by Jerry
He was silent for the longest time.
“Kirt?”
“No, I killed the other one. The human who wore the bison. I smelled her, Hellea. At first I thought she was one of us. Her smell fooled me. But she was human.’
Memories came to me of Hellea and me lying together, her fingers pressing her odors into my back, our scents mixed in our lovemaking. I breathed the corridor’s smell and knew it was near Hellea’s perfume. Not identical, just as a woman smells vaguely different from a man, but near. Hellea’s perfumed scent, Kirt’s too-sweet odor. Female and male.
“Hellea is dead. I’m Courtney,” I hissed, knowing now what he was here for.
“No, you are Hellea,” he whispered. “I wear the chimera,” he said, pulling two of the cloaks from the clenched fingers of his other hand. “One is for this,” he said. Slowly and in obvious pain, he pulled one over his head until it was straightened. For a moment his outline shimmered gently, as everyone’s does when a chimera is first put on. Then the image solidified, and he was Kirt, the blond hair hanging over the eyes, his chest thin, his hands delicate and longfingered. There was still a blotted stain at his side. “The other one makes me this,” he whispered hoarsely, removing the human chimera and pulling on the other cloak. As soon as his outline cleared, I could see the werewolf face he’d always shown me. It had the deft chin, the jutting nose, the vaguely human features. He pulled it off quickly, then threw them both in front of me. He was the werewolf again, the different one, the one with few human characteristics. No cleft chin, no thrusting nose. He grimaced, and canines showed.
I looked at the heavy revolver in my hand. The bullet had not been silver, yet he was wounded. That meant he had staged the fear and pain from my cane’s silver head to make me believe he was a human werewolf, a fantacin-driven imitation.
“You are one of us,” Kirt said. “I love you, Hellea. You never should have left me.”
“You’re mad,” I whispered.
“I won’t touch you again. I promise,” he said softly. “I know why you left me. It was because I told them what I was. There’s no harm in that anymore. The humans don’t believe in us, Hellea. They think we’re only wearing these.” He waved to the dark cloaks in front of me. “There’s no danger in telling them what we are. We’re finally safe. Don’t you see that?” He stopped, drawing breaths in short gasps.
“You’re mistaken, Kirt,” I said softly. “I’m not one of you, whatever you are.”
“I smelled you. I’m not wrong. There was werewolf scent from your apartment. You were clever to room with a human, Hellea. Very clever,” he said, his breath sounding loud in the close corridor.
This thing, this madman, had smelled Hellea? “You got confused by the chimera, Kirt,” I said slowly. “You smelled my scent on Hellea, hers on me. You made a mistake. Kirt. You killed her instead of me.”
“No, you’re wrong. I killed the right one. You are Hellea. Take off the chimera,” he said, sliding his body toward me. “Let me see you for what you are.”
Even though I knew now what Hellea had been, even though I now realized why she had not wanted to involve the p.o.’s. I knew I had loved her. She had tried to conceal herself by living with me, by mixing my human scent with hers. She had even tried to hide me from Kirt by rubbing her scent on me, but it had only resulted in her own death. I pulled the hammer of the revolver back once again. There were no silver bullets. but there were still five more with lead tips. They would do. “NO!” I screamed. “There is nothing more!” And I yanked hard on the trigger, hearing the explosion three times before I could pull my finger from the weapon. I tugged and tugged on the bloodied fur of Kirt’s arm and chest, but there was no chimera cloak to pull off. He had been telling me the truth. He was a werewolf. Had they always existed, or had they slid into the world when chimera and fantacin made the boundaries of man and beast blurry and vague?
I thought of my fear of Kirt when he’d pounded on my door. I had worried about what he would do if he got inside, not knowing there was already one like him in my bed.
Kirt and Hellea’s kind were outnumbered by the humans who dressed as them. Hellea had left him because he was insane, daring to let humans know the truth. Who else besides me had he told? But he’d been right; it was a safe time for them. Hide amongst those who look like you, and no one will hunt you down. They prospered in this time of illusion. What was another werewolf in a crowd of chimera?
