The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  "Yeah?" His eyes brightened. "Me too."

  So that was it. I must have seen him on our street. Feeling a little less reticent, I nodded toward his sketch pad. "Can I see?"

  "Sure." He angled the pad so I could get a better look, as I sat down beside him. The top page was a lovely pencil sketch of the surrounding woods, exhibiting (I can say today) a very sophisticated understanding of perspective, light, old and knowing nothing of any of this, all I said was, beamed. "Thanks," he said. He flipped through the sketches, some still-lifes, a few portraits, all of them "Do you go to school for this?" I asked. "I take lessons."

  "Me too." I added, "Piano."

  "Yeah? Cool."

  He flipped to a portrait of a girl with blonde hair and big eyes, and I let out a little yelp of recognition. "Cindy Lennox!" I cried out. "You know Cindy, too?"

  "Yeah, sure, I go to school with her."

  He flipped past Cindy's portrait to a fresh piece of paper, began absently sketching as he talked. "I'm getting a paint-box for Christmas," he announced, "half the size of this pad, with its own hard drive, oil and watercolor templates ... man, the stuff you can do with one of those, it's incredible!" Not to be outdone, I said, "I'm getting a new orchestral sequencing program for my Musicmaster. I'll be able to add up to fifteen different voices-strings, horns, keyboard-"

  He looked up from his sketch and smiled, as though something had just occurred to him. "You're one too, aren't you?" he said.

  "One what?"

  His smile took on a secret edge. "You know. When the doctors do something to you, before you're even born?"

  Suddenly I felt afraid. I knew exactly what he meant, of course; it was all over the media, there was even a website about it on the Schoolnet. Some parents even took their kids on TV and talked about it; but most, like mine, kept quiet, fearing that their children would be discriminated against, excluded from scholastic or talent competition (though this was technically illegal) with nonenhanced kids.

  I knew what I was, but had sworn to my parents I'd never talk to anyone about it. So reflexively I shot back, "Not me."

  "Yeah, sure." He sounded unconvinced, and I must admit, the idea of actually meeting someone else like myself thrilled as well as frightened me.

  So without admitting anything about myself, I said, "So you're one?"

  He nodded, switching pencil colors, continuing to sketch. "My folks'd kill me if they heard, but I don't care. I’m not ashamed of it." He looked up; gave me a little smile. "Are you?"

  This was getting dangerous. I stood up quickly. "I- I've gotta go."

  "Don't you want to see your picture?"

  "My what?"

  He turned the pad around, showing me its face: my face. A rough outline, without much detail, only two colors (dark gray and light blue), but a really good likeness. My dark hair, cut in a short pageboy; my lips, which always seemed to me too thin, pursed in a shy little half-smile; my eyes, the irises a light blue, so light my father once told me he could see the sky in them ... "That's really good," I said, impressed. "Can I-"

  I looked up at him ... and my breath caught in my chest.

  "What is it?" he said, sensing my distress. I didn't answer. I was looking in his eyes-the irises a light blue; very light. He said something else, and I didn't really hear it; I was watching his lips as he spoke ... "Kathy?" I finally heard him say. "What is it, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing," I lied. But inside I felt strange, as though I had discovered something I shouldn't have-like turning over a rock and finding nightcrawlers underneath. Something similar squirmed inside me when I looked at Robert. I told him I had to go home and practice my piano; he seemed disappointed, started to get up, but I was well on my way before he could suggest walking back together.

  Later, playing alone on the swing set in my backyard, I realized I had turned my back on someone who might've become my first real friend, and the rush of the wind blew my tears back into my eyes, and I thought I would drown in my own regret.

  I didn't dare tell my parents about Robert, of course-I was afraid they wouldn't believe that I hadn't actually told him anything about myself. I kept a cautious eye out for him at school, but never caught so much as a glimpse of him, which I thought strange, considering the size of the school. Finally, consumed by equal parts anxiety and need, I went up to Cindy Lennox one day in the cafeteria and said, "I met a friend of yours the other day. He said his name was Robert."

