The President looked ill, looked simple, his face drained of blood and most of its life. He glared at Adrianne. He stared numbly at his own hands. And then someone said, “No, the missile broke apart after launching. It’s down. It over.”
Adrianne turned to her people.
Winked.
Then looking at the visitors, she said, “I have six blogs written. They’re waiting on servers around the world. If anything unseemingly happens to me or to any of my people, those pieces get published automatically. And you don’t want those ideas getting loose on the world. Believe me.”
They believed, at least enough to retreat.
Then the Taser girl asked, “Is that right? Six blogs waiting to kill the world?”
The Empress didn’t seem to hear the questions. She seemed intrigued by the details in her own tiny hand. Then to the hand, in that calm dry voice, she said, “By tomorrow, there will be. Now let’s get to work.”
EVENTUALLY SHE WOULD be known as Adrianne the First. But in those early years, she was the Hammer, a respected and feared and often scorned entity sitting in a warehouse in the bleakest bowels of Ohio. She appeared on television when she wanted, which was rare. Her speeches and occasional interviews proved nothing except that she was no public speaker. And where the lowliest princess – some creature born with a good name and small inheritance – would have carried her head high, Adrianne became more and more like she had always been. Chilled. Collected. Long of thought, careful with words. Not the smartest person in a room, but the entity most likely to see exactly what was happening and what the next step needed to be.
During her brief, busy reign, she oversaw a thousand projects. Not every initiative was a success. Some were close to disasters, in fact. Urging Egypt and Jordan to annex the Palestine enclaves proved horrific, and her plan for paying the Jewish populations to emigrate to Canada was only a little more productive. But approaching her mid-60s, Adrianne saw lifespans expanding and the first eight flights of the infamous Hammer Drive. Words carrying her name triggered changes in tax codes worldwide. Small, tidy rebellions began and ended with her words, various authoritarian regimes swept away, and she was better than anyone else when it came to picking the most deserving winners. And more importantly, she was very quick to admit errors and change paths.
No, the lady wasn’t loved, but that didn’t stop people from building temples in her honor.
Her rational mind was the largest force among many, but the public talked about her magic for saving lives that she had never noticed.
Her stoic personality never failed. Early on, she told her core group that she was an agent in a very mysterious game. Aliens, machines, or demons from some unmapped dimension: Explanations were numerous and useless and why bother? But she accepted that she was too old to benefit from the new elixirs, and even if she lived a million years, she was still human. In other words, she was going to run out of good advice.
“Ten or twelve years from now,” she guessed.
She was wrong by a factor of two.
A very good guess, in other words.
On an ordinary Wednesday, she published a small blog about the desperate need for rain in northern Mexico. It was one of the little gifts that she gave to single places, and she didn’t expect instantaneous results. But that same day, in Capetown, a half Zulu and half Boer fellow published plans for a machine that would suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – a simple and quick device powered by sunlight and the earth’s heat.
His machine was authentic.
Her rain never fell.
She retired, but not without some difficulties. Within a week, this woman who cared nothing for pomp and spectacle had little to fill her time, and perhaps that’s why she ended up in a serious depression. Returning to her old house, she drank. She slept too much. And then she didn’t sleep at all, weeping for no reason.
The tumor was discovered three months after she became an ordinary citizen.
Surgery was a possibility, but with the likelihood of significant brain damage. She refused. Radiation and various forms of chemo would be stopgaps, prolonging life by weeks at most. She considered and decided otherwise. On their own initiative, three of her original team flew to Capetown, attempting to meet with the new emperor. Their plan was to argue for a special blog, perhaps a call for a new cancer-fighting agent. The right words written in the proper order, not unlike a magical chant, might lead researchers to find a miracle hiding inside some little tropical plant. But the emperor refused to see them, much less consider their request. And hearing about the trip and the verdict, Adrianne sighed, saying, “Wisdom and kindness. They’re not the same word spelled with different letters.”
There was still money in the coffers.
Doctors and cooks and maids and more doctors arrived and then left the house again, following complicated schedules.
And the original seven disciples took up residence in the nearby houses, complete with spouses and kids and at least one mistress.
Adrianne left her doors unlocked.
Her balance wasn’t worth trusting anymore, and she hated the chore of seeing who was calling.
One day, a boy from another neighborhood invited himself inside that famous house. He was curious what brain cancer looked like. It looked like an ordinary old lady sitting before a small desk, watching a thousand solar panels opening like giant flowers on someone’s desert. It looked like a dull thing to watch, and he said so.
The woman turned slowly, looking at him and then looking back at the monitor.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Sitting,” she said. And she began to laugh, one hand touching the back of her skull. He thought she was strange and left.
She didn’t notice her solitude.
Then another boy said, “You should lock your doors.”
Adrianne turned to discover what she assumed was the first boy. Except he had grown up in the last few moments. Grown up and grown heavy too, and his hair had left him and then come back again. The new hair was paler and thicker than natural, which was common with these treatments.
Thirty years had passed in an instant.
This was a very interesting disease, she thought.
