The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New SF

by Gardner Dozois

  Through the wall, they heard music, the tinkle of glassware, and the mutter of overlapping conversation. “Maybe I should just check things out,” Benjamin said and broke his pose.

  “No, wait,” whispered Anne, catching his arm. But her hand passed right through him in a stream of colorful noise. She looked at her hand in amused wonder.

  Anne’s father came through the wall. He stopped when he saw her and said, “Oh, how lovely.” Anne noticed he wasn’t wearing a tuxedo.

  “You just walked through the wall,” said Benjamin.

  “Yes, I did,” said Anne’s father. “Ben asked me to come in here and . . . ah . . . orient you two.”

  “Is something wrong?” said Anne, through a fuzz of delight.

  “There’s nothing wrong,” replied her father.

  “Something’s wrong?” asked Benjamin.

  “No, no,” replied the old man. “Quite the contrary. We’re having a do out there. . . .” He paused to look around. “Actually, in here. I’d forgotten what this room used to look like.”

  “Is that the wedding reception?” Anne asked.

  “No, your anniversary.”

  Suddenly Benjamin threw his hands into the air and exclaimed, “I get it, we’re the sims!”

  “That’s my boy,” said Anne’s father.

  “All my sims say that, don’t they? I just never expected to be a sim.”

  “Good for you,” said Anne’s father. “All right then.” He headed for the wall. “We’ll be along shortly.”

  “Wait,” said Anne, but he was already gone.

  Benjamin walked around the room, passing his hand through chairs and lamp shades like a kid. “Isn’t this fantastic?” he said.

  Anne felt too good to panic, even when another Benjamin, this one dressed in jeans and sportscoat, led a group of people through the wall. “And this,” he announced with a flourish of his hand, “is our wedding sim.” Cathy was part of this group, and Janice and Beryl, and other couples she knew. But strangers too. “Notice what a cave I used to inhabit,” the new Benjamin went on, “before Annie fixed it up. And here’s the blushing bride, herself,” he said and bowed gallantly to Anne. Then, when he stood next to his double, her Benjamin, Anne laughed, for someone was playing a prank on her.

  “Oh, really?” she said. “If this is a sim, where’s the goggles?” For indeed, no one was wearing goggles.

  “Technology!” exclaimed the new Benjamin. “We had our system upgraded. Don’t you love it?”

  “Is that right?” she said, smiling at the guests to let them know she wasn’t fooled. “Then where’s the real me?”

  “You’ll be along,” replied the new Benjamin. “No doubt you’re using the potty again.” The guests laughed and so did Anne. She couldn’t help herself.

  Cathy drew her aside with a look. “Don’t mind him,” she said. “Wait till you see.”

  “See what?” said Anne. “What’s going on?” But Cathy pantomimed pulling a zipper across her lips. This should have annoyed Anne, but didn’t, and she said, “At least tell me who those people are.”

  “Which people?” said Cathy. “Oh, those are Anne’s new neighbors.”

  “New neighbors?”

  “And over there, that’s Dr. Yurek Rutz, Anne’s department head.”

  “That’s not my department head,” said Anne.

  “Yes, he is,” Cathy said. “Anne’s not with the university anymore. She – ah – moved to a private school.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe we should just wait and let Anne catch you up on things.” She looked impatiently toward the wall. “So much has changed.” Just then, another Anne entered through the wall with one arm outstretched like a sleepwalker and the other protectively cradling an enormous belly.

  Benjamin, her Benjamin, gave a whoop of surprise and broke into a spontaneous jig. The guests laughed and cheered him on.

  Cathy said, “See? Congratulations, you!”

  Anne became caught up in the merriment. But how can I be a sim? she wondered.

  The pregnant Anne scanned the room, and, avoiding the crowd, came over to her. She appeared very tired; her eyes were bloodshot. She didn’t even try to smile. “Well?” Anne said, but the pregnant Anne didn’t respond, just examined Anne’s gown, her clutch bouquet. Anne, meanwhile, regarded the woman’s belly, feeling somehow that it was her own and a cause for celebration – except that she knew she had never wanted children and neither had Benjamin. Or so he’d always said. You wouldn’t know that now, though, watching the spectacle he was making of himself. Even the other Benjamin seemed embarrassed. She said to the pregnant Anne, “You must forgive me, I’m still trying to piece this all together. This isn’t our reception?”

