Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

  At the thought of Dane, Dane whom she had loved and then envied and then hated, her head began to hurt. Heavy, it was so heavy, she couldn't hold it up.

  "Mallory? What...?"

  The rest of Sue's words sounded as if she were on the other end of a tunnel.

  Mallory got up from her desk, fighting a bout of dizziness. “I'll be right back."

  Somehow she made it to the restroom. After dousing her face in cold water, she leaned her forehead on her arms on the counter. It was nothing. Thinking about her brother always upset her. There was absolutely no reason to be worried about the morph job next week. None at all.

  * * * *

  Mallory hated windshield wipers, but the heavy mist was too much to leave them off. It was a gray, dismal day, and not even the exhilaration of being in a morph, of heading south to the Renton corporate zone on a new job could keep her from feeling low. Besides, she didn't much care for the body she was in: old, male, beginning to show its age despite treatments and appearance adjustments.

  Sue was already in the Hypersystems complex, posing as an attractive job applicant. According to their plan, Sue would draw Tom Reich off, chosen for the sting because of his rampant libido. Other agents had already collected all the information they needed on him in a similar way. Then when Reich was safely out of the building, Mallory would waltz in and take his place—a perfect simulation right down to the thumb prints.

  She parked the car just outside of Hypersystems and waited until she received word that Sue and Reich were far enough away. Then she pulled on a Laurentina raincoat (just like Reich's), opened her umbrella, and walked the short distance to the main building. At the entrance, she placed her hand on the identification panel. “Welcome, Mr. Reich,” the security system said. “I thought you had gone home for the evening?"

  "I seem to have forgotten my AI. I need to go back up and take a look around."

  "Good luck.” She could have sworn there was sarcasm in the security system voice.

  Adrenalin from the danger of being caught slowly began to banish the depression she'd been feeling earlier. She walked briskly through the halls to Reich's office, opened the door with her (his) palm, locked the door behind her, and sat down in the desk chair. “System active."

  "Active.” Reich had programmed his computer with a low, slow female voice. Figured.

  Morph agents were all trained security experts, and with the voice, thumb, and retina simulation of her morph, she was soon able to access the classified information on tech innovations presently being realized. Of course, the files were all encrypted, but the neural network she occupied and controlled made short work of that final hurdle.

  Mallory scanned the information she'd found as the recording function in her neural network stored everything she viewed. Normally during a job of this type, she was only superficially aware of what she was reading, skimming files and plans as quickly as possible to gather all the information she could in the time at her disposal.

  But this time, she found herself reading more slowly, reading to understand rather than just reading to store. Most of the material had to do with a so-called RLA—Remote Link Android: essentially, a morph unit without the mind upload. Hypersystems had gotten around the inadequacies of artificial intelligence by creating a kind of remote control technology which would allow corporate agents to control androids from a secured location. And the androids being developed for the purpose were based on an adjustable DNA matrix. Like morph units.

  Mallory sat back and stopped reading. The advantages of an RLA from a corporate perspective were immediately obvious. While corporations tended to regard human resources as cheap and easily replaced (and were thus less worried about hypothetical brain drain than Ethan wished), the disadvantage of human agents was that they were unpredictable. Versatile but unpredictable. They could react more quickly in complicated and potentially dangerous social situations than an AI, but they were also prone to human error. An RLA would combine human and artificial intelligence, while making control of agents much easier.

  It would also make morphs obsolete.

  Her earphone crackled on. “Mal, Reich is heading back to the office—seems he forgot something,” came Sue's voice in her ear. “I'm heading back to Hypersystems and will meet you at the southern entrance of the parking lot."

  "Ok, shutting down right away,” Mallory responded.

  But somehow she couldn't. She continued to stare at the model of the android in the small holo well, while her neural network busily stored the images. How long would it take for Softec to recreate the technology from the information she had collected? She didn't know. She suspected they were farther in the actual morphing technology than Hypersystems: adjust the unit for the remote link and equip the neural network with a fully functioning AI and they would have an RLA.

