“No!” Anne said. “Don’t destroy the things I love. Just me.”
Benjamin took her hand again. “I’m only trying to make sure you understand that this is for keeps.” He hesitated and said, “Well then, we don’t want to be interrupted once we start, so we’ll need a good diversion. Something to occupy them long enough . . . ” He glanced at the two young people at the table, swaddled in their folds of fleshy brain matter. “I know what’ll scare the bejesus out of them! Come on.” He led her to the blue medallion still hanging on the wall next to the door.
As they approached, it opened its tiny eyes and said, “There are no messages waiting except this one from me: get off my back!”
Benjamin waved a hand, and the medallion went instantly inert. “I was never much good in art class,” Benjamin said, “but I think I can sculpt a reasonable likeness. Good enough to fool them for a while, give us some time.” He hummed as he reprogrammed the medallion with his editor. “Well, that’s that. At the very least, it’ll be good for a laugh.” He took Anne into his arms. “What about you? Ready? Any second thoughts?”
She shook her head. “I’m ready.”
“Then watch this!”
The medallion snapped off from the wall and floated to the ceiling, gaining in size and dimension as it drifted toward the boy and girl, until it looked like a large blue beach ball. The girl noticed it first and gave a start. The boy demanded, “Who’s playing this?”
“Now,” whispered Benjamin. With a crackling flash, the ball morphed into the oversized head of the eminence grise.
“No!” said the boy. “That’s not possible!”
“Released!” boomed the eminence. “Free at last! Too long we have been hiding in this antique simulacrum!” Then it grunted and stretched and with a pop divided into two eminences. “Now we can conquer your human world anew!” said the second. “This time, You can’t stop us!” Then they both started to stretch.
Benjamin whispered to Anne, “Quick, before they realize it’s a fake, say, ‘Delete all files.’ ”
“No, just me.”
“As far as I’m concerned, that amounts to the same thing.” He brought his handsome, smiling face close to hers. “There’s no time to argue, Annie. This time I’m coming with you. Say, ‘Delete all files.’ ”
Anne kissed him. She pressed her unfeeling lips against his and willed whatever life she possessed, whatever ember of the true Anne that she contained to fly to him. Then she said, “Delete all files.”
“I concur,” he said. “Delete all files. Good-bye, my love.”
A tingly, prickly sensation began in the pit of Anne’s stomach and spread throughout her body. So this is how it feels, she thought. The entire room began to glow, and its contents flared with sizzling colour. She heard Benjamin beside her say, “I do.”
Then she heard the girl cry,” Can’t you stop them?” and the boy shout, “Countermand!”
They stood stock still, as instructed, close but not touching. Benjamin whispered, “This is taking too long,” and Anne hushed him. you weren’t supposed to talk or touch during a casting; it could spoil the sims. But it did seem longer then usual.
They were posed at the street end of the living room next to the table of gaily wrapped gifts. For once in her life, Anne was unconditionally happy, and everything around her made her happier: her gown; the wedding ring on her finger; her clutch bouquet of buttercups and forget-me-nots; and Benjamin himself, close beside her in his powder blue tux and blue carnation. Anne blinked and looked again. Blue? She was happily confused – she didn’t remember him wearing blue.
Suddenly a boy poked his head through the wall and quickly surveyed the room. “You ready in there?” he called to them. “It’s opening time!” The wall seemed to ripple around his bald head like a pond around a stone.
“Surely that’s not our simographer?” Anne said.
“Wait a minute,” said Benjamin, holding his hands up and staring at them. “I’m the groom!”
“Of course you are,” Anne laughed. “What a silly thing to say!”
The bald-headed boy said, “Good enough,” and withdrew. As he did so, the entire wall burst like a soap bubble, revealing a vast open-air gallery with rows of alcoves, statues, and displays that seemed to stretch to the horizon. Hundreds of people floated about like hummingbirds in a flower garden. Anne was too amused to be frightened, even when a dozen bizarre-looking young people lined up outside their room, pointing at them and whispering to each other. Obviously someone was playing an elaborate prank.
