The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  The jerry, however, stayed on and held back his companions, two russes. "Don't give her the satisfaction," he said.

  "But we'll miss the game," said one of the russes.

  "We'll watch it in here if we have to," said the jerry.

  Zoranna liked russes. Unlike jerries, they were generous souls, and you always knew where you stood with them. These two wore brown jackets and teal slacks. Their name badges read "FREI:Y' and "OSCAR." They were probably returning from a day spent bodyguarding some minor potentate in Cincinnati or Terre Haute. Consulting each other with a glance, they each took an arm and dragged the jerry off the lift.

  When the doors closed and Zoranna was alone at last, she sagged with relief. "And now, Bug," she said, "we have a consensus of one. So retract my handicap file and pay whatever toll necessary to take us down nonstop." The brake released, and the elevator plunged some 260 floors. Her ears popped. "I guess you've learned something, Bug," she said, thinking about the types of elevators.

  "Affirmative," Bug said. "Bug learned you developed a cerebral aneurysm at the calendar age of fifty-two and that you've had your brain and spinal cord rejuvenated twice since then. Bug learned that your organs have an average bioage of thirty-five years, with your lymphatic system the oldest at bioage sixty-five, and your cardiovascular system the youngest at twenty-five."

  "You've been examining my medical records?"

  "Affirmative."

  "I told you to fetch one file, not my entire chart!"

  "You told Bug to unlock your archives. Bug is getting to know you."

  "What else did you look at?" The elevator eased to a soft landing at S40 and opened its doors.

  "Bug reviewed your diaries and journals, the corpus of your zing writing, your investigative dossiers, your complete correspondence, judicial records, awards and citations, various multimedia scrapbooks, and school transcripts. Bug is currently following public links."

  Zoranna was appalled. Nevertheless, she realized that if she'd opened her archives earlier, they'd be through this imprinting phase by now.

  She followed Bug's pedway directions to Nancy's block. Sub40 corridors were decorated in cheerless colors and lit with harsh, artificial light-biofumes couldn't live underground. There were no grand promenades, no parks or shops. There was a dank odor of decay, however, and chilly ventilation.

  On Nancy's corridor, Zoranna watched two people emerge from a door and come her way. They moved with the characteristic shuffle of habitually deferred body maintenance. They wore dark clothing impossible to date and, as they passed, she saw that they were crying. Tears coursed freely down their withered cheeks. To Zoranna's distress, she discovered they'd just emerged from her sister's apartment. "You're sure this is it?" she said, standing before the door marked S40 G6879. "Affirmative," Bug said.

  Zoranna fluffed her hair with her fingers and straightened her skirt. "Door, announce me.

  "At once, Zoe," replied the door.

  Several moments later, the door slid open, and Nancy stood there supporting herself with an aluminum walker. "Darling Zoe," she said, balancing herself with one band and reaching out with the other.

  Zoranna stood a moment gazing at her baby sister before entering her embrace. Nancy bad let herself go completely. Her hair was brittle grey, she was pale to the point of bloodless, and she had doubled in girth. When they kissed, Nancy's skin gave off a sour odor mixed with lilac.

  "What a surprise!" Nancy said. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

  "I did. Several times."

  "You did? You called?" Nancy looked upset. "I told him there was something wrong with the houseputer, but be didn't believe me."

  Someone appeared behind Nancy, a handsome man with wild, curly, silver hair. "Who's this?" he said in an authoritative baritone. He looked Zoranna over. "You must be Zoe," he boomed. "What a delight!" He stepped around Nancy and drew Zoranna to him in a powerful hug. He stood at least a head taller than she. He kissed her eagerly on the cheek. "I am Victor. Victor Vole. Come in, come in. Nancy, you would let your sister stand in the hall?" He drew them both inside.