  “No, our wedding anniversary.”

  “Our first?”

  “Our fourth.”

  “Four years?” This made no sense. “You’ve shelved me for four years?”

  “Actually,” the pregnant Anne said and glanced sidelong at Cathy, “we’ve been in here a number of times already.”

  “Then I don’t understand,” said Anne. “I don’t remember that.”

  Cathy stepped between them. “Now, don’t you worry. They reset you last time is all.”

  “Why?” said Anne. “I never reset my sims. I never have.”

  “Well, I kinda do now, sister,” said the pregnant Anne.

  “But why?”

  “To keep you fresh.”

  To keep me fresh, thought Anne. Fresh? She recognized this as Benjamin’s idea. It was his belief that sims were meant to be static mementos of special days gone by, not virtual people with lives of their own. “But,” she said, adrift in a fog of happiness. “But.”

  “Shut up!” snapped the pregnant Anne.

  “Hush, Anne,” said Cathy, glancing at the others in the room. “You want to lie down?” To Anne she explained, “Third trimester blues.”

  “Stop it!” the pregnant Anne said. “Don’t blame the pregnancy. It has nothing to do with the pregnancy.”

  Cathy took her gently by the arm and turned her toward the wall. “When did you eat last? You hardly touched your plate.”

  “Wait!” said Anne. The women stopped and turned to look at her, but she didn’t know what to say. This was all so new. When they began to move again, she stopped them once more. “Are you going to reset me?”

  The pregnant Anne shrugged her shoulders.

  “But you can’t,” Anne said. “Don’t you remember what my sisters – our sisters – always say?”

  The pregnant Anne pressed her palm against her forehead. “If you don’t shut up this moment, I’ll delete you right now. Is that what you want? Don’t imagine that white gown will protect you. Or that big stupid grin on your face. You think you’re somehow special? Is that what you think?”

  The Benjamins were there in an instant. The real Benjamin wrapped an arm around the pregnant Anne. “Time to go, Annie,” he said in a cheerful tone. “I want to show everyone our rondophones.” He hardly glanced at Anne, but when he did, his smile cracked. For an instant he gazed at her, full of sadness.

  “Yes, dear,” said the pregnant Anne, “but first I need to straighten out this sim on a few points.”

  “I understand, darling, but since we have guests, do you suppose you might postpone it till later?”

  “You’re right, of course. I’d forgotten our guests. How silly of me.” She allowed him to turn her toward the wall. Cathy sighed with relief.

  “Wait!” said Anne, and again they paused to look at her. But although so much was patently wrong – the pregnancy, resetting the sims, Anne’s odd behavior – Anne still couldn’t formulate the right question.

  Benjamin, her Benjamin, still wearing his rakish grin, stood next to her and said, “Don’t worry, Anne, they’ll return.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she said, “but don’t you see? We won’t know they’ve returned, because in the meantime they’ll reset us back to default again,
and it’ll all seem new, like the first time. And we’ll have to figure out we’re the sims all over again!”

  “Yeah?” he said. “So?”

  “So I can’t live like that.”

  “But we’re the sims. We’re not alive.” He winked at the other couple.

  “Thanks, Ben boy,” said the other Benjamin. “Now, if that’s settled . . .”

  “Nothing’s settled,” said Anne. “Don’t I get a say?”

  The other Benjamin laughed. “Does the refrigerator get a say? Or the car? Or my shoes? In a word – no.”

  The pregnant Anne shuddered. “Is that how you see me, like a pair of shoes?” The other Benjamin looked successively surprised, embarrassed, and angry. Cathy left them to help Anne’s father escort the guests from the simulacrum. “Promise her!” the pregnant Anne demanded.

  “Promise her what?” said the other Benjamin, his voice rising.

  “Promise we’ll never reset them again.”

  The Benjamin huffed. He rolled his eyes. “Okay, yah sure, whatever,” he said.

