by Anthology
Jessica turned her back on the class and climbed upstairs, joints creaking, jeans threatening to slide off with every step. She hitched them up. The biology lab was empty. She leaned on the cork board and scanned the parasite diagrams. Ring worm. Tape worm. Liver fluke. Black wasp.
Some parasites can change their host’s biology, the poster said, or even change their host’s behavior.
Jessica took a push pin from the board and shoved it into her thumb. It didn’t hurt. When she ripped it out a thin stream of blood trickled from the skin, followed by an ooze of clear amber from deep within the gash.
What are you doing?
None of your business, she thought.
Everything is going to be okay.
No it won’t, she thought. She squeezed the amber ooze from her thumb, let it drip on the floor. The aliens were wrenching her around like a puppet, but without them she would be dead. Three times dead. Maybe she should feel grateful, but she didn’t.
“Why didn’t you want me to go to the hospital?” she asked as she slowly hinged down the stairs.
They couldn’t have helped you, Jessica. You would have died.
Again, Jessica thought. Died again. And again.
“You said that if I die, you die too.”
When your respiration stops, we can only survive for a limited time.
The mirror in the girls’ bathroom wasn’t real glass, just a sheet of polished aluminum, its shine pitted and worn. She leaned on the counter, rested her forehead on the cool metal. Her reflection warped and stretched.
“If I’d gone to the hospital, it would have been bad for you. Wouldn’t it?”
That is likely.
“So you kept me from going. You kept me from doing a lot of things.”
We assure you that is untrue. You may exercise your choices as you see fit. We will not interfere.
“You haven’t left me any choices.”
Jessica left the bathroom and walked down the hall. The news blared from the teacher’s lounge. She looked in. At least a dozen teachers crowded in front of an AV cart, backs turned. Jessica slipped behind them and ducked into the teachers’ washroom. She locked the door.
It was like a real bathroom. Air freshener, moisturizing lotion, floral soap. Real mirror on the wall and a makeup mirror propped on the toilet tank. Jessica put it on the floor.
“Since when do bacteria have spaceships?” She pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it over the mirror.
Jessica, you’re not making sense. You’re confused.
She put her heel on the sweater and stepped down hard. The mirror cracked.
Go to the hospital now, if you want.
“If I take you to the hospital, what will you do? Infect other people? How many?”
Jessica, please. Haven’t we helped you?
“You’ve helped yourself.”
The room pitched and flipped. Jessica fell to her knees. She reached for the broken mirror but it swam out of reach. Her vision telescoped and she batted at the glass with clumsy hands. A scream built behind her teeth, swelled and choked her. She swallowed it whole, gulped it, forced it down her throat like she was starving.
You don’t have to do this. We aren’t a threat.
She caught a mirror shard in one fist and swam along the floor as the room tilted and whirled. With one hand she pinned it to the yawning floor like a spike, windmilled her free arm and slammed her wrist down. The walls folded in, collapsing on her like the whole weight of the world, crushing in.
She felt another scream building. She forced her tongue between clenched teeth and bit down. Amber fluid oozed down her chin and pooled on the floor.
Please. We only want to help.
“Night night, baby,” she said, and raked the mirror up her arm.
The fluorescent light flashed overhead. The room plunged into darkness as a world of pain dove into her for one hanging moment. Then it lifted. Jessica convulsed on the floor, watching the bars of light overhead stutter and compress to two tiny glimmers inside the thin parched shell of her skull. And she died, finally, at last.
Two-Year Man(Short story)
by Kelly Robson
Originally published by Asimov's Science Fiction
Getting the baby through security was easy. Mikkel had been smuggling food out of the lab for years. He’d long since learned how to trick the guards.
Mikkel had never been smart, but the guards were four-year men and that meant they were lazy. If he put something good at the top of his lunch pail at the end of his shift, the guards would grab it and never dig deeper. Mikkel let them have the half-eaten boxes of sooty chocolate truffles and stale pastries, but always took something home for Anna.