  Zoranna had prepared herself for a small apartment, but not this small, and for castoff furniture, but not a room filled floor to ceiling with hospital beds. It took several long moments for her to comprehend what she was looking at. There were some two dozen beds in the three-by-five-meter living room. Half were arranged on the floor, and the rest clung upside-down to the ceiling. They were holograms, she quickly surmised, separate holos arranged in snowflake fashion, that is, six individual beds facing each other and overlapping at the foot. What's more, they were occupied by obviously sick, possibly dying, strangers. Other than the varied lighting from the holoframes, the living room was unlit. What odd pieces of real furniture it contained were pushed against the walls. In the corner, a hutch intended to hold bric-a-brac was apparently set up as a shrine to a saint. A row of flickering votive candles illuminated an old flatstyle picture of a large, barefoot man draped head to foot in flowing robes. "What the hell, Nancy?" Zoranna said. "This is my work," Nancy said proudly. "Please," said Victor, escorting them from the door. "Let's talk in the kitchen. We'll have dessert. Are you after dinner, Zoe?"

  "Yes, thank you," said Zoranna. "I ate on the tube." She was made to walk through a suffering man's bed; there was no path around him to the kitchen. "Sorry," she said. But he seemed accustomed to his unfavorable location and closed his eyes while she passed through.

  The kitchen was little more than an alcove separated from the living room by a counter. There was a bed squeezed into it as well, but the occupant, a grizzled man with open mouth, was either asleep or comatose. "I think Edward will be unavailable for some while," Victor said. "Houseputer, delete this hologram. Sorry, Edward, but we need the space." The holo vanished, and Victor offered Zoranna a stool at the counter. "Please," he said, "will you have tea? Or a thimble of cognac?"

  "Thank you," Zoranna said, perching herself on the stool and crossing her legs, "tea would be fine." Her sister ambulated into the kitchen and flipped down her walker's built-in seat, but before she could sit, a mournful wail issued from the bedroom. "Naaaancy," cried the voice, its gender uncertain. "Nancy, I need you."

  "Excuse me," Nancy said. "I'll go with you," Zoranna said and hopped off the stool.

  The bedroom was half the size of the living room and contained half the number of holo beds, plus a real one against the far wall. Zoranna sat on it. There was a dresser, a recessed closet, a bedside night table. Expensive-looking men's clothing hung in the closet. A pair of men's slippers was parked under the dresser. And a holo of a soccer match was playing on the night table. Tiny players in brightly colored jerseys swarmed over a field the size of a doily. "Re sound was off.

  Zoranna watched Nancy sit on her walker seat beneath a bloat-faced woman bedded upside down on the ceiling. "What exactly are you doing with these people?"

  "I listen mostly," Nancy replied. "I'm a volunteer hospice attendant."

  "A volunteer? What about the-" she tried to recall Nancy's most recent paying occupation, "-the hairdressing?"

  "I haven't done that for years," Nancy said dryly. "As you may have noticed, it's difficult for me to be on my feet all day."

  "Yes, in fact, I did notice," said Zoranna. "Why is that? I've sent you money."

  Nancy ignored her, looked up at the woman, and said, "I'm here, Mrs. Hurley. What seems to be the problem?"

  Zoranna examined the holos. As in the living room, each bed was a separate projection, and in the corner of each frame was a network squib and trickle meter. All of this interactive time was costing someone a pretty penny.

  The woman saw Nancy and said, "Oh, Nancy, thank you for coming. My bed is wet, but they won't change it until I sign a permission form, and I don't understand."

  "Do you have the form there with you, dear?" said Nancy. "Good, hold it up." Mrs. Hurley held up a slate in trembling hands. "Houseputer," Nancy said, "capture and display that form." The docume
nt was projected against the bedroom wall greatly oversized. "That's a permission form for attendant-assisted suicide, Mrs. Hurley. You don't have to sign it unless you want to."

  The woman seemed frightened. "Do I want to, Nancy?"

  Victor stood in the doorway. "No!" he cried. "Never sign!"

  "Hush, Victor," Nancy said.

  He entered the room, stepping through beds and bodies. "Never sign away your life, Mrs. Hurley." The woman appeared even more frightened. "We've returned to Roman society," he bellowed. "Masters and servants! Plutocrats and slaves! Oh, where is the benevolent middle class when we need it?"

  "Victor," Nancy said sternly and pointed to the door. And she nodded to Zoranna, "You too. Have your tea. I'll join you."

