This Is How You Die

by Matthew Bennardo

  “I saw a Machine, before my death, one that couldn’t sing anymore. Why was it so broken?”

  She hears the ragged quality in Priest’s breath in the silence that follows. He clears his throat, twice. But his voice still cracks when he speaks. “Reading altered deaths. It ruins them somehow. Eats away at them like rot.”

  Pome feels her entire self shrink to a ball of sheer misery. Even in this new life she could end broken; there is no end to the cruelty of the Prelacy. “It spoke,” she tells him dully, “but only through a VR link-up. How do I speak as I could before?”

  The silence is minute, loaded. “All Machines are the same to begin with. I have to preserve the vocal cords, use them in construction as part of a synthesizer. A singer is not a singer without their unique voice. For most Machines, silence is a meditation. You will understand it soon far better than I can explain it.”

  “My vocal cords?” Pome is stunned. If she were not right in the middle of it, she would laugh at how ludicrous, how impossible, this is.

  “I had to work quickly to save them, to save you. We almost lost all of you. I wanted to give you a future, and this is the only one I could provide. It’s one I’d always planned to offer you. I’m so sorry it had to be like this.”

  Pome recalls his words before the void consumed her. Thinks of the eighty years, the future she lost. Meaningless. She always had more than one future awaiting her. Better to receive one early, then, unexpectedly, than to lose both. Even if this future has its pitfalls, so did the one before. There is no difference; both are life and life is uncertain. Pome has a lot to thank that broken Machine for. Even in its suffering, the loss of its song, it led her to the possibility of survival.

  There is a stirring then. A displacement of air before, yet within, her.

  “Feel that?” Priest asks.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “My hand. Focus on it. Let your whole awareness bleed out until it hits resistance; then I want you to try and take a blood sample from me. You’ll know how.”

  Pome tries to take a breath. Laughs as she recalls that there are no lungs to breathe with, even if she needed air. She stretches out, floods the space about her until she feels she can go no farther. It doesn’t feel like confinement. She’s never felt so vast, so powerful.

  She feels the hand now. The shape of it, the density. The blood pumping through veins, capillaries. Texture of skin, the finest hair follicles. The lines of the palm, fingerprints even, each delicate whorl. Senses too, the needle, just the same. Her awareness is infinite, immeasurable. Yet she feels no fear. She touches the needle with her mind, pleased that it moves to her command. Guides it gently to a fingertip and pricks lightly.

  Blood wells. She can taste it. It should be copper, salt, sickly, but instead it fills her senses to overload. Soars through her in a powerful flood, rich, dark, breathtaking. The curlicue of DNA, the vibrations of molecules, all joined together in wondrous harmony. A history reels out within her mind’s eye, all Priest has ever been, will ever be; it is all there, and it is the most glorious music. It speaks into her, fills her soul.

  Before it overwhelms her, she hears a soft sigh. Knows that it comes from her voice. Just as it does from the other voices in the Machines. Then she is plunged headlong into the beauty of the blood, and unable to prevent herself, she bursts into song.

  * * *

  Story by Ren Warom

  Illustration by Claire Hummel

  CECILE

  CECILE RISES FROM THE WATER, the little drops clinging to the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts. Her dark hair is matted to her head, and she pushes it back off her shoulders. She looks just as good in a swimsuit as she does in anything else. Beautiful. Wonderful. I’d wonder why she was with me. Why she loved me at all—and it is love. It has to be. Then I remember what the machine said and smile. CECILE. Yes. It will be her. It should be her.

  “Katherine?” she says and raises an eyebrow as she grabs the towel from the chair next to me. Her voice is heavily accented—French. The little hairs on my arms prick up every time she speaks. “Don’t you want to swim?”

  I look down at the boy shorts that are supposed to make me look every bit the curvy woman, but I’m still too skinny. “Do you want me to?”

  She cups my chin in her hand, kissing me gently on the lips. “Only if you want, my love.”

