Asimov's SF, February 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  She still types, although she is slowed considerably by a desire to nap. Occasionally she flexes her fingers and thinks longingly of her forsaken sushi. On her break she calls Dr. Opoku to complain about the Epi-crème. The phone rings and rings. How dare these doctors demand to be paid when they won't help people?

  At noon, Jojo parks his cart at her desk. “You feeling better, ma'am?” he whispers.

  His breath smells of gizzards, fish heads and mashed grain. Glinda's brain is horrified, but her tail squirms in her pantyhose.

  “Are you wearing aftershave, Jojo?” She swallows to keep from drooling. She wants to taste his lips, his teeth, his tonsils—

  “That's my breakfast, ma'am. From Wong's House of Fried Things.” He glances at Stuart and Cece who, for once, appear to be working. “Ma'am, I gotta talk to you."

  She cups his face and kisses him. Then she licks the molecules of fried flavor from her palms.

  “Jojo!” Mr. Shepherd stares in flushed disbelief. He snatches Cece's stapler and shoots staples at the boy. “You're fired!"

  Jojo grabs Glinda, who grabs her purse. Mr. Shepherd's howl of betrayal rises above the traffic.

  “Glindaaaaa!"

  * * * *

  Two blocks later Jojo is wheezing. Glinda buys him a Coke. It is one of those rare days where the sun goes naked. The Park-N-Pay lot is unattended. Glinda stretches out on the hood of an ancient Impala while Jojo catches his breath.

  “You gotta get out, ma'am."

  “That's very sweet, Joseph. But Mr. Shepherd is harmless. I'll see you don't get fired."

  “No! I mean OUT out!"

  Jojo smells like Coke, which renders him inedible and therefore uninteresting. The pigeons strutting by the tires, on the other hand—

  “Like my mom! Before they get you!"

  A pigeon waddles within range. Its plump breast taunts her. Slowly, Glinda rolls over to a crouch. Then an elderly woman creeps from beneath an SUV. She has stringy white hair and an old cast on her left arm. Her yellow-eyed glare dares Glinda to challenge her claim to the bird.

  “Let it go, ma'am. You gotta listen to me while you still can!"

  Glinda bares her teeth. The woman hisses. Mine! Her claws are fully extended. Glinda flexes her hands and at last exposes her own claws, too late. The woman springs, snaps the pigeon's spine with her teeth and stuffs it into a Pier 39 shopping bag. Then she hauls herself to her hind legs and totters off.

  Glinda gives a ragged yowl. She leaps, she will hunt down that bitch and take what is hers! To her surprise, Jojo wrestles her to the ground and clamps a hand over her mouth.

  “Don't yell, ma'am!” He scratches the tender flesh behind her ear. She is flooded with orgasmic relief for an itch she didn't know she had. She holds his hand with her claws.

  “Ma'am? You're hurting me, ma'am."

  “Hm? Oh. Sorry.” She pushes her head into his monkey palm as an apology.

  “My dad and me, we snuck my mom to the mountains. They're making zoos, ma'am.” Jojo rubs the tiny punctures on his arm. “Old lady zoos. Not that you're old, but—"

  Glinda laughs. Instantly Jojo smells of something other than Coke, something dull and brackish. Glinda wants to stop laughing, but she can't. She has fur. She has claws. She is stronger than she has ever been. This “they” of Jojo's—she has an impression of albino gorillas wearing ties—don't they have large beating arteries in their throats? She salivates, and laughs even harder.

  Jojo shoves her away, and climbs to his feet. “Forget you, ma'am."

  Shame, that's the smell. Jojo is engulfed in a gray cloud of shame. “Now Joseph,” Glinda purrs, “you don't believe that. You're a smart boy, aren't you? Sure you are."

  Jojo throws back his shoulders until his usually concave chest is painfully arched. “No, ma'am. I'm not smart. But I don't lie. And that leopard in Virginia was my Aunt Enid."

  * * * *

  Glinda naps on the Impala hood till the parking lot cools in the late afternoon shade. She lifts her nose and tastes the air. Dusty feathers, blood, the pungent triumph of the pigeon thief, and the monkey boy's sour shame. Didn't she make him a promise? Yes. She opens her cell phone and taps in the number with one claw.