  She looked blank. "Who?"

  "Well, I don't know his last name, but he did a sketch of you. He's an artist?"

  She just shook her head. "I don't know any artists named Robert."

  I felt like an idiot. I stammered out something, guess I'm mistaken sorry bye, and quickly got out of there. I resolved to forget about Robert entirely; he gave me the creeps, why did I even care who he was?

  I went home, my mother took me to my Thursday session with my piano instructor, Professor Laangan, and I gladly lost myself in Chopin and Bach for the next hour. When I got home I banged out of the house, into the backyard, intending to play on the swing set until dinnertime But there was someone already on the swing.

  Not Robert; a girl. I stopped short. Her back was to me; all I saw was a dark brown ponytail bobbing behind her as she swung.

  On my swing. In my backyard!

  "Excuse me?" I said. That startled her. She jumped off; turned around to face me, hands indignantly on hips.

  "What are you doing in my yard?" she demanded.

  As before, I couldn't answer. I was so stunned, I couldn't even speak.

  I was staring ... at myself.

  Me but not-me: her hair longer, ponytail arcing like a whip behind her, and though her features were identical to mine, I was seeing them configured in a way I never bad before-thin lips twisted in a sneer, sky-blue eyes flashing with annoyance, head cocked at a haughty little angle. "Well?" she said petulantly.

  Finally I found my voice, even if it did crack a little: "This-this is my yard."

  She took a few steps toward me, hands still on her hips, a certain swagger in her walk. "Oh, is it now?"

  I stepped back, a reflex. She smiled, sensing that she had the advantage. "Look," she said slowly, "you're obviously not very bright, so it really wouldn't be fair of me, with a 200 I.Q., to take advantage, but ... oh, what the heck. This is your yard, so, ipso facto, you must be ... Katherine Brannon?"

  I couldn't stop staring at her. It was like looking into a mirror, but having your reflection suddenly start mouthing off at you. I was silent long enough that she said, "Hello? Can you at least pretend to some intelligence? Especially if you're trying to impersonate the winner of the Fairfax County Scholastic-"

  I didn't care what she'd won; I'd had enough of this little brat. "I live here!"

  I shouted suddenly, and was pleased to see her flinch. "I don't care who you think you are, this is my house!"

  Those crystal blue eyes, my eyes, were transparent with hatred. "We'll just see about that," she said coldly, then turned on her heel-and ran toward the house. I'd left the back door open; she ran through it and out of sight. I raced in after her, through the kitchen and into the living room, where my father was just sitting down to watch the news.

  "Where is she?" I yelled, breathless. He blinked.

  "Where is who? And why are you yelling, young lady?"

  "The girl! The one who ran in! The one with-" I almost said, The one with my face, but wisely didn't take it that far.

  "The only girl running in here," my mother said, coming up behind me, "is you.”

  It was true. I searched my bedroom, the family room, even the kitchen again-, the girl was gone. Shaken, pressed by my parents for answers, I told them I was just pretending; made it seem as though I were chasing an imaginary playmate. And as I lay in bed that night, I almost convinced myself of the same thing; that my imagination-and loneliness-had conjured up my strange nemesis. I went to school resolved to try and overcome my shyness, to make more friends somehow-to fin
d the time, between lessons and practice, to do the normal things other girls did.

  In the cafeteria at lunchtime, I noticed a new girl with long, silky blonde hair sitting alone at a table, eating her macaroni and cheese. Screwing up my nerve, I marched right over and introduced myself.

  "Hi," I said. "You're new, aren't you?"

  The girl shook aside her long shock of hair, looked up, and smiled at me.

  "Yes," she said, shyly pleased, "I just transferred over from public."

  And once again, I was looking into my own eyes.

  Involuntarily I cried out, a yelp of shock and fear. This instantly made me the focus of all attention in the cafeteria, which distracted me just long enough to look away from the blonde girl, the blonde me, for a moment ... and when I looked back, she was gone.

