"That's not fair," one of the boys called. "I was the one that said she owed us something. It should be me. You should pick me."
Matilda ignored him as the girl knelt down on the dirty mattress and swept aside her hair, baring a long, unmarked neck. She seemed dazzling, this creature of blood and breath, a fragile manikin as brittle as sticks.
Tiny golden hairs tickled Matilda's nose as she bit down.
And gulped.
Blood was heat and heart and running-thrumming-beating through the fat roots of veins to drip syrup slow, spurting molten hot across tongue, mouth, teeth, chin.
Dimly, Matilda felt someone shoving her and someone else screaming, but it seemed distant and unimportant. Eventually the words became clearer.
"Stop," someone was screaming. "Stop!"
Hands dragged Matilda off the girl. Her neck was a glistening red mess. Gore stained the mattress and covered Matilda's hands and hair. The girl coughed, blood bubbles frothing on her lip, and then went abruptly silent.
"What did you do?" the boy wailed, cradling the girl's body. "She's dead. She's dead. You killed her."
Matilda backed away from the body. Her hand went automatically to her mouth, covering it. "I didn't mean to," she said.
"Maybe she'll be okay," said the other boy, his voice cracking. "We have to get bandages."
"She's dead," the boy holding the girl's body moaned.
A thin wail came from deep inside of Matilda as she backed toward the stairs. Her belly felt full, distended. She wanted to be sick.
Another girl grabbed Matilda's arm. "Wait," the girl said, eyes wide and imploring. "You have to bite me next. You're full now so you won't have to hurt me—"
With a cry, Matilda tore herself free and ran up the stairs—if she went fast enough, maybe she could escape from herself.
By the time Matilda got to the Festival of Sinners, her mouth tasted metallic and she was numb with fear. She wasn't human, wasn't good and wasn't sure what she might do next. She kept pawing at her shirt, as if that much blood could ever be wiped off, as if it hadn't already soaked down into her skin and her soiled insides.
The Festival was easy to find, even as confused as she was. People were happy to give her directions, apparently not bothered that she was drenched in blood. Their casual demeanor was horrifying, but not as horrifying as how much she already wanted to feed again.
On the way, she passed the Eternal Ball. Strobe lights lit up the remains of the windows along the dome and a girl with blue hair in a dozen braids held up a video camera to interview three men dressed all in white with gleaming red eyes.
Vampires.
A ripple of fear passed through her. She reminded herself that there was nothing they could do to her. She was already like them. Already dead.
The Festival of Sinners was being held at a church with stained-glass windows painted black on the inside. The door, papered with pink-stenciled posters, was painted the same thick tarry black. Music thrummed from within and a few people sat on the steps, smoking and talking.
Matilda went inside.
A doorman pulled aside a velvet rope for her, letting her past a small line of people waiting to pay the cover charge. The rules were different for vampires, perhaps especially for vampires accessorizing their grungy attire with so much blood.
Matilda scanned the room. She didn't see Julian or Lydia at first, just a throng of dancers and a bar that served alcohol from vast copper distilling vats. It spilled into mismatched mugs. Then one of the people near the bar moved and Matilda spotted Lydia and Julian. He was bending over her, shouting into her ear.
Matilda pushed her way through the crowd, until she was close enough to touch Julian's arm. She reached out, but couldn't quite bring herself to brush his skin with her foulness.
Julian looked up, startled. "Tilda?"
She snatched back her hand like she'd been about to touch fire.
"Tilda," he said. "What happened to you? Are you hurt?"
Matilda flinched, looking down at herself. "I . . . "
Lydia laughed. "She ate someone, moron."
"Tilda?" Julian asked.
"I'm sorry," Matilda said. There was so much she had to be sorry for, but at least he was here now. Julian would tell her what to do and how to turn herself back into something decent again. She would save Lydia and Julian would save her.
He touched her shoulder, let his hand rest gingerly on her blood-stiffened shirt. "We were looking for you everywhere." His gentle expression was tinged with terror; fear pulled his smile into something closer to a grimace.
