by D. Tolmach
The Camps
Karlatte was going through withdrawal. Not having a cigarette to go with the beer she couldn’t drink and not having a beer to chase the whisky that was absolutely verboten went against her very nature as a writer. And now she couldn’t have any of them for another, what was it? Eleven weeks? Hadn’t she read in some stupid women’s magazine that a glass of red wine every once in a while was good for a fetus? Oh, for the love of Goldath, was she actually pining for wine? Get this fucking thing out of me already.
Vax seemed unfazed, leaning back with her feet on the porch railing and knitting, but this was what, her hundredth kid? Don’t be a bitch, Karlatte. It’s not her fault. Us preggies got to stick together. She knew she’d never get through this without her ever-growing blueberry of a neighbor. Andy and Pritchard were great, but they knew zilch about being knocked up.
As far as concentration camps went, there had been much worse in the short history of sentient carbon-based life-forms. Sure, there were half a billion Humans fenced in by a force field and they had to wear identically bland prison uniforms and live in tiny identically bland houses, but they got to keep their families together and they had an entire planet to themselves, with trees and oxygen and everything. Vax, after her murder-one case was thrown out on a technicality (it turns out rogue cops can’t just kidnap you and hold you handcuffed in their living room overnight without letting you call your lawyer, even if there is ample holographic evidence showing you actually shot someone in the back of the head), realized quite quickly she was pregnant. Divorced and with nowhere else to go and no money because her alimony was annulled due to infidelity, she showed up at the camp director’s office with two suitcases and the results of a prenatal paternity test.
“See, right there, it says Pritchard P. Parsons, father. According to Executive Order 101181, ‘. . . no undue burden or hardship is to be placed on families of citizens of the Milky Way interned at aforementioned areas designated—’”
“Yeah yeah, whatever, lady. You want to live in a cage with a bunch of intergalactic freaks? Fine by me.”
* * *
When Henrietta Livshits came to, the air smelled of foul, bitter smoke and the boy she had been teaching how to work a clitoris was nowhere to be seen. As the ringing in her ears subsided, she began to distinguish the unmistakable sound of electroplasma pistols being fired in a rhythmic, almost casual manner. Peeking her head slowly over the partition that had shielded her from the blast, she was bombarded with the horrifying sight of a platoon of Ministry of Benevolence troops methodically executing survivors of what must have been a rocket strike, although she had no memory of an explosion. A gray haze shrouded the large hall, but she knew her entire family was in there somewhere, either dead or about to die.
That’s when she heard a low gurgling behind her.
His body had been mangled by shrapnel, and his face was burned and unrecognizable. He started moaning in pain, and she slipped behind him and put her hand over his mouth, holding his head and whispering in his ear that everything was going to be okay, and he had given her the best time of her life, and his next girlfriend would be the luckiest girl ever, before snapping his neck as swiftly as possible.
Having been taking potshots at MOB soldiers ever since her fingers were strong enough to pull a trigger, Henrietta followed her first instinct—to look for high ground. The fact that she didn’t actually have a gun with her at the moment was a minor detail to be dealt with later. She scanned the area until she saw a Starbucks kiosk she could probably pretty easily climb up on top of where she could take cover behind the large letters crowning it, using the low visibility to her advantage. There were thirty-nine soldiers she could count, which meant there were three she couldn’t see. She would need to draw them out somehow.
“How’s it going there, lass? You wouldn’t happen to know how to use one of these, would you?” The naked, dreadlocked man who had appeared beside her was holding a brand-new, sleek black PLG-384 with a flash suppressor, silencer, and thermal imaging scope and loaded with heat-seeking motion-sensitive ammunition. “I’m a lover, not a sniper.”
She took it from him, looked through the sight, and was about to make a run for the kiosk when he put a hand on her shoulder.
“I know you want to avenge your kin, but you might want to wait a bit longer ’til the real big fish get here. I’ve got a feeling this is only the beginning.”
* * *
There’s nothing like a column of goose-stepping riot police escorting an armored personnel carrier to ruin a cookout. That went double for Karlatte and Andy when it was made up of Humans in uniforms of the Galactic Union and it came to a stop directly in front of their house.
“What are those assholes doing here?”
“Shit.” Andy put down her banjo, stood abruptly, and descended the porch steps to the sidewalk. “Stay here.”
Pritchard was in the yard, making hamburgers and showing off his new grill to James and Carlyle, the couple from next door. Vax’s youngest children, who were visiting for the weekend, were playing blind man’s bluff with James’s sister, Magnetta. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at the intrusion.
The black leather shoe that stepped forcefully out of the APC was sleek and overpolished. The leg it was attached to widened the higher it got, curving gelatinously into a large belly held in check by a surprisingly patient belt and a tailored black trench coat doing its very best to try to keep the whole doughy mass out of sight.
