The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 12

by Jonathan Strahan

  I felt Sule’s anger ebb, the tension in his muscles ease. Then I told him about the future I saw in my dreams of our son, the future that did not include him.

  “Forgive me,” I said against his chest.

  He nodded, his chin against the top of my head.

  “Forgive me,” I said again.

  “WILL MY DAUGHTER live?” is all that Soraya wanted to know.

  “I don’t see why not.” I sat on a small stool next to the bed. I handed the ultrasound probe to Neenah and nodded for her to turn the machine off.

  “But this is dangerous, yes?”

  I nodded, “It can be, but it’s a small separation. Your job is to rest until she is ready to meet the world.” I patted Soraya’s hand.

  Soraya frowned and turned her face away from me.

  “I just gave you good news. What’s wrong?”

  “Who will deliver my baby when you leave?”

  “I will,” said Neenah. “I’ll do my very best for you, Soraya. Try not to worry.”

  Soraya smiled and wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

  I MADE SALAT in the dark hour before dawn beneath an outcropping of rock. The only sounds were the thump of my heart. The journey to Ajutine had been long and heavy with guilt, but I had no regrets and no desire to go back.

  I slipped off my hijab, my favorite, made of sheer copper fabric. I wore it the day that Sule and I wed. I used it to secure the holy book written in ancient curling script, the tasbeh of pearls on which I counted and expiated my sins, and the rectangle of carpet on which I knelt to recite my prayers. These had been my wedding gift from Sule, and now, I would leave them behind.

  I filled the hole with sand and marked the spot with a large black stone shaped like a fan. None of the artifacts could pass entry inspection.

  I pulled the yellow flier from my pocket to read one last time. The paper was now worn and faded, folded and refolded. My heart hitched as I turned toward the city of my birth, the home to which I never thought I would return.

  The familiar angles of the skyscrapers rose above the wall surrounding the city, like fingers grasping for the clouds. Lighted looping train tracks hovered in midair, twisting around the skyscrapers like ribbons on the wind. From this distance I even caught the scent of Ajutine, exhaust and filth mixed with spice and humanity. Something in me shuddered. Until that moment I didn’t realize how much I had hungered for home.

  “I don’t want you to go,” said Isa as I held his head against my chest. He had been my first friend in the hinterlands, my first child.

  I watched the jeep until it disappeared in a cloud of dust on the horizon then set off to cover the remaining distance to Ajutine on foot.

  Sule managed to make my last days with him the happiest and the most hateful of my life. He couldn’t get enough of my flowering form, hands always resting on the curved plane of my hip, the sensitive small of my back, telling me and showing me in countless ways how much he loved me. I joined him one night when he took to the plains to hunt.

  I will never forget the way the stars look through a veil of tears, brighter and smeared across the sky, or the sound of Sule crying when he thought I was asleep.

  I never had to tell him that I was leaving. He always knew.

  On our last night together we ate cactus fruit and rabbit. I drank ginger tea and he drank water in which I’d sprinkled a bit of hrery powder. He slept dreamlessly, fitted around me like a shell.

  No amount of time was long enough to be with a man like him.

  I took my place at the end of a long line of the hungry and hopeful. Several hours passed before it was my turn, the sun giving way to a yellow crescent and stars. The guard searched my bag, removed then replaced the outdated medical texts, the certificates and licenses proving my education and training. He held the faded hospital picture identification up to shoulder height.

  I self-consciously smoothed my hair, knowing that I scarcely resembled my younger self smiling in the photo. He appraised me, his gaze lingering on the scar on my chin, the streak of henna-reddened silver hair near my right temple.

  His eyes settled on mine. “A doctor like you would be an asset here in Ajutine. Are you willing to make the required concessions?”

  I thought of Allah, of the symbols of my religion buried in the sands of the hinterlands. I thought of my mother whose love of Allah was unimpeachable but who resolutely refused to leave Ajutine, the city of her forefathers.

  “You only fail if you walk away,” she had once said, and those words looped in my head like a mantra. I was returning to right wrongs and to give my son a better life, but in doing so I was walking away again, from Sule, from certain love and hardship.

  I looked up toward the sky through the glass of my tears.

  “I am willing to make concessions,” I told him. I met his gaze so he would know and see it in my eyes.

  It wasn’t until he nodded me through the gates that I realized that I’d been holding my breath.

  CONFESSIONS OF A CON GIRL

  Nick Wolven

  Nick Wolven’s (www.nickthewolven.com) science fiction has appeared in Wired, Asimov’s, F&SF, and many other publications. He lives in New York City.

  Senior Thesis submitted to the Department of English, —— University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts

  August 22, 20—

  By: Sophie Lee

  THE FIRST THING to say, at the outset of my narrative, is it was not according to my own wishes to write this senior paper. The reason being for three reasons. Firstly, because, try as I might, I no longer believe I will ever be a “good writer”, which was the primary objective of pursuing an English degree. Which is a great disappointment to me, as being a good writer has been among the foremost of my lifelong passions.

