Asimov's SF, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Highsong careened through town with his lights on. They were sure their trap was foolproof and unconcerned with scaring their man off. Speed was only slightly less important than getting there alive.

  “Whoa!” Julie screamed as Highsong swung around a corner only to find the road peppered with stand-still cars. The fender on her side banged against a white Buick, throwing sparks. The side mirror splintered. Then he pinballed through the other vehicles and slammed on his brakes, squashing Julie's chest against her seatbelt.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don't—There!” Julie flung her door open and dragged her pack onto her shoulders as she ran. Above her loomed one of Missoula's “skyscrapers,” a six-story office complex with lower buildings on either side.

  A dark Lexus hidden in one of the garage entrances must have belonged to their victim. He'd opened the driver door, but it was too late. Their trap had attracted machos from all directions.

  The frenzy enshrouding him looked like a nine-foot tornado. He shrieked and kicked inside it, creating brief, man-shaped holes in the gleaming yellow termite storm. One glimpse was enough for Julie to see that his clothes were coming away in shreds.

  “Can he breathe?” Highsong yelled behind her.

  Who cares? Julie thought. “It'll be over in seconds!”

  Half-blind, disoriented, and naked—and God save him if he was ticklish—the man flailed helplessly against his car as the machos ripped into its luxury interior. Wet masses of bugs surged against the glass.

  Julie was jubilant. Got you! she thought, trying to point her camcorder at him as she dashed onto the sidewalk.

  But it was too late for her, too.

  A long spiral of termites swept away from the bad guy and dimmed the corona of Highsong's headlights, enfolding Julie in the nasty fluttering swarm.

  “Gaaaaaaa!” she shrieked.

  They'd obviously hidden their beacons well enough for the man to set off the tripwire in the building's entrance, and no one but evil-doers should be entering this office complex tonight. The same electrical impulse that alerted Highsong via radio had also opened a handful of chem packets, covering the man with an invisible fog. The machos’ sex pheromones were too subtle for a human nose, even laced with the molecular signature of pine rust, but the bad guy probably heard the beacons pop and then saw Julie's wiring and radio transceiver.

  Unfortunately, neither Julie nor Highsong had noticed the leaking beacon they must have broken or triggered inside his truck. They were coated with sex juice, too, and the machos were in a confused, rapturous craze. The bugs tried to eat anything that was plant-based—like cotton.

  Julie grabbed at her top as she dropped and thrashed on the sidewalk, hoping to crush the termites, but it was no good. She was grateful just to get enough air. Then her shirt came apart in her hands and her pants sagged away from her hips. Her bra went next and she staggered up, bewildered and choking.

  The bad guy got clear of the swarm first. Maybe he'd lost his keys. Maybe jumping into the bug orgy inside his car was too horrible to contemplate. Either way, his pale white hiney broke into a sprint down the street, each cheek shining in Highsong's headlights.

  “Don't move or I'll shoot!” Julie shouted, swimming through the machos after him. Highsong was on his feet, too, but tripped over the ragged fabric of his jeans. Julie was lucky her pants had separated completely—and her nylon shoes were intact. It was only by the grace of God that she'd worn her leather jacket, which survived. Otherwise she would have been wearing less than a stripper, and she wasn't a small girl. She felt herself bounce as she charged after the bad guy, armed only with her camcorder. What if he had a gun?

  “Julie!” Highsong yelled.

  The canisters left beside the bad guy's car were vital evidence—could they trace this equipment back to the people who'd packed more termite colonies into those steel tubes for him?—but she wanted this lunatic to pay personally for what he'd done, so she didn't stop.

  The naked chase was on.

  They quickly left the headlights, but the bad guy wasn't getting enough sun. His back had some color, yet his buttocks were like round little ghosts churning in the night. He ran like he still had a few bugs where it counted.

  Bouncing, Julie began to fall behind. Cold, she hollered in frustration: “Freeze! I said freeze!”

