The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Some of my echoes were the result of chance; but others were a product of choice. I didn't choose to be a musical prodigy-that was determined for me. But I had chosen to become what I was now: the sobbing echo. However unwittingly, I had chosen that. I had had that choice. And if I had it then-I still did. I still had a choice. I did. I did.

  There is an old, famous experiment-one of the first to imply the existence of probability waves-which I read about in my sessions with Dr. Carroll: Shoot a spray of electrons through two slits in a wall, onto a video screen where their impact can be recorded. The result? An interference pattern from the overlapping waves of electrons. Fine; that much makes sense. But shoot just one electron at a time through a slit, then look later at the cumulative pattern-and you find the identical interference pattern. Impossible, on the face of it: the electrons, having been projected one at a time, haven't actually overlapped. But apparently the thousands of potential electron paths exist, on a quantum level, with the one path the electron actually does travel-and they somehow influence it, limiting the paths the single electron can take.

  It took me a long while to realize it, but in a way, I was like that electron: for too long, I allowed the thousands of potential lives I might have led to limit, to proscribe, the life I was leading. Seeing the echoes of all I might have been, it was easy to forget that I was not just one of them; that they in fact emanated from me, not simply from that one moment of genetic manipulation but from every moment thereafter as well. Human beings, unlike electrons, have free will-and I soon decided to exert it with a vengeance.

  I dropped out of Juilliard and enrolled at a small college in upstate New York, leaving the majority of my quantum ghosts behind in Manhattan. My parents were appalled at the move; even more so when I elected not to major in music, but to keep an open major, at least for a year or two. I took classes in art, in literature, in anthropology, any and all subjects that interested me-and was amazed to discover that I had both an affinity and an aptitude for something outside music. I would never have Robert's artistic skills, but I could, in fact, draw passably well, if only for my own amusement; I might never have the dancer's grace at a ballet barre, but I could dance, I was not a hopeless klutz. I might never have the red-haired Kathy's drop-dead, fashion-model looks-but I was pretty. I really was.

  Because I had been designed from birth to be a musician, I had decided, like the electron, that there was only one path for me to take; and having discovered that that was not the case, I've had a richer, more interesting life than I might otherwise have dreamed. I've climbed mountains in Nepal; I've ridden Irish thoroughbreds in County Monaghan. I've been married, had two children; I've written a sonata for violin and piano for my old friend Gerald, and illustrated a computer-generated children's book for my four-year-old daughter. In my youth, I naively believed that life could be, should be, structured like a concerto; today I know better. I know that life is andante and presto and adagio, all entwined, a fugue of sorts, the promise and the sadness often separated by mere moments, tragedy and serenity not nearly so discrete as I once believed. And I've known my share of both.

  Through all of it, my echoes have never been far away: they are not far from me now. Now old like me, they surround me as I write this-one of them also sitting at a computer, not writing but painting; one of them playing a snatch of Gershwin on a flute; another at the piano; still another simply sitting and weeping, over what I am not quite sure. Occasionally, in big cities, I catch glimpses of others: I saw Robert on a street in Dallas and I think he recognized me, throwing me a Cheshire smile before vanishing; I went to the ballet in New York and was surprised to find Katrina performing a ghostly turn as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, and I felt a surge not of envy but of pride. My echoes are no longer tormentors but friends, and when one of them dies (as, inevitably, they have begun to) I mourn a little, as I would a sister. Each one, to be sure, still represents a different path, a different life. But the joy, the wonder, of it all is this: I have taken one path, but many turns; I was granted one life, but lived many lives. The paths, the roads, may be infinite and beautiful; but the journey is even more so.

  Getting To Know You

  David Marusek

  New writer David Marusek is a graduate of Clarion West. He made his first sale to Asimov's Science Fiction in 1993, and his second sale soon thereafter to Playboy, followed subsequently by more sales to Asimov's and to the British anthology Future Histories. His pyrotechnic novella "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy" was one of the most popular and talked about stories of 1995; although it was only his third sale, it was accomplished enough to make one of the reviewers for Locus magazine speculate that Marusek must be a big name author writing under a pseudonym. Not a pseudonym, Marusek lives the life of a struggling young writer in a "low-maintenance cabin in the woods" in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I'm willing to bet that his is a voice we'll be hearing a lot more from as we move toward the new century ahead. He has a Web site at http://www.sff.net/people/davidmarusek/.

