The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015

by Paula Guran

Funny how the Universe likes to test you on these things.

  When you date a Polymorph Adept, surprises just come with the territory. The next one arrived at breakfast time. Song had an uncharacteristically small meal, a couple eggs and toast. “Feeding frenzy comes after the transformation,” she explained.

  Somebody buzzed her call box while I was digging into a stack of pancakes. It seemed that Song’s appetite, as well as her language, had rubbed off on me. Song buzzed her visitor up and went to greet him at the door.

  I heard them talking in the other room, the easy banter of people long acquainted. I stepped out to find Song holding hands with a fifty-something Chinese man in a well-tailored suit. They conversed in rapid-fire Chinese but stopped at my approach. Song swung hands with the man. The man shot me an intense look.

  I felt off-balance and underdressed in sweatpants, T-shirt, and socks. Song looked quite comfortable with this man. She smiled at me, probably enjoying my moment of discomfort.

  “I’m Alex.”

  He gently removed Song’s hand from his, gave it an affectionate little pat, then trained his eagle eyes on me. He did not look particularly inclined to respond.

  “Are you Song’s father?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Song skipped back to the kitchen for some coffee. I started to follow her when the well-dressed man said, “You are Alex Cruz, thirty-two years of age, curator at the Field Museum of Natural History, ten-year resident of Chicago’s Gold Coast, connoisseur of fine art, and fiancé to the talented Polymorph Adept named Song.”

  I don’t intimidate easily, but this was kind of reminding me of that scene in Gladiator where Maximus advances on Comodus in the arena declaring his vow of vengeance. I might have taken a step back. There is something about wearing a pair of your girlfriend’s baggy sweatpants that makes one feel less of a man. At least I had declined her offer of bunny slippers.

  He pulled a government ID from the breast pocket of his suit and presented it like I should be impressed. Actually, I was.

  “I am Special Agent Lawrence Chen, assigned to a task force dedicated to ensuring the safety and well-being of polymorphs here in the Safe Zone city of Chicago. Song has made the decision to become romantically involved with you. She has done this against my counsel as her designated agent. I am sure you are considering yourself quite the Romeo, bagging yourself a Polymorph Adept. But to me, you are a security breach. Your ‘relationship’ with Song compounds the already formidable complexity involved in keeping an Adept safe and secure. I have to leave town on a family matter for a couple days, but make no mistake, Alex Cruz of fourteen-twenty North Lake Shore Drive, I’ve got my eye on you.”

  With that, he departed.

  Back in the kitchen, Song said, “Nice chat with Larry, my love?”

  I am not a liar.

  But sometimes tact is as important as truth.

  “Quite pleasant,” I said.

  7. A Flash of Light

  She didn’t particularly feel like morphing. The sleep-morph she underwent the previous Saturday morning had thrown her body rhythms off schedule. But no matter. One good dose of radiation and she should be on her way.

  But first, music. She programmed her system for opera highlights. Music playing, she dialed up her radioactive blast and moments later the music in her head mixed with Mozart’s Die Zauberflötte. Ironically, it was during Der Hölle Rache that some sixth sense kicked in and she knew all hell was about to break loose.

  A feeling that something was horribly wrong followed by a flash of light. That was all I remembered of the explosion, and even that might be nothing more than the story I tell myself. Did I really have a dreadful premonition or did my mind just fill in the blanks later? For that matter, the brilliant flash could also be a false memory, my mind’s symbol for the moment my world shattered.

  After that: slowly returning to life, scattered pieces of memory struggling to stitch back into a coherent whole. My eyes opening but only slightly, light so intense, voices I felt sure were talking about me but which I could not make out.

  A uniformed police officer standing nearby. Another man, this one in a rumpled suit. Another cop, a voice whispers in my brain. It’s something about his size and how he stands and the clipped way he speaks to a nurse that gives it away.

