The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015

by Paula Guran

  The question of who set the bomb still hung in the air like a black fog. I sure as hell didn’t have an alibi: I was right there at her place. Not only that, but it was on record that I had actually been inside Song’s morphing pod just the day before. Cameras roll whenever somebody sets foot inside.

  Song set aside her giggly Lolita persona and worked hard to convince Stone, and a whole squadron of other law enforcement personnel who showed up in the secured hospital ward, that I didn’t have any reason to harm her.

  “Really, Detectives, think about it. If you were dating a chick who grew you a different hot body every week and used said hot body to fuck your brains out, would you try to blow her up?”

  The law enforcement people looked at what their minds told them was a preteen girl, and they looked at me and I could almost hear prison bars clanging shut behind me. Her Lolita persona chose that moment to rear its darling little head and she said, “Alex, get on over here and give me a kiss! I know you would never try to hurt me, not after all the fun we’ve had!”

  My fractured arm throbbed and my ribs felt as if they had been body-slammed by a mastodon. The ward was crawling with medical personnel, but they, quite rightly, were intently focused on Song’s well-being and not inclined to slide me any pain meds.

  At one point, they sent for Dr. Hemingway, and she came to the ward just long enough to discharge me from the hospital. At this, Stone’s eyes lit right up because now he was free to haul me off to the police station for a right proper interrogation. That “nice little chat” he had promised.

  “He’s innocent!” Song screamed at him. “And, in any case, I won’t press charges!”

  But she didn’t have the final say about that. This was considered a terrorist act and/or hate crime. Oh, and also, Detective Stone really just didn’t like me.

  I turned back to steal one more glance at Song. She tried to run to me as Stone read me my rights, but a doctor caught her and held her back. Her sunglasses flew off.

  Her eyes were no longer blue but soft brown.

  I was wheeled away even as Song screamed for them to stop.

  9. Anything For Father

  Agent Chen had been summoned from his own mother’s sickbed to return to Chicago on an emergency of a classified nature. He stepped into the station jet-lagged and weary and annoyed as hell. I couldn’t say that I blamed him. I was stuck in an interrogation room while jurisdictional pissing contests raged over whether this was a local matter, a federal terrorist case, or a hate crime.

  Stone and Chen both strode into the interrogation room.

  “This is one big cluster-fuck,” Stone growled. “But thank your lucky stars that Special Agent Chen has been kind enough to clear it up. At least, he’s cleared it up for you.”

  Then he spoke the words he must have hated the most: “You’re free to go. But you’re going to want to stay.”

  “Did you find out who did it?” I asked.

  Stone and Chen exchanged looks. Stone gave a dismissive wave and stepped out. Chen sat at the table across from me and rested his head in hands.

  “Yes, Alex. The case has been solved. Mostly. But I have to tell you: you are really not going to be happy about what we found. I’m sure not.”

  Dr. Hemingway had been gracious enough to prescribe me Vicodin. That took the edge off my physical pain but my nerves were shot. I had been blown up, rushed to the hospital, interrogated, accused of being a sexual predator, accused of being a terrorist, hauled off to the police station, and finally released. Oh, and the last time I looked in the eyes of my beloved fiancée, I did not recognize her. And now, Special Agent Chen had just informed me that some new turn of events would really upset me.

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “Now the tables are turned,” he said. “You are no longer a suspect in this case but the victim.”

  “Not as much as Song.”

  Chen gave me a look I simply could not read.

  “You said the case had been solved.”

  “Actually, I said mostly solved. There’s still a lot we don’t know.”

  “But you know who tried to kill Song.”

  “We know who set the bomb.”

  “And the bomb was meant for her, right? I mean, it wasn’t some nut-job out to kill me.”

  “It was meant for her. Or you. Or both of you.”

  “Well, I’m glad everything’s so crystal clear.”

  Chen held up a finger and stepped out of the interrogation room. He spoke to somebody: “You can bring her in here. I think we’re ready.”

  A moment later, a uniformed officer led Song into the interrogation room. Her arms were bound to her body in a straitjacket. The officer motioned her to a seat. I tried to recognize her but simply could not see my fiancée. I saw, instead, a frightened brown-eyed child.

  “The restraints are necessary, I’m afraid,” Chen said. “Handcuffs are not deemed sufficient for Polymorph Adepts. I’m sorry, that’s the law.”

  I had no words. My head spun, my fractured arm throbbed, and I was on the verge of being physically sick. This was just not real. The uniformed officer left and Detective Stone stepped in. So it was me, Chen, Stone, and a straitjacketed Asian Lolita. One big, dysfunctional family.

  “She, or he, or whatever, has waived rights to counsel,” Stone said.

  Chen just nodded.

  I was the one to finally break the silence.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  Song whispered, “Go ahead. Show him.”

  Chen started to object but she snapped, “Do it. Please. He has a right to know.”

  Chen looked to Stone, who set a laptop computer on the table. He shook his head, cued something up on the computer, and spun it around to face me. A video played: Song, in her previous incarnation as the Plain Jane I had such kinky fun with, was stepping into her morphing pod.

