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

by Jonathan Strahan

  Self-respect is the key to mutual respect.

  Rachel keeps looking straight at Jeffrey through the observation window, and she’s somehow kept control over her vision long after her speech centers went over. He keeps waiting for her to lose the eyes. Her gaze goes right into him, and his stomach gets the feeling that usually comes after two or three whiskey sours and no dinner.

  More than ever, Jeffrey wishes the observation room had a one-way mirror instead of regular glass. Why would they skimp on that? What’s the point of having an observation room where you are also being observed at the same time? It defeats the entire purpose.

  Jeffrey gets tired of hiding from his own window and skips out the side door. He climbs two stories of cement stairs to emerge in the executive wing, near the conference suite where he’s supposed to be meeting with the stakeholders right now. He finds an oaken door with that quote from Albert Einstein about imagination that everybody always has, and knocks on it. After a few breaths, a deep voice tells Jeffrey to come in, and then he’s sitting opposite an older man with square shoulders and a perfect old-fashioned newscaster head.

  Mr. Randall, Jeffrey says, I’m afraid I have a conflict with regards to the latest subject and I must ask to be recused.

  Is that a fact? Mr. Randall furrows his entire face for a moment, then magically all the wrinkles disappear again. He smiles and shakes his head. I feel you, Jeffrey, I really do. That blows chunks. Unfortunately, as you know, we are short staffed right now, and our work is of a nature that only a few people have the skills and moral virtue to complete it.

  But, Jeffrey says. The new subject, he’s someone I grew up with, and there are certain... I mean, I made promises when we were little, and it feels in some ways like I’m breaking those promises, even as I try my best to help him. I actually feel physically ill, like drunk in my stomach but sober in my brain, when I look at him.

  Jeffrey, Mr. Randall says, Jeffrey, JEFFREY. Listen to me. Sit still and listen. Pull yourself together. We are the watchers on the battlements, at the edge of social collapse, like in that show with the ice zombies, where winter is always tomorrow. You know that show? They had an important message, that sometimes we have to put our own personal feelings aside for the greater good. Remember the fat kid? He had to learn to be a team player. I loved that show. So here we are, standing against the darkness that threatens to consume everything we admire. No time for divided hearts.

  I know that we’re doing something important here, and that he’ll thank me later, Jeffrey says. It’s just hard right now.

  If it were easy to do the right thing, Randall says, then everyone would do it.

  6.

  SHERRI WAS A transfer student in tenth grade who came right in and joined the Computer Club but also tried out for the volleyball team and the a cappella chorus. She had dark hair in tight braids and a wiry body that flexed in the moment before she leapt to spike the ball, making Rachel’s heart rise with her. Rachel sat courtside and watched Sherri practice while she was supposed to be doing sudden death sprints.

  Jeffrey stared at Sherri, too: listened to her sing Janelle Monáe in a light contralto when she waited for the bus, and gazed at her across the room during Computer Club. He imagined going up to her and just introducing himself, but his heart was too weak. He could more easily imagine saying the dumbest thing, or actually fainting, than carrying on a smooth conversation with Sherri. He obsessed for ages, until he finally confessed to his friends (Rachel was long since out of the picture by this time) and they started goading him, actually physically shoving him, to speak to Sherri.

  Jeffrey slid up to her and said his name, and something inane about music, and then Sherri just stared at him for a long time before saying, I gotta get the bus. Jeffrey watched her walk away, then turned to his watching friends and mimed a finger gun blowing his brains out.

  A few days later, Sherri was playing hooky at that one bakery café in town that everyone said was run by lesbians or drug addicts or maybe just old hippies, nursing a chai latte, and she found herself sitting with Rachel, who was also ditching some activity. Neither of them wanted to talk to anyone, they’d come here to be alone. But Rachel felt hope rise up inside her at the proximity of her wildfire crush, and she finally hoisted her bag as if she might just leave the café. Mind if I sit with you a minute, she asked, and Sherri shrugged yes. So Rachel perched on the embroidered tasseled pillow on the bench next to Sherri, and stared at her Algebra II book.

