Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  Oxytorin.

  I was too tired to think straight. But one sentence from Ms. Resentful came back to me: “Susceptibility to the genemod will vary among people—like, say, susceptibility to cholera depends on blood type.” I’d seen no susceptibility to increased nurturing from Belinda. As she watched Jane hug Bridget, Belinda’s look could have withered a cactus.

  Leila produced three sleeping bags from the closet that hadn’t existed when I’d been here last. The twins were bedded down on the floor of the bedroom. Ethan disdained to so much as glance at his bag, which was laid out in a corner of the living room. Jane and Leila would share the bed. I got the couch. Ethan and I were the last to go to sleep. I lay on the lumpy sofa, all lights off except for a dim glow where Ethan sat watching something inane on the satellite TV. His beautiful, beautiful face—how had Leila and I created such beauty?—lost its sulky look and relaxed into the smile of a normal fifteen-year-old. Normal. A word dwarfs don’t like and seldom use. For good reason.

  But this was my son, and so I made one more attempt to reach him. “What are you watching?”

  “Nothing.” The scowl was back. It angered me.

  “Obviously it’s not nothing, or you wouldn’t be watching it. So what is it?”

  “Don’t pull that logic crap on me,” Ethan said. “I don’t know you.” And then—although did even he hesitate before he said it? I thought so, or else I wanted to think so—“Crippled little Munchkin.” We stared at each other across the dim room.

  Then I rolled over, wrapped myself in my blanket and my pain, and tried to sleep. Some unknowable time later, Jane was shaking me by the shoulder. “Barry! Barry, wake up—Belinda is gone!”

  I jerked upright and looked at the sleeping bag by the cold fireplace. The bag was empty. My mind went cold and clear. “See if both cars are here.”

  Of course, they weren’t. My Lexus was gone.

  “He doesn’t even have a driver’s permit,” Leila said.

  She was driving; my legs ached too much. I had made Jane stay with Bridget, who was still asleep. Leila drove slowly in the dark, and as we passed the places where the mountain road dropped off sheerly, she shuddered. But her hands on the wheel didn’t falter. This wasn’t the teenage dwarf I’d married, the girl dancing exuberantly at the LPA convention, the young bride who had blindly accepted my arrogant authority.

  “I thought he understood how dangerous it would be to go back home,” Leila said. “I thought he understood.”

  “He did. That’s why he’s going.”

  She glanced over at me, then returned to her driving, her endless scanning of the roadside. Was that a break in the bushes? Had a car gone off there? Was that a skid mark in the headlights?

  She said, “No, that’s not why. It’s that girl. Belinda. She wants to go home, and I saw her whispering to him all afternoon, and I should have realized . . . but he doesn’t like children! And she’s only eleven! I didn’t think she could influence him.”

  Leila was right. I should have anticipated this; I’d seen far more of Belinda than Leila had. Belinda would have known exactly what Ethan was feeling, exactly how to play on his weak spots. She didn’t even have to think about it, merely let her instincts take over. Empathy in action.

  “Barry, he’s not a bad kid underneath. He can be very sweet sometimes. You’ve never seen that.”

  “I believe you,” I said, wondering if I did. “And the other times—well, he can’t help it, can he? It’s in his genes.”

  “No, it’s not.” The intensity of her anger surprised me, even as she kept on scanning, looking, dreading what she might see. “You attribute everything to genes. It’s not true. Genes made you a dwarf, and you think that’s wrecked your life, but genes didn’t make you so bitter and unhappy. I know that because when we met, you weren’t bitter and unhappy. And you were a dwarf then, too. I didn’t want Ethan around your self-created misery. I still don’t. And maybe he does have some predisposition to danger and anger and impulsiveness, like the doctors say. But he doesn’t have to indulge it. He chooses to do that. Just like you choose to be miserable and envious.”

  “Leila, there’s so much wrong with that simplistic analysis that I don’t even know where to start correcting it.”

  “Then don’t. I don’t need your ‘corrections.’ You can’t—what’s that!”

