Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  He scratched the rough fur of its neck clumsily. The bear poked Kosonen in the stomach with its nose, so hard that he almost fell. Then it snorted, turned around and shuffled into the woods. Kosonen watched until it vanished among the snow-covered trees.

  It took three painful attempts of sticking his fingers down his throat to get the nanoseed Marja gave him to come out. The gagging left a bitter taste in his mouth. Swallowing it had been the only way to protect the delicate thing from the plague. He wiped it in the snow: a transparent bauble the size of a walnut, slippery and warm. It reminded him of the toys you could get from vending machines in supermarkets when he was a child, plastic spheres with something secret inside.

  He placed it on the rails carefully, wiped the remains of the vomit from his lips and rinsed his mouth with water. Then he looked at it. Marja knew he would never read instruction manuals, so she had not given him one.

  “Make me a train,” he said.

  Nothing happened. Maybe it can read my mind, he thought, and imagined a train, an old steam train, puffing along. Still nothing, just a reflection of the darkening sky on the seed’s clear surface. She always had to be subtle.Marja could never give a present without thinking about its meaning for days. Standing still let the spring winter chill through his wolf-pelt coat, and he hopped up and down, rubbing his hands together.

  With the motion came an idea. He frowned, staring at the seed, and took the notebook from his pocket. Maybe it was time to try out Marja’s other gift—or advance payment, however you wanted to look at it. He had barely written the first lines, when the words leaped in his mind like animals woken from slumber. He closed the book, cleared his throat and spoke.

  these rails were worn thin by wheels that wrote down the name of each passenger in steel and miles

  he said,

  it’s a good thing the years ate our flesh too made us thin and light so the rails are strong enough to carry us still to the city in our train of glass and words

  Doggerel, he thought, but it didn’t matter. The joy of words filled his veins like vodka. Too bad it didn’t work—

  The seed blurred. It exploded into a white-hot sphere. The waste heat washed across Kosonen’s face. Glowing tentacles squirmed past him, sucking carbon and metal from the rails and trees. They danced like a welder’s electric arcs, sketching lines and surfaces in the air.

  And suddenly, the train was there.

  It was transparent, with paper-thin walls and delicate wheels, as if it had been blown from glass, sketch of a cartoon steam engine with a single carriage, with spiderweb-like chairs inside, just the way he had imagined it.

  He climbed in, expecting the delicate structure to sway under his weight, but it felt rock-solid. The nanoseed lay on the floor innocently, as if nothing had happened. He picked it up carefully, took it outside and buried it in the snow, leaving his skis and sticks as markers. Then he picked up his backpack, boarded the train again and sat down in one of the gossamer seats. Unbidden, the train lurched into motion smoothly. To Kosonen, it sounded like the rails beneath were whispering, but he could not hear the words.

  He watched the darkening forest glide past. The day’s journey weighed heavily down on his limbs. The memory of the snow beneath his skis melted together with the train’s movement, and soon Kosonen was asleep.

  #

  When he woke up, it was dark. The amber light of the firewall glowed in the horizon, like a thundercloud.

  The train had speeded up. The dark forest outside was a blur, and the whispering of the rails had become a quiet staccato song. Kosonen swallowed as the train covered the remaining distance in a matter of minutes. The firewall grew into a misty dome glowing with yellowish light from within. The city was an indistinct silhouette beneath it. The buildings seemed to be in motion, like a giant’s shadow puppets.

  Then it was a flaming curtain directly in front of the train, an impenetrable wall made from twilight and amber crossing the tracks. Kosonen gripped the delicate frame of his seat, knuckles white. “Slow down!” he shouted, but the train did not hear. It crashed directly into the firewall with a bone-jarring impact. There was a burst of light, and then Kosonen was lifted from his seat.

  It was like drowning, except that he was floating in an infinite sea of amber light rather than water. Apart from the light, there was just emptiness. His skin tickled. It took him a moment to realise that he was not breathing.

  And then a stern voice spoke.

  This is not a place for men, it said. Closed. Forbidden. Go back.