  And Mallory would never morph again.

  Perhaps Ethan would come back. But perhaps he wouldn't. Perhaps he'd had enough of her, danger or no danger.

  Mallory had a headache. Or her morph did.

  She shut down the recording function in her morph unit. “Exit."

  "Would you like to save your changes?” her internal system asked.

  Yes, that was it: she simply would have no material for Softec when she returned. The mission had been cut short. “No."

  But there were backups, and she couldn't erase the system before her mind was downloaded again. Somehow, she had to keep Softec from getting the information stored in her unit, despite her efforts.

  She had to run.

  Mallory turned off Reich's system and left the building, opening her umbrella and pulling the designer raincoat tight around the simulated body of Tom Reich. She was almost to her car when she saw a small brunette bombshell get out of a blue sports car. Sue's morph. She picked up her pace.

  "Mallory!"

  She glanced over her shoulder. Sue was hurrying after her. Mallory reached the black sedan, slid into the driver's seat, and shot out of the parking lot. When she was safely down the block, she looked back. Sue was already pulling out after her.

  She had to lose her.

  The communications system in the car came on. “Mallory, what's going on?"

  Mallory felt sweat break out on the palms of her morph unit. But she wouldn't panic now. She had to get away with the morph, had to keep Softec from getting it.

  She turned left in the direction of 405. The trees to either side of the freeway loomed above, reaching for the gray sky, while the windshield wipers beat an insistent rhythm, urging her on.

  Sue's voice came over the system again. “Is something the matter, Mal?"

  Mallory's forehead felt hot. It wasn't like her to panic. She wouldn't. She gazed in the rearview mirror.

  Sue's car was right behind.

  "Don't follow me, Sue,” she told the communications unit. Her voice sounded fuzzy in her own head, as if there were dozens of people whispering to her in a low, dull undertone. She turned onto the on-ramp—south instead of north—relieved that she could finally give the car more speed.

  "Mallory, I'm worried about you. You're not acting rationally. Pull over and let me drive you back."

  Mallory shook her head, trying to concentrate on the road, the speed, the car.

  "No, I have to go...” But she didn't know where she had to go, just that she couldn't go back to Softec. It was urgent, though, she knew it. The murmurs, they wouldn't let up. Mallory pressed the accelerator button. She had to get out of here, away from the voices, away from Seattle, away from Sue. Fast.

  Away from Sue? But Sue was her friend. She was all Mallory had left. Dane was gone, her parents were gone, Ethan was gone, and now she was running away from Sue.

  Sue's voice came over the communications unit again, but Mallory could no longer make any sense of the words. She gave the vehicle more speed. The voices were urging her on, growing louder.

  An exit was coming up; maybe she could lose Sue there. At the last minute, she swerved into the exit l
ane and took the off-ramp full speed. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but it was drowned out by the clamor in her head, whispers like a dull roar, dizziness like a presence at the back of her mind. It was all she could do to concentrate on driving.

  Then she heard a crash.

  She braked the car and pulled over to the side of the road. Behind her, the blue sports car was crumpled up against a tree.

  She got out and stumbled back through the wet grass between asphalt and trees. Sue was wedged into the crushed driver's seat, her head at an unnatural angle. Mallory tried to wake her—she should already have been repairing the damage to her morph, for God's sake! Nothing worked, nothing. She checked the data upload field at the bottom of the morph unit's spine—cracked. Mallory could only hope the neural network holding Sue's mind wasn't seriously damaged.

  She staggered up, breathing deeply, and rested her hand on the frame of the vehicle. She couldn't let Softec find her, but she had to make sure they found Sue. Had to.

  Her car. The AI in her car was undamaged. She could send out an alert from the black sedan.

  And get away. If she didn't, they would take the morph from her.

