Nebula Awards Showcase 2009

by Ellen Datlow

  And then she is alone, a woman behind a solid metal mask, with ears calibrated for the solar winds, and eyes that can only see the stars.

  Marika is kept away all night. Alice has to amuse herself by watching feeds and vids, because her only other options are music, which is too passive to keep her input-starved brain occupied for long, and conversation, which is currently impossible. Jayna is on shift right now, Selene is sleeping, and the caretakers are all busy discussing how to keep her from going even more insane.

  They are a shift of three. There can be no replacements.

  Alice briefly scans the news feeds, hoping for distraction, and finds that as usual, nothing has changed. The relief convoy from Earth is still on hold, the rebuilding continues to go slowly, and there is still no real information on the mysterious black ships that nearly destroyed their colony ten years ago. The talking heads just keep rehashing all their old theories—that it was aliens trying to drive humans from their first and only extra-solar colony, that United Earth sent the ships to punish the colonists for forming an independent government, that it was the wrath of some angry god, that it was a natural phenomenon that only looked like spaceships, that the colony government bombed its own domes to cover up some unspeakable crime. She’s heard it all before. None of it makes any difference to her. None of it changes her job.

  No, the news is no real distraction. Alice pulls up some chamber music and a slideshow of images of happy families that she has made over the years, culling pictures from news stories, from magazines, from movies. Some are real families, some fictional, but she cherishes each and every image just the same—the pig-tailed blonde laughing on her father’s shoulder, the teenagers tossing a ball back and forth under the lights of the main colony dome, the little baby curled up in its mother’s arms.

  She touches the mask. It’s worth it. For them.

  And then she sneaks a peek at the tiny, pixelated picture that Marika doesn’t know she has. It’s the only image she’s been able to find of her. She’s young in the picture, in high school, posing with the rest of the track team under an undomed sky that can only be on Earth. Marika is in the back row, so all Alice can make out are broad, tanned shoulders, a mane of dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a brilliant smile. But it’s enough. It’s something.

  She can never tell Marika that she has this. They’re supposed to be faceless for each other. Marika insists on it.

  Marika.

  She shudders.

  No, this isn’t helping either. A movie will distract her until Marika returns.

  Alice searches the mainframe for a film she hasn’t seen. So few get made anymore. The economy can barely support the basic needs of its citizens, and entertainment is a luxury that is rarely indulged. But all she can find is something called Love in a Time of Bombardment.

  No. She will not relive the attack. The attack is not entertainment. It can never be entertainment.

  She tugs at her feeding tube to try to get it into a more comfortable position, and feels the thick, thumbless mittens being pulled back over her hands. “no no no no no no no,” she types, but her unspoken assailant ignores her and ties the mittens to the walker’s rail.

  They’re so afraid she’ll become another Selene. This is exactly the wrong way to go about keeping her sane.

  She bangs her mask hard against the walker’s padded rail in protest, then thrashes her head from side to side when her assailant tries to stop her. It’s no use. She is pushed back against the padded chair of her walker and strapped down. The seat/body interface tugs uncomfortably between her legs, and she opens her mouth as far as it will go behind the mask to scream out her silent fury.

  Over the earpieces, she hears Dr. Qureshi say, “Alice, you need to keep calm.”

  She struggles to type, struggles to get her tongue to work properly. “im jst uncomfrtblee.”

  “Alice, you’re not making any sense.”

  How can she make sense when she is blind and deaf and lashed to a walker against her will? How can they possibly expect her to . . .

  It doesn’t matter what they expect. All that matters are her actions. She takes in several deep gulps of air through her chest tube, trying to calm her trembling muscles, then types, “My feeding tube was uncomfortable. I was just adjusting it. You didn’t need to tie me down.”

  “We need to be safe, Alice. You know that.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And we need to keep you that way.”

  “I want to talk to Marika.”

  “Dr. DeVeaux is busy.”

  “I have a right to be with her.”

  “Alice, we’ve been over this. You’re in no position to—”

  “I’m nineteen years old. I have every right to decide who I want to be with.”

  “You only think you love her. She’s been your caretaker for the entire length of the program. Of course you’re attached to her.”

  Marika’s touch was the first one she’d felt after waking up in the mask and the chair. She’d held Alice while she screamed voicelessly, sobbed tearlessly, panicking behind the metal. She was the one who sat patiently with Alice until the awkward tongue controls became second nature, and she was finally able to communicate with the world on the other side of the mask. Her hands were the only ones to soothe away the nightmares, to knead her ever more atrophied muscles, to massage ointment into the scar tissue around her implants and mask. They were there when Alice’s body first started developing curves, when she started craving a different kind of touch. Marika is the only one that can make her feel like a woman instead of simply a captive mind dragging a useless bag of bones behind it.

