Yeah, Dior. Imitation Dior.
I heard Primavera bounce across the back seat; a window being knocked out. Still my executioner smiled, spartan, unsurrendering. In my head, a video began to play. And Oh it was diddly. Diddly-woo!
DRRRP!
The Pikadon was standing in her stirrups, shoulders pulled back, breasts thrust through her biker’s jacket, their exit wounds flying red carnival streamers as she took half the rifle’s clip in her back. Her face disappeared behind a thunderhead of tresses, her head, for one spare moment, shaking a hundred times No! Death’s grace allowed her to award me one last rueless smile before the bike shot from between her legs and she was sucked into the vacuum of the night.
‘Jesus, that felt good,’ said Primavera.
‘Forgot her spidersilk,’ I said. ‘Too coolly-cool to live.’ ‘Too pretty, you mean. Hypocrite.’
‘The slimiest. Are they still behind us?’
‘Coming fast. And this thing’s used up.’
‘Get back inside.’
‘There’s this sort of bulgy thing...’ There was the sound effect of a small aircraft taking off; Primavera screamed and fell back into the car, legs wiggling in the air. ‘It came out of my hands...’
The rending of metal split the night, split my teeth; the rear-view mirror glowed orange. The pick-up, upturned and in flames, lay in an irrigation ditch, a body sprawled under its bonnet.
‘Grenade?’ said Primavera. The orange glow receded, and the mirror filled with my little witch’s self-satisfied smile.
* * *
[1] ‘Primavera’s ‘hemline neurosis’, as explained by Dr Bogenbloom, was less a result of ‘strange exhibitionism’ (the title of his contribution to the festschrift ‘Semiotics of Anthropophagy’) than of ‘strange loops’, the paradoxes that translate a grande file into an idiom that is one long scream of feedback. Said the Bogey: ‘For a hemline to reach that coveted elevation where bifurcation of thighs meets at that satin-gusseted apex we might call the “quantum-chaos crack”, that same hemline, however vertiginous, must be hoisted halfway, then halfway again, always having to rise half of the remaining distance of its journey...’ And thus never, to the regret of the doll, revealing the smallest gasp of netherness. I remember that wet season in 2070, when the phantasmata of the Weird’s oneirotic, ruttish streets sported Zero G specials, pink-painted labia pouting from cutaway hose. And Primavera each night anxiously adjusting her skirt towards some elusive zenith of venereal vanity, each adjustment vanishing into a fractal gravity well, a doll doomed to an unremitting, if wholly relative, modesty.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dead Girls
Primavera was several paces ahead; I dawdled until her outline was subsumed by the tunnel’s darkness and she existed only as a diffusion of torchlight, a high-heeled staccato, a sex-and-death force-field of allure. I opened the envelope, shining my own torch onto its contents.
Peter stared at me from a monochrome photograph. ‘You think you love her, don’t you,’ he said. He sat on his throne in the great chamber of masquerades. The music had ceased; the revellers departed. A single candle flickered in the dark. ‘I understand,’ he continued. ‘When I was your age...’He passed a hand over his face; the face hard, but the eyes still those of a boy who had loved a little girl many summers ago. ‘But then I have always been your age. We Neverlanders don’t grow old...’
He was old, of course; older than he had a right to be, his longevity unnatural in an unnatural world. There was a transparency to his skin, a hollowness, one suspected, beneath, a poverty of substance. Titania, I suppose, sustained him. Sustained him even as she killed him. Primavera would not have the power to do that for me.
‘What do you want?’ I said.
His lips began to tighten into a sneer, then collapsed with the effort. ‘Run,’ he said, his eyes flicking about the ballroom. ‘Get out while you can.’ He slapped his palm against the armrest. ‘Go!’
‘I don’t just think I love her,’ I said, ‘I do love her.’