  “Bay Medical Collections. May I help you?” Cece's tongue stud clicks against her teeth.

  “Shepherd, prrease.” Glinda strains to form the words.

  “Gee, I wish I could take as long of lunches as you. What are you, drunk? Hey Stuart, guess who's hammered?” Cece listens to his reply and snorts. “For sure. He says you'd have to be to bang that little freak."

  “Jojooooah?"

  “Hey, lover boy is totally fired. But some kinko dudes with nets are here. They came in all ‘let's see your I.D.’ and I'm all WTF? I am so not her. Now they're in with Mr. Shepherd."

  Ka-thunk ka-thunk.

  “Aw gross. Too much info. Stuart says aren't you a little old to be a playa?"

  The cell phone tumbles from Glinda's grasp. It skitters across the asphalt like a silvery beetle. She pounces. The beetle chitters as she bats it between her paws.

  “Stuart says you better get your ass back here, cause no way we're doing your work."

  Glinda gnaws the beetle's antenna. She feels a hand on her shoulder.

  “Pardon me, miss, but you dropped your purse."

  The gorilla's pink face is kind. He reaches for her beetle. “Here, let me help you up."

  Mine! Glinda sinks her teeth into his wrist until she feels the snap of bone. The gorilla screams and kicks her nose. She slashes his throat with one blow. He falls stiffly, and is still. Her senses thrill to the taste of fresh meat.

  She lopes from the parking lot. Other creatures begin to shriek. They scatter, leaving acrid cloud-trails of fear. Her joy is electric. These monkeys don't know even the most basic tricks of a herd. She wants to chase them all.

  A gunshot startles her. There, in the alley across the street, is a debris box, and above it, a fire escape. She springs atop a honking metal creature. The apes in its belly scream and she licks her lips. A second shot rings out. She launches herself, she bounds from car roof to car roof, till she is across the asphalt river. She paws off the remains of her clothes. Movement is instantly easier with her tail free. She leaps atop the box, leaps again and swings by her claws from the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder. She curls her hind legs and tail upward, reaches and scrabbles for purchase. In another second, her movements are easy and controlled, and she is on the gravel roof.

  She pads to the edge of the roof. She can still taste the dusty auras of the roaring metal creatures, but there are other flavors: a blue oxygen haze from the forest in Golden Gate Park, briny wisps of fog, and a rich feline graffiti. Names. Scent marks.

  She is not alone.

  On every roof in sight, on hers as well, her lion sisters and her cousins the leopards, the tigers and cheetahs, cougars and panthers. stir as they rise from their afternoon naps.

  She approaches her companions, another lioness and a panther. They sniff each other cautiously, then rub heads to share their scents. The greeting is satisfactory. Their purrs rumble like neighborly thunder. When the sun sinks into the fog, they descend. Now it is time to hunt.

  Copyright(c) 2006 Kat Meltzer

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Are You There

  by Jack Skillingstead

  Jack Skillingstead tells us, “In recent years, internet ‘chatting’ has emerged as an entirely new form of communication, one that seems to invite intimacy while at the same time encouraging isolation. This situation, extrapolated forward, was the genesis for the current story.” He invites readers to visit his web site at www.jackskillingstead.com.

  * * * *

  Deatry took the door because he wanted to see the look on the Bastard's face. That put his partner Raymond Farkas in the alley, where Deatry assumed he was wet and not too happy. The hallway smelled like mildew and Chinese food. There were two light fixtures between 307 a
nd the stairs. The one closer to Deatry was burned out. Muffled television voices spoke from the other rooms but 307 was quiet.

  Deatry stood in the hall a long time, too long, his stunner drawn but pointed at the floor, finger outside the trigger guard. He had the passkey, but he couldn't move. A memory of plate glass coughing into the atrium. Suburban sunshine, string music, and shredded shoppers. Blood on the terrazzo. White dowel of bone poking through mangled flesh and skin flap.

  The hand he used to hold.

  Deatry was sweating. The man in 307 shredded his victims one at a time, with some art, but no political considerations, at least none that Deatry was aware of. Why the paralyzing memory association?

  Deatry started at the unmistakable buzzpop of a stunner burst. It had sounded from beyond the room on the other side of the door.

