Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2016

by Charlie Jane Anders

  I cross the street and risk a look back and see something roll onto the sidewalk on at least eight legs, using three or four arms to push itself off a building as it careens a little … before coming straight after me again. It’s the Mega Cop, and it’s gaining. Oh shit oh shit oh shit please no.

  Only one choice.

  Swing right. Fifty-Third, against the traffic. An old folks’ home, a park, a promenade … fuck those. Pedestrian bridge? Fuck that. I head straight for the six lanes of utter batshittery and potholes that is FDR Drive, do not pass Go, do not try to cross on foot unless you want to be smeared halfway to Brooklyn. Beyond it? The East River, if I survive. I’m even freaked out enough to try swimming in that fucking sewage. But I’m probably gonna collapse in the third lane and get run over fifty times before anybody thinks to put on brakes.

  Behind me, the Mega Cop utters a wet, tumid hough, like it’s clearing its throat for swallowing. I go

  over the barrier and through the grass into fucking hell I go one lane silver car two lanes horns horns horns three lanes SEMI WHAT’S A FUCKING SEMI DOING ON THE FDR IT’S TOO TALL YOU STUPID UPSTATE HICK screaming four lanes GREEN TAXI screaming Smart Car hahaha cute five lanes moving truck six lanes and the blue Lexus actually brushes up against my clothes as it blares past screaming screaming screaming

  screaming

  screaming metal and tires as reality stretches, and nothing stops for the Mega Cop; it does not belong here and the FDR is an artery, vital with the movement of nutrients and strength and attitude and adrenaline, the cars are white blood cells and the thing is an irritant, an infection, an invader to whom the city gives no consideration and no quarter

  screaming, as the Mega Cop is torn to pieces by the semi and the taxi and the Lexus and even that adorable Smart Car, which actually swerves a little to run over an extra-wiggly piece. I collapse onto a square of grass, breathless, shaking, wheezing, and can only stare as a dozen limbs are crushed, two dozen eyes squashed flat, a mouth that is mostly gums riven from jaw to palate. The pieces flicker like a monitor with an AV cable short, translucent to solid and back again—but FDR don’t stop for shit except a presidential motorcade or a Knicks game, and this thing sure as hell ain’t Carmelo Anthony. Pretty soon there’s nothing left of it but half-real smears on the asphalt.

  I’m alive. Oh, God.

  I cry for a little while. Mama’s boyfriend ain’t here to slap me and say I’m not a man for it. Daddy would’ve said it was okay—tears mean you’re alive—but Daddy’s dead. And I’m alive.

  With limbs burning and weak, I drag myself up, then fall again. Everything hurts. Is this that heart attack? I feel sick. Everything is shaking, blurring. Maybe it’s a stroke. You don’t have to be old for that to happen, do you? I stumble over to a garbage can and think about throwing up into it. There’s an old guy lying on the bench—me in twenty years, if I make it that far. He opens one eye as I stand there gagging and purses his lips in a judgy way, like he could do better dry-heaves in his sleep.

  He says, “It’s time,” and rolls over to put his back to me.

  Time. Suddenly I have to move. Sick or not, exhausted or not, something is … pulling me. West, toward the city’s center. I push away from the can and hug myself as I shiver and stumble toward the pedestrian bridge. As I walk over the lanes I previously ran across, I look down onto flickering fragments of the dead Mega Cop, now ground into the asphalt by a hundred car wheels. Some globules of it are still twitching, and I don’t like that. Infection, intrusion. I want it gone.

  We want it gone. Yes. It’s time.

  I blink and suddenly I’m in Central Park. How the fuck did I get here? Disoriented, I realize only as I see their black shoes that I’m passing another pair of cops, but these two don’t bother me. They should—skinny kid shivering like he’s cold on a June day; even if all they do is drag me off somewhere to shove a plunger up my ass, they should react to me. Instead, it’s like I’m not there. Miracles exist, Ralph Ellison was right, any NYPD you can walk away from, hallelujah.

  The Lake. Bow Bridge: a place of transition. I stop here, stand here, and I know … everything.