  Mallory slogged through the wet grass again, the raincoat over her head. Without making voice contact, she turned on the emergency signal to Softec. They would be here in less than half an hour, pick up the broken unit that held her best friend.

  She was feeling dizzy again. Mallory closed her eyes, concentrating. She couldn't take the car—it had to stay here so they could find Sue.

  But not Mallory. She could be someone else, anyone else. She had the morph.

  She pushed herself away from the black sedan, moving toward the forest at the side of the road. She had to hide, had to escape before they came for her. The trees, she would hide in the trees. She would be alone there, safe.

  But she wasn't. She wasn't alone. They were following her, surrounding her, closing in. Their voices gnawed at her consciousness, eroding her control. She ran. Or she thought she ran. She couldn't feel the body she was inhabiting, could only hear the voices, see the memories of so many others, the pieces of identity left behind in the morph, taking over the neural network her own weakened mind could no longer control.

  She was losing herself. Slipping away; slipping, slipping away. Her lips curled up in a smile.

  But slipping away wasn't far enough. They would get her if she didn't flee.

  And then she was running, wet grass slapping the legs of her designer suit, trees looming above. She ran and ran, her breath coming shorter, the voices in her head like the whir of a helicopter. Her foot caught on a stray branch on the forest floor, and she went down. She was kneeling, kneeling in a puddle of rainwater, acid rain, she was crouching in the damp earth next to a tree on the edge of the forest. The forest was green and she was wet. Wet and cold. The voices. She was drowning in the voices, drowning in the wet forest, a jumble, a babble, a babbling brook. Cold and wet, taking her away.

  The forest was green and she was far away.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  INCLINATION, by William Shunn

  The Manual tells us that in the beginning the Builder decreed six fundamental Machines. These are his six aspects, and all we do we must do with the Six. We need no other machines.

  I believe this with all my heart. I do. And yet sometimes I seem to intuit the existence of a seventh Machine, hovering like a blasphemous ghost just beyond apprehension.

  There is something wrong with me, and I don't know what it is.

  * * * *

  Late for my curfew and trembling, I grasp the doorknob that is not a doorknob.

  This is the Machinist Quarter—only a tiny sliver of Netherview Station's Ring B, though I'm one of the few boys I know who has ever been outside it. Fo-grav stays off in the Quarter; our only simulation of gravity is the 0.25 g of natural centripetal acceleration born of the station's rotation and our two-kilometer distance from the hub. We joke that this is why it's called the Quarter. It sure isn't called that after the ratio of its volume to the station's.

  The cabin I share with my father Thomas lies in the Inclined Plane branch, third transverse, twelfth hatch on the left. Standing at the hatch, I straighten my billed cap and smooth my coverall—each emblazoned with a right triangle stitched in dove-gray thread, representing our ward—and gently turn the knob. Recessed lights at deck level cast my diffuse shadow up the bulkheads to either side of me. The knob operates as if it were mounted on a genuine mechanical axle, though of course it isn't. A dumb mechanical doorknob wouldn't unlock to my touch alone, or Thomas's. I hate the doorknob. I hate the deceitfulness of it, the way its homogeneous smart matter mimics the virtuous and differentiated and pure. I hate what it conceals. I hate it for not keeping me out.

  With a silent prayer to the Builder, I push the hatch open. It swings inward on soundless, lying hinges. I tread lightly inside, in case Thomas is sleeping, the nonslippers on my feet helping me keep my steps short and low. But as I round the door I see Thomas sitting up on his bunk in his short gray underall, watching me enter. The door closes itself behind me, which no door should do unbidden. The cabin is narrow and unadorned but for a diagram of the Six Fundamental Machines affixed to the rear bulkhead, and a small wooden chest bolted to the deck beneath it. The air reeks of a coppery sourness that matches Thomas's narrowed glare. The cabin is so tiny I could reach out and stroke his curly, graying hair if I wanted, but that's an urge that no longer seizes me often. Anyway, the days when I could reliably charm him out of his anger are long past.

