Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  "Eeeeech!" she said, dropping it into one of her bags and examining her hand. She wished she was allowed to carry sanitizer.

  She caught up at Times Square. They were standing in the center island, gaping at the chaotic heart of the city, surrounded by peep shows and neon. Most of them blinked the shutters on their eye-cameras; only a couple seemed to remember the prop cameras around their necks. They were given cameras, costumes, and currency in lieu of training. The agency considered it more cost-effective to send guides and guards and cleanup crews than to try to teach their rich clients. New Yorkers ignored tour groups so there wasn't much risk of interaction.

  "Follow, Magda." Lwazi's voice moved from her jaw to her ear. She realized she had confused her group with another, and hurried to make up the distance.

  "What happens if I don't make it to the pickup with them?" she asked.

  "Make it to the pickup," Lwazi said.

  "But if I didn't?"

  He sighed. "Magda, you did receive a copy of the contract, correct?"

  "Yes."

  "But let me guess. You didn't read the fine print before signing?"

  "Not all of it," she admitted. "It was my first job offer since I had my kid. I wasn't in any position to turn it down, whatever it said."

  "You skipped some important stuff. If you fail to make it to your designated pickup, you must reach one of the other pickups. You have one week."

  Magda wanted to ask what would happen if she didn't make it back in a week, but she thought she had shown enough ignorance already. She needed the job. Her daughter Sofia would be starting school soon, and there was so much to pay for.

  One crosswalk separated Magda from her group. She fought the urge to attach herself to them. Close but not too close, as the training had said. She picked up another Fauxcolate wrapper and followed them back up Broadway.

  The tourists had tickets to the Cats matinee, so Magda had a couple of hours to kill. There wasn't much she could do in her cover identity besides sit and wait and try not to get arrested for loitering.

  "Lwazi, mind if I take a bathroom break?"

  "Where?"

  She looked around. "Alley."

  "You've got five minutes," he said. She felt the tiny click of the implant going inactive. The agency's only concession to privacy.

  Magda took the moment to sidle up to the group's other support worker.

  "Excuse me, Officer," she said.

  "You're not supposed to talk to me." He kept his eyes on the street, his spine straight. She didn't doubt she was beneath his notice.

  "It's my first time. I'm just a little nervous. How many trips have you made?"

  "Enough that I get to play cop instead of homeless."

  "Are you still monitored every minute?"

  He puffed out his chest. "Nah. They trust me."

  Good. "So, um, what happens if we miss the pickup?" He gave her a look like a real policeman trying to decide if she was a suspect. She rushed an explanation. "I mean, I have a kid. I'm not trying to run out or anything. I just want to know."

  He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, then tapped his head. "The nanobots injected at the same time as the HIV and hepatitis vaccines begin eating your memory to make sure you don't profit off future knowledge. The temporary fertility suppressors become permanent. You're left behind in your cover identity."

  "That's barbaric!"

  "No, that's common sense. Otherwise they'd have employees disappearing into the past for better job opportunities, or betting on sure things and leaving themselves fortunes. There'd be branching timelines and paradoxes and all kinds of trouble. Speaking of trouble, you should probably get moving along." He raised his voice at the end and pointed, for the benefit of a real policewoman who chose that moment to stroll by.

  Magda walked in the direction he pointed, stopping at a bus shelter. Another click suggested Lwazi was back in her ear. A job is a job, she told herself again. Maybe if she was good at it, she'd get to play cop someday instead of bag lady.

  "Goddamn time tourists," she heard somebody mutter. Magda turned to see a homeless woman occupying one side of the shelter's bench. "Goddamn time tourists. You can't spit without hitting one." The woman tore open a chocolate bar and tucked the wrapper into a bag beside her. She bit into it and closed her eyes, sighing. When she opened her eyes, she held the candy out toward Magda.

  Magda shuddered and shook her head. Better not to know. She settled down on the other side of the bench and pulled her shopping cart close.

  GENEVIEVE VALENTINE

  Genevieve Valentine (born July 1, 1981) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her first novel, Mechanique: A tale of the Circus Tresaulti, won the Crawford Award for a first fantasy novel, and was shortlisted for the Nebula.

  Her short fiction has appeared in or is forthcoming from magazines such as Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod, and in many anthologies, including Armored, Under the Moons of Mars, Running with the Pack, The Living Dead 2, The Way of the Wizard, Federations, Teeth, and The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, among others. Her writing has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award.

  Light On The Water, by Genevieve Valentine

  World Fantasy Award Nomination for Best Short Story 2010

  49 loved the hotel across the river, and that spring, when fog covered her, he knew he had to tell her.

  She was all by herself on that side of the river, just her and the rocky shore and the long highway that wound in a ribbon far behind her, and she seemed always so lonely he wanted her to know she was not unloved.

  He thought maybe he could court her, but all the life in him left at 5pm, and by the time the sun set all 49 could do was sit in the dark and watch her lights blinking on and off like the notes of a song.

