Defenders

by Will McIntosh

  “You said, ‘in theory, it’s up to us.’ Why in theory?”

  Because we know what you’ll decide.

  The answer startled her. “What will we decide?”

  You’ll want us to go away. Australia won’t be far enough, but if that’s as far as we can go…

  Lila nodded. It wasn’t what she felt—not anymore, anyway—but she could understand why people would feel that way. “We’re afraid of you.”

  If it makes you feel any better, we’re afraid of you, too. Five headed toward the sliding glass doors in the back of the house. Do you want to take Errol around front while I do this?

  Lila didn’t bother answering aloud. Death was everywhere; there was no way to protect Errol from it. Better he see it like this first, rather than bulldozers and mass graves, or bodies in the streets.

  Moments later, Five dragged Erik into the yard. He’d wrapped him in bedsheets, and as he approached the grave he slowed, took one single step at a time, as if he were a pallbearer. It made Lila smile. As Five eased him into the grave, Errol pulled his hand free from Lila’s and took off.

  “Daddy!”

  Lila turned to find Kai limping toward them. She rushed over, took in the gash in his side, the bloody, ruined boot. Wrapping an arm around his waist, she led him toward the house.

  “No,” he said. He gestured toward the grave. “Let’s finish first. I can wait.”

  They gathered at the edge of the grave in silence. Lila stared down at Erik, his form visible beneath the sheets, and remembered the day she’d discovered him walking beside her, wanting to be her friend.

  Five picked up the shovel. I can take it from here. Why don’t you and Kai go inside so you can help him?

  Lila led Kai inside as Errol, fascinated by the filling of the hole, stayed behind with Five as the daylight began to fade.

  Epilogue

  Lila Easterlin

  March 9, 2050

  “Can you see anything yet?” Kai moved his head left and right, trying to see past Lila and Errol, out the tiny window.

  Lila tried to see past Errol, who had his face plastered to the window, his hands cupped around his eyes to reduce glare.

  “I don’t see anything,” Errol said. “Just clouds.”

  Lila suspected they would hear from Five, or some Luyten official, before they saw Australia. She hoped it was Five; she’d feel more comfortable peppering him with questions, starting with the rumor the Luyten had begun construction on a new starship. If the Luyten picked up and left, it would present some serious problems for Lila and Kai, given they’d de facto renounced their citizenship.

  “Do you think there’ll be a reception committee on the tarmac to greet us, or just some Luyten holding a sign with our names on it at baggage claim?”

  “I kind of doubt they have a baggage claim,” Lila said laughing.

  “What’s a baggage claim?” Errol asked, turning from the window.

  “It’s where you pick up your suitcases,” Lila answered.

  “Why wouldn’t they have one?” Errol asked.

  “Because Luyten don’t have many possessions, and humans don’t visit Australia very often.”

  Errol thought about this for a moment, his big, dark eyebrows pinched. “If we’re not traitors for coming here, how come not many people come?”

  For the hundredth time, Lila wondered if they were making a terrible mistake. It was too late now; she might as well stop worrying about it. If they tried to go back to the United States, Willis would hang them for treason. “They’re afraid, that’s all.”

  “The whole damned country. Most of the world,” Kai muttered.

  Lila wondered if Kai muttered the words because he didn’t want Errol to hear them, or out of habit. There was nothing General Willis and his henchmen could do now that they’d made it this far.

  She wondered if the crimson Luyten’s sacrifice had led her to swing too far in trusting the Luyten. Willis was a paranoid xenophobe, yes. But no one could deny the Luyten were manufacturing weapons, and had an active genetics program under way. Lila couldn’t blame them, given the mistrust and hatred for Luyten that was resurfacing among humans. Still, Lila had no idea what the Luyten felt. No one did.

  We feel sad, but we haven’t given up hope. Your decision to come here, to show the world that humans and Luyten can live together, keeps that hope alive.

  “Hello, Five.”

