The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  "Nine days won't last long. I need to get back inside that kiosk, like normal again."

  "It's great to see you out and about, mixing it up with us, Boots. We never talk anymore." Mirko spread his hands in apology, then scrubbed the table. "I run this place now . . .it's the pressure of business . . .that's all my fault."

  Borislav accepted a payment from a kid who'd made himself a rock-solid black model dinosaur. "Mirko, do you have room for a big vending machine, here by your café? I need to get that black beast out of my kiosk. The people need their sticks of gum."

  "You really want to build some vendorizing thing out here? Like a bank machine?"

  "I guess I do, yeah. It pays."

  "Boots, I love this crowd you're bringing me, but why don't you just put your machine wherever they put bank machines? There are hundreds of bank machines." Mirko took his empty plate. "There are millions of bank machines. Those machines took over the world."

  IV

  Days passed. The people wouldn't let him get back to normal. It became a public sport to see what people would bring in for the fabrikator to copy. It was common to make weird things as gag gifts: a black, rock-solid spray of roses, for instance. You could hand that black bouquet to your girlfriend for a giggle, and if she got huffy, then you could just bring it back, have it weighed, and get a return-deposit for the yellow dust.

  The ongoing street drama was a tonic for the neighborhood. In no time flat, every café lounger and class-skipping college student was a self-appointed expert about fabs, fabbing, and revolutionary super-fabs that could fab their own fabbing. People brought their relatives to see. Tourists wandered in and took pictures. Naturally they all seemed to want a word with the owner and proprietor.

  The people being the people, the holiday air was mixed with unease. Things took a strange turn when a young bride arrived with her wedding china. She paid to copy each piece, then loudly and publicly smashed the originals in the street. A cop showed up to dissuade her. Then the cop wanted a word, too.

  Borislav was sitting with Professor Damov, an academician and pious blowhard who ran the local ethnographic museum. The professor's city-sponsored hall specialized in what Damov called "material culture," meaning dusty vitrines full of battle flags, holy medallions, distaffs, fishing nets, spinning wheels, gramophones, and such. Given these new circumstances, the professor had a lot on his mind.

  "Officer," said Damov, briskly waving his wineglass, "it may well surprise you to learn this, but the word 'kiosk' is an ancient Ottoman term. In the original Ottoman kiosk, nothing was bought or sold. The kiosk was a regal gift from a prince to the people. A kiosk was a place to breathe the evening air, to meditate, to savor life and living; it was an elegant garden pergola."

  "They didn't break their wedding china in the gutter, though," said the cop.

  "Oh, no, on the contrary, if a bride misbehaved in those days, she'd be sewn into a leather sack and thrown into the Bosphorus!"

  The cop was mollified, and he moved right along, but soon a plainclothes cop showed up and took a prominent seat inside the Three Cats Café. This changed the tone of things. The police surveillance proved that something real was happening. It was a kind of salute.

  Dusk fell. A group of garage mechanics came by, still in their grimy overalls, and commenced a deadly serious professional discussion about fabbing trolley parts. A famous stage actor showed up with his entourage, to sign autographs and order drinks for all his "friends."

  Some alarmingly clean-cut university students appeared. They weren't there to binge on beer. They took a table, ordered Mirko's cheapest pizza, and started talking in points-of-order.

  Next day, the actor brought the whole cast of his play, and the student radicals were back in force. They took more tables, with much more pizza. Now they had a secretary, and a treasurer. Their ringleaders had shiny black political buttons on their coats.

  A country bus arrived and disgorged a group of farmers. These peasants made identical copies of something they were desperate to have, yet anxious to hide from all observers.

  Ace came by the bustling café. Ace was annoyed to find that he had to wait his turn for any private word with Borislav.

  "Calm down, Ace. Have a slice of this pork pizza. The boss here's an old friend of mine, and he's in a generous mood."

  "Well, my boss is unhappy," Ace retorted. "There's money being made here, and he wasn't told about it."

  "Tell your big guy to relax. I'm not making any more money than I usually do at the kiosk. That should be obvious: consider my rate of production. That machine can only make a few copies an hour."

