Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition

by Rich Horton

  Maybe it was time to move in with Joseph. It was foolish of her to keep refusing his offer, but she didn't think it would be good for their relationship to start living together after dating for only six weeks.

  But that wasn't it, she realized. Her father would have disowned her if she lived with someone before marriage, and she didn't want to defy her father, even in death. She loved him too much.

  When her key did not turn the ancient dead-bolt on her apartment door, she jiggled it, tried turning it again, and again, until an impression of the edge of the key blazed red on the inside of her finger.

  She heard a voice inside her apartment, then another, speaking Spanish. She was being robbed! A jolt of fear pounded her and she twisted the key with all her might. The lock did not turn. Desperate, she pounded on the door.

  A short man with a mustache opened it. Over his shoulder she saw a woman, and a room full of unfamiliar furnishings. Realization came, finally. “You live here now?” she said. The man nodded. Kiko turned and ran down the hall, knocked on her landlord's door. The edges of her vision went black as she waited, and she saw the pitted door through a porthole. The landlord did not answer. She pounded again, then leaned against the wall across from the door and sank to the floor.

  An hour later her landlord arrived and told her matter-of-factly that he had evicted her because her rent was always late.

  “Where are all my possessions?” she cried. The landlord jerked his head toward the back door, then went into his apartment without another word. Kiko raced down the hall and hurled open the door, which led to a filthy, narrow alley where the trash was collected. She spotted two legs of her chair jutting out of a green dumpster. A low mewl escaped her clenched throat as she looked inside. There, her copy of Immediately Zen, the cover bent back and torn halfway off. There, her toothbrush. In the corner, pressed against the filthy wall of the dumpster, her checkered blanket. Strewn everywhere, her photos. The photo of Kiko holding her running trophy in eighth grade and a dozen others lay under a lump of congealing chicken lo mein. Where was her memory journal? Kiko climbed into the dumpster and clawed through brown bags of food, tissues, newspaper, as flies buzzed around her head. The stink inside the dumpster was intolerable. Her journal was nowhere. Gasping, panic rising in her throat, Kiko shoveled handfuls of trash out of the dumpster.

  She spotted the faded red cover near the bottom and howled in relief, clutching the stained book to her breast. When her head stopped spinning, she started collecting her photos.

  * * * *

  Joseph was not at home. Kiko propped the three trash bags of possessions next to his door, wiped her nose with the back of her filthy hand, and sat to wait for him.

  He had not returned by dark. They had planned to see each other at six. Joseph had never been late when they had plans, and she started to worry. She left her bags by the door and headed toward the plant where he worked.

  She almost walked right by him. He was sitting inside the landing of an abandoned tenement halfway to the plant, his head hung low, resting in the crook of his elbow.

  “Joseph?” Kiko called. He did not lift his head, but as she stepped closer she was sure it was him. “Joseph?” She squatted on the step next to him and put her arm across his shoulders. Startled, he looked up. There was a deep, bloody gash at his hairline. Kiko cried out in alarm.

  “Joseph? Is that me? Do you know me?” He said. She wrapped her arms around Joseph's head and held him. “Please help me,” Joseph said into Kiko's shoulder.

  “What happened?” Kiko whispered.

  “I don't know. I remember being blindfolded. They led me up a staircase into the street, pushed me into a car, then dumped me here. I don't remember anything before that. Nothing.” Joseph started to tremble. “Oh God, I think they wiped me!” He sobbed.

  “Don't worry, I know who you are,” Kiko said. “I'll help you.” Kiko held him until he stopped crying, then took him to the hospital. She used the money from her memories to pay the bill. Then she took him to his apartment and helped him onto the couch. She sat on the floor beside him. She was filthy, desperate to shower, but reluctant to leave him.

  “This is intolerable,” Joseph said. He closed his eyes, let out a hitching breath. “I've lost my whole life. I don't even know who I am.”