  #

  49 envied 47, who had people living in him. Sometimes two of 47’s insides fought, and 49 pressed all his beams closer to listen, wondering what it must be like to be so alive all the time, to feel them breathing up against your walls at night as they slept.

  He thought about the hotel filled up all night with people to shelter, and his every rafter ached.

  #

  He stopped his elevator to see if the people would stay, but they took his eighteen flights of stairs in their haste to be away from him, and the next day no one came at all except the repairman. The repairman must have known what was going on, because he only kicked the open doors until 49 closed them. Then he went home and no one came again all that day, and 49 sat aching for the lives inside of the little hotel until it was morning and 49’s people came back.

  But 49 saw he had done something, at last, in his favor; when his people came back that morning they worked into the night to make up for lost time, and light from his windows fell across the water in bright snakes, in poems; the little hotel across the way saw it, must have known what it meant, because a matching pattern of windows filled all the dark places on the water until the whole river between them was ablaze.

  #

  49 sent two pigeons with a paper cup from his roof, and they brought back half a croissant, and so 49 and the hotel were engaged.

  His foundations shook when they knew.

  Before 49 there had been a warehouse; 47 and 49 and 50 and 48 across the street had all been one big warehouse alive with thrumming machines, and they shared the memory of the ratcheting and the in-and-out file of workers and the deep, solid satisfaction that the best building was one in which things got done.

  A hotel; a temporary house for strangers; it was of no use at all, it was abominable, and the deep beams in the earth trembled and shifted.

  49 wished he was like 47, who went blithely on day and night with people to care for, who couldn’t hear the disappointed rumblings amidst his squabbling, laughing, breathing insides. He wished his windows opened, so he could feel the river wind blow all the way through him, instead of j
ust battering his front like his foundations battered him from beneath.

  But he didn’t return the croissant; he had given his word to the little hotel.

  After a few days the croissant was gone, but the pigeons remained, and in a little corner behind the roof-access door they built a nest on top of an old pipe. 49 shut down his ventilation at night, so that when they settled in no noise would wake them, and he thought what a beautiful gift the hotel had given him.

  #

  For the wedding her windows gleamed in the sun, and his blinds were all pulled down so she wouldn’t see he was shabby. In the high wind 47 and 48 and 50 swayed and moaned their congratulations, but across the river there was only the little hotel and the wide road, and she stood apart and alone.

  49 hoped she was happy, and that the congratulations reached her.

  #

  He found it most surprising that she liked his calm; she liked when the shades were up after dark and she could see his quiet, empty insides. He wished he could take some of her people, which were chaotic and always changing, insides that didn’t care for her like she cared for them. They stayed awake all night with their lamps on in the windows, and she never rested until they rested.

  On still nights, the little mosaic of light lay across the river, so close that if he could stretch out his shadow he could touch them.

  #

  For a long time there was just the long road behind the little hotel, so when the cranes and the trucks came both 49 and the hotel knew what was happening, and were filled with joy.

  The people laid out grids for a line of buildings along the road, stood together and pointed at this place or that place, and behind them the road filled with bulldozers and trailers and rolls of insulation.

  49 was glad that the hotel would have some buildings close, some others to help block the worst of the wind and the sun, and to keep her from being afraid in the dark so far away from him.

  When they emptied the hotel of her people, he wondered why; when 47 had been rebuilt 49’s insides had continued to come and go, grumbling about the noise.

  For a week she was still, and trucks took away loads of furniture from inside her and brought in flats of laced-down steel girders, and at night she sat empty and the moon moved across the blank windows.

  On the eighth morning they stood apart from her and pushed the detonators, and in the bright sun the little hotel across the river collapsed into herself and sank with no other sound but a sigh.

  The ground under 49 shook with the impact; his pigeons took flight, and he so he stood alone and empty and looked across the way, where there was nothing left of the little hotel but dust.

  #

  49 grieved for the hotel; he grieved until his roof sagged, he turned away his sight until his windows cracked, and so complete was his sadness that he didn’t notice that his people had left until the notice went up on his ground floor: FOR SALE.

  He leaned against 47 and listened to all the people living; two children on the third floor ran up and down the halls, and their footsteps trembled against the mortar.

  He had no sight outside himself, and didn’t care that the people who bought him tore him apart until only his shell was left; even then they altered him, changing his windows and scraping away the gray paint on his doors.

  But they built new walls inside him, new walls and plumbing, and despite himself 49 became interested in what was happening to him, wondering what he would become. Then one day the repairman came to put in the gas lines for stoves and he realized he was getting insides of his own, people who would live within him, people he could care for and protect and who would go to sleep inside of him.

  This was a transformation he could not believe, until he looked around him; 47 was still holding his people, but across the way staid 50 and 48 had gotten the same treatment – he could see that inside 50 people were already beginning to live, hanging curtains and leaving lamps on at night, little warm teeth in 50’s long-empty face.

  The people put new windows in 49, looking out over the river, and by that time he was brave enough to look where his little hotel had been.