"I wasn't in Coldtown," Matilda said. "I came here so that Lydia could leave. I have a pass."
"But I don't want to leave," said Lydia. "You understand that, right? I want what you have—eternal life."
"You're not infected," Matilda said. "You have to go. You can still be okay. Please, I need you to go."
"One pass?" Julian said, his eyes going to Lydia. Matilda saw the truth in the weight of that gaze—Julian had not come to Coldtown for Matilda. Even though she knew she didn't deserve him to think of her as anything but a monster, it hurt savagely.
"I'm not leaving," Lydia said, turning to Julian, pouting. "You said she wouldn't be like this."
"I killed a girl," Matilda said. "I killed her. Do you understand that?"
"Who cares about some mortal girl?" Lydia tossed back her hair. In that moment, she reminded Matilda of her brother, pretentious Dante who'd turned out to be an actual nice guy. Just like sweet Lydia had turned out cruel.
"You're a girl," Matilda said. "You're mortal."
"I know that!" Lydia rolled her eyes. "I just mean that we don't care who you killed. Turn us and then we can kill lots of people."
"No," Matilda said, swallowing. She looked down, not wanting to hear what she was about to say. There was still a chance. "Look, I have the pass. If you don't want it, then Julian should take it and go. But I'm not turning you. I'm never turning you, understand."
"Julian doesn't want to leave," Lydia said. Her eyes looked bright and two feverish spots appeared on her cheeks. "Who are you to judge me anyway? You're the murderer."
Matilda took a step back. She desperately wanted Julian to say something in her defense or even to look at her, but his gaze remained steadfastly on Lydia.
"So neither one of you want the pass," Matilda said.
"Fuck you," spat Lydia.
Matilda turned away.
"Wait," Julian said. His voice sounded weak.
Matilda spun, unable to keep the hope off her face, and saw why Julian had called to her. Lydia stood behind him, a long knife to his throat.
"Turn me," Lydia said. "Turn me or I'm going to kill him."
Julian's eyes were wide. He started to protest or beg or something and Lydia pressed the knife harder, silencing him.
People had stopped dancing nearby, backing away. One girl with red-glazed eyes stared hungrily at the knife.
"Turn me!" Lydia shouted. "I'm tired of waiting! I want my life to begin!"
"You won't be alive—" Matilda started.
"I'll be alive—more alive than ever. Just like you are."
"Okay," Matilda said softly. "Give me your wrist."
The crowd seemed to close in tighter, watching as Lydia held out her arm. Matilda crouched low, bending down over it.
"Take the knife away from his throat," Matilda said.
Lydia, all her attention on Matilda, let Julian go. He stumbled a little and pressed his fingers to his neck.
"I loved you," Julian shouted.
Matilda looked up to see that he wasn't speaking to her. She gave him a glittering smile and bit down on Lydia's wrist.
The girl screamed, but the scream was lost in Matilda's ears. Lost in the pulse of blood, the tide of gluttonous pleasure and the music throbbing around them like Lydia's slowing heartbeat.
Matilda sat on the blood-soaked mattress and turned on the video camera to check that the live feed was working.
"It's working," one of the boys—Michael—said from the stairs, a computer cradled on his lap. Even though she'd killed one of them, they welcomed her back, eager enough for eternal life to risk more deaths. "You're streaming live video."
Matilda set the camera on the stack of crates, pointed toward her and the wall where she'd tied a gagged Lydia. The girl thrashed and kicked, but Matilda ignored her. She stepped in front of the camera and smiled.
My name is Matilda Green. I was born on April 10, 1997. I died on September 3rd, 2013. Please tell my mother I'm okay. And Dante, if you're watching this, I'm sorry.
You've probably seen lots of video feeds from inside Coldtown. I saw them too. Pictures of girls and boys grinding together in clubs or bleeding elegantly for their celebrity vampire masters. Here's what you never see. What I'm going to show you now.
For eighty-eight days you are going to watch someone sweat out the infection. You are going to watch her beg and scream and cry. You're going to watch her throw up food and piss her pants and pass out. You're going to watch me feed her can after can of creamed corn. It's not going to be pretty.