  “Notice the time stamp,” Chen said.

  It was late Friday night, early Saturday morning. Right after our incredible date.

  “An unscheduled and unauthorized transformation,” Chen informed me.

  “It was a sleep morph, Alex,” the little girl said. “I didn’t know what I was doing. He just took over.”

  He? Who the hell was “he”? Who took over what?

  In the video, she lost control of her muscles just as she described: like a fish flopping around on a hardwood floor. I remembered her telling me this was an intimate act. I started to turn away when Chen said, “I think we can fast-forward here.” He pushed a button and, thankfully, the process whirred by. He stopped the fast-forward just as Song was standing up as a new person, a handsome Chinese boy, naked and covered in that slime Song told me was the by-product of the transformation process.

  The boy stepped out of the morphing pod and the video stopped.

  I turned away from the screen and could not bring myself to look at Song or Chen or Stone.

  “There is more,” Chen said.

  The video started again, this time with the boy stepping into the morphing pod. According to the time stamp, it was later that same morning. The boy Song opened the panel she had shown me. He was carrying a few tools and a small device of some sort. I was confused for a few seconds, but it soon became clear what he was doing. He unscrewed the panel and installed the device out of sight.

  “No.”

  “The bomb was installed in the antechamber,” Chen said, “But the detonator he put in the pod itself. The radiation triggered the detonator.”

  Stone growled, “But why not put the bomb in the room as well? Seems like it would have been more effective that way.”

  Song spoke up then: “He wasn’t trying to kill me.”

  “You say ‘he’ like he isn’t you,” Stone said.

  “I wasn’t aware of him. I thought he was long gone. I felt him stirring, but I didn’t have any idea he would do something like this. Alex, please don’t hate me. I didn’t know!”

  “Just what, then, was he or you trying to accompl
ish?” Chen asked.

  “Agent Chen, you are like a father to me, but I’m not prepared to answer that.”

  “What I want to know,” said Stone, “Is where the hell this kid came from.”

  “That I will answer,” said Song. “But first, you might want to get a cup of coffee. And you, dear Alex, might want to pop another Vicodin. You’re pale as a ghost.”

  Even as a trussed-up little child, Song had a way of captivating an audience when she wanted to. She did that now.

  “Until I was seven, my life was fairly normal. Nobody knew I had the double gene required to be a polymorph. For that matter, nobody really knew much about polymorphs. We were just another family. In a lot of ways, my parents were very traditional, very old school, as you white devils like to say.”

  She giggled. Despite being bound in a straitjacket in an interrogation room, she actually giggled.

  “Father was demanding, maybe even harsh at times, but that was all I knew, and I was happy. At least, as far as I recall. I liked knowing my place and knowing what was expected of me. Father’s love didn’t come easy, so when it did come, I trusted it. I had earned it. When I was seven, I started spontaneously morphing. Nothing big, just a few minor alterations here and there. My fingers would grow really long, or I’d wake up all fat. Stuff like that. My parents took me to hospital. Polymorphs were just being discovered then, only occasionally cropping up in the population, mostly in China. They tested me and, lo and behold, I had the double gene. Lucky me.

  “They took me away from my parents and stuck me in a lab. Don’t look so horrified, Alex. Really, you watch too many B sci-fi movies. Actually, it was a research hospital. It was horrible. All that ice cream they fed me. Doctors from all over the world doting on me and treating me like I was a person, even though I was a girl. I actually came to really like hospitals. The staff there was my family.”

  I said, “What about your parents?”

  “Oh, the government paid them pretty good, so they were happy.”

  “Were they allowed to visit?”

  “What, are you envisioning men in biohazard suits hauling me off to some remote military compound? It was a hospital, for the most part, with a bit of extra security. Anybody could come by. But why would they? This is China we’re talking about. I was a girl. My parents were happy and I was happy. Plus, the government told my parents that if the research hospital needed to keep me long-term, they could have another child. China has a strict policy about excessive procreation. My father was ecstatic; they could try for a boy and restore the family honor. But the research lab decided it would be cruel to keep me any longer and so they gave me back after only a year, and life went on. Only things were different. I mean, between my father and me. He still demanded complete obedience, but he also encouraged me to excel in school. As if I were a boy. So I studied like hell, learned languages and read literature and even did pretty good in math. I loved geometry, did I ever mention that, Alex?”

  What’s the geometric equation for the ultimate ass? Song had asked me. It felt like ages ago. Would we ever find our way back to that life?

  “I morphed a bit, but kept basically the same face. Life went on. Then, when I was twelve, the telltale sign of a true Adept kicked in. Agent Chen, you know what I’m talking about. Alex, you have any idea what that telltale sign might be?”

  It came to me in a flash: “Your eyes.”

  “Bravo! Yes, my eyes turned from brown to blue. The blue eyes you fell for that first night at the Field Museum. My morphing ability started to really kick into high gear at that point. I was afraid my father was going to disown me for being a freak. Old School and all that, remember. But instead he seemed to love me even more. I didn’t know why. I have a genius IQ but I was really, really stupid. I never saw it coming.”

  “Saw what coming?” Stone said.

