The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  It was so fast she could feel it. It was like a ghastly reverse run of her accelerated childhood. She woke every day to a new diminution of her self. She had come to dread sleep, yet could not avoid it.

  She couldn’t bear the indignity of it. Everybody else was immortal, and young; and the technology which had made them so was being used to kill Lieserl. She hated those who had put her in this position.

  Her mother visited her for the last time, a few days before the download. Lieserl, through her ruined, rheumy old eyes, was barely able to recognize Phillida—this young, weeping woman, only a few months older than when she had held up her baby girl to the Sun.

  Lieserl cursed her, sent her away.

  At last she was taken, in her bed, to a downloading chamber at the heart of the habitat.

  * * *

  Do you remember, Lieserl? Was it—continuous?

  “… No.”

  It was a sensory explosion.

  In an instant she was young again, with every sense alive and vivid. Her vision was sharp, her hearing impossibly precise. And slowly, slowly, she had become aware of new senses—senses beyond the human. She could see the dull infra-red glow of the bellies and heads of the people working around the shell of her own abandoned body, the sparkle of X-ray photons from the Solar protosphere as they leaked through the habitat’s shielding.

  She’d retained her human memories, but they were qualitatively different from the experiences she was accumulating now. Limited, partial, subjective, imperfectly recorded: like fading paintings, she thought.

  … Except, perhaps, for that single, golden day at the beach.

  She studied the husk of her body. It was almost visibly imploding now, empty …

  “I remember,” she told the capcom. “Yes, I remember.”

  * * *

  Now the flux tube curved away to the right; and, in following it, she became aware that she was tracing out a spiral path. She let herself relax into the motion, and watched the cave-world beyond the tube wheel around her. The flux tubes neighbouring her own had become twisted into spirals too, she realized; she was following one strand in a rope of twisted-together flux tubes.

  Lieserl, what’s happening? We can see your trajectory’s altering, fast.

  “I’m fine. I’ve got myself into a flux rope, that’s all…”

  Lieserl, you should get out of there …

  She let the tube sweep her around. “Why? This is fun.”

  Maybe. But it isn’t a good idea for you to break the surface; we’re concerned about the stability of the wormhole—

  Lieserl sighed and let herself slow. “Oh, damn it, you’re just no fun. I would have enjoyed bursting out through the middle of a sunspot. What a great way to go.”

  We’re not done with the tests yet, Lieserl.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  One more …

  “Just tell me.”

  Run a full self-check, Lieserl. Just for a few minutes … Drop the Virtual constructs.

  She hesitated. “Why? The systems are obviously functioning to specification.”

  Lieserl, you don’t need to make this difficult for me. The capcom sounded defensive. This is a standard suite of tests for any Al which—

  “All right, damn it.”

  She closed her eyes, and with a sudden, impulsive, stab of will, let her Virtual image of herself—the illusion of a human body around her—crumble.

  * * *

  It was like waking from a dream: a soft comfortable dream of childhood, waking to find herself entombed in a machine, a crude construct of bolts and cords and gears.

  She considered herself.

  The tetrahedral Interface of the wormhole was suspended in the body of the Sun. The thin, searing-hot gas of the convective zone poured into its four triangular faces, so that the Interface was surrounded by a sculpture of inflowing gas, a flower carved dynamically from the Sun’s flesh, almost obscuring the Interface itself. The solar material was, she knew, being pumped through the wormhole to the second Interface in orbit around the Sun; convective zone gases emerged, blazing, from the drifting tetrahedron, making it into a second, miniature Sun around which human habitats could cluster.

  By pumping away the gas, and the heat it carried, the Interface refrigerated itself, enabling it to survive—with its precious, fragile cargo of data stores …

  The stores which sustained the awareness of herself, Lieserl.

  She inspected herself, at many levels, simultaneously.

  At the physical level she studied crisp matrices of data, shifting, coalescing. And overlaid on that was the logical structure of data storage and access paths which represented the components of her mind.

  Good … Good, Lieserl. You’re sending us good data. How are you feeling?

  “You keep asking me that, damn it. I feel—”

  Enhanced …

  No longer trapped in a single point, in a box of bone behind eyes made of jelly.

  What made her conscious? It was the ability to be aware of what was happening in her mind, and in the world around her, and what had happened in the past.

  By any test, she was more conscious than any other human—because she had more of the machinery of consciousness. She was supremely conscious—the most conscious human who had ever lived.

  If, she thought uneasily, she was still human.

  Good. Good. All right, Lieserl. We have work to do.

  She let her awareness implode, once more, into a Virtual-human form. Her perception was immediately simplified. To be seeing through apparently-human eyes was comforting … and yet, she thought, restrictive.

  Perhaps it wouldn’t be much longer before she felt ready to abandon even this last vestige of humanity. And then what?

  Lieserl?

  “I hear you.”

  She turned her face towards the core.

  * * *

  “There is a purpose, Lieserl,” her mother said. “A justification. You aren’t simply an experiment. You have a mission.” She waved her hand at the sprawling, friendly buildings that comprised the House. “Most of the people here, particularly the children, don’t know anything about you. They have jobs, goals—lives of their own to follow. But they’re here for you.

