Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2016

by Charlie Jane Anders

  “Dante,” she said when she was seven feet away and approaching the boundary of his personal space. He was wearing his earbuds, though, so she slid unnoticed into the seat opposite him. Now that she was completely integrated, the appendages of technology on breathers looked clunky and sad. It was strange to be living in the future, amidst the past.

  He nearly catapulted from the booth. The earbuds jerked from their lodgings and fell to the tabletop. Sonata could hear tinny strains of old R&B weaving inside a hip-hop mix.

  “What the…” He stopped and stared at her white tattoos of musical notes floating against their midnight backdrop. He caught his breath. “Sonata, that better be you.”

  “It is.” Surprising him made her pleased.

  “You. Are. Awesome. Not kidding.” He reached out and touched one of the notes on her arm, but of course it maintained its uninterrupted glide toward her wrist.

  “Like it?” She basked in his admiration.

  He huffed out a breath, and she could see a tear glistening at the corner of one eye. “I am so glad to see you, you have no idea. Now look at you. I didn’t think you’d go this radical. I love it, don’t get me wrong. It’s perfect. Tell me.”

  “What do you want to know?” She considered. “Not sleeping is great.”

  He nodded. “I’d wondered about that. There’s this old science-fiction book about some people not needing to sleep. They have all that extra time to do things.”

  “Not just the time,” she said. “It’s the integration. I’m continuously in touch with myself, consciously.”

  His expression went momentarily blank, uncomprehending. He went back to admiring her form. That quickly, they’d come to the divide. Kent had explained it simply to her before she’d come here. We occupy the same space, but we live in different worlds. No relationships can last across that gulf.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she stared at Dante’s computer. It was like looking into an archeological find. Dante suddenly seemed fragile, like a fragment of a child’s collarbone from Homo naledi. He would’ve drowned in Lake Michigan that first night of her new life. Even if he could swim, he wouldn’t have had the stamina, nor could he have remained underwater with her without special equipment.

  “I’ll admit I’m jealous,” he was saying. “And sure, I’m sad, too. I thought we’d be closer in age when we went into our next iterations. But hey, we’re still here.”

  He was hoping against hope for friendship. A deep sadness suddenly seized her, but her body remained unaffected, so the emotion faded quickly. “Still here,” she agreed.

  Dante reached out and touched her hand. It felt different from when her NB friends touched her. It felt flat, like nothing. She didn’t know what it felt like to him, but he withdrew and placed his hand on his computer. He frowned. “It must be painful for you, having your life cut off so suddenly.”

  She could have laughed, but didn’t. “Oh, I’m really not sorry I had the accident. It’s like my real life is just beginning. I’d understand it if someone wanted to commit suicide to become an NB sooner.”

  He blinked. “You think I’d commit suicide? To be with you?”

  “What? No!” Why was he jumping to such a wild interpretation? Her NB friends knew how to just listen. “Never mind. I guess I was trying to be philosophical.”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed as he appraised her, his gaze following her gliding musical notations. She could tell he’d already forgotten what she’d said. “I didn’t take you for someone who’d design their newbody this far ahead of time.”

  She deflected the comment so she wouldn’t have to explain particulars. “If Mother had had her way, I’d be in some screwed-up form that looked like me in life.”

  Dante laughed. “Instead you’re cutting-edge.”

  She smiled. “I went so young, I got top dollar for my body parts. Nine million. They gave me all the latest enhancements, and I only used a fraction of my worth.”

  His hand traced a pattern across the top of his computer in a way that made her wonder what she’d felt like to him. “Are you still set on this limited-edition idea for yourself?”

  She could hear the longing in his voice, and the unspoken question: Would she still be in an iteration by the time he uploaded, decades from now? She held out an arm for him to see. “It’s written in my skin. This is my second movement.” Seeing his face fall, she quickly added, “It’s a luxury model, though. Modular design and completely updateable. Kent says it’ll last more than a hundred years, easy.”

