Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction

by Nalo Hopkinson

  She faced him again, stern and sad. “You don’t know what love is, David. Love isn’t something you fall into or out of. It’s not something that might happen by accident when you aren’t looking. Love is something you build. You make a decision and you work at it. You create it out of good will and a few overactive hormones.”

  She stood up, her grey suit lustrous in the fluorescent light. “I didn’t come here to lecture you. I came to apologize and I did my best. I don’t want this to get awkward.” She held out a businesslike hand for him to shake, to seal the deal once and for all, to close the coffin lid down on his heart.

  He stared at her slender fingers, remembered them rubbing the worry lines from his brow, massaging the tense muscles between his shoulder blades and elsewhere, then cast his eyes downward. “I can’t say goodbye.”

  Anna’s hand slapped down on her thigh. “We gave it a chance, David. I can’t ask you to give up your dream for me.”

  He didn’t look up as she left the room and closed the door behind her. He let the tears fall where they may.

  The light cube appeared in his office three days later, empty. David looked up from the unopened manila envelope on his desk to see it shimmering, an eerie blue beacon in the center of the room. He was awake and fully conscious, primed with caffeine for an eleven-o’clock team meeting with his colleagues. He stared for a bare second and jumped to his feet in recognition.

  He circled it like a cat prowling a wounded bird, and found three sides completely opaque. No apparent energy source. No tricks or projectors. No knobs or buttons, control panels or joysticks. No possible explanation.

  David stepped inside and saw himself, as expected, playing on the bedroom floor at eight years of age. His child self looked up, recognized him with awe and rose to full height; he selected his favourite red marker and walked to the blank wall behind him. The boy began writing.

  No, David thought with instant alarm. Not like this! Not without some measure of scientific control, not without experimental procedures. Not just some fluke from heaven! The monitoring equipment, lasers and expensive quantum couplers were all downstairs in the lab where the Equation team waited even now for his monthly progress report. His years of careful preparation had come to naught.

  He felt himself adrift and helpless, a helium balloon floating up to dizzying heights, his purpose, his foundation cut out from under him. Anna had been right. He had wasted his career on a random phenomenon. Now that the truth was plainly evident, he did not have a single credible witness to back up his observation.

  The writing on the wall began to take shape as a tiny hand deftly transcribed the numerals. It was the Hynes-Wilson Equation, of course. David recognized it immediately, his life’s work. The child was reading it from David’s own mind, from his subconscious, perhaps, via the quantum connection. They were the same person, sharing the same essence across decades, collapsing a wave probability that had always been there.

  The first discrepancy on the bedroom wall caught David completely off guard. He blinked with disbelief, wanting to reach out and make the correction. It was subtle, at first, but quickly brought the Equation into uncharted realms. He gasped as ramifications wheeled inside his brain like spinning galaxies.

  Intrinsic symmetry required a third observer, for any movement back in time required a corresponding movement forward in time, the alpha and omega — a quantum triad, each point moving independently yet intimately connected. The principle seemed so obvious that David felt he had always known it. He churned the numbers in his mind, marvelling at the beauty of wisdom, as the crooked pathways in his early work suddenly became pure golden threads, his abstruse inferences now elegant theorems.

  Emotion washed like a river through David’s body, calming his panicky thoughts of failure — a sense of pure and perfect unity, of holiness undefiled, as though this eureka moment embodied all, just as it always was and should be. The Equation, he realized, existed outside of space and time as a universal truth. Somehow, it was making itself known, past, present and future.

  David felt himself exposed and naked to the cosmos. He shivered at the reality, feeling himself a worm and no man. Who was this third observer? His future self? Some higher consciousness? A collective human psyche? He turned, slowly, feeling suddenly the focus of omnipresent attention, and looked backward through the light cube.

  No gateway to the future lay beyond; just his comfortable office, his limited-edition prints on the walls, his simple wooden desk with an unopened manila envelope on top. Nothing had changed. No third observer was present.