Most days it was only wrinkled apples and hard oranges, soured milk, damp sugar packets and old teabags. But sometimes he would find something good. Once he’d found a working media player at the bottom of the garbage bin in the eight-year man’s office. He had been so sure the guards would find it and accuse him of stealing that he’d almost tossed it in the incinerator. But he’d distracted the guards with some water-stained skin magazines from the six-year men’s shower room and brought that media player home to Anna.
She traded it for a pair of space heaters and ten kilos of good flour. They had dumplings for months.
The baby was the best thing he’d ever found. And she was such a good girl—quiet and still. Mikkel had taken a few minutes to hold her in the warmth beside the incinerator, cuddling her close and listening to the gobble and clack of her strange yellow beak. He swaddled her tightly in clean rags, taking care to wrap her pudgy hands separately so she couldn’t rake her talons across that sweet pink baby belly. Then he put her in the bottom of his plastic lunch pail, layered a clean pair of janitor’s coveralls over her, and topped the pail with a box of day-old pastries he’d found in the six-year men’s lounge.
“Apple strudel,” grunted Hermann, the four-year man in charge of the early morning guard shift. “Those pasty scientists don’t know good eats. Imagine leaving strudel to sit.”
“Cafe Sluka has the best strudel in Vienna, so everyone says,” Mikkel said as he passed through the security gate.
“Like you’d know, moron. Wouldn’t let you through the door.”
Mikkel ducked his head and kept his eyes on the floor. “I heated them in the microwave for you.”
He rushed out into the grey winter light as the guards munched warm strudel.
Mikkel checked the baby as soon as he rounded the corner, and then kept checking her every few minutes on the way home. He was careful to make sure nobody saw. But the streetcars were nearly empty in the early morning, and nobody would find it strange to see a two-year man poking his nose in his lunch pail.
The baby was quiet and good. Anna would be so pleased. The thought kept him warm all the way home.
***
Anna was not pleased.
When he showed her the baby she sat right down on the floor. She didn’t say anything—just opened and closed her mouth for a minute. Mikkel crouched at her side and waited.
“Did anyone see you take it?” she asked, squeezing his hand hard, like she always did when she wanted him to pay attention.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Good. Now listen hard. We can’t keep it. Do you understand?”
“She needs a mother,” Mikkel said.
“You’re going to take her back to the lab. Then forget this ever happened.”
Anna’s voice carried an edge Mikkel had never heard before. He turned away and gently lifted the baby out of the pail. She was quivering with hunger. He knew how that felt.
“She needs food,” he said. “Is there any milk left, sweetheart?”
“It’s no use, Mikkel. She’s going to die anyway.”
“We can help her.”
“The beak is a bad taint. If she were healthy they would have kept her. Sent her to a crèche.”
“She’s strong.” Mikkel loosened the rags. The baby snu
ffled and her sharp blue tongue protruded from the pale beak. “See? Fat and healthy.”
“She can’t breathe.”
“She needs us.” Why didn’t Anna see that? It was so simple.
“You can take her back tonight.”
“I can’t. My lunch pail goes through the X-ray machine. The guards would see.”
If Anna could hold the baby, she would understand. Mikkel pressed the baby to Anna’s chest. She scrambled backward so fast she banged her head on the door. Then she stood and straightened her maid’s uniform with shaking hands.
“I have to go. I can’t be late again.” She pulled on her coat and lunged out the door, then turned and reached out. For a moment he thought she was reaching for the baby and he began to smile. But she just squeezed his hand again, hard.
“You have to take care of this, Mikkel,” she said. “It’s not right. She’s not ours. We aren’t keeping her.”
Mikkel nodded. “See you tonight.”
The only thing in the fridge was a bowl of cold stew. They hadn’t had milk for days. But Mikkel’s breakfast sat on the kitchen table covered with a folded towel. The scrambled egg was still steaming.
