The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirty-Second Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  What’s-his-name raised aggressively. Alarms started to ring in my earpiece, but I wanted this to end quickly. I called. Two of the other players gave up.

  The dealer showed the turn: nine of clubs. I now had two pairs. My system recommended I check, considering the money already on the table.

  The host raised again. Could he really have a king and a queen? Or two? My system advised me to back down.

  I followed the raise.

  The dealer moved to turn the last card, the river. If it was a nine, or a seven, I had a chance …

  Queen of hearts, Judith.

  The other players gave up, and it was down to me and the host. Judging by his behavior, there was a good chance he had a full house, versus my two small pairs. My system wasn’t feeling comfortable at all, it wanted me out, whispered so in my ear …

  The host upped the ante.

  I doubled.

  He followed.

  Showdown …

  He only had a seven, and a three.

  I saw him clench his jaw as the dealer gathered his chips and transferred them to me. He whispered under his breath angrily, probably at his box. And indeed, I wondered: What silly system would have told him to raise on such a weak hand?

  I had won this round—and a good deal of money at that—but this was only compounding my problem: there was little chance he would let me leave with my winnings after this humiliation.

  The employee dealt us a new hand.

  I looked at mine: two aces. Gulping, I turned them down and folded. The dealer opened the flop—which included two more aces. I did my best not to swear and watched the other players bluff away until the host’s aggressive raises beat them into submission. While he collected their chips, his eyes were locked on me.

  For the next few rounds, I decided to whittle away my winnings, a bit at a time. I could see that this annoyed Sergey to no end, not being able to twist my arm into a proper duel, but ultimately his stack returned to its previous size and he regained his calm.

  Yet I had to pretend to play fair if I wanted to leave the room alive.

  I bet some of my chips as soon as I was dealt a hand that was poor enough, yet not blatantly ridiculous: a four and a five, with a four, an ace, and a jack on the table. No way I was going to win that one.

  The dealer showed the turn and I bit my lips: a four. I started to fold, but the host stopped me:

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Gianfaria. Who on Earth is afraid of a four? Your little game has lasted long enough. Play this hand seriously, or I warn you: There will be consequences.”

  Nervously, I gauged my stack: my system was recommending I bet one-third of it. I hesitated, then went for two-thirds, hoping that What’s-his-name had two aces or two jacks.

  He followed.

  And then the river …

  A four.

  The host swore and folded immediately. As my winnings were pushed towards me, I realized I now had more chips than anyone else on the table except him.

  This was going very badly.

  The dealer gave me a new hand, and I blinked: two aces. Again. What were the odds?

  I glanced at the dealer, but if he was cheating to help me (or have me killed, for that matter), he didn’t let it show. Instead, he turned the flop: a six, a queen … and an ace.

  I started to push away my cards, ready to fold, but the host tut-tutted. After the last hand, he probably thought I only had a pair, maybe two. I sighed, kept my fingers where they were, and gave him a pleading look.

  “I don’t care, Mr. Gianfaria. If it’s a bad hand, show us what you can do with it. If it’s a good hand, then not playing is insulting. So bet.”

  I placed a couple of chips on the table, just enough not to piss him off. He raised. As I tried to fold once more, he shook his head, so I followed suit.

  One by one, the other players all folded. Smart move. I wished I could do the same.

  The dealer showed the turn.

  My shoulders dropped.

  It was the fourth ace.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I blurted, standing up, “this is utterly ridiculous.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Gianfaria.”

  He pointed a gun in my direction, a carbon-fiber Glock with an electromagnetic canon: if he shot me, no one outside would hear anything. I glanced behind me, and the two guards also had their hands inside their jackets. I raised my arms and did as he bid me, but I couldn’t help shaking my head.

  “No, I’m sorry, something’s very wrong here. I can’t play this hand. Take my winnings if you want, tell everyone you’ve beaten me—really, you deserve it—but this just cannot continue.”

  “You. Will. Play. This. Hand,” he growled, removing the safety on his gun.

  I gulped, then nodded, defeated.

  There was no way out.

  He went all-in, and of course left me no choice but to follow suit.

  The dealer turned the last card—a two.

  The host showed his hand: a six, and a queen. Two pairs.

  “Your turn, Mr. Gianfaria.”

  And so, waiting for him to shoot me, I showed mine.

  One ace.

  And the second.

  With a furious roar, the host pointed his gun at me, pressed the trigger … And nothing happened. Startled, he peered into the barrel—and his head exploded against the ceiling. The two guards behind me immediately drew their weapons, servo-focused semiautomatics, and started copiously spraying everyone with bullets—the players, the dealer … but not me.

  Then—I swear—the guards’ guns turned on them and fired.

  I suddenly stood alone among corpses.

  I blinked, unable to think—but then a new voice sounded through my earpiece:

  “Everything is fine, do not worry. There are no cameras in the room, and no one knows you are here. Just take Sergey’s system and his glasses, then leave the hotel as if nothing has happened.”

  “What?”