But no, that face wasn’t the same face, even with the added decades. She almost remembered the face and its name. But then with a hurt tone, the new visitor said, “I’m your son. I’ve come to see you.”
That seemed enough reason to stand.
The legs proved strong, at least for the moment.
“I heard the news,” her son said.
“There’s always news,” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“Your health,” he said.
“Is there something I don’t know?”
“Oh, Mother.” The man blinked, shrinking down a bit.
“You mean this growth.” She tapped her head and laughed again. Twice in one day. She was practically a giddy little girl. “Yes, it’s going to kill me. But probably not today.”
The conversation stopped altogether.
Casting for words, she fell into clichés. “How is your life, son?”
“Well,” he said, happy for the prodding. “I’m doing well. Sober three years, and very rich.”
“Are you?”
“Exceptionally rich, thanks to you.”
“Sober, I meant.”
But the man with the fresh hair didn’t want to dwell on old weaknesses. “It’s amazing what people give you, particularly when they learn that your mother controls the world and everyone on it.”
Honest thoughts came to Adrianne.
She worked hard, and her mouth remained closed.
The man was wearing both fine clothes and a smug smile, and he was watching her. But his thoughts were on the move. Feeling strong enough, he stopped smiling. “This is where he killed himself. Isn’t it?”
She said nothing.
He looked at the ceiling. Then he stepped past her, touching the desk. The ea
rlier desk was gone, too big and too bloody for the room that she had wanted. Maybe he didn’t remember the original furniture. She refused to clear up these matters. What she wanted was to be left alone...
But this was her only child.
Mindless, uncaring pressure on neurons. Pressure bringing emotion. Is that where this sudden trickle of tears was coming from?
Her son didn’t notice.
Again, the smug, rich-man’s smile.
“I was sorry when you lost the job,” he confessed.
“Were you?”
“But it’s all right,” he said. “Our relationship is still valuable.”
“Is it?” she asked, wiping one wet eye.
“You often talk to our overlords,” he said.
“I don’t,” she said.
“But they don’t know that. And I’m very convincing.”
She approached the office door. Wanting something. To send him away, or flee for herself?
The awful man kept talking.
“In fact, I’ll sometimes claim that I can talk to them too. The powers in charge. Not so much that I have to prove anything. But you know, it’s crazy what smart people believe, if you give them any excuse.”
She gasped.
Her son blinked, straightening his back.
“Help me,” she said. “Would you do me one enormous favor?”
He nodded.
“Wait,” she said.
Waiting was an easy favor, easily accomplished.
She returned with the handgun and bullets, and his first reaction was to warn, “Guns are illegal now. You made it so.”
“I did,” she agreed. “Maybe somebody should arrest me.”
He watched her load one chamber.
“Now,” she said. “Kill me.”
“What?”
“That’s the favor. I’m sick. I’m going to get sicker and die horribly. But according to euthanasia laws – my wise laws – I can implore another person to end my suffering by whatever means I want.”
“Mother...!”
“And I don’t want to do the chore myself. So if you would.” She shoved the gun into his hands, aiming the barrel at her chest. Then, as if having second thoughts, she said, “No, wait. Let me sit, and we can catch the bullet and the spray with pillows. I’ll get my pillows out of the bedroom.”
“Mother, no!”
The heavy man dropped the gun and ran away.
The disturbance was finished.
Alone, Adrianne unloaded the one bullet, placing the weaponry into a closet. And exhausted, she sat at the desk, watching a live view from a probe launched last month and already halfway to Neptune.
Time passed.
And someone else came to visit.
The first boy was back, an older sister holding his hand.
“This is her,” he said with conviction. “That’s our Empress.”
Adrianne didn’t have the legs to stand. That’s why their faces were at the same level when she said, “Yes, it’s your Empress. Sitting in her glory.”
She laughed hard.
The children laughed with her, to be friendly.
Touching her head once more, she said, “The monster inside my head. It’s pushing at the best nerves.”
They stopped.
“A talent for comedy,” she said, her laugh growing dark and slow. “That’s what the gods give you, if they want to be kind, right before you die.”
THE WINTER WRAITH
Jeffrey Ford
JEFFREY FORD (www.well-builtcity.com) is the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson Award winning author of the novels The Shadow Year, The Physiognomy, The Girl in the Glass and The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque. His story collections are The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, and Crackpot Palace. His new collection, A Natural History of Hell, will be released by Small Beer Press in July of 2016.
HENRY SENSED RESIGNATION in the posture of the Christmas tree. It slouched toward the living room window as if peering out. There was no way he could plug it in, cheer it up. The thing was dryer than the Sandman’s mustache, its spine a stick of kindling. The least vibration brought a shower of needles. Ornaments fell of their own accord. Some broke, which he had to sweep and vacuum, initiating the descent of more needles, more ornaments. The cat took some as toys and batted them around the kitchen floor. Glittering evidence in the field indicated Bothwell, the dog, had acquired a taste for tinsel.
Mero had told him not to take it down. She had a special way she wrapped the ornaments when boxing them. He wasn’t about to argue for doing it by himself. At the end of that first week she was away in China, though, the presence of the tree became an imposition. He described it in his Friday journal as, ‘A distant cousin, once accused of pyromania, arriving for an indefinite visit.’