  In the story that follows, he takes us back to the intricate and strange future milieu of "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy," for a fast-paced tale that warns us that there are dangers in letting an experimental machine servant get to know you too well-although, by God, there are some advantages to it, too ...

  In 2019, Applied People constructed the first Residential Tower to house its growing army of professionals-fore-hire. Shaped like a giant egg in a porcelain cup, APRT 1 loomed three kilometers over the purple soybimi fields of northern Indiana and was visible from both Chicago and Indianapolis. Rumor said it generated gravity. That is, if you fell off your career ladder, you wouldn't fall down, but you'd fly cross-country instead, still clutching your hat and briefcase, your stock options and retirement plan, to APRT 1.

  SUMMER 2062

  Only four hours earlier in San Francisco, Zoranna had set the house to vacation mode and given it last-minute instructions. She'd thrown beachwear and evening clothes into a bag.

  Reluctantly, she'd removed flounder, her belt, and hung him on a peg in the closet. While doing so, she made a solemn vow not to engage in any work-related activities for a period of three weeks. The next three weeks were to be scrupulously dedicated to visiting her sister in Indiana, shopping for a hat in Budapest, and lying on a beach towel in the South of France. But no sooner had Zoranna made this vow than she broke it by deciding to bring along Bug, the beta unit.

  "Where were you born?" Bug asked in its squeaky voice.

  Zoranna started on a new pretzel and wondered why Bug repeatedly asked certain questions. No doubt it had to do with its imprinting algorithm. "Take a note," she said, "annoying repetition."

  "Note taken," said Bug. "Where were you born?"

  "Where do you think I was born?"

  "Buffalo, New York," said Bug.

  "Very good."

  "What is your date of birth?"

  Zoranna sighed. "August 12, 1961. Honestly, Bug, I wish you'd tap public records for this stuff."

  "Do you like the timbre of Bug's voice?" it said. "Would you prefer it lower or higher?" It repeated this question through several octaves.

  "Frankly, Bug, I detest your voice at any pitch."

  "What is your favorite color?"

  "I don't have one."

  "Yesterday your favorite color was salmon."

  "Well, today it's cranberry." The little pest was silent for a moment while it retrieved and compared color libraries. Zoranna tried to catch up with the holovid, but she'd lost the thread of the story.

  "You have a phone call," Bug said, "Ted Chalmers at General Genius."

  Zoranna sat up straight and patted her hair. "Put him on and squelch the vid." A miniature hologram of Ted with his feet on his desk was projected in the air before her. Ted was an attractive man Zoranna had wanted to ask out a couple times, but never seemed able to catch between spousals. By the time she'd bear he was single again, he'd be well into his next liaison. It made her wonder how someone with her w
orld-class investigative skills could be so dateless. She'd even considered assigning Hounder to monitor Ted's availability status in order to get her foot in his door.

  When Ted saw her, he smiled and said, "Hey, Zoe, how's our little prototype?"

  "Driving me crazy," she said. "Refresh my memory, Ted. When's the Inquisition supposed to end?"

  Ted lowered his feet to the floor. "It's still imprinting? How long have you had it now?" He consulted a display and answered his own question. "Twenty two days. That's a record." He got up and paced his office, walking in and out of the projected holoframe.

  "No kidding," said Zoranna. "I've had marriages that didn't last that long."

  She'd meant for this to be funny, but it fell flat.

  Ted sat down. "I wish we could continue the test, but unfortunately we're aborting. We'd like you to return the unit-" He glanced at his display again, -return Bug as soon as possible."

  "Why? What's up?"

  "Nothing's up. They want to tweak it some more is all." He flashed her his best PR smile.

  Zoranna shook her bead. "Ted, you don't pull the plug on a major field test just like that."

  Ted shrugged his shoulders. "That's what I thought. Anyway, think you can drop it in a shipping chute today?"

  "In case you haven't noticed," she said, "I happen to be in a transcontinental Slipstream car at the moment, which Bug is navigating. I left Hounder at home. The soonest I can let Bug go is when I return in three weeks."