  The world went supernova. In front of them, the street flared with two dazzling floodlamps and the 4th Infantry pinned the bad guy with fifteen rifles, several glue guns, and a bullhorn. “HALT! PUT YOUR HANDS UP! THIS IS THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND YOU ARE—” The voice turned away. “They're not wearing any clothes,” it said before swinging back again at full volume. “YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!”

  Julie caught up with the bad guy as he stood motionless in the brilliant light, casting a thin shadow like a rat with his hands crossed over his goodies. Behind her, Highsong's truck joined the scene but stopped when the bullhorn shouted again. “HALT!” A dozen soldiers ran forward, their smooth helmets bobbing through the glare. Julie tried her best to pull her jacket down past her waist, but she was more interested in making sure the bad guy saw her grin.

  It was the same brown-haired dude from before.

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  * * * *

  The soldiers were a security detail assigned to two neighboring banks. They didn't have any blankets or tarps on hand, but one man gave Julie his pants, earning a round of hoots and commentary that doubled in volume when she thanked him with a chaste kiss.

  Minutes later, DHS came down on their location like a ton of horse puckey. No less than twenty agents pushed in among the soldiers, taking their catch and isolating Julie and Highsong. That was okay. Julie had already passed her camcorder to the corporal without any pants and asked him to keep it safe for her—and to smuggle it to the CNN crews outside of town if she didn't return for it. The digital Sony not only contained the machos’ assault of the bad guy and Julie's pursuit but also the interviews she'd taped earlier with Highsong and herself, explaining everything with detailed maps, Em's documentation, and property records. Highsong had already uploaded the same files to YouTube, though he'd kept the videos private and inactive for now.

  The easy part was done. Agent Reaves brought them to the medical tents for their scrapes and bruises and then to the cafeteria for a hot meal, playing the good cop to the hilt—and Julie and Highsong were as sweet as butter, chatting him up like long-lost family. They'd violated a federal quarantine by reentering Missoula, but they'd also nabbed the villain. Depending on how Reaves decided to play it, they would sink or swim. Finally the claws came out. Reaves wanted all the information they had, their sources, an oath of silence, and their voluntary resignation from the bug teams. Julie grinned and made her counter-offer.

  “Nah,” she said. “I think DHS should give us a public commendation for our valor above and beyond the call of duty.”

  “We can press charges.”

  “We'll lawyer up and dump our videos on the net for the world to see how DHS is testing their bioweapons programs on innocent civilians.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Organic firebombs. We know DawnTech is in bed with the Pentagon.”

  Reaves stared at her.

  “We don't want to pee on your parade,” Julie said. “We're good Americans. We'd prefer not to make noise about your bug programs, but we will to protect ourselves if we have to. Which we shouldn't. We're heroes.”

  Reaves slowly held out his hand. “You need a medal with that commendation?” he asked, and they shook on it. Julie laughed.

  But the next morning she and Highsong were covered in sweat and bugs again. The termite war continued. At least they seemed to be getting ahead of the machos with no one bringing new colonies into the city. She was more aggravated by the fact that four days passed before Reaves called to follow up.

  Julie had to dig her phone out of her pack when it rang, setting aside her TI gun and an Army radio.

  “Beau
chain?” Reaves said, getting it right.

  The bad guy was a low-level assistant in Machovsky's research facilities. He'd spilled like a leaky bag. Working from his confession, DHS uncovered ties between DawnTech's board of directors and the ownership of Holiday House. Apparently business was down. Way down. More and more Americans were secularizing Christmas and buying all sorts of inane junk—blow-up lawn dolls, roof displays, plastic trees—but competition for those spiking sales was brutal and Holiday House lost their price margin when their tree sales went down the toilet.

  Someone had decided to cut corners, take advantage of the machos’ outbreak, and kill the business and all of its subsidiary holdings. That was the extent of the scheme, Reaves said, no federal involvement, no Men in Black weapons programs, nobody but the usual suspects—a few inept corporate masters with their eyes on fat pay-offs instead of hard work. People were going to jail. Holiday House would be sued to the ground.

