Asimov's Science Fiction

by Penny Publications

  We stood up and looked out at the lake. There, reflected in the water, the future of the whole world was laid out in front of us, the good things, the bad things, the strange. We stared at it in awe. Images rippled on the surface and below, time drifting by like the faded print of a Mexican skirt on a woman walking slowly down a country road, hips swaying subtly, breeze gently disturbing.

  We stepped out of our shoes and dove in.

  * * *

  HIGHERWORKS

  Gregory Norman Bossert | 11235 words

  Greg Bossert started writing in 2009, at the age of forty-seven, and hopes to keep writing for another forty-seven years. His first sale was to Asimov’s, in the April 2010 issue, and since then he’s sold seven more stories to this magazine. The author works for Lucasfilm in San Francisco, most recently on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. He notes, “‘HigherWorks’ was inspired by a jaggedly vivid dream; any faults of London geography and language are on me, however, and not my subconscious muse.”

  Dyer and The Wayward, slapping maps— Camden Lock Market—Friday Morning

  Dyer shifts against the wall—the bricks are rough and still night-cool in the shade of the bridge, and her jacket is thin across the shoulders, lining long gone and the leather worn smooth by years of brick stone iron concrete carbon—and breaks down the approaching couple without quite making eye contact.

  The Wayward has got an eye out for cops or worse, blathering in his terrible Bertthe-chimney-sweep cod Cockney, sounds stoned but his brain is just like that. “— ghosts, you know? The nano, sometimes it don’t break down, it digs in, makes a nest in the parental lobe—”

  “Parietal.” Dyer says. The couple are a matched Saxon blond—expensive haircuts, and the girl’s wearing Havilland genesplice chestnut wedges with live shoots trained around her calves, cost a thousand quid easy. Not cops, not dressed that way; more likely the sort that think that Drop parties damage property values, that nano should be reserved for medical and military purposes, that refugees belong safely sorted with their own kind in the camps in Dover. The sort to take a map now and call the cops later. But he has an active tat peeking out of the edge of his sleeve, and she’s got corneal implants, so Dyer risks it.

  “Opt-in,” she says, quietly, and sees the guy’s teeth flash. The girl taps the guy’s thigh with one hand and reaches out with the other. Dyer slips a map from her jacket pocket, hits the girl’s hand—more a handshake than a slap, oh so proper British— and meets the girl’s gaze. Pixels swirl in her eyes, and recognition. “HigherWorks,” the girl mouths, and swats the guy’s leg again as they ramble on out into the sunlight by the canal.

  Dyer blinks her own corneas full black. Fame is a fickle food, she thinks, and all the more so for USERs running illegal nano Drop parties. “Men eat of it and die,” she says to the crows along the canal bank.

  “Woah,” The Wayward says. “Eat what now?”

  Might be time to grow her hair out, or to go back to wearing masks at the Drops.

  But that never really works. The fans are too persistent, bless their stuttering overstimmed hearts, and photos get out on the Drop forums:

  SICK MINDS OF HIGHERWORKS UNMASKED AT LAST: DEE! DYER! THE WAYWARD! SHIMAGO! USERS OR HOME-GROWN?

  DJ MRS. JOHN DEE AND NANOGODDESS HIGHER DYER SPOTTED DIGGING THROUGH THE BINS AT RESCYCLE.... WE GOT PHOTOS!

  A SCANNER IN THE ’WORKS: LONDON’S OPT-IN CHOREOMANIA CULTURE NETWORKS NANOTHECHNOLOGY TO BEND BRAINS.

  That last in the damn Guardian with a damn gallery of drone footage. Might be time to move on, was the truth of it. Amsterdam again or Helsinki, anywhere the refugee policies are less tattered and the fear flows a little less deep. Leave London to groups with less to lose.

  As if summoned by that thought, Kal flits in under the bridge, gossip queen of the refugee scene, latest conquest in tow. “All right D? All right, Way? Doing the do tonight, yeah? New show, new rocket? You guys know Leelee? Slap me a pair?” All in one breath without pause for answers.

  “All right, Kal,” Dyer says, slips her a couple of maps. Kal passes one to her companion, a willowwisp creature in frills and lace with improbable anime eyes that make Dyer think of zygomatic surgery and tabloid tales of “accidental ejection.” Leelee spins the map in twig fingers, details on one side and actual map on the other, tests the stickum that holds the fold closed with a glittered slice of fingernail.

  Kal pinches the map closed. “No, babe, don’t open it. The pic inside is the neural cue, triggers the nano. Gotta wait wait wait for the party tonight, yeah? I’ll just hold it for you ’til then. These guys gonna shake your tuchus, and Dyer here, what she do gonna shake your brain.”

  Leelee’s eyes get perilously wider. Dyer squinches her own to narrow slits in sympathy.

