The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirty-Second Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Whatever you decide.” She put her hand flat against his ribs, where organs ready to crumble did their work under skin so thin, no composite casing. He looked at her desiccated lips. Graying hair. He looked at the hand on his flesh, their two bodies contrasted.

  “It was anatomically impossible,” he said.

  “But beautiful.”

  Ostap undid the block and his head was a sudden deluge, blinking messages and interview probes and priority tags. He raked through the backlog of business. Mountain races, a sub-orbital parachute drop, a biomod boxing league, Accra promotions.

  He gave nothing but green lights.

  Blood Wedding

  ROBERT REED

  In the raw and violent story that follows, guests at a high-profile celebrity wedding in a high-tech future suffer a deadly attack to which they respond in ways indicative of their various natures, and which will answer the question: Which of them, if any, will survive?

  Robert Reed sold his first story in 1986, and quickly established himself as one of the most prolific of today’s writers, particularly at short fiction lengths, and has managed to keep up a very high standard of quality while being prolific, something that is not at all easy to do. Reed’s stories count as among some of the best short work produced by anyone in the last few decades; many of his best stories have been assembled in the collections The Dragons of Springplace and The Cuckoo’s Boys. He won the Hugo Award in 2007 for his novella “A Billion Eves.” He is hardly less prolific as a novelist, having turned out eleven novels since the end of the ’80s, including The Leeshore, The Hormone Jungle, Black Milk, Down the Bright Way, The Remarkables, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks, Beneath the Gated Sky, Marrow, Sister Alice, and The Well of Stars, as well as two chapbook novellas, Mere and Flavors of My Genius. His most recent books are a chapbook novella, Eater-of-Bone, a novel, The Memory of Sky, and a collection, The Greatship. Reed lives with his family in Lincoln, Nebraska.

  “Life is the only indulgence,” was the Ames motto, and today was meant to be the latest, grandest example of that philosophy: Fecundity given breath and shadow, with the promise of ludicrous profits tomorrow.

  The “I dos” were to be held exactly at noon on the summer solstice. A thousand species of expertly crafted, first-of-their-kind foliage stood on the island’s highest hill, creating a church of pigmented cellulose, perfumes and pheromones and wet-earth stinks. The honored guests were carefully shaped and then firmed by regenerations. The style that year was for infusions of transient chloroplasts, which was why each body was green or purple or pink, the organelles dense enough and efficient enough to produce a slow feast of sugars. But the magic worked only if the flesh was free and standing in sunshine, which was why everyone was naked. No guest wanted to hide perfection inside fabric, not when the new human form was so lovely. And there was one more fine reason to remain perched on their toes, straining for the sun: Nobody wanted to miss seeing Glory.

  The bride was born gorgeous. In a different century, Glory Lou Ames might have been an actress hamstrung by being too perfect for meaningful roles. But her native beauty was just the scaffolding for a series of early tailorings and recent, very temporary additions. The treasure was twenty-three years-old. Like a fertility goddess carved from mammoth ivory, she was rich with hips and breasts, and of course she was nude, the abundant flesh emerald and glossy and grand. But what made her impact more remarkable was the strategic use of living flowers. Epiphytes were common embellishments among the bio-aware community, but epiphytes weren’t good enough for Devon Ames’ daughter. Glory wore tailored parasites. Roots slipped painlessly into her tissues, robbing just enough blood and sugar to maintain their splendor. The blossoms erupted from short dense stalks. Every flower produced a fragrance that merged with every other fragrance in the brilliant tropical air—a veritable community promenading down a path of mushroom-built cobblestones. At least a dozen patentable technologies were on display. Cynical tongues claimed that Devon, recognizing opportunity, was milking another fortune from this event. But what wasn’t appreciated was that his only daughter had never been shy about helping the family business, which was the same as helping herself.

  Glory moved with the smooth sure gait of a dancer, and the naked London Philharmonic played from the valley below, matching her rhythms. Father was waiting at the end of the aisle, green to the brink of black, an epiphytic prairie growing in place of his hair. The altar beyond was a cube of frozen tar carved from Halley’s Comet, elegant in its simplicity. The Unitarian minister waited in front of the altar, and beside her was a groom who was as spellbound as any man could be, gazing at this mesmerizing dream.

  Life was the answer to all problems. True to that creed, machines had been forbidden from the island and surrounding seas. The security cameras and public cameras were organic crystals roped to a thousand protocols and then lashed onto the backs of obedient bees. Several billion humans were watching the ceremony, marvelling at the green flesh and magnificent breasts, the blooming roses in Glory’s scalp and the grander blossoms on her wrists and down her broad back. The processional music was composed for this occasion, composed by her father, and the stirring sweet melody added just enough celebration to a scene that could not be more perfect. Every bride was lovely. It is said. But today’s intended exceeded every other young woman who has dared march down her aisle, basking in the gaze of God and her blood and the future of her world.

  Then came a sequence of small popping noises, almost unnoticed.

  Also unobserved was the collapse of multiple security systems, and worse, any notice about their untimely death.

  The public cameras continued operating, but they didn’t bother showing the guests standing in back. Those were the first victims—little billionaires balancing on moss-covered chairs, one moment straining to see, and in the next moment, turning to steam and light.

