The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  Everyone gathers at the windows as we take off, and the acceleration through the atmosphere feels like nothing, smoother than the airplane turbulence that used to accompany low-altitude flight. Soon enough we’re approaching the hundred-kilometer mark, and when the captain tells us we’ve reached the edge of the atmosphere, I lean forward and peer out the window into the perpetual darkness, like everyone else.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cherie says.

  I swerve with a shout, my hand spasming. Drop my beer, which splashes the woman next to me. She cries out, and I rush to apologize, but she storms off, distraught, before the words are out. The WeCam over my shoulder buzzes as the viewer count erupts upward by a couple million.

  “Smooth move, gorgeous.” Cherie looks out the window not more than an arm’s length away. She smiles, and worms fall from her mouth.

  I reel back, slamming into the people behind me. I hear glass shatter and rough voices, and someone pushes back, and I stumble forward. The WeCam buzzes loudly.

  “I’m alive in here,” she says, tapping a pretty painted nail to her temple. “As long as my engrams are still floating around in your head, I’m here.”

  I grip my jacket pocket, the one with the engram needle and the vial Carol Elder brought me. My just-in-case. They are solid and real under my hand, and I force my way through the crowd toward the privacy of the bathroom, my hand already pulling the needle from my pocket.

  I stagger into the narrow space and slam the door shut. It catches the edge of the WeCam flying in over my shoulder, knocking it into the wall. The indicator light flashes an alarm, but I can still hear the buzz of view feeds growing. I splash my face with water, try to get my goddamn calm back, but when I look in the mirror, Cherie is right behind me.

  I stifle a scream. Yank the vial marked D.H. free and twist off the cap with a jerk. Ram the plunger home and watch the needle fill.

  Hands shaking, I dare to look up. Cherie hasn’t moved. She’s watching. But there’s something dark in her face. Something waiting.

  “Come on, come on,” I mutter, until the needle is at full business and I grasp for the back of my neck and ram that thing into the injection spot. I can feel when the engrams hit my brain. Flashes of childhood. My grandma’s place by the Rio Grande. My first ceremonial dance. And meeting Cherie in high school. And then my memories are all Cherie. Cherie at prom. Cherie when we both landed our first digital gigs. Cherie moving into the Malibu house. Cherie. Cherie. Cherie.

  Carol Elder didn’t tell me what to do if there is no Dez Hunter without Cherie Agoyo.

  On the camera feedback screen I see myself, sweaty and panicked, my eyes glazed and a needle gripped in my hand. And Cherie standing beside me, looking as real as any fleshie.

  The WeCam dings, indicating the livestreams have hit capacity. A billion viewers, our faces projected across outer space.

  We’re goddamn stars.

  VICTOR LAVALLE

  Up from Slavery

  from Weird Tales

  1

  I’m going to start with the pregnant woman because she survived.

  Seventy-nine other Amtrak passengers weren’t so lucky. Two hundred forty-three people boarded the Lake Shore Limited at Penn Station; we left at 3:40 p.m. I had an appointment in Syracuse; me and a couple of lawyers in a windowless room. That occupied my mind more than who was sitting nearby. So I didn’t notice the pregnant woman until the train had flipped.

  Our car actually lifted off the tracks and my body followed suit two seconds later, then I looked to my right and there’s a pregnant woman with her head tucked down between her legs. Crash position. She turned out to be a lot smarter than me. She must’ve been paying attention. News reports eventually said the train hit a curve in the tracks going at 106 miles per hour. Of course the damn thing derailed.

  You’d think a disaster like that would be loud but it was the complete opposite.

  My head hit the seat in front of me and then I couldn’t hear at all. Dying in silence, that’s what I thought was going to happen. The quiet scared me as much as the crash did. But obviously I didn’t die, though I did get knocked around real hard. And after my senses returned I looked over and there was the pregnant woman, patting her belly and talking to it. I watched her lips moving. She looked surprisingly calm. Maybe she was too busy thinking about the child to worry about herself. That’s an admirable quality. For a second or two I admired her. Then I returned to our regularly scheduled train crash.