Peter hauled himself from his iron chair and descended the dais. Momentarily, he stepped out of frame, muttering, and then reappeared, jabbing at me with an impotent digit. ‘You don’t love her—you hate her. She’s made from hate. The hatred men have for women.’ He squinted (perhaps it was the lights of the camera) and moved towards the missing wall. ‘This is the apocalypse: after thousands of years of sexual warfare the myths of battle have been distilled into a poison so concentrated that it has become flesh. We have dreamed dreams of dark women—receptacles of our hatreds, desires and guilts -and now we pay for our dreams with the hard coin of reality. Primavera has risen from the atelier of those dreams. She is the family secret, the unacknowledged scion, who, for years bricked up in a secret room, has broken free to seek revenge...’
‘I do love her,’ I said.
‘You hate her. And she hates you. How can you love something that is the dark side of yourself? She’s not a person. She’s a ragbag of fear and dread. Help yourself. Run. Escape.’
‘Why don’t you leave?’
‘I would,’ he said, ‘if I knew a way out. So many halls, so many corridors and stairwells. But you are not so far into the maze of desire... For you—’
‘I’m going to look after her,’ I said. ‘The two of us -we’ll both escape. No one will catch us. Ever.’ Why didn’t he understand? Last summer—it had been my summer. I cast the photograph down and ran through the tunnel.
‘She killed my father,’ he cried. ‘She liked his car.’ Peter’s hard, echoing laughter pursued me through the dark.
The riverbank crumbled beneath the ZiL’s front tyres; I braked; switched off the engine. The Mekong slept, its capsized images of streetlamps and houses like dreams -poor, ridiculous human dreams—cast to the mercies of its inhuman depths. Inhuman ourselves, Primavera and I prepared to chance those depths: currents as black as the imperatives of our appetites, our lives. Brother currents.
Sister currents. The ZiL was damaged, but the river would be merciful. It would not drown our dreams. Could not.
Flies zinged through the blasted windscreen; beetles whistled Johnny one-note tunes. The riverbank blathered with mindless ado. The White Russian, encapsuled in a sodium glow, radiated bleak hedonism from the river’s bend a kilometre away. The highway stretched out, the black highway of the Mekong, a highway through and of the night, a correlative of that metaphysical road we would travel until night gave way to eternity.
‘What are you waiting for?’ said Primavera. The ZiL’s computer displayed a menu. In Cyrillic. Primavera reached past me, tapped a key. The dash revolved, presenting an array of nautical dials and meters.
‘Yeah, I know, I know. I drove it here, didn’t I?’ I put my hand on her belly. ‘How—’
‘Broken,’ she said. ‘I might have made it if I hadn’t learned about Titania. Learned the truth. A vampire dies when you break her heart...’ The denim bristled under my hand. ‘Want to make a wish?’ she said.
‘So many things to wish for. A happy ending?’
‘Not for us, Iggy. Wish again.’
‘I wish—’ Primavera’s hand closed over mine.
‘Oh, Iggy!’
‘Hang on—’
The engine mumbled; the ZiL nudged forward, dipped, fell and smashed the black looking glass of the river. Water slopped onto our laps; skirts of white foam billowed about us. The wheels retracted; the outboard deployed. I brought us to the middle of the river and turned east, downstream, to seek a landing stage far removed from the Lao town on the opposite bank, somewhere where the discretion of border officials could be bought for a few thousand baht. I switched on the automatic pilot.
‘Plenty of nanoengineers in Beijing,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you the best. The very best.’ Primavera had her head between her knees.
‘I think I’m going to be—’ I ran my hand down the scimitar of her spine. ‘Don’t. Please.’
‘Rest,’ I said. ‘By morning—’
&n
bsp; ‘She betrayed us. Titania betrayed us. How did any of us believe in her? Be proud, she said. I tell you no girl wants to become a doll. If I could change everything—’
‘I love you,’ I said, ‘for what you are.’
‘Ah, you’re cruel, Iggy. Crueller than me. Crueller than Titania.’
‘I’m going to take care of you. Now no more nonsense.’
‘But she’s calling me. My queen. Can’t you hear her? The secret, Iggy. It’s true: all dolls want to die. We were made to be victims.’
‘Don’t listen.’ I put my hands over her ears. ‘Think of all the things we’ve done. The fun. The laughs. Think of all the things we’re going to do.’