  Everything Paulo’s told me: It’s true. Somewhere beyond the city, the Enemy is awakening. It sent forth its harbingers and they have failed, but its taint is in the city now, spreading with every car that passes over every now-microscopic iota of the Mega Cop’s substance, and this creates a foothold. The Enemy uses this anchor to drag itself up from the dark toward the world, toward the warmth and light, toward the defiance that is me, toward the burgeoning wholeness that is my city. This attack is not all of it, of course. What comes is only the smallest fraction of the Enemy’s old, old evil—but that should be more than enough to slaughter one lowly, worn-out kid who doesn’t even have a real city to protect him.

  Not yet. It’s time. In time? We’ll see.

  On Second, Sixth, and Eighth avenues, my water breaks. Mains, I mean. Water mains. Terrible mess, gonna fuck up the evening commute. I shut my eyes and I am seeing what no one else sees. I am feeling the flex and rhythm of reality, the contractions of possibility. I reach out and grip the railing of the bridge before me and feel the steady, strong pulse that runs through it. You’re doing good, baby. Doing great.

  Something begins to shift. I grow bigger, encompassing. I feel myself upon the firmament, heavy as the foundations of a city. There are others here with me, looming, watching—my ancestors’ bones under Wall Street, my predecessors’ blood ground into the benches of Christopher Park. No, new others, of my new people, heavy imprints upon the fabric of time and space. São Paulo squats nearest, its roots stretching all the way to the bones of dead Machu Picchu, watching sagely and twitching a little with the memory of its own relatively recent traumatic birth. Paris observes with distant disinterest, mildly offended that any city of our tasteless upstart land has managed this transition; Lagos exults to see a new fellow who knows the hustle, the hype, the fight. And more, many more, all of them watching, waiting to see if their numbers increase. Or not. If nothing else, they will bear witness that I, we, were great for one shining moment.

  “We’ll make it,” I say, squeezing the railing and feeling the city contract. All over the city, people’s ears pop, and they look around in confusion. “Just a little more. Come on.” I’m scared, but there’s no rushing this. Lo que pasa, pasa—damn, now that song is in my head, in me like the rest of New York. It’s all here, just like Paulo said. There’s no gap between me and the city anymore.

  And as the firmament ripples, slides, tears, the Enemy writhes up from the deeps with a reality-bridging roar—

  But it is too late. The tether is cut and we are here. We become! We stand, whole and hale and independent, and our legs don’t even wobble. We got this. Don’t sleep on the city that never sleeps, son, and don’t fucking bring your squamous eldritch bullshit here.

  I raise my arms and avenues leap. (It’s real but it’s not. The ground jolts and people think, Huh, subway’s really shaky today.) I brace my feet and they are girders, anchors, bedrock. The beast of the deeps shrieks and I laugh, giddy with postpartum endorphins. Bring it. And when it comes at me I hip-check it with the BQE, backhand it with Inwood Park, drop the South Bronx on it like an elbow. (On the evening news that night, ten construction sites will report wrecking-ball collapses. City safety regulations are so lax; terrible, terrible.) The Enemy tries some kind of fucked-up wiggly shit—it’s all tentacles—and I snarl and bite into it ’cause New Yorkers eat damn near as much sushi as Tokyo, mercury and all.

  Oh, now you’re crying! Now you wanna run? Nah, son. You came to the wrong town. I curb stomp it with the full might of Queens and something inside the beast breaks and bleeds iridescence all over creation. This is a shock, for it has not been truly hurt in centuries. It lashes back in a fury, faster than I can block, and from a place that most of the city cannot see, a skyscraper-long tentacle curls out of nowhere to smash into New York Harbor. I scream and fall, I can hear my rib
s crack, and—no!—a major earthquake shakes Brooklyn for the first time in decades. The Williamsburg Bridge twists and snaps apart like kindling; the Manhattan groans and splinters, though thankfully it does not give way. I feel every death as if it is my own.