  I spent the rest of the lunch hour feeling the eyes of my classmates on me, like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass; their whispers, their little sniggers, were even worse, each a tiny dagger in my back. When the bell rang, I greeted it as a deliverance; but what it delivered me into turned out to be far worse.

  During math period a male version of me-not Robert but another boy with my eyes, lips, nose-looked up periodically from his desk, rattled off the solution to an equation as though he had a calculator in his head, then went back to scribbling on an electronic notepad. No one else seemed to notice him, and I kept silent, biting my lip, my hands trembling the whole hour.

  In English I glanced up from my own notescreen to find the blonde Kathy (she signed it Kathi) standing before the class, reciting an essay-even as my teacher, Mrs.Mckinnon, simultaneously lectured us on the proper use of participles. I sat there, the two voices clashing in my head-trying to drown them out with my thoughts, a memory of the bombastic third movement of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler-praying for the blonde me to shut up and sit down ... In gym class a taller, lither version of myself straddled the parallel bars like a budding Olympian gymnast; she swung her perfectly proportioned legs up, up, up, balanced herself for several moments in a perfect handstand, then swung down and vaulted off the bars. And watching her amazing balance, her strength, her grace, I felt the first shameful pang of what was to become a familiar envy ... By the end of the day, as I hurried out of the building, they were everywhere: the bratty Katherine (Katia, she called herself) was holding court by the stairwell, her mocking laugh at someone's expense echoing through the corridor; in the music room one version of me played the violin, as another practiced the flute; in shop class Robert was making a wooden horse from soft balsa, touching the edge of its mane to a spinning lathe.

  I hurried home, but to my horror they were all following me, a procession of Katherines, male and female, tall and short, dark and blonde and everything in between-all laughing or talking, bouncing balls or hefting schoolbooks, a phantom regiment haunting my every step. I ran the last several blocks, ran into the imagined safety of my home, crying "Mommy! Daddy!" but this was no refuge either: as I burst into the living room I heard a voice, my voice, raised in song, saw myself standing by the piano, practicing the scales with a perfect pitch I didn't possess; saw too a red-haired Kathy with sculpted nose, green eyes, and full lips, talking endlessly on the phone; saw a tomboy Kath bang in in torn jeans and T-shirt, yelling for mom It took me a moment to realize that I was screaming Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP! at the top of my voice, shouting Mommy! Daddy! Make them go AWAY, and as I fell sobbing to the floor I saw my mother, her face ashen, stumbling as she rushed toward me-and then she was holding me, rocking me, and for one terrible moment I wasn't even sure, I didn't know, which one of us she really held ... The hospital came as a relief. I didn't know why at the time, but the number of other Katherines dwindled from dozens to a handful, and the more radically different ones-boys; blondes; gymnasts-didn't appear at all. The ones that did appear (and that was the correct word: as I lay in bed, staring into space, I saw them walk into the room as through a fold in the air, then exit, minutes or hours later, in the same way) all looked pretty much like me, and all looked just about as screwed up, as well. One sat in a corner and cried for what seemed hours on end; one angrily pounded her fists on the door and screamed obscenities; another tore a small piece of loose metal from the bed frame, entered the toilet, and never came out! I stayed out of the bathroom for hours, my bladder bursting, terrified at what I might find in there.

  Seeing these terrible alternatives, ironically enough, was the best thing for me: determined not to end up like any of them, I didn't let my fear turn to panic, or hysteria. I stayed calm when the doctors asked me questions, I told them everything I'd seen and continued to see; they responded gravely and not, oddly enough, condescendingly. Almost all doctors treat children as though they're not merely young but retarded as well; yet here were a bunch of adults soberly asking me questions as if I too were an adult: "What were the differences, physically, between the boy you met in the woods and the boy in math class?"

  "Did all of the other Katherines call themselves that, or did they use other names?"

  Their matter-of-factness helped to keep me calm; even encouraged me, when they asked if I was seeing anyone at the moment, to shrug and say, "Oh, sure. There's one sitting in the corner right now." And I'd swear I saw one of them glance, ever so slightly, into the corner of the room, then quickly back again.

