The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Three

by Jonathan Strahan

  Markel cursed.

  The girl stood up and looked.

  Markel called out a name, and nobody answered. And then somebody else fired their weapon in a spray pattern, cutting vegetation and battering the high fence on the far side of the moat.

  "I killed it," the second soldier declared. "I'm sure."

  The Brilliance-Boy offered a few cautionary words.

  "I do feel exceptionally stupid," Joe said. "Tell me again: Why exactly do you need Natural Killer?"

  The girl stared at him and then stepped back.

  "I didn't know we were waging a real war against you people," he continued. "I guess we keep that a secret, what with our political tricks and PR campaigns. Like when we grant you full citizenship. And the way we force you to accept the costs and benefits of all the laws granted to human beings everywhere—"

  "You hate us," she interrupted. "You despise every last one of us."

  Quietly, Joe assured her, "You don't know what I hate."

  She stiffened, saying nothing.

  "This is the situation. As I see it." Joe paused for a moment. "Inside that one vial, you have a bug that could wipe out your alleged enemies. And by enemies, I mean people that look at you with suspicion and fear. You intend to keep your doomsday disease at the ready, just in case you need it."

  "Of course."

  "Except you'll have to eventually grow more of it. If you want to keep it as a credible, immediate threat. And you'll have to divide your stocks and store them in scattered, secure locations. Otherwise assholes like me are going to throw the bugs in a pile and burn it all with a torch."

  She watched Joe, her sore jaw clamped tight.

  "But having stockpiles of Natural Killer brings a different set of problems. Who can trust who not to use it without permission? And the longer this virus exists, the better the chance that the Normals will find effective fixes to keep themselves safe. Vaccines. Quarantine laws. Whatever we need to weather the plague, and of course, give us our chance to take our revenge afterward."

  The red glow had not moved. For a full minute, the little jungle had been perfectly, ominously silent.

  Markel glanced at Joe and then back at the high fence. He was obviously fighting the urge to shout warnings to the others. That could alert the Grendel. But it took all his will to do nothing.

  "You have a great, great weapon," Joe allowed. "But your advantage won't last."

  The girl was breathing faster now.

  "You know what would be smart? Before the Normals grow aware of your power, you should release the virus. No warnings, no explanations. Do it before we know what hit us, and hope you kill enough of us in the first week that you can permanently gain the upper hand."

  "No," Markel said, taking two steps toward the enclosure. "We don't have more than a sample of the virus, and it is just a virus."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Diseases are like wildfires," he explained. "You watch them burn, and you can't believe that anything would survive the blaze. But afterward there are always islands of green surrounded by scorched forest." The man had given this considerable thought. "Three or four billion sapiens might succumb. But that would still leave us in the minority, and we wouldn't be able to handle the retribution."

  The girl showed a satisfied smile.

  But then Joe said, "Except," and laughed quietly.

  The red glow had not moved, and the jungle stood motionless beneath the stars. But Markel had to look back at his prisoner, a new terror pushing away the old.

  "What do you mean?" the girl asked. "Except what?"

  "You and your boss," Joe said. "And who knows how many thousands of others too. Each one of you looks exactly like us. You sound like us." Then he grinned and smacked his lips, adding, "And you taste like us, too. Which means that your particular species, whatever you call yourselves . . . you'll come out of this nightmare better than anybody. . . . "

  The girl's eyes opened wide; a pained breath was taken and then held deep.

  "Which of course is the central purpose of this gruesome exercise," Joe said. "I'm sure Dr. Markel would have eventually let you in on his dirty secret. The real scheme hiding behind the first, more public plan."

  Too astonished to react, Markel stared at the cuffed, unarmed man sitting on the bricks.

  "Is this true?" the girl whispered.

  There was a moment of hesitation, and then the genius managed to shake his head, lying badly when he said, "Of course not. The man is telling you a crazy wild story, dear."

  "And you know why he never told you?" Joe asked.