  “Your name is Joseph,” Kiko said softly. “You were born here, in Lower Manhattan. Your parents are dead. They died in the class riots of ‘34—”

  “I know about the class riots. I know about Upper Manhattan, I know poor people are kept out of it ... how can I remember all this if I can't remember my own name?”

  Kiko rubbed his knee. “That's procedural memory—abstract things you learn, like how to get toothpaste out of a tube. A memory wipe takes out episodic memory, your memory of the events in your life. They're separate.”

  Joseph nodded. “There's something else, though.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I don't remember you. But ... I know I care about you.”

  Kiko smiled. “I think some memories go beyond the mind—they sink into the bones. They figured out how to remove memories from the brain, but I don't think that gets all of it.”

  Kiko told Joseph everything she knew about him, told him his friends would be able to fill in even more. Then she stood. “I have to take a shower. I don't know if you've noticed, but I stink.”

  Joseph managed a halfhearted laugh. “I didn't want to say anything.”

  “I was in a dumpster a few hours ago. Once I've told you who I am, I'll explain what happened to me today.”

  Wearing a t-shirt she'd found in Joseph's bedroom, her long black hair still wet, Kiko returned to the living room, pulled a photo from one of the trash bags, and tacked it in the bottom right corner of a big, blank wall in Joseph's living room. Only she knew it was also her living room now. “This is me with my cousin Ike, in Central Park,” she said. Joseph sat up, elbows on knees, and looked at the picture. She put up another just to the left of the first. “This is me with my puppy, Rumor.”

  “He's cute,” Joseph said. He seemed eager to absorb any information he could. “From those paws, I bet he grew up to be a big dog.”

  Kiko paused, looked at the ceiling, thinking. “You know, I don't remember.”

  “Maybe you sold all your memories of when he was grown up?”

  Kiko shook her head, still staring off, trying to recall. “I would have written it down.” Finally she shrugged, pulled another photo. “This is my father. He died three years ago.” What should she tell Joseph about her father? “He was a complicated man, but he loved me.”

  * * * *

  Kiko and Joseph wove a detour around a scrawny woman with no front teeth and a blank-faced child, encamped in a field of debris. Ragged pieces of wallboard were propped to delineate a boundary. The woman held out her hand halfheartedly as they passed.

  “If we find any of your memories, how do we get them back? We don't have money to buy them,” Kiko said.

  “Could we call the police?” Joseph asked.

  “Or maybe the president,” Kiko said.

  Joseph shook his head. “Yeah, I guess not. Let's just see if we can find them first.”

  A woman came out of the memory boutique up ahead. She started across the street, then noticed Kiko and Joseph and changed direction, heading toward them. She was staring at Joseph. An older woman, well-dressed. Kiko recognized her.

  “Do I know her?” Joseph said under his breath as the woman approached.

  “I've seen her before. In the boutique. She was buying expensive memories.”

  The woman had a huge smile on her face. “Joseph?”

  Joseph smile politely. “I'm not sure, I'm sorry ... where do I know you from?”

  Suddenly the smile vanished. The woman turned red. “I'm sorry, I mistook you for someone,” she said, turning on chrome heels and hurrying away.

  Kiko and Joseph looked at each other, perplexed.

  Kiko inhaled sharply. “She buys memories! I bet she has one
of you!”

  “Wait! Hold on!” Joseph called. The woman picked up her pace; Joseph went after her with Kiko right behind.

  “Please, hold on a minute,” he said when he caught up, grasping her elbow.

  She whipped around, yanked Joseph's hand off her. “Stay away from me!” she cried, fishing something from a chain around her neck. It was a bodyguard remote. She activated it. The bodyguard leapt from her purse, a flash of metal teeth and blades, the size of a rat. It raced up Joseph's leg and wrapped itself around his neck, a razor-edged limb poised an inch from his jugular. Joseph froze.

  “Stop it!” Kiko screamed. “What's the matter with you?”

  “What do you want?” The woman said.

  “We just want to know what memory you have of Joseph. We wouldn't hurt you,” Kiko said.