  "Have you finally gone stupid? Look at this crowd!" Ace pulled his shades off and studied the densely clustered café. Despite the lingering chill, a gypsy band was setting up, with accordions and trombones. "Okay, this proves it: see that wiseguy sitting there with that undercover lieutenant? He's one of them!"

  Borislav cast a sidelong glance at the rival gangster. The North River Boy looked basically identical to Ace: the same woolly hat, cheap black sunglasses, jacket, and bad attitude, except for his sneakers, which were red instead of blue. "The River Boys are moving in over here?"

  "They always wanted this turf. This is the lively part of town."

  That River Boy had some nerve. Gangsters had been shot in the Three Cats Café. And not just a few times, either. It was a major local tradition.

  "I'm itching to whack that guy," Ace lied, sweating, "but, well, he's sitting over there with that cop! And a pet politician, too!"

  Borislav wondered if his eyes were failing. In older days, he would never have missed those details.

  There was a whole little tribe of politicians filtering into the café, and sitting near the mobster's table. The local politicians always traveled in parties. Small, fractious parties.

  One of these local politicals was the arts district's own national representative. Mr. Savic was a member of the Radical Liberal Democratic Party, a splinter clique of well-meaning, overeducated cranks.

  "I'm gonna tell you a good joke, Ace. 'You can get three basic qualities with any politician: Smart, Honest, and Effective. But you only get to pick two.'"

  Ace blinked. He didn't get it.

  Borislav levered himself from his café chair and limped over to provoke a gladhanding from Mr. Savic. The young lawyer was smart and honest, and therefore ineffective. However, Savic, being so smart, was quick to recognize political developments within his own district. He had already appropriated the shiny black button of the young student radicals.

  With an ostentatious swoop of his camel's-hair coattails, Mr. Savic deigned to sit at Borislav's table. He gave Ace a chilly glare. "Is it necessary that we consort with this organized-crime figure?"

  "You tried to get me fired from my job in the embassy," Ace accused him.

  "Yes, I did. It's bad enough that the criminal underworld infests our ruling party. We can't have the Europeans paying you off, too."

  "That's you all over, Savic: always sucking up to rich foreigners and selling out the guy on the street!"

  "Don't flatter yourself, you jumped-up little crook! You're not 'the street.' The people are the street!"

  "Okay, so you got the people to elect you. You took office and you got a pretty haircut. Now you're gonna wrap yourself up in our flag, too? You're gonna steal the last thing the people have left!"

  Borislav cleared his throat. "I'm glad we have this chance for a frank talk here. The way I figure it, managing this fabbing business is going to take some smarts and finesse."

  The two of them stared at him. "You brought us here?" Ace said. "For our 'smarts and finesse'?"

  "Of course I did. You two aren't here by accident, and neither am I. If we're not pulling the strings around here, then who is?"

  The politician looked at the gangster. "There's something to what he says, you know. After all, this is Transition Three."

  "So," said Borislav, "knock it off with that tough talk and do some fresh t
hinking for once! You sound like your own grandfathers!"

  Borislav had surprised himself with this outburst. Savic, to his credit, looked embarrassed, while Ace scratched uneasily under his woolly hat. "Well, listen, Boots," said Ace at last, "even if you, and me, and your posh lawyer pal have us three nice Transition beers together, that's a River Boy sitting over there. What are we supposed to do about that?"

  "I am entirely aware of the criminal North River Syndicate," Mr. Savic told him airily. "My investigative committee has been analyzing their gang."

  "Oh, so you're analyzing, are you? They must be scared to death."

  "There are racketeering laws on the books in this country," said Savic, glowering at Ace. "When we take power and finally have our purge of the criminal elements in this society, we won't stop at arresting that one little punk in his cheap red shoes. We will liquidate his entire parasite class: I mean him, his nightclub-singer girlfriend, his father, his boss, his brothers, his cousins, his entire football club. . . . As long as there is one honest judge in this country, and there are some honest judges, there are always some. . . . We will never rest! Never!"