  Kal leans in to kiss the air over Dyer’s cheek, drops the accent to say, “Hear about the two USERs pulled from the river last night? Crap beat out of them? That fascist turd Evan’s saying ‘send them back to the States, conscious or not.’ Watch yourself today. Anti-migrant rally in Parliament Square. Lotta noobs in town; big group got through the Chunnel last night. Street’s frigging twitchy, girl, like everyone’s dusted, seeing things. People where they shouldn’t be. Speaking of, some betty in a god-awful yellow hoodie been staring at you, up by the benches.”

  Then louder, “Can not wait for the Drop tonight. Whole bloody town needs some HigherWorks.” She exits left, Leelee trailing behind to look back at Dyer, eyes bleached to porcelain in the sudden sun.

  Dyer rubs her scalp, checks the benches with a sideways glance, catches a yellowhooded head just turning away.

  A gaggle of girls in shiny machine-worn leatherette stumble into the shade, all trying to read off the same phone. Too young, Dyer thinks, and too loud. She riffles the edges of the maps in her pocket. She’s handed out a few dozen this morning. It’d be nice to get through the whole stack this morning, while folks still had time to plan their night.

  “—no network nodes, no data stream, but the nano wants to connect, it needs the connection. How it’s designed,” The Wayward is saying. “So it starts connecting with anything, with all the wifi and broadband feeds and, dig this, with other ghost nano in other people’s brains. Not like a Drop party, there’s no beats, no video, no HigherWorks to ride the flow, keep everyone in sync, yeah? Just a jumble of flashbacks, visions, voices, thoughts, and then you drift untethered, like, you know, crowdsurfing, you go all scattered—”

  “Doesn’t work that way, Way,” Dyers snaps: edgy because of Kal’s news, edgy because it’s a topic she doesn’t want to touch in public, edgy because she doesn’t like to lie. “Nano can’t do anything without neural cues and network nodes, and anyway your body breaks it down in a couple hours. Ghost nano, it’s urban legend. Suburban legend, mallrat stuff.”

  She looks toward the girls in their glittery off-the-shelf counterculture. Behind them, by the bank of the canal, is a woman in Dyer’s own black leather/skin/hair like a thunderhead bruised eyes just shadows in a sharp fragile face and Dyer’s breath stops. If it’s not lust—Dyer left that behind with the rest in the dry husk of California—it’s something just as potent.

  No yellow hoodie, though, which means someone else is watching her; the one thing Dyer didn’t leave in the States was the thing she fled: the fear. Don’t just run from, Dyer thinks, run to. She raises an eyebrow at the mystery woman, remembers that her eyes are full black, and leaves them that way. If a little anger creeps in between her brows, the corners of her mouth, well, that’s just the flip side of the fear.

  The woman lifts her chin just a fraction, nothing fragile in that motion, and Dyer feels a sudden dizzy doubling like she’s been drawn out in overlapping circles, that Drop party buzz of anticipation, of connection.

  The Wayward says, “Leave it, mate, she ain’t interested. Um, innit?”

  Dyer turns, ready to give Way a “shut up already” roll of her eyes, finds a face in the way—heavy jowled and swirled blue with faux prison tats. The g
uy blinks, does a cartoon double-take.

  “Bugger me. Thought you was a bloke,” he says.

  “Nope and nope,” Dyer says.

  “Works for me,” says the blue tats’ companion, baring her luminescent teeth at Dyer over his shoulder.

  “She ain’t interested, whichever way you’re rigged,” Way says. “Are you, Dyer?”

  Dyer gives him the “shut up already” look now, but it’s too late.

  “Dyer. You’re HigherWorks,” the teeth gasp—even her tongue glows white—and blue tats gets a look that says maybe he can overlook Dyer’s not being a bloke after all.

  “Opt-in tonight” Dyer says, and slaps a pair of maps into the hand that snakes around blue tats’ waist, looking left to avoid eye contact, to find the woman by the canal. Nowhere she could have gone in that brief moment, but she’s not there. Deleted, swiped away, and in her place are three men in bespoke suits, hands in pocket and practiced leers on their faces. Dyer’s first thought is Immigration, but they’ve got Union Jack pins on their lapels—junior partners out of the City, most likely, looking to score points with management by pasting a couple of USERs to a pulp.

  She reaches back to tap The Wayward, feels his dreads shift against her shoulder as he nods. “Two more, other side of the bridge,” he says quietly.

  Dyer shuts her eyes, inhales slowly. Blue tats’ breath is stale beer and bad curry for breakfast, but he’s over six feet of solid meat, and his glowstar companion is razor sharp and twitchy with stims, and they are both as London as the King’s Own Cobblers. Dyer tucks her arm around them both—desperate measures for Dyer, touching, but she’s thinking about bodies bleeding into the Thames—says, “Buy us a pint, then?”