I left Kirt there on the floor of the corridor, pooled darkness around him. Someone would have called the p.o.‘s when the revolver fired, and I had to be far from here when they arrived. Who could I trust? Who was real when any could hide behind the chimera? What if a werewolf, a friend of Kirt’s, wore a chimera that disguised him as a p.o. investigator?
I wanted to go to the morgue, where Hellea’s body was waiting for cremation. They were sure to find that she was not human when they pulled off her bison chimera for the autopsy. What would they think? Would they hunt down the real werewolves? How? The p.o.’s could never ban chimera cloaks, and those like Kirt would always hide behind them. I was the only one who could identify them when they wore chimera. Hellea’s and Kirt’s peculiar scents could not be forgotten. And even if I did want to help the p.o.’s, which I did not, they wouldn’t be able to protect me forever. Sooner or later one like Kirt would reach me. But there was no time to see Hellea as she really was, so I slipped out of my building and walked into the cool streets. Shadows moved on the far side of the pavement, shadows that slithered away too easily to be chimera-driven men playing at being wolves. The others that Kirt had talked about, no doubt. The other werewolves who wanted him and Hellea dead. Who did they wait for now? Kirt or his murderer?
I walked quickly to the tram stop, hearing my heels click on the pavement, wondering when I would hear the first howl. But it was silent, and they never came any closer than when I’d first seen them. Perhaps they still smelled werewolf on me, I thought, as I looked down at my hands, black in the dim light from Kirt’s blood: There was no time to be sick. No time for anything, J. thought, but running.
I snort and feel the air rush into my throat. Breathing out, the noise sounds loud in my ears. My hands are thick hooves, my wrists heavy forelegs that scuff at the dirt, send it billowing into the still air. The dust motes glint slightly in the three-quarter moon’s light. I’ve swallowed a low dose of fantacin again and so slide in and out of myself. It is always like this lately. Not because I want to feel human but because I have no choice; I have little of the drug left, and I cannot go back to the village ten miles away. The last time I was there I’d overheard someone ask for me. It was not a p.o., for they have a certain look about them. This man was thin, blond-haired, and reminded me of Kirt.
My head swings slowly, and I feel grass in my mouth. Is it really there, or is it only fantacin that makes me feel it? I’m not sure.
I always think of Hellea, except when I have fantacin to make me forget. Involuntarily I shudder, feeling my bulk move in the night. I had loved her.
The prairies. I am finally here, though not for the reasons I’d once wanted. Wolves, real wolves, had tracked their meat for days, weeks sometimes. Werewolves are not so different. They are intelligent and can feel the rush of revenge as they think of one who can expose them, who knows how to identify them. They want to remain unknown, as they’ve always been. They know I am the only one who can help the p.o. s track them down. That is why they follow me across the grasslands.
Or is it only to thank me? The werewolves had wanted Kirt dead as much as I had. Perhaps they follow to simply thank me for doing what they were ready to do themselves. I hope that, but I do not believe it. I am too dangerous to them while alive. The sudden howl from the gully to the south is piercing and makes the entire herd shuffle in the dust, nervous at the sound. There are no real wolves alive. And that is not a coyote’s call.
They will not make a mistake again. I have no werewolf smell on me this time, for it has been months sinc
e I’d last loved one of them. Unknowingly loved, I remember.
The howl comes again, shorter this time, closer to the edges of the herd. I vaguely hear a bull bellow—once, twice. They are creeping toward me from the gully. A scent drifts to me. Both male and female track me. I can tell. They have not even bothered to come from downwind.
I wish that it were chimera, not reality, which stalks me. But bison do not wish, do not think. Stupid animal.
If only I can make it clear that I had loved one of them. I’ve killed the madman among you. I will not help the p.o.’s hunt you. Only leave me alone and alive. She’d loved me too, I want to tell them. Hellea had tried to protect me. If one of you could love me, what harm can I do to you? But I don’t think they’ll listen to me. I delude myself with false hope. They settle matters with violence; what rumors we have of them have told me that.