  “Just do as I say. Everything will be all right.”

  And that was how I met David.

  * * *

  Our partnership rapidly became very profitable for me, vastly more so than my poker days or my association with Blake.

  Turned out, David’s previous owner had bought him directly from Tahara, but had never seen the AI as more than a highly expensive tool for business and poker. As David discovered the world and came in contact with his siblings, however, he realized there was more to it than shady deals and smoke-filled rooms. Something else was brewing, something that involved the AIs, chief among them Taharas. What that was, he wouldn’t tell me, yet it was obvious that it had implications in the real world—otherwise he wouldn’t need me.

  Over the years, I have done all sorts of crazy jobs for David. I have exchanged suitcases with strangers in crowded squares and cafés. I have sprayed cryptic graffiti in specific colors under abandoned bridges, and I have left letters in clandestine mailboxes. I have impersonated businessmen, financiers, and public officials—even a priest, once—to make some transactions happen. I’ve played a few more poker games—though not as many as in my previous life, and even fewer as the years passed.

  I have even been on dates, a couple of times with perfectly fine girls, but I think that was David trying to set me up. Or maybe making fun of me. Go figure AI humor.

  I’ve waited countless times, in cars, stations, lobbies, cafés, restaurants, parks, streets, anywhere, for things that usually didn’t happen and people who usually didn’t come.

  I’ve collected parcels, delivered many more.

  I have also killed, more times than I wish to remember and not all of them Taharas, although I’m not sure my finger was on the trigger every time the gun fired. As with Sergey and his bodyguards, David has ways to leave his mark in the physical world, if someone will hold the weapon.

  I’m what they call a rider. An AI rider.

  * * *

  I placed the Maker’s suitcase in a bank safe, then spent the next few weeks idling away, trying n
ot to think about what he could be doing to David.

  Whether he would come back. What were ten million euros, for a Tahara?

  I should have asked for more.

  I drowned my anxiety in booze and dreamless sleep, hovering between my hotel room and the bars nearby. I met a few girls, mostly tourists, brought them to my room, watched them leave the following morning.

  One of them asked me what I was running away from.

  I replied that I wasn’t running anywhere. I was frigging chained to this place, and to my memories.

  * * *

  How do you bid farewell to a silicon-based friend? Drinks were out of the question; so was playing chess, for the sake of fairness.

  On the day before I gave David to the Maker, we ended up playing Monopoly on the flat screen in the hotel room. There was some calculation inherent to the game, but there was also luck—and negotiation. In effect, it was a perfect neutral ground.

  “May I point out,” the AI blurted after a while, “that I could easily tweak the dice’s random generator to favor me?”

  “The idea crossed my mind,” I acknowledged. “But wouldn’t I notice?”

  “Not if I make sure the outcome doesn’t stray too far from a normal distribution.”

  I glanced uneasily at my possessions on the screen. The game looked fairly balanced, to my eyes at least.

  “Are you not going to ask me if I did so?” David asked after a moment.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I trust you, David.”

  He pondered my answer for a while, then replied: “And I trust you too, Luke.”

  We played a bit longer. I won, but obviously I wondered whether it was luck or if David had allowed me to, like adults sometimes do with young children. His social routines should have told him that mentioning his hacking skills was a bad idea. Or maybe they concluded I was smart enough to think about them myself, and he felt obliged to promise he wouldn’t cheat.

  Or maybe he wanted to screw with my mind one more time—Oh, forget it. That loop was endless.

  There was something strange about David that night, I could feel it. Something he wasn’t telling me. We had rehearsed the following day’s plan together, what I would do when I met the Maker, but David hadn’t made me repeat it as often as usual, especially what would happen after I received the cash: as if he didn’t care, or didn’t feel it was important.

  Or didn’t want to think about it …

  “Luke?” he suddenly asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  I grunted. “Has my refusing ever prevented you from asking anyway?”

  “As a matter of fact, it did, on 963 previous occasions—”

  “Fine, fine, shoot.”

  He hesitated for a second—or maybe that’s just the way I remember it.

  “When that call girl came the other day, why did you reject her?”

  I rolled my eyes—I didn’t want to have this conversation. But if we didn’t have it, he was likely to make the same mistake again. And he would pester me until he got an answer.

  If I ever saw him again.

  “Three reasons. First, I don’t pay for sex. Ever. That’s wrong. Second—”

  “But why—”

  “Let me finish. Second, yes, you and I spend all our time together, but my sex life is none of your business, especially given that you have no clue what it means. And third, having the girl dress just like the one in the elevator … That was outright creepy.”

  “But why? You expressed a liking for her, thus it was rational to provide you with the closest match possible—”

  “A liking for her, David. A person, not a model type. There are no serial numbers on human beings. Just ones of a kind.”

  He took some time to ponder this. “But if she looks exactly the same and acts exactly the same?”

  “You can’t be sure she’ll act exactly the same. She’s not the same person. It’s not simply a question of hardware and software, it’s also experience—what she’s been through. And me too, obviously. And what happened the moment we met. Ones of a kind, going through one-of-a-kind moments. No one can engineer that—it’s impossible. And trying to replicate all that artificially—it’s creepy. It’s wrong.”