  There was an awkward silence at the mention of another man’s name. They tried to recover an amicable conversation, but Sonata became so utterly exhausted with the effort, she made a polite excuse and left.

  As she made her way to the door, she saw she commanded the gazes of the breathers in the coffee shop. Some expressions were admiring, but several frowned, and as she passed a young man with a goatee standing at the counter, he turned and sneered.

  * * *

  Sonata had also come to the great divide with her mother. The house itself, although its tall windows let in ample light, felt confining to her now. She marveled at how she used to be able to find things to do inside houses for hours at a time. Yet what did she need a house for now? A bedroom? She never slept. A kitchen? She didn’t cook or eat. A bathroom? Useless to her now. She didn’t own clothes that she had to store in a closet. All the technology she required was built-in. None of her new friends lived in homes. They didn’t live with breathers. What had Miller said to her that last day of her own breathing life, in the coffee shop? That man is something to be overcome?

  She sat straight and unmoving in the chair opposite her mother, watching the soft, aging woman sip coffee before rushing off to her job in the urban development office. Sonata had used to like the smell of coffee. Instead she was mentally removed from the scene, running the most likely scenario in a background routine. She would make the announcement that it was time for her to leave and go live with her kind. Her mother would look up, her face registering relief, fleetingly. Then she would stage a drama of surprise and hurt feelings, which would transition into sadness and tears. Her mother would then get up from the table and Sonata would rise as well. They would embrace. Her mother would say she would worry about Sonata every day.

  Sonata halted the scenario and made her announcement. Her mother looked up, her face registering relief so briefly that Sonata might have missed it if she hadn’t run the simulation first. Everything played out similarly, in real time, ending with them hugging in the sunlit dining room.

  “Be careful,” her mother whispered. “You never know what can happen out there on the streets. There are stories. Not everyone approves of newbodies.”

  Her mother moved away and picked up the coat hanging on the spare chair where her purse and keys rested efficiently on the seat. “Your home is always here if you need it,” she said, pulling on the wrap. She picked up her purse and keys and left, at that point on a trajectory to be a mere fifteen minutes late for work. As the door closed, Sonata noted the efficiency with which her mother had handled the news. It was a final sign they had both been ready for this change.

  Sonata waited till the sound of her mother’s car blended into the rest of the traffic. Then she stepped out of the house. She could no longer smell, but the very air seemed to carry the fresh scent of freedom.

  * * *

  She spent that first day of her true independence as an iteration celebrating with Miller, Satchya, and Kent, avoiding the crowds by diving to the floor of Lake Michigan where they watched the myriad forms of sea life and experimented with the new subvocal language the NBs were inventing that expressed in symbols, colors, and mathematics rather than words. They were like babies struggling to learn. Sonata caught glimpses of a deeper reality to explore. It was thrilling being at the beginning of a new development in the NB world.

  An hour before dawn they all emerged from the lake by Grant Park. Miller and Satchya went their ways while Sona
ta and Kent visited the Cloud Gate. They lay side-by-side under the omphalos of the silvery sculpture, where they observed their forms repeated within it, as if time had ceased to exist and the myriad future iterations were laid out before them. Sonata activated the song of her body that her moving tattoos represented, and told Kent her plans of coming out publicly as a limited edition.

  “The problem is, I didn’t have a chance to become known for this when I was a breather,” she said as regret passed fleetingly through her mind. “I’m in my second iteration already.”

  “Really, dear,” Kent replied, “your vision was formed before you had all the data. No one will hold you to it.”

  She frowned up at their distorted reflections in the sculpture. “But I want it. Kent, no one understands me. They think I’ll grow up and change my mind.” She thumped the concrete with a fist. “I hate when people say that.” She would’ve been crying by now if she could.

  Kent sat up and looked down at her. “Go say your piece, then, if you want. But just be aware…” His gaze wandered over Millennium Park.

  “What?”

  “I’m sure you already know there are haters amongst the breathers.”

  “Well, you know the cliché about haters.” She grabbed his arm playfully. “I prefer to say that lovers gonna love.”