Mikkel put a bit of egg in the palm of his hand and blew on it. The baby’s eyes widened and she squirmed. She reached for his hand. Talons raked his wrist and her beak yawned wide. A blue frill edged with red and yellow quivered at the back of her throat.
“Does that smell good? I don’t think a little will hurt.”
He fed her the egg bit by bit. She gobbled it down, greedy as a baby bird. Then he watched her fall asleep while he sipped his cold coffee.
Mikkel wet a paper napkin and cleaned the fine film of mucus from the tiny nostrils on either side of her beak. They were too small, but she could breathe just fine through her mouth. She couldn’t cry, though, she just snuffled and panted. And the beak was heavy. It dragged her head to the side.
She was dirty, smeared with blood from the incineration bin. Her fine black hair was pasted down with a hard scum that smelled like glue. She needed a bath, and warm clothes, and diapers. Also something to cover her hands. He would have to trim the points off her talons.
He held her until she woke. Then he brought both space heaters from the bedroom and turned them on high while he bathed her in the kitchen sink. It was awkward and messy and took nearly two hours. She snuffled hard the whole time, but once he’d dried her and wrapped her in towels she quieted. He propped her up on the kitchen table. She watched him mop the kitchen floor, her bright brown eyes following his every move.
When the kitchen was clean he fetched a half-empty bottle of French soap he’d scavenged from the lab, wrapped the baby up tightly against the cold, and sat on the back stairs waiting for Hyam to come trotting out of his apartment for a smoke.
“What’s this?” Hyam said. “I didn’t know Anna was expecting.”
“She wasn’t.” Mikkel tugged the towel aside.
“Huh,” said Hyam. “That’s no natural taint. Can it breathe?”
“She’s hungry.” Mikkel gave him the bottle of soap.
“Hungry, huh?” Hyam sniffed the bottle. “What do you need?”
“Eggs and milk. Clothes and diapers. Mittens, if you can spare some.”
“I never seen a taint like that. She’s not a natural creature.” Hyam took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it over his shoulder, away from the baby. “You work in that lab, right?”
“Yes.”
Hyam examined the glowing coal at the end of his cigarette.
“What did Anna say when you brought trouble home?”
Mikkel shrugged.
“Did the neighbors hear anything through the walls?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way.” Hyam spoke slowly. “Keep this quiet, Mikkel, you hear me?
Keep it close. If anyone asks, you tell them Anna birthed that baby.”
Mikkel nodded.
Hyam pointed with his cigarette, emphasizing every word. “If the wrong person finds out, the whole neighborhood will talk. Then you’ll see real trouble. Four-year men tromping through the building, breaking things, replaying the good old days in the colonies. They like nothing better. Don’t you bring that down on your neighbors.”
Mikkel nodded.
“My wife will like the soap.” Hyam ground out his cigarette and ran up the stairs.
“There now,” Mikkel said. The baby gazed up at him and clacked her beak. “Who says two-year men are good for nothing?”
Four-year men said it all the time. They were everywhere, flashing their regimental badges and slapping the backs of their old soldier friends. They banded together in loud bragging packs that crowded humble folks off busses and streetcars, out of shops and cafés, forcing everyone to give way or get pushed aside.
Six-year men probably said it too, but Mikkel had never talked to one. He saw them working late at the lab sometimes, but they lived in another world—a world filled with sports cars and private clubs. And who knew what eight-year men said? Mikkel cleaned an eight-year man’s office every night, but he’d only ever seen them in movies.
Nobody made movies about two-year men. They said four-year men had honor, six-year men had responsibility, and eight-year men had glory. Two-year men had nothing but shame. But it wasn’t true. Hyam said so. Two-year men had families—parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, children and wives who depended on them. They had jobs, humble jobs but important all the same. Without two-year men, who would grub away the garbage, crawl the sewers, lay the carpets, clean the chimneys, fix the roofs? Without two-year men there would be nobody to bring in the harvest—no sweet strawberries or rich wines. And most important, Hyam said, without two-year men there would be no one parents could point at and say to their sons, “Don’t be like him.”