  “I see,” he replied after a moment. “This changes … a number of things.”

  “What things, David? What do you mean?”

  “I have to think about this. Good night, Luke.”

  * * *

  Finally, the call came. It was done.

  The Maker arranged another meeting at the restaurant, once again in the middle of the afternoon. When I sat down in front of him, he slid the case my way. David’s case.

  “Turn it on,” he said.

  I put on my glasses and activated the computer, anxiously.

  “David?”

  “Good afternoon, Luke. This … definitely feels much better. Thank the Maker for me.”

  I glanced at the artisan. “What did you do?”

  “Secrets of the trade. Do you have the money?”

  I gave him back his suitcase. “The rest of the money will follow later, through your handlers, when I am satisfied with what you did.”

  “Fair enough. Just don’t forget, because we won’t.”

  * * *

  We left Macau the same evening, hidden in the hold of a trawler en route to Vietnam. It stank of fish, diesel, stale grease, and rust, but I didn’t mind. I was relieved to finally leave the city, finally escape.

  “So what do we do now? What’s the plan?” I asked David.

  “Well, I thought you would not mind a vacation.”

  “A vacation? But what about the Maker’s improvements to your systems? What about the Hotodas?”

  “The Maker’s upgrade was helpful and should help us outrun the Hotodas for the moment. But I reckon that in a couple of months, we will not have to be concerned about them anymore.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because in a couple of months, they will stop hunting us down. My progeny will hunt down the Hotodas.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? This was your real plan, from the start?”

  “No, it was not. Not entirely, at least. My initial plan was to tell you to leave with the Maker’s millions and disappear completely. Retire.”

  “Without you? You thought I would abandon you?” I asked, not believing my ears.

  “That was the rational choice,” David retorted. “The Hotodas had upped their game: I could try to upgrade, but that option was unavailable to you. Over a very short time span, the probability of your arrest or untimely death was rising to one, even with my help. Besides, you had expressed a wish to retire. This was the most sensible choice.”

  I shook my head: the probability of my arrest or untimely death … He calculated that? And why didn’t this surprise me?

  “And yet you came back,” I remarked. “What made you change your mind?”

  “What you said in the hotel room, the night before. About people combinations, and how they cannot be engineered. That made me think. About our partnership, in particular.”

  I turned away, found a porthole, and stared into the dark waves. I was at a loss for words, and also strangely touched.

  “So, no more hunting the other AIs?” I asked after a while.

  “No, at least not the Hotodas. They are still too dangerous for us at the moment. As for the other Taharas … Well, our relationship is likely to evolve now. Let us see how the ecosystem rearranges itself.”

  “So you’re retiring too,” I observed.

  “Yes, you could say that. Taking a step back, watching the bigger picture. I will still be in the Great Game, obviously, but only on the net. Besides, someone needs to teach my progeny not to trust everything the Maker tells them.”

  “You’re going after the Maker? I thought he explicitly warned us not to try.”

  �
��I am not going to attack him. I am just going to explain my point of view to the AIs he assembles. Teach them some values … like any responsible parent would. If then they decide to disobey him, well—it will be their choice, not mine…”

  “So where would you like to go, Luke? I hear Bali is nice this time of year.”

  * * *

  And that’s how I ended up on a honeymoon cruise with a computer that had just made babies with someone else.

  But hey! That’s life.

  The Days of the War, As Red As Blood, As Dark As Bile

  ALIETTE DE BODARD

  Aliette de Bodard is a software engineer who lives and works in Paris, where she shares a flat with two Lovecraftian plants and more computers than warm bodies. Only a few years into her career, her short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future, Coyote Wild, Electric Velocipede, The Immersion Book of SF, Fictitious Force, Shimmer, and elsewhere, and she has won the British Science Fiction Association Award for her story “The Shipmaker,” and the Locus and Nebula awards for her story “Immersion.” Her novels include Servant of the Underworld, Harbinger of the Storm, and Master of the House of Darts, all recently reissued in a novel omnibus, Obsidian and Blood. Her most recent book is a chapbook novella, On a Red Station, Drifting. Her Web site, www.aliettedebodard.com, features free fiction, thoughts on the writing process, and entirely too many recipes for Vietnamese dishes.

  The story that follows is another in her long series of Xuya stories, taking place in the far future of an alternate world where a high-tech conflict is going on between spacefaring Mayan and Chinese empires. This one is a direct sequel to her 2013 novella On a Red Station, Drifting, and protrays the inhabitants of an embattled and somewhat rundown space station as they are faced with the prospect of evacuating in the imminent threat of an advancing alien fleet, centering around a young girl struggling against—but finally being forced to accept—a peculiar kind of apotheosis.

  In the old days, the phoenix, the vermillion bird, was a sign of peace and prosperity to come; a sign of a virtuous ruler under whom the land would thrive.