  "You're late, son,” he says. He's squinting at me now, eyes unfocused, the way he does sometimes. He doesn't even glance at the chronometer on his wrist—a true mechanism, with tiny metal gears and not smart matter inside, a symbol of his status as a merchant trader. “It's past your curfew."

  "I'm sorry,” I say, turning my back and reaching for the crank that will fold my bunk down from the bulkhead opposite his.

  His voice grates out in sharp, tight bursts like the strokes of a rasp on iron: “If you were sorry, you'd have been on time."

  My shoulder blades prickle. I say nothing, cranking down the bunk.

  "Jude, you're fifteen years old,” Thomas says. “Why do you think you still have so many rules? Why?"

  I try to shrug, but the effort feels jerky, like the gesture of a marionette. “I was waiting my turn at devotions,” I say, clinging to the false crank. “You know—with Nic and the rest. But the Foremen wouldn't—they stayed past their time, and we, well..."

  * * * *

  Thomas has risen, his voice at the back of my neck, shivering my spine. “I was out looking for you. I spoke to Nicodemus an hour ago. In Plane, not at gymnasium."

  My blood runs chill. That's two lies I've told, and he's caught me in one already. Nicodemus is my best friend, or used to be, but lately I've been avoiding him. We were up late working on our motors in the schola a couple of weeks ago. He was helping me get the timing right on mine and his fingers brushed the back of my hand. It was just an accident. We've been friends all our lives, but it was like seeing him for the first time. I wanted to touch his face, though I didn't let myself. The scary thing was, it didn't feel wrong, and that scares me all the more.

  Of course I can't explain this to Thomas. Nor can I explain why more and more I can't force myself to evening devotions on time. The cleansing room where we change and shower is like a chamber of horrors. None of the boys seem bothered by disrobing in front of each other, but it bothers me acutely. Letting them see my body makes me want to tear my skin off.

  My bunk is halfway lowered. I want to turn and defend myself against Thomas's implicit accusation but a bolus of confusion clogs my throat. Words swarm like dust in my brain, eluding my grasp. Why do I have to explain any of this to him? Why doesn't he just know? And why is it his business?

  "Great Builder, Jude,” Thomas says at my back, “if you have to lie to me, how can I trust you at a job?"

&n
bsp; My shoulders stiffen, my head half turns.

  "That's right, I've lined up a job for you. Do you understand, son? At the hub."

  A sick despair flares in my gut. Outside the Quarter? Could things get any worse?

  "I need you up early, and fresh, but you're out doing Builder knows what when you should be in bed. Did I raise you to be this way, Jude? Did I?"

  Tiny flecks of spittle flense the back of my neck. I was at my devotions, I really was, I want to say, but the words won't come.

  "Answer me when I speak!” Thomas says, seizing my arm and spinning me around. My cap with its Inclined Plane insignia flies off my head.

  The skinny legs tensed for violence, the slow ripple of his round, protruding belly, the sharpening rage on his gray blade of a face—I'm bigger and taller, but I might as well be five again for all that I can stand up to what's coming.

  He shakes me. “You will honor your father, that your days may be long upon the earth!"

  Saline globules tremble at the corners of my eyes, watery jewels sparkling across my sight. The words burst out before I know I'm speaking: “There's no earth here, only metal."

  My father's face flushes livid. He spins, hurling me across the cabin—not difficult, since my weight is just twenty kilos. I sprawl across my father's bunk, all gawky limbs and terror.

  I roll over and there he is looming above me, fists raised and shaking. It's been months since last he struck me, an improbable lucky streak which now seems about to end. But he lowers his arms and leans over me.

  "The Wrecker's in you, boy,” he says, shaking a finger. “You pray hard and shake loose his grip. Pray to be made square and true. Tomorrow more than ever, you need the Builder to be with you."