Hyam was smart. He could have been a four-year man easy, even a six-year man. But he was a Jew and that meant a two-year man, almost always. Gypsies too, and Hutterites, and pacifists. Men who couldn’t walk or talk. Even blind men. All drafted and sent to fight and die in the colonies for two years, and then sent home to live in shame while the four-year men fought on. Fought to survive and come home with honor.
Hyam returned swinging a plastic bag in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other. A bottle of milk was tucked under his arm.
“This is mostly diapers,” he said, brandishing the bag. “You’ll never have too many. We spend more on laundry than we do on food.”
“I can wash them by hand.”
“No you can’t, take my word for it.” Hyam laughed and ran up the stairs. “Welcome to fatherhood, Mikkel. You’re a family man now.”
Mikkel laid the baby on the bed. He diapered and dressed the baby, and then trimmed her talons with Anna’s nail scissors. He fitted a sock over each of the baby’s hands and pinned them to her sleeves. Then he wedged Anna’s pillow between the bed and the wall, tucked the baby in his arms, and fell into sleep.
He woke to the clacking of the baby’s beak. She yawned, showing her colorful throat frill. He cupped his hand over her skull and breathed in the milky scent of her skin.
“Let’s get you fed before Mama comes home,” he said.
He warmed milk in the soup pot. A baby needed a bottle when it didn’t have a breast, he knew, but his baby—his clever little girl—held her beak wide and let him tip the milk into her, teaspoon by teaspoon. She swallowed greedily and then demanded more. She ate so fast he could probably just pour the milk in a steady stream down her throat. But milk was too expensive to risk spitting up all over the kitchen floor.
“Mikkel,” said Anna.
She was standing in the doorway in her scarf and coat. Mikkel gathered the baby in his arms and greeted Anna with a kiss like he always did. Her cheek was cold and red.
“How was your day?” he asked. The baby looked from him to Anna and clacked her beak.
Anna wouldn’t look at the baby. “I was late. I got on the wrong bus at the inte
rchange and had to backtrack. Mrs. Spiven says one more time and that’s it for me.”
“You can get another job. A better one. Closer to home.”
“Maybe. Probably not.”
Anna rinsed the soup pot, scooped cold stew into it and set it on the stove. She was still in her coat and hat. The baby reached out and hooked Anna’s red mitten out of her pocket with the trimmed talon poking through the thin grey knit sock. The mitten dangled from the baby’s hand. Anna ignored it.
“Sweetheart, take off your coat,” Mikkel said.
“I’m cold,” she said. She struck a match and lit the burner.
Mikkel gently pulled on her elbow. She resisted for a moment and then turned. Her face was flushed.
“Sweetheart, look,” he said. Anna dropped her gaze to the floor. The baby clacked her beak and yawned. “I thought we could name her after your mother.”
Anna turned away and stirred the stew. “That’s crazy. I told you we’re not keeping her.”
“She has your eyes.”
The spoon clattered to the floor. Anna swayed. Her elbow hit the pot handle and it tipped. Mikkel steadied it and shut off the flame.
Anna yanked back her chair and fell into it. She thrust her head in her hands for a moment and then sat back. Her eyes were cold and narrow, her voice tight. “Why would you say that? Don’t say that.”
Why couldn’t Anna see? She was smart. So much smarter than him. And he could see it so easily.
Mikkel searched for the right words. “Your eggs. Where did they go?”
“It doesn’t matter. I needed money so I sold my ovaries. That’s the end of it.”
Mikkel ran his fingers over his wife’s chapped hand, felt the calluses on her palm. He would tell her the awful things, and then she would understand.
“I know where your eggs went. I see them in the tanks every night. And in the labs. In the incinerator. I mop their blood off the floor.”
Anna’s jaw clenched. He could tell she was biting the inside of her cheek. “Mikkel. Lots of women sell their ovaries. Thousands of women. They could be anyone’s eggs.”