The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24

by Gardner Dozois

  “Wade Tanner,” said Lucas.

  Surprised, Gatlin straightened his back. “How did you know?”

  “We had a hint,” said Pete, and then he couldn’t talk anymore.

  Nobody was talking. Nobody reacted or moved, except for Gatlin who was embarrassed to have his awful news stolen from him. Besides the wind, the only sound was a soft low moan rising from nowhere.

  Then Sarah closed her mouth, and the moaning stopped.

  Downtown fights to wake up. City buses roll past on their way to still-empty stops. Bank tellers move through darkened lobbies while bank machines count piles of electronic money. Apartment lights come on, but the hotels have never been dark, filled with anxious refugees living on the government plan. A pair of long-haul boxes point in opposite directions, burning soybean juice to keep sleeping travelers warm. Out from the bus station comes a bearded man wearing a fine suit and carrying an I-tablet. Except the suit is filthy, both knees looking like they have been dragged through grease, and the tablet is dead, and talking in a loud crazed voice, he says, “Stop being proud. Accept Satan as our leader, and let’s build a clean, efficient Hell.”

  The pace lifts, the group crossing into the old ware house district. Concrete turns to cobblestone and black scabs of asphalt. Low brick buildings have been reborn as bars and pawnshops and coffee shops, plus one little store dedicated to runners. Dropping to the floodplain, the street ends with a massive stone building from the 19th Century. In one form or another, this place has always served as the city’s train station. Half a dozen travelers are waiting with their luggage, hoping for the morning westbound, and the little boy in the group gives the runners a big wave, saying, “Hey there. Hi.”

  Nobody talks. The group turns south, gloom following them into Germantown. Warehouses give way to little houses, and they turn right, pointed west again, and the pace lifts another notch.

  “Slow down,” says Pete.

  Nobody listens. Runners and the street cross an abandoned set of railroad tracks. Little twists of vapor mark their breathing, shoes slapping at the pavement. Then comes the Amtrak line, and that’s when the houses start to wear down. Cars sporting out-of-state plates are parked on brown lawns. A solitary drunk stands at a corner, calmly waiting for the race to pass before he staggers a little closer to what might be home. The final house has been reborn as a church, its walls painted candy colors and holy words written in Vietnamese. That’s where the street ends. A barbed wire fence breaks where a thin trail snakes up through flattened prairie grass. The sky is dawn-blue with a few clouds. And somebody is running on top of the levee: A narrow male with tall legs and long arms carried high. It’s a pretty stride. Not Lucas-pretty, but efficient. Strong. The man’s legs are bare and pale. He wears a long-sleeved t-shirt, gray and tight, and maybe a second layer underneath. White butcher gloves cover big hands, and riding the head is a black baseball cap set backwards, the brim tucked low over the long neck.

  As if their legs have been cut out from under them, people stumble to a halt.

  “What’s he doing here?” says Sarah.

  Crouse is first to say, “Jaeger.” Normally easygoing, almost sweet, Slow Doug puts on a sour face and says, “That prick.”

  “What is he doing?” Masters says.

  “Running, by the looks of it,” says Pete.

  Jaeger is cruising south on the levee road, heading upstream. The other runners stand in shadow, but he is lit up by the dawn, his gaze fixed straight ahead, the sharp face showing in profile.

  “So what?” says Audrey. “We’ll just run the other way.”

  “I’m not,” says Pete.

  People glance at each other, saying nothing.

  Starting toward the fence and trail, Pete says, “I don’t change plans for murdering assholes.”

  Gatlin and Varner fall in behind him.

  Lucas turns to Audrey. “Want to go back?”

  She pulls off her hat and a mitten, running her hand through her short, short hair. “Maybe.”

  “We can’t just stand here,” says Masters.

  “I’m not turning around,” says Sarah, short legs working, the ponytail jumping and swishing.

  Crouse trots after her. Then Audrey sighs and says, “I guess,” and catches them before the fence.

  “This is stupid,” says Masters. But then he starts chasing.