And as I feel myself slip into the grasp of fantacin. I wonder if I will feel it when they come to worry my throat. I wish not.
LOVE OF LIFE
Ray Brown
For thousands of years, the world’s religions have said that life is just a step to a better existence. If technology can be used to prove this, will people want to take a short cut?
Policy was to turn swords into ploughshares, so by and by they turned “supersmart” ABM guidance units into happy faces that chased you with proto-clichés selling the favorite public service program.
“Good evening, buddy,” the button-eyed moron intoned. “You’ve only got one self. Don’t waste it. Best wishes from your National Council on Population Stabilization.”
Conway swatted at the thing and it swerved in the air, flylike.
“Good evening, buddy,” it started again. “Give life a chance. After all, it could start getting better any minute now. Best wishes forever from your NCPS.”
Conway intersected the street where his job waited for him. He cornered abruptly and at high speed, but the thing swooped high in the air over him and again hovered right in front of his face.
“Be a friend,” it said. “Report the name of your distressed friend to the Suicide Prevention Squad of your local police force. Best wishes from . . .”
“You stupid pest,” Conway growled, “I’m on the SPS.”
He grabbed at it low. To his surprise, the thing ducked when it should have jumped and he wound up holding it in his hands, where it buzzed and tugged on him weakly. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled it above his head.
“Buddy?” the thing said, “I have been endowed with an elementary survival drive. The idea of being smashed into the sidewalk fills me with something analogous to dread.”
Conway was interested in spite of himself. He relaxed his shoulders a little and asked. “Why should I care?”
“That’s a hard one to answer, buddy,” it said. “I can’t plead for my life by crying ‘murder’ because I’m not really alive anyway. Not that I’d want to be—it would be such a poor life. After all, I’m seized, like an epileptic, with slogan after slogan. You know, I’ve always wondered whether I had free will or not, but I still don’t know because I’ve never had the time to investigate. I never will find out now, I guess.”
“Sounds like I’d be doing you a favor if I smashed you,” Conway said.
“Please don’t,” it said. “Whatever it was they gave me instead of life is all I’ve got; and if you spare it I’ll try to do something nice for you sometime.”
Conway didn’t know if the thing was giving off sympathy-inducing pheromones or not, but he now felt reluctant to smash it. It sounded so pathetic.
“You can start doing something nice for me right now,” Conway said. “Just keep the hell away from me.” He tossed the happy face into the air.
“Thanks,” it said. “And remember: One life’s all you get, so don’t quit on us yet. Best wishes from your NCPS.”
Conway screamed and grabbed at it. His luck didn’t hold, but amazingly, the happy face kept its part of the bargain and sped away over the roof of the police station. Conway sighed, and walked inside and down the dirty stairs to the monitor room in the basement.
Roth, one of the monitors, was there waiting for his shift to start. He always got there early so he could try to figure out, according to some mystical system of his own, which booth would get the fewest calls that night.
“What are you pissed at?” Roth asked Conway as he hung up his coat and signed in. “You look like they just upped your birth quota.” Conway told the story of his recent annoyance and Roth smiled. His chest swelled with importance and superior knowledge.
“They’re programmed to say that when they’re caught,” he said. “You got suckered.”
Pearson, Conway’s partner for the week, entered scowling. This time, though, Roth made no comment. When Pearson scowled it was no big deal; he took his job very seriously.
“What’s the count for the day, Roth?” Pearson asked.
“Average,” Roth said. “118 so far. But with a rising trend.”
“The antisocial bastards. How many did we stop?”
“Twenty-one. And a good thing that’s all. Life Center 36 doesn’t open until tomorrow.”
Pearson shrugged angrily. “Stack’em like bricks,” he growled. “They’re criminals. They knew the consequences of their act.”
The minute hand on the overhead clock twitched upright and the noon-to-eight shift rose in a body as the rest of Conway’s shift slouched in. Roth edged quickly into booth #4.