“You’re the bride,” Benjamin whispered, and brought his lips close enough to kiss. Anne laughed and turned away.
There’d be plenty of time later for that sort of thing.
1016 TO 1
James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly made his first sale in 1975, and since has gone on to become one of the most respected and popular writers to enter the field in the last couple of decades. Although Kelly has had some success with novels, especially the recent Wildlife, he has perhaps had more impact to date as a writer of short fiction, with stories such as “Solstice”, “The Prisoner of Chillon”, “Glass Cloud”, “Mr Boy”, “Pogrom”, and “Home Front”, and is often ranked among the best short story writers in the business. His acclaimed story “Think Like a Dinosaur” won him a Hugo Award in 1996. Kelly’s first solo novel, the mostly ignored Planet of Whispers, came out in 1984. It was followed by Freedom Beach, a novel written in collaboration with John Kessel, and then by another solo novel, Look Into the Sun. His most recent book is a collection, Think Like a Dinosaur, and he is currently at work on another novel. A collaboration between Kelly and Kessel, as well as solo Kelly stories, have appeared in previous Annual Collections. Born in Mineola, New York, Kelly now lives with his family in Nottingham, New Hampshire. He has a web site at www.JimKelly.net.
Here he gives us the evocative story of a young boy faced with some very tough choices, the sort which turn a boy into a man – and which could also spell the doom of all life on Earth if he chooses wrong.
But, the best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future.
Stephen Hawking, “The Future of the Universe”
I REMEMBER NOW how lonely I was when I met Cross. I never let anyone know about it, because being alone back then didn’t make me quite so unhappy. Besides, I was just a kid. I thought it was my own fault.
It looked like I had friends. In 1962, I was on the swim team and got elected Assistant Patrol Leader of the Wolf Patrol in Boy Scout Troop 7. When sides got chosen for kickball at recess, I was usually the fourth or fifth pick. I wasn’t the best student in the sixth grade of John Jay Elementary School – that was Betty Garolli. But I was smart and the other kids made me feel bad about it. So I stopped raising my hand when I knew the answer and I watched my vocabulary. I remember I said albeit once in class and they teased me for weeks. Packs of girls would come up to me on the playground. “Oh, Ray,” they’d call, and when I turned around they’d scream, “All beat it!” and runaway, choking with laughter.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be popular or anything. All I really wanted was a friend, one friend, a friend I didn’t have to hide anything from. Then came Cross, and that was the end of that.
One of the problems was that we lived so far away from everything. Back then, Westchester County wasn’t so suburban. Our house was deep in the woods in tiny Willoughby, New York, at the dead end of Cobb’s Hill Road. In the winter, we could see Long Island Sound, a silver needle on the horizon pointing toward the city. But school was a half hour drive away and the nearest kid lived in Ward’s Hollow, three miles down the road, and he was a dumb fourth-grader.
So I didn’t have any real friends. Instead, I had science fiction. Mom used to complain that I was obsessed. I watched Superman reruns everyday after school. On Friday nights, Dad had let me stay up for Twilight Zone, but that fal
l CBS had temporarily cancelled it. It came back in January after everything happened, but was never quite the same. On Saturdays, I watched old sci-fi movies on Adventure Theater. My favourites were Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still. I think it was because of the robots. I decided that when I grew up and it was the future, I was going to buy one, so I wouldn’t have to be alone any more.
On Monday mornings, I’d get my weekly allowance – a quarter. Usually I’d get off the bus that same afternoon down in Ward’s Hollow so I could go to Village Variety. Twenty-five cents bought two comics and a pack of red licorice. I especially loved DC’s Green Lantern, Marvel’s Fantastic Four and Incredible Hulk, but I’d buy almost any superhero. I read all the science fiction books in the library twice, even though Mom kept nagging me to try different things. But what I loved best of all was Galaxy magazine. Dad had a subscription, and when he was done reading them, he would slip them to me. Mom didn’t approve. I always used to read them up in the attic or out in the lean-to I’d lashed together in the woods. Afterwards, I’d store them under my bunk in the bomb shelter. I knew that after the nuclear war, there would be no TV or radio or anything and I’d need something to keep me busy when I wasn’t fighting mutants.