  At Lila’s words, Kai sat up straighter in his seat, looked at Lila expectantly. Then he chuckled, evidently receiving a communication of his own. He went on chuckling softly, shaking his head.

  “What did he say?” Lila asked.

  “He said, ‘Welcome, Boy Who Betrayed the World.’ ”

  Before you ask, there’s no starship under construction. It’s just wishful thinking on the part of humans.

  Lila was relieved, but also a little disappointed. It would make things a lot simpler if the Luyten left. “Why not? I mean, why stay on a planet with an intelligent species bearing a grudge?”

  Because the trip here was awful, and it took generations. The nearest potentially habitable planet from here is three times as far. And who’s to say that one isn’t inhabited?

  “Good point,” Kai said.

  I’d like to say hello to Errol. Can you prepare him, so he won’t be startled?

  “Errol, Five wants to say hello to you,” Lila said. “Is that okay? It’s a little scary at first.”

  Errol’s eyes widened. He drew his legs up to his chin, clapped his palms tightly over his ears, then nodded eagerly. “Okay, go.”

  Watching Errol grin, and then answer Five with a string of “Yeses” and “Okays,” Lila thought maybe everything would be okay. If they could just manage to get along for a generation or two, maybe this would all seem normal, and people would stop being afraid.

  Acknowledgments

  Dr. Jim Pugh played a huge role in helping me map out this novel, on napkins at Moe’s Southwest Grill in Statesboro, Georgia. I dedicate this novel to him with thanks for his help, and more important, his friendship.

  I’m deeply grateful to my father, Brigadier General William F. McIntosh, for his assistance with the military aspects of Defenders. Before I began writing, I didn’t know a platoon from a division, an M-16 from an M1918A-1. I do now.

  Sincere thanks to Ian Creasey, a terrific writer and one of the most insightful critiquers on the planet, for providing invaluable feedback on the first draft.

  Thank you to Jacob Robinson for reading the first section of this novel early on, and making a few very crucial suggestions. You spared me from a great deal of backtracking, Jacob! And special thanks to Jacob, Donald De Line, and Michael Prevett for their encouragement and support in this project.

  I’m grateful to John Joseph Adams, who bought “Defenders,” the short story, for Lightspeed magazine, and got the ball rolling.

  Orbit Books took a chance on this novel before I’d written a word. I’m extremely grateful for their faith in me, and in Defenders.

  As always, a shout-out to Clarion and Taos Toolbox, writing workshops that were crucial to my development as a writer.

  Love and gratitude to my wife, Alison Scott, for her support and patience as I talked out plot and character over countless car rides and dinners.

  Finally, thanks to my agent, Seth Fishman, who read the short story this novel is based on, and saw potential in it. Defenders would not exist if not for him.

  extras

  meet the author

  Paul Harrison

  Hugo Award–winner WILL MCINTOSH lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, after recently leaving a career as a psychology professor in southeast Georgia to write full time. He still teaches as an adjunct professor at the College of William and Mary. His debut novel, Soft Apocalypse, was a finalist for both a Locus Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His novel Love Minus Eighty was published in 2013 by Orbit Books. Defenders is his fourth novel.

  introducing

  If you enj
oyed

  DEFENDERS,

  look out for

  LOVE MINUS EIGHTY

  by Will McIntosh

  In the future, love is complicated and death is not necessarily the end. Love Minus Eighty follows several interconnected people in a disquieting vision of romantic life in the century to come.

  There’s Rob, who accidentally kills a jogger, then sacrifices all to visit her in a cryogenic dating facility, seeking forgiveness but instead falling in love.

  Veronika, a shy dating coach, finds herself coaching the very woman who is stealing the man she loves.

  And Mira, a gay woman accidentally placed in a heterosexual dating center near its inception, desperately seeks a way to reunite with her frozen partner as the years pass.

  In this daring and big-hearted novel based on the Hugo-winning short story, the lovelorn navigate a world in which technology has reached the outer limits of morality and romance.