  I saw it a second after she did. The Lexus, smashed head-first against a tree, which was the only thing that had kept it from going over the embankment.

  Leila, younger and with less spinal constriction, was first out of the Ford, running toward the car, uttering loud wordless cries. I followed her, stumbling as my treacherous legs collapsed under me, getting up, trying again to run. Those were the longest seconds—minutes, hours, eons—of my life. Until. I. Reached. That. Car.

  They were both alive. Belinda seemed unhurt, mewling in her seat belt. Ethan, who had taken the brunt of the crash—had he turned the wheel at the last minute to save the little girl?—slumped unconscious against the steering wheel. Blood trickled through his bright hair.

  “Don’t move him,” Leila said frantically. “If anything’s broken . . . I’m going for help!” She ran back to her Ford. I undid Belinda’s seat belt, yanked her out, and dropped her on the dark roadside weeds. I could feel her fear, just as she could feel my fury. She shrank back against the fender. I climbed into the passenger seat beside my son.

  He stirred. “Mommy . . .”

  “She’ll be here soon, Ethan. Help will be here soon.”

  He said something else, before sliding again into unconsciousness. It might have been, “Fuck you.” Maybe no child, other than those with Arlen’s Syndrome, understands how a parent feels. Maybe I hadn’t earned the right to even be considered a parent. Maybe, as Leila said, my bitterness and anger would be worse for Ethan than if I weren’t there at all for him. I don’t know, any more than I know any more what’s genetic and what’s not. Did Jane go all maternal with the twins because she had more oxytorin receptors, or did the Group’s virus make her a good candidate for growing more oxytorin receptors because she’d always had a penchant for wounded birds anyway? Susceptibility to the genemod will vary among people.

  In the darkness, I sat for a long time beside my injured son. Finally, with great deliberation, I spat on my fingers and gently, gently, pushed them inside his mouth. I felt the softness of his slack tongue, his strong young teeth. Strong teeth, strong long bones. He was not a dwarf. I spat a second time on my hand and did it again.

  Overhead, medical and police flyers droned in the dark night. When they arrived, I borrowed a cell phone and comlinked Elaine Brown, Human Protection Agency.

  A week later, I sit in a Temporary Government Quarantine Facility in San Diego, watching TV. On the other side of the negative-pressure barriers, researchers from the United States Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, dressed in Level 4 biohazard suits, go through two airlocks to reach Jane and me. The Barrington twins are here, too, but not Leila or Ethan. Ethan is in a hospital in LA, and she is with him, along with her boyfriend from Oregon. He flew down immediately to be with her. They treat us well here. There are endless medical tests, of course, but I’m used to that. Everyone is both respectful and curious. If they’re also frightened, I don’t sense it, but of course Bridget and Belinda do. Bridget is a favorite with the staff. Belinda wants to go home, although she likes all the attention from Jane. The twins’ parents “visit” via Link several times each day. Frieda sometimes has a distinct look of relief. Her kids are behind glass, and she can break the link with Belinda whenever she needs to. The Link has brought the most attention to Jane. Death threats, pleas for help, fan letters, offers from the ACLU to sue the Group if any members of that organization can be found, which so far they haven’t been. Jane would be a high-profile and appealing case. The movie is on again, but not with the same script, or even with the same studio. There’s another chapter now to the Arlen’s Syndrome story, and Jane has become an act
or in that saga in both senses of the word. The whole thing looks like box-office gold.

  Jane is not unhappy. If that’s not exactly the same thing as being happy, it seems to do. The Link is also how I visit with Ethan. He had three broken ribs and a damaged spleen, which seems to be repairing itself without surgery. Youthful spleen can do that. We gaze at each other, and sometimes he’s sullen, and sometimes I’m impatient, and sometimes he sees me shift on my spine in chronic pain. Or maybe he catches a sadness in my eyes. At such times, his expression softens. So does his voice. He’ll ask if I’m okay. When he asks, I am.