  Julie was almost disappointed when she hung up the phone, standing beside a gluey patch of termites on a smoke-ridden Missoula street. “It's over,” she told Highsong. “There's no conspiracy. Reaves has everything sewn up tight.”

  “Maybe next time,” he said, smiling as he roughly embraced her.

  Copyright © 2009 Jeff Carlson

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  * * *

  Poetry: THE ANTI-WORLD

  by Andrew Gudgel

  * * * *

  * * * *

  In the anti-world the anticyclones

  spin anticlockwise across the anticlines

  in slow arcs towards the antipodes.

  —

  The Antinomians enthrone an Antipope

  while Antigone, uncaring, eats antipasto

  on vacation in Anticosti.

  —

  In the anti-world, authors pen

  antinovels of antiphrasis with antiheroes

  who protect their antiques with antiseptic antimacassars.

  —

  Their doctors prescribe antipyretics

  for a swollen antitragus, and sometimes

  an antispasmodic in case of antiperistalsis.

  —

  In the anti-world, the scientists

  study antiprotons, antineutrons, and anti-antimatter,

  in frozen chambers of antimagnetic antimony.

  —

  Sitting in the sunshine of Antioch,

  I wonder if I took an antiserum,

  could I slip over the antinode into the anti-world?

  —

  Perhaps then, my life would be

  less of an antilogy or at least not so anticlimactic,

  my relationships no longer antiparallel.

  —

  —Andrew Gudgel

  Copyright © 2009 Andrew Gudgel

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: AS WOMEN FIGHT

  by Sara Genge

  Like her previous story “Shoes-to-Run” (Asimov's, July 2009), “As Women Fight” is yet another tale about gender. Sara tells us she's been fascinated by the intersection of biological and social aspects of gender for quite some time. Her latest story evokes John Varley's grand tradition as it takes unexpected twists and turns quite appropriate for such a complex subject.

  Merthe stands next to the felled doe and casts a worried look at the sky. He's aching to train for Fight. Between hunting and setting traps, he hasn't trained for a fortnight, but it's too late and he's too far from home. He hoists the doe on his shoulder and heads back. Snow crunches like starch under his boots, reminding him of when he was a young woman and knew a dozen names for snow, all stolen from the dessert section of a cookbook. Whipped cream, souffle, eggnog with a crisp burnt crust...

  The doe is small and Ita will complain. She trusts Merthe only when she can see what he's accomplished in a day's work. She'll want proof that he hasn't been lazing around, or worse, training for Fight. As if he's ever neglected to feed the family. As if he'd ever put his own future before theirs. He swears under his breath. Five years as a man is too much to bear and he vows he will not lose the Fight again even if it means training every waking hour that he isn't hunting.

  When he gets home, the children run to him shouting. He lets them tug at his beard, tries to hug them all at once. He senses them drifting away. No matter that he can still feel them tugging at his breasts. He is either the figure of authority, or the gentle giant. The clown. They come to him to play, but if the wound is deep, it is their mother that they run to.

  “Did you hunt at all?” Ita asks.

  He nods but says no more. He's been a man so long that this flesh has imprinted its own ways into his mind. Male silence comes easy these days; he revels in communication by grunts—or kisses. He knows how much it enrages her; he sometimes tries to be more verbal. But not now. Anything that'll annoy her may throw her off her game. She's won five years in a row. He needs all the help he can get.

  He winks at the children and nods towards the shed. They run off, bringing back the doe between the six of them, the toddlers contributing by getting in the way. Serga doesn't go with them; shei is the eldest, almost ten. Merthe sometimes wonders if shei still remembers heir first mother, still remembers Merthe in Ita's body. He fears shei doesn't: shei was so young when Ita and he swapped places. And yet, Serga stares at him with understanding, a look of pity even. Merthe shivers.