  “I have a mission,” said Kosonen. His voice had no echo in the light. “From your makers. They command you to let me in.”

  He closed his eyes, and Marja’s third gift floated in front of him, not words but a number. He had always been poor at memorising things, but Marja’s touch had been a pen with acid ink, burning it in his mind. He read off the endless digits, one by one.

  You may enter, said the firewall. But only that which is human will leave.

  The train and the speed came back, sharp and real like a paper cut. The twilight glow of the firewall was still there, but instead of the forest, dark buildings loomed around the railway, blank windows staring at him.

  Kosonen’s hands tickled. They were clean, as were his clothes: Every speck of dirt was gone. His felt was tender and red, like he had just been to the sauna.

  The train slowed down at last, coming to a stop in the dark mouth of the station, and Kosonen was in the city.

  #

  The city was a forest of metal and concrete and metal that breathed and hummed. The air smelled of ozone. The facades of the buildings around the railway station square looked almost like he remembered them, only subtly wrong. From the corner of his eye he could glimpse them moving, shifting in their sleep like stone-skinned animals. There were no signs of life, apart from a cluster of pigeons, hopping back and forth on the stairs, looking at him. They had sapphire eyes.

  A bus stopped, full of faceless people who looked like crash test dummies, sitting unnaturally still. Kosonen decided not to get in and started to head across the square, towards the main shopping street: he had to start the search for the spark somewhere. It will glow, Marja had said. You can’t miss it.

  There was what looked like a car wreck in the parking lot, lying on its side, hood crumpled like a discarded beer can, covered in white pigeon droppings. But when Kosonen walked past it, its engine roared, and the hood popped open. A hissing bundle of tentacles snapped out, reaching for him.

  He managed to gain some speed before the car-beast rolled onto its four wheels. There were narrow streets on the other side of the square, too narrow for it to follow. He ran, cold weight in his stomach, legs pumping.

  The crossbow beat painfully at his back in its strap, and he struggled to get it over his head.

  The beast passed him arrogantly, and turned around. Then it came straight at him. The tentacles spread out from its glowing engine mouth into a fan of serpents.

  Kosonen fumbled with a bolt, then loosed it at the thing. The crossbow kicked, but the arrow glanced off its windshield. It seemed to confuse it enough for Kosonen to jump aside. He dove, hit the pavement with a painful thump, and rolled.

  “Somebody help perkele,” he swore with impotent rage, and got up, panting, just as the beast backed off slowly, engine growling. He smelled burning rubber, mixed with ozone. Maybe I can wrestle it, he thought like a madman, spreading his arms, refusing to run again. One last poem in it—

  Something landed in front of the beast, wings fluttering. A pigeon. Both Kosonen and the car-creature stared at it. It made a cooing sound. Then it exploded.

  The blast tore at his eardrums, and the white fireball turned the world black for a second. Kosonen found himself on the ground again, ears ringing, lying painfully on top of his backpack. The car-beast was a burning wreck ten meters away, twisted beyond all recognition.

  There was another pigeon next to him, picking at what looked like bits of metal. It lifte
d its head and looked at him, flames reflecting from the tiny sapphire eyes. Then it took flight, leaving a tiny white dropping behind.

  #

  The main shopping street was empty. Kosonen moved carefully in case there were more of the car creatures around, staying close to narrow alleys and doorways. The firewall light was dimmer between the buildings, and strange lights danced in the windows.

  Kosonen realised he was starving: He had not eaten since noon, and the journey and the fight had taken their toll. He found an empty cafe in a street corner that seemed safe, set up his small travel cooker on a table and boiled some water. The supplies he had been able to bring consisted mainly of canned soup and dried elk meat, but his growling stomach was not fussy. The smell of food made him careless.

  “This is my place,” said a voice. Kosonen leapt up, startled, reaching for the crossbow.

  There was a stooped, trollish figure at the door, dressed in rags. His face shone with sweat and dirt, framed by matted hair and beard. His porous skin was full of tiny sapphire growths, like pockmarks. Kosonen had thought living in the woods had made him immune to human odours, but the stranger carried a bitter stench of sweat and stale booze that made him want to retch.

