INTERZONE 253 JUL-AUG 2014

by Andy Cox

  Despite his inexperience he likened the trapping mechanism to a woman. The male an innocent insect, the colourful interior a woman’s promise; the trap was life.

  Gareth never intended to become trapped.

  If Venus were a goddess then she didn’t have man’s interests at heart.

  Still, his tending the plants, his monitoring of their behaviour, his decision how and when to feed: all these elements represented his control. A pyrrhic victory.

  Occasionally he dreamt of falling into a giant flytrap, the surface spongy with the texture of a tongue. Knowing it was useless, he would trampoline bounce in an attempt to rise above the closing mesh. Yet it never worked and he knew he would be digested before he starved.

  On those occasions he woke and saw the silhouettes of his plants on the windowsill and waited until he could be sure they hadn’t moved.

  Gareth was no fan of The Little Shop of Horrors.

  •••

  Beth read other books but always returned to Body Snatchers.

  In Finney’s work the seed pods drifted through millennia until they reached a planet they might colonise. They affected the guise of the inhabitants although the science itself was sketchy as to how this osmosis might occur. Whatever you do, don’t sleep! Unlike the films the book made it clear that the lifespan of these amalgamate creatures was greatly shortened once the transformation had taken place. Five years at the most. Five years to remain in that state – being who you were but not who you were – until disintegration.

  Upon which the alien life-form would move on.

  She raised this speculation with Laura.

  “Tell me something…”

  Laura’s expression was blank, she began to speak slowly, emotionlessly, until a smile broke her face and she collapsed into giggles.

  “Idiot!”

  “Scared you, did I?”

  “Of course not!”

  But wouldn’t it be the case, Beth thought, that if an alien were to replace a human they would exhibit the necessary traits required to survive. Finney’s book was fiction, but the boundaries set by the book wouldn’t occur in reality, would they? If Laura were replaced might she not simply be Laura by any other name.

  It was when Beth had these thoughts that she understood her interest had shifted into obsession.

  •••

  “Boy?”

  Adamson never called his Labrador by its given name, because he hadn’t named it.

  In his mind the name wasn’t something suitable to be calling on a hill top whether it was light or dark.

  He didn’t see it return. A soft form ran around the outside of his right leg and a cold nose nudged the fingers of that hand. Adamson dropped to his knees and held the dog’s head within his palms. It didn’t shirk, didn’t acquiesce to his master’s touch. It didn’t look frightened or spooked but Adamson knew that it had been.

  He clipped the leash, thought about another cigarette. Thought of his wife and children at home in the warmth in front of the television.

  There was nothing worth watching.

  There was never anything worth watching.

  He walked in the direction that the dog had returned from. Night hid objects in the darkness. A rock pushed part of one toenail a fraction further under his skin and his swearing formed part of the soundtrack of that instance.

  Up ahead a dark shape, possibly a bigger rock, merged into the surrounding blackness like a smudge on a charcoal drawing.

  When he reached it the leash he was holding strained and sprang from his fingers. He looked back at the receding golden coat that resembled a blinked out light, and then turned back to the object.

  Before he examined it he looked at the sky.

  If there was a difference he didn’t see it.

  He reached out a hand and touched the surface. It wasn’t stone.

  •••

  Gareth knew humans were composite bodies, made of trillions of cells. Some of those cells had been discovered to work independently of the host. Mitochondria, for example, had its own DNA. Yet the differences between life’s building blocks were almost infinitesimal. When you really thought about it, life astonished.

  Sometimes he ran a fingertip across the tripwires at the heart of the flytrap. When the subterfuge worked, the closed trap took twelve hours to reopen.

  He imagined these fake meals must really annoy the plants.

  Not that they had feelings.

  Feelings were overrated, in any event.

  As a boy he had imagined Venus flytraps were linked to the eponymous planet. They certainly appeared to be an alien species.

  Not that he could imagine what an alien species might look like.