  Zoranna followed Victor to the kitchen, sat at the counter, and watched him set out cups and saucers, sugar and soybimi lemon. He unwrapped and sliced a dark cake. He was no stranger to this kitchen. "It's a terrible thing what they did to your sister," he said. "Who? What?"

  He poured boiling water into the pot. "Teaching was her life."

  "Teaching?" Zoranna said, incredulous. "You're talking about something that ended thirty years ago."

  "It's all she ever wanted to do."

  "Tough!" she said. "We've all paid the price of longevity. How can you teach elementary school when there're no more children? You can't. So you retrain. You move on. What's wrong with working for a living? You join an outfit like this," she gestured to take in the whole tower above her, "you're guaranteed your livelihood for life! The only thing not handed you on a silver platter is longevity. You have to earn that yourself. And if you can't, what good are you?"

  When she remembered that two dozen people lay dying in the next room because they couldn't do just that, she lowered her voice. "Must society carry your dead weight through the centuries?"

  Victor laughed and placed his large hand on hers. "I see you are a true freebooter, Zoe. I wish everyone bad your initiative, your drive! But sadly, we don't. We yearn for simple lives, and so we trim people's hair all day. When we tire of that, they retrain us to pare their toenails. When we tire of that, we die. For we lack the souls of servants. A natural servant is a rare and precious person. How lucky our masters are to have discovered cloning! Now they need find but one servile person among us and clone him repeatedly. As for the rest of us, we can all go to hell!" He removed his hand from hers to pour the tea. Her hand immediately missed his. "But such morbid talk on such a festive occasion!" he roared. "How wonderful to finally meet the famous Zoe. Nancy speaks only of you. She says you are an important person, modern and successful. That you are an investigator." He peered at her over his teacup.

  "Missing persons, actually, for the National Police." she said. "But I quit that years ago. When we found everybody."

  "You found everybody?" Victor laughed and gazed at her steadily, then turned to watch Nancy making her rounds in the living room.

  "What about you, Mr. Vole?" Zoranna said. "What do you do for a living?"

  "What's this Mr.? I'm not Mr. I'm Victor! We are practically related, you and I. What do I do for a living? For a living I live, of course. For groceries, I teach ballroom dance lessons."

  "You're kidding."

  "Why should I kid? I teach the waltz, the fox trot, the cha-cha." He mimed holding a partner and swaying in three-quarters time. "I teach the merletz and my specialty, the Cuban tango."

  "I'm amazed," said Zoranna. "There's enough interest in that for Applied People to keep instructors?"

  Victor recoiled in mock affront. "I am not AP. I'm a freebooter, like you, Zoe."

  "Oh," she said and paused to sip her tea. If he wasn't AP, what was he doing obviously living in an APRT? Had Nancy respoused? Applied People tended to be proprietary about living arrangements in its towers. Bug, she tongued, find Victor Vole's status in the tower directory. Out loud she said, "It pays well, dance instruction?"

  "It pays execrably." He threw his hands into the air. "As do all the arts. But some things are more important than money. You make a point, however. A man must eat, so I do other things as well. I consult with gentlemen on the contents of their wardrobes. This pays more handsomely, for gentlemen detest appearing in public in outmoded attire."

  Zoranna had a pleasing mental image of this tall, elegant man in a starched white shirt and black tux floating across a shiny hardwood floor in the arms of an equally elegant partner. She could even imagine herself as that partner. But Nancy?

  The tower link is unavailable, said Bug, due to overextension of the houseputer processors.

  Zoranna was surprised. A mere three dozen interactive holos would hardly burden her home system. But then, everything on Sub4O seemed substandard.

  Nancy ambulated to the kitchen balancing a small, flat carton on her walker and placed it next to the teapot.

  "Now, now," said Victor. "What did autodoc say about lifting things? Come, join us and have your tea."

  "In a minute, Victor. There's another box."

  "Show me," he said and went to help her.