  The stranger walked in and sat down at a table opposite Kosonen. “But that’s all right,” he said amicably. “Don’t get many visitors these days. Have to be neighbourly. Saatana, is that Blaband soup that you’ve got?”

  “You’re welcome to some,” Kosonen said warily. He had met some of the other stayers over the years, but usually avoided them—they all had their own reasons for not going up, and not much in common.

  “Thanks. That’s neighbourly indeed. I’m Pera, by the way.” The troll held out his hand.

  Kosonen shook it gingerly, feeling strange jagged things under Pera’s skin. It was like squeezing a glove filled with powdered glass. “Kosonen. So you live here?”

  “Oh, not here, not in the center. I come here to steal from the buildings. But they’ve become really smart, and stingy. Can’t even find soup anymore. The Stockmann department store almost ate me, yesterday. It’s not easy life here.” Pera shook his head. “But better than outside.” There was a sly look in his eyes. Are you staying because you want to, wondered Kosonen, or because the firewall won’t let you out anymore?

  “Not afraid of the plague gods, then?” he asked aloud. He passed Pera one of the heated soup tins. The city stayer slurped it down with one gulp, smell of minestrone mingling with the other odours.

  “Oh, you don’t have to be afraid of them anymore. They’re all dead.”

  Kosonen looked at Pera, startled. “How do you know?”

  “The pigeons told me.”

  “The pigeons?”

  Pera took something from the pocket of his ragged coat carefully. It was a pigeon. It had a sapphire beak and eyes, and a trace of blue in its feathers. It struggled in Pera’s grip, wings fluttering.

  “My little buddies,” Pera said. “I think you’ve already met them.”

  “Yes,” Kosonen said. “Did you send the one that blew up that car thing?”

  “You have to help a neighbour out, don’t you? Don’t mention it. The soup was good.”

  “What did they say about the plague gods?”

  Pera grinned a gap-toothed grin. “When the gods got locked up here, they started fighting. Not enough power to go around, you see. So one of them had to be the top dog, like in Highlander. The pigeons show me pictures, sometimes. Bloody stuff. Explosions. Nanites eating men. But finally they were all gone, every last one. My playground now.”

  So Esa is gone, too. Kosonen was surprised how sharp the feeling of loss was, even now. Better like this. He swallowed. Let’s get the job done first. No time to mourn. Let’s think about it when we get home. Write a poem about it. And tell Marja.

  “All right,” Kosonen said. “I’m hunting too. Do you think your … buddies could find it? Something that glows. If you help me, I’ll give you all the soup I’ve got. And elk meat. And I’ll bring more later. How does that sound?”

  “Pigeons can find anything,” said Pera, licking his lips.

  #

  The pigeon-man walked through the city labyrinth like his living room, accompanied by a cloud of the chimera birds. Every now and then, one of them would land on his shoulder and touch his ear with his beak, as if to whisper.

  “Better hurry,” Pera said. “At night, it’s not too bad, but during the day the houses get younger and start thinking.”

  Kosonen had lost all sense of direction. The map of the city was different from the last time he had been here, in the old human days. His best guess was that they were getting somewhere close to the cathedral in the old town, but he couldn’t be sure. Navigating the changed streets felt like walking through the veins of some giant animal, convoluted and labyrinthine. Some buildings were enclosed in what looked like black film, rippling like oil. Some had grown together, organic-looking structures of brick and concrete, blocking streets and making the ground uneven.

  “We’re not far,” Pera said. “They’ve seen it. Glowing like a pumpkin lantern, they say.” He giggled. The amber light of the firewall grew brighter as they walked. It was hotter, too, and Kosonen was forced to discard his old Pohjanmaa sweater.

  They passed an office building that had become a sleeping face, a genderless Easter Island countenance. There was more life in this part of the town too, sapphire-eyed animals, sleek cats looking at them from windowsills. Kosonen saw a fox crossing the street: It gave them one bright look and vanished down a sewer hole.

