The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  “Tell them I’m home.”

  “Done,” replied the house. “Mrs Malley sends a word of welcome.”

  “Annie? Annie’s home?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bobby ran into the foyer followed by Mrs Jamieson. “Momma’s home,” he said.

  “So I hear,” Ben replied and glanced at the nanny.

  “And guess what?” added the boy. “She’s not sick any more!”

  “That’s wonderful. Now tell me, what was all that racket?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ben looked at Mrs Jamieson, who said, “I had to take something from him.” She gave Ben a plastic chip.

  Ben held it to the light. It was labelled in Anne’s flowing hand, Wedding Album – grouping 1, Anne and Benjamin. “Where’d you get this?” he asked the boy.

  “It’s not my fault,” said Bobby.

  “I didn’t say it was, trooper. I just want to know where it came from.”

  “Puddles gave it to me.”

  “And who is Puddles?”

  Mrs Jamieson handed him a second chip, a commercial one with a 3-D label depicting a cartoon cocker spaniel. The boy reached for it. “It’s mine,” he whined. “Momma gave it to me.”

  Ben gave Bobby the Puddles chip, and the boy raced away. Ben hung his bowler on a peg next to his jacket. “How does she look?”

  Mrs Jamieson removed Ben’s hat from the peg and reshaped its brim. “You have to be special careful when they’re wet,” she said, setting it on its crown on a shelf.

  “Martha!”

  “Oh, how should I know? She just showed up and locked herself in the media room.”

  “But how did she look?”

  “Crazy as a loon,” said the nanny. “As usual. Satisfied?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice.” Ben tucked the wedding chip into a pocket and went into the living room, where he headed straight for the liquor cabinet, which was a genuine Chippendale dating from 1786. Anne had turned his whole house into a freaking museum with her antiques, and no room was so oppressively ancient as this, the living room. With its horsehair upholstered divans, maple burl sideboards, cherrywood wainscoting and floral wallpaper, the King George china cabinet, Regency plates, and Tiffany lamps; the list went on. And books, books, books. A case of shelves from floor to ceiling was lined with these moldering paper bricks. The newest thing in the room by at least a century was the twelve-year-old scotch that Ben poured into a lead crystal tumbler. He downed it and poured another. When he felt the mellowing hum of alcohol in his blood, he said, “Call Dr Roth.”

  Immediately, the doctor’s proxy hovered in the air a few feet away and said, “Good evening, Mr Malley. Dr Roth has retired for the day, but perhaps I can be of help.”

  The proxy was a head-and-shoulder projection that faithfully reproduced the doctor’s good looks, her brown eyes and high cheekbones. But unlike the good doctor, the proxy wore makeup: eyeliner, mascara, and bright lipstick. This had always puzzled Ben, and he wondered what sly message it was supposed to convey. He said, “What is my wife doing home?”

  “Against advisement, Mrs Malley checked herself out of the clinic this morning.”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “But you were.”

  “I was? Please excuse me a moment.” Ben froze the doctor’s proxy and said, “Daily duty, front and centre.” His own proxy, the one he had cast upon arriving at the office that morning, appeared hovering next to Dr Roth’s. Ben preferred a head shot only for his proxy, slightly larger than actual size to make it subtly imposing. “Why didn’t you inform me of Annie’s change of status?”

  “Didn’t seem like an emergency,” said his proxy, “at least in the light of our contract talks.”

  “Yah, yah, okay. Anything else?” said Ben.

  “Naw, slow day. Appointments with Jackson, Wells, and the Columbine. It’s all on the calendar.”

  “Fine, delete you.”

  The projection ceased.

  “Shall I have the doctor call you in the morning?” said the Roth proxy when Ben reanimated it. “Or perhaps you’d like me to summon her right now?”

  “Is she at dinner?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  “Naw, don’t bother her. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I suppose.”

  After he dismissed the proxy, Ben poured himself another drink. “In the next ten seconds,” he told the house, “cast me a special duty proxy.” He sipped his scotch and thought about finding another clinic for Anne as soon as possible and one – for the love of god – that was a little more responsible about letting crazy people come and go as they pleased. There was a chime, and the new proxy appeared. “You know what I want?” Ben asked it. It nodded. “Good. Go.” The proxy vanished, leaving behind Ben’s sig in bright letters floating in the air and dissolving as they drifted to the floor.