  In a school encyclopaedia he remembered seeing a drawing of a human flanked by two creatures supposedly from planets of differing gravity. One was tall and thin, the other short and fat. The short and fat specimen was marked as a possible inhabitant of Venus.

  Should the Venusians exist.

  He had doubted the veracity of the speculation without any of the knowledge of what he was.

  It would turn out to be correct.

  •••

  “Tell me something…”

  “This is getting boring.”

  Beth sighed. Laura was becoming less and less the person she thought she knew.

  People changed, didn’t they? It didn’t require an alien visitation for that to occur, they changed naturally. Their emotions fluctuated dependent on external circumstances, their cells degenerated, they were open to other influences and ran with them. What was once funny could be poignant after a disaster. What was a disaster could often become funny. Sometimes only moments after it occurred.

  And Laura’s distance heightened Beth’s wish for change. If only something might happen which would bond them again. Best friends forever, that was what their necklaces said. Her mother had told her to grow up, but she was fully grown. Wasn’t a childhood retreat comforting anyway, like returning to the womb?

  Sometimes she wanted a return to the womb.

  Sometimes she wanted the whole of humankind to return to the womb.

  Laura had got a job in the centre of town. Beth rode the bus with her, to support her on the first day. It had been a while since she had ridden a bus. She looked at the faces of each of the passengers as they boarded, none of them smiling. The bus was an elongated coffin, taking them all to their deaths. Or maybe it was one of Finney’s pods, adapted because of its time spent on Earth.

  But these passengers had already been changed beyond the people they believed they were going to be in their youth.

  Beth didn’t want to be one of them.

  She wanted to continue in life as she was.

  •••

  Adamson wasn’t sure if it was his hand which was warm or whether it was the object.

  He pulled out his mobile phone. There was a torch function which he used when getting behind the TV to change the SCART from the DVD player back to the television. His wife always sighed as he did this, but she never got up to do it herself. The light ran the battery down quick.

  The shape was split in two, resembling a halved coconut. Adamson ran his hand around the outside. Could he describe it as hair? Fur? No, neither. The object’s interior was smooth.

  He would fit inside it, he realised, with a jolt.

  At the same time he knew he would step inside it.

  He had been going to step inside it all along.

  Wistfully he looked back to where the animal had been.

  He put down the mobile phone, leaving the light switched on. Then he removed his shoes and socks. Placed his socks inside the shoes. He unbuttoned his belt, undid the button at the top of his jeans, slid them down his legs and stepped out of them. Folded them beside his shoes. This was followed by his jacket, jumper, T-shirt.

  Naked, he stepped inside the object and the sides closed around him like a blink of an eye in the blink of an eye.

  It was even darker in the po
d than it had been outside it. But Adamson knew there would be light.

  When the pod re-opened and the body stepped out of it and re-dressed, Adamson’s core was already returning to Venus.

  •••

  Gareth met her at the garden centre. A few years younger, but a few years wiser. She was looking at the sundews.

  They weren’t common. But after Gareth had expressed his interest in carnivorous plants the owner had bought a few in.

  She was tall, with long black hair and a red gash where her lips should be.

  He couldn’t help himself.

  “The sundews, less commonly known by their Latin name of Drosera, are so called because of the shiny drops of mucilage at the tip of each tentacle reminiscent of morning dew.”

  She turned and smiled. “I know,” she said. Then she said: “Do you know why you’re drawn to the flytraps, Gareth?”

  And then she said: “It’s all in the name.”

  Gareth felt as if a button had been pushed in the back of his head. Enlightenment.

  “It’s time to go,” she said. “Time to move on.”

  She reached for his hand and he took it; half in, half out of himself. He felt like a millstone that grinds against another millstone when there is nothing between them to grind.

  He got in her car with barely a passing thought about his.

  Her legs were as bare and as light as ice lolly sticks.