  “Lieserl, your experiences have been designed—George and I were selected, even—to ensure that the first few days of your existence would imprint you with humanity.”

  “The first few days?” Suddenly the unknowable future was like a black wall, looming towards her; she felt as out of control of her life as if she was a counter on some immense, invisible snakes-and-ladders board.

  “I don’t want this. I want to be me. I want my freedom, Phillida.”

  “No, Lieserl. You’re not free, I’m afraid; you never can be. You have a goal.”

  “What goal?”

  “Listen to me. The Sun gave us life. Without it—without the other stars—we couldn’t survive.

  “We’re a strong species. We believe we can live as long as the stars—for tens of billions of years. And perhaps even beyond that. But we’ve had—glimpses—of the future, the far distant future … Disturbing glimpses. People are starting to plan for that future—to work on projects which will take millions of years to come to fruition …

  “Lieserl, you’re one of those projects.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Phillida took her hand, squeezed it gently; the simple human contact seemed incongruous, the garden around them transient, a chimera, before this talk of megayears and the future of the species.

  “Lieserl, something is wrong with the Sun. You have to find out what. The Sun is dying; something—or someone—is killing it.”

  Phillida’s eyes were huge before her, staring, probing for understanding. “Don’t be afraid. My dear, you will live forever. If you want to. You are a new form of human. And you will see wonders of which I—and everyone else who has ever lived—can only dream.”

  Lieserl listened to her tone, coldly
, analysing it. “But you don’t envy me. Do you, Phillida?”

  Phillida’s smile crumbled. “No,” she said quietly.

  Lieserl tipped back her head. An immense light flooded her eyes.

  She cried out.

  Her mother enfolded her in her arms. “The Sun, Lieserl. The Sun…”

  FLASHBACK

  Dan Simmons

  Dan Simmons sold his first story to The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1982, and by the end of that decade had become one of the most popular and best-selling authors in both the horror and the science fiction genres, winning, for instance, both the Hugo Award for his epic science fiction novel Hyperion and the Bram Stoker Award for his huge horror novel Carrion Comfort in the same year, 1990. He has since continued to split his output between science fiction (The Fall of Hyperion, The Hollow Man) and horror (Song of Kali, Summer of Night, Children of the Night) … although a few of his novels are downright unclassifiable (Phases of Gravity, for instance, which is a straight literary novel, although it was published as part of a science fiction line), and some (like Children of the Night) could be legitimately considered either science fiction or horror, depending on how you squint at them. Similarly, his first collection, Prayers to Broken Stones, contains a mix of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and “mainstream” stories, as does his most recent book, the novella collection Lovedeath. However eclectic he gets, though (and Lovedeath contains an American Indian vagina-dentata pseudo-folktale, a thoughtful mainstream story, a horrific tale of sexual vampires, and a World War I fantasy, in addition to undeniable hard-edged science fiction like the story that follows), his readers seem to like it—and no wonder, because he is a writer of considerable power, range, and ambition. Born in Peoria, Illinois, Simmons now lives with his family in Colorado.

  Here he gives us a frightening look at an all-too-plausible future, one that has learned nothing from the lessons of the past, but has certainly not forgotten them.

  * * *

  Carol awoke, saw the light of morning—true morning, realtime morning—and had to resist the urge to pop her last twenty-minute tube of flashback. Instead she rolled over, pulled the pillow half over her face, and tried to recapture her dreams rather than let the realtime shakes get her. It did not work. At bedtime the night before she had flashed three hours’ worth of the second trip to Bermuda with Danny, but afterward her dreams had been chaotic and unrelated. Like life.

  Carol felt the rush of realtime anxiety hit her like a cold wave: she had no idea what the day could bring—death or danger to her family, embarrassment, pain—unpredictability. She hugged her arms to her chest and curled into a tight shell. It did not help. The shaking continued. She had unconsciously opened the drawer of the bedside table and actually had the last tube in her hand before she noticed the three collapsed and empty vials on the floor beside her bed. Carol set the twenty-minute tube on the table and went in to drive the cold shakes away with a hot shower, shouting to Val to get out of bed as she turned on the water. She saw her father’s open door and knew that he had been up for hours, as he always was, having cereal and coffee before the sun rose and then puttering around in the garage before coming in to make fresh coffee for her and toast for Val.

  Her father never flashbacked while the others were in the house. But Carol always found the tubes in the garage. The old man was doing three to six hours per day. Always three to six hours of the same fifteen minutes, Carol knew. Always trying to change the unchangeable.

  Always trying to die.

  * * *

  Val was fifteen and unhappy. This morning as he slumped to the table he was wearing a Yamato interactive T-shirt, black jeans, and VR shades tuned to random overlays. He did not speak as he poured milk on his cereal and gulped his orange juice.

  His grandfather came in from the garage and paused in the doorway. His name was Robert. His wife and friends had always called him Bobby. No one called him that anymore. The old man had that slightly lost, slightly querulous expression that came from age or flashback or both. Now he focused on his grandson and cleared his throat, but Val did not look up and Robert could not tell if the boy was tuned to the here and now or to the VR flickerings behind his shades.