  “You’re awake,” the nurse says to me. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  I open my mouth but it feels like it’s full of glue. I try to point to the water on a tray next to my bed, but something stops me. My wrist is handcuffed to the bedrail. The nurse asks the plainclothes cop—must be a detective—if the handcuffs are necessary. The detective doesn’t answer.

  I can manage nothing but, “Song. Song. Sing Song.”

  “What’s he babbling about?” the detective asks the nurse. “What’s he saying?”

  Now it’s the nurse’s turn to not answer. Instead, she informs me that there was “an incident” and that I am in the hospital but my condition is stable.

  I start to ask questions, but she raises one finger to stop me. “Hold that thought. I’ll get Dr. Hemingway. She can answer your questions better than I can.”

  She leaves and the detective glares at me. I’m hooked up to an IV and heart monitor. I have a cast on my right arm—the one that’s not handcuffed to the bed. Other than that, I don’t feel too bad. Except for thirst. I stare pointedly at the water. The detective sees but only chuffs a little and turns away. The uniform has left the room. It’s just me and Detective Taciturn now.

  “So, you can speak,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  He shows me his shield like it’s the Holy Grail and informs me who he is. Turns out his name is Stone and he’s with the CPD Special Task Force division. Translation: he deals with cases involving polymorphs.

  “Care to tell me what happened today?”

  What happened? He’s asking me?

  “Water.”

  I struggle to sit up but feel totally drained of energy. That, the cast, and the handcuffs make it a formidable task, but I manage. I touch my head with my free hand, just to make sure there are no bandages there. My head seems okay but I feel foggy. Definitely not up to a contest of wills with this surly cop.

  I was relieved when the doctor arrived to interrupt our little stare-down. She was a very tall woman and, to my amusement, did not favor the detective with so much as a glance, but made a beeline for my bed and introduced herself. Dr. Hemingway. At any other time, her name might have intrigued me, but under the circumstances I simply didn’t care whether or not she was related to the author. Dr. Hemingway handed me a cup of water without my having to ask and I gulped it down.

  “Sip, don’t gulp,” she chided.

  The detective snorted a laugh and she spared a moment to shoot him a wicked glare before returning her attention to me.

  “Is Song alive?” I asked, as soon as my mouth rehydrated.

  “That would be the young lady you were brought in with? The other person involved in this incident?”

  Incident?

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid my access to that information is limited, and even if I did know—” She glanced over at the detective, who shot her a hard look. “There are restrictions regarding what I could divulge. I can tell you that she is in a special ward.”

  Dr. Hemingway spoke carefully and my radar went on high alert, even in my foggy state.

  “My understanding, Mr. Cruz, is that she pulled through. She survived. But there are . . . complications. Is she related to you?”

  “Yes,” I croak. “Sort of.”

  “Are you her father?”

  “What? Her father? I’m thirty-two years old. How could I be her father? She’s my fiancée.”

  At this, both the detective and Dr. Hemingway gave a start. The detective stepped up and barked, “Did you just say that girl is your fiancée?”

  “Yes.”

  “As in, you think you’re going to marry her?”

 
Polymorphs are not technically considered human, but there’s no law against marrying one. At least, I didn’t think there was. The beeping of my heart-rate monitor kicked into overdrive. Dr. Hemingway whirled on the detective and, politely but firmly, asked him to leave the room.

  “My apologies, Doctor. But when your patient is feeling better, we’re going to sit down and have us a nice little chat.”

  He slipped out and I looked to Dr. Hemingway, expecting a sympathetic smile, but no way. She had gone cold. “Your injuries have been attended to, but we’re keeping you here for observation.”

  “What more can you tell me about Song?”

  “You’re my patient, not this Song,” Dr. Hemingway informed me. “You were banged up pretty good, but nothing too severe. We’re keeping you here mostly to make sure there’s no undetected internal bleeding or other unforeseen complications. Primarily as a precaution.”

  She listed my various and sundry injuries: fractured right radius, dislocated right shoulder, broken ribs, a few scrapes and contusions.

  “I’ve had you on a morphine drip to curb pain, but I’m discontinuing it. You’ve had enough.”