  I shake my head and pick up my book.

  Every man in the vicinity has his eyes on Cecile. She smiles, ties the sarong around her waist, and slips on oversized sunglasses before she sits back in the chair. A busboy hurries to her side as she raises a slender arm. “Wine?” she asks, and I nod, knowing anything she orders will be the best.

  She rattles off her order to the busboy in French, and I understand only snippets of what she says. There’s going to be food involved. There’s always food involved. I wonder if that’s how she’ll kill me. Poison? It seems like her.

  “Are you enjoying life in my home country?” she asks after the busboy rushes away.

  “Of course. The beach is so different on this side of the Mediterranean.”

  She smiles and runs her fingers through my recently butchered hair. She said I’d look cute with it short, so I let her cut it one night before we came here. That was back in Cairo. She lifted the scissors in the dim overhead lights of our crowded apartment and I wondered then, like I always do, if this was going to be it. Was she going to slit my throat? Stab me in the heart? Would my hot blood stain her hands while she smiled her perfect smile, showing that tiny gap between her front teeth? No. She only cut my ill-maintained bob into a sassy pixie, blowing the hair off my neck and ears.

  “It needs a trim soon,” she says, and a little stab of excitement shoots through my stomach.

  “Did you bring the scissors?”

  She shakes her head. “Non. We’ll have to buy a new pair while we’re here. And no, it can’t wait until we’re back in Cairo; you’ll have a mop on your head by then.”

  I laugh and nod. “You can do it whenever you want.”

  After a shower in our hotel room we dress for dinner. Cecile has friends in Nice. It’s not a surprise. She has friends everywhere.

  “The gold dress, love. It looks best with your hair,” she says and slips on something red and backless. No underwear means no panty line. I’m not so brave.

  I pull the gold drapey fabric over my head, and she zips it up without asking if I need help. Then she fixes my hair and points at the black heels. “You can borrow my black clutch.”

  “Does being fashionable come with being French?” I ask as she piles her loose curls into pins on her head.

  “Perhaps,” she says, a wicked grin on her lips as she dabs on red lipstick. It matches her dress. “Come, I’ll make you up.”

  I stand obediently in front of her to get powdered and dabbed until I hardly recognize myself in the mirror. I’m not sure how she turns me from cute into whatever this is, but I’m not going to complain.

  We get to the restaurant fashionably late.

  Cecile kisses the cheeks of her old friends, a few hetero couples and a single man, and introduces me. “Katherine, my lover.”

  The heat rises to my cheeks, but I nod and smile. I should have studied French when I had the chance.

  They all eye me like they wonder why she’s with me. I can’t blame them. It’s hard to see from the outside looking in. I can hardly tell them she’s the one. The one who’s going to kill me someday.

  We settle down for a meal of roasted fish drenched in butter and a number of other rich foods. I can hardly eat as I try to keep up with barely caught snippets of conversation. Cecile chats with the single man. He’s handsome, for a guy, and eyes her like every other straight male in the world.

  “How long have you known Cici?” one of the women asks in English.

  “Five years,” I say, and dab my mouth, careful to avoid smearing my lipstick. Cecile’s lipstick is still perfect.

  “Oh, where did you me
et?”

  I sip my wine and feel slightly light-headed. This is my third glass today. “Mumbai, actually. She was collecting for a museum, and I was a grad student working on an archeological dig outside of the city. She worked with us.”

  I can still taste the dust in my mouth from the time I first saw her wearing those high-waisted khaki pants, the crisp white oxford, and her dark hair in a braid down her back. I felt stupid and ugly just standing next her. When she introduced herself, I stared.

  “Cecile?” I repeated. The name. I’d thought about that name my whole life. Since I was old enough to know what the machine told my parents the day I was born. Cecile was going to be how I died.

  “Oui,” she said. “And you are?”

  “Kathy—or Katherine.” I don’t even know why I told her that. I’d gone by Kathy since I was a kid, but she got a strange gleam in her eyes when she heard my name. I’ve been Katherine ever since.