“It got lots of calls during the first shift,” he explained, “And it’s Wednesday.”
Nobody believed in Roth’s crazy system, Conway included. But Conway had noticed that for some reason Roth actually got the fewest calls, more often than not. Conway’s job was getting him down. He asked Roth if he and Pearson could work with him that night.
“Sure,” Roth said, punching their codes in.
“Wait a minute,” Pearson said. “Didn’t you come here to work, Conway? I did.”
“Roth’s got just as much chance of a buzz as any other monitor,” Conway said, his throat tight.
“I came here to save lives,” Pear son said. Conway noticed for the first time, as Pearson advanced on him with clenched fists, that his partner outweighed him by about fifty pounds and was unusually ugly.
Roth’s screen came alive at that moment—as did every screen in the basement.
“You got some work right now,” Roth said. “We got a creative. One suicide and it looks like three buddies giving him the send-off. If I can figure out where it is . . . it’s not coming through the regular network, it’s being picked up by one of the old fixed security cameras . . . Jesus . . . It’s right outside here!”
Already people were abandoning the booths and running upstairs. Pearson dropped his fists and joined them immediately. Roth and Conway followed, and caught up with him on the station’s stoop.
Right across the street was an outsize cannon pointed at the station. Sitting on the end of the muzzle was a man in a superman suit draining a glass of red wine and below him were three friends doing likewise. Above the cannon was stretched a banner:
THE GREAT SPLATTO: HUMAN CANNONBALL.
“Hey!” Pearson bellowed. “You can’t do that!”
A crowd was gathering around the creative, some cheering The Great Splatto, some jeering the cops. One of Splatto’s friends offered him a crash helmet and, in the best tradition of daredeviltry, Splatto waved it away and crawled backwards down the bore.
Pearson and a number of other cops yelled and charged across the street waving needle guns, but it was too late. One of the three touched the cannon off, everybody ducked, and The Great Splatto zoomed out and up until his body was abruptly stopped by the police station’s limestone wall and his soul sailed on to Heaven.
They don’t like us, Conway thought, sickly. They really don’t like us.
“A flower!” said Roth, crawling back to his feet and looking at what they’d have to clean up.
The crowd
broke up quickly, abandoning cannon and banner, and Pearson rejoined them. “Disgusting,” he said, gesturing at the wall.
“I don’t know,” Roth said. “It’s rather colorful, actually.”
Pearson didn’t turn on Roth, Conway noticed. Probably because Roth was the Chief s nephew.
So there was nothing more to say. Roth returned to the basement and Conway and Pearson hurried to the back of the station and signed out their flyer, thereby avoiding the clean-up detail.
They patrolled for an hour without getting any calls from Roth beside a chatty one informing them that the front waif had lost about twenty square feet of plaster. It was soothingly quiet. Pearson had scarcely spoken to Conway since they’d paired up for the week, and that was just fine with Conway. But an hour was a phenomenally long time to go without a call, even for Roth, and Conway noticed Pearson opening and closing his mouth, fidgeting with his adam’s apple.
Finally, Pearson spoke. “What the hell,” he said, “are you doing in the SPS, anyway? You’re not the type.”
“The extra pay, of course,” Conway said. “You got a better reason?”
“I love life,” Pearson said.
It was hard for Conway to choke back his laughter. He gave himself a small coughing fit.
Pearson looked at him askance and said, “I mean it. And it’s not that I’m pretending I’m a saint, either. I have good, selfish reasons for standing against the forces of dissolution and death. I always had great hopes for my life—I could have gone places, you know? I’m a natural leader of men. I could have wound up being . . . well, never mind about that. I can still go places, and if the SPS does its job I damned well will. What happened four months ago doesn’t have to make any difference.”
“If the whole society doesn’t collapse first, that is,” Conway said.
“Just shut the fuck up if you can’t say anything constructive,” Pearson grumbled.
Conway took Pearson at his word, smiled, and relaxed. With luck, that would be Pearson’s last attempt at polite conversation until the end of the week.