  Is it wrong to genetically modify human beings? First I thought it was, when I tried to alter Ethan’s FGFR3 gene in utero. Then I thought it wasn’t, seeing both Ethan and the Arlen’s Syndrome kids. Now I don’t know again. There’s still panic out there about the Group’s virus, and the virus is still spreading, and eventually it may—or may not—make enough of society more nurturing. In turn, that may—or may not—change society. If enough people are susceptible. If feelings of compassion actually translate into actions of compassion. If the weather holds and the creek don’t rise and seven or eleven comes up enough on the dice. This is barely Act One, Scene One of whatever comes next. Chaos theory tells us that, in a system of circular feedback, a small change in initial conditions can cause huge and unpredictable changes down the road. Human behavior is a system of circular feedback. Is Ethan more compassionate toward me because he’s growing more oxytorin receptors, or because I’m more open to his (and everyone else’s) compassion? How did the same genemod for empathy produce both Bridget and Belinda?

  I have no idea. And to tell the truth, I don’t really care. I’m supposed to care, ethically and pragmatically, but I don’t.

  Jane comes into the room and says, “Guess what? The studio is getting Michael Rosen to write the script! Michael Rosen! It’s sure to be terrific!”

  I smile back. Michael Rosen is indeed a terrific writer, a creator of sensitive and layered scripts that both challenge audiences and fill seats. He’s also a handsome womanizer, and Jane is looking more beautiful than ever. I know what will happen.

  “That’s good,” I say. “Congratulations. The movie’ll be a smash.”

  “Thanks to you.” She smiles at me and goes out again.

  Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. I turn to my computer and get back to work.

  EXEGESIS

  Nancy Kress just completed teaching a semester at the University of Leipzig. She says that nearly all of her German students confessed to not reading much SF before the course began—but they do now. Her most recent book is Steal Across the Sky (Tor, February, 2009), which involves aliens, space flight, atonement for mega-crimes, and the nature of what we think we know about reality. The following story, however, is in an entirely different vein: a light-hearted look at what we think we know about language.

  1950

  from Branson’s Quotations for Book Lovers

  ed. Roger Branson, Random House

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” One of the world’s most famous quotations, this is the film version of Rhett Butler’s (Clark Gable) immortal farewell to Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone With the Wind, a crowning achievement of American literature. It occurs at the end of the film when Scarlett asks Rhett, “Where shall I go? What shall I do?” if he leaves her. The print version does not include the word “frankly,” which was added by director David O. Selznik. The line was bitterly objected to by the Hays Office, but remained in the 1939 film, due to a last-minute amendment to the Production Code.

  2050

  from Critical Interpretations of Twentieth Century Literature,

  Random House,

  eds. Jared Morvais and Hannah Brown

  TEXT: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”1

  1 Line from a twentieth-century American novel, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, now largely dismissed as both racist and romanticized. The male protagonist, Rhett Butler, speaks the line to the abrasive heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, as he leaves their marriage.

  2150

  Dictionary of Modern Sayings for the Faithful

  Church of Renewed Enlightenment

  ENTRY: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

  Line from a twentieth-century novel written by Margaret Mitchell in Southern Ezra (a section of the former United States of America), in which a man, Rhett Butler, abandons his legal wife, an adulteress (“scarlet woman”). The passage is a stark illustration of the sinfulness and irresponsibility of pre-Ezran so-called “Christianity.” Praise!

  2250

  from Studees in Lawst Litrucher, Reformd Langwij Co-ullishun, Han Goldman

  SUBJECT: tx1“Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”

  Line frum Pre-Kolapse novul—awther unown—that twoday iz mostlee fowk sayeen in Suthern Ezra. The prahverb means—ruffly—that the speeker wil not giv even wun “dam”—wich may hav bin a tipe of lokul munee—to by a “der,” an xtinkt meet animul. Implika-shun is that watever iz beein diskused is over prised. This interpretashun is reinforced by the tradishunul usoceea-shun of the line with peepul hoo served meels, known as “butlers.”