  I tried to pump her for details about what happened and when I could see Song but Dr. Hemingway was not in the least interested in helping me out. It really seemed her attitude had soured right about the time I declared my engagement to Song. I was getting nowhere.

  Finally, I just sighed and said, “Apparently, somebody arrested me when I was out cold. I’m pretty sure my rights have been violated. Do you think you could ask the good detective out there to uncuff me?”

  The doctor looked down on me as if I were a bacterial culture.

  “The detective does not tell me how to perform my duties,” she said, her voice ice. “I will not deign to instruct him in his.”

  With that, she pivoted smartly and stalked out of the room. I could already feel the last of the morphine drip wearing off and a throbbing pain spreading throughout my body.

  8. A Living Hell

  “How is he, how is Alex, is he okay, is he okay?”

  A nurse assured her that yes, the man she came in with was fine, a little banged up is all. She sighed and fell into a deep sleep. But even in sleep, she worked. She knew her every internal organ intimately and now she went around to each: mending, healing, renewing.

  She had been at her most vulnerable when the bomb went off, and yet she managed to survive. The bomb had been installed in the antechamber, not in the morphing pod itself. That made sense: it would be easier to hide it there, as there were no cameras. Anytime somebody stepped foot in the morphing pod, the security cameras clicked on.

  But it wasn’t that big of a bomb. Was the bomber incompetent or simply not trying to actually kill her? She felt oddly sure that killing her was not the intent. Nor was injuring her the real goal. It didn’t make sense, and yet she felt she should somehow know, that there was some nugget of information just outside her awareness, taunting her.

  The blast had blown through the door into the pod one way, and also through the other door to her apartment. If the bomb had been in the pod, she would probably have been killed.

  As it was, she had lost body mass but not vital organs. She didn’t lose anything she could not regrow. Having less mass, she took on a smaller form, her “default” form, as she thought of it. It had taken her time, of course. When she was brought into the ER, she didn’t even appear human. Not that she was, technically, human.

  “I want to see him,” she told the nurse. “How do I look?”

  The nurse scrutinized her.

  “Young lady, you look like trouble.”

  Time passes slowly when you’re wide awake and in pain. For me, it dragged so much that I was actually delighted when surly old Detective Stone returned. Anything for a diversion.

  He got right down to business.

  “We’re taking you to her. She’s in a secure ward of the hospital. We need you to identify her.”

  By “we,” he meant him and the nurse, who stood by with a wheelchair. Stone released me from the handcuffs. About damn time!

  “Identify her? What, does she have amnesia? Is she conscious?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “You do know what she is, right?”

  “What, that she’s a polymorph? Yes.”

  Again, Stone gave his trademark snorting laugh.

  I had other questions but he wasn’t answering. The nurse helped me into the wheelchair. I was glad to no longer be hooked up to an IV or heart monitor. Unfortunately, I was still in a hospital gown, which is very close to being naked. I would have asked for my clothes but Song was all I cared about.

  We rolled out of there and took an elevator to twelve. My heart hammered. We came to the “secure ward;” the nurse and detective had to present ID to an armed guard at the door.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Two things,” snapped Stone. “One, extra security precautions are always taken for cases involving her kind. Our tax dollars at work. Second, the nature of the crime perpetrated.”

  “The bomb, you mean.”

  “Considered a terrorist act. Or, at the least, a hate crime.”

  Was I a suspect? It had to look suspicious, with me being in her condo on the night of the explosion. Maybe the only other guest she ever had. I could easily have looked over her shoulder when she punched in her security codes. If I were a cop, I damn sure would have suspected me.

  But I really didn’t care about that. I just wanted to see Song.

  Finally, we passed through the security station and down a hall toward Song’s room. My heart thundered along.

  “Just to clarify one more time,” said Detective Stone, outside the room of my soul mate. “What did you say the nature of your relationship is with the girl?”

  “We’re engaged.”

  “Engaged. I see. And so you two were lovers?”

  Were?

  “Is that any of your business?”