  Ben trudged up the narrow staircase to the second floor, stopping on each step to sip his drink and scowl at the musty old photographs and daguerreotypes in oval frames mounted on the wall. Anne’s progenitors. On the landing, the locked media room door yielded to his voice. Anne sat spreadlegged, naked, on pillows on the floor. “Oh, hi, honey,” she said. “You’re in time to watch.”

  “Fan-tastic,” he said, and sat in his armchair, the only modern chair in the house. “What are we watching?”There was another Anne in the room, a sim of a young Anne standing on a dais wearing a graduate’s cap and gown and fidgeting with a bound diploma. This, no doubt, was a sim cast the day Anne graduated from Bryn Mawr summa cum laude. That was four years before he’d first met her. “Hi,” he said to the sim, “I’m Ben, your eventual spouse.”

  “You know, I kinda figured that out,” the girl said and smiled shyly, exactly as he remembered Anne smiling when Cathy first introduced them. The girl’s beauty was so fresh and familiar – and so totally absent in his own Anne – that Ben felt a pang of loss. He looked at his wife on the floor. Her red hair, once so fussy neat, was ragged, dull, dirty, and short. Her skin was yellowish and puffy, and there was a slight reddening around her eyes, like a raccoon mask. These were harmless side effects of the medication, or so Dr Roth had assured him. Anne scratched ceaselessly at her arms, legs, and crotch, and, even from a distance, smelled of stale piss. Ben knew better than to mention her nakedness to her, for that would only exacerbate things and prolong the display. “So,” he repeated, “what are we watching?”

  The girl sim said, “Housecleaning.” She appeared at once both triumphant and terrified, as any graduate might, and Ben would have traded the real Anne for her in a heartbeat.

  “Yah,” said Anne, “too much shit in here.”

  “Really?” said Ben. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Anne poured a tray of chips on the floor between her thighs. “Of course you wouldn’t,” she said, picking one at random and reading its label, “Theta Banquet ’37. What’s this? I never belonged to the Theta Society.”

  “Don’t you remember?” said the young Anne. “That was Cathy’s induction banquet. She invited me, but I had an exam, so she gave me that chip as a souvenir.”

  Anne fed the chip into the player and said, “Play.” The media room was instantly overlaid with the banquet hall of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. Ben tried to look around the room, but the tables of girls and women stayed stubbornly peripheral. The focal point was a table draped in green cloth and lit by two candelabra. Behind it sat a young Cathy in formal evening dress, accompanied by three static placeholders, table companions who had apparently declined to be cast in her souvenir snapshot.

  The Cathy sim looked frantically about, then held her hands in front of her and stared at them as though she’d never seen them before. But after a moment she noticed the young Anne sim standing on the dais. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Looks like congratulations are in order.”

  “Indeed,” said the young Anne, beaming and holding out her diploma.

  “So tell me, did
I graduate too?” said Cathy as her glance slid over to Ben. Then she saw Anne squatting on the floor, her sex on display.

  “Enough of this,” said Anne, rubbing her chest.

  “Wait,” said the young Anne. “Maybe Cathy wants her chip back. It’s her sim, after all.”

  “I disagree. She gave it to me, so it’s mine. And I’ll dispose of it as I see fit.” To the room she said, “Unlock this file and delete.” The young Cathy, her table, and the banquet hall dissolved into noise and nothingness, and the media room was itself again.

  “Or this one,” Anne said, picking up a chip that read Junior Prom Night. The young Anne opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Anne fed this chip, along with all the rest of them, into the player. A long directory of file names appeared on the wall. “Unlock Junior Prom Night.” The file’s name turned from red to green, and the young Anne appealed to Ben with a look.

  “Anne,” he said, “don’t you think we should at least look at it first?”

  “What for? I know what it is. High school, dressing up, lusting after boys, dancing. Who needs it? Delete file.” The item blinked three times before vanishing, and the directory scrolled up to fill the space. The young sim shivered, and Anne said, “Select the next one.”