  Ita hurries about and Merthe lets her serve him. In the warmth of the winter hut, the children quickly lose their wraps. Merthe's clothes crack open like a husk, revealing thawing feet and a wide chest that has lost its summer tan. He looks upon Ita to do the same and, finally, she obliges. She's gained some weight since she took over that body. Her arms are rich and soft but Merthe isn't fooled: he knows first hand the damage they can inflict in combat. She bounces about, all hips and breasts, and the toddlers stare at her as if she were food, following her with eyes and mouths round as Os. Merthe lets his eyes roam her body, disguising one desire for the other. Ah, to be in those hips again. Yeah gods, to inhabit them! There's bounce to her skin and the marks of pregnancy stretch proud across her tummy. Some of them, Merthe put there when he bore Serga and Ramir.

  She serves him and leans forward to whisper in his ear.

  “Like what you see? Enjoy. You're not getting back in here any time soon.”

  He grabs her by the waist and tumbles her, eats her mouth, lets her feel the weight of his body on hers. The strength. She gasps in surprise and the children laugh. They're still androgens, and too young to read beneath the surface and into the hidden struggle between man and wife.

  She giggles with them, making Merthe's ribs jiggle against hers. He lets her sit up—the children are awake—and nibbles her ear.

  “I'll be in there in no time, darling,” he says. He doesn't specify what exactly he means by that.

  * * * *

  The weeks before Fight come and go so fast that Merthe wonders if he's growing old. Time always seems to speed up the further along you go. Three days before the match, Elgir walks up to the hut at dawn. He's their closest neighbor but Merthe doesn't know him that well. The People don't gather too close. Hunters need their space and the gender arrangement makes for frequent domestic fighting. Nobody likes to live close to noisy neighbors.

  Merthe crawls out to meet him without disturbing Ita. The two men step inside the shed, neither knowing what to say.

  Merthe offers Elgir a cup of tea.

  “You'd make a good woman,” Elgir says.

  Merthe grunts at the compliment. “Yes, I did make a good wife.”

  “Ah yes, I forgot. The first two are yours, aren't they?”

  It takes Merthe a second to realize Elgir means the children. Merthe nods to hide his shame. It seems impossible that he can't reclaim that body. And the whole village knows how much he wants it. He damns himself. It would not matter so much if he could appear not to care.

  “Don't beat yourself up. She's so good she's scary,”
Elgir says.

  Elgir himself has little to fear. He can easily defeat his partner, Samo. She's a small woman and not too fast. She's only been in a woman's body for a year and relied so much on muscle when she was a man that she never mastered technique. Looking at Elgir, Merthe understands how someone inhabiting that body could grow complacent. The man could fell a tree with a backhand cuff.

  “How are things at home?” Merthe asks. It must be hard on Samo, knowing that she's going to lose. Elgir made a stunning fighter as a woman. The litheness that is Samo's bane was an advantage when Elgir was in control. Merthe remembers a particularly impressive kick roll in which a female Elgir was too fast for the eye. Merthe misses that lightness. Some days, he trudges around with the grace of a bear.

  “Samo doesn't want to lose,” Elgir replies.

  “Who does?” says Merthe.

  Elgir's eyes hold Merthe's for a second. “Some do. Some like being men. Some don't care either way,” Elgir says.

  Merthe blushes; nobody can judge another person's likes or dislikes, but some things are rarely said in public. Both men look down.

  “The moss is thick this winter,” Elgir says.

  “Yes. It'll get cold fast.”

  It is so quiet that Merthe can hear the snow fall.

  “Say, how about we hunt together. If we get something big, we can split. We can keep the women happy and still have time to train,” Elgir suggests.

  Merthe knows Ita will disapprove, so he grabs his things and goes with Elgir before she can object.

  They spot a squirrelee wallowing up the dikes to get from pond to pond. It digs the snow with its front paws for nuts hidden the previous season. It's only as big as Eme, Merthe's youngest, but Merthe knows that most of its flesh is fat, good for thickening stews. It's a worthy catch, even if the women will complain about getting only half.

  But when the time comes to cast his spear, Elgir freezes up. It's no time for questions, so Merthe shoots his arrow through air that tastes like sugared ice. The squirrelee falls.

  Elgir goes ahead to retrieve it. Merthe wonders at the man's hesitation.