  A chill permeated the air, and the light cube clouded over as water began to condense on the interface. David turned again and peered out at the Equation, recording each nuance with photographic memory. Shivering with cold, he noticed more discrepancies through a crystalline pattern of new frost, as the guts of the mechanical formula began to unravel. The source of the hyper-c photons had always been the main stumbling block in the creation of a working time-travel apparatus. The writing on the wall indicated that antimatter axons could release such light under extraordinary super-cooled conditions. Somehow, charged with energy, they were held in stasis at the eight corners of the light cube, using technology that was clearly decades ahead of current science.

  David would never harness time travel in his lifetime, he realized with calm assurance. The ultimate responsibility had passed out of his hands. He had become merely an instrument in a grand design, a central pinpoint in a vast but knowable universe. He was simply an observer, a prophetic watchman on the tower. He recognized this freedom as the interface began to freeze up. He peered through darkening glass at an eight-year-old boy sharing the secrets of space-time, and wished himself well with a glad heart as his view was obscured and the light cube reached its self-limiting temperature threshold. The eerie blue light winked out and shards of ice fell like a broken window at his feet. He stood alone in the centre of his office, hugging himself and trembling with cold, feeling, finally, that a ghost had just left the room.

  His colleagues on the Equation team waited expectantly downstairs, the brothers and sisters who had agonized with him over long and frustrating years, who had shared the dream and the vision while others mocked from afar. David had completed his mission. He had fulfilled his destiny against all odds, had mastered the gates of reality and tasted the joy of angels; and there was only one person in the world he wanted to share this moment with, only one person who mattered above all. Time had never seemed so precious. He raced for the speed dial and called his wife.

  See Kathryn Run

  by Élisabeth Vonarburg

  translated by Élisabeth Vonarburg and Howard Scott

  See Kathryn run.

  She doesn’t know. In her head, she’s walking. She doesn’t see the people who instinctively step aside to let her pass. Not that she’s big, or particularly athletic, or dressed in black from head to foot like some you see on the Main, striding haughtily along in their long sweeping fake leather coats and glaring predatorily at the passers-by — mostly men, mostly young men, at the age when they are not yet quite sure whether they are entitled to indulge their male arrogance. People step aside for her because she knows where she’s going: she’s a Voyager, and she’s going to meet her future employer, the one who’s going to build a Bridge for her.

  She sees what the strollers don’t see, however. In doorways, the hands coming out of the shadows with indistinct muttering, prayer or abuse, inaudible in the dull roar of the city and the gut-churning throb of the music pouring out of the stores and cars. She sees, through the crowd, as if for her they were surrounded by halos, the silhouettes of men or women whose steps drag just a little more than the others, who wear their entire wardrobes on their backs and carry their entire households in a garbage bag or a tattered sports bag. Or the greasy papers, the furious graffiti scratched on the beautiful walls, the mauve mist that
blurs perspective on the Main, clouds of fumes from the insect-back cars packed as tight as the marabunta. And on the faces of the passers-by, here and there, unbeknownst to them, those worried mouths, those fingers clenching the handle of a real leather case or an imitation crocodile handbag, those furtive looks, those alert ears, waiting for the detonation, the explosion, the showers of glass, concrete, steel. In front of all the commercial cathedrals — banks, high-fashion stores, shopping centres — around rows of metal detectors, the uniforms of the security companies.

  But they continue coasting down the slope of habit: strolling on the Main. It is the weekend and the end of a beautiful fall afternoon, a deep-blue, cloudless sky, just the right edge of cold in the air, well disguised by the slanting, warm light of the sun, not really red but coppery orange, a rich marmalade glow on the façades and windows of buildings, flowing over skin and hair, a late, deceptive echo of summer, holidays, carefree days. The adolescents are still laughing rowdily on the steps of Place des Arts, on the packed terraces of the cafés and restaurants, with plates piled high, foaming mugs, cool wines. Luxury and delight, if not peace she thought, recalling the Baudelaire poem. Have they had a Baudelaire here? She hasn’t checked this detail. She’s had hardly any time to tour the bookstores and libraries, and when she goes on the Net it isn’t for pleasure either. If she thought about it, she would realize that she never really has time to just take her time. But she’s not thinking about that. She still thinks she’s walking.