  "Shut up," Markel warned.

  The girl was carrying a weapon, just as Joe had guessed. From the back of her pants, she pulled out a small pistol, telling Markel, "Let him talk."

  "Darling, he's trying to poison you—"

  "Shut up," she snapped.

  Then to Joe, she asked, "Why didn't he tell me?"

  "Because you're a good decent person, or at least you like to think so. And because he knew how to use that quality to get what he wants." Showing a hint of compassion, Joe sighed. "Markel sure knows how to motivate you. First, he makes you sleep with me. And then he shows you my files, convincing you that I can't be trusted or ignored. Which is why you slept with me three more times. Just to keep a close watch over me."

  The girl lowered her pistol, and she sobbed and then started to lift the pistol again.

  "Put that down," Markel said.

  She might have obeyed, given another few moments to think. But Markel shot her three times. He did it quickly and lowered his weapon afterward, astonished that he had done this very awful thing. It took his great mind a long sloppy moment to wrap itself around the idea that he could murder in that particular fashion, that he possessed such brutal, prosaic power. Then he started to lift his gun again, searching for Joe.

  But Joe, wrists and feet bound, was already rolling to the dead girl's body. And with her little gun, he put a bullet into Markel's forehead.

  The blind, unborn monster watched the drama from inside its crystal egg.

  A few moments later, a bloody Brilliance-Boy ran up to the Grendel's fence, and with a joyous holler flung the red putty and diamond vial back onto the plaza. Then he turned and fired twice at shadows before something monstrous lifted him high, shook him once, and folded him backward before neatly tearing him in two.

  Iii. The Ticking Bomb

  "Goodness," the prisoner muttered. "It's the legend himself."

  Joe said nothing.

  "Well, now I feel especially terrified." She laughed weakly before coughing, a dark bubble of blood clinging to the split corner of her mouth. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, suppressing her pain as she turned her head to look straight at him. "You must be planning all kinds of horrors," she said. "Savage new ways to break my spirit. To bare my soul."

  Gecko slippers gripped the wall. Joe watched the prisoner. He opened his mouth as if to speak but then closed it again, one finger idly scratching a spot behind his left ear.

  "I won't be scared," she decided. "This is an honor, having someone this famous assigned to my case. I must be considered an exceptionally important person."

  He seemed amused, if just for a moment.

  "But I'm not a person, am I? In your eyes, I'm just another animal."

  What she was was a long, elegant creature—the ultimate marriage between human traditions and synthetic chromosomes. Four bare arms were restrained with padded loops and pulled straight out from the shockingly naked body. Because hair could be a bother in space, she had none. Because dander was an endless source of dirt in freefall, her skin would peel away periodically, not unlike the worn skin of a cobra. She was smart, but not in the usual ways that the two or three thousand species of Rebirths enhanced their minds. Her true genius lay in social skills. Among the Antfolk, she could instantly recognize every face and recall each name, knowing at least ten thousand nest-mates as thoroughly as two sapiens who had been life-long pals. Even among th
e alien faces of traditional humans, she was a marvel at reading faces, deciphering postures. Every glance taught her something more about her captors. Each careless word gave her room to maneuver. That's why the first team—a pair of low-ranking interrogators, unaware of her importance—was quickly pulled from her case. She had used what was obvious, making a few offhand observations, and in the middle of their second session, the two officers had started to trade insults and then punches.

  "A Carroway-worthy moment," had been the unofficial verdict.

  A second, more cautious team rode the skyhook up from Quito, and they were wise enough to work their prisoner without actually speaking to her. Solitude and sensory deprivation were the tools of choice. Without adequate stimulation, an Antfolk would crumble. And the method would have worked, except that three or four weeks would have been required. But time was short: Several intelligence sources delivered the same ominous warning. This was not just another low-level prisoner. The Antfolk, named Glory, was important. Maybe essential. Days mattered now, even hours. Which was why a third team went to work immediately, doing their awful best from the reassuring confines of a U.N. bunker set two kilometers beneath the Matterhorn.