  Fucking kill you for that, bitch, I’m not-thinking. The fury and grief have driven me into a vengeful fugue. The pain is nothing; this ain’t my first rodeo. Through the groan of my ribs I drag myself upright and brace my legs in a pissing-off-the-platform stance. Then I shower the Enemy with a one-two punch of Long Island radiation and Gowanus toxic waste, which burn it like acid. It screams again in pain and disgust, but Fuck you, you don’t belong here, this city is mine, get out! To drive this lesson home I cut the bitch with LIRR traffic, long vicious honking lines; and to stretch out its pain I salt these wounds with the memory of a bus ride to LaGuardia and back.

  And just to add insult to injury? I backhand its ass with Hoboken, raining the drunk rage of ten thousand dudebros down on it like the hammer of God. Port Authority makes it honorary New York, motherfucker; you just got Jerseyed.

  The Enemy is as quintessential to nature as any city. We cannot be stopped from becoming, and the Enemy cannot be made to end. I hurt only a small part of it—but I know damn well I sent that part back broken. Good. Time ever comes for that final confrontation, it’ll think twice about taking me on again.

  Me. Us. Yes.

  When I relax my hands and open my eyes to see Paulo striding along the bridge toward me with another goddamned cigarette between his lips, I fleetingly see him for what he is again: the sprawling thing from my dream, all sparkling spires and reeking slums and stolen rhythms made over with genteel cruelty. I know that he glimpses what I am, too, all the bright light and bluster of me. Maybe he’s always seen it, but there is admiration in his gaze now, and I like it. He comes to help support me with his shoulder, and he says, “Congratulations,” and I grin.

  I live the city. It thrives and it is mine. I am its worthy avatar, and together? We will never be afraid again.

  * * *

  Fifty years later.

  I sit in a car, watching the sunset from Mulholland Drive. The car is mine; I’m rich now. The city is not mine, but that’s all right. The person is coming who will make it live and stand and thrive in the ancient way … or not. I know my duty, respect the traditions. Each city must emerge on its own or die trying. We elders merely guide, encourage. Stand witness.

  There: a dip in the firmament near the Sunset Strip. I can feel the upwelling of loneliness in the soul I seek. Poor, empty baby. Won’t be long now, though. Soon—if she survives—she’ll never be alone again.

  I reach for my city, so far away, so inseverable from myself. Ready? I ask New York.

  Fuck yeah, it answers, filthy and fierce.

  We go forth to find this city’s singer, and hopefully to hear the greatness of its birthing song.

  About the Author

  N(ora). K. Jemisin is an author of speculative fiction short stories and novels who lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has won the Hugo Award and been nominated for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards; shortlisted for the Crawford, the Gemmell Morningstar, and the Tiptree. She has won a Locus Award for Best First Novel as well as multiple Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards. You can sign up for author updates here.

  Copyright © 2016 by N. K. Jemisin

  Art copyright © 2016 by Richie Pope

  The evening sky was a spring gray, which is different than a winter gray, and the soft light that came down through the clouds lit up the festival. Fires danced, and people danced, and my boyfriend was dancing with a woman who was there to work the harvest. They were hitting it off, it looked like. Everything was perfect in what was left of the world.

  At the In-Between Lodge, we picked most of our tea leaves on Beltane. Traditionally, the first flush is in March and the second is in June. But traditionally, tea was imported from Asia, and obviously we haven’t had contact with anywhere that far away in decades. So while we do a modest first flush and second flush, most of what we grow is what you’d call “Darjeeling In-Between.” We grow it in the middle of what used to be called Washington State, so it’s not really Darjeeling at all, just In-Between.

  I sipped from a ceramic cup of mushroom tea, weak enough that it just sharpened me up, made me aware of patterns of bodies and light. I wasn’t on duty, but I was on call and my rifle was stacked at the guard post by the eastern gate, so I didn’t get any further into another realm than just the one cup of tea. We’d adulterated the mushroom with oolong from the first flush, and the pleasant and the revolting tastes fought in my throat, a little war between caffeine and psilocybin.

  The band played war songs on guitars and fiddles and drums. The handsome men of the choir sang the songs I’d fought to, songs I relish. Songs that transport us from the world of the living to that liminal place of both battle and sex, where we make and take life. My bare feet were in earth, the mountain wind in my hair.