  Forty wellwishers died with that first salvo.

  But in the front ranks, nothing changed. Guests grinned and teared while the security systems did nothing. Then a second salvo arrived, slaughtering the next row of billionaires, and body parts rose in the air like a fountain. That was what caught the Bakor’s attention. The groom happened to look up, and lifting a hand, he began to rub startled eyes. Which Glory noticed. The man’s wavering attentions were a bother, a problem. Of course she was insulted. After all, this was a spoiled, self-absorbed woman, just as any young person would be in her circumstances. What was Bakor thinking? What could possibly be so interesting that he would pull his eyes off her splendidness?

  Then she felt intense heat washing across her flower-rich back.

  The heat was like a tongue, there and then gone, and her blossoms began to wilt. But Glory wasn’t frightened. Even the possibility of fear lay out of reach. Yet her joy had been warped. She was perplexed and bothered, perhaps even a little angry. Her husband-to-be was interested in some stupid commotion far to the back, and for the next moment and the next breath, she tried to push aside her anger, to regain the old perfection.

  Eighty people had died. The popping noises were finished, but the disruptions rippled through the surviving crowd. Screams could be heard. Curses and inarticulate wails. Hundreds of strangers were in attendance. She assumed that company associates or low-level functionaries were already drunk. She assumed that an ordinary fight had broken out, which seemed borderline possible. And a brawl wouldn’t be too bad, would it? That particular story won a moment of relief, and just then the Philharmonic reached the crescendo, and the bride couldn’t hear any of the pain or the terror, which was why she managed another graceful step and another quick breath, flashing white teeth for the multitudes that she would never know.

  Bakor again turned his head, thankfully fixing his gaze on her.

  But now Father wasn’t paying attention. That was the next insult. Devon Ames had tilted his head, one hand to his bare temple, plainly focused on whatever words were being shouted into his skull.

  As it happ
ened, Glory’s mother was first to deliver the awful news.

  From three rows back, Devon’s first ex-wife cried out, “Oh my fucking God!”

  Against every instinct, Glory stopped. She stopped in mid-stride, staring only at Bakor as her lead foot came down, and she finally deciphered his expression—that sense of utter panic on a face that she rather loved.

  That was the moment when the young groom turned to fire, to bloody steam.

  Bakor exploded, and one of his collarbones, driven like shrapnel, sliced through the minister’s face, killing her as well.

  The audience continued to scream, but maybe not quite as loudly as before. Everybody was suddenly dropping to their knees, their stomachs. And Father shouted something important to somebody unseen. A command that she didn’t understand, unless it was just noise. Maybe Devon was as lost and panicked as the rest of them. But at least now, at the last moment, a platoon of bodyguards emerged from their camouflaged bunkers—powerful beasts designed for one purpose, using their armored bodies to protect the most important people in the world.

  Their arrival brought the hope of problems solved, order restored.

  But unfortunately the attackers were waited for the guards, and instant, every warrior but one was dead.

  At that point, the cyborgs were still better than five kilometers from the island. But security systems were a shambles, nobody was in charge, and Devon’s sworn enemies were closing fast.

  BEFORE

  What steers people is what they believe. History and polished data have their place, on occasion, but what a citizen knows to be true or as good as true matters more than what happens to be real. And that is the world as it should be. Genuine history means confusion, imprecision and guesswork. No story ends. The audience is left with zero sense of accomplishment. But an imaginary history, particularly one that is respectable and compelling, can buoy up the body and the fragile will, carrying its captives happily across the years and into the great good maw of Death.

  This much was fact:

  Devon Ames was the second richest entity in the solar system, while Harry Pinchit was the first. And those two men shared quite a lot more than money and gender. Both were born in the years when being an American still held some small advantage. Both were blessed with a famous scientific parent and a notorious artistic parent. Each boy lived beside the sea with his loyal dog and two lesser siblings. Labeled early as being gifted, they were fed tutors and expectations. But exospheric test scores never mean sure success, and even in their early twenties, neither male showed any sign of becoming a triumph in any important pursuit.

  Biography is a story written quickly over too few facts.

  In 2041, a big ugly war was waged over the course of ten days. The world was already weakened by various crises, but it was malware that delivered Hell. Weapon systems were corrupted, and a great deal of human complacency added to mayhem, and civilization was left bloodied, but at least by the end every AI and most of the Internet was thankfully as dead as dead could be.

  The people who survived doomsday were hungry for salvation. Everybody was watching for the first great leaders to happen along. Devon and Harry shared that role. Their life stories were inspiringly similar. Each was in his early thirties. Each stood at the helm of a small, underfunded corporation known for novel technologies. And though they worked in very different venues, both of the young tycoons ran a stable of gifted scientists and secure devices that had never shown any inclination of madness.

  Devon Ames was the younger, better looking savior. Tall, sporting an easy smile and high-cheekbones left behind by Lakota grandparents, he was a man who never wanted for female companionship. Devon certainly didn’t approve of anything that looked like self-doubt. Knowing exactly how the world could be saved, the young man made a public announcement using every old-fashioned means. Television. Radio. Sanitized tablets and direct mail. “Life,” he proclaimed. “We have to embrace life. The Mother’s endless strengths must be ours, and life is the only indulgence that we deserve, and life is how we will make this world a paradise again.”