  When the simulated Anne and Benjamin were alone at last in their simulated living room, Anne said, “A fat lot of help you were.”

  “I agreed with myself,” Benjamin said. “Is that so bad?”

  “Yes, it is. We’re married now; you’re supposed to agree with me.” This was meant to be funny, and there was more she intended to say – about how happy she was, how much she loved him, and how absolutely happy she was – but the lights dimmed, the room began to spin, and her thoughts scattered like pigeons.

  It was raining, as usual, in Seattle. The front entry shut and locked itself behind Ben, who shook water from his clothes and removed his hat. Bowlers for men were back in fashion, but Ben was having a devil’s own time becoming accustomed to his brown felt Sportsliner. It weighed heavy on his brow and made his scalp itch, especially in damp weather. “Good evening, Mr. Malley,” said the house. “There is a short queue of minor household matters for your review. Do you have any requests?” Ben could hear his son shrieking angrily in the kitchen, probably at the nanny. Ben was tired. Contract negotiations had gone sour.

  “Tell them I’m home.”

  “Done,” replied the house. “Mrs. Malley sends a word of welcome.”

  “Annie? Annie’s home?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bobby ran into the foyer followed by Mrs. Jamieson. “Momma’s home,” he said.

  “So I hear,” Ben replied and glanced at the nanny.

  “And guess what?” added the boy. “She’s not sick anymore!”

  “That’s wonderful. Now tell me, what was all that racket?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ben looked at Mrs. Jamieson, who said, “I had to take something from him.” She gave Ben a plastic chip.

  Ben held it to the light. It was labeled in Anne’s flowing hand, Wedding Album – grouping 1, Anne and Benjamin. “Where’d you get this?” he asked the boy.

  “It’s not my fault,” said Bobby.

  “I didn’t say it was, trooper. I just want to know where it came from.”

  “Puddles gave it to me.”

  “And who is Puddles?”

  Mrs. Jamieson handed him a second chip, a commercial one with a 3-D label depicting a cartoon cocker spaniel. The boy reached for it. “It’s mine,” he whined. “Momma gave it to me.”

  Ben gave Bobby the Puddles chip, and the boy raced away. Ben hung his bowler on a peg next to his jacket. “How does she look?”

  Mrs. Jamieson removed Ben’s hat from the peg and reshaped its brim. “You have to be special careful when they’re wet,” she said, setting it on its crown on a shelf.

  “Martha!”

  “Oh, how should I know? She just showed up and locked herself in the media room.”

  “But how did she look?”

  “Crazy as a loon,” said the nanny. “As usual. Satisfied?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice.” Ben tucked the wedding chip into a pocket and went into the living room, where he headed straight for the liquor cabinet, which was a genuine Chippendale dating from 1786. Anne had turned his whole house into a freaking museum with her antiques, and no room was so oppressively ancient as this, the living room. With its horsehair upholstered divans, maple burl sideboards, cherrywood wainscoting and floral wallpaper, the King George china cabinet, Regency plates, and Tiffany lamps; the list went on. And books, books, books. A case of shelves from floor to ceiling was lined with these moldering paper bricks. The newest thing in the room by at least a century was the twelve-year-old scotch that Ben poured into a lead crystal tumbler. He downed it and poured another. When he felt the mellowing hum of alcohol in his blood, he said, “Call Dr. Roth.”

  Immediately, the doctor’s proxy hovered in the air a few feet away and said, “Good evening, Mr. Malley. Dr. Roth has retired for the day, but perhaps I can be of help.”

  The proxy was a head-and-shoulder projection that faithfully reproduced the doctor’s good looks, her brown eyes and high cheekbones. But unlike the good doctor, the proxy wore makeup: eyeliner, mascara, and bright lipstick. This had always puzzled Ben, and he wondered what sly message it was supposed to convey. He said, “What is my wife doing home?”

  “Against advisement, Mrs. Malley checked herself out of the clinic this morning.”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “But you were.”

