her body had. Her brain had.

  And now she was racing home—yes, racing was the proper term, because the ticking countdown inside her body had nearly reached zero. She just wanted to see her daughter Candace and her five-year-old grandchild Aspen, a beautiful little girl.

  With a brief glimmer of clarity, or by coincidence, Magdalene found two pieces that aligned and interlocked. Then a corner, and then another piece. She took advantage of her mental momentum and finally had the small puzzle framed, which gave her an absurd sense of triumph. Jigsaw puzzles had been her hobby, and she remembered putting together large ones, masterclass puzzles, two thousand pieces, five thousand pieces. Once she had even completed a maddening exercise of an entirely white puzzle. Now, she looked down at the cute happy rabbit and couldn’t figure out where his ears went.

  “It’s that one,” said the man in the seat next to her. He had been friendly, even though she clearly didn’t want conversation. “This one right here.” He picked up a piece and slipped it into place. The intrusion angered her, but she couldn’t express herself.

  “I … I’m fine.” She picked up another piece and stared at it, defensively, but it was just a gap in her hand.

  The too-friendly man smiled and opened his mouth to say something, but his expression froze. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I saw the meds, and I didn’t think. Is it Alzheimer’s?” He blushed as he realized he’d dug his hole even deeper. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

  Previously, when she traveled in business class, people had clear boundaries of privacy, and in Japan she had grown accustomed to a more reticent culture. But now she was flying home in coach, and this man was obviously a tourist, well-meaning, but he didn’t play by the same rules.

  Not Alzheimer’s, you idiot! she wanted to say, but the words were as elusive as the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Her thoughts had been shoved aside by the thing growing there. Glioma. Yes, that was the word! But she couldn’t make it come out of her mouth. A particularly aggressive tumor growing inside her brain, stealing her thoughts, infesting her gray matter like an annoying pop song that you couldn’t get out of your head. But this cancer song was deadly. The aggressive experimental Tokyo treatment hadn’t helped, hadn’t prolonged her life. It had only taken six months away from her, probably the last six months. She would have been better off staying home and giving little Aspen memories of her grandmother.

  Embarrassed by his faux pas, the man in the adjacent seat pulled a sleep mask over his eyes and snuggled down, withdrawing into a belated sense of privacy. With a sigh of relief, Magdalene turned back to her unfinished puzzle.

  The plane was dark, many of the passengers asleep. The seatbelt light went off, and the captain announced something over the garbled loudspeaker about being past the unexpected turbulence, but Magdalene was too focused on her challenge. The happy rabbit slowly took shape one piece at a time, and within an hour, she had managed to finish it. In the meantime, she had taken more anti-nausea drugs and one more pain pill. As they approached San Francisco, she was drifting and detached, but in a lost, seasick way rather than pleasant euphoria.

  When the flight attendants came around and the cabin lights flickered back on, she declined breakfast, even coffee. Magdalene didn’t think she could keep any food down. Sparkles of thoughts and pain jittered inside her mind, as if the uninvited glioma was doing a victory dance.

  As ANA Flight 008 came in for a landing, Magdalene picked up a tension among the crew. The flight attendants looked concerned, talked in low voices with one another. The captain made more announcements than usual about “inconvenience” and “representatives meeting everyone at the gates,” as well as the always-alarming “please remain calm.”

  The man in the adjacent seat fidgeted, sweating. He looked over at her as if seeking comfort, then flushed in embarrassment again, but he didn’t turn away. “You think something’s wrong?”

  You mean with the world in general? she thought. Or the plane? Or with me? I can sure as hell tell you the answer to the last one. But Magdalene just shook her head and leaned back. What a colossal irony if the plane were to crash on her way home, when she only had months, weeks, even days left. Almost as ironic that one of the greatest breast cancer advocates was struck down by a brain tumor.

  The 777 landed safely, and the worry seemed to be about something entirely different. The passengers picked up on the uneasiness, and they were disturbed, some curious, some afraid, and the flight attendants didn’t look any better. The 81 passengers rummaged through overhead bins, grabbed their carry-ons, crowded the aisles in a rush to disembark. Magdalene’s clueless companion hurried to join the flow, but since she was in a window seat she was in no hurry. All of her meds had kicked in now, many of the drugs clashing with each other. Her body was like a pharmaceutical puppet, her mind a marionette controlled by the insidious tumor.

  The crew knew about her medical condition; she had filed papers, included her medical records. She was too touch and go, traveling alone, and airlines didn’t like the PR debacle of someone dying on their plane. The flight attendants had discreetly watched over her, and they were supposed to see that she exited the plane safely. Once she got into the terminal and met Candace and her granddaughter, then she wouldn’t be ANA’s responsibility any more.

  As the cabin emptied, she waited for someone to come and escort her. But as the flight attendants did their best to herd everyone into the terminal, Magdalene realized they must have forgotten about her special needs. The worried-looking crew wanted to get off the plane as quickly as possible.

  When she decided that she was on her own, Magdalene got up to make her own way. She’d survived the horrific chemo and radiation in Tokyo, endured the long overseas flight, the odd turbulence; she could certainly make it just a few more minutes off the plane into the terminal, through customs and immigration … and to Candace and Aspen just outside of security. She imagined how the girl would jump up and down, calling out “Grandma, Grandma!”