  The next item was entitled A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Now the young Anne was compelled to speak, “You can’t delete that one. You were great in that, don’t you remember? Everyone loved you. It was the best night of your life.”

  “Don’t presume to tell me what was the best night of my life,” Anne said. “Unlock A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” She smiled at the young Anne. “Delete file.” The menu item blinked out. “Good. Now unlock all the files.” The whole directory turned from red to green.

  “Please make her stop,” the sim implored.

  “Next,” said Anne. The next file was High School Graduation. “Delete file. Next.” The next was labelled only Mama.

  “Anne,” said Ben, “why don’t we come back to this later. The house says dinner’s ready.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “You must be famished after your busy day,” he continued. “I know I am.”

  “Then please go eat, dear,” she replied. To the room she said, “Play Mama.”

  The media room was overlaid by a gloomy bedroom that Ben at first mistook for their own. He recognized much of the heavy Georgian furniture, the sprawling canopied bed in which he felt so claustrophobic, and the voluminous damask curtains, shut now and leaking yellow evening light. But this was not their bedroom, the arrangement was wrong.

  In the corner stood two placeholders, mute statues of a teenaged Anne and her father, grief frozen on their faces as they peered down at a couch draped with tapestry and piled high with down comforters. And suddenly Ben knew what this was. It was Anne’s mother’s deathbed sim. Geraldine, whom he’d never met in life nor holo. Her bald eggshell skull lay weightless on feather pillows in silk covers. They had meant to cast her farewell and accidently caught her at the precise moment of her death. He had heard of this sim from Cathy and others. It was not one he would have kept.

  Suddenly, the old woman on the couch sighed, and all the breath went out of her in a bubbly gush. Both Annes, the graduate and the naked one, waited expectantly. For long moments the only sound was the tocking of a clock that Ben recognized as the Seth Thomas clock currently located on the library mantel. Finally there was a cough, a hacking cough with scant strength behind it, and a groan, “Am I back?”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Anne.

  “And I’m still a sim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please delete me.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Anne said and turned to Ben. “We’ve always thought she had a bad death and hoped it might improve over time.”

  “That’s crazy,” snapped the young Anne. “That’s not why I kept this sim.”

  “Oh, no?” said Anne. “Then why did you keep it?” But the young sim seemed confused and couldn’t articulate her thoughts. “You don’t know because I didn’t know at the time either,” said Anne. “But I know now, so I’ll tell you. You’re fascinated with death. It scares you silly. You wish someone would tell you what’s on the other side. So you’ve enlisted your own sweet mama.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Anne turned to the deathbed tableau. “Mother, tell us what you saw there.”

  “I saw nothing,” came the bitter reply. “You cast me without my eyeglasses.”

  “Ho ho,” said Anne. “Geraldine was nothing if not comedic.”

  “You also cast me wretchedly thirsty, cold, and with a bursting bladder, damn you! And the pain! I beg you, daughter, delete me.”

  “I will, Mother, I promise, but first you have to tell us what you saw.”

  “That’s what you said the last time.”

  “This time I mean it.”

  The old woman only stared, her breathing growing shallow and ragged. “All right, Mother,” said Anne. “I swear I’ll delete you.”

  Geraldine closed her eyes and whispered, “What’s that smell? That’s not me?” After a pause she said, “It’s heavy. Get it off.” Her voice rose in panic. “Please! Get it off!” She plucked at her covers, then her hand grew slack, and she all but crooned, “Oh, how lovely. A pony. A tiny dappled pony.” After that she spoke no more and slipped away with a last bubbly breath.

  Anne paused the sim before her mother could return for another round of dying. “See what I mean?” she said. “Not very uplifting, but all-in-all, I detect a slight improvement. What about you, Anne? Should we settle for a pony?” The young sim stared dumbly at Anne. “Personally,” Anne continued, “I think we should hold out for the bright tunnel or an open door or bridge over troubled water. What do you think, sister?” When the girl didn’t answer, Anne said, “Lock file and eject.” The room turned once again into the media room, and Anne placed the ejected chip by itself into a tray. “We’ll have another go at it later, Mum. As for the rest of these, who needs them?”