  Harry Pinchit came across as the older, more honest savior. His Cuban mother left him with a bare scalp before he turned thirty, and coupled with his stout body and plain looks, he built the illusion of wise, unsentimental middle age. Surprisingly, he also was the more effective television personality. He had an actor’s voice that soothed or boomed, depending on demands. Only Harry could tell people the machines were going to win, one way or another. And the damaged earth was sure to grow hotter and less habitable in the near future. The obvious answer to the ongoing nightmare, according to Harry, was to do what any weak soul does when faced with diminished prospects. “We have to marry well,” said the man who would never marry. “We have to build the machines that we can embrace for the rest of our lives, and I mean for the next billion years, and I mean the machine implants that will carry your minds, our souls, from the ground where we stand today to the ends of our brilliant galaxy.”

  At that point, the two young men had never met.

  If asked, they couldn’t even have guessed when they became aware of one another.

  Each tended his own flourishing empire. Capital flowed into both coffers, and their labor was hired from divergent fields. Devon transformed the planet’s ecosystem. Harry devised malware-free hardware that good people could wear safely and proudly. On those occasions where paths crossed, one company would beat the other for a contract or market or the goodwill of some group of happy consumers. But there was no epic bitterness. Not then, no. Everyday, commerce made losers and winners, and those two corporations thrived, and when the kings finally met, it was entirely by accident.

  Harry was in Washington, D.C., wooing defense contractors.

  Devon was wearing shorts and sandals, planting a new crop of carbon-fixers in the tidal pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

  No one ever claimed responsibility for putting the two men together. But the new Hilton was the location—a big ugly building standing on stilts—and the event passed without public announcement. For an hour and two minutes, the men shared a suite. As was common in those days, cameras and every kind of recorder were forbidden. But later, the aides and functioneers couldn’t recall any harsh words. Two distracted billionaires spoke about common needs and beautiful women and how the earth and the other worlds in the solar system were big enough for both of them. Then what began with a handshake ended with a slightly longer handshake, each man wishing the other pleasant evenings and a long, prosperous life.

  Yet according to the public history, that’s when the feud was born.

  And every step for the next thirty years made Devon and Harry into the greatest of enemies.

  ANKYL

  A thousand people were trying not to die.

  A few of these people had to, had to, had to be saved.

  Count the remaining guards, he thought.

  One.

  Ankyl.

  “Me,” he realized.

  Ankyl was four years-old, which was old. He was a prototype, a Gen Prime that had spent his days working security at the corporate office, mostly in the swimming plaza. And yes, in the purest sense he was an overqualified lifeguard, at least until yesterday when one of the front-line guards got into a brawl with a bonobo servant, earning three broken wrists and some deep-shit trouble for losing that stupid battle. That’s the only reason why an elderly, basically placid creature was shipped to this island. That and the fact that nothing remarkable would ever happen on the daughter’s big day.

  Because he was just a lifeguard, Ankyl had been given one of the lesser guests to protect—the groom’s younger, decidedly alcoholic brother. A careful pedigree and four years of regimented training made the creature ready for this modest role. But the security systems failed utterly. And the platoon got a late jump. And then the enemy struck the hilltop with targeted blasts. Worst of all, each one of the original guards had been tagged. How else could the entire platoon die? But A
nkyl was alive, meaning that the tagging happened before he joined the ranks, and here he was, scrambling to accomplish one good deed before he died.

  His life had been spent fishing little kids out of deep water. Now he was sprinting, thinking about what a fucking mess this was. One moment, he was obeying orders, heading for the drunken brother—a trembling purple mess cowering on the ground. But he was also calculating how long they had before the full brunt of the attack arrived, realizing that there weren’t any minutes to burn, but he probably had quite a few seconds to make ready.

  Ankyl stopped running.

  His armor turned to reflective camouflage mode. Squatting, he scanned the battlefield. Assessments were made. Plans were assembled. The purple brother would live or die without Ankyl’s help. Only the critical people mattered now. Devon was the tempting target for any attacker. Devon’s other children were a little less vital, with Glory at the top of the heap today. Then came the wives—present and past—and the wives were followed by the dead groom and his tag-along family. These were dirt simple calculations: Devon was to be saved before anyone else. And because Ankyl was bred to believe in those very simple mathematics, he had no right to act any other way.

  Except.

  The lifeguard didn’t like Devon Ames. Not at all, not ever. His owner was an undiluted asshole, cold and vain and often impossible. Of course in public, Devon sang about the marvels of life and the biosphere, and about his own decency. But in reality, everybody was just meat to the man. Human or otherwise, it didn’t matter. According to Devon, no piece of meat was ever good at its job. Not that Ankyl had ever suffered the man’s attentions. No, the lifeguard was good about hiding in plain sight. But he had watched his owner abuse other lifeguards and adult guests, and too many times, this father to the new world had inflicted some very hard punishments on misbehaving kids.