  Yes, of course she is attached to her.

  “Dr. Qureshi, this is none of your business. I’m an adult now, and I choose to be with her.”

  “And I’m trying to tell you that it’s grossly inappropriate for her to exploit your feelings by—”

  Alice pulls up a loud music file to drown out the rest of the lecture. Marika will come back. She always does. And Alice will wait for her, lashed to her chair by her chest and wrists, as long as it takes.

  When she sleeps, she dreams of Marika, of her hands roaming all over Alice’s fragile body. Her skin cries out for more, and Marika grows an octopus’s complement of arms, fondling Alice with an eightfold touch. Two hands reach for the feeding tube, give it a twist, and gently pull it out. Two other hands remove the breather, and still two more lift her from the walker, the seat/body interface coming loose wetly.

  The multiplicity of hands lay Alice’s body on a soft, downy surface, caressing her, stroking her, even in places that only the seat has touched these past ten years. Alice reaches for the mask, struggling to pull it loose, and two of Marika’s hands push hers away. “Let me,” her voice buzzes, and all eight hands pry at the stubborn, welded thing.

  “Try harder,” Alice says.

  Marika yanks, and Alice’s body flops helplessly. The mask will not budge.

  “Hang on,” Marika says, and plants one foot against Alice’s chest. “This might hurt.”

  And braced against Alice’s chest, Marika gives a great heave.

  There is a horrible ripping sound, a great burst of pain—

  “Wake up.”

  Alice gasps and lifts her head, then lets it fall back again under the great weight of the mask.

  “It’s all right,” Marika says. “It’s just a dream.”

  Two hands unstrap Alice from the chair, and she sags her head onto Marika’s shoulder.

  “You’re shaking.”

  “It was just a dream,” Alice types.

  “That’s my brave girl,” Marika says, and her hand reaches through the slits on the back of Alice’s gown and caresses the skin beneath. “They’re watching.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Marika lets out a small chuckle. “Neither do I.”

  “They keep trying to tell me this is wrong.”

  “Well, I am your caretaker.”

&nbs
p; “But—”

  “So let me take care of you. They can’t punish me for doing my job, now can they?”

  And Alice’s gown is untied and removed, and then a warm, wet cloth rubs across her naked scalp.

  Alice sighs and leans into it.

  The cloth moves down, rubbing large, firm circles across her back, across her withered, aching muscles. It disappears, then is back on her arms, warmer and wetter, cleaning between each finger, scrubbing at hollow armpits.

  “How’s the water? Is it too warm?”

  She shakes her head. It’s perfect. Perfect.

  The cloth comes back again, caressing her breasts, the water dripping down her torso, tantalizing, and Alice’s breath catches in her chest tube.

  She grips the handrail tight in anticipation.

  “Let’s make sure everything’s nice and clean.”

  Marika moves the cloth down to Alice’s seat/body interface.

  For an infinite instant, Alice’s world expands far beyond the stars.

  And then her body is no longer her own. It is a trembling, helpless thing, cradled in Marika’s protective embrace. In the haze, she cannot make out the words being crooned into her ear speakers, just the soothing, familiar tone. But it is enough. Enough to keep her safe until her body is back under her control.

  She sighs through her chest tube and nestles her mask against Marika’s shoulder.

  There is a soft kiss on her scalp. “You’re so beautiful.”

  She shakes her head, suppressing a second sigh. “No, I’m not. I can’t be.” They have never let her see what she’s become, but she can feel the bones, the scars.

  Marika’s voice grows impossibly softer. “Trust me. You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

  “But my face . . . I don’t even know what it looks like under here.”

  “I’m not interested in your face.” Marika caresses the skin around the edge of the mask, and lets one hand drift down to Alice’s breathing tube. “I love you this way, my captive girl.”

  Alice rests one hand over Marika’s and just breathes.

  “. . . wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey . . .”

  Alice jerks her head up from the bar, jolted from a familiar dream just in time to keep it from turning into a nightmare. Her parents, a sunny day, a ball, the rooftop terrace. She doesn’t have to relive the terrible shadow, the whistle and crash of the projectiles, the blood, the screaming, the—

  No, she doesn’t have to relive it. She rubs her mask with her hands and calls up a fractal pattern to drive the dream images away. “How long have you been typing at me?”

  “. . . wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey . . .”

  “Selene, I’m awake already.”

  “. . . wakey wakey wakey woke?”

  “Yes.”

  “. . . wokey wokey . . .”