  She’s walking, on St. Catherine Street. It still amuses her a little, at the very beginning of the transition, when she observes that, once again, the Main of this other Montréal bears her first name, or a recognizable version of her first name. The last time, there was just a difference of two letters: Kathrine. It amuses her, because she doesn’t want to know that she’s bothered by it, disturbed, perplexed, worried even. Later, briefly, she will be. Not now. Now, she thinks she’s walking.

  Aromas of roasting meat and coffee waft in the air as she heads east — less and less exotic. Downtown, uptown, west and east, it’s a different world, in spite of all the hypocritical platitudes of urban planning and renewal. All cities have memories, in spite of the politicians. Including the memories of the others: rumblings of the tam-tams, a flash of white teeth, an African in a multicoloured boubou is trying to cash in on his nostalgia. She digs into her jeans pocket — she always has some change, which she gives out according to her whim, since arbitrary giving is the only possible response to the insane rise in demand.

  At least she has no illusions about it: they really weren’t any happier back there, in the kraal she came to after walking for an hour, after the transition. But they were home. She was the strange stranger.

  She opens her eyes, then closes them again before reflex switches them to infrared vision. She already knows what she doesn’t need to see. It’s a very dark night that all her other senses instantly told her is subtropical, and wild: that particular humus smell, the concentration of insects, the intermittent sounds of the nocturnal fauna, the humidity level, the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels, and finally the scarcity of electromagnetic frequencies of human origin. A jungle. A long way from civilization. She doesn’t even wonder if there is one — or if not civilization, since that, after all, is quite a relative notion, the kind of society she will need. There always is one. The route to get there is simply more or less long. And it’s not a bad thing either. It’s better that she appears and wakes up in a deserted, quiet place rather than in the middle of a busy street.

  She opens her eyes again, accepts the ghostly infrared landscape — an explosion of hidden life, and the luminescence of the vegetation itself. It’s an Earth, like all the other times, that’s all she needs to know for now. She gets up. Might as well take advantage of the brief period of grace after wakening when, for some reason, the local fauna, and especially the insects, have not yet identified her as edible. She locates a tree, and scales it with the usual precautions, startling a troop of monkeys, which scatters with howls that echo for a long time through the jungle. Yes, there, about a half a dozen kilometres to the south, a darker patch, the typical signature of forest clearing and cultivation. Always lucky, eh, Kathryn? The data continues to be processed inside her absolute memory to guide her there. Back on the ground, she tears off some bark, a few big leaves and handfuls of grass to make herself a makeshift loincloth and sandals — less for her comfort than for that of the natives she will be encountering. Africa. Southern. Somewhere between what is perhaps also called here Mozambique and South Africa — the toponymic differences have become so minimal during the last transitions that she hardly considers them significant anymore. She will be interested in the other differences as she encounters them along the way.

  She sets out guided by her internal compass. Crushes with a slap the first mosquito that has decided to taste her. This grace period is over. Not the other one. Not yet. As always at the beginning of a new transition, she has a sense of slightly amused curiosity, she feels calm, confident, open to whatever new might happen — she still thinks something new can happen.

  In the village, among the outbursts of the dogs — she keeps them at a respectful distance with the branch she has been using as a walking stick, a weapon — and the lowing of a few skinny cows in their enclosure, the people are waking up, coming out of the huts, carrying torches and machetes — a bad sign. Then they see she’s alone, a white woman, half naked, devoured by insects. They gasp, take pity, they lead her inside, sit her down, give her something to drink and, while a woman smears her insect bites with a salve that is as soothing as it is foul-smelling, they ask her questions that she answers with mute and falsely bewildered denials. Then they talk over her head, in a Bantu dialect that she deciphers quite quickly. They are going to get the priest, who is also the doctor. A teenage boy runs out of the hut. There is a Catholic missionary clinic somewhere in the vicinity of the village — which might just as well mean ten or fifty kilometres, but it doesn’t matter, she has time.