  Gareth smiled. In the language of humans only a vowel separated a plant from a planet.

  And it was time for separation.

  •••

  Change.

  “Change is only natural,” Laura said. “Don’t you think so, Beth?”

  You’re becoming something you shouldn’t be, thought Beth. You’re dumbing down.

  The bus stopped and they both got off. For a while they walked in silence up the High Street, their long friendship threadbare, coming apart at the seams.

  “This is where we part,” Laura said, pointing to the large glass façade of the office block where individuality, creativity and independence were culled on a daily basis. She looked excited, but the glint in her eye was temporary; she was in for the long haul.

  Beth stepped back. She took a look at her life, speculated her future. Laura’s future was not for her. She didn’t want the end of the road, with a terraced house and an average husband and average children watching average television programmes in an average living room.

  She wanted the stars.

  They air kissed.

  Beth turned to walk back towards the bus stop, then stopped.

  What if Finney had got it right, but reversed it. What if he knew but couldn’t tell people the truth?

  In The Body Snatchers human’s resisted change because they didn’t want to lose their core, the essence of what made them human. Their soul. The replacements were identical but emotionless. That single substance, the enigma which separated humans from other life forms – such as plants – was gone. But what if the reverse were true. What if humans were in fact empty shells and Venusians came to Earth and entered their bodies and everything which was championed as human intelligence was in fact alien. What if how we defined ourselves wasn’t us at all. Or in fact, was us; but we had forgotten where we came from?

  She looked up at the stars but couldn’t see them because it was daytime. Silly!

  When she returned her gaze to the street and saw the mundanity there – the people no more than insects – she realised she was right. But that the intelligence was ebbing, humankind – the real, bland, unadventurous, frankly lazy humankind – had begun to dominate.

  She sighed.

  What she would give for her soul to be repatriated.

  What she would give to remain herself again.

  •••••

  This is Andrew’s first appearance in Interzone although he has been published several times in our sister magazine Black Static. Stories have recently appeared in Strange Tales IV, Chiral Mad 2, and the anthology La Femme, and will shortly appear in PostScripts, the similarly-named Canadian anthology Postscripts to Darkness, and Jupiter SF. He has edited a collection of punk-inspired stories, punkPunk!, for DogHorn Publishing and co-edits Fur-Lined Ghettos magazine. Next year should see the publication of Human Maps, a short story collection through Eibonvale Press, whilst in the interim he has made available two early short story collections long out of print through Kindle. And his crime novel, The Immortalists, was published by Telos earlier this year with a second novel, Church of Wire, to follow in 2015. Sometimes he sleeps.

  THE GOLDEN NOSE

  NEIL WILLIAMSON

  ILLUSTRATED BY MARTIN HANFORD

  Felix Kapel believed the sweet smell of success to be that of gold. This was his logic: Gold was the highest standard in the world of finance, and in Felix’s own business as a globally respected olfactory specialist, a nose among noses, it stood to reason that any person who could discern the subtle smell of gold would rightly have attained the pinnacle of the fragrance world. Gold, Felix imagined, would have an aroma that was cool and warm, bright and mellow. It would be rich too of course but, at the same time… Well, it would be pointless to attempt to convey what the smell of gold was like because it would be unique.

  Felix kept a South African Krugerrand in a velvet-lined box in his desk drawer. On days when business had gone particularly well he took it out, but as successful as he became – and during his career he had been on retainers with Parisian perfumeries and Assam tea producers, the cosmetics divisions of several famous multinationals and every distillery on the Scottish island of Islay – he had yet to detect even a glimmer of that elusive smell.

  Now, sitting at breakfast – linen with not too much detergent, a carbon scrape of toast, the earthy jag of espresso – he was beginning to think he never would. Not the way the world was heading these days. All the computer modelling, nanoscale particulate sensors, and organic synthesis were pushing craftsmen out. Modernisation, his customers told him regretfully. The push for quality control and molecular copyright couldn’t be guaranteed by human abilities alone any more.