  Next thing I did was check my watch, but my watch was gone. Like an idiot I spent a good thirty seconds digging for it, as if finding it mattered. I don’t know why I did that. Oh wait, yes I do. I was in shock. But finally I reminded myself about what was important and I pulled myself upright and I crawled toward the pregnant woman.

  I think I asked if she needed help. I couldn’t hear my own voice. Didn’t even feel the bass in my throat so maybe it wasn’t just my ears that were damaged, that’s what I was thinking. I must’ve said something though because the woman looked up from her belly and then pointed toward the roof. The escape hatch had popped open. Took a second for me to realize she was actually pointing at the window. The train had landed on its side and the window had popped off. She pointed up at it again.

  Gray day outside; I wondered if it would rain. Then I got myself up and helped the pregnant woman to her feet. She might’ve been anywhere from three to eight months pregnant. How the hell should I know? She reached toward the window, giving me a sense of how much of a boost she needed. I went down on a knee, must’ve looked like one weird-ass proposal. Still, she accepted, planted one boot on my thigh and stepped up. I laced my hands and held her other foot up then I rose to my feet. That caused a bad sensation to run down my right leg and I wondered if I’d been damaged more than I could tell. She waggled her arms, trying to get a grasp so I had to stretch a little more—which hurt so bad it made me start sweating—and then she got hold of the frame and pulled herself up. Once she had her arms and head through I bent low and basically pushed her up as hard as I could. I don’t mean I threw her out the window. I mean she escaped.

  She looked down at me but we both knew she wasn’t going to be pulling my ass up there. That’s some movie-type shit. I waved her off, told her not to worry. She thanked me. I heard her say it. That’s when I realized my hearing had returned and I clapped. She held my gaze for one long second and I imagined she was wishing me well. Maybe she was just in shock, but I still like to think that’s what she was doing.

  Now it was time for me to get the fuck out of Dodge. I threaded my way along the train car, figured I’d have to come to a doorway soon. Maybe one of the cars had been torn open and I could stumble out that way. Along with the details of the crash there were survivors who spoke of a man who helped them climb out of the wreckage, more than a few people mentioned this. When they looked back to thank the guy he had already moved on. The description of this man matched me, right down to the pattern on my tie. I know it’s vain, but I feel proud of that.

  Still, I have to admit to some complicated feelings. The public would blame the train’s engineer for the catastrophic accident but that wasn’t true. I helped those survivors, yes, but I caused the train crash, too. I wasn’t alone though. Two of us deserve the blame.

  2

  None of this is going to make sense if I don’t back up a little bit. Three months, that’s all I need. I was living in New York, tucked away in a studio apartment in Sunnyside, Queens. Twenty-nine and barely getting by but at least I had a job. Freelance copy editor. Yeah, soak in the prestige. Still, I got to work from home and I read books all day (and night). As far as life outcomes go it could’ve been worse. It had been worse, in fact, but I don’t need to talk about that yet.

  One of the details of the life of a freelance copy editor is that you get used to having messengers show up at your door. The internet age allows for files to be shot across the globe, sure, but at a certain point there’s a manuscript that requires one l
ast pass and I always did better if I had the old pen and paper in front of me. So publishers—big press, small press, university presses—would eventually have to pay for that if they were working with me. So when I got a ring on the buzzer I figured it was just another manuscript delivery. The only thing I did before answering the door was to make sure I was wearing pants. Another plus of the at-home life, of course, is that you can make your living in your underwear. I didn’t recognize the messenger, but it’s a job with a high turnover rate. After I signed on the guy’s touchscreen though he handed me one little envelope. That’s it. I started to ask a question but that dude had done his job and he was gone. No doubt he needed to make twenty-five more stops that day, and all that hustle would likely barely cover his rent and utilities.

  Inside the apartment I read the name on the envelope, making sure it was mine. Simon Dust. People always think I’ve changed my name legally. It sounds made up. But it’s the name they gave me when I joined the foster care system here in New York.