  Second, another reason is because I do not believe I am in any way a credit to such a prestigious university as I attended, being, as I am, a Con girl, which my title says. So I do not think I am worthy of the BA in English degree. And the only reason I am writing this now is because my Re-Engagement Process Counselor recommended I do so, as a step on my process to healing, and to put behind me all the painful experiences that have occurred.

  Thirdly, the last reason I didn’t want to write this paper is because the thesis of the assignment is to explicate how I became a Con girl, what I did wrong, how I became a shame to everyone in my life, and the lifelong steps that brought me to this debacle. But, as I have confessed, I strongly doubt my ability to explicate how this happened. Would I conscientiously aspire to be a scourge on society, an embarrassment to my parents, a disappointment to my teachers and friends?

  Emphatically, no.

  Yet, that is what happened.

  Truly, sometimes I believe I am no longer sure of anything. An example would be today. I was sitting outside my institution, in the yard with the high fence and the concrete sculptures of trees. And I was reflecting on my healing process, when a leaf blew into my hair—a real leaf, from a real tree outside our yard. And I lifted up a hand and crushed it—“as one does.” But when I looked at the crushed leaf, I had a feeling, what our Re-Engagement Process Counselor calls “an unprovoked grief episode.” I thought about how I had crushed that leaf for no reason, without even thinking, out of habit. I thought about how this is what I do, touch things and ruin them, without even trying. I thought about how I’m a Con girl, now, a negative member of society, who has to be put in this place, apart from everyone, because she has been such a harm to others. And it was like those times when they first brought me here, in those days when I couldn’t even talk or think, but only used to sit by myself, not moving.

  All this, yes, because of a leaf, which, as anyone knows, has no nerves, and which anyhow this one was already dead.

  This is the kind of thing that occurs with me nowadays, after everything else that has transpired.

  I am a Con girl. And in case you can’t tell, I’m still trying really hard to figure
out how that could have happened.

  THE PLACE TO begin, I believe, is my last week of school. And the subject I will begin with is my End-of-Semester Meeting, with my assigned Learning Process Advisor, Mr. Barraine.

  Now, the thing I must stress at the outset is I believe Mr. Barraine to be a good person—flawed as we all are, but who isn’t flawed? I have never for once doubted that he wanted the best for me, and my life process. You can check out his Perma-Me profile online. Do it now. You will discover that Mr. Barraine has two little girls at home whom he cares for very tenderly. One of whom is afflicted with a disability, but which has nevertheless in no way lessened Mr. Barraine’s affection for her. There is a delightful video of Mr. Barraine and his daughters feeding bread crumbs to ducks in the park, and as the adorable birds waddle and gabble, you can see Mr. Barraine relating with his children and laughing, while in his eye there is the sparkle of genuine joy.

  Many commenters to this video have asserted that Mr. Barraine should not have been feeding the ducks in that manner, because bread crumbs are bad for them and disrupt their normal dietary habits, so feeding the ducks is in some aspects paramount to murdering them. But I in no way believe this should be taken as a mark against Mr. Barraine, who is not an ornithologist.

  I mention all this because on the day in question, Mr. Barraine was meeting with me to discuss my upcoming Final Academic Review, which under the circumstances, I realize, must have been for him a very trying experience.

  I arrived at his office punctually, and the first thing Mr. Barraine said was, “Hi, Sophie, I hope you’re doing OK.”

  At which I almost started crying, because as Mr. Barraine knew, I was not doing OK, and there was practically no way I was going to do better, or anyway not in time to make a difference. But it was nice of him to say that.

  He closed the door, and checked that it was closed, and covered the window, and checked that it was covered, and then he showed me where to sit, and said, “Shall we get started?”

  Then Mr. Barraine touched his palmscreen, and the pictures on the walls disappeared, and instead of sitting in an office with books and old-time paintings, we were sitting in the middle of a display of my academic records, which was not a nice place to be.

  “Let’s see what we have, here,” Mr. Barraine said, flicking his finger to sort through the files.

  At that moment I did start crying, because I didn’t need to see those files to know what this was about. It was all displayed in my palmscreen, where my Pro/Con Holistic Score was glowing a shameful, awful yellow.

  Mr. Barraine was respectful while I cried. I have always been grateful to him for what he said next. He said:

  “Now, Sophie, I want you to know that everything that happens in this interview is entirely private and unrecorded. So you can express whatever you feel without it affecting your holoscore. If you need to express some anger, go right ahead. You can even call me nasty names, if that’ll help. Do you want to try that? Do you want to call me nasty names?”

  He smiled, and it was so nice of him to say that, in that particular way, that I laughed even while I was crying.

  “People have done that, you know,” said Mr. Barraine. “A lot of young people have sat where you’re sitting, and called me all kinds of nasty names.”

  At that, I felt so bad for Mr. Barraine that I stopped feeling bad for myself, and like that, my tears cleared up and I was ready to begin.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Barraine, “if you in anyway violate the Campus Interpersonal Conduct Policy, that will have to be immediately reported. Now, let’s get going.”