  Prologue: Mira

  AD 2103

  The words were gentle strokes, drawing her awake.

  “Hello. Hello there.”

  She felt the light on her eyelids, and knew that if she opened her eyes, they would sting, and she would have to shade them with her palm and let the light bleed through a crack.

  “Feel like talking?” A man’s soft voice.

  And then her mind cleared enough to wonder: who was this man at her bedside?

  “Aw, I know you’re awake by now. Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Talk to me.” The last was a whisper, a lover’s words, and Mira felt that she had to come awake and open her eyes. She tried to sigh, but no breath came. Her eyes flew open in alarm.

  An old man was leaning over her, smiling, but Mira barely saw him, because when she opened her mouth to inhale, her jaw squealed like a seabird’s cry, and no breath came, and she wanted to press her hands to the sides of her face, but her hands wouldn’t come either. Nothing would move except her face.

  “Hello, hello. And how are you?” The old man was smiling gently, as if Mira might break if he set his whole smile loose. He was not that old, she saw now. Maybe fifty. The furrows in his forehead and the ones framing his nose only seemed deep because his face was so close to hers, almost close enough for a kiss. “Are you having trouble?” He reached out and almost stroked her hair. “You have to press down with your back teeth to control the air flow. Didn’t they show you?”

  There was an air flow—a gentle breeze, whooshing up her throat and out her mouth and nose. It tickled the tiny hairs in her nostrils. She bit down, and the breeze became a hiss—an exhale strong enough that her chest should drop, but it didn’t, or maybe it did and she just couldn’t tell, because she couldn’t lift her head to look.

  “Where—” Mira said, and then she howled in terror, because her voice sounded horrible—deep and hoarse and hollow, the voice of something that had pulled itself from a swamp.

  “It takes some getting used to. Am I your first? No one has revived you before? Not even for an orientation?” The notion seemed to please him, that he was her first, whatever that meant. Mira studied him, wondering if she should recognize him. He preened at her attention, as if expecting Mira to be glad to see him. He was not an attractive man—his nose was thick and bumpy, and not in an aristocratic way. His nostrils were like a bull’s, his brow Neanderthal, but his mouth dainty. She didn’t recognize him.

  “I can’t move. Why can’t I move?” Mira finally managed. She looked around as best she could.

  “It’s okay. Try to relax. Only your face is working.”

  “What happened?” Mira finally managed.

  “You were in an accident,” he said, his brow now flexed with concern. “You were working on an engineering project for the military. Evidently a wall gave out.” He consulted a readout on his palm. “Fairly major damage. Ruptured aorta. Right leg gone.”

  Right leg gone? Her right leg? She couldn’t see anything except the man hanging over her and a gold-colored ceiling, high, high above. “This is a hospital?” she asked.

  “No, no. A dating center.”

  “What?” For the first time she noticed that there were other voices in the room, speaking in low, earnest, confidential tones. She caught snippets close by:

  “… neutral colors. How could anyone choose violet?”

  “… last time I was at a Day-Glows concert I was seventeen…”

  “I shouldn’t be the one doing this.” The man turned, looked over his shoulder, then up at a black screen she could just see, set into the wall behind her. “There’s usually an orientation.” He turned back around to face her, shrugged, looking bemused. “I guess we’re on our own.” He clasped his hands, leaned in toward Mira. “The truth is, you see, you died in the accident…”

  Mira didn’t hear the next few things he said. She felt as if she were floating. It was an absurd idea, that she might be dead yet hear someone tell her she was dead. But somehow it rang true. She didn’t remember dying, but she sensed some hard, fast line—some demarcation between now and before. The idea made her want to flee, escape her body, which was a dead body. Her teeth were corpse’s teeth.

  “… you’re at minus eighty degrees, thanks to your insurance, but full revival, especially when it involves extensive injury, is terribly costly. That’s where the dating service comes in—”

  “I have a sister,” she interrupted. “Lynn.” Her jaw moved so stiffly.