  Felix snapped shut his ancient laptop, hiding the latest missive of dismissal, and took his coffee to the window. Only a year ago his view had been of elegant Wipplinger Strasse, a quiet street, a block or so from a place that sold the best Kaiserschmarrn in Vienna. The new apartment in Ottakring offered a far poorer vista. Rain-dark and utilitarian, blare and grit. It wasn’t a happy change, but finances had forced it. The one thing he hadn’t had to compromise on yet was his coffee. He lifted the demitasse and breathed deep, let the aroma cloud about him, fill his passages. He did not waste the experience by drinking it. People who drank good coffee were, in Felix’s book, degenerate criminals.

  He turned when Joanna entered with the morning’s mail and her yipping dog. She dumped most of envelopes on the dining table but retained one, waved it. He knew without looking that it was the revised quote from the decorators.

  “I’ll look at it later.” Bijoux sniffed at his shoes, then looked up expectantly, all brown eyes and pink tongue. He nudged it away with a gentle kick.

  “Oh, Felix, it’s really not that expensive.”

  “Later, Joanna.”

  She stilled. “It’s been nearly a year. And we’re still living like this.” Dramatically, she thrust out her hand. She could have been pointing anywhere, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was all shabby and none of it was chic. “You promised.”

  He scowled. “And you promised not to let Bijoux into the dining room. He stinks when he’s been out in the rain.”

  Joanna ignored him and sat to butter herself some toast. He rejoined her and flicked through the rest of the mail. Bills mostly. He pushed them aside.

  “What’s that one from Gustav & Jacob?”

  Her buttery knife was levelled at a cardboard box. Felix should have recognised the logo of the Czech chocolatiers immediately. He’d consulted on their aromatics for nearly fifteen years, until th
ey too had taken the leap to automation and dispensed with his services.

  Felix slit open the box – hamster cage packaging, sex toy polyurethane – and scooped out the shredded paper and a padded bag. Inside the bag was an arrangement of white plastic. A moulded respirator cup was attached by a neatly coiled tube to a box. Nestled into the top of the box was an ampule of amber liquid. Next to that was a switch.

  The scribble, in English, on the G&J compliment slip was from their old production manager, Karel Bilek. Felix had thought he’d retired.

  Felix

  Good to hear from you before Christmas. If it were up to me I’d have you in like a shot, but you know the way the business is now. I’m truly sorry.

  You and I were craftsmen, son, but the world has moved on. Did you know they can record smells now? Not perfectly, but it won’t be long.

  Do yourself a favour, give these guys a call and offer your services. They’ll bite your hand off. Take their schilling for a few years and then enjoy a nice retirement when it comes.

  Karel

  Underneath Bilek had printed a company name, Teleroma, and a Swiss phone number. Felix vaguely recognised the name, but it took a moment to dredge it up. On sufferance, he had been forced to converse via the odious Skype with the makers of a film-star endorsed scent range in the USA, establishing a few details as a matter of formality before closing the contract, but when he raised the subject of when they wanted him to fly over the young man in the little window had laughed. No need, Mr Kapel. We can do all of that over the internet with the Teleroma.

  Felix hadn’t known what Teleroma was, but he wanted nothing to do with it. He’d politely backed out of the negotiations at the earliest opportunity.

  Now, he didn’t know whether to be saddened or insulted. It was all right for Karel to talk about resting easy. He already had at least one foot up on the comfy cushions. Felix had fifteen years to fill before he could even consider retirement, and he had difficulty enough keeping Joanna and the dog under this roof let alone putting anything significant by for the future. And besides, while it was nice of Karel to acknowledge his craftsmanship, a little wider recognition would be nice too. By this stage in his career Felix should have been publishing books and giving lecture tours. There was still time left to make his mark, and he wasn’t going to throw away the chance of doing so by selling out to the very people who were killing his industry.