  After the party, Cecile kisses her friends again. The man—his name’s Stephan—lets his lips linger on her cheek longer than the others. I almost giggle, if not from the wine then because I know her better than any of them. I know what she’s capable of. What she’ll do for love—for me.

  When we get back to the hotel I fall into bed, but Cecile urges me into the bathroom and wipes all the makeup off our faces. “You were bored tonight, my love?” she asks as she hands me my toothbrush.

  “Not bored. Your friends are very—”

  “Snobby, you would call it?”

  I brush my teeth, but I know my cheeks are pink, and it has nothing to do with the wine. She just smiles and pulls me to bed when we’re done. She’s warm and inviting.

  My phone wakes me up the next morning. I look at the caller ID and walk out onto the balcony before I answer. Below, the water rolls in and out on the sandy beach. Cecile’s still in bed, the blankets pushed down to her waist, showing off her pert breasts.

  “Mom?” I say.

  “Oh, Kathy! Finally! Where are you, dear?”

  “Um, France, Mom.”

  “Oh, weren’t you in Turkey last time?” I can see her sitting at the little kitchen table, her gray hair cut short, and a cup of tea going cold as she talks.

  I lean against the balcony. “Istanbul for a while. We’ve been in Cairo for the last six months.”

  “Egypt, dear?”

  “The very same,” I say, and smile. She’s never been farther west than Seattle.

  “Oh, that sounds exciting. Did you know Ted is getting married? I’m not sure if he called you yet to let you know.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard. It’s Emily, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. He wants you to come to the wedding. Do you think you could come back home for just a bit? I haven’t seen you since you left for school; what’s it been now?”

  The familiar pit forms in my stomach. “About five years, Mom.”

  “Well, what do you say? I know you’re busy, but I’d sure like to meet this friend of yours—”

  “Lover, Mom. We’re lovers.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, like she always is when I tell her. “I know. I know. I was just trying to be discreet.”

  “I think it’s best if you don’t meet her, Mom.” Best for all of us.

  “Ted was really looking forward to—”

  “I know. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can come alone,” I lie and bite my bottom lip, happy she can’t see me. “I should go. International rates and all.”

  “Right. I love you, Kathy.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I turn my phone off and climb back into bed next to Cecile. She reaches for me and half opens her eyes. “Why don’t you want me to meet your family?” she asks, and runs a finger down my cheek.

  I bury my face into her chest right over her heart, kissing it lightly, wondering when it will turn on me. A twinge of excitement runs through my body. I don’t want them to catch her. I don’t want her punished. Not for that. Not for loving me.

  “I love you too much,” I say.

  Her hands caress the skin on my back, and her breath catches in her throat. “I love you too, Katherine.”

  * * *

  Story by Hollan Lane

  Illustration by Ramón Pérez

  LA MORT D’UN ROTURIER

  JULIETTE STOOD AGAINST THE PASTEL-PAINTED wall of the magnificent candlelit ballroom and watched disinterestedly as more than a hundred masked guests, mainly Parisians but with a few recently liberated Americans fresh from their French-funded revolution, each dressed in their finest clothes, danced and drank and gorged and indulged in any other débauche they could get away with in the flickering light of the chandeliers above, not to mention the numerous discreet shadowy corners they provided. Unfortunate servants all across Paris would be scrubbing unmentionable stains from the finery for days after this grand masquerade had ended. She was just deeply grateful that she wouldn’t be one of them.

  The windows of the ballroom were dark, midnight long since passed, though rain fell against the glass in a steady stream, and there were occasional distant rumbles of thunder that made Juliette shiver. Her costume was far less extravagant than those of the invited guests to this grand masquerade, of course, a simple dark blue masculine pageboy costume, her dark hair pinned up inside her cap. She wasn’t there to be seen, not in the same way as these overweight nobles and other bourgeoisie. No, she was there for a far simpler function. The same function, she had to admit to herself with no small measure of reluctance, as the six drunken dwarves to her left juggling pigs’ testicles tied with bright red ribbons while singing “Marlbrough S’en Va-T-En Guerre,” and the raggedy stilt walkers who stalked the crowd, frightening delicate noblewomen by brushing spindly wooden claws across the backs of their corpulent necks.