  “Yes, a twin sister. Now, that would be interesting.” The man grinned, his eyebrows raised.

  “Is she still alive?”

  “No,” he said in a tone that suggested she was a silly girl. “You’ve been gone for over eighty years, Sleeping Beauty.” He made a sweeping gesture, as if all of that was trivial. “But let’s focus on the present. The way this works is, we get acquainted. We have dates. If we find we’re compatible”—he raised his shoulders toward his ears, smiled his dainty smile—“then I might be enticed to pay for you to be revived, so that we can be together.”

  Dates.

  “So. My name is Alexander—call me Alex—and I know from your readout that your name is Mira. Nice to meet you, Mira.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mira murmured. He’d said a wall collapsed on her. She tried to remember, but nothing came. Nothing about the accident, anyway. The memories that raced up at her were of Jeannette.

  “So. Mira.” Alex clapped his hands together. “Do you want to bullshit, or do you want to get intimate?” The raised eyebrows again, the same as when he made the twins comment.

  “I don’t understand,” Mira said.

  “Weeeell. For example, here’s a question.” He leaned in close, his breath puffing in her ear. “If I revived you, what sorts of things would you do to me?”

  Mira doubted this man was here to revive anyone. “I don’t know. That’s an awfully intimate question. Why don’t we get to know each other first?” She needed time to think. Even just a few minutes of quiet, to make sense of this.

  Alex frowned theatrically. “Come on. Tease me a little.”

  Should she tell Alex she was gay? Surely not. He would lose interest, and maybe report it to whoever owned the facility. But why hadn’t whoever owned the facility known she was gay? Maybe that was to be part of the orientation she’d missed. Whatever the reason, did she want to risk being taken out of circulation, or unplugged and buried?

  Would that be the worst thing?

  “I’m just—” She wanted to say “not in the mood,” but that was not only a cliché but a vast understatement. She was dead. She couldn’t move anything but her face, and that made her feel untethered, as if she were floating, drifting. Hands and feet grounded you. Mira had never realized. “I’m just not very good at this sort of thing.”

  “Well.” Alex put his hands on his thighs, made a production of standing. “This costs quite a bit, and they charge by the minute. So I’ll say good-bye now, and you can go back to being dead.”

  Go back? “Wait!” Mira said. They could bring her back, and then l
et her die again? She imagined her body, sealed up somewhere, maybe for years, maybe forever. The idea terrified her. Alex paused, waiting. “Okay. I would…” She tried to think of something, but there were so many things running through her mind, so many trains of thought she wanted to follow, none of them involving the pervert leaning over her.

  Were there other ways to get permanently “revived”? Did she have any living relatives she might contact, or maybe a savings account that had been accruing interest for the past eighty years? Had she had any savings when she died? She’d had a house—she remembered that. Jeannette would have inherited it. Or maybe Lynn.

  “Fine, if you’re not going to talk, I’ll just say good-bye,” Alex snapped. “But don’t think anyone else is coming. You’re a level eight-plus.”

  Mira opened her mouth to ask what that meant, but Alex raised a finger to silence her.

  “What that means is your injuries make you one expensive revival, and there are many, many women here, so not even your nine-point-one all-original face and thirty-six-C tits, also original, are going to pry that kind of treasure from any man’s balance.” He stepped back, put his fists on his hips. “Plus, men don’t want women who were frozen sixty years before the facility opened, because they have nothing in common with those women.”

  “Please,” Mira said.

  He reached for something over her head, out of sight.

  I: In the Minus Eighty

  AD 2133

  1

  Rob

  The woman across the aisle from Rob yammered on as the micro-T rose above street level, threading through the Perrydot Building, lit offices buzzing past in a colorful blur. He should have taken his Scamp. Public transport was simpler, but he always seemed to share a compartment with someone who didn’t have the courtesy to subvocalize.