  2042-05-18T10:22:00+01:00 +51.541327-0.145319

  • CONTACT: TARGET (UNCONFIRMED)—LEANNA VANCE—PRIORITY AA APH2035.Z980023—SCAN SUMMARY: FACE MATCH 47% SIG. DELTAS HAIR COLOR N.A. SHAVED—EYE COLOR N.A. CORNEAL IMPLANTS—GESTURE SCORE 62% SIG. DELTAS WEIGHT-12 KILOS HEIGHT +9CM POSSIBLE TIB/FEM BONE EXTENSION

  • NOTE: ID SCORES LOW CONFIDENCE DUE CONTACT DISTANCE & CROWD COVER—SEE ATTACHED IMAGES

  • ATTACHMENT: PERSONAL MESSAGE

  —CRAZY FLIGHT, EDGE OF SPACE, YO, JETLAGGED OUT OF MY GOURD—DAY *STARTED* WEIRD—SOME GUY COMES UP TO ME AT THE AIRPORT “HEY JOCELYN” KISSES ME STRAIGHT ON THE MOUTH—I’M LIKE “I DO*NOT* KNOW U SO F-OFF”—FEEL WACKED LIKE I’M COMING DOWN WITH SOMETHING SEEING GHOSTS OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE—GOTTA BE A LOTTA GHOSTS HERE, YEAH? PLACE EVEN *SMELLS* OLD—NO FIBERBOARD NO BURNING TIRES NO PEPPERSPRAY

  —TOOK FOUR HOURS TO GET THROUGH CUSTOMS—NO ONE GOT THE F-ING MEMO ABOUT THE NEW IP TREATY GUESS THE BRITS ARE KEEPING IT SECRET CUZ EVERYONE HATES THE STATES HERE—AS IF WE CAN’T HATE EACH OTHER JUST FINE ON OUR OWN, THANKS—SOME GUY ON THE STREET CALLED ME A USER, LIKE HE CAN SEE TRACKS THROUGH MY HOODIE, TURNS OUT IT MEANS U.S. ECONOMIC REFUGEE—I’M LIKE “SCREW U” BUT I GUESS I FIT THE DE SCRIPTION IF I WASN’T HERE ON UR DIME AND UR VISA

  —MIGHT ALL PAY OFF, THOUGH, CUZ THAT TIP SEEMS LEGIT—JUST BEEN HERE 12 HOURS AND I’VE ALREADY GOT A POSSIBLE HIT ON VANCE HERSELF—GOT A FEW PHOTOS BUT I COULDN’T GET CLOSE AND THESE CONTACT CAMS U GAVE ME ARE CRAP—UR FANCY SCAN APP SAYS AROUND 50% MATCH—SHE’S HAD SERIOUS BODY WORK AND SHE’S GOT THIS CRAY CRAY LOOKING SURFER DUDE WATCHING HER BACK AND SHE’S EDGY AS HELL SO DON’T START SPENDING THE MONEY YET—OH WAIT, I *HAVE*—I DON’T SCORE THAT BOUNTY I AM SO SO VERY DOOMED

  —KISSES—JO

  • ATTACHMENT: IMAGES (7)—CLICK TO VIEW

  Dyer and Mrs. John Dee, brooding nano— Camden Catacombs—Friday Noon

  “Mrs. John Dee, you said no self-respecting Londoner would be caught dead in Camden in the daylight,” Dyer says. She’s sitting on the microassembler in an attempt to block the bright, busy control panel from view.

  Mrs. John Dee tugs a blue floral frock on over her head, sets her glasses on her nose, peers over them at the folks staggered about the catacomb chamber.

  “Dyer, love, none of these people are self-respecting.” She sheds a heavy studded cuff, the last of her work uniform, and toes the box of leather, chrome, and vinyl under the workbench. As the only legal Brit in HigherWorks, she picks up spending money selling LPs to tourists who can’t play them. The money’s okay, and the contacts in the community of artists and musicians working the markets are better. The required punk attire—“the hoary old eighties,” Mrs. John Dee calls it, “and heavy on the hoar”—is more suited to Dyer’s taste, but Dyer’s forged ID codes aren’t up to the scrutiny required by the Economic Refugee act.

  “And you said the catacombs are off limits due to the danger of flooding from the canal.”

  “A positive death trap,” Mrs. John Dee agrees. “Which is why you had to pick three locks when we first moved in. No one dares come down here.”

  Paint-tagged kids chase each other with rattling spraycans. Students ring their teacher under the dim hanging bulbs, dutifully examining the rails set into the brick floor where horse carts once rolled. A family dozes on a blanket, surrounded by the remains of a picnic. And what looks for all the world like a tour group in bright Brazilian colors mills about under the vaulted galleries, kept away from the equipment by some hastily stacked boxes and Dyer’s glare.

