Beyond Flesh

by Gardner Dozois

  Julian often dreamed of his dead daughter. Usually she was on board their strange ark, and he would find a note from her, and a cabin number, and he would wake up smiling, feeling certain that he would find her today. Then he would suddenly remember the bomb, and he would start to cry, suffering through the wrenching, damning loss all over again.

  Which was ironic, in a fashion.

  During the last nineteen months, father and daughter had gradually and inexorably drifted apart. She was very much a child when they came to the Nest, as flexible as her father wasn’t, and how many times had Julian lain awake in bed, wondering why he had ever bothered being Transmutated. His daughter didn’t need him, plainly. He could have remained behind. Which always led to the same questions: When he was a normal human being, was he genuinely happy? Or was his daughter’s illness simply an excuse . . . a spicy bit of good fortune that offered an escape route . . . ?

  When the Nest was destroyed, Julian survived only through more good fortune. He was as far from the epicenter as possible, shielded by the Nest’s interior walls and emergency barricades. Yet even then, most of the people near him were killed, an invisible neutron rain scrambling their minds. That same rain had knocked him unconscious just before the firestorm arrived, and if an autodoc hadn’t found his limp body, then dragged him into a shelter, he would have been cremated. And of course if the Nest hadn’t devised its elaborate escape plan, stockpiling the Buick and cloning equipment outside the Nest, Julian would have had no choice but to remain in the rubble, fighting to survive the next moment, and the next.

  But those coincidences happened, making his present life feel like the culmination of some glorious Fate.

  The secret truth was that Julian relished his new importance, and he enjoyed the pressures that came with each bathroom break and every stop for gas. If he died now, between missions, others could take his place, leading Winemaster’s cloned body through the needed motions . . . but they wouldn’t do as well, Julian could tell himself . . . a secret part of him wishing that this bizarre, slow-motion chase would never come to an end . . .

  ###

  The Buick stayed on the Tollway through northern Illinois, slipping beneath Chicago before skipping across a sliver of Indiana. Julian was integrated with his larger self several times, going through the motions of the stiff, tired, and hungry traveler. Blaine always arrived several minutes later, never approaching his quarry, always finding gas at different pumps, standing outside the rest rooms, waiting to show Julian a big smile but never uttering so much as a word in passing.

  A little after midnight, the Buick’s driver took his hand off the wheel, lay back, and fell asleep. Trusting the Tollway’s driving was out of character, but with Blaine trailing them and the border approaching, no one was eager to waste time in a motel bed.

  At two in the morning, Julian was also asleep, dipping in and out of dreams. Suddenly a hand took him by the shoulder, shaking him, and several voices, urgent and close, said, “We need you, Julian. Now.”

  In his dreams, a thousand admiring faces were saying, “We need you.”

  Julian awoke.

  His cabin was full of people. His mate had been ushered away, but his unborn child, nearly complete now, floated in his bubble of blackened crystal, oblivious to the nervous air and the tight, crisp voices.

  “What’s wrong?” Julian asked.

  “Everything,” they assured.

  His universal window showed a live feed from a security camera on the North Dakota-Manitoba border. Department of Technology investigators, backed up by a platoon of heavily armed Marines, were dismantling a Toyota Sunrise. Even at those syrupy speeds, the lasers moved quickly, leaving the vehicle in tiny pieces that were photographed, analyzed, then fed into a state-of-the-art decontamination unit.

  “What is this?” Julian sputtered.

  But he already knew the answer.

  “There was a second group of refugees,” said the President, kneeling beside his bed. She was wearing an oversized face—a common fashion, of late—and with a very calm, very grim voice, she admitted, “We weren’t the only survivors.”

  They had kept it a secret, at least from Julian. Which was perfectly reasonable, he reminded himself. What if he had been captured? Under torture, he could have doomed that second lifeboat, and everyone inside it . . .

  “Is my daughter there?” he blurted, uncertain what to hope for.

  The President shook her head. “No, Julian.”

  Yet if two arks existed, couldn’t there be a third? And wouldn’t the President keep its existence secret from him, too?

  “We’ve been monitoring events,” she continued. “It’s tragic, what’s happening to our friends . . . but we’ll be able to adjust our methods . . . for when we cross the border . . .”

  He looked at the other oversized faces. “But why do you need me? We won’t reach Detroit for hours.”

  The President looked over her shoulder. “Play the recording.”

  Suddenly Julian was looking back in time. He saw the Sunrise pull up to the border post, waiting in line to be searched. A pickup truck with Wyoming plates pulled up behind it, and out stepped a preposterously tall man brandishing a badge and a handgun. With an eerie sense of purpose, he strode up to the little car, took aim, and fired his full clip through the driver’s window. The body behind the wheel jerked and kicked as it was ripped apart. Then the murderer reached in and pulled the corpse out through the shattered glass, shouting at the Tech investigators.

  “I’ve got them! Here! For Christ’s sake, help me!”

  The image dissolved, the window returning to the real-time, real-speed scene.

  To himself, Julian whispered, “No, it can’t be . . .”

  The President took his hands in hers, their warmth a comfortable fiction. “We would have shown you this as it was happening, but we weren’t sure what it meant.”