  “I do,” snapped the girl. “They belong to me as much as to you. They’re my sim sisters. I’ll keep them until you recover.”

  Anne smiled at Ben. “That’s charming. Isn’t that charming, Benjamin? My own sim is solicitous of me. Well, here’s my considered response. Next file! Delete! Next file! Delete! Next file!” One by one, the files blinked out.

  “Stop it!” screamed the girl. “Make her stop it!”

  “Select that file,” Anne said, pointing at the young Anne. “Delete.” The sim vanished, cap, gown, tassels, and all. “Whew,” said Anne, “at least now I can hear myself think. She was really getting on my nerves. I almost suffered a relapse. Was she getting on your nerves, too, dear?”

  “Yes,” said Ben, “my nerves are ajangle. Now can we go down and eat?”

  “Yes, dear,” she said, “but first . . . select all files and delete.”

  “Countermand!” said Ben at the same moment, but his voice held no privileges to her personal files, and the whole directory queue blinked three times and vanished. “Aw, Annie, why’d you do that?” he said. He went to the cabinet and pulled the trays that held his own chips. She couldn’t alter them electronically, but she might get it into her head to flush them down the toilet or something. He also took their common chips, the ones they’d cast together ever since they’d met. She had equal privileges to those.

  Anne watched him and said, “I’m hurt that you have so little trust in me.”

  “How can I trust you after that?”

  “After what, darling?”

  He looked at her. “Never mind,” he said and carried the half dozen trays to the door.

  “Anyway,” said Anne, “I already cleaned those.”

  “What do you mean you already cleaned them?”

  “Well, I didn’t delete you. I would never delete you. Or Bobby.”

  Ben picked one of their common chips at random, Childbirth of Robert Ellery Malley/02-03-48, and slipped it into t
he player. “Play!” he commanded, and the media room became the midwife’s birthing suite. His own sim stood next to the bed in a green smock. It wore a humorously helpless expression. It held a swaddled bundle, Bobby, who bawled lustily. The birthing bed was rumpled and stained, but empty. The new mother was missing. “Aw, Annie, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I know, Benjamin,” she said. “I sincerely hated doing it.”

  Ben flung their common trays to the floor, where the ruined chips scattered in all directions. He stormed out of the room and down the stairs, pausing to glare at every portrait on the wall. He wondered if his proxy had found a suitable clinic yet. He wanted Anne out of the house tonight. Bobby should never see her like this. Then he remembered the chip he’d taken from Bobby and felt for it in his pocket – the Wedding Album.

  The lights came back up, Anne’s thoughts coalesced, and she remembered who and what she was. She and Benjamin were still standing in front of the wall. She knew she was a sim, so at least she hadn’t been reset. Thank you for that, Anne, she thought.

  She turned at a sound behind her. The refectory table vanished before her eyes, and all the gifts that had been piled on it hung suspended in midair. Then the table reappeared, one layer at a time, its frame, top, gloss coat, and lastly, the bronze hardware. The gifts vanished, and a toaster reappeared, piece by piece, from its heating elements outward. A coffee press, houseputer peripherals, component by component, cowlings, covers, and finally boxes, gift wrap, ribbon, and bows. It all happened so fast Anne was too startled to catch the half of it, yet she did notice that the flat gift from Great Uncle Karl was something she’d been angling for, a Victorian era sterling platter to complete her tea service.

  “Benjamin!” she said, but he was missing, too. Something appeared on the far side of the room, on the spot where they’d posed for the sim, but it wasn’t Benjamin. It was a 3-D mannequin frame, and as she watched, it was built up, layer by layer. “Help me,” she whispered as the entire room was hurled into turmoil, the furniture disappearing and reappearing, paint being stripped from the walls, sofa springs coiling into existence, the potted palm growing from leaf to stem to trunk to dirt, the very floor vanishing, exposing a default electronic grid. The mannequin was covered in flesh now and grew Benjamin’s face. It flitted about the room in a pink blur. Here and there it stopped long enough to proclaim, “I do.”