Analog SFF, May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Soon, however, he noticed an encouraging hint of white ahead, which grew brighter as he proceeded. Finally, he popped from the pipe, falling a short way into a long and narrow pool. He swam far enough to get past the waterfall landing on his head and looked around. Obviously, he was deep underground, but a daylight blaze poured down from unfamiliar, hexagonal fixtures high above. The pool traversed an immense room, part laboratory but mostly storage facility, before resuming pipe-hood at the far end. He was alone. A workbench with test tubes, beakers of colored reagents, and assorted equipment Erik recognized as analytical devices suggested a water-testing and treatment facility. Huge stacks of metal bars, bins full of other scarce commodities, and piles of raw lumber insinuated that the Queen had secreted away materials for an unscheduled rainy day.

  I've gotten quite the reeducation since this morning, Erik reflected. Wonder what's left to unlearn.

  By Royal laws popularly known as “ecomandments,” no citizen of the level could build so much as a birdhouse without a repurposing permit for the screws or nails. This made sense to him. While the level had abundant energy derived by tapping the great generator powering the sun and moon, it had a fixed amount of metals and no ores for increasing the supply. The Royals, it appeared, had been holding out.

  Erik barely noticed his body reconstruct itself or how easily he pulled himself out of the pool and onto the white tiled floor.

  Across the room, a tall ladder reached from ground level to a circular hatch in the ceiling; its color and texture matched the wall behind it. It looked like his only way out without more pipe-crawling, and he currently felt no love for pipes or crawling. He jogged toward the ladder but stopped after a few steps. The wall stood at least a hundred meters away, but he could distinguish each tiny, hexagonal bump on its surface. He glanced around. It was true: his eyesight had become impossibly keen. Objects, near or far, had a larger-than-life clarity that made everything appear disturbingly flat. His skin erupted in gooseflesh, or rather it felt that way and he didn't care to learn just yet what the sensation meant in terms of his scales.

  Then his goosebumps gave him a second helping of themselves by reminding him that he'd just departed chilly water and now stood, dripping, in an unheated room that wasn't much warmer. He should be shivering. Instead, he felt the cold, but it didn't bother him. For that matter, while he was plenty scared, shouldn't he be huddled in a ball, paralyzed from terror? Had his defective transformation rewired his emotions? Or perhaps the last terrible weeks had melted away his . . . baby fat of the soul.

  "One thing for sure,” he told himself, “I'm hungry."

  That was an understatement. He didn't need telescopic vision to see the tall refrigerator by the workbench, and the vacuum in his belly insisted he seek food before escape. He knew someone could show up at any moment, but he'd never been so ravenous.

  The fridge's contents exceeded his hopes. A cold feast awaited, including six, large, paper-wrapped goodies with dated handwritten labels declaring the contents as spiced refried beans with various flavors of soy meat, swaddled in sandwich-kale leaves. He glanced wistfully at a small blast oven that could've turned his stolen meal hot in seconds, but feared that someone, somewhere, might notice the energy drain in this supposedly unoccupied location. Or was that just an excuse to get calories down his throat faster?

  He tore into the first wrap, almost forgetting to remove the paper first, and found it savory but oddly easy to chew. He practically inhaled the rest of it and downed another at a more dignified speed. Gratitude filled him along with nutrition as he became acutely aware that every bite he enjoyed stemmed not only from nature, but also from the labors of countless people, through generations of botanists, soil scientists, and farmers, down to the soon-to-be-disappointed owner of the meal he'd just stolen.

  What a crazy time, he thought, for new insights. Or was it? Maybe getting shoved out of the human race provided sufficient objectivity to perceive human networks more clearly. Or maybe the transformation had screwed up his brain.

  He washed his meal down with a pitcher of hybrid fruit juice, then stuffed two more wraps in his tattered pockets and closed the refrigerator.

  In his hunger, he'd ignored his reflection in the refrigerator's metal door. Now he stared at it. Then he couldn't help himself: he stripped off his clothes to learn just how seriously he'd been deformed. Wads and sheets of his remaining former skin fell to the floor in a rain of soft tissue. Almost unconsciously, he pulled away the final shards clinging to his scales and let them drop.