  Lucas stands motionless. Nobody can run out of sight on him, except Jaeger. Maybe. He has time to pull off a mitten and wipe his mouth, ice already clinging to his little beard. Then he touches his phone to wake it, pulling up the familiar number with an eye and placing his call.

  “How’s the run going?” says Wade.

  Lucas doesn’t talk.

  “I see where you are,” Wade says. “Are we running the creek today?”

  “We’re supposed to.”

  “So why aren’t you moving, Lucas?”

  “Jaeger’s up ahead.”

  There is a pause, a long breath of nothing before the voice returns. “You know what I want,” Wade says. “I told you what I want. Find out who killed me, okay?”

  Four

  Wade was five days dead.

  The heat and drought had returned, and the Saturday group met long before the Y opened. Standing in the broiling darkness, they said very little. Even Harris was playing the silent monk. One minute after six they took off to the east, aiming for Jewel College. Harris grabbed the lead, Lucas claimed the empty ground between him and the pack. Then Crouse put on a surge, catching Lucas. “Have you tried Wade’s number?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Maybe you’re curious,” Crouse said.

  “Not usually,” said Lucas.

  “Well, you can’t get through. Voicemail answers, but even if you leave a message, the backup can’t call you back.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s evidence,” Crouse said. “And maybe he’s a witness. That’s why they’ve got him bottled up.”

  “I forgot. You’re a cop.”

  “No.” The man hesitates, laughs. “But remember my sister-in-law?”

  “The gal with black hair and that big bouncy ass,” Lucas said.

  “She’s a police officer.”

  “That too.”

  “Anyway, she’s got this habit. She has to tell my wife everything.”

  “Okay. Now I’m curious.”

  Crouse was running hard. Whenever he talked, he first had to gather up enough air. “Wade ran for Jewel.”

  Lucas glanced at him. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Came here on a scholarship. Able recruited him. Wade was the big star for the first year. Then this other guy showed.”

  “Carl Jaeger,” said Lucas.

  “You probably know the whole story,” said Crouse, disappointed.

  “Wade told it a couple times. Every day.”

  “Know where the coach found Jaeger?”

  “In Chicago, in rehab. There were legal hoops, getting him out from under some old charges. But the kid had ruled Illinois during high school, and that’s why Able brought him here. He wanted Jaeger to be his big dog, to help put Jewel on the map.”

  Crouse nodded, fighting to hold the pace.

  Lucas slowed. “You’re new to this group. You didn’t know. But Wade and Jaeger never liked each other.”

  “What about the girl?” Crouse said.

  Lucas said, “Yeah.” But then he realized that he didn’t know what they were talking about. “What girl?”

  “Wade’s girlfriend in college. Jaeger got her. Stole her and got her pregnant and even married her for a couple years.”

  “What’s her name?” Lucas said.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear that part. But the virtual Wade remembers everything.” Crouse was happy, finding something fresh to offer. “The police department brought in specialists to sort through the files, the software. The AI business. The technology’s been around for a few years, but the experts haven’t seen a backup with this much in
formation.”

  “That’s Wade,” said Lucas. “Mr. Detail.”

  “He kept training logs,” said Crouse.

  “Some of us do.”

  “You?”

  “Never.”

  Crouse found fresh speed in his legs. “Wade’s logs are different. They reach back to the day he started running, when he was eight. And there’s a lot more than miles and times buried in them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sleep. Dreams. Breakfasts. And what he and his friends talked about during the run – word for word, sometimes. And he spends a lot of file space hating Carl Jaeger.”

  The girl news was unexpected. Lucas thought about it for a minute. Then he said, “So what’s happening? Are the cops looking at Carl?”

  “Oh, I’m not saying like that,” said Crouse, reaching that point where his legs were shaky-weak. “I just thought you’d be interested in what’s happening. That’s all.”

  Runners are strung out along the levee. On the left little houses turn into body shops and junkyards and a sad pair of gray-white grain elevators. Ash Creek runs on their right, the channel gouged deep and straight and shouldered with pale limestone boulders. Fresh thin ice covers the shallow water. Pete and Gatlin run in front, Varner tucked into their slipstream. Snatches of angry conversation drift back. With a big arm, Pete points toward Jaeger. He curses, and Gatlin glances back at the others. Then the leaders slow, forcing the others to drift closer.