  He fumbled the passkey, dropped it, used his foot. Wood splintering crash, jamb split, the door banged into the wall, and Deatry went through, sweeping the empty room with his weapon.

  Curtains billowed. The burst had come from the alley. Deatry clambered onto the fire escape. November rain blew over him, chill on the back of his neck. There were no lights in the alley, unless you counted the checkerboard windows of the other buildings.

  Deatry clanged down the zigzag stairs, iron rail cold on his hand, and dropped to the buckled concrete. The garbage smell was wet and ripe, bags of it piled around the dumpster. One of the bags groaned and stood up, a man. Deatry pointed his stunner.

  “It's me,” the man said, raising an open hand. “Ray."

  “Jesus Christ,” Deatry said. “Did you hit him?"

  “Yeah, but he must have been wearing one of those repelling vests."

  “Did you see his face?"

  “Nope."

  “Well—"

  “Don't worry, it's not a total loss. I got to feel his knife. It's real sharp."

  Farkas's shirt was wet, but in the bad light who knew it was blood?

  Then Raymond Farkas extended his hand, which was holding a flat module made of black metal. Deatry holstered his weapon and took it. Farkas swayed, and Deatry gripped his shoulder with his free hand.

  “He dropped that,” Farkas said, and collapsed forward. Deatry dropped the module himself when he tried to catch his partner.

  * * * *

  Dawn had begun to pale the sky by the time Deatry returned home and climbed the newly installed set of exterior stairs to the second floor. Inside, he stood at the window with a bottle of beer for a few minutes, not thinking. It was as quiet as it ever got in the grid. Deatry knew his ex-wife, who occupied the lower half of the narrow two story “slot” house, would be waking up soon. Sometimes, when she noticed his light on or heard him shuffling around after being awake all night, she came up to the bolted door that separated the two halves of the house, wanting to talk. Deatry hated that. He referred to Barbara as his ex-wife, but the truth was they had never legally divorced. A divorce would automatically have evoked the Space and Occupancy Act and forced them to vacate the relative spaciousness of the home they had legally shared as man and wife. And the other truth was (at least the truth Deatry allowed), they both loved the house more than they had ever loved each other. The Space and Occupancy Act was only one of many laws designed to encourage the sacred tradition of marriage. The SAOA hadn't existed at the time of Deatry's previous marriage. So that particular example of sacredness had been allowed to go to hell in its own traditional manner.

  Deatry turned off the lamp, unrolled his Apple VI Scroll, and powered it up. White Echo was waiting for him.

  “Hi,” he typed.

  “I was almost asleep.” Her words appeared rapidly, a quick and flawless keypadder.

  “That's okay. I know it's late. I just wanted to say hi."

  “And you said it. But don't go. I—miss you all day."

  “I miss you, too,” Deatry typed, and he meant it. But he was also glad White Echo, a.k.a. Kimberly, was not an entity who could climb a flight of stairs and knock on his door.

  “Are you all right?” Kimberly asked.

  “Peachy. It's Farkas. We followed a tip tonight and he got cut, and it was at least partly my fault."

  “How was it your fault?"

  Deatry briefly described the situation at the co-op apartment building.

  “I don't see how it was your fault,” Kimberly said.

  “I had the door. And I waited too long. Jackie Boy must have sensed something was up. Anyway, forget it. How was your day?"

  “Delightful and lonely."

  “That's life in the big city. The lonely part, anyway. Delight is a little harder to come by. You have a knack for it."

  After a long pause, during which Deatry began to think she had been disconnected, Kimberly typed: “It doesn't HAVE to be lonely."

  Deatry's fingers hovered over the keypad like hummingbirds assessing the possibility of nectar. He didn't want to get into it again.

  “Brian?"

  He gave it another few beats, then typed: “Damn it, I'm sorry. Barbara's at the door."

  “Play dead."

  “Ha! I can't do that. She knows I'm in here. She was already awake when I got home. The lights were on. She must have heard me come in."

  Lord of the Lies. They floated him above a nasty splinter of his personality.

  “Okay,” Kimberly typed.

  “I'm really sorry."

  “Yes.” Then: “It's okay. I have to sleep anyway. Alone as always."