  Each of my parents blamed the other for what had happened: my father accused my mother of working me into a state of nervous exhaustion, and my mother, hurt, shot back that there was no mental illness on her side of the family. I heard all this late one night when they thought I was asleep-, heard also my father's wounded silence, pregnant with guilt and fear that perhaps his father's legacy hadn't been extinguished, after all.

  But as it turned out there was more than enough guilt to pass around. When the doctors finished their examination and sat down to talk to my parents (though I didn't learn this until years later) their first question was, "Is she gene enhanced?" Apparently this sort of "psychotic break," as they called it, was not uncommon among the genetically enhanced-one in every ten children suffered under some similar kind of delusional system, the onset usually just before puberty. They didn't know why-, all they could do was study the pathology and hope to understand it. The good news was, most children, with therapy, could learn to distinguish between reality and delusion. Would my parents agree to place me in out-patient therapy, as part of a study group?

  Of course they agreed. The choices they'd made for me, for my life, now came back to haunt them; and where once they had dreamed for me a life far above normal, now they prayed it would be merely, blessedly, normal.

  My favorite of the doctors was Dr. Carroll, a prematurely gray woman in her late thirties; she came after the first round of interrogators, and immediately endeared herself to me by bringing me a set of flowered barrettes for my hair. "They're my daughter's," she said, "but I thought you might appreciate them more, just now, and she was happy to let you have them." I was wearing drab green hospital gowns most of the time; the pink and purple barrettes were a welcome reminder of the outside world, and I beamed as I slipped them into my hair.

  "Thanks," I said, adding, "How old is your daughter?"

  "A little older than you-about thirteen." She looked at my reflection in the small vanity mirror and smiled. "You look very pretty."

  I automatically shook my head. "Not me. I'm not pretty."

  "I think you are. Why don't you?"

  Dr. Carroll's talent for making therapy seem like gentle conversation put me at my ease, and her calm attitude toward my starkest fears made those fears seem somehow surmountable. At first we talked only about music, and school, and all the normal self-image problems any girl my age would have; it wasn't until our fifth session together that she asked me if I saw any other Katherines in the room just then.

  I glanced over at the window, where the Screamer, as I called her, was pounding on the thick leaded glass, shouting "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" over and over. I told this to Dr. Carro
ll (though I didn't repeat the F-word), wondering if she believed me.

  She nodded, but instead of pursuing it she looked at me very seriously and said, "You're a very special young lady, Katherine. You know all about that, don't you?"

  I hesitated, not admitting anything, but she went on as though I had:

  "Well, sometimes special people see special things. Things other people don't see. That doesn't mean those things aren't real. It doesn't mean that you're wrong, or crazy, for seeing them."

  It was the first time anyone had used the word crazy to my face, though not the first time it had occurred to me. Tears sprang to my eyes. "I'm not?" I said in a small, unbearably hopeful voice.

  She shook her head. "I can't tell you these things you see will ever go away. But I can help you to live with them."

  "But who are they?" I asked, desperate for answers. "Where do they come from?"

  She paused. "We're not sure yet. We have some ideas, but we can't talk about them to your parents because that's all they are right now, just ideas. But .. ."

  She put a fingertip, lightly, to my lips; smiled. "Can you keep a secret, Kathy?

  Our secret, yours and mine. Not for your mom or dad, or your best friend, or anyone?"

  I nodded eagerly.

  "You're a little too young to understand it all," she said, "but think of them as ... echoes. Like when you call out in the woods, and hear your own voice bounce back at you? That's all they are. And they can't hurt you."

  "Are they real?"

  "Not in the way you are," she said. "How can I-?" She stopped, thought a moment, then smiled. "Hold out your left hand," she instructed.

  I held out my left hand. "Keep it there," she said. "Now. Look around. Do you see any other echoes?"

  I looked around the room. The Screamer was still there, of course, and the sobbing girl, and ... I gasped.

  Sitting next to me on the bed was another echo-a perfect echo, in fact, dressed just like me, the flowered barrettes in exactly the same places, identical in appearance, except ... she was holding out her right hand.