were standing on the lip of the wall, he realized. No way, Pico said, we’re not going down.
You’ll stay close to me, and we’ll each hold onto the rope. Señorita, are you stable?
Yes, Mouse said.
Listen, Pico said, you’re crazy. We’re not going down the wall. Nobody goes
down the wall.
I have to go down, Pico, Mouse said.
What? Why?
Because, Lucy said, a firm consistency to her voice, otherwise they will find
her. Quickly.
Lucy’s hand took his and placed it on the rope, and he realized stupidly
that she could see in the dark. She was augmented then.
Who will? Pico whispered to Mouse. Who will come for you?
Mouse did not answer and the rope began to pull in his hand as Lucy went
over the edge of the wall and proceeded down the steep slope. The ground
underneath was hardened, and he could tell they were on a trail of some sort.
It was a long hard hike to the bottom, over layer upon layer of trash, the
history of the city buried in the wall he descended. He kept one hand out, his
fingers surfing the edge of it as he descended, and wondered what was
contained within. The dump was his curse and home. It was treasure. It was
where he would die, he was sure.
At the bottom, they followed Lucy along a dark path, where stunted trees
brushed against his face, and cactus pulled at his clothing. Live things. The
smell of the dump was sickeningly stronger here, the wind of it flowing down
the wall and flooding their nostrils. But there was more, too, a complex smell
of dampness and death.
Pico had a thousand questions that rushed him in disorderly fashion, but
his amazement and fear kept him from organizing them into words.
Instead he listened to the sounds around him. There were others they passed,
low structures with low voices inside, the smells of cooking which made his
stomach ache. They were in a camp of some sort. Twice he heard a voice call
out to Lucy and then there was silence after. He held hard onto the rope.
They turned and he followed the rope into a dwelling of some sort.
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BENJAMIN PARZYBOK
Mouse? he said.
Here, she said from in front of him.
The rope went slack in his hands and the darkness was absolute and he
stood where he was. Around him he could feel there were objects, the place
close and dense with things.
Give me your GPS jammer, Lucy said.
Why?
Give it now!
Pico unhooked it from his belt and handed it to Lucy. A moment later he
saw the faint purple glow of the jammer’s light.
Well, Lucy said. We get to work.
No please, not yet, Mouse said.
Dearheart, Lucy said.
Can’t we turn on the pinche light? Pico said. I want answers.
To what, love, Lucy said.
Pico wasn’t sure to what. Who are you? he said finally.
I already told you my name. You mean, Señor, what am I? Am I a pinche leper?
There was silence, until Pico said quietly, yes.
Yes, I am what they call a leper.
Pico no longer knew in which direction the door was. He resisted the urge
to crouch to his knees and put his arms over his head. He’d grown up hearing
about the lepers, the cyborgs.
For a while, Lucy said into the dark room, cyborgs were made. Or rather,
humans evolved into cyborgs. I like to think of it that way. These humans
feared death, and thinking that machines do not die, became half-machine.
After a while, it became a challenge to name them: Were they more machine
or more human? At some point, a line was crossed. You know this story?
Yes, Mouse said.
I don’t know, Pico said. Kind of.
I will tell you, Lucy said.
In the dark? Pico said.
After, if you wish to see, we may have light.
There were the rich and old, Lucy continued, desperate for a taste of
immortality, who fought the body’s desire to change. Replace a heart and an
eye, an ear and a knee, a parietal lobe, a face. Replace it all. There were
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EL PEPENADOR
government experiments. Androids with flesh, with heartbeats, who subsisted
on food. The call of augmentation is strong. Who does not wish for improvement, for immortality?
No one knows where the disease came from. Perhaps there is such a thing
as an evolutionary memory, a sense of wholeness. Perhaps the very skin and
flesh rejected the system it had become a part of, the hard impassive elements
that bound them. Perhaps God did not like his creations so tinkered with. In
the end, we began to fall apart, become undone. Our flesh peeled from the
metal and plastic implants, and vice versa. To stay alive, I employ a swarm of
Senti to keep me whole. Listen.
She was silent a moment until Pico realized he could hear a soft sound, like
a fleet of cockroaches pattering lightly along tin. She meant these things
covered her, the Senti she had given him earlier.
Does our species’ history, our very evolution, contain a binding principle?
Is there a soul that fetters us? Maybe the sustenance we eat, of the earth and
returned to earth, locks us into something we do not yet understand. I don’t
know. But we became sick, and the disease was infectious, even for the less
augmented. So we were outcasted.
I have an implant, Mouse said.
Of course you do, dearheart, Lucy said. But since we will remove it tonight,
you need not fear the disease.
Turn on the light, Pico said.
There was a click, and with a whir a glow bloomed into the room. The
place was absolutely full of things. Strollers and dish racks and hubcaps and
toasters and robotany strapped to the wall and ceiling, layers upon layers of
scavenged dump junk.