  Usually he could redirect her mood, but he was bone tired this morning. So even though he knew it was lame, Deatry replied, “I'm REALLY sorry.” And: “Gotta go now.” And: “G'nite."

  He sighed and turned off the Scroll and let it roll back into a tube. Then God played a mean trick on him. There was a tentative knock on the interior door, followed by a slightly more aggressive knock, and Barbara's voice:

  “Brian? I've got coffee."

  Deatry turned in his chair and stared wearily at the door. He waited, imagining her on the other side. She didn't knock again, and after a while her footsteps retreated down the stairs.

  * * * *

  Deatry and Raymond Farkas were parapolice detectives working a dumpy quarter-grid of the Seattle-Tacoma sprawl. The local inhabitants paid their salaries. They didn't have to pay, of course. It was a free country. And the paradetectives were free to ignore the non-paying enclaves, though Deatry had never done that and wouldn't. The real murder police worked the tonier grids and had the terror watch, which sucked resources like a starving baby.

  Deatry slipped down to the crime lab of the real police department, where he had a few friends from the old days. He showed the module to a man who looked like a cross between a boiled egg and a vulture in a white lab coat.

  “It's a Loved One,” the man, whose name was Stuhring, said.

  An old memory stirred briefly in the refuse at the back of Deatry's mind.

  “Those dead person things?"

  “Right. Guy's dying but still coherent enough, got all his marbles rattling around, or it's a living will thing. They hook him up and make one of these gizmos from his engramatic template. Fries his brain, but he's not going to live anyway. End of the day, dear old Uncle Ned can still talk to you, respond just like the original, all that. Parlor trick. There was a vogue, then the creep factor killed it."

  “Will this one work?"

  Stuhring rummaged around in a junk box, tried a couple of adapters, found one that fit, and plugged the module into a computer.

  After a moment, Hello? appeared on the screen.

  “It works,” Stuhring said.

  “No voice?"

  He shrugged. “You'd have to noodle around with it. Take the adapter. You can plug it into your Scroll, if you want."

  Hello? appeared under the first Hello.

  “Why's it keep saying that?” Deatry asked. “Is it broken?"

  “How do I know? Ask it."

  Deatry typed: “Are you broken?"

  They waited, b
ut no more words appeared.

  “There's your answer,” Stuhring said.

  “Maybe."

  Deatry had a weird feeling. He unplugged the Loved One and pocketed the adapter.

  * * * *

  Deatry met Raymond Farkas at a bar on Second Avenue called The Scarlet Tree, though its patrons referred to it affectionately as The Bloody Stump.

  Farkas eased into a chair, holding his right hand lightly over his ribs where the blade had gone in, scoring bone. He was older than Deatry, about thirty pounds overweight, and had a walrus mustache which was going gray.

  “Hurt?” Deatry asked.

  “What do you think?"

  “I think it probably hurts."

  “You're probably right,” Farkas said. “The doc said it was a razor or the Bastard's usual scalpel. Guess he'd know."

  It was the middle of the day and they were drinking pints of amber ale. It didn't matter, since they were private employees. It was kind of a perk. Deatry drank deep, then put his glass down and said: “I'm sorry, Ray."

  “What about?” There was foam in his mustache.

  “Sorry I forgot your birthday, what else? Jesus Christ. I'm sorry I almost got you killed."

  Farkas shrugged. “I had the alley. You flushed him, then it was on me. I blew it."

  “I didn't exactly flush him."

  Farkas shrugged again. “What else you want to talk about?"

  “That module thing he dropped. It was a Loved One. You know what that is?"

  “No shit? Yeah, I know what they are."

  Farkas had already finished his amber. He waved at the bartender and she brought over another one. Deatry still had a ways to go on his first.

  “Pair a beers for the paradicks,” the bartender said, in a friendly way. She was fortyish, attractive in a twice-around-the-block kind of way. Deatry had once seen the inside of her bedroom and other things.

  Farkas grabbed up his fresh pint and drained it by a third.

  “You get anything off the Loved One?"

  “No."

  “Could be a good break."

  “It won't talk."

  “Get a techie to cannibalize it. That way you at least get the basics. If it was a relative of our guy then maybe we have a name."