  Then they turned a corner where faceless men wearing fashion from ten years ago danced together in a shop window, and saw the cathedral.

  It had grown to gargantuan size, dwarfing every other building around it. It was an anthill of dark-red brick and hexagonal doorways. It buzzed with life. Cats with sapphire claws clung to its walls like sleek gargoyles. Thick pigeon flocks fluttered around its towers. Packs of azure-tailed rats ran in and out of open, massive doors like armies on a mission. And there were insects everywhere, filling the air with a drill-like buzzing sound, moving in dense black clouds like a giant’s black breath.

  “Oh, jumalauta, “ Kosonen said. “That’s where it fell?”

  “Actually, no. I was just supposed to bring you here,” Pera said.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I lied. It was like in Highlander: There is one of them left. And he wants to meet you.”

  Kosonen stared at Pera, dumbfounded. The pigeons landed on the other man’s shoulders and arms like a grey fluttering cloak. They seized his rags and hair and skin with sharp claws, wings started beating furiously. As Kosonen stared, Pera rose to the air.

  “No hard feelings, I just had a better deal from him. Thanks for the soup,” he shouted. In a moment, Pera was a black scrap of cloth in the sky.

  The earth shook. Kosonen fell to his knees. The window eyes that lined the street lit up, full of bright, malevolent light.

  He tried to run. He did not make it far before they came, the fingers of the city: the pigeons, the insects, a buzzing swarm that covered him. A dozen chimera rats clung to his skull, and he could felt the humming of their flywheel hearts. Something sharp bit through the bone. The pain grew like a forest fire, and Kosonen screamed.

  The city spoke. Its voice was a thunderstorm, words made from shaking of the earth and the sighs of buildings. Slow words, squeezed from stone.

  Dad, the city said.

  #

  The pain was gone. Kosonen heard the gentle sound of waves, and felt a warm wind on his face. He opened his eyes.

  “Hi, dad,” Esa said.

  They sat on the summerhouse pier, wrapped in towels, skin flushed from the sauna. It was evening, with a hint of chill in the air, Finnish summer’s gentle reminder that things were not forever. The sun hovered above the blue-tinted treetops. The lake surface was calm, full of liquid reflections.

  “I thought,” Esa said, “that you’d like i
t here.”

  Esa was just like Kosonen remembered him, a pale skinny kid, ribs showing, long arms folded across his knees, stringy wet hair hanging on his forehead. But his eyes were the eyes of a city, dark orbs of metal and stone.

  “I do,” Kosonen said. “But I can’t stay.”

  “Why not?”

  “There is something I need to do.”

  “We haven’t seen each other in ages. The sauna is warm. I’ve got some beer cooling in the lake. Why the rush?”

  “I should be afraid of you,” Kosonen said. “You killed people. Before they put you here.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” Esa said. “The plague does everything you want. It gives you things you don’t even know you want. It turns the world soft. And sometimes it tears it apart for you. You think a thought, and things break. You can’t help it.”

  The boy closed his eyes. “You want things too. I know you do. That’s why you are here, isn’t it? You want your precious words back.”

  Kosonen said nothing.

  “Mom’s errand boy, vittu. So they fixed your brain, flushed the booze out. So you can write again. Does it feel good? For a moment there I thought you came here for me. But that’s not the way it ever worked, was it?”

  “I didn’t know—“

  “I can see the inside of your head, you know,” Esa said. “I’ve got my fingers inside your skull. One thought, and my bugs will eat you, bring you here for good. Quality time forever. What do you say to that?”

  And there it was, the old guilt. “We worried about you, every second, after you were born,” Kosonen said. “We only wanted the best for you.”

  It had seemed so natural. How the boy played with his machine that made other machines. How things started changing shape when you thought at them. How Esa smiled when he showed Kosonen the talking starfish that the machine had made.

  “And then I had one bad day.”

  “I remember,” Kosonen said. He had been home late, as usual. Esa had been a diamond tree, growing in his room. There were starfish everywhere, eating the walls and the floor, making more of themselves. And that was only the beginning.