  “I can’t believe this,” Masters says. “Why would the man run this course?”

  “He likes the route,” Lucas says, his legs deciding to leap ahead, quick feet kicking back gravel.

  Crouse hears the stride coming. “Hey, Lucas,” he says. And a moment later, he is passed.

  The women are shoulder-to-shoulder. Audrey says a few words, laughing alone. Then she looks back at Lucas, her smile working. “What are those boys proving?”

  “Don’t know,” Lucas says.

  Audrey says, “Men,” and laughs again.

  Lucas runs on the grass beside them. Pete is forty yards ahead and surging, body tilting and arms churning. Nobody in that trio talks, every whisper of oxygen saved for the legs.

  “Look at them,” says Audrey.

  “What about them?” Sarah says, her voice small and tight.

  “They won’t catch Carl,” says Audrey.

  “The man was in jail,” Sarah says. “For months.”

  Audrey’s face stiffens. “We’re talking about Carl. There’s no way they can close that gap.”

  Jaeger’s legs and lungs are almost lost in the sunshine. But he isn’t increasing his lead. Maybe he’s starting out on a lazy twenty and holding back. Or he knows they’re following him, and he just wants a little fun.

  Lucas glances at Audrey.

  “You don’t have to chase,” she says, her voice sharp.

  He surges.

  “Please, Lucas. Be careful.”

  The man who sold shoes to every athlete in town was lying inside a closed box, waiting to be set into the ground, and the church was full of skinny people and beefy old friends, with a few distant relatives sitting up front, hoping for a piece of the Wade pie. Everybody made sorry sounds about the circumstances. Every male tried to spot the ex-girlfriends in the audience. Wade was no beauty, but he had a genius for pretty girls who fell for charm and little hints of marriage. There were maybe a dozen exes in the crowd, some crying for what had happened and others for what hadn’t. Lucas and Pete were pallbearers. They served with cousins and college buddies who didn’t know them from a can of paint. It was a cousin who mentioned that the cops were done with the backup. He said anybody could call the machine and it was almost fun, talking to a voice that remembered when you were ten-years-old and sitting together at Thanksgiving, watching relatives get drunk and funny.

  Lucas did call Wade’s old number. But not right away and only twice and both times was surprised by the busy signal. Then he tried after midnight and got thrown straight into voicemail. Which pissed him off. Not that he was hungry for this chat, but it was sure to happen and why did things have to be so difficult?

  His phone rang during next morning’s coffee. “You know what surprises me? It’s the strangers who read an obit and think it’s neat, calling you for no reason but to chat. And it’s not just local voices either. This is the big new hobby, I’m learning. Dial the afterlife. Listen to a ghost telling stories.”

  “How you doing?” Lucas said.

  The backup said, “I’m busy. And that’s a good thing.”

  “What’s ‘busy’ mean?”

  “Well, I’m running again. For instance.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “I’ve got video files, and I’ve built all of our favorite courses. The hills, the effort levels. How my body responds to perceived workouts. I can change the weather however I want it. You’d be amazed how real it looks and feels. And the food here doesn’t taste too wrong. Of course the sense of smell needs work, but that’s probably good news. When it’s polypro season.”

  Then Wade stopped talking, forcing Lucas to react. “Is that why I’m getting busy signals? You’re making new friends?”

  “And talking to people you know.”

  “But you’re fast. Computers are. Why can’t you yabber to a thousand mouths at once?”

  “Some of my functions are fast. Scary fast, sure. But right now, talking to you, my AI software has to work flat-out just to keep up.” Part of the software made lung noises. Wade took a pretend breath, and then he said, “I still need sleep, by the way. Which is why I didn’t pick up last night.”

  Lucas didn’t talk.

  “So tell me, Lucas. In your head, what am I? A machine, a program, or a man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Actually, I’m none of those things.”

  “Because you’re a ghost.”