  Mrs. John Dee points at the massive slab of brick and ironwork that supports the far side of the underground warehouse. “Look, that wall was blank when we got here. That’s a sick canvas, would’ve been tagged top to bottom had this place been open.”

  They’d moved in three weeks ago, and the wall is already covered, a collage of overlapped graffiti, bills pasted up and torn down again, what looks like bird crap even though they’re underground, a hanging pair of seriously soiled trousers that none of the group dared get near enough to take down. A little girl with perfect doll hair and knockoff Day-Glo Doc Martens is staring up at the wall. Dyer and Dee watch as she leans forward and carefully sticks her gum in one of the few remaining spots of bare brick.

  Dyer sighs and shifts to cover a neon green popup on the panel. “Should have had my hips widened when I had my legs done,” she says.

  Mrs. John Dee scrubs her mohawk into its natural teal tangle, pulls her tablet out of her bag. “Bollocks. Your hips are the eighth architectural wonder. They just need some company. Budge up, love.” She pulls herself up onto the microassembler next to Dyer, peeks under her arm at the control panel. “What are we hatching?” she asks.

  “Soundsystem, all for you,” Dyer says. “Bud interface, cochlear induction. Everything except the auditory cortex stuff. I ran that in with the visual batch.”

  Mrs. John Dee does a little shimmy on the microassembler hatch. “Breed, my lovelies, breeeeed,” she says. And adds, as the little Day-Glo girl copies her move across the will-be dancefloor, “We’re going to jail, aren’t we?”

  “No, you’re going to jail,” Dyer says. “If the police decide we’re causing enough of a nuisance, they’ll haul you up for some Section 63 nonsense. ‘Repetitive beats.’”

  “‘Repetitive beats’ my bucephalus bouncing bum,” Mrs. John Dee says with another shimmy. “Did you even listen to the track I—”

  “The Wayward, Shimago, me, we’ll be put in the Dover Center to be beaten down for a year, deported back to the US and then things will really get bad. Worse, if the UK rejoins the IP treaty zone.”

  “Sorry, love, shouldn’t laugh, I know. But really, what else can we do?” She waves at the crowd.

  The students have filed out into the tunnels, and the Brazilians have expanded like vapor to fill the available space.

  “Move on,” Dyer says.

  Mrs. John Dee frowns, prods her tablet with a tattered teal fingernail. “I’m not at all sure I like the idea of running, just because the bloody fascists have voted themselves in and our own dear fans are all too, um, fanatic.”

  “It’s not running,” Dyer says. She gestures at the billowing Brazilians. “It’s just the flow. ‘There is a tide in the affairs
of blah blah.’ You’re a DJ, Dee, you know about the flow.”

  In the gaps between the Brazilians, she sees the shine of black leather under thunderhead hair, glittering coal-smoke eyes. Flashback to this morning’s vision, the impossibly disappearing woman. Dyer’s chest thrums.

  She slips off the microassembler. “Be right back. If the panel beeps three times, hit the green button.”

  “Oh, ah, okay. Oh dear,” Mrs. John Dee says behind her.

  Dyer follows the leather gleam across the dancefloor, loses it in the gloom and bustle, reaches that graffitied far wall. No one is there, nothing like that fragile face, not in the crowd or under the vaults on either side. Like this morning at the canal, she’s dissolved away.

  “She show me the spot for my gum,” the doll girl says in a stage whisper, blue eyes serious under straight-cut bangs, then she laughs and swirls back into the crowd.

  Well, what were you expecting on a day turned weird and wired, Dyer thinks. “What else?” Dyer asks the wall.

  The wall responds with a flicker: a scrap of smartpaper, smeared under sellotape and glitching all along the torn edge. Dyer tugs it from the brick, squints at the scrolling text. It’s some sort of government document, a snarl of nested digital sigs and certs and then the title, PROVISIONAL AGREEMENT ON THE RENORMALIZATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GRE—

  Dyer tries to scroll up, searching for a date, but the paper glitches, resyncs on a list captioned PATENTS OF SPECIAL CONCERN, and there at the top is “A PROCESS FOR THE MUTUAL SELF-REPAIR OF NANOMECHANISMS” BY LEANNA VANCE and then it’s her eyes glitching, flashes of memory in time to her pounding heart of those last worst days in the US, a sudden sinking nausea, a tinnitus squeal. The squeal stops, starts again, and Dyer realizes it’s not in her head; it’s coming from across the room. She pushes back through the Brazilians to find Mrs. John Dee, all five ferocious feet of her, restacking the box barricade around their workspace, pausing after every box to glare down the vaults.