You're going to watch me too. I'm the kind of vampire that you'd be, one that's new at this and basically out of control. I've already killed someone and I can't guarantee I'm not going to do it again. I'm the one that infected this girl.
This is the real Coldtown.
I'm the real Coldtown.
You still want in?
ZEPPELIN CITY
Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn
Michael Swanwick's first two short stories were published in 1980, and both featured on the Nebula ballot that year. One of the major writers working in the field today, he has been nominated for at least one of the field's major awards in almost every successive year, and has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and the Locus awards. He has published six collections of short fiction, seven novels—In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers, Stations of the Tide, The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Jack Faust, Bones of the Earth, and The Dragons of Babel—and a Hugo Award nominated book-length interview with editor Gardner Dozois. His most recent book is major career retrospective collection, The Best of Michael Swanwick.
Eileen Gunn was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts and grew up outside Boston. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Emmanuel College. In 1976, she attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in Michigan, then supported herself by writing advertising and books about computers. She was an early employee at Microsoft, where she was director of advertising and sales promotion in the mid-1980s. She left in 1985 to continue writing fiction. She lives in Seattle with the typographer and editor John D. Berry. Gunn's first short story, "What Are Friends For?" was published in 1978; subsequent stories include Nebula Award winner "Coming to Terms" and Hugo Award nominees "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" and "Computer Friendly". Her short fiction collection Stable Strategies and Others was published by Tachyon Publications in 2004, and was short-listed for the Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree, Jr., and World Fantasy awards. She is currently working on a biography of Avram Davidson.
Radio Jones came dancing down the slidewalks. She jumped from the express to a local, then spun about and raced backwards, dumping speed so she could cut across the slower lanes two and three at a time. She hopped off at the mouth of an alley, glanced up in time to see a Zeppelin disappear behind a glass-domed skyscraper, and stepped through a metal door left open to vent the heat from the furnaces within.
The glass-blowers looked up from their work as she entered the hot shop. They greeted her cheerily:
"Hey, Radio!"
"Jonesy!"
"You invented a robot girlfriend for me yet?"
The shop foreman lumbered forward, smiling. "Got a box of off-spec tubes for you, under the bench there."
"Thanks, Mackie." Radio dug through the pockets of her patched leather greatcoat, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "Hey, listen, I want you to do me up an estimate for these here vacuum tubes."
Mack studied the list. "Looks to be pretty straightforward. None of your usual experimental trash. How many do you need—one of each?"
"I was thinking more like a hundred."
"What?" Mack's shaggy black eyebrows met in a scowl. "You planning to win big betting on the Reds?"
"Not me, I'm a Whites fan all the way. Naw, I was kinda hoping you'd gimme credit. I came up with something real hot."
"You finally built that girlfriend for Rico?"
The workmen all laughed.
"No, c'mon, I'm serious here." She lowered her voice. "I invented a universal radio receiver. Not fixed-frequency—tunable! It'll receive any broadcast on the radio spectrum. Twist the dial, there you are. With this baby, you can listen in on every conversation in the big game, if you want."
Mack whistled. "There might be a lot of interest in a device like that."
"Funny thing, I was thinking exactly that myself." Radio grinned. "So waddaya say?"
"I say—" Mack spun around to face the glass-blowers, who were all listening intently, and bellowed—"Get back to work!" Then, in a normal voice, "Tell you what. Set me up a demo, and if your gizmo works the way you say it does, maybe I'll invest in it. I've got the materials to build it, and access to the retailers. Something like this could move twenty, maybe thirty units a day, during the games."
"Hey! Great! The game starts when? Noon, right? I'll bring my prototype over, and we can listen to the players talking to each other." She darted toward the door.
"Wait." Mack ponderously made his way into his office. He extracted a five dollar bill from the lockbox and returned, holding it extended before him. "For the option. You agree not to sell any shares in this without me seeing this doohickey first."