  The laughter rattled on. “No, no. In the eyes of the law, I’m an intellectual foundation. That’s a new kind of trust reserved for backups. I’ve been registered with a friendly nation that has some very compassionate laws, and to maintain my sentient status, I have to keep enough money in the local bank.”

  Lucas said nothing.

  The silence ended with a big sigh. Then the intellectual foundation said, “So, Lucas? Do you have any idea who killed me?”

  A little too quickly, Lucas said, “No.”

  Another pause. Then Wade said, “It was a nice funeral.”

  “You watched?”

  “Several people streamed it to me. You did a nice job, Lucas.”

  It was peculiar, how much those words mattered. Lucas took his own breath, real and deep, and then he said, “You know, I am sober.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Since the party, I haven’t had a taste.”

  Uncomfortable sighs kept the silence away. Then a tight quick voice said, “Tell me that in another year. Tell it to me thirty years from today. A couple weeks without being shit-faced? I think it’s early to start calling that good news.”

  The lead pack works, but Lucas catches them easily. Legs eat the distance, the lungs blow themselves clean, and he tucks in behind Pete, shortening his stride and measuring their bodies. Nobody talks, but the men trade looks and the group slows, making ready for the next miserable surge.

  The levee curls west toward the bypass and dives under the bridge. Jaeger has vanished. He isn’t below, and he’s not up on the highway either. They follow the levee road down, gravel replaced with pale frozen clay. The air turns colder, tasting like wet concrete. Water sounds bounce off the underside of the bridge. Then the road yanks left and starts a long climb.

  Jaeger is above them, and then he is gone.

  Pete curses. Sweat bleeds through his windbreaker and freezes, a little white forest growing on his back.

  Topping the levee, they hold their effort, gaining speed on the flat. But the road is empty. Except nodding brown grass, nothing moves, and there isn’t anybod
y to chase.

  The pack slows.

  “Look,” Varner says. “That pipe.”

  The sewer pipe is fat and black, jutting out of the levee’s shoulder, a thin trickle of oily runoff dripping. Jaeger stands on the pipe, facing the stream. With his shorts yanked down, he holds himself with both hands, aiming long, urine splashing in the oil.

  Pete pulls up. The rest of the group stops behind him, watching. Then Jaeger turns towards them and shakes himself dry before yanking up his underwear and then the shorts.

  “Let’s please turn,” says Audrey.

  No one else talks.

  Jaeger climbs back to the road, watching them.

  “Hey, asshole,” says Pete. “Hey.”

  The last months have taken a toll. Jaeger’s face remains lean, but wrinkles have worked into his features. The short black hair shows white. He breathes harder than normal. Forty-three years old, and for the first time anyone can recall, he looks his age.

  “I don’t like this,” says Masters.

  Pete laughs. “What are worried about?”

  Jaeger’s body turns away, but not his face.

  “There’s eight of us,” says Pete.

  “What’s that mean?” Crouse says.

  “Depends,” Pete says, his bulldog face challenging them. “We’re here, and that man is standing over there. And he beat our friend to death with a chunk of concrete.”

  Jaeger starts running, the first strides short.

  Audrey shakes her head. “What are we doing?”

  Sarah knows.

  “We’re just following the man,” Sarah says, her voice slow and furious. “Jaeger can’t be in great shape. But we are. So we’ll keep close and talk to him, and maybe he’ll say something true.”

  Five

  Lucas rode to the airport, the chain clicking. A gray-haired woman handed him the entry form, and he filled in the blanks slowly, paying the late fee with two twenties. Then he pinned the race number to his shorts and strapped the chip to his right shoe, and the new t-shirt ended up tied beneath the seat of his bike.

  The pre-race mood was quiet, grim. Conversations were brief. Race-day rituals were performed with sluggish discipline. The normally bouncy voice on the PA system growled at the world, warning that only twenty minutes were left until the gun. Bikes don’t get bodies ready to run. Lucas started running easy through the mostly empty parking lots, past a terminal that looked pretty much shut down, and that’s when a tall man stepped from behind an Alleycat Dumpster.