  “That’s not a word, Selene.”

  “. . . wokey wokey donty carey . . .”

  Alice grabs the padded bar of her walker and forces herself forward a few steps, the tubes tugging at her puckered skin as she pulls them along. “Is anyone paying attention to Selene?” she types.

  Dr. Mishima says, “Don’t worry, we are.”

  Alice calls up the clock and feels a sickening buzz of adrenaline. “Why isn’t she on shift? There’s no one on shift right now.”

  “She needs a break, so we’re giving her one.”

  Alice drags herself forward, raising her heavy head, straining to face what she hopes is the control room. “Hook me up. Put me on.”

  “There hasn’t been an attack in over ten years. A third-day without monitoring shouldn’t—”

  “NOW!”

  “There’s no need to shout,” Dr. Mishima says.

  “. . . chair hurts spurts furts get me off off off off off off . . .”

  “Shit,” Dr. Mishima hisses, and then the audio connection slams shut.

  “What’s going on?” Alice types.

  Nothing.

  “Somebody talk to me. What’s going on? What’s wrong with Selene?”

  Nothing.

  “Please. Somebody talk to me. Is anyone in the control room? Anyone?” She drags herself forward until her wheels hit the wall, then turns and painstakingly walks forward until she hits the next wall. “Someone talk to me.”

  Nothing.

  “Or you could hook me up. I could patrol. Please. Don’t just leave me here. Someone say something.”

  She hits another wall, and leans her mask against it.

  “Don’t just leave me here.”

  “There’s just the two of you now,” Dr. Qureshi says.

  “Grt,” Jayna types.

  If Alice still had eyes, she would roll them. “Use vowels,” she types.

  “Fck u.”

  “Well, that was one vowel.”

  “We can’t do full shifts with just two of you.”

  “I’ll work extra,” Alice types, pulling up her happy family slideshow for inspiration. “Put me on for a half-day. I can do it.”

  “Crzy btch.”

  “Or have us do quarter-days on, quarter-days off, twice daily.”

  “No, that’s unacceptable. We’ll stick with third-day shifts for the two of you, and leave Selene’s shift unmonitored.”

  “No, THAT’S unacceptable,” Alice types.

  “It’s been over ten years—”

  “—since I watched my parents die.”

  “Alice, I know you feel—”

  “You can’t know.” Alice is seething behind the mask, her happy family slideshow flipping from image to image so quickly that it’s nothing but a blur. “I watched my parents burn. I still hear them screaming in my dreams.”

  “Alice—”

  “Unless you’re sitting in one of these chairs, don’t tell me you know how I feel.”

  There is a pause, then just as Alice is convinced that the connection’s gone dead, Dr. Qureshi says, “For all we know, those ships aren’t coming back.”

  “For all we know, they are.”

  “And what are the chances that they’ll come during the third-day that we’re not watching the skies?”

  “About one in three.”

  “Thr nt cmng bck?”

  “We can’t say for sure.”

  “Gt m ot of ths chr.”

  “What was that?”

  “Gt me out of ths chr. Gt ths fckng msk off m fce.”

  “Jayna, I didn’t say the program was coming to an end, just that we don’t think we need captive minds monitoring space all day long anymore.”

  “GT THS FCKNG MSK FFFFFFFF M FCE!!!!!!!”

  “Jayna, I think you need to rest.”

  “GT THSSSSS FKKKKkkk k kk”

  The typing stops.

  “What did you do?” Alice types. “What happened to Jayna?”

  “Just gave her something to help her sleep.”

  “You drugged her?” Alice tugs at her feeding tube. “Through this?”

  “Why don’t you start your shift now?”

  “You drugged her? How could—”

  And then her mind is untethered and flying through space, searching for any hint of the black ships, determined to keep any other little girls from suffering her same fate.

  When she comes back, Marika is waiting for her. “We’re alone,” she breathes.

  Alice grabs the walker tightly as she feels a trail of kisses snaking down her exposed spine.

  “Marika. How—”

  “They’re in a meeting. About the project. None of the caretakers were invited. They say we’re not objective enough.” Hands reach into the gown to cup Alice’s small breasts, and when fingers caress her nipples, she feels electricity all the way down to her seat/body interface.

  The lips plant feather-light kisses back up to her bare scalp, and then a tongue gently caresses the scar tissue ringing the mask.

  “We can’t,” Alice types. “We can’t.”

  “They’re not watching. They’re finally not watchin
g.” The hands smooth up to the mask, cradling it, fingertips just barely touching Alice’s skin, and with a jolt, she realizes that Marika is kissing the metal right over her mouth.