  My boyfriend’s dance partner wandered to the edge of the crowd, and I went to stand beside her.

  “You must be Aiden.” She turned toward me.

  “I am.”

  “Khalil was just talking about you.”

  Khalil was still dancing, now alone, thick legs kicking out as he spun. He was awkward and completely in his element.

  “I love him,” I said.

  “I gathered as much,” she said. She was watching him the same way I watched him.

  “You should sleep with him,” I said.

  She turned toward me.

  “The spark’s gone,” I said. “Has been for years. I can get laid easily enough, but it isn’t as easy for him.”

  She was just staring at me. I’ve never been good with reading faces. I saw myself and the firelight reflected and dancing in her green eyes.

  “That’s how it works for me, anyway,” I went on. “Whenever I sleep with someone else, it just makes me want him all the more. You should sleep with him.”

  An autumnal smell broke my train of thought. Autumnal smells had no place during Beltane, but there it was, amidst the ambient scent of the tea fields, the iron sweat of the dancers, the pine smoke.

  A voice carried through the evening’s scents: “Fire!”

  Burning tea plants. The smell was burning tea plants.

  I ran for my rifle, snatched it up, and went into the rows toward the growing pillar of smoke. It started off as a Doric column, shifted to Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. By the time I reached it, it was Yggdrasil, the world tree, thick and ropy and holding up every one of the worlds.

  There was no lightning, no likely cause but arson, and I ran toward the edge of the forest beyond the fields to search for culprits. At night, we see movement. In the day, we see shape. But in the gloaming, we see nothing. I saw nothing.

  It took fifty of us to cut a firebreak to keep the blaze from spreading, tearing into tea plants with machetes while the fire tore into our livelihood. The band played, because what else can you do.

  * * *

  Of the hundred rooms in the lodge, ours was in the northeast corner, closest to the fields and the forest. The poster bed was ancient, had been ancient before the apocalypse. It had been through worse than we ever had.

  The tea had worn off but spring nights have their own magic I’ll never understand or forgive, and there was no cell in my body that was feeling sober or responsible. Khalil was on his side, staring out the window at the burned fields lit by the moon and at the dark woods the moon couldn’t light. I stood in the door.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” I said. It wasn’t.

  “It’s just that it’s Beltane. It’s spring. Sex and flowers and all that shit. I should want you.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. It wasn’t. “I’ve never much cared for spring.” That part was true.

  “You look beautiful tonight,” he said, but he was looking at the forest. He didn’t loo
k at me much anymore.

  “What about that woman, the one you were dancing with?” I asked.

  “The one who avoided me after you scared her off?”

  “That one.”

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  There wasn’t much more to say. I left our room, and I left him there, and I went to go sleep at the guard post.

  * * *

  First light found me in the forest with Bartley, our scout. Sword fern grew up from the ground, maidenhair fern grew out of the rock walls of gullies, and usnea hung from every limb of every tree in handsome gouts of green. We walked along downed cedar trees in the wet fog. I didn’t follow Bartley’s footsteps, not exactly, because one person leaves tracks but two people leave trails.

  The forest is something I know. A rifle is something I know. Violence, I know.

  We stopped to break our fast under the boughs of an old-growth black cottonwood that towered over much of the rest of the forest. We ate jerky, tough but fresh, and we passed a thermos of tea. Just tea.

  “You lost the trail, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Never was one,” Bartley said. Bartley had a lazy eye, was always looking out to the side like she was a prey animal. Gray and white ran through her otherwise-black hair, and she was old enough that she should have remembered the old world. She always swore she didn’t, that the first thing she remembered was being alone in the woods, barely post-pubescent, as she cut up a deer. Her life had begun at the same time so many lives had ended. A lot of people her age are like that.

  Khalil and I, our lives had begun with our births, the next year, in the post-collapse baby boom. A lot of danger meant a lot of kids got born.

  “What’re we doing, then?” I asked.

  “If I was going to raid us, I’d have camped up this hill,” Bartley said. “There’s a spring up there, one you can drink from, and a few open cliff faces that’d let you spy on us.”