  2350

  Harox College Download 6753-J-ENLIT

  TEXT: “Frankly1 , my dear2 , I don’t give a damn3 .”

  New research sheds interesting light on this folk saying from Mubela (formerly Southern Ezra.) The Pre-Collapse Antiquarian Grove humbly makes this offering to the Forest of Enlightened Endolas:

  1 “Frankly” means that the speaker is talking without subterfuge or lies. Since only liars emphasize their truthfulness—enlightened endolas, of course, represent truth with their very beings—the speaker is openly announcing that he is lying, signaling to the hearer that everything which follows is therefore untrue. In fact, the speaker does give a damn. This sort of convoluted speech was often necessary in pre-Collapse societies, in which “governments” were so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.

  2 “My dear” is an honorific, similar in construction to the equally archaic, hierarchical “my lord” or “your excellency.” This suggests that in the original, the speaker was addressing some sort of lord or commander.

  3 “Damn.” Rigorous scholarship by Kral BlackG3 reveals that this was a curse. Its presence in a coded message to a high official is intriguing. For centuries the folk saying has been associated with an extinct “servant class” that included ditch diggers, butlers, and dentists. It may be that in ancient times, when humans compelled other humans rather than robots to provide services, a folk saying was the only acceptable way to “curse” or condemn the owner class, even as the speaker obediently transmits whatever coded information followed. Unfortunately, the sentences following “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” in this political drama have been lost.

  NOTE: The common variation, still occasionally seen even in scholarly forums, is scripted in the short-lived and silly “Reformed English”: “Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”

  2450

  Fragment of a Download Recovered After the EMP

  Catastrophe of 2396, with Exegesis

  “Frank Lee, my dear, I don’t give a dam.” “Frank Lee”1 means that the speaker is talking without subterfuge or lies. Since only liars emphasize their truthfulness—enlightened endolas2 , of course, represent truth with their very beings—the speaker is openly announcing that he is lying, signaling to the hearer that everything which follows is therefore untrue. In fact, the speaker does give a damn.3 his sort of convoluted speech was often necessary in pre-Collapse4 societies, in which “governments”5 were so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.6

  1 Frank Lee—Unknown folk persona who seems to have represented “straight shooting,” either verbal or (as is to be expected in violent historical periods) the use of personal arms. See Frank and Jesse James.

  2 endolas—religious schola
rs of the pre-Catastrophe EuroPolar Coalition. They conflated some solid learning with much mysticism. Organized into “groves,” “forests,” and “amazons,” in the eco-heavy nomenclature of that era.

  3 This explanation is typical of the confused and ignorant thinking that prevailed in the Endola Age.

  4 Collapse—one name given to the economic and social upheavals, circa 2190-2210. Exact dates have, of course, disappeared with much other history in the EMP Catastrophe. Other names: Crash, Cave-in, the Big Oops (etymology unknown).

  5 governments—vernacular name for ruling bodies, some consensual and some not. All pre-date Electronic Fair Facilitation and Enforcement.

  6 “so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.” Unable to say whether this analysis is or is not correct.

  2850, i

  Unified Link Information, Quantum-Entangled Energy Center

  DB 549867207 (Historical)

  DATUM: tx1“Franklee, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

  VARIATIONS: tx1“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a dam.” “Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”

  CLASSIFICATION: tx1Proverb, class 32

  DATE: tx1Pre-QUENTIAM, probably pre-twenty-second century, specifics unknown ORIGIN: Human, Sol 3, specifics unknown

  LANGUAGES: tx1Many (recite list?). Original probably Late English

  EXPLICATION: tx1“Franklee” (or “Frankly”) indicates origin in era pre-telepathic-implants, with choice of offering true or untrue information. “My dear” is an archaic term of endearment for members of a “family” indicates pre-gene-donate society. “Don’t give a damn” is antique idiom meaning the speaker/projector is not involved in a current project. Equivalents: “apathy,” “independence,” “non-functioning implant.”