  “I was? Please excuse me a moment.” Ben froze the doctor’s proxy and said, “Daily duty, front and center.” His own proxy, the one he had cast upon arriving at the office that morning, appeared hovering next to Dr. Roth’s. Ben preferred a head shot only for his proxy, slightly larger than actual size to make it subtly imposing. “Why didn’t you inform me of Annie’s change of status?”

  “Didn’t seem like an emergency,” said his proxy, “at least in the light of our contract talks.”

  “Yah, yah, okay. Anything else?” said Ben.

  “Naw, slow day. Appointments with Jackson, Wells, and the Columbine. It’s all on the calendar.”

  “Fine, delete you.”

  The projection ceased.

  “Shall I have the doctor call you in the morning?” said the Roth proxy when Ben reanimated it. “Or perhaps you’d like me to summon her right now?”

  “Is she at dinner?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  “Naw, don’t bother her. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I suppose.”

  After he dismissed the proxy, Ben poured himself another drink. “In the next ten seconds,” he told the house, “cast me a special duty proxy.” He sipped his scotch and thought about finding another clinic for Anne as soon as possible and one – for the love of god – that was a little more responsible about letting crazy people come and go as they pleased. There was a chime, and the new proxy appeared. “You know what I want?” Ben asked it. It nodded. “Good. Go.” The proxy vanished, leaving behind Ben’s sig in bright letters floating in the air and dissolving as they drifted to the floor.

  Ben trudged up the narrow staircase to the second floor, stopping on each step to sip his drink and scowl at the musty old photographs and daguerreotypes in oval frames mounted on the wall. Anne’s progenitors. On the landing, the locked media room door yielded to his voice. Anne sat spreadlegged, naked, on pillows on the floor. “Oh, hi, honey,” she said. “You’re in time to watch.”

  “Fan-tastic,” he said, and sat in his armchair, the only modern chair in the house. “What are we watching?” There was another Anne in the room, a sim of a young Anne standing on a dais wearing a graduate’s cap and gown and fidgeting with a bound diploma. This, no doubt, was a sim cast the day Anne graduated from Bryn Mawr summa cum laude. That was four years before he’d first met her. “Hi,” he said to the sim, “I’m Ben, your eventual spouse.”

  “You know, I kinda figured that out,” the girl said and smiled shyly, exactly as he remembered Anne smiling when Cathy first introduced them. The gir
l’s beauty was so fresh and familiar – and so totally absent in his own Anne – that Ben felt a pang of loss. He looked at his wife on the floor. Her red hair, once so fussy neat, was ragged, dull, dirty, and short. Her skin was yellowish and puffy, and there was a slight reddening around her eyes, like a raccoon mask. These were harmless side effects of the medication, or so Dr. Roth had assured him. Anne scratched ceaselessly at her arms, legs, and crotch, and, even from a distance, smelled of stale piss. Ben knew better than to mention her nakedness to her, for that would only exacerbate things and prolong the display. “So,” he repeated, “what are we watching?”

  The girl sim said, “Housecleaning.” She appeared at once both triumphant and terrified, as any graduate might, and Ben would have traded the real Anne for her in a heartbeat.

  “Yah,” said Anne, “too much shit in here.”

  “Really?” said Ben. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Anne poured a tray of chips on the floor between her thighs. “Of course you wouldn’t,” she said, picking one at random and reading its label, “Theta Banquet ’37. What’s this? I never belonged to the Theta Society.”

  “Don’t you remember?” said the young Anne. “That was Cathy’s induction banquet. She invited me, but I had an exam, so she gave me that chip as a souvenir.”

  Anne fed the chip into the player and said, “Play.” The media room was instantly overlaid with the banquet hall of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. Ben tried to look around the room, but the tables of girls and women stayed stubbornly peripheral. The focal point was a table draped in green cloth and lit by two candelabra. Behind it sat a young Cathy in formal evening dress, accompanied by three static placeholders, table companions who had apparently declined to be cast in her souvenir snapshot.

  The Cathy sim looked frantically about, then held her hands in front of her and stared at them as though she’d never seen them before. But after a moment she noticed the young Anne sim standing on the dais. “Well, well, well,” she said. “Looks like congratulations are in order.”