  That new team consisted of AIs and autodocs with every compassion system deleted. Through the careful manipulation of pain and hallucinogenic narcotics, they managed to dislodge a few nuggets of intelligence as well as a level of hatred and malevolence that they had never before witnessed.

  "The bomb is mine," she screamed. "I helped design it, and I helped build it. Antimatter triggers the fusion reaction, and it's compact and efficient, and shielded to where it's nearly invisible. I even selected our target. Believe me . . . when my darling detonates, everything is going to change!"

  At that point, their prisoner died.

  Reviving her wasted precious minutes. But that was ample time for the machines to discuss the obvious possibilities and then calculate various probabilities. In the time remaining, what could be done? And what was impossible? Then without a shred of ego or embarrassment, they contacted one of the only voices that they considered more talented than themselves.

  And now Joe stood before the battered prisoner.

  Again, he scratched at his ear.

  Time hadn't touched him too roughly. He was in his middle forties, but his boyish good looks had been retained through genetics and a sensible indifference to sunshine. Careful eyes would have noticed the fatigue in his body, his motions. A veteran soldier could have recognized the subtle erosion of spirit. And a studied gaze of the kind that an Antfolk would employ would detect signs of weakness and doubt that didn't quite fit when it came to one of the undisputed legends of this exceptionally brutal age.

  Joe acted as if there was no hurry. But his heart was beating too fast, his belly roiling with nervous energy. And the corners of his mouth were a little too tight, particularly when he looked as if he wanted to speak.

  "What are you going to do with me?" his prisoner inquired.

  And again, he scratched at his scalp, something about his skin bothering him to distraction.

  She was puzzled, slightly.

  "Say something," Glory advised.

  "I'm a legend, am I?" The smile was unchanged, bright and full; but behind the polished teeth and bright green eyes was a quality . . . some trace of some subtle emotion that the prisoner couldn't quite name.

  She was intrigued.

  "I know all about you," Glory explained. "I know your career in detail, successes and failures both."

  For an instant, Joe looked at the lower pair of arms, following the long bones to where they met within the reconfigured hips.

  "Want to hear something ironic?" she asked.

  "Always."

  "The asteroid you were planning to mine? Back during your brief, eventful career as an astronaut, I mean. It's one of ours now."

  "Until your bomb goes boom," he said. "And then that chunk of iron and humanity is going to be destroyed. Along with every other nest of yours, I would guess."

  "Dear man. Are you threatening me?"

  "You would be the better judge of that."

  She managed to laugh. "I'm not particularly worried."

  He said nothing.

  "Would we take such an enormous risk if we didn't have the means to protect ourselves?"

  Joe stared at her for a long while. Then he looked beyond her body, at a random point on the soft white wall. Quietly he asked, "Who am I?"

  She didn't understand the question.

  "You've seen some little digitals of me. Supposedly you've peeked at my files. But do you know for sure who I am?"

  She nearly laughed. "Joseph Carroway."

  He closed his eyes.

  "Security," he said abruptly. "I need you here. Now."

  Whatever was happening, it was interesting. Despite the miseries inflicted on her mind and aching body, the prisoner twisted her long neck, watching three heavily armed soldiers kick their way into her cell.

  "This is an emergency," Joe announced. "I need everybody. Your full squad in here now."

  The ranking officer was a small woman with the bulging muscles of a steroid hopper. A look of genuine admiration showed in her face. She knew all about Joe Carroway. Who didn't? But her training and regulations held sway. This man might have saved the Earth, on one or several occasions, but she still had the fortitude to remind him, "I can't bring everybody in here. That's against regulations."

  Joe nodded.

  Sighing, he said, "Then we'll just have to make do."

  In an instant, with a smooth, almost beautiful motion, he grabbed the officer's face and broke her jaw and then pulled a weapon from his pocket, shoving the stubby barrel into the nearest face.