  Children have gathered in one corner of the hut, staring wide-eyed at her. They must not see Caucasians around here very often. One little girl in particular seems more fascinated than the others — and bolder: she steps out of the group and comes over to touch her arm, quite timidly with one finger, and then runs away when she smiles at her.

  She accepts the food they give her in a half gourd, with horrified gratitude: it only took her a glance to assess the fevered gauntness of most of the adults, and the swollen bellies of many of the children. They help her put on a light cotton European-style dress, the colours still bright, no doubt the Sunday best of her hostess. The village griot has finally been woken up and comes to examine her, declaring officially that she has no visible or invisible wounds and — to her great relief, since this hadn’t occurred to her right away — no evil spirits. He tries a few words that she recognizes as English, but she decides to keep on playing the amnesia card — in the beginning, in these cases, that’s always safest.

  The priest arrives the next day around noon, in a Jeep, a battered old wreck that stubbornly keeps on running. He’s Asian, Vietnamese — and when he also tries to ask questions in English, his Oxford accent is quite comical. She almost wants to speak to him in French, just to see, but restrains herself. He examines her quickly, muttering to himself: she’s in excellent health — apart from the insect bites and slight dehydration — no concussion or anything. Puzzled, he puts away his instruments and declares to his hosts that he’s taking her to the mission.

  As she is about to climb into the Jeep, there is a movement near her, a shake of her sleeve. She looks down. It’s the little girl from the day before, holding out a bracelet of multicoloured beads, around a single, precious blue glass gem. She squats down, pats the dusty cheek, and solemnly slips the bracelet onto her wrist. Then she sits down next to the driver while the little girl walks away, her hands behind her back. Nine, ten years
old maybe — hard to say. In three or four years, she’ll have her first baby. In about fifteen years, she’ll be dead. Maybe in ten if she’s lucky.

  Two walls of Carol Cooper’s huge office are completely panelled in Macassar wood — rather gloomy, but the effect is intentional, to contrast with the two big, bright, airy bay windows in the other corner of the room, which look out on the Technocity and the St. Lawrence. Thick ecru carpet, furniture with clean lines, just enough brushed steel here and there to remind visitors that this is a cutting-edge tech company, especially the logo, on the left wall, the silhouette of a bird in flight against a star-shaped snowflake, framed by CRYO vertically and VITAL horizontally.

  Carol Cooper stands up to greet her when she comes in, without, however, leaving her almost empty desk — an unmistakable sign of power. There is only one thick sheaf of papers. No doubt the contract she discussed in London with the Cryovital head-hunter.

  “Ms. Verbrugge, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to the team. Can I offer you something to drink?”

  She agrees to a glass of the Glenlivet — always useful to have an accessory in your hand in order to create carefully spaced silences, and her sense of smell tells her that no cigarette has ever been smoked in this office.

  The man who identified her in the carpeted hallway of Cryovital Ltd., without introducing himself, even before she gave her name at reception, to accompany her to the elevator, (“Ms Cooper is expecting you”), closes the door and turns towards one of the walls, which must contain the bar.

  Carol Cooper is an elegant fiftyish woman with just a touch of sexiness. Her handshake is perfect, just firm and embracing enough, saying, “woman and proud of it — and my company has been on the cover of Fortune three times in the last fifteen years.”

  “I trust you had a pleasant journey. Do you have everything you need at the hotel?”

  No problem: everything is first class, with the obligatory obscene luxury. In the first plane, she was able to relive on the big screen the assassination of President Mandela, the riots that followed, then, live, the U.N. troops entering the ruins of Johannesburg. After that, the flight attendant came to help her choose from the program of high-definition films offered on the Tunis-London leg. Same thing on the London-Montréal flight, with bloodier and bloodier news, again live — peacekeeping, even international peacekeeping, requires a minimum of peace beforehand — another choice of films and an exquisite appetizer of smoked salmon.