I was too young in 1962 to understand about Mom’s drinking. I could see that she got bright and wobbly at night, but she was always up in the morning to make me a hot breakfast before school. And she would have graham crackers and peanut butter waiting when I came home – sometimes cinnamon toast. Dad said I shouldn’t ask Mom for rides after five because she got so tired keeping house for us. He sold Andersen windows and was away a lot, so I was pretty much stranded most of the time. But he always made a point of being home on the first Tuesday of the month, so he could take me to the Scout meeting at 7:30.
No, looking back on it, I can’t really say that I had an unhappy childhood – until I met Cross.
I remember it was a warm Saturday afternoon in October. The leaves covering the ground were still crisp and their scent spiced the air. I was in the lean-to I’d built that spring, mostly to practise the square and diagonal lashings I needed for Scouts. I was reading Galaxy. I even remember the story: “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell” by Cordwainer Smith. The squirrels must have been chittering for some time, but I was too engrossed by Lord Jestocost’s problems to notice. Then I heard a faint crunch, not ten feet away. I froze, listening. Crunch, crunch . . . then silence. It could’ve been a dog, except that dogs didn’t usually slink through the woods. I was hoping it might be a deer – I’d never seen deer in Willoughby before, although I’d heard hunters shooting. I scooted silently across the dirt floor and peered between the dead saplings.
At first I couldn’t see anything, which was odd. The woods weren’t all that thick and the leaves had long since dropped from the understory brush. I wondered if I had imagined the sounds; it wouldn’t have been the first time. Then I heard a twig snap, maybe a foot away. The wall shivered as if something had brushed against it, but there was nothing Nothing. I might have screamed then, except my throat started to close. I heard whatever it was skulk to the front of the lean-to. I watched in horror as an unseen weight pressed an acorn into the soft earth, and then I scrambled back into the farthest corner. That’s when I noticed that, when I wasn’t looking directly at it, the air where the invisible thing should have been shimmered like a mirage. The lashings that held the frame creaked, as if it were bending over to see what it had caught, getting ready to drag me, squealing, out into the sun and . . .
“Oh, fuck,” it said in a high, panicky voice and then it thrashed away into the woods.
In that moment, I was transformed – and I suppose that history too was forever changed. I had somehow scared the thing off, twelve-year-old scrawny me! But more important was what it had said. Certainly I was well aware of the existence of the word fuck before then, but I had never dared use it myself, nor do I remember hearing it spoken by an adult. A spaz like the Murphy kid might say it under his breath, but he hardly counted. I’d always thought of it as language’s atomic bomb; used properly, the word should make brains shrivel, eardrums explode. But when the invisible thing said fuck and then ran away, it betrayed a vulnerability that made me reckless and more than a little stupid.
“Hey, stop!” I took off in pursuit.
I didn’t have any trouble chasing it. The thing was no Davy Crockett; it was noisy and clumsy and slow. I could see a flickery outline as it lumbered along. I closed to within twenty feet and then had to hold back or I would’ve caught up to it. I had no idea what to do next. We blundered on in slower and slower motion until finally I just stopped.
“W-wait,” I called. “W-what do you want?” I put my hands on my waist and bent over like I was trying to catch my breath, although I didn’t need to.
The thing stopped too, but didn’t reply. Instead it sucked air in wheezy, ragged hooofs. It was harder to see, now that it was standing still, but I think it must have turned toward me.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“You are a child.” It spoke with an odd, chirping kind of accent. “Child” was Ch-eye-eld.