In the middle of his work, in the middle of the grocery store, when walking with the dog around the lake, the spirit of that sagging pine was always waiting by the front window in the living room of his thoughts. Then Mero finally called on FaceTime from Shanghai. Her image was distorted as if he was seeing her through rippling water. In a heartbeat, the picture froze, but she kept talking. He told her he missed her and she said the same. She said Shanghai was amazing, enormous, and that she liked the young woman who was her translator and guide. She asked about Bothwell. Henry spoke about the freezing wind, the snow. She told him to be careful driving, and then he told her about the tree. “It’s shot,” he said. “I gotta take it down.”
Suddenly the call cut out, and he couldn’t get her back. He wanted to tell her he loved her and hear her voice some more, but in a way he understood. It was like dialing another world. The distance between Ohio and Shanghai made him shiver. He called Bothwell and the Border Collie appeared. “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked. The dog’s green eyes were intense and it cocked its head to the side as if to say, “What do you think?” So Henry put his coat and hat and mittens on, and they went out, over the snow, across the yard, through the orchard, past the garden, into the farmer’s winter fields that surrounded the property. Corn stubble and snow stretched out to the horizon in three directions. It was sundown, orange and pink in the west, a deep royal blue to the east where he spotted the moon.
They headed toward the wind break of white oak about a quarter mile into the field. The frozen gusts that blew across the open land sliced right through him, and he struggled to hold closed his jacket with the broken zipper. They entered the thicket of giant old trees. Under the clacking, empty branches last light turned to mist and shadow. He sat down on a fallen log and looked to the west. Bothwell sniffed around and then sat behind him to escape the gusts that eddied in among the trees. Henry had a hell of a time lighting a cigarette. Once he got it going, though, he made an executive decision. The first part was to open a bottle of wine when he got back to the house. The second was to dismantle the tree and get rid of it by the following afternoon.
He saw how he would do it. Put the ornaments in a pile on the dining room table. Cover them with a table cloth to hide them from the cat, and leave them there till Mero got back. Pull the lights. Grab the cursed tinsel off in handfuls. Kick the tree in the spleen and wrestle it to the floor. Remove the base. Drag the corpse through the dining room, the kitchen, to the sliding door. Deposit the remains out back in the snow. Burn incense to mask the odor of rotted Christmas. Sweep and vacuum. Two hours for the whole ordeal, he figured and spoke into the wind, “Adios, mother fucker.” Then Bothwell made a strange noise.
Henry felt something behind him. He stood up quickly and turned, glimpsing what looked in the dimmest of light like a wolf. Gray and tan, bushy coat. It skulked around a tree and disappeared. He knew there were no wolves in Ohio, but the creature was too big for a coyote. The idea of it sneaking around in the dark sent a shot of adrenalin through him. His heart pounded. He called the dog to him and they left the trees in a rush. Somewhere between the smoke and the wolf, night had dropped. Unable to see where
he was stepping, he twisted his leg on corn stubble and his knee began to ache. He hobbled toward the light of the house, peering over his shoulder every few yards. By the time he reached the kitchen, he could hardly walk. He pulled the cork on a bottle of Malbec, standing on one leg.
Grabbing the glass and bottle, he hopped into the living room. The tree was waiting for him. As he sat on the couch, a shower of needles fell and then an ornament. It hit a branch on the way down and broke, shattering into three jagged scoops and a handful of glitter. He watched it happen, knew it was the ornament Mero had bought for their first Christmas together. He decided in an instant, he’d wait till spring to tell her. Bothwell came in and curled up by his feet. He drank wine and turned on the TV.
He woke suddenly hours later to the dark, in bed. His mouth was dry. He had no recollection of having gotten off the couch and come upstairs. Looking at the clock, he saw it was only 3:13. He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. That’s when he realized there was a quiet but distinct rhythmic noise coming up from downstairs. He could barely hear it, like a voice whispering too loud. The first thing he did was call to Bothwell for courage. The dog was already at his side of the bed. Henry sat up, put his feet on the floor, and listened. The voice continued, mumbling on, and then broke out into a cry for help. One long extended scream, diminishing into silence, followed by a loud thud.
Henry jumped up, his heart racing, his hair, what there was of it, tingling. He reached for the wooden baton he kept behind the night table next to the bed. At the top of the stairs, he let the dog go first. He stepped slowly, protecting his bad knee and not in any hurry to see what was going on. Before he reached the bottom step, it struck him that the noise must have been coming from the TV he’d never turned off. This made him braver and, holding his weapon in front of him, he limped boldly into the living room.
The light was still on. “Great,” he said, gazing down upon the fallen Christmas tree. Although it had slouched so long toward the window, when it fell, it went over backwards, across the middle of the living room floor. Ornaments everywhere. The useless water in the metal base drained onto the carpet. The dry needle fallout was epic. He looked at the dog. The dog looked at him. Henry stepped forward and kicked the tree. It shuddered, dropping more of itself. He shook his head and looked across the room. The TV was off.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Ten Page 43