"Oh, Mackie, you're the greatest!" She bounced up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Then, stuffing the bill into the hip pocket of her jeans, she bounded away.
Fat Edna's was only three blocks distant. She was inside and on a stool before the door jangled shut behind her. "Morning, Edna!" The neon light she'd rigged up over the bar was, she noted with satisfaction, still working. Nice and quiet, hardly any buzz to it at all. "Gimme a big plate of scrambled eggs and pastrami, with a beer on the side."
The bartender eyed her skeptically. "Let's see your money first."
With elaborate nonchalance, Radio laid the bill flat on the counter before her. Edna picked it up, held it to the light, then slowly counted out four ones and eighty-five cents change. She put a glass under the tap and called over her shoulder, "Wreck a crowd, with sliced dick!" She pulled the beer, slid the glass across the counter, and said, "Out in a minute."
"Edna, there is nobody in the world less satisfying to show off in front of than you. You still got that package I left here?"
Wordlessly, Edna took a canvas-wrapped object from under the bar and set it before her.
"Thanks." Radio unwrapped her prototype. It was bench-work stuff—just tubes, resistors and capacitors in a metal frame. No housing, no circuit tracer lights, and a tuner she had to turn with a pair of needle-nose pliers. But it was going to make her rich. She set about double-checking all the connectors. "Hey, plug this in for me, willya?"
Edna folded her arms and looked at her.
Radio sighed, dug in her pockets again, and slapped a nickel on the bar. Edna took the cord and plugged it into the outlet under the neon light.
With a faint hum, the tubes came to life.
"That thing's not gonna blow up, is it?" Edna asked dubiously.
"Naw." Radio took a pair of needle-nose pliers out of her greatcoat pocket and began casting about for a strong signal. "Most it's gonna do is elect
rocute you, maybe set fire to the building. But it's not gonna explode. You been watching too many kinescopes."
Amelia Spindizzy came swooping down out of the sun like a suicidal angel, all rage and mirth. The rotor of her autogyro whined and snarled with the speed of her dive. Then she throttled up and the blades bit deep into the air and pulled her out, barely forty feet from the ground. Laughing, she lifted the nose of her bird to skim the top of one skywalk, banked left to dip under a second, and then right to hop-frog a third. Her machine shuddered and rattled as she bounced it off the compression effects of the air around the skyscrapers to steal that tiny morsel of extra lift, breaking every rule in the book and not giving a damn.
The red light on Radio 2 flashed angrily. One-handed, she yanked the jacks to her headset from Radio 3, the set connecting her to the referee, and plugged into her comptroller's set. "Yah?"
The flat, emotionless, and eerily artificial voice of Naked Brain XB-29 cut through the static. "Amelia, what are you doing?"
"Just wanted to get your attention. I'm going to cut through the elbow between Ninetieth and Ninety-First Avenues. Plot me an Eszterhazy, will you?"
"Computing." Almost as an afterthought, the Naked Brain said, "You realize this is extremely dangerous."
"Nothing's dangerous enough for me," Amelia muttered, too quietly for the microphone to pick up. "Not by half."
The sporting rag Obey the Brain! had termed her "half in love with easeful death," but it was not easeful death that Amelia Spindizzy sought. It was the inevitable, difficult death of an impossible skill tenaciously mastered but necessarily insufficient to the challenge—a hard-fought battle for life, lost just as the hand reached for victory and closed about empty air. A mischance that conferred deniability, like a medal of honor, on her struggle for oblivion, as she twisted and fell in gloriously tragic heroism.
So far, she hadn't achieved it.
It wasn't that she didn't love being alive (at least some of the time). She loved dominating the air currents in her great titanium whirligig. She loved especially the slow turning in an ever-widening gyre, scanning for the opposition with an exquisite patience only a sigh short of boredom, and then the thrill as she spotted him, a minuscule speck in an ocean of sky. Loved the way her body flushed with adrenalin as she drove her machine up into the sun, searching for that sweet blind spot where the prey, her machine, and that great atomic furnace were all in a line. Loved most of all the instant of stillness before she struck.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four Page 25