  “But you’re sure now?”

  “That man followed our people. All the way from Nebraska.” She shook her head, admitting, “We don’t know everything, no. For security reasons, we rarely spoke with those other survivors—”

  “What are we going to do?” Julian growled.

  “The only reasonable thing left for us.” She smiled in a sad fashion, then warned him, “We’re pulling off the Tollway now. You still have a little while to get ready . . .”

  He closed his eyes, saying nothing.

  “Not as long as you’d like, I’m sure . . . but with this sort of thing, maybe it’s best to hurry . . .”

  ###

  There were no gas pumps or restaurants in the rest area. A small divided parking lot was surrounded by trees and fake log cabin lavatories that in turn were sandwiched between broad lanes of moonlit pavement. The parking lot was empty. The only traffic was a single truck in the westbound freighter lane, half a dozen trailers towed along in its wake. Julian watched the truck pass, then walked into the darkest shadows, and kneeled.

  The security cameras were being fed false images—images that were hopefully more convincing than the ludicrous log cabins. Yet even when he knew that he was safe, Julian felt exposed. Vulnerable. The feeling worsened by the moment, becoming a black dread, and by the time the Tokamak pulled to stop, his newborn heart was racing, and his quick damp breath tasted foul.

  Blaine parked two slots away from the sleeping Buick. He didn’t bother looking through the windows. Instead, guided by intuition or hidden sensor, he strolled toward the men’s room, hesitated, then took a few half-steps toward Julian, passing into a patch of moonlight.

  Using both hands, Julian lifted his weapon, letting it aim itself at the smooth, broad forehead.

  “Well,” said Blaine, “I see you’re thinking about me.”

  “What do you want?” Julian whispered. Then with a certain clumsiness, he added, “With me.”

  The man remained silent for a moment, a smile building.

  “Who am I?” he asked suddenly. “Ideas? Do you have any?”

>   Julian gulped a breath, then said, “You work for the government.” His voice was testy, pained. “And I don’t know why you’re following me!”

  Blaine didn’t offer answers. Instead he warned his audience, “The border is a lot harder to pierce than you think.”

  “Is it?”

  “Humans aren’t fools,” Blaine reminded him. “After all, they designed the technologies used by the Nests, and they’ve had just as long as you to improve on old tricks.”

  “People in the world are getting dumber,” said Julian. “You told me that.”

  “And those same people are very scared, very focused,” his opponent countered. “Their borders are a priority to them. You are their top priority. And even if your thought processes are accelerated a thousandfold, they’ve got AIs who can blister you in any race of intellect. At least for the time being, they can.”

  Shoot him, an inner voice urged.

  Yet Julian did nothing, waiting silently, hoping to be saved from this onerous chore.

  “You can’t cross into Canada without me,” Blaine told him.

  “I know what happened . . .” Julian felt the gun’s barrel adjusting itself as his hands grew tired and dropped slightly. “Up in North Dakota . . . we know all about it . . .”

  It was Blaine’s turn to keep silent.

  Again, Julian asked, “Who are you? Just tell me that much.”

  “You haven’t guessed it, have you?” The round face seemed genuinely disappointed. “Not even in your wildest dreams . . .”

  “And why help us?” Julian muttered, saying too much.

  “Because in the long run, helping you helps me.”

  “How?”

  Silence.

  “We don’t have any wealth,” Julian roared. “Our homes were destroyed. By you, for all I know—”

  The man laughed loudly, smirking as he began to turn away. “You’ve got some time left. Think about the possibilities, and we’ll talk again.”

  Julian tugged on the trigger. Just once.

  Eighteen shells pierced the back of Blaine’s head, then worked down the wide back, devastating every organ even as the lifeless body crumpled. Even a huge man falls fast, Julian observed. Then he rose, walking on weak legs, and with his own aim, he emptied the rest of his clip into the gore.

  It was easy, pumping in those final shots.

  What’s more, shooting the dead carried an odd, unexpected satisfaction—which was probably the same satisfaction that the terrorists had felt when their tiny bomb destroyed a hundred million soulless machines.

  ###

  With every refugee watching, Julian cut open the womb with laser shears.

  Julian Jr. was born a few seconds after two-thirty a.m., and the audience, desperate for a good celebration, nearly buried the baby with gifts and sweet words. Yet nobody could spoil him like his father could. For the next few hours, Julian pestered his first son with love and praise, working with a manic energy to fill every need, every whim. And his quest to be a perfect father only grew worse. The sun was beginning to show itself; Canada was waiting over the horizon; but Julian was oblivious, hunched over the toddler with sparkling toys in both hands, his never-pretty voice trying to sing a child’s song, nothing half as important in this world as making his son giggle and smile . . .

  They weren’t getting past the border. Their enemies were too clever, and too paranoid. Julian could smell the inevitable, but because he didn’t know what else to do, he went through the motions of smiling for the President and the public, saying the usual brave words whenever it was demanded of him.

  Sometimes Julian took his boy for long rides around the lifeboat.

  During one journey, a woman knelt and happily teased the baby, then looked up at the famous man, mentioning in an offhanded way, “We’ll get to our new home just in time for him to grow into it.”