“Andromeda Mayday, with the power vested in me by the Government of the Galactic Union of Autonomous Planets, I place you under arrest for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, conspiracy to overthrow the state, treason, espionage, obscenity, heresy, blasphemy . . .” As the Enquirer spoke, several troops broke formation and forced Andy’s hands behind her back. “. . . the transportation of controlled substances with intent to sell . . .” When she struggled, they were quite happy to beat her to the ground with nightsticks. Before she knew it, Karlatte was on the grass and running toward them, an act of bravery for which she was awarded the butt of a rifle to her face and ended up lying on the ground in shock and covered in blood. Cinnamon erupted in a fit of barking and was shot several times in the face, which didn’t faze him in the least, only stopping when Karlatte finally ordered him back into the house. The Enquirer poked at her bulging stomach with his pointy shoe.
“Worry not, Karlatte. We will return for you, and I give you my word that the unfortunate monstrosity growing inside you will receive the best education possible at the Church of the One Undeniable and Completely Accurate Truth Boarding School. It will be spared the cruel knowledge of its origins and redeemed for the sins of its parents.”
Pritchard, James, and Carlyle had automatic weapons pointed at their faces, and Magnetta had rushed off to the house with the crying children. Vax, upon hearing the commotion, bolted out of the house, yelling something about Executive Order 101181 in her broken Human. The Enquirer knocked her down with a punch to the face.
“Is that what passes for fun in the Galactic Union? Beating up pregnant women?” Pritchard was expecting to be shot at any moment.
“That thing is not a woman. And if we were back in the Union, you would be mining helium in a meteor labor camp for lusting after it.” He took a rifle from a soldier and pointed it at Vax’s stomach. “I’d be doing that half-breed genetic mistake a favor by putting it out of its misery right now. But . . . that is outside the scope of my mission.” He trained the barrel on Andy. “Now, come with me please.”
* * *
In solidarity with her pregnant wife, Andy had given up smoking and drinking, but now that she was shackled to a table in an interrogation room, waiting for the Enquirer, she saw no reason to deny herself a bottle of Messier Dark and a pack of Mercury Reds when her guards asked if there was anything they could get her. She could make herself feel drunk anytime she wanted to with a single thought command, but the taste and ritual of cigarettes with beer w
ere irreplaceable.
The door opened with a squeal. “It’s time to go home, Ms. Mayday. You’ve had your fun, but now you must return to your creators.”
Why is everyone always trying to take credit for creating me?
“This little setup you have going for you, your new family here in Andromeda, could actually be considered quite incestuous.”
She decided to wait and see where this was going.
“You do know you’re a clone, right? I’m not making a dramatic spoiler-alert-worthy revelation by saying that, am I? Good. But did you also know you are a product of the laboratory—you could say, the daughter—of the godmother of the revolution, High Priestess of the Church of the One Undeniable and Completely Accurate Truth Aris Centaurus?”
Now her eyes betrayed her surprise. “Aris Centaurus? Is that Karlatte’s mother?”
“Grandmother. But, yes, your wife’s mother, Dilaura, was also a clone, a sister clone. For someone with a computer for a brain, your knowledge of the history of your home galaxy is atrocious.”
“I got more important things to think about. Look, I’ve run the genetic tests. I’m not her aunt and we’re not related. Admit it: you just get off on the idea of lesbian incest.”
“Ms. Mayday, I get off on nothing other than sex with my wife in the missionary position with the lights turned out.” He leaned over the steel table and braced himself with both hands. “What is it about allying yourself with the forces of nihilism and cynicism that gets you off?”
“Who are you? Why are you talking like that? Real people don’t talk like that.”
“I’m glad you ask. I am the upholder of civilization, of Human culture. Without men like me, Humanity would have been overrun by savages and SJWs a long time ago.”
“Can we get this over with and go straight to the part where you tear my fingernails off or put me in an iron maiden?”
“Oh, Andy, I’m not going to torture you here. I’m sure you’ll put on quite a show, but I know there’s nothing I can do to your physical body to make you feel pain. Trust me, when we get back to the Milky Way, I have in my office the most perfect piece of machinery. All I have to do is plug you in to it and you will feel the pain of a million deaths. Every nanosecond will feel like a millennium of raw, unimaginable agony.”
“And what exactly is the point of all that?”
“The point is to punish you, Andromeda. You’ve betrayed the very people who have given you life, aligning yourself with the xenophiles, the powers of darkness and self-hatred who demand equality for their aberrations and degeneracy. In short, you’re on the wrong team. And you’re famous. We can make an example out of you. When we hang you and your friend Icy Lou in St. Osco Silvos Square on live holovision, it will be a sign to the people of the Galactic Union that the forces of good have prevailed. Then we’ll come back here for your friends.”