  Zoranna tasted the dark cake. It was moist to the point of wet, too sweet, and laden with spice. She recalled her father buying cakes like this at a tiny shop on Paderszewski Boulevard in Chicago. She took another bite and examined Nancy's carton. It was a home archivist box that could be evacuated of air, but the seal was open and the lid unlatched. She lifted the lid and saw an assortment of little notebooks, no two of the same style or size, and bundles of envelopes with colorful paper postal stamps. The envelope on top was addressed in hand script to a Pani Beata Smolenska-Zoranna's great-grandmother.

  Victor dropped a second carton on the counter and helped Nancy sit in her armchair recliner in the living room. "Nancy," said Zoranna, "what's all this?"

  "It's all yours," said her sister. Victor fussed over Nancy's pillows and covers and brought her tea and cake.

  Zoranna looked inside the larger carton. There was a rondophone and several inactive holocubes on top, but underneath were objects from earlier centuries. Not antiques, exactly, but worn-out everyday objects: a sterling salt cellar with brass showing through its silver plating, a collection of military bullet casings childishly glued to an oak panel, a rosary with corn kernel beads, a mustache trimmer. "what's all this junk?" she said, but of course she knew, for she recognized the pair of terracotta robins that had belonged to her mother. This was the collection of what her family regarded as heirlooms. Nancy, the youngest and most steadfast of seven children, had apparently been designated its conservator. But why had she brought it out for airing just now? Zoranna knew the answer to that, too. She looked at her sister who now lay among the hospice patients. Victor was scolding her for not wearing her vascular support stockings. Her ankles were grotesquely edematous, swollen like sausages and bruised an angry purple.

  Damn you, Zoranna thought. Bug, she tongued, call up the medical records of Nancy Brim, nee Smolenska. I'll help munch the passwords.

  The net is unavailable, replied Bug.

  Bypass the houseputer. Log directly onto public access.

  Public access is unavailable.

  She wondered how that was possible. There had been no problem in the elevator. Why should this apartment be in shadow? She looked around and tried to decide where the utilidor spar would enter the apartment. Probably the bathroom with the plumbing, since there were no service panels in the kitchen. She stepped through the living room to the bathroom and slid the door closed. The bathroom was a tiny ceramic vault that Nancy had tried to domesticate with baskets of sea shells and scented soaps. The medicine cabinet was dedicated to a man's toiletries.

  Zoranna found the service panel artlessly hidden behind a towel. Its tamperproof latch had been defeated with a sophisticated-looking gizmo that Zoranna was careful not to disturb.

  "Do you find Victor Vole alarming or arousing?" said Bug.

  Zoranna was startled. "Why do you ask?"

  "Your blood level of adrenaline spiked when he touched your hand.
"

  "My what? So now you're monitoring my biometrics?"

  "Bug is getting-"

  "I know," she said, "Bug is getting to know me. You're a persistent little snoop, aren't you."

  Zoranna searched the belt's utility pouch for a terminus relay, found a UDIN, and plugged it into the panel's keptel jack. "There," she said, "now we should have access."

  "Affirmative," said Bug. "Autodoc is requesting passwords for Nancy's medical records."

  "Cancel my order. We'll do that later."

  "Tower directory lists no Victor Vole."

  "I didn't think so," Zoranna said. "Call up the houseputer log and display it on the mirror."

  The consumer page of Nancy's houseputer appeared over the mirror. Zoranna poked through its various menus and found nothing unusual. She did find a record of her own half-dozen calls to Nancy that were viewed but not returned. "Bug, can you see anything wrong with this log?"

  "This is not a standard user log," said Bug. "The standard log has been disabled. All house lines circumvent the built-in houseputer to terminate in a mock houseputer."

  "A mock houseputer?" said Zoranna. "Now that's interesting." There were no cables trailing from the service panel and no obvious optical relays. "Can you locate the processor?"

  "It's located one half-meter to our right at thigh level."

  It was mounted under the sink, a cheap-looking, saucer-sized piece of hardware.

  "I think you have the soul of an electronic engineer," she said. "I could never program Hounder to do what you've just done. So, tell me about the holo transmissions in the other rooms."

  "A private network entitled "The Hospicers of Camillus de Lellis' resides in the mock houseputer and piggybacks over TSN channel 203."