  He brought up a chart that showed my grades, and a chart that showed my peer networks, and a hundred other charts that showed a hundred different things. But at the center of it all was my Pro/Con holistic score, glowing on a display in the middle of the wall, so awful I could hardly look at it.

  “I’m looking over your records,” Mr. Barraine said, “especially at your holistic score, Sophie, and it seems like during the past few years, we’ve started to see—”

  “I’m in the yellow,” I said, feeling breathless. “I know. And I can explain.”

  BUT WHAT I want to underscore, at this juncture in my narrative, is that I have never been one to, as people say, “toot my own horn.”

  What follows is a quote from my family’s Vice Assistant Childrearing Advisor, who prepared my first ever psychological profile:

  Sophie... has incredibly well-developed sensitivities. Her reading of facial expressions is advanced for her age, and her various empathetic reactions are off the charts. As to her intellectual aptitudes, they show... potential for great improvement. The danger is that with such high sensitivities, Sophie may face unique life challenges. But with proper mood management, I believe she will grow up to be an extremely positive social member.

  Now, “the proper way to interpret praise,” as my Test Prep Advisor says, “is as a challenge to do better, not a reward for what you’ve done.” So I believe this is good advice, and see my above-average empathetic abilities, which my VACR so carefully documented, not as something I can take credit for myself, but as a responsibility unto which I have been given. Thus, I have always endeavored to use my empathetic and facial-reading talents, such as they may be, for the constructive support of others.

  And this is what I endeavored to achieve, for example, in my fourteenth year, when my mother decided that my father no longer fulfilled her needs as life partner. This was an example of a challenging experience. But I reminded myself that people differ, and sometimes achieving true intimacy means finding a partner who, as people say, “makes the grade.” Also because people achieve life aims at different rates. And the truth is, as we all observed, since we had gotten the extra funds for my Student Development Program, my father had no longer been putting as much effort into his own life process as previous.

  Thus, when my mother sued my father for mishandling my Student Development money, I understood why she might feel the need to do that, but also how difficult it would be for my father not to be a part of my development anymore. And I did everything I could to express how I still loved them both and supported them, which I posted every day on my Perma-Me profile.

  And it was during this admittedly trying interval, that I noticed my efforts did not go unacknowledged. Because partway through the year, my teacher, Ms. Ebro, requested a private meeting with me. We signed the privacy waivers, and went into the school’s privacy room, and activated the privacy settings, and while we were in there, Ms. Ebro told me how she and the other teachers had observed what was occurring with me. How they had been following my mother’s video diary of the lawsuit online, plus the posts my mother had been putting on her RantSpace page, about my father and the divorce. Also they had been following the videos my father had been sharing on his RantSpace page, about my mother, in some of his more disinhibited moments. And they had seen the page my father’s girlfriend had made about my mother, and the posts my mother had written about me. And Ms. Ebro said it was truly shocking to see what some people will say online about their families.

  This was a significant moment for me.

  But what Ms. Ebro said was how she and the other teachers had been observing my own behavior in response to these developments. And how they appreciated my maturity. And she said that sometimes being brave and mature is at least as important as, per example, learning to solve for x or studying pond life.

  “After all,” Ms. Ebro said, “we know what kind of person you are, Sophie. And when I say that, I’m sure you know exactly what I’m referring to.”

  I did, but didn’t say so. But what truly affected me was what Ms. Ebro said next. She said she had talked to the other teachers, and they would be factoring these considerations into my holistic semester scores, in conjunction with my scholastic grades.

  And I admit, I may have overresponded a little when Ms. Ebro said all this. But it was not to my detriment. Because afterwards, my Pro/Con Holistic Score went very gr
een. As I had just gotten my first palmscreen implanted, this was a source of significant comfort to me. I used to pull up the covers at night, and turn on my palmscreen, and sit in a kind of glowing green cave, and think about all the opinions that had gone into that holoscore, all the comments my peers had made about me, all the grades my teachers had submitted, all the assessments of my Student Development Team. And how all this information, so judiciously evaluated, was presented in this simple green light, to remind me of the support and positive feelings I had brought into the world.

  Well, that is just one example of a time when I demonstrated Pro behavior.

  There were others, like when my Wealth Management Advisor had his collapse, or when my Physical Development Coach was accused of improper child handling. But what I want to talk about now is what happened with Roman Cheryshev.

  This was in sophomore year of college, when Roman Cheryshev was a freshman in my Consciousness through Confrontation seminar. And the thing about Roman was, he was very bright, but he was not the kind of person whose company other people enjoyed. I don’t know how Roman got to be in our institution, which is a prestigious institution. But the fact is, only a month after he got in, Roman’s Pro/Con Holistic Score was moving toward the yellow. At first I thought he might be from a culture where Pro/Con standards are different from ours. But no, he was from New Jersey. Then someone told me Roman’s parents had homeschooled him for the Comp-Sci track, and hired a service to manage his scores, which I know is a thing that happens. But I believe it is an ill-advised thing, as in, what will transpire when such a young person enters, as people say, “the real world”?