  "I've heard about your honest judges," Ace sneered. "You can spot 'em by the smoke columns when their cars blow up."

  "Ace, stop talking through your hat. Let me make it crystal clear what's at stake here." Borislav reached under the table and brought up a clear plastic shopping bag. He dropped it on the table with a thud.

  Ace took immediate interest. "You output a skull?"

  "Ace, this is my own skull." The kiosk scanned him every day. So Borislav had his skull on file.

  Ace juggled Borislav's skull free of the clear plastic bag, then passed it right over to the politician. "That fab is just superb! Look at the crisp detailing on those sutures!"

  "I concur. A remarkable technical achievement." Mr. Savic turned the skull upside down, and frowned. "What happened to your teeth?"

  "Those are normal."

  "You call these wisdom teeth normal?"

  "Hey, let me see those," Ace pleaded. Mr. Savic rolled Borislav's jet-black skull across the tabletop. Then he cast an over-shoulder look at his fellow politicians, annoyed that they enjoyed themselves so much without him.

  "Listen to me, Mr. Savic. When you campaigned, I put your poster up in my kiosk. I even voted for you, and—"

  Ace glanced up from the skull's hollow eye-sockets. "You vote, Boots?"

  "Yes. I'm an old guy. Us old guys vote."

  Savic faked some polite attention.

  "Mr. Savic, you're our political leader. You're a Radical Liberal Democrat. Well, we've got ourselves a pretty radical, liberal situation here. What are we supposed to do now?"

  "It's very good that you asked me that," nodded Savic. "You must be aware that there are considerable intellectual-property difficulties with your machine."

  "What are those?"

  "I mean patents and copyrights. Reverse-engineering laws. Trademarks. We don't observe all of those laws in this country of ours . . .in point of fact, practically speaking, we scarcely observe any. . . . But the rest of the world fully depends on those regulatory structures. So if you go around publicly pirating wedding china—let's just say—well, the makers of wedding china will surely get wind of that someday. I'd be guessing that you will see a civil lawsuit. Cease-and-desist, all of that."

  "I see."

  "That's just how the world works. If you damage their income, they'll simply have to sue you. Follow the money, follow the lawsuits. A simple principle, really. Although you've got a very nice little sideshow here . . . It's really brightened up the neighborhood . . .."

  Professor Damov arrived at the café. He had brought his wife, Mrs. Professor-Doctor Damov, an icy sociologist with annoying Marxist and feminist tendencies. The lady professor wore a fur coat as solid as a bank vault, and a bristling fur hat.

  Damov pointed out a black plaque on Borislav's tabletop. "I'm sorry, gentleman, but this table is reserved for us."

  "Oh," Borislav blurted. He hadn't noticed the fabbed reservation, since it was so black.

  "We're having a little party tonight," said Damov, "it's our anniversary."

  "Congratulations, sir and madame!" said Mr. Savic. "Why not sit here with us just a moment until your guests arrive?"

  A bottle of Mirko's prosecco restored general good feeling. "I'm an arts-district lawyer, after all," said Savic, suavely topping up everyone's glasses. "So, Borislav, if I were you, I would call this fabrikator an arts installation!"

  "Really? Why?"

  "Because when those humorless foreigners with their lawsuits try to make a scandal of the arts scene, that never works!" Savic winked at the professor and his wife. "We really enjoyed it, eh? We enjoyed a good show while we had it!"

  Ace whipped off his sunglasses. "It's an 'arts installation'! Wow! That is some smart lawyer thinking there!"

  Borislav frowned. "Why do you say that?"

  Ace leaned in to whisper behind his hand. "Well, because that's what we tell the River Boys! We tell them it's just an art show, then we shut it down. They stay in their old industrial district, and we keep our turf in the old arts district. Everything is cool!"

  "That's your big solution?"

  "Well, yeah," said Ace, leaning back with a grin. "Hooray for art!"