  She took her purse, which contained her meds and the few things she clung to, mostly digital photographs, reminder notes she made to herself, and a painstaking letter she had written to her daughter in her last days in the Tokyo hospital. Magdalene wanted to say so many things, to say goodbye, to leave a legacy for her granddaughter. But the words just wouldn’t come. Simple communication eluded her, brought her to tears as she struggled with the slippery but simple concepts. After she exhausted herself, poured out everything she could think of, Magdalene saw she had written only two paragraphs, and then she cried even more.…

  She stood and gripped the seat back, wavering, feeling her legs turn to shaky jelly. Her balance looped around like a drunken bumblebee. The aisles were starting to clear, and Magdalene tottered out. One step. Another step. Moving forward, passing one row of seats, then another, then the next section. Reaching business class was one little victory, and the door and the jetway was another. The flight attendant at the door seemed pale, parroting her usual “Thank you, have a nice day,” but her voice wavered.

  Magdalene might have been curious about what was wrong, but her brain was so full of the glioma that she had no room for questions. She could only concentrate on moving, her vision focused down to a tunnel as she gripped the railing, trudged up the jetway. The pain in her head was like an enthusiastic street drummer banging away on overturned plastic tubs. The tumor seemed to be taking a victory lap.

  Magdalene refused to let it win. Just a little farther …

  When she emerged into the terminal she saw a milling crowd, the passengers from Flight 008 being corralled, held back. She saw security troops, but their uniforms looked odd, of a more futuristic design. The décor in the San Franci
sco airport looked different. Ad displays on the walls were interactive, intrusive holograms that stepped in front of potential customers rather than a more easily ignored poster. She kept walking among her fellow passengers because she didn’t dare stop moving her legs, although the black static around her vision swirled and darkened, while the pounding in her head grew to a deafening roar.

  Over a loudspeaker, an androgynous voice said, “Passengers from Flight 008, please remain until we can assess the situation.” His words faded in and out like an AM radio station in a car driving in the desert. Magdalene had done that once when she was in her early twenties, a free spirit exploring the country on her own … “Everyone seems to be fine … no ill effects.” The next words made even less sense, and she blamed it on the brain tumor. “… time ripple.”

  “… skipped forward entirely.”

  “… 2037.”

  Her brain fired one last series of explosive pains like the grand finale of the fireworks from last Fourth of July, when she, Candace, and Aspen sat on a blanket on the grass in a county park watching the show. Magdalene had known of her terminal cancer then, had been convinced that would be her last Independence Day celebration. Her last …

  Her body finally surrendered. She collapsed, sprawling forward, the world spinning, contracting down to a pinpoint that was a whirlpool of colors, memories, and unexpressed thoughts. People shouted, some backing away from her, others pressing closer. Within a moment, medical teams closed in, uniformed med techs bending over her with scanning apparatus, strange interactive devices. Touchpads were applied to her neck, her cheek.

  How did they get here so fast? Were the med teams already at the gate?

  “Must be an aftereffect of the time ripple,” said a woman doctor, studying her screen. “Better quarantine all passengers. Quick, run a scan!”

  “We need to get her into the medical suite, just at the end of the terminal,” said the young med tech beside her. “But we have to start from baselines. We don’t know what the effects of the distortion could be.”

  “Baseline …” Magdalene croaked, amazed that she had found the word. “It’s not any effects … of whatever. It’s brain cancer. My records … aboard the plane.” Somehow she made herself keep speaking, though she had to force each word out of her mouth. This was important. “Glioma … terminal. Nothing you can do.”

  Startled, the medical techs looked quickly at one another. Magdalene could barely keep her eyes open, but the darkness behind her closed eyelids was even more frightening. She felt fumbling hands on her. Someone withdrew the boarding pass sticking out of her purse, found her seat number, identified her name.

  “It’s Magdalene Cross! Remember, she was on the passenger manifest,” said the woman doctor. “It is brain cancer. Terminal glioma.”

  Magdalene couldn’t quite parse the woman’s words, couldn’t understand her expression. The doctor seemed delighted, and the young tech beside her started laughing. “Brain cancer! You mean it’s only brain cancer?” He seemed relieved.

  Someone else said, “No reason to believe her collapse was caused by the time distortion.”

  “Brain cancer,” Magdalene said. They didn’t seem to understand. “Terminal.”

  “We know, we know,” said the female doctor. “Don’t worry about it. The airport’s medical suite has all of the necessary microsurgical apparatus and the avatar hookup. For you, we’ll get one of the very best neurospecialists. I think he’s in Bangkok right now, but he can hook up via avatar and perform the surgery. You’ll be just fine, Dr. Cross. Nothing to worry about.”

  As she finally blacked out, probably for the last time, Magdalene thought the words were the cruelest hallucination of all.

  When she awoke, her thoughts were clear. Her head throbbed, but not in pain; rather, it seemed more a fuzziness, a confusion, not the same sludge of drug sensations from her anti-seizure meds, her anti-nausea meds, her painkillers.