  It was bad.

  His face had retained much of its characteristic architecture. But his cheekbones angled out farther and tiny scales textured his facial skin, covering the Bateson lotus on his forehead. His eyes spooked him. They were larger, and as he watched, clear nictitating membranes blinked over them. Worst, the irises burned an impossibly intense red. He shaded them from the overhead lamps with one scaly hand.

  He hadn't imagined it. They glowed. That explained the conduit's illumination.

  The rest of his body wasn't reassuring. The change had rendered him taller but leaner, muscles clearly defined. He'd lost all body hair but gained a slew of scales, bright gold except for cobalt blue ones on his throat and chin. His penis curled like a fiddlehead and had mostly tucked itself between his legs; urinating would be an adventure. His scrotum appeared to be on sabbatical, tucked into his body, judging from sensation. His feet were longer, particularly the now-webbed toes. When he turned, he noticed something long and ropelike depending from the base of his spine. He reached down to touch it and felt only a hint of pressure from his fingers.

  "Just what I didn't want for my birthday,” he snarled. “A tail. And more exciting, a numb tail.” The new appendage twitched in response to his mood and his lips pulled back in an appalled grimace, revealing his teeth. At first he thought they gleamed so bright by contrast with his cobalt chin, then he decided they really were absurdly white. Sharper too.

  He shook his head. “Grow up, Erik. You're alive. How about making an effort to stay that way?” Properly chastened, he pulled on his damp, eroded clothes, certified the food was secure, and trotted toward the ladder. His new body felt lighter, springier. And the way he failed to trip over his altered feet made him wonder if his coordination had improved.

  The ladder was slick from condensation, but he found it so easy to climb that he shifted his attention from the rungs to the little protrusions on the speckled wall so close to his face. He'd seen identical bumps on the Primary Generator, a squat pyramid supposedly built by Captains; and also on the vast, circular wall surrounding the level, whenever he approached close enough to dispel the illusion of continuing landscape. No human had managed to scratch or chip the stone-like material, let alone analyze it. So the ladder had been glued rather than bolted to the wall.

  When he reached the ceiling hatch, he sighed with relief to find it unlocked. He pushed it up gently and just far enough to make sure no one waited on the other side, but got a scare when brightness flared in the hallway above. Two ordinary light-emitting-plastic fixtures provided this illumination, and since the hallway was deserted, Erik supposed a motion sensor had triggered the lights. Reassured, he climbed through the hatch, walked a few paces, and began ascending a new ladder in a vertical passageway that stretched up ninety meters or more. As he climbed, the LEPs below shut off while new lights above came on. The laboratory's waterfall burbling faded although its ghostly echoes kept him company. Meanwhile, a soft hum emerged from widely spaced wall grates. Dehumidifier ports, he guessed. Certainly these rungs felt dry and he smelled no mildew.

  His climb ended with another unlocked hatch and he tilted it upwards with extreme caution. Daylight flooding in dazzled him as the piney scent of spruce-bamboo hinted at his location. When his eyes adjusted, he poked his head through the opening. Sure enough, both terrain and vegetation confirmed that the pipe had taken him farther than he would've believed possible, to the level's largest forest, Pasteur
Park, more commonly called “The Wild."

  He didn't dance with joy, since it seemed doubtful he could avoid capture much longer, but he couldn't have picked a better hiding place: over three hundred fifty acres of wilderness in a rough crescent, bristling with the level's tallest trees and incised with streamlets. He climbed up and closed the hatch behind him; its upper surface wore a shaggy Chia coat that made it hard to spot within its bezel of mossy soil. Whoever used it would have to know precisely where it was.

  He stood in a small clearing with scant underbrush except for two berry bushes and one stunted babool vivid in yellow, globular flowers. Erik regarded it, puzzled. He'd never encountered acacia in the Wild and a volunteer this far out of context seemed improbable. Then he understood: it had been planted as a living beacon to mark the hatch's location. Mystery solved, he would've hurried away from the hatch, but the little tree began strolling toward him.