  The pistol made a soft, almost negligible sound.

  The remains of the skull were scattered into the face of the next guard.

  He shot that soldier twice and then killed the commanding officer before grabbing up her weapon, using his security code to override its safety and then leaping into the passageway. The prisoner strained at her bonds. Mesmerized, she counted the soft blasts and the shouts, and she stared, trying to see through the spreading fog of blood and shredded brain matter. Then a familiar figure reappeared, moving with commendable grace despite having a body designed to trek across the savannas of Africa.

  "We have to go," said Joe. "Now." He was carrying a fresh gun and jumpsuit.

  "I don't believe this," she managed.

  He cut her bonds and said, "Didn't think you would." Then he paused, just for an instant. "Joe Carroway was captured and killed three years ago, during the Tranquility business. I'm the lucky man they spliced together to replace that dead asshole."

  "You're telling me—?"

  "Suit up. Let's go, lady."

  "You can't be." She was numb, fighting to understand what was possible, no matter how unlikely. "What species of Rebirth are you?"

  "I was an Eagle," he said.

  She stared at the face. Never in her life had she tried so hard to slice through skin and eyes, fighting to decipher what was true.

  "Suit up," he said again.

  "But I don't see—?"

  Joe turned suddenly, launching a recoilless bundle out into the hall. The detonation was a soft crack, smart-shards aiming only for armor and flesh. Sparing the critical hull surrounding them.

  "We'll have to fight our way to my ship," he warned.

  Slowly, with stiff clumsy motions, she dressed herself. As the suit retailored itself to match her body, she said again, "I don't believe you. I don't believe any of this."

  Now Joe stared at her.

  Hard.

  "What do you think, lady?" he asked. "You rewrote your own biology in a thousand crazy ways. But one of your brothers—a proud Eagle—isn't able to reshape himself? He can't take on the face of your worst enemy? He can't steal the dead man's memories? He is allowed this kind of power, all in a final bid to get revenge for what that miserable shit's done to us?"


  She dipped her head.

  No, she didn't believe him.

  But three hours later, as they were making the long burn out of Earth orbit, a flash of blue light announced the abrupt death of fifty million humans and perhaps half a million innocents.

  "A worthy trade," said the man strapped into the seat beside her.

  And that was the moment when Glory finally offered two of her hands to join up with one of his, and after that, her other two hands as well.

  Her nest was the nearest Antfolk habitat. Waiting at the moon's L5 Lagrange point, the asteroid was a smooth blackish ball, heat-absorbing armor slathered deep over the surface of a fully infested cubic kilometer—a city where thousands of bodies squirmed about in freefall, thriving inside a maze of warm tunnels and airy rooms. Banks of fusion reactors powered factories and the sun-bright lights. Trim, enduring ecosystems created an endless feast of edible gruel and free oxygen. The society was unique, at least within the short rich history of the Rebirths. Communal and technologically adept, this species had accomplished much in a very brief period. That's why it was so easy for them to believe that they alone now possessed the keys to the universe.

  Joe was taken into custody. Into quarantine. Teams drawn from security and medical castes tried to piece together the truth, draining off his blood and running electrodes into his skull, inflicting him with induced emotions and relentless urges to be utterly, perfectly honest.

  The Earth's counterassault arrived on schedule—lasers and missiles followed by robot shock troops. But the asteroid's defense network absorbed every blow. Damage was minor, casualties light, and before larger attacks could be organized, the Antfolk sent an ultimatum to the U.N.: One hundred additional fusion devices had been smuggled to the Earth's surface, each now hidden and secured, waiting for any excuse to erupt.

  For the good of humankind, the Antfolk were claiming dominion over everything that lay beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Orbital facilities and the lunar cities would be permitted, but only if reasonable rents were paid. Other demands included nationhood status for each of the Rebirth species, reimbursements for all past wrongs, and within the next year, the total and permanent dismantling of the United Nations.