  The woman took a few steps backward, then called off the bodyguard. It climbed down Joseph and crouched on the ground in front of the woman. “It's none of your business, I bought it legally,” she said.

  “I understand that,” Joseph said. “But I had all of my memory stolen; I just want to know if you have anything that might help me piece together some of my past.”

  The woman considered for a moment. “All right, I don't see the harm. I went on a date with you, to dinner, and roller skating.”

  “That was me,” Kiko said sharply.

  Joseph spoke over her. “Would you sell me that memory? It would mean a lot to me.”

  The woman shook her head brusquely. “I don't sell memories.” Not that it would have mattered is she did, Kiko thought. Joseph clearly had no idea how much high-quality memories cost.

  “How many do you have?” Kiko asked conversationally.

  The woman smiled. “It's my hobby. I've had twelve weddings, I've been proposed to seventeen times...” She seemed to relax as she talked about her memory collection. Kiko let her talk.

  “Have you ever been married yourself?” Kiko asked.

  “Let me see.” the woman frowned. “Yes, I have. To a musician—a tall man with long blonde hair. I met him while waiting tables at a bar in Little Italy...”

  Kiko listened patiently to the disjointed description of someone else's love story. When she was finished, Kiko said “Would you consider trading for the date with Joseph?”

  The woman raised one eyebrow. “What have you got?”

  “I'm opening a gift, a surprise. It's the best moment of my life. The memory is perfect violet—I guarantee the valence and clarity will both be over 95.”

  “If they are, you've got a deal,” the woman said. She tried to sound nonchalant, but her eagerness bled through.

  “You pay the extraction fees?” Kiko said. The woman nodded agreement. She put the bodyguard away.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Joseph said as they walked three paces in front of the woman.

  Kiko smiled easily. “Yes,” she said.

  In the booth, Kiko made sure to think only about opening the gift, and her joy when she realized what it was. She did not want to accidentally activate the memory that Joseph had given her and have that extracted as well. After pressing “retrieve,” she read over the account of the memory she had written on a scrap of paper, to be added to her memory journal. She retrieved the vial: valence 99.3, clarity 98.9. It would be worth a great deal if she sold it. Numbers that high interested collectors who displayed memories on shelves rather than inserting them and allowing them to drift and contaminate.

  Outside the shop they exchanged vials, the woman smirking as she read the stats. Kiko handed the first-date vial to Joseph without looking at the stats. She knew the numbers would be much lower than when she had first sold it, but it didn't matter. “My gift to you,” she said.

  Joseph's eyes filled with tears. He took the vial from her.

  “Well, nice doing business with you,” the woman said.

  “Yes,” Kiko said. “May I say something?” she added as the woman turned to go. The woman shrugged. “Whatever it was that happened to you, it will still be there, no matter how you try to paper over it with other people's happy memories.”

  “Nothing bad happened to me,” the woman said, irritated.

  “You had it taken out, but it's still in your bones.” The woman waved her hand at Kiko and walked away. At least Kiko had tried.

  When they got home, Joseph inserted the memory. He smiled for the first time since the attack. Then he hugged Kiko fiercely, his muscles bunching against her shoulders.

  “Why didn't we stay together? What happened?” he said. “I must have done something to hurt you.” He pulled back from her and looked her in the eyes. “If I did, tell me so I can say I'm sorry.”

  Kiko shook her head. “It was my father...” She pictured her father, scowling that night after their date. Should she tell Joseph the truth? She saw her father lying in the hospital, coughing blood. She should let his memory rest in peace. On balance, he had been a good man.

  The butcher knife popped into her mind, the sound of the hammer pounding on her bedroom door. She flinched, closed her eyes.

  “Kiko, are you all right?” Joseph said.

  She nodded slowly, her eyes still closed. “He was a good man. He took good care of me.”

  She saw the bedroom door; the pounding was deafening. The door splintered as the teeth of the hammer bit through it. She heard father, screaming that he was going to kill her.

  Then the door burst open.