  "That won't do, Zoe," Ted said and frowned. "Tell you what. General Genius will send you, at no charge, its Diplomat Deluxe model, preloaded with transportation, telecommunications, the works. Where will you be tonight?"

  Something surely was wrong. The Diplomat was GG's flagship model and expensive even for Zoranna. "I'll be at APRT 24," she said, and when Ted raised an eyebrow, explained, "My sister lives there."

  "APRT 24 it is, then."

  "Listen, Ted, something stinks. Unless you want me snooping around your shop, you'd better come clean."

  "Off the record?"

  "Fuck off the record. I have twenty-two days invested in this test and no story."

  "I see. You have a point. How's this sound? In addition to the complimentary belt, we'll make you the same contract for the next test. You're our team journalist. Deal?" Zoranna shrugged, and Ted put his feet back on the desk. "Heads are rolling, Zoe. Big shake-up in product development. Threats of lawsuits. We're questioning the whole notion of combining belt valet technology with artificial personality. Or at least with this particular personality."

  "Why? What's wrong with it?"

  "It's too pushy. Too intrusive. Too heavy-handed. It's a monster that should have never left the lab. You're lucky Bug hasn't converted yet, or you'd be suing us too."

  Ted was exaggerating, of course. She agreed that Bug was a royal pain, but it was no monster. Still, she'd be happy to get rid of it, and the Diplomat belt was an attractive consolation prize. If she grafted Hounder into it, she'd be ahead of the technology curve for once. "I'm going to want all the details when I get back, but for now, yeah, sure, you got a deal." After Zoranna ended the call, Bug said, "Name the members of your immediate family and state their relationship to you."

  The car began to decelerate, and Zoranna instinctively checked the buckle of her harness. "My family is deceased, except for Nancy."

  With a hard bump, the car entered the ejection tube, found its wheels, and braked. Lights flashed through the windows, and she saw signs stenciled on the tube wall, "APRT 24, Stanchion 4 Depot."

  "What is Nancy's favorite color?"

  "That's it. That's enough. No more questions, Bug. You heard Ted; you're off the case. Until I ship you back, let's just pretend you're a plain old, dumb belt valet. No more questions. Got it?"

  "Affirmative."

  Pneumatic seals hissed as air pressure equalized, the car came to a halt, and the doors slid open. Zoranna released the harness and retrieved her luggage from the cargo net. She paused a moment to see if there'd be any more questions and then climbed out of the car to join throngs of commuters on the platform. She craned her neck and looked straight up the tower's chimney, the five-hundred-story atrium galleria where floor upon floor of crowded shops, restaurants, theaters, parks, and gardens receded skyward into brilliant haze. Zoranna was ashamed to admit that she didn't know what her sister's favorite color was or, for that matter, her favorite anything. Except that Nancy loved a grand view. And the grandest thing about an APRT was its view. The evening sun, multiplied by giant mirrors on the roof, slid up the sides of the core in an inverted sunset. The ascending dusk triggered whole floors of slumbering biolume railings and walls to luminesce. Streams of pedestrians crossed the dizzying space on suspended pedways. The air pulsed with the din of an indoor metropolis.

  When Nancy first moved here, she was an elementary school teacher who specialized in learning disorders. Despite the surcharge, she leased a suite of rooms so near the top of the tower it was impossible to see her floor from depot level. But with the Procreation Ban of 2033, teachers became redundant, and Nancy was forced to move to a lower, less expensive floor. Then, when freeagency clone technology was licensed, she lost altitude tens of floors at a time. "My last visit," Zoranna said to Bug, "Nancy had an efficiency on the 103rd floor. Check the tower directory."

  "Nancy resides on S40."

  "S40?"

  "Subterranean 40. Thirty-five floors beneath depot level."

  "You don't say."

  Zoranna allowed herself to be swept by the waves of commuters towards the banks of elevators. She had inadvertently arrived during crush hour and found herself pressing shoulders with tired and hungry wage earners at the end of their work cycle. They were uniformly young people, clones mostly, who wore brown and teal Applied People livery. Neither brown nor teal was Zoranna's favorite color.