  Maybe a judge chose it for me, or my first social worker, I don’t know. No one ever explained the choice. They only told me what I would be called. So in a sense someone did make up my name, it just wasn’t me.

  So this envelope had my name on it. Then I looked at the return address and found the name of a law firm: Pabodie & Associates. In my life there had never been a good reason to get a letter from a firm so I put the envelope down and took off my pants. I could at least be comfortable when I found out that some old credit card debt had come back to haunt me. Instead, I opened the letter to learn something more surprising: my father was dead.

  I read this news and then I took a long breath and then I went back to the kitchen, where I finished the copyedits on a book that was due in a month.

  * * *

  In the evening I read the letter again. The feeling of being creamed by a car had passed, so I could focus on the words and their meaning. The first interesting fact about my father was that he existed at all. The second was his name: Thomas Edwin Dyer.

  T.E.D. Okay, I thought. Good to know.

  The next surprise came in the body of the second paragraph. My father had died and as his next of kin I had inherited his home and all its effects. “Next of kin.” I hadn’t ever been able to track this guy down. Not him or my mother. And now, apparently, I owned his house and everything in it.

  I may have mentioned barely getting by. My studio apartment would’ve fit snugly in the corner of someone else’s studio apartment. Maybe this absentee bastard would turn out to have a few things I could sell. That’s how I quickly got to thinking. Does this make me sound mercenary? Probably so. That evening I sent in the copyedits on the book just to be sure I’d get a paycheck sooner than later. Then I booked a ticket to where my father had been living. Syracuse, New York.

  3

  Syracuse, New York. Talk about the decline of the West.

  At the train station I went to the taxi stand, it looked more like a bus station stop; one sedan sat there, the driver inside. I had to get up close to see the dude was fast asleep. Didn’t wake up when I knocked on the window. But then I tried the passenger door and as soon as it opened—with a rusty old squawk—the guy snapped to attention and asked me where I wanted to go. Asleep at the wheel. This turned out to describe the city of Syracuse as a whole.

  I gave him my father’s address and as we drove, the decaying upstate city scrolled past my windows. You could tell that once this place had been a powerhouse but now all the factories were shuttered and the potholes in the streets resembled a bad case of tooth decay. My life in New York had been hard but I realized how different that same hardship felt out here. This whole city—hell, this whole region—had been cut loose from the line and sent off to drift. No rescue teams in sight. The taxi driver and I spoke a little. He apologized for how I’d seen him. No time off, he told me. I’m on the clock all the time. And I’m one of the lucky ones around here. At least I have a job.

  I reached my father’s house. Sorry, that doesn’t sound right, even now. I reached the home of Thomas Edwin Dyer, a two-story deal, aluminum siding and bars on the windows. It looked like an old piggy bank with only a few pennies still left inside.

  A street full of run-down one-family houses. Even for Syracuse this block looked rough. It was the middle of the day on a Thursday, nobody else out. Even after I paid, the cabbie seemed hesitant to unlock the doors. Maybe he wanted me to crawl out the window. Once I did step out the guy sped away. I barely had time to slip my bag out the damn vehicle. You’d think the lawyer handling my father’s estate would have to meet me here, hand me the keys, but that’s old-school thinking. The lawyer had simply attached a key safe to the bars by one of the front windows. All I had to do was punch in the four-digit code: 1-9-3—

  “I think you’re looking for this.”

  A woman’s voice. Right beside me.

  I looked up from where I was squatting and found myself looking at a hand holding a silver key. But when I reached for it the hand closed tight and the woman took two steps back.

  “My husband is right next door,” she said as I stood. “Lucky him. At least he’s indoors.”

  She wore her hair short and a pair of green earrings that nearly matched her eyes. She had narrow shoulders and a narrow waist, one of those people who are healthy in their sixties and still runs half marathons on ruined knees. While I was assessing her, she did the same to me. I must’ve looked road-weary. The train ride had taken six hours and the miles showed.

  “You don’t work for that lawyer,” she said.