  “It’s very important, Mr. Cruz.”

  “Really.”

  We had stopped outside her room, and it appeared I wasn’t going any further until the good detective had his answers.

  “So. The nature of your relationship was a sexual one?”

  It wasn’t any of his business and under different circumstances I damn sure would have told him as much. But pain thrummed through my body and I was sitting in a wheelchair covered with nothing more than a skimpy piece of fabric (I would have given just about anything for Song’s baggy sweatpants right about then), and it appeared the only way I would get to see my fiancée was to answer his question.

  “Yes,” I finally said. “It’s a sexual relationship. We’re in love.”

  “Well, I thank you for your honesty,” Stone said and opened the door to Song’s room. The nurse pushed me inside and there she was.

  Nobody had prepared me for what I saw.

  She sat up in bed and smiled. She looked quite healthy, though the big sunglasses seemed odd.

  “She has a touch of photosensitivity,” explained a doctor, noticing my gaze.

  But it wasn’t the sunglasses that shocked me to my core. It was her. So small, so innocent. If I had seen her on the street and had to guess her age, I would have said twelve.

  “So let me ask you again,” said Stone, stepping up beside me. “This is the girl with whom you carried on a sexual relationship?”

  Was it her? Could it be her? She was so small.

  She was a sweet-looking, preteen Chinese child.

  She smiled at me and said, “Come here to shanghai me, did you, Alex, my love?”

  It was her voice, no mistaking that.

  “I—”

  “Let me ask you this,” said Stone. “Just how old is your little girlfriend there?”

  “She’s—”

  I stopped. How old was she, anyway? I really didn’t know. Song had an infuriating way of dancing around personal questions. Even after all these months plus an engagement, I simp
ly didn’t know how old she was.

  Song laughed long and hard.

  “Alex, get over here!” she squealed. “Oh, never mind, I’ll come to you.”

  She bounded from her hospital bed and plunked herself right into my lap. I recoiled. Stone made a gravelly, grinding sound in his throat. There was nothing between this child and myself except flimsy fabric. I tried to push her away but, despite having just survived the blast of a bomb, Song was still strong.

  The nurse snapped, “Little miss, please return to your bed.”

  “Oh, but I was so worried about my Alex!” she said, and squirmed around on my lap. “And I bet he was worried about his little Asian Lolita, too!”

  “Lolita?” said Stone. “I was given to understand your name was—”

  He pulled his notepad from one pocket.

  “Song.”

  “She’s kidding,” I said. “She’s making a Nabokov reference.”

  “Nabokov?”

  “Vladimir Nabokov?”

  Stone jotted down a note.

  Again, Song squealed with laughter.

  “I keep telling you people, I’m twenty-seven! I’ll give you my Polymorph ID number and you can confirm it. Get in touch with Agent Chen, he’ll tell you. I just look like this because, well, I lost some body mass. I had to grow a smaller body and this is sort of my default form. It was the simplest, easiest thing to revert to. This is what I looked like when I was a kid. Adorable, isn’t it?”

  Relief washed through my body. I was still not comfortable having this child-woman on my lap in front of all these people, but at least I wasn’t a criminal.

  Song recited her Polymorph ID number and Stone wrote it down in his notepad.

  “I’ll have to check the National Registry to confirm your story.” He turned to step out the door but, like Peter Falk in all those Columbo episodes, turned back at the last second. “Oh, one more thing. I’ll also need to talk to this Vladimir Nabokov. Any idea where I might find him?”

  “I will make your life more intense and more interesting than you can imagine. I will also make it a living hell.”

  One thing about Song, she always tells the truth and she always keeps her promises. I chalked the whole “Lolita Incident” up as yet another Sing Song Moment. A very big Sing Song moment. Detective Stone contacted the National Polymorph Registry and confirmed Song’s identity, and got that whole mess cleared up. It disturbed me just how much Song appeared to be getting off on my discomfort, but then again her personality did tend to change with each incarnation, and this incarnation was a radical departure from her usual, and she had been through a horrible trauma.