  They saw each other at that café every few days, or sometimes just once a week, and they just started sitting together on purpose, without talking to each other much. After a couple months of this, Sherri looked at the time on her phone and said, My mom’s out of town. I’ll buy you dinner. Rachel kept her shriek of joy on the inside and just nodded.

  At dinner—a family pasta place nearby—Sherri looked down at her colorful paper napkin and whispered: I think I don’t like boys. I mean, to date, or whatever. I don’t hate boys or anything, just not interested that way. You understand.

  Rachel stared at Sherri, even after she looked up, so they were making eye contact. In just as low a whisper, Rachel replied: I’m pretty sure I’m not a boy.

  This was the first time Rachel ever said the name Rachel aloud, at least with regard to herself.

  Sherri didn’t laugh or get up or run away. She just stared back, then nodded. She reached onto the red checkerboard vinyl tablecloth with an open palm, for Rachel to insert her palm into if she so chose.

  The first time Jeffrey saw Rachel and Sherri holding hands, he looked at them like his soul had come out in bruises.

  7.

  WE WON’T KEEP you here too long, Mr. Billings, the male attendant says, glancing at Rachel but mostly looking at the mouth that had spoken. You’re doing very well. Really, you’re an exemplary subject. You should be so proud.

  There are so many things that Rachel wants to say. Like: Please just let me go, I have a life. I have an art show coming up in a coffee shop, I can’t miss it. You don’t have the right. I deserve to live my own life. I have people who used to love me. I’ll give you everything I own. I won’t press charges if you don’t sue. This is no kind of therapy. On and on. But she can’t trust that corpse voice. She hyperventilates and gags on her own spit. So sore she’s hamstrung.

  Every time her eyes get washed out, she’s terrified this is it, her last sight. She knows from what Lucy and the other one have said that if her vision switches over to the dead man’s, that’s the final stage and she’s gone.

  The man is still talking. We have a form signed by your primary care physician, Dr. Wallace, stating that this treatment is both urgent and medically indicated, as well as an assessment by our in-house psychologist, Dr. Yukizawa. He holds up two pieces of paper, with the looping scrawls of two different doctors that she’s never even heard of. She’s been seeing Dr. Cummings for years, since before her transition. She makes a huge effort to shake her head, and is shocked by how weak she feels.

  You are so fortunate to be one of the first to receive this treatment, the man says. Early indications are that subjects experience a profound improvement across seven different measures of quality of life and social integration. Their OGATH scores are generally high, especially in the red levels. Rejection is basically unheard of. You won’t believe how good you’ll feel once you’re over the adjustment period, he says. If the research goes well, the potential benefits to society are limited only by the cadaver pipeline.

  Rachel’s upcoming art show, in a tiny coffee shop, is called Against Curation. There’s a lengthy manifesto, which Rachel planned to print out and mount onto foam or cardboard, claiming that the act of curating is inimical to art or artistry. The only person who can create a proper context for a given piece of art is the artist herself, and arranging someone else’s art is an act of violence. Bear in mind that the history of museums is intrinsically tied up with imperialism and colonialism, and the curatorial gaze is historically white and male.
But even the most enlightened postcolonial curator is a pirate. Anthologies, mix tapes, it’s all the same. Rachel had a long response prepared, in case anybody accused her of just being annoyed that no real gallery would display her work.

  Rachel can’t help noting the irony of writing a tirade about the curator’s bloody scalpel, only to end up with a hole in her literal head.

  When the man has left her alone, Rachel begins screaming Jeffrey’s name in the dead man’s voice. Just the name, nothing that the corpse could twist. She still can’t bear to hear that deep timbre, the sick damaged throat, speaking for her. But she can feel her life essence slipping away. Every time she looks over at the dead man, he has more color in his skin and his arms and legs are moving, like a restless sleeper. His face even looks, in some hard-to-define way, more like Rachel’s.