  She focused on her surroundings, a small room with a lush pristine forest and blue skies projected on the walls and ceiling. Monitoring devices were connected to her, but without wires or cables; she felt something attached to her head. This was nothing like the horror of tubes, electrodes, beeping pumps and monitors during the treatment in Tokyo.

  The young woman sitting at her bedside was beautiful, around twenty-five. Her expression filled with warmth and genuine concern, not the typical bedside manner with which Magdalene had become so familiar.

  In a voice filled with wonder, surprised that the words came easily, smoothly, she said, “I’m alive—that’s one thing at least.”

  The young woman chuckled. “You’ll be alive for a long while, Grandma. The brain cancer is gone, and you just need time to recover—and to adjust, I suppose. We all need time to adjust.” She reached forward to squeeze Magdalene’s shoulder. “I still can’t believe it!”

  “You called me Grandma. What on Earth …”

  “I know you don’t recognize me. I’m Aspen.” She seemed to be holding a delicious, exciting secret. “The last time you saw me was when we watched the fireworks. You must remember it?” When Magdalene didn’t immediately answer, the young woman’s eyes narrowed with concern. “The neurosurgeon said that some memories might be gone because the glioma was extremely large and pervasive. Please tell me you remember the fireworks in the park!”

  “Of course I remember,” Magdalene said. “That was with my daughter and granddaughter just last year, Fourth of July.”

  “It’s 2037, Grandma. Your plane skipped forward twenty years in time. ANA Flight 008 vanished in June 2017, and we all thought it had gone down in the Pacific without a trace. It’s been two decades!” Aspen shook her head. “Mom and I were sure we’d never see you again.”

  “Your mother …” Magdalene still couldn’t understand, trying to decide which was more fantastic—that she had somehow time jumped into the future, or that her brain cancer had been cured. “Where am I? Where’s Candace?”

  “She’s in Antarctica, but she’s on her way. Within the hour, she’ll take a SpaceX suborbital flight to San Francisco. But I’m here now.”

  “Where?” Magdalene asked.

  “Still in the terminal facility. They were able to perform the surgery right here. It’s a small medical suite, but they can take care of emergencies.”

  “My brain cancer—major surgery, minimum, but the tumor was inoperable.” She took a moment to realize, and marvel at, how easily the thoughts came now, how articulate she sounded. “It was of moderate size, but the location …”

  “Every basic medical facility has the right remote equipment.” Aspen smiled, and her eyes glimmered with tears. “Remember laparoscopic surgery from back in your day? This is the same thing, only orders of magnitude smaller, a tiny probe, drill, and extraction tube inserted right between your eyes.” She reached out to touch a bandage across the base of Magdalene’s nose.

  “The robotic surgical arms were guided by avatar. And because of who you are—who you were twenty years ago—all the cancer researchers remember you. You’re revered! The world’s foremost microglial surgeon used the avatar linkage, and he performed the surgery from his clinic in Bangkok. He neutralized the tumor, killed and extracted the key mass bit by bit through the microtube—delicate but efficient. Then he repaired as much of the tissue as he could. You’re fine, Grandma. You can go home with us by the end of the day. Mother’s suborbital will be here by then.”

  Magdalene had to close her eyes. This was a complex jigsaw puzzle of unbelievable facts and preposterous claims that she simply could not assemble, no matter how she looked at the pieces, turned them, rearranged them. She let out a sigh and concentrated on something more comprehensible. “You’re so beautiful. You grew up well. I wrote you and your mother a … letter. It was in my purse.”

  Aspen looked serious. “A goodbye letter doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here. There have been a great deal of changes and progress in the twenty years you’ve been gone, incredible advance
s in minimally invasive surgery, in cancer treatment, in medical avatars.”

  Magdalene remembered what the medical techs had said after she collapsed in the terminal. They laughed, relieved that she “only” had brain cancer. She tried to put the pieces together. “So removing a brain tumor is nothing more complicated than getting a filling at the dentist?”

  Aspen leaned closer, amused. “A cavity filled at the dentist? Oh, Grandma, we have vaccines against tooth decay. Drilling holes in your teeth and filling them with metal is as outdated as drilling holes in your skull to treat a brain tumor.”

  Filled with wonder instead of dread, Magdalene reached out and spread her fingers, extending her hand toward Aspen. “I look forward to hearing all about it … and all about you and your life.” She slipped her fingers into her grown granddaughter’s hand. She clasped tight, and the pieces fit, slipping perfectly into place.

  I do a lot of novels and stories in collaboration. I enjoy the brainstorming, interaction, and learning. Stories written in collaboration turn out different from anything either writer would write solo.

  Since I have been married to Rebecca for more than 26 years, as of this writing, our careers have been a collaboration, too. We’ve written dozens of novels together, and we often brainstorm even our own projects. So it seemed natural to do a collaborative story about collaborators in a high-tech future. We wrote this after we’d been married several years and the rough edges and loose ends of our pre-“Kevin and Rebecca” lives had pretty much faded away, and we started to notice how the individual parts had melded inextricably together.

  Of course, in a short story that isn’t always a good thing.