Lucy sat straight-spined on a plush red chair, one leg of which was bound and
fixed with wire. On her nearly bald head a swarm of centipede-like insects
feverishly worked a wide swath of skinless area encrusted with blood. She had no lower lip, and Pico could see the skeletal roots of her teeth. Her eyes were dull and inhuman, and surrounded with bruising, swollen blue and yellow stretches
across her face. Lucy’s hands were crossed over her knees, and they were beyond age, crackled and parched, some fingers with long ragged nails, others missing
nails entirely, in their place a sort of pus. She wore a worn black velvet suit.
Mouse let out a sob and covered her face.
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BENJAMIN PARZYBOK
Shall I turn out the light? Lucy asked.
Pico shook his head no. He wanted to be in the dark with her even less. He
could feel the Senti crawling across his own thigh and he grabbed it in a
quick swoop and offered it back to Lucy.
Keep it, she said, a gift.
Is it expensive? he asked.
Extremely.
He nodded and put it back on his leg, still disgusted by its function. Thank
you. Pico sat down on the floor, a patchwork collage of rug scraps, and studied the ceiling.
Your friend Mouse has a bounty on her head, did you know? Lucy said to
Pico. Her whole family does. Did.
Pico looked at Mouse who still covered her face.
Not Basucorp, Lucy said, government. The dogs were nothing. You would
have received a helicopter ride to oblivion had I not found you. Her wi.n is
damaged—it used to protect her identity, but its defenses are fried and now
it’s spouting a fire-hose of data, the slutty little thing.
What should we do? Pico said.
Lucy shrugged, we must remove it. She turned toward Mouse and exhaled
through her lipless bottom teeth in consideration, her cheeks puffed out
grotesquely. They won’t send patrols down here, they are too afraid of the
disease. But they know you’re around here somewhere. They will be waiting
and listening for you. She unfolded her long hands and beckoned. Come
here, dear. We must do it now.
I don’t want to, Mouse said.
Wants, Lucy said, rarely make much difference.
It has everything.
I know, but I cannot fix it. You will be a real pepenador after this. Not many get the chance to start everything over. In time you might even appreciate
this. Come. Pico, fetch us a scalpel from the top drawer. Lucy pointed to a set of listing enamel kitchen drawers.
Lucy slowly pushed Mouse’s face down into her lap and bared the thin
white scar at the back of her neck that Pico had seen earlier. Pico balled his
fists and hopped once in nervous anticipation, then he bent close and held
Mouse’s hand. It repulsed him to see the leper’s ugly claw touch Mouse’s hair.
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EL PEPENADOR
Lucy pulled a Senti from her own scalp and placed it on the scar, where it
hunched into her flesh. Mouse tensed and then relaxed. After Lucy removed
the Senti back to her own scalp she made a deep incision with the scalpel,
following the old line of the white scar. Mouse was quiet.
When the incision was just right, Lucy reached her claw-hand into Mouse’s
neck and Mouse screamed. A moment later Lucy pulled out the wi.n, a small
white cylinder covered in blood which trailed wispy lines back to Mouse’s
neck. Lucy cut the lines.
Here’s the awful little thing, Lucy said. Now you are one hundred percent
human again. You are lucky. You are immune.
Mouse cried quietly in her lap as two Senti patched up her wound, and
then fell asleep there, with Lucy stroking her hair.
Lucy held out the bloody wi.n and scalpel to Pico. Take these and clean
them off.
He was unsure of how to clean them off and Lucy offered no suggestions.
Finally he wiped them on his pant leg. She said nothing after that, so he put
the wi.n in his pocket and replaced the scalpel.
They are helping her get through it, Lucy said. If you wish, there are tools
in the bottom drawer.
Pico found his nacker in a corner and pulled out Lucy’s tools and eagerly
set to work disassembling it. He was relieved to have something to do. He
repeated in his mind the tharpoon throw that had disabled the machine, and
fetched the small module he’d chipped from its top.
As he worked, he tried to block from his mind what he’d just seen. The
image of Lucy’s face behind him, the object that had been extracted from
Mouse. Instead he wondered who she was. Who her brother had been. He
didn’t remember when they’d come to the dump. Three, maybe four years
ago. He thought they’d come like everyone else: When there was nowhere
else to go. When they had nothing left to do but become nobody. For himself,
he was born there. Nací en la basura, crecí en la basura, yo soy de la basura.
What will you do with it, Lucy asked, pointing her fleshless chin at the
nacker. He thought she looked at it with distaste.
Pico shrugged. He didn’t know. He only knew he wanted one, and had
disassembled and reworked it with a confidence that it could be his. Maybe
like a pet, he said finally. But he knew it was not that.
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BENJAMIN PARZYBOK
Lucy raised her eyebrows and Pico turned away from her. She was a ghastly
sight.