  Those words gnawed at Julian, although he was powerless to explain why.

  By then the sun had risen, its brilliant light sweeping across a sleepy border town. Instead of crossing at Detroit, the refugees had abandoned the Tollway, taking an old highway north to Port Huron. It would be easier here, was the logic. The prayer. Gazing out the universal window, Julian looked at the boarded-up homes and abandoned businesses, cars parked and forgotten, weeds growing in every yard, every crack. The border cities had lost most of their people in the last year-plus, he recalled. It was too easy and too accepted, this business of crossing into a land where it was still legal to be remade. In another year, most of the United States would look this way, unless the government took more drastic measures such as closing its borders, or worse, invading its wrong-minded neighbors . . .

  Julian felt a deep chill, shuddering.

  That’s when he suddenly understood. Everything. And in the next few seconds, after much thought, he knew precisely what he had to do.

  Assuming there was still time . . .

  ###

  A dozen cars were lined up in front of the customs station. The Buick had slipped in behind a couple on a motorcycle. Only one examination station was open, and every traveler was required to first declare his intentions, then permanently give up his citizenship. It would be a long wait. The driver turned the engine off, watching the Marines and Tech officials at work, everything about them relentlessly professional. Three more cars pulled up behind him, including a Tokamak, and he happened to glance at the rearview screen when Blaine climbed out, walking with a genuine bounce, approaching on the right and rapping on the passenger window with one fat knuckle, then stooping down and smiling through the glass, proving that he had made a remarkable recovery since being murdered.

  Julian unlocked the door for him.

  With a heavy grunt, Blaine pulled himself in and shut the door, then gave his companion a quick wink.

  Julian wasn’t surprised. If anything, he was relieved, telling his companion, “I think I know what you are.”

  “Good,” said Blaine. “And what do your friends think?”

  “I don’t know. I never told them.” Julian took the steering wheel in both hands. “I was afraid that if I did, they wouldn’t believe me. They’d think I was crazy, and dangerous. And they wouldn’t let me come here.”

  The line was moving, jerking forward one car-length. Julian started the Buick and crept forward, then turned it off again.

  With a genuine fondness, Blaine touched him on a shoulder, commenting, “Your friends might pull you back into their world now. Have you thought of that?”

  “Sure,” said Julian. “But for the next few seconds, they’ll be too confused to make any big decisions.”

  Lake Huron lay on Blaine’s left, vast and deeply blue, and he studied the picket boats that dotted the water, bristling with lasers that did nothing but flip back and forth, back and forth, incinerating any flying object that appeared even remotely suspicious.

  “So tell me,” he asked his companion, “why do you think I’m here?”

  Julian turned his body, the cultured leather squeaking beneath him. Gesturing at Port Huron, he said, “If these trends continue, everything’s going to look that way very soon. Empty. Abandoned. Humans will have almost vanished from this world, which means that perhaps someone else could move in without too much trouble. They’ll find houses, and good roads to drive on, and a communication system already in place. Ready-made lives, and practically free for the taking.”

  “What sort of someone?”

  “That’s what suddenly occurred to me.” Julian took a deep breath, then said, “Humans are making themselves smaller, and faster. But what if something other than humans is doing the same thing? What if there’s something in the universe that’s huge, and very slow by human standards, but intelligent nonetheless. Maybe it lives in cold places between the stars. Maybe somewhere else. The point is, this other species is undergoing a similar kind of transformation. It’s making itself a thousand times smaller, and a thousand times quicker, which puts it roughly equal to this.” The frail face w
as smiling, and he lifted his hands from the wheel. “Flesh and blood, and bone . . . these are the high-technology materials that build your version of microchines!”

  Blaine winked again, saying, “You’re probably right. If you’d explained it that way, your little friends would have labeled you insane.”

  “But am I right?”

  There was no reason to answer him directly. “What about me, Mr. Winemaster? How do you look at me?”

  “You want to help us.” Julian suddenly winced, then shuddered. But he didn’t mention it, saying, “I assume that you have different abilities than we do . . . that you can get us past their sensors—”

  “Is something wrong, Mr. Winemaster?”

  “My friends . . . they’re trying to take control of this body . . .”

  “Can you deal with them?”

  “For another minute. I changed all the control codes.” Again, he winced. “You don’t want the government aware of you, right? And you’re trying to help steer us and then away from war . . .during this period of transition—”

  “The way we see it,” Blaine confessed, “the chance of a worldwide cataclysm is just about one in three, and worsening.”

  Julian nodded, his face contorting in agony. “If I accept your help . . . ?”

  “Then I’ll need yours.” He set a broad hand on Julian’s neck. “You’ve done a remarkable job hiding yourselves. You and your friends are in this car, but my tools can’t tell me where. Not without more time, at least. And that’s time we don’t have . . .”

  Julian stiffened, his clothes instantly soaked with perspiration.

  Quietly, quickly, he said, “But if you’re really a government agent . . . here to fool me into telling you . . . everything . . . ?”

  “I’m not,” Blaine promised.

  A second examination station had just opened; people were maneuvering for position, leaving a gap in front of them.