  Instead of her father brandishing a wire hanger, a fury of brown memories came at her through the open door: beatings with cables and fists, days spent scrubbing floors and walls and toilets; meals eaten in terrified silence, her father never looking up from his bowl. Hateful things her father had said to her. And Rumor. Why did she have no memories of Rumor, except as a puppy? She saw Rumor in her cousin's arms in the back seat of a car, pulling away from the curb. His puppy now. Rumor had not been given a second chance to pee on her father's clean floor.

  “What is it? What's the matter?” Joseph was rocking her. She was crying, her eyes so full of tears that the room was nothing but streaks of light and color.

  Through her tears, Kiko told Joseph about her father. Everything. He listened, and he cried, and their tears mingled as he pressed his face to hers.

  They lost track of time, and Joseph was almost late leaving for his first day back at work. After he left, Kiko took all of her pictures off the wall. She stacked them neatly, along with her memory journal, in the back of a drawer.

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  * * *

  VECTORING

  Geoffrey Landis

  Pay attention. This is information you need to know.

  You read science fiction; I expect you've heard speculation about uploading, copying a human brain onto a computer. It's a popular meme in certain techno-geek circles. But the problem is immense! Just how do you copy a brain? A human brain contains a hundred trillion synapses, and replicating a brain in software means you'll have to map them all. Sure, you say, use some kind of nanotechnology, little milli-microscopic robots. But that makes no sense: the inside of a human body is a very messy place for hypothetical nano-robots to operate. It would be like trying to operate fine machinery in a swamp.

  Well, there was a biologist. Call her Amanda Quinn. That's not really her name, but she's dead now anyway. Dr. Quinn had the revelation that you don't need to invent nanotechnology; bacteria are little nanotech robots, and they're cheap. They reproduce on their own, they're adapted to live inside the human body, and—here's a neat little trick she figured out how to do with reverse-transcriptase—they can record the synapse pattern right into their DNA, just like writing data to a hard disk. Lots of data storage available on DNA.

  Amanda did the trick with a species of meningitis bacteria (specifically a strain of Neisseria meningitidis, the classic meningococcus, that happened to be available in her lab, if you care). The Neisseria weren't designed to work together, but she tweaked that, and she rewrote their g
enome a little to help them pass the blood-brain barrier a little easier. Evolution is good at exploring a wide trade space, but when you know what you want, design is a lot better: she could make bacteria do stuff that they could never do by evolution. After all, birds can't fly 600 miles per hour, but jets do.

  She did the work in her home lab, so the university wouldn't grab the patent rights, and started out on rats. The university safety office was always going on about safety protocols; maybe she should have listened. Or talked to a rat scientist. Rats bite, if you're not careful.

  The original bacterium had coevolved with humans, which meant that it wasn't very fast or very lethal, but when she was making her changes she turned off a lot of the features that kept its growth rate slow. Now it goes kind of crazy, reproducing way too fast for its host's good. Other than that, the bacteria worked just the way she'd planned; copying every nuance of her synaptic patterns while eating her brain.

  She could have been contrite, I guess, contacted the authorities, spent her remaining few months helping search for a cure to the disease she'd invented. She didn't think like that. Instead of a cure, she worked on the revised version, 2.0, a little more contagious.

  Oh, and she reversed it. Writing isn't much harder than reading, it turns out; the 2.0 version takes that information written in the DNA, and writes her synapse pattern into other brains.

  So, here's the bottom line. Do you sometimes feel like you're someone else? Forget what you were doing a couple of hours of the day? More and more of the day you're not really all there?

  You're dying. And your brain is being overwritten.

  Too bad the infection is still deadly. Once it finishes writing her into your brain, she'll have six months, maybe a year, before it kills her. (You.) She'll progress a little in her research. She might even get to the cure, using your brain (or what used to be your brain), but probably not.

  Her original body is dead by now, but she keeps all her notes on the web. She can access them from anywhere, and by now she's used to switching bodies. I think there's a few hundred of her working on the problem.