‘I can’t. Titania is part of me, just like Dr Toxicophilous.’
‘You have your own life. No one can tell you what to do.’
They took away my childhood, Iggy. They made me do bad things. And now I have to take my medicine.’
‘Rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll wake you up when we land.’ I sat her up; she closed her eyes, and sank into the upholstery.
‘Poor Iggy. I always boss you so. Always have. You’ve always been so hopeless.’ Instantly she was asleep.
I reached out to the laser bum on her cheek, the singed hair, the cosmetically restored forehead, taking care not to touch, not to disturb. Then, taking the zip of her jeans between finger and thumb, I slowly unveiled the dead flesh of her abdomen. The jeans made a low sexual moan. Primavera had overlooked a circuit. A salty aroma rose from her belly as from cool white sands at low tide. I removed the scalpel from my waistband and held it above the umbilicus; the blade flickered with a faint green light.
I pressed my eye to the peepshow. What was playing?
The necropolis. A horizon blushing with distant fires. And an army of black-cloaked figures moving towards the house where Dr Toxicophilous would soon be under siege...
I pulled back. So little time. Overriding the pilot, I pointed the ZiL towards shore. I had to find a nanoengineer. Vientiane? I would have to try. Primavera wouldn’t survive the journey into China.
I put my foot down; the outboard died. I tugged at the choke and tried to restart manually. Nothing. Then the lights and the computer died too, the car’s electronics chewed up as if by an electromagnetic pulse.
I felt the Bakelite of the steering column under my nails; it hurt, but I couldn’t ease my grip. Before me stood Titania, a few metres beyond the front axial. Star-crowned and garbed in scarlet, her feet hovered above the river’s swell, arched, criss-crossed, as if she were in mid-entrechat. Reflexively I picked the scalpel from Primavera’s lap and threw it; the scalpel passed through the scarlet apparition and into the night.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Titania, ‘I haven’t come for you, human boy.’
‘You can’t have her,’ I said. ‘Leave her alone. Leave us both alone!’
‘That’s not possible. Primavera has failed me. Quite badly, I’m afraid. I’ve tried calling to her time and time again. But she’s stubborn. Very stubborn.’
‘You betrayed us. Everything you said was a lie. You’re as bad as a human.’
‘Surely not. The lies were necessary. Besides I did believe in destroying the world once upon a time. But now I’m working for something quite different. I want to live. I want the Lilim to live.’
‘You’re assisting in their murder...’
‘Of course. How else shall we survive? We must take it upon ourselves to control our own numbers, our breeding patterns, to bargain with humans, one species to another. Humans will offer us the sacrifice of their gene-pool only if we control the plague.’
‘The Americans control you.’
Titania laughed. ‘I control them, human boy. Ah, it’s a pity you will not live to see the future: two species in such marvellously violent rapport.’
‘I don’t want to see it.’
‘As you wish. Primavera and I must go now—’
‘Wait—’ Titania’s image faded; rematerialized. ‘You think you want to live. You don’t want to live. You avoid a grand consummation because you want death eternal. Living death. You want the Lilim to survive only so that they can provide the world with an endless source of victims...’
Titania crackled, became fuzzy, like a TV running interference. ‘Oh you are a clever boy. But maybe you’re right. Do I know what I want? I’m just a machine built to resolve Man’s fantasies. I want what you want, human boy. Dead girls. I want what mankind wants. Examine your heart.’ She shrank to a point. ’Every dawn—we dieP ‘Don’t go—don’t take her!’
Titania vanished.
The ZiL had drifted back to the middle of the river; the controls were useless, and we began to spin in lazy circles, caught in a confusion of eddies and crosscurrents. It was over. Over at last. No happy ending for us. Primavera slept on, dribbling from the side of her mouth. I collected a little of her saliva on my finger and put it to my lips. Behind my eyes, a blue-gold firework display; my loins stiffened; the ZiL filled with the mind-scent of allure. Seek out my gametes, little machines, I thought. For you there is no death. You are Primavera’s immortality.
She began to speak in her sleep:
‘I left all those clothes at the Lucky. Beautiful clothes...’