  The entire row of elevators reserved for the subfloors was inexplicably off-line. The marquee directed her to elevators in Stanchion 5, one klick east by pedway, but Zoranna was tired. "Bug," she said, pointing to the next row, "do those go down?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Good," she, said and jostled her way into the nearest one. It was so crowded with passengers that the doors-begging their indulgence and requesting they consolidate-required three tries to latch. By the time the cornice display showed the results of the destination adjudication, and Zoranna realized she was aboard a consensus elevator, it was too late to get off. Floor 63 would be the first stop, followed by 55, 203, 148, etc. Her floor was dead last.

  Bug, she tongued, this is a Dixon lift!

  Zoranna's long day grew measurably longer each time the elevator stopped to let off or pick up passengers. At each stop the consensus changed, and destinations were reshuffled, but her stop remained stubbornly last. Of the five kinds of elevators the tower deployed, the Dixon consensus lifts worked best for groups of people going to popular floors, but she was the only passenger traveling to the subfloors. Moreover, the consensual ascent acceleration, a sprightly 2.8-g, upset her stomach. Bug, she tongued, fly home for me and unlock my archives. Retrieve a file entitled "cerebral aneurysm" and forward it to the elevator's adjudicator. We'll just manufacture our own consensus.

  This file is out of date, Bug said in her ear after a moment, its implant voice like the whine of a mosquito. Bug cannot feed obsolete data to a public conveyance.

  Then postdate it.

  That is not allowed.

  "I'll tell you what's not allowed!" she said, and people looked at her.

  The stricture against asking questions limits Bug's functionality, Bug said.

  Zoranna sighed. What do you need to know?

  Shall Bug reprogram itself to enable Bug to process the file as requested?

  No, Bug, I don't have the time to reprogram you, even if I knew how.

  Shall Bug reprogram itself?

  It could reprogram itself? Ted had failed to mention that feature. A tool they'd forgotten to disable? Yes
, Bug, reprogram yourself.

  A handicapped icon blinked on the cornice display, and the elevator's speed slowed to a crawl.

  Thank you, Bug. That's more like it.

  A jerry standing in the corner of the crowded elevator said, "The fuck, lift?"

  "Lift speed may not exceed five floors per minute," the elevator replied.

  The jerry rose on tiptoes and surveyed his fellow passengers. "Right," he said, "who's the gimp?" Everyone looked at their neighbors. There were michelles, jennies, a pair of jeromes, and a half-dozen other phenotypes. They all looked at Zoranna, the only person not dressed in AP brown and teal.

  "I'm sorry," she said, pressing her palm to her temple, "I have an aneurysm the size of a grapefruit. The slightest strain .. ." She winced theatrically.

  "Then have it fixed!" the jerry said, to murmured agreement.

  "Gladly," said Zoranna. "Could you pony me the CE23,000?"

  The jerry har-harred and looked her up and down appraisingly. "Sweetheart, if you spent half as much money on the vitals as you obviously do on the peripherals," he leered, "you wouldn't have this problem, now would you?" Zoranna had never liked the jerry type; they were spooky. In fact, more jerries had to be pithed in vatero for incipient sociopathy than any other commercial type. Professionally, they made superb grunts; most of the indentured men in the Protectorate's commando forces were jerries. This one, however, wore an EXTRUSIONS UNLIMITED patch on his teal ball cap; he was security for a retail mall. "So," he said, "where you heading?"

  "Sub40?" she said.

  Passengers consulted the cornice display and groaned. The jerry said, "At this rate it'll take me an hour to get home."

  "Again I apologize," said Zoranna, "but all the down lifts were spango. However, if everyone here consented to drop me off first-?"

  There was a general muttering as passengers spoke to their belts or tapped virtual keyboards, and the elevator said, "Consensus has been modified." But instead of descending as Zoranna expected, it stopped at the next floor and opened its doors. People streamed out. Zoranna caught a glimpse of the 223rd floor with its rich appointments; crystalline decor; high, arched passages; and in the distance, a ringpath crowded with joggers and skaters. An evangeline, her brown puddle-like eyes reflecting warmth and concern, touched Zoranna's arm as she disembarked.