I can teach the pepenadores how to cha! He mimed a karate chop at the top of the nacker to demonstrate how one might disable one. You know? Then
we can get more. They can protect us and help us make finds, Pico grinned,
and thought: and I will be of them again.
After that, it was quiet in the hut. There were strange murmurings from
outside, from the other hovels in the odd village of outcasts. He thought he
could hear something else. Like a mangy dump cat’s overeager purr. He stared
toward the trash ceiling and listened. They’re out there, aren’t they, he said.
Lucy nodded.
He felt a charge of panic and for a moment, pictured himself running with
Mouse in his arms, helicopters circling above him. Then he knew what he
had to do.
He hurriedly reassembled the nacker, but left its primary power disconnected.
He hoped the module that he’d loosed on top with his tharpoon was not
damaged.
From his pocket he pulled Mouse’s wi.n and looked at it and his nacker
with regret. He would have liked to have tinkered with them both. Would
have liked to have known what it meant to have one. Instead he borrowed
some wire from Lucy’s tool drawer and wired the wi.n firmly to the underside
of the nacker. When he was finished, he picked up the bot and hauled it
outside.
He sat with it under the smog glow and felt an electricity of excitement and
fear and disappointment.
He thought of his time with Mouse before the dogs came. He touched the
wound on his forearm and felt only a braille scar. In his hands the nacker was
cold and still and he knew he must sacrifice it. Someday, perhaps, he’d get
another chance.
When he was ready, he reconnected the nacker and stood up. There was
no chance to run, he knew. It powered up and rebooted and for half a moment
did nothing, and this made him nearly laugh, to think of its confusion.
The next instant it sensed him and reached out its tentacle, sending a
searing bolt of electricity. He heard the short yelp his mouth made, and as he
collapsed a wink of thought passed through him. How its machine instincts
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EL PEPENADOR
would call it home. How it would skitter along the trail at high speed. How a
moment later it would exit the umbrella of the GPS jammer, carrying Mouse’s
wi.n. It would go home, he thought, to be with its kind, and the soldiers
would have to search that nest for her. And perhaps, he hoped, his nacker
carried a touch of the disease.
087
DOWN AND OUT
IN THE YEAR 2000
By Kim Stanley Robinson
It was going to be hot again. Summer in Washington, D.C. Lee Robinson
woke and rolled on his mattress, broke into a sweat. That kind of a day. He
got up and kneeled over the other mattress in the small room. Debra
shifted as he shaded her from the sun angling in the open window. The
corners of her mouth were caked white and her forehead was still hot and
dry, but her breathing was regular and she appeared to be sleeping well.
Quietly Lee slipped on his jeans and walked down the hall to the bathroom.
Locked. He waited; Ramon came out wet and groggy. “Morning, Robbie.”
Into the bathroom, where he hung his pants on the hook and did his
mornin
g ritual. One bloodshot eye, staring back at him from the splinter
of mirror still in the frame. The dirt around the toilet base. The shower
curtain blotched with black fungus, as if it had a fatal disease. That kind
of morning.
Out of the shower he dried off with his jeans and started to sweat again.
Back in his room Debra was still sleeping. Worried, he watched her for a
while, then filled his pockets and went into the hall to put on sneakers and
tank top. Debra slept light these days, and the strangest things would rouse
her. He jogged down the four flights of stairs to the street, and, sweating
freely, stepped out into the steamy air.
He walked down 16th Street, with its curious alternation of condo
fortresses and abandoned buildings, to the Mall. There, big khaki tanks
dominated the broad field of dirt and trash and tents and the odd patch of
grass. Most of the protesters were still asleep in their scattered tent villages, but there was an active crowd around the Washington Monument, and
Lee walked on over, ignoring the soldiers by the tanks.
The crowd surrounded a slingshot as tall as a man, made of a forked tree
branch. Inner tubes formed the sling, and the base was buried in the
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
ground. Excited protesters placed balloons filled with red paint into the
sling, and fired them up at the monument. If a balloon hit above the red
that already covered the tower, splashing clean white—a rare event, as the
monument was pure red up a good third of it—the protesters cheered
crazily. Lee watched them as they danced around the sling after a successful
shot. He approached some of the calmer seated spectators.
“Want to buy a joint?”
“How much?”
“Five dollars.”
“Too much, man! You must be kidding! How about a dollar?”
Lee walked on.
“Hey, wait! One joint, then. Five dollars . . . shit.”
“Going rate, man.”
The protester pushed long blond hair out of his eyes and pulled a five
from a thick clip of bills. Lee got the battered Marlboro box from his pocket
and took the smallest joint from it. “Here you go. Have fun. Why don’t you
fire one of them paint bombs at those tanks, huh?”
The kids on the ground laughed. “We will when you get them stoned!”
He walked on. Only five joints left. It took him less than an hour to sell
them. That meant thirty dollars, but that was it. Nothing left to sell. As he
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