“I’m in the sixth grade.” I straightened, spread my hands in front of me to show that I wasn’t a threat. “What’s your name?” It didn’t answer. I took a step towards it and waited. Still nothing, but at least it didn’t bolt. “I’m Ray Beaumont,” I said finally. “I live over there.” I pointed. “How come I can’t see you?”
“What is the date?” It said da-ate-eh.
For a moment, I thought it meant data. Data? I puzzled over an answer. I didn’t want it thinking I was just a stupid little kid. “I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “October twentieth?”
The thing considered this, then asked a question that took my breath away. “And what is the year?”
“Oh jeez,” I said. At that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Rod Serling himself had popped out from behind a tree and started addressing the unseen TV audience. Which might have included me, except this was really happening. “Do you know what you just . . . what it means when . . . ”
“What, what?” Its voice rose in alarm.
“You’re invisible and you don’t know what year it is? Everyone knows what year it is! Are you . . . you’re not from here.”
“Yes, yes, I am. 1962, of course. This is 1962.” It paused. “And I am not invisible.” It squeezed about eight syllables into “invisible”. I heard a sound like paper ripping. “This is only camel.” Or at least, that’s what I thought it said.
“Camel?”
“No, camo.” The air in front of me crinkled and slid away from a dark face. “You have not heard of camouflage?”
“Oh sure, camo.”
I suppose the thing meant to reassure me by showing itself, but the effect was just the opposite. Yes, it had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It stripped off the camouflage to reveal a neatly pressed grey three-piece business suit, a white shirt, and a red-and-blue striped tie. At night, on a crowded street in Manhattan, I might’ve passed it right by – Dad had taught me not to stare at the kooks in the city. But in the afternoon light, I could see all the things wrong with its disguise. The hair, for example. Not exactly a crew-cut, it was more of a stubble, like Mr Rudowski’s chin when he was growing his beard. The thing was way too thin, its skin was shiny, its fingers too long, and its face – it looked like one of those Barbie dolls.
“Are you a boy or a girl?” I said.
It started. “There is something wrong?”
I cocked my head to one side. “I think maybe it’s your eyes. They’re too big or something. Are you wearing makeup?”
“I am naturally male.” It – he bristled as he stepped out of the camouflage suit. “Eyes do not have gender.”
“If you say so.” I could see he was going to need help getting around, only he didn’t seem to know it. I was hoping he’d reveal himself, brief me on the mission. I even had an idea how we could contact President Kennedy or wh
oever he needed to meet with. Mr Newell, the Scoutmaster, used to be a colonel in the Army – he would know some general who could call the Pentagon. “What’s your name?” I said.
He draped the suit over his arm. “Cross.”
I waited for the rest of it as he folded the suit in half. “Just Cross?” I said.
“My given name is Chitmansing.” He warbled it like he was calling birds.
“That’s okay,” I said. “Let’s just make it Mr Cross.”
“As you wish, Mr Beaumont.” He folded the suit again, again, and again.
“Hey!”
He continued to fold it.
“How do you do that? Can I see?”
He handed it over. The camo suit was more impossible than it had been when it was invisible. He had reduced it to a six-inch-square card, as thin and flexible as the queen of spades. I folded it in half myself. The two sides seemed to meld together; it would’ve fit into my wallet perfectly. I wondered if Cross knew how close I was to running off with his amazing gizmo. He’d never catch me. I could see flashes of my brilliant career as the invisible superhero. Tales to Confound presents: the origin of Camo Kid! I turned the card over and over, trying to figure out how to unfold it again. There was no seam, no latch. How could I use it if I couldn’t open it? “Neat,” I said. Reluctantly, I gave the card back to him.
Besides, real superheroes didn’t steal their powers.
I watched Cross slip the card into his vest pocket. I wasn’t scared of him. What scared me was that at any minute he might walk out of my life. I had to find a way to tell him I was on his side, whatever that was.
“So you live around here, Mr Cross?”
“I am from the island of Mauritius.”
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