  As a biologist, Erik kept up with the latest products from botanic technicians; no one, to his knowledge, had yet created a walking tree.

  Disoriented, he just stood there, wide-eyed.

  As the babool approached, its flowers vanished and its upper branches lowered, becoming two slim arms. Feminine legs replaced the suddenly bifurcated trunk. In the space of three heartbeats, the tree had become a young woman, seemingly varnished from feet to head, but otherwise naked.

  The stranger grinned at him. “Nice trick, huh? You must be Erik."

  Even on a day infused with strangeness, this transformation was something special; Erik's mind latched onto that word “trick” and used it to grip sanity.

  He jumped to the obvious conclusion but waited until his heart slowed to a mere gallop before responding. “You're Liana, right?” She lacked the Adari star tattoo, but if the universe made any sense, this had to be the woman who'd drawn the lottery's other short straw. He was accustomed to feminine nudity: by Royal decree, clothes were banned at public swimming spots in an effort to prevent over-sexualizing the human body, a minor gambit in the level's crucial birth-control program. But he found the addition of . . . glossiness unsettling.

  "Liana Presse Adari, girl changeling, at your service.” She bowed in a parody of Royal Court manners. “Been waiting for you. My, you came out a lot more, um, dramatic than I'd expected."

  "I didn't expect any of this."

  "Not criticizing, just commenting.” She looked him over carefully. “You always so cruel to your wardrobe?"

  "I don't usually,” he snapped, “spend hours crawling through—” He finally noticed the twinkle in her eyes. “Look, there's some kind of lab below us. Shouldn't we find a safer spot before we discuss my flaws?"

  "No rush, Erik. Should be hours before the next water test."

  "How could you know that?"

  Liana's smile deepened, revealing dimples. “Personal research. And I've had three kinds of help. Don't be so jumpy; the wardens are looking for us hard but in the wrong park. We've got an ally who's misdirected ‘em."

  "Really? Who?"

  "Same Samaritan helped you escape from Chokorgon."

  He stared at her for a second. “No one helped me."

  Deeper dimples. “Oh? I heard the plan was to hold off on the shooting until you jumped in the fountain. Think back."

  He did. Janissaries were known for hair-trigger reactions and he hadn't broken any speed records getting into the water. He felt an unfamiliar tension between his eyebrows. Scowling felt different with scales.

  "You've got a point,” he admitted. “An oversized goldilocks commanded the guards and I never heard him say ‘fire.’ He's our ally?"

  "One of ‘em, the normal one. Name's Gregor Bellamy, a first cousin of mine although his ma married into another Kin. But wait ‘til you see his partners! That reminds me. One's watching for you beyond the Wild, in case you kept following the pipeline. I should let him know you're here."

  "Okay. Let's go."

  She chuckled. “You couldn't keep up. My mod made me faster. Besides, you must be starving. See that oak? There's a basket behind it with snacks. Just wait there and I'll be back in no time."

  A sliver of guilt made Erik uneasy. “Well, thanks, but I've already stuffed myself."

  "With what?"

  "Wraps in the lab fridge. Got more in my pockets."

  Random patterns in red and orange flashed across her skin as she glared at him. “That, my new friend, was an awesomely dumb move. Now, when the Royal Chemist comes to check the water, she'll know you've been in the lab."

  Her new skin, he'd learned, could do colors. Could his still blush? “But Liana,” he said weakly, “how could I know about you or your allies? And I was starving."

  Her lightshow faded as she nodded. “True. Sorry I was harsh, but your lunch messes up our plans. Stay put and we'll see if Gregor or Disy have any suggestions."

  "Who is—?"

  He was posing a question to an empty forest. Sure enough, he couldn't have kept up.

  "And how did you mimic a tree?” he muttered.

  * * * *

  As he waited, pacing, guilt about stealing lunch invoked his self-justifying skills. Had it really been such a bad move? There'd been only one drain inside the fountain, so once the water cleared, the guards would've known he'd gone through it despite its size. They would've expected him to drown or reach the lab eventually, ergo he had no cause for shame.