  “Warm day today,” said Carol’s father. He’d not been outside yet, but most days in the L.A. basin were warm.

  Val grunted and continued staring in the direction of the back of the cereal box.

  The old man poured coffee for himself and came over to the table. “The school counselor program called yesterday. Told me that you’d ditched another three days last week.”

  This got the boy’s attention. His head shot up, he lowered his glasses on his nose, and said, “You tell Mom?”

  “Take the glasses off,” said the old man. It was not a request.

  Val removed the VR shades, deactivated the telem link, tucked them in his T-shirt pocket, and waited.

  “No, I didn’t tell her,” his grandfather said finally. “I should, but I haven’t. Yet.”

  Val heard the threat but said nothing.

  “There’s no reason why a young boy like you has to screw around with flashback.” Robert’s voice was phlegmy with age and brittle with anger.

  Val grunted and looked away.

  “I mean it, goddammit,” snapped his grandfather.

  “Tell me about not using flashback,” said Val, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Robert took a step forward with his face mottled and fists clenched, as if he were about to hit the boy. Val stared him down as the old man stopped and tried to compose himself. When his grandfather spoke again, his voice held a forced softness. “I mean it, Val. You’re too young to spend your time replaying…”

  Val slipped out of his chair, grabbed his gym bag, and tugged the door open. “What do you know about being young?” he said.

  His grandfather blinked as if he had been slapped. He opened his mouth to speak, but by the time he could think of what to say, the boy was gone.

  Carol came in and poured herself some coffee. “Has Val left for school yet?”

  Robert could only stare at the door and nod.

  * * *

  Robert looks down, sees his own hands gripping the side of the dark limousine, and knows instantly where and when he is. The heat is intense for November. His gaze moves from the windows above, then to the crowd—only two deep along this stretch of street—then back to the windows. Occasionally he glances at the back of the head in the open Lincoln ahead of him. Lancer looks relaxed today, he thinks.

  He can hear his own thoughts like a radio tuned to a distant station, the volume little more than a murmur. He is thinking about the open windows and the slowness of the motorcade.

  Robert jumps off the running board and easily jogs to his position near the left rear fender of Lancer’s blue Lincoln while his eyes stay on the crowd and the windows above the street. His running is relaxed and easy; his thirty-two-year-old body is in excellent condition. Within two blocks the neighborhood changes—no more tall buildings, more empty lots and small shops, the crowd no longer even lining the route—and Robert falls back and steps onto the left running board of the number one chase car.

  “You’re going to wear yourself out,” says Bill McIntyre from his place on the running board.

  Robert grins at the other agent and sees his own reflection in Bill’s sunglasses. I’m so young, thinks Robert for the thousandth time at this instant while his other thoughts stay tuned to the windows on the taller building ahead. He hears himself think about the route as street signs pass: Main and Market.

  Get off now! he screams silently at himself. Let go now! Run up there now.

  He seethes with frustration as he ignores the internal screams. His other thoughts contemplate running up to the rear of the Lincoln, but the low buildings here and thinning crowds convince him to stay on the running board.

  No! Go! At least get closer.

  Robert’s head is turning away from the crowds and toward the blue Lincoln. He brace
s himself for the sight of the familiar thatch of chestnut hair. There it is. Then Lancer is lost to sight as Robert’s gaze continues to track left. There is an open area: a hilly patch of grass and some trees.

  Robert knows to the instant when he will step down off the running board, but he tries to tense his body to make himself jump sooner. It does not work. He steps off the same instant that he always does.

  It takes only a few seconds to jog up to the Lincoln. Robert’s attention is distracted to the right as a small group of women shout something he has never been able to make out. Glen and the others in the car also swivel their heads to the right. The four women are holding small Brownie cameras and shouting at the passengers in the Lincoln. His glance appraises and dismisses them as no threat within three seconds, but Robert knows each of the women’s faces more intimately than he remembers his dead wife’s. Once, in the mid-nineties, he had seen a bent old woman crossing a street in downtown Los Angeles and knew at once it was the third woman from the right from that curb thirty-two years earlier.

  Now … get on the Lincoln’s running board! he commands himself.

  Instead he reaches out, taps the spare tire of the blue Lincoln as if in farewell, and drops back to the following car. Ahead, the motorcycles and lead car turn right off Main onto Houston. The blue Lincoln convertible follows a few seconds later, slowing even more than the lead car so as to make the right-angle turn without jostling the four passengers in the back. Robert steps back onto the running board of the chase car.

  Look up!

  Glancing left, Robert sees that railroad workers are congregated atop an overpass under which the cars will pass in a moment. He curses to himself and thinks sloppy, sloppy. All three cars are making a slow left onto Elm Street now. Robert leans into the open chase car and says, “Railroad bridge … people.” In the front seat, their commander, Emory Roberts, has already seen them and is on the portable radio. Robert waves to a police officer in a yellow rain slicker who is standing on the overpass, gesturing for him to clear the bridge. The officer waves back.