  She was an entertainment, a diversion, nothing more. She and Isaac. And clearly far less popular than the others, for obvious reasons. Those who partook in the… demonstration invariably walked away sucking their fingers and clutching a scrap of paper in their free hand, glancing time and time again at the writing there, working hard to look nonchalant and amused by the whole affair, but there was that disquiet in their eyes, a darkness that shadowed their mood.

  Juliette smiled a little at that thought. You really shouldn’t ask a question that you don’t wish to know the answer to. They never learned.

  “Mademoiselle Jaquet-Droz?” A light, effete voice spoke from beside her. She turned to face the speaker and recognized him immediately. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to; the generous host of this masquerade made an ostentatious display of his anonymity, as he did of everything else in his profoundly entitled life. Nobody here knew who he was. Everybody here knew who he was. It was all part of the charade. The man was fat, of course, as were almost all the guests, and wore a flamboyant ball gown, his face half-covered by a deep purple mask. What flesh was exposed there was painted white, and his lips were stained red, as if he’d been eating mulberries. Juliette resisted the urge to look for his infamous wife, la putain autrichienne.

  “Oui, monsieur?” Juliette responded as casually as she could manage. This man was her employer tonight. Her performance could mean considerable monies, or a swift exit to the shit-stained cobbled streets outside. The outcome was up to her. And Isaac, of course.

  “You’re not wearing a mask,” the man pointed out, rather unnecessarily.

  She smiled at him sweetly. “That remains to be seen. Do you wish to experience Isaac’s wisdom?”

  The man in the ball gown turned his attention to the incredible object that sat beside Juliette. A strange, crooked smile crept across his plump red lips. “Ah, oui,” he breathed.

  Isaac was an automaton, his face and hands carved from delicate wax, sitting at a small mahogany writing desk. He was dressed from the waist up in the clothes of a peasant, rough-woven fabrics stitched together by hand. Below the waist he did not exist, his body merging with the desk and casings for the intricate machineries hidden within. On h
is shirt was a patch, sewed to his left breast, a coat of arms, two pure white crossed bones on a black background. One of his smooth hands held a quill, the feather dyed a brilliant red. The other hand rested palm down on the desk. His eyes were closed, his waxen face patient, implacable. Waiting.

  “Incredible,” the fat man in the gown said, his hungry eyes sliding across Isaac’s mechanical form. He glanced back at Juliette. “It looks quite similar to L’écrivain, n’est-ce pas?”

  Juliette nodded patiently. “The Writer was a superb piece of engineering, monsieur,” she agreed. “It could handwrite any twenty characters you chose, a marvel of intricate clockwork. It was, and still is, my father’s finest creation.” She smiled demurely. “Compared to my beautiful Isaac, though, it’s a mere windup toy, a plaything for children.”

  He laughed at that, a surprisingly hearty laugh considering his reedy voice. His jowls vibrated with it. It made Juliette feel a little ill to see. “That’s quite a claim, mademoiselle. We shall see.” He walked in front of the automaton, examining it closely. On the desk, directly opposite the mechanical hand holding the quill, was an indentation, four fingers and a thumb. There were a few dark, wet spots near the groove for the index finger. “Place my hand here, oui?” he asked her.

  “Oui.”

  He turned his left-hand palm upward and placed it in the indentation.

  Juliette walked around behind Isaac. “You understand how this works, monsieur?” she asked him.

  The man grinned. “Like clockwork?”

  She nodded. “Exactement. Isaac is named after Sir Isaac Newton, and with good cause.”

  There was a snort of derision from beneath the blue mask. “Un anglais,” he spat.