  Borislav's temper rose from a deep well to burn the back of his neck. "That's it, huh? That's what you two sorry sons of bitches have to offer the people? You just want to get rid of the thing! You want to put it out, like spitting on a candle! Nothing happens with your stupid approach! You call that a Transition? Everything's just the same as it was before! Nothing changes at all!"

  Damov shook his head. "History is always passing. We changed. We're all a year older."

  Mrs. Damov spoke up. "I can't believe your fascist, technocratic nonsense! Do you really imagine that you will improve the lives of the people by dropping some weird machine onto their street at random? With no mature consideration of any deeper social issues? I wanted to pick up some milk tonight! Who's manning your kiosk, you goldbricker? Your store is completely empty! Are we supposed to queue?"

  Mr. Savic emptied his glass. "Your fabrikator is great fun, but piracy is illegal and immoral. Fair is fair, let's face it."

  "Fine," said Borislav, waving his arms, "if that's what you believe, then go tell the people. Tell the people in this café, right now, that you want to throw the future away! Go on, do it! Say you're scared of crime! Say they're not mature enough and they have to think it through. Tell the people that they have to vote for that!"

  "Let's not be hasty," said Savic.

  "Your sordid mechanical invention is useless without a social invention," said Mrs. Damov primly.

  "My wife is exactly correct!" Damov beamed. "Because a social invention is much more than gears and circuits, it's . . .well, it's something like that kiosk. A kiosk was once a way to drink tea in a royal garden. Now it's a way to buy milk! That is social invention!" He clicked her bubbling glass with his own.

  Ace mulled this over. "I never thought of it that way. Where can we steal a social invention? How do you copy one of those?"

  These were exciting questions. Borislav felt a piercing ray of mental daylight. "That European woman, what's-her-face. She bought out my kiosk. Who is she? Who does she work for?"

  "You mean Dr. Grootjans? She is, uh . . .she's the economic affairs liaison for a European Parliamentary investigative committee."

  "Right," said Borislav at once, "that's it. Me, too! I want that. Copy me that! I'm the liaison for the investigation Parliament something stupid-or-other."

  Savic laughed in delight. "This is getting good."

  "You. Mr. Savic. You have a Parliament investigation committee."

  "Well, yes, I certainly do."

  "Then you should investigate this fabrikator. You place it under formal government investigation. You investigate it, all day and all night. Right here on the street, in public. You issue public reports. And of c
ourse you make stuff. You make all kinds of stuff. Stuff to investigate."

  "Do I have your proposal clear? You are offering your fabrikator to the government?"

  "Sure. Why not? That's better than losing it. I can't sell it to you. I've got no papers for it. So sure, you can look after it. That's my gift to the people."

  Savic stroked his chin. "This could become quite an international issue." Suddenly, Savic had the look of a hungry man about to sit at a bonfire and cook up a whole lot of sausages.

  "Man, that's even better than making it a stupid art project," Ace enthused. "A stupid government project! Hey, those last forever!"

  V

  Savic's new investigation committee was an immediate success. With the political judo typical of the region, the honest politician wangled a large and generous support grant from the Europeans—basically, in order to investigate himself.

  The fab now reformed its efforts: from consumer knickknacks to the pressing needs of the state's public sector. Jet-black fire plugs appeared in the arts district. Jet-black hoods for the broken streetlights, and jet-black manhole covers for the streets. Governments bought in bulk, so a primary source for the yellow dust was located. The fab churned busily away right in the public square, next to a railroad tanker full of feed-stock.

  Borislav returned to his kiosk. He made a play at resuming his normal business. He was frequently called to testify in front of Savic's busy committee. This resulted in Fleka the Gypsy being briefly arrested, but the man skipped bail. No one made any particular effort to find Fleka. They certainly had never made much effort before.

  Investigation soon showed that the fabrikator was stolen property from a hospital in Gdansk. Europeans had long known how to make such fabrikators: fabrikators that used carbon nanotubes. They had simply refrained from doing so.

  As a matter of wise precaution, the Europeans had decided not to create devices that could so radically disrupt a well-established political and economic order. The pain of such an act was certain to be great. The benefits were doubtful.