  “No.” I pointed at the key safe. “But that lawyer told me how to get into my father’s house.”

  Now she frowned. “I’m sorry but the man who lived here . . .”

  “Thomas Edwin Dyer,” I said.

  She looked at the house, up to the second-story windows. “He went by Teddy. That’s what everyone called him.”

  “Not me,” I said.

  She looked back at the house next door, her home; it had a lawn that had been well cared for and clean windows. Imagine finding one clean sock in the dirty laundry basket, that’s what her house looked like.

  “If this is a scam or something I can always call the cops.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well to start, Teddy lived here for thirty years and I have never seen you before. And, well, Teddy was . . .” She looked at me again and cut off the rest of the sentence.

  It took me a moment to figure out what she wanted to say, but couldn’t. “White? Is that what you mean?”

  She didn’t answer, but she did look away. “Look, I don’t want this to turn hostile.”

  I didn’t understand why simply saying the word “white” made white people assume things were going to turn ugly.

  “If he was white,” I said, “then my mother wasn’t.”

  I might not have known my parents, but it didn’t take Miss Marple to figure out that I was mixed.

  The woman rolled her tongue around inside her mouth while she let this idea roll around in her brain. Finally she said, “Then I’ll go in with you.”

  “That’s not necessary.” I put my hand out for the key. I mean who was this lady to presume the right?

  She looked at my hand then back up at my face. Where before she’d been doing her best gatekeeper grimace she now seemed less forceful. “Look,” she said. “I’m Helen. I’m the one who . . . found him.”

  I looked from her back to the house then back to her. “He died in there?”

  “Dead two weeks before I finally let myself in.” She showed me the key. “We had his spare and he had ours. I went in because of all the circulars piled up by the front door.

  Teddy wasn’t the type to just leave them there.” She sighed. “So I went inside. Found him in the recliner.” She raised her eyebrows. “Sorry.”

  Now Helen gestured toward the door, using the key to point. “I didn’t know Teddy had a son. Let me take you in.”

&nb
sp; I nodded but before she opened the door she walked back onto her property, up the front steps. She opened the door and shouted loud enough for me to hear.

  “Harvey? Harvey! I’m going into Teddy’s place for a minute. His son is here.”

  Harvey must’ve said something, but I couldn’t hear it. I wasn’t listening. I didn’t know Teddy had a son. My face had gone flush when she said it. Bad enough that he hadn’t raised me, but it was a deeper cut to realize I’d never even been mentioned.

  * * *

  My father’s home was a monument to mania. The first floor of the house was little more than a garage and a mudroom, a place to kick off the boots and coat before climbing a set of stairs to the second floor, where my father had done all his living. His dying too, apparently.

  The mudroom should’ve been my first clue. There were so many stacks of old crap that I couldn’t be sure of the color of the floor. Boxes and boxes, all beaten up and weathered; stacked high too. The topmost boxes were at my chest level. Helen’s small frame looked dwarfed. She might as well have been weaving through a minotaur’s maze. She waved me forward and I had to turn sideways to get through the boxes. The mudroom gave off the odor of mildew and madness. Then we went upstairs and the shit got even worse.

  A two-bedroom home with a living room, kitchen, and bathroom and every room had been colonized. By what? By a bunch of bullshit, as far as I could tell. A room full of old magazines and newspapers, another for records from the big-band era, nothing more recent than 1946. A collector, someone who knew the music, might’ve experienced a full-body orgasm at the sight. I only felt resentful. He’d taken better care of a bunch of fucking albums than he had ever taken care of me.

  There might’ve been a bed in one of the bedrooms, but I couldn’t find it. Instead there were stacks of maps, printouts of travel journals from the early twentieth century, the kind of stuff you can now find through a dutiful computer search through the archives of some institute or library. All of it related to Antarctica. And yet I found no computer in the house so I guessed he’d printed all this stuff at the local library over the course of a decade or four. What a useless life. There was a single path weaving through the mess. On this floor the mounds stood as tall as me. It really looked like the man had been building himself a fortress inside the walls of his home. Layers of protection.