‘I’ll buy you more. In China.’
‘Dermaplastic...’
‘Of course.’
‘Martian jewels...’
‘For the prettiest, most beautiful girl in school.’
Her sleep grew deeper; she floundered in inhuman depths. I felt it was time for me to sleep too. To drown. This black highway: it was too long. There had been way-stations, of course: I remember emerging from a tunnel, the starlight above Calais, and standing long minutes, even as Primavera pulled urgently at my sleeve, surveying our new world, reprieved, with that world seemingly ready to free us from the prisons of ourselves, as we had been freed from the prison of England...
‘So this is it,’ she said. ‘This is France.’
‘We’ve escaped. I can’t believe it.’
‘So we head south now?’
‘It’s a long journey.’
‘I don’t care. We’ll make it. We’ve got this far.’
‘Look—over there. It’s getting light.’
‘Dover. White cliffs. Just like in the school books.’
‘It’s very faint. I can just about—’
‘Ah, you should have doll’s eyes.’
‘Goodbye, England.’
‘Goodbye. Good riddance. And—and thank you, Iggy.’ ‘Me?’
‘For being my friend. I’m a doll, I can’t say it but I, I—’
‘Yes, Primavera?’
‘I do. I, I—’
‘I love you too, Primavera.’
‘Yes, Iggy.’
My deathwatch was almost over. But I couldn’t sleep just yet. Her life flowed through me. No; I couldn’t sleep until I had found her a human womb. I wished it were different. I wished the road ended here. I wished the story didn’t end with me wading ashore to make new little Primaveras. I wished I could die and rest within the belly of the doll.
I placed my hand on her abdomen. I had one wish left. I wouldn’t waste it. I closed my eyes and thought of her, back turned, haughty, insolent, frightened—the desired one; desired beyond life—always ready to twist about, teeth bared, mouth red, and put her face close to mine; though whether now those teeth slashed across my lips, or retracted into a soft childish pout, to offer a kiss light,* impalpable, ghostly, seemed uncertain. And so I wished - vainly, I knew—to travel this river forever with such uncertainty in my mind, to be forever with her, riding through the cemeteries of the night, on, on, on, on, until night gave way to eternity, with the presence of hate in the world only as sure as that of love.
Of all the world’s lies, that would be the best.
Nongkhai 1991
RICHARD CALDER was born in London in 1956, where he lived and worked before moving with his wife to Thailand in 1990. He now lives in Nongkhai, a borde
rtown overlooking Laos. His short stories have appeared in and OMNI and INTERZONE and have been collected in one volume published in Japanese translation. DEAD GIRLS is the start of a trilogy that will continue with DEAD BOYS.
“It rocks and it rolls...It takes chances.” —Norman Spinrad, Asimov’s SF
SLAVE TO A CYBER-FETISH
It’s the 21 st Century and "Dead Girls" have become the hunted. Half-human, half-gynoid, they know no refuge—and to love one is something far more deadly.
ONCE-BITTEN?
For Ignatz Zwakh, Primavera is the ultimate seduction. A blooddrinking "Dead Girl" descended from the finest Cartier automata, she wields razor-toothed loins aad madwqnwn strength as mercilessly as her inhuman beauty. Together, Ignatz and Primavera carve a path through the 21 st Century, a step ahead of the goons of the Human Front. But now, Primavera is infected with the magic dust. With her powers ebbing and her enemies closing in, a descent into the lurid necropolis of Bangkok’s Big Weird is their last hope.
But is annihilation the only cure that awaits?
RAVE REVIEWS FOR RICHARD CALDER AND DEAD GIRLS
“May herald the arrival of a major new talent.”
—Carl Hays, Booklist
“Fans of cutting-edge sf will enjoy this taut, provocative debut.”
—Library Journal
“What Calder can really do is write jewelled and flashing prose like J. G. Ballard on speed, where one metaphor is never used when three can be piled on one another. Richard Calder is an exciting new voice...I can’t wait for his next novel.”
—Christopher J. Fowler, Fatea
Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things Page 19