  Jeffrey! The words come out in a hoarse growl. Jeffrey! Come here!

  Rachel wants to believe she’s already defeated this trap, because she has lived her life without a single codicil, and whatever they do, they can’t retroactively change the person she has been for her entire adulthood. But that doesn’t feel like enough. She wants the kind of victory where she gets to actually walk out of here.

  8.

  JEFFREY FEELS A horrible twist in his neck. This is all unfair, because he already informed Mr. Randall of his conflict and yet he’s still here, having to behave professionally while the subject is putting him in the dead center of attention.

  Seriously, the subject will not stop bellowing his name, even with a throat that’s basically raw membrane at this point. You’re not supposed to initiate communication with the subject without submitting an Interlocution Permission form through the proper channels. But the subject is putting him into an impossible position.

  Jeffrey, she keeps shouting. And then: Jeffrey, talk to me!

  People are lobbing questions in Slack, and of course Jeffrey types the wrong thing and the softcore clown porn comes up. Ha ha, I fell for it again, he types. There’s a problem with one of the latest cadavers, a cause-of-death question, and Mr. Randall says the Deputy Assistant Secretary might be in town later.

  Jeffrey’s mother was a Nobel Prize winner for her work with people who had lost the ability to distinguish between weapons and musical instruments, a condition that frequently leads to maiming or worse. Jeffrey’s earliest memories involve his mother flying off to serve as an expert witness in the trials of murderers who claimed they had thought their assault rifles were banjos, or mandolins. Many of these people were faking it, but Jeffrey’s mom was usually hired by the defense, not the prosecution. Every time she returned from one of these trips, she would fling her Nobel medal out her bathroom window, and then stay up half the night searching the bushes for it, becoming increasingly drunk. One morning, Jeffrey found her passed out below her bedroom window and believed for a moment that she had fallen two stories to her death. This was, she explained to him later, a different sort of misunderstanding than mistaking a gun for a guitar: a reverse-Oedipal misapprehension. These days Jeffrey’s mom requires assistance to dress, to shower, and to transit from her bed to a chair and back, and nobody can get Medicare, Medicaid, or any secondary insurance to pay for this. To save money, Jeffrey has moved back in with his mother, which means he gets to hear her ask at least once a week what happened to Rachel, who was such a nice boy.

  Jeffrey can’t find his headphones to drown out his name, which the cadaver is shouting so loud that foam comes out of one corner of his mouth. Frances and another engineer both complain on Slack about the noise, which they can hear from down the hall. OMG creepy, Frances types. Make it stop make it stop.

  I can’t, Jeffrey types back. I can’t ok. I don’t have the right paperwork.

  Maybe tomorrow, Rachel will wake up fully inhabiting her male body. She’ll look down at her strong forearms, threaded with veins, and she’ll smile and thank Jeffrey. Maybe she’ll nod at him, by way of a tiny salute, and say, You did it, buddy. You brought me back.

  But right now, the cadaver keeps shouting, and Jeffrey realizes he’s covering his ears with his fists and is doubled over.

  Rachel apparently decides that Jeffrey’s name alone isn’t working. The cadaver pauses and then blurts, I would really love to hang with you. Hey! I appreciate everything you’ve done to set things right. JEFFREY! You really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for me.

  Somehow, these statements have an edge, like Jeffrey can easily hear the intended meaning. He looks up and sees Rachel’s eyes, spraying tears like a damn lawn sprinkler.

  Jeffrey, the corpse says, I saw Sherri. She told me the truth about you.

  She’s probably just making things up. Sherri never knew anything for sure, or at least couldn’t prove anything. And yet, just the mention of her name is enough to make Jeffrey straighten up and walk to the door of the observation room, even with no signed Interlocution Permission form. Jeffrey makes himself stride up to the two nearly naked bodies and stop at the one on the left, the one with the ugly tattoo and the drooling silent mouth.