* * *
“Ok, here’s a question: if Human civilization is so great, why is life in the Milky Way so shitty compared to Andromeda? I mean, we have better lives in the concentration camps here than we ever had anywhere in the Galactic Union.” They were walking down the hall to the Enquirer’s ship to take them to the Cosmic Void Gate.
“Andromeda is a homogenous society, while the Milky Way is full of subhuman species all fighting us for resources. Andromedians have already wiped out any competing cultures, and soon the Galactic Union will do the same. Then we will come here and exterminate these blue idiots.”
“So that’s your plan? Genocide on an intergalactic scale?”
“It is the will of Goldath.”
“Goldath, huh? I have it on pretty good authority that we were created as slaves by a race of lizard people.”
The Enquirer snorted dismissively. “Yes, well, good luck getting enough people to believe that to start a respectable religion. Then you have to apply for tax-exempt status, find a decent architect for your churches and contractors that won’t rip you off. I’m telling you, it’s a bloody nightmare.”
They stopped at a cell door, and one of the guards opened it. He entered and brought out Lou, her red hair frazzled and skin a sickly sea green, the alien hormones wearing off. She avoided Andy’s eyes before collapsing, sobbing. “I’m sorry, Andy. I never meant . . . I told them to take me, to let you stay. . . .”
“I know, babe.” She made a move to help her friend, but the guards held her back.
“And that poor girl, Vax. I tortured her. It was all so fucking stupid and meaningless. What happened to me? How did I become so power hungry, so . . . evil?”
* * *
Each galaxy has its own Cosmic Void Gate and its own secret society of mystic scholars to look after it and make sure that, before jumping, you’ve gone through a series of pointless rituals and cleanses so you don’t take any bad vibes with you. The gate itself is pretty anticlimactic, a large iron double door that you pass through, and boom, you’ve traveled millions of light-years before you can say “engage” (or, if you prefer, “traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy”). Anything bigger than a double-decker bus, like your ship, has to be broken down at the subatomic level and reconstructed on the other side, which costs extra.
Henrietta had been lying atop the coffee stand for two days waiting for the gates to open, watching the soldiers clear the bodies and prepare the hall. Something big was about to happen, and she was there to make sure it all went terribly wrong.
* * *
The Gate opened into darkness. Icy Lou couldn’t see anything in front of her—the white light from the Andromedian side shone behind them—but she could tell something was off. There was a splat in front of her, and she felt something wet and warm and slimy on her face, reminding her of that time Finkworth insisted on giving her a facial, before she was violently jolted, almost falling down, as the Enquirer fell back into her. There were more splats as each guard was quickly taken out, one by one, by a headshot. She looked at Andy in confusion, only to see a small glowing red dot on her forehead. Without thinking, she threw herself in front of Andy, the force of the plasma shot to the back of her head knocking them together, and, their hands handcuffed behind their backs, they fell to the ground, the light in Lou’s eyes extinguishing as blood, gray matter, and shards of her skull rained from the exit wound in her forehead. The remaining guards scrambled to find their target amid frantic gunfire in the darkness. Andy looked back into the Gate to see that it was slowly closing. She pulled her legs into the fetal position, threaded her arms under them, and, crawling, dragged Lou back to Andromeda.
Eulogy
“Icy Lou was my friend. She killed me and she gave me eternal life, and her last act was to sacrifice herself for me. For that I’m forever in her debt. She was a complex woman, and, despite her grave mistakes, essentially a good one.” Andy had told Vax and everyone else how Lou had repented for her cruelties, but she had done so much damage that no one had been in any mood to come to her funeral, so Karlatte sat alone in the first pew, compulsively petting Cinnamon because she didn’t know what to do with her hands, even though they say keeping a pet tardigrade will give your fetus a third eye in the middle of its forehead. The science was inconclusive, so it was probably just an old Andromedian wives’ tale, but anyways she figured there were worse things for a kid than having a third eye in the middle of its forehead. Lou herself lay in an oak casket as if she had never been shot in the back of the head. There was no particular need to go on—Karlatte hadn’t known her and Andy would rather keep a lot of her feelings to herself—so she motioned to the gravediggerbots to close the casket and carry it down the aisle. Outside, the first snow of the season was falling chaotically, and the hearse, once loaded, flew over the streets of the concentration camp to the woods, where it landed in a secluded clearing with a coffin-shaped hole in the ground and a small granite plaque.
Once the casket was lowered into the ground, Andy took a handful of black dirt and dropped it in.
“What was it they used to say on
Earth?”
“Andy . . .”
“Ashes to something and dust to something?”
“Andy!”
“What’s wrong, hun?”
“I think my water just broke.”
* * *
[1] Many years earlier a breakthrough in science offered the possibility for Human males to be impregnated and give birth, so the Church reluctantly reversed its previous stubborn stance against same-sex marriage. Unsurprisingly, no man ever took up science on its offer.