  “I would do anything for my father. I was raised to please a man and I still like to please the man in my life. I never considered it to be a bad thing. I liked being a girl. I’ve always been a girl at heart. So what he asked of me—”

  She trailed off and everyone sat silent, waiting.

  “He saw what I could do, how I was gaining more and more control of my morphing ability. We had a morphing pod installed in our home, one of the first ever constructed. One day he asked me to be a boy. He had always wanted a boy. Could I give him that? Would I bless him with that gift?”

  “My God,” Stone said.

  I felt sick.

  Stone actually got up, came around behind Song, and undid the straps of her straitjacket. He removed the hideous garment and tossed it aside. Song thanked him and moved her arms around, getting her circulation back. Even Detective Stone had a heart, apparently.

  “I did what he asked. I hated it, but he was my father and so I became the boy you saw in the video. Xiang was his name. My family was doing well at this point and so Father brought in a teacher for me so I wouldn’t have to attend school. Things went well, for the most part. I didn’t like being a boy, but Father was happy and that was important. Then one night I sleep-morphed. I blacked out and when I came to I was in the morphing pod and I was a girl again. When Father saw me, he was furious and demanded I turn back right away. But I couldn’t. I had just transformed and there was no way I could morph again so soon. Not back then. It takes tremendous energy and I was still immature as a polymorph. Father demanded I hide myself so he wouldn’t have to look at me. I did him one better. I ran away and never saw my parents or Shanghai again.”

  “And Xiang?” Chen said.

  “Father had me be Xiang for over a year. Good-looking boy, don’t you think? But I hated being a boy, it never felt right. I put him away and I really, truly, honestly thought that was the last of him. I thought of him as just another face I wore, not as a separate personality waiting to take over. But that’s what he was, that one day when I sleep-morphed.”

  Chen let out a long, whistling sigh.

  “Did I mention this whole case is one big cluster-fuck?” Stone rumbled. “Just where do we go from here? We’ve got all the facts laid out nice and neat as you please, but we’re in uncharted territory. Of course, there is one big question that remains.”

  “Oh, you mean why?” said Song. “Why would Xiang rig a bomb to hit me when I was at my most vulnerable?”

  “You said he wasn’t trying to kill you,” said Chen.

  “He wasn’t.”

  She looked at each of us in turn before making her pronouncement.

  “But I have said enough. I am now claiming my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.”

  And so she said nothing more.

  10. A Civil Conversation

  The wheels of justice rolled their way slowly through the case. I sure as hell wasn’t about to press charges. It could no longer be considered a terrorist act or a hate crime (unless it was a self-hate crime). Property damage had been done to the condominium, but that was about it.

  New accommodations were found for Song, who was put under house arrest and monitored very closely to ensure Xiang did not reappear. The whole incident was, as Stone so eloquently put it, a cluster-fuck of a case.

  I was allowed to visit her during house arrest. I took advantage of the privilege one time. She was in a variation of her Little Asian Lolita form when I arrived at her sparsely furnished new condo.

  “I’m still growing, Alex. Feeding frenzy every day, lots of government cheese. It’s a slow process, rebuilding lost mass.”

  She still looked twelve.

  “But you could make yourself appear older.”

  “Maybe I like being a child again,” she said. “I feel like a child, in a way. Everything I’ve been through? I got scared. Come, sit on the couch with me. Does your arm still hurt?”

  She tapped my cast with her knuckles.

  “It’s not bad,” I said. “Cast comes off soon, then I’ll just have to wear a brace.”

  I sat with her and she snuggled up to me. I put my arm, the unbroken
one, around her and kissed the top of her head. I wanted to protect her from the world. I wanted her to be happy. She looked up at me with soft brown eyes.

  She pulled me in for a kiss. I pulled back.

  “I can’t. Song, you’re a little girl.”

  “I only look like a little girl. Come on, you nasty pervert. Enjoy yourself. I have a perfectly functional cunt.”

  My heart thundered in my chest as I leaned into her. I saw a child, a twelve-year-old girl, even as I kept reminding myself that this was Song, my sweet Sing Song, the woman I loved, my fiancée.

  Our faces came together. I looked into her eyes and she gazed back at me. We were so close I could feel her heat.

  She’s a child! A little girl!

  A wave of revulsion washed through me and I pushed her away and bolted across the condo. She came for me and I actually tripped over a stool trying to get away. She was on top of me in a second, pressing her mouth to mine. I fought her off. It wasn’t easy. My arm was almost useless and Song was always incredibly strong.

  I literally crawled away and used the knob of her front door to pull myself up. As I was bolting out of her place she screamed something in Chinese.

  She was released from house arrest after two months on the stipulation that she report for regular counseling sessions and special psychiatric evaluations. Other than that, Song was allowed to live her life as she chose. Chicago is, after all, a Safe Zone for polymorphs.

  We had been through a rough patch together, Song and me. But surely we could move past it. Couldn’t we? I thought about all our incredibly good times. I thought about my visit during her house arrest and felt ashamed. I found a language program online and was able to translate what she had screamed at me in Chinese that night: “Daddy, why don’t you love me?”