  Impeccable logic, he thought, feeling a lovely three seconds of relief until a question arose: if so, why weren't janissaries waiting for me at the lab considering how long it took me to get there?

  After a cheery round of fresh self-castigation, he decided to wring his clothes so they could dry faster. He was warm enough despite Climate Control's ersatz autumn, but found the dampness against his skin oppressive. He stripped, twisted the fabric to squeeze out water, and hung his clothes on a convenient branch. That's when he noticed his hands shaking.

  It didn't take genius to work out why. Here he was, feeling something he'd never expected to feel again: hope. While he had no idea what Liana et al. had in mind, they clearly had a plan involving him. For a year, despair—or, more honestly, surrender—had been his main insulation against fear. Hope stripped away that protection. He wasn't used to having something to lose.

  Acknowledging fear fanned it into raging panic. Good thing he'd learned a technique to quell panic.

  After his lottery number had popped up, he'd spent a week shivering in terror. His relatives had been devastated as well, but soon began to withdraw from him. In desperation, he sought advice from his Kin guru who'd outlined a multistage contemplative exercise named Padmijhan, meaning “expansion,” to help Erik relax. The first stage, guru Chamatkari promised, would increase perspective and pluck tranquility out of nightmare. The following stages were intended to lead the practitioner to profound levels of consciousness.

  Erik sat on the ground in half-lotus position, closed his eyes, and spent a minute gently observing his breathing without regulating it. When he stopped shaking, he visualized his body sitting and gradually extended his visualization to the Wild, and beyond to the entire level. From there, he had to abandon experience as he conceptualized the complete Tower, then on and on until Erik's mind held, to some degree, an entire universe including electromagnetic wavelengths beyond human perception. “This vastness,” he chanted in accordance with the guru's instructions, “is what I am part of.” Suddenly, he felt a new sense of connection, an unfamiliar . . . weight to his awareness, as though he'd found more awareness to work with. Encouraged, he decided to try the next and far more difficult stage of the exercise.

  The goal here was to maintain the previous perspective while diving into exponentially-ramifying inner space through a series of empathic quantum leaps. This entailed imagining the simultaneous viewpoints of countless life forms who themselves were experiencing the universe according to their individual capabilities. This stage theoretically culminated with conceptualizing the combined perspective of every sentient b
eing practicing a similar exercise, a hall of mirrors reflecting near-absolute complexities.

  Only the legendary Rishi was reputed to have achieved the final stage, which took all previous elements and added all of time to the mix. Privately, Erik considered the Rishi a myth. Even if he or she had indeed existed, he doubted that anyone human could do more than flirt with stage three.

  Erik began stage two with envisioning his own cells and other microscopic denizens of his body, guessing that these experienced only need and satiation. He worked his way up to nearby plants and insects. But when he tried to pile on local animals, something went wrong. His focus narrowed to a stereo image of his sitting form as seen from a few meters away. Then he smelled something so rank that he opened his eyes.

  A monster stood far too close, staring at him. It had a bulging head with milky eyes on fleshy stalks and jagged teeth in a jaw with crocodile pretensions, too many teeth for the mouth to fully close. Instead, it gaped wider and a split-second later, Erik found himself halfway up the tall tree from which his drying clothes hung, gazing down at the animal. Nice, he thought, that my fight-or-flight response is making sensible decisions today. Even nicer that I can climb squirrel-quick. But what the hell is that horror?

  For genetic diversity, an extensive variety of Earth plants and animals had been assigned to the Wild including dangerous species, such as bears, that roamed fenced-in areas. The zoological confection below, Erik knew, hadn't evolved on Earth.

  The beast lifted its head to stare up at him through oval pupils and made a noise disturbingly close to a chuckle. Its eyestalks moved independently. Its body was squat and boar-like, covered or perhaps armored in gelatinous-looking segments embedded with long spikes. Its bad dental work came in shark-like rows.

  Thank Shiva, Erik thought, this abomination can't climb. Then he got a triple shock. The animal placed an apelike foot on what had become Erik's favorite tree, long claws squeezed out from between the toes, and the beast sprang up the tree before Erik could retract his thanks.