  It was a park, now, tucked between a restaurant and some shops painted bright colors; children gathered along the riverbank and threw bread to the ducks until the light faded. As it got dark, one by one they left, and where the little hotel had stood now all was soft and green and quiet, resting for the morning without any human noise.

  One light in the park stayed on, glowing from behind the tall clock on the pillar that stood in the very center of the wide green; its light just reached the water, and floated there like the first word of a letter she had left him, like a single note of a song.

  Good Fences, by Genevieve Valentine

  He thinks at first the streetlight’s back on, but of course not. It’s been dark six weeks. There are already beer bottles piled on the sidewalk every morning from the dropout teenagers who surge in whenever there’s the littlest pool of darkness they can find, and then they smoke and drink and shout all night right under his window when he’s trying to sleep.

  He looks out the window a little sidelong, just in case the high-school kids are down there.

  They’re not. The street’s empty, except for the car on fire.

  It’s on his side of the street; the fire’s still just a glow through the front windshield, shifting shadows. Cozy, almost.

  He wonders whose car it is.

  Then he starts to get nervous. What if it explodes? What if the fire catches and every car on the street lights up? What if the maple burns down? (The maple is the only thing that filters the smoke from the teenagers.)

  He debates calling the police, but he can guess the trouble that would get him in. Anonymous tips aren’t anonymous, everybody knows that. Especially not in this neighborhood.

  He imagines them showing up at his door, asking how he knew to call in the fire. Asking him if anyone can verify that he was home. He’ll probably end up spending his whole night at the station under suspicion, and then he’ll show up at work like a zombie.

  It’s none of his business.

  It’s one of those punks anyway, probably—some private fight between two dropouts with nothing better to do at night than throw lit cigarettes through the sunroof of a car until it goes up.

  He can’t wait until the cops come. Then those kids will be in for it.

  (Maybe it was the owner of the car, doing it for the money. That happens. Insurance companies have a whole fraud division to deal with it.)

  The cops will figure it out. Better not to get involved.

  ***

  An hour later he looks out his window to see if any of the kids are back. Taking pictures, maybe. Maybe one of them feels guilty and has come out to take some responsibility.

  Of course nobody’s bothered to come. This neighborhood is going to hell.

  He goes back to his book, keeps one ear out for the moment of ignition, when the car will blow and take out half the other cars on the block, and then the cops will show up and those kids will be sorry they were playing around with other people’s property.

  It doesn’t explode. He sits up half the night waiting for nothing.

  ***

  The next morning, he’s late getting up—of course he’s late, the fire kept him up all night, mainlining coffee just to stay awake in case the fire spread and threatened the maple.

  It didn’t. It just burned out slowly, rolling for a long time behind smoky windows, almost too quiet to hear, and then with some little screeches and bangs as the windows shattered and the car curled in at the edges.

  The cops never came.

  (He has to find a new neighborhood.)

  On his way to work he passes the shell. He risks one glance, disinterested, the kind of look anyone would give the skeleton of a wrecked car they were seeing for the first time.

  The headlights are still there, but most of the windows are long gone, like the eyes have been ground out of a body; the inside is a rui
n, just lumps and shadows he doesn’t want to look at for long.

  He drops his head and passes by; there’s a crunch under his feet, and a spray of black ashes and glittering glass across the sidewalk ahead of him.

  He walks as quickly as he can without knocking any of it into his shoes.

  He doesn’t look again. The last thing he needs is to be accused of inspecting his handiwork.

  There’s a pang in his stomach. Too much coffee.

  ***

  At work, Peter is already in their cube, and as soon as he comes in, Peter looks up and says, “Jesus, Alan, you look like hell.”

  “I was up half the night,” he says. “Some kids let a car burn up on my block.”

  Peter whistles through his teeth. “Your place is seriously shady, man.”

  He doesn’t argue.

  ***

  He takes the window seat on the bus home.

  (He likes window seats. His commute is ninety minutes, and Peter fucked him over with paperwork he’s carrying home. It gives him something to do.)

  The bus rounds the corner, and he sees a glimpse of white in a third floor window. An old man in a button-down is edging toward the window, one arm out to brace him against the windowsill as soon as he reaches it. His face is wrinkled and set, and somehow he looks like he hasn’t talked to anyone in a long time.

  Jesus, he thinks. For a second his hands get so heavy he thinks they’re going to crush his legs.

  But the moment passes. Sometimes he’s a sucker, is all.

  He can’t worry about strangers for the rest of his life. He has a briefcase full of paperwork; he has his own problems.

  ***

  For two days he thinks someone will do something about the car.

  But every day the car’s still there, still not towed or marked by police. Cars are parked in front of it, behind it, closer than he’d ever get to a car that looks as terrible as this one. Some people can’t see trouble when it’s looking right at them.

  By the second day, Mrs. Christensen must have swept away the glass that was in front of her house—there are streaks of dark gray where the ashes have been ground to the pavement—but the shards just past her property line sit untouched, edges up.