  I don’t want to hurt you, Jeffrey says. I never wanted to hurt you, even when we were kids and you got weird on me. My mom still asks about you.

  Hey pal, you’ve never been a better friend to me than you are right now, the cadaver says. But on the left, the eyes are red and wet and full of violence.

  What did Sherri say? Stop playing games and tell me, Jeffrey says. When did you see her? What did she say?

  But Rachel has stopped trying to make the other body talk, and is just staring up, letting her eyes speak for her.

  Listen, Jeffrey says to the tattooed body. This is already over, the process is too advanced. I could disconnect all of the machines, unplug the tap from your occipital lobe and everything, and the cadaver would continue drawing your remaining life energy. The link between you is already stable. This project, it’s a government–industry collaboration, we call it Love and Dignity for Everyone. You have no idea. But you, you’re going to be so handsome. You always used to wish you could look like this guy, remember? I’m actually kind of jealous of you.

  Rachel just thrashes against her restraints harder than ever.

  Here, I’ll show you, Jeffrey says at last. He reaches behind Rachel’s obsolete head and unplugs the tap, along with the other wires. See? he says. No difference. That body is already more you than you. It’s already done.

  That’s when Rachel leans forward, in her old body, and head-butts Jeffrey, before grabbing for his key ring with the utility knife on it. She somehow gets the knife open with one hand while he’s clutching his nose, and slashes a bloody canyon across Jeffrey’s stomach. He falls, clutching at his own slippery flesh, and watches her saw through her straps and land on unsteady feet. She lifts Jeffrey’s lanyard, smearing blood on his shirt as it goes.

  9.

  WHEN RACHEL WAS in college, she heard a story about a business professor named Lou, who dated two different women and strung them both along. Laurie was a lecturer in women’s studies, while Susie worked in the bookstore co-op despite having a PhD in comp lit. After the women found out Lou was dating both of them, things got ugly. Laurie stole Susie’s identity, signing her up for a stack of international phone cards and a subscription to the Dirndl of the Month Club, while Susie tried to crash Laurie’s truck and cold-cocked Laurie as she walked out of a seminar on intersectional feminism. In the end, the two women looked at each other, over the slightly dented truck and Laurie’s bloody lip and Susie’s stack of junk mail. Laurie just spat blood and said, Listen. I won’t press charges, if you don’t sue. Susie thought for a moment, then stuck out her hand and said, Deal. The two women never spoke to each other, or Lou, ever again.

  Rachel has always thought this incident exposed the roots of the social contract: most of our relationships are upheld not by love, or obligation, or gratitude, but by mutually assured destruction. Most of the people in Rachel’s life who could have given her shit for being transgender were differently bod
ied, non-neurotypical, or some other thing that also required some acceptance from her. Mote, beam, and so on.

  For some reason, Rachel can’t stop thinking about the social contract and mutually assured destruction as she hobbles down the hallway of Love and Dignity for Everyone with a corpse following close behind. Every time she pauses to turn around and see if the dead man is catching up, he gains a little ground. So she forces herself to keep running with weak legs, even as she keeps hearing his hoarse breath right behind her. True power, Rachel thinks, is being able to destroy others with no consequences to yourself.

  She’s reached the end of a corridor, and she’s trying not to think about Jeffrey’s blood on the knife in her hand. He’ll be fine, he’s in a facility. She remembers Sherri in the computer lab, staring at the pictures on the Internet: her hair wet from the shower, one hand reaching for a towel. Sherri sobbing but then tamping it down as she looked at the screen. Sherri telling Rachel at lunch, I’m leaving this school. I can’t stay. There’s a heavy door with an RFID reader, and Jeffrey’s card causes it to click twice before finally bleeping. Rachel’s legs wobble and spasm, and the breath of the dead man behind her grows louder. Then she pushes through the door and runs up the square roundabout of stairs. Behind her, she hears Lucy the nurse shout at her to come back, because she’s still convalescing, this is a delicate time.