  Her Adonis lay back down beside her, and they accessed an intimacy protocol together, where their minds entwined in an ecstasy of togetherness she had never experienced during her sweaty biological grapplings with fellow breathers in her old life.

  * * *

  One of the breathers’ videocasts was enthusiastic about having her as a guest. A young man with long red hair and a spiral tattoo on his forehead listened raptly as she related her vision for her life and iterations. She found herself opening up in a way she hadn’t before, sharing her personal disappointment. “I was going to use this iteration as a means to further explore what I’d made of myself in my first life,” she admitted. “Now it’s like I need to discover who that young woman was who died. I need to invent her future.”

  The man’s eyes gleamed. “Are you admitting the you that’s sitting here is not the same as the woman who lived?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no. I know there’s a fringe out there that disbelieves in the continuity of awareness from the life to the iteration.”

  The interviewer stared at the camera. “Fringe?”

  She nodded. “Most everyone knows that’s an incorrect belief born of suspicion and antitech sentiment. The continuity of consciousness within iterations is well documented in the research. And personally, I can vouch that I’m still me.” She refrained from saying she was actually better now.

  The man chuckled. “Okay, but still, I can’t believe you’re going to give up living forever after going through the procedure for it. I’ve never heard an iteration say they wanted to die. I know you’ve told us why, from a philosophical perspective. But what about you, personally? What’s going on inside that titanium casing of yours?”

  He was mocking her. Sonata was starting to wish the show would end. “I’m committed to my vision,” she explained as patiently as she could. She was going to elaborate, but the man cut her off.

  “And you no longer have the human will to live, now.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say—”

  “But I’m saying. That’s the truth. There’s something missing in you, and that’s your human core.”

  She had a curious desire to reach out and separate the man’s head from the rest of his body. She’d unwittingly become a tool in the hands of a hater. “I think this interview is over.”

  As she rose to leave, she heard the man wrap up. “There you have it, everyone. What would it take for all the other iterations to want to shut themselves off? How do we make that happen? You’ve been listening to New Forum. And remember: actions speak louder than words.”

  How unoriginal, she thought as she shut the door of the studio behind her. And what a liar that young man was. She could detect the hum of his bio-alert—in nonemergency mode of course—the entire time. When his breathing life ran out, he would become just like her, by choice.

  * * *

  A group of over thirty NBs sat along the stately gazing pool leading up to the steps of the Bahá’í temple. It was shortly after midnight in mid March, a week after that awful interview on the Forum. The sky was moonless and stars were everywhere, even seeming to be winking up from the spring-thawed water, emanations from some companion universe. Sonata sat between Kent and Satchya as the group conversed in the new language. There was a lot of discussion around the new concept of beyond centeredness, a simultaneous experience inward and outward or the micro/macro linkage of all things.

  She gazed into the starry waters and remembered how as a breather she’d dedicated her limited, preaccident life to display the beautiful meaning that she thought at the time could only exist within the context of a finite existence. Now, after that awful interview with the hater, and amid the excitement of exploring new concepts in an invented language, her attitude had transformed. She replayed her mother’s signature line to herself: You’ll change your mind about that when you’re older. She smiled ruefully. Her mother had been right. Kent had been right, too, to point out she’d made that pact without fully knowing what it was like to be a non-breather. How NBs not only lived; they thrived.

  She looked over at Kent, her Adonis. Yes, they were higher forms of being, just as Miller had said that day in the coffee shop after she’d told Dante her plans. A pang of old emotion stabbed her emotional center as she recalled the way Dante had looked at her, their clasped hands gripped tight on the tabletop. She averted her eyes from her perfect lover to the sky and waited for the feelings to slide away, as they always did.

  A black bird glided across the stars within the deep. No, not a bird. Sonata tracked the drone across her line of vision and watched it bank and turn.

  “Hey,” she said. “Someone’s shooting video of us.”

  Satchya followed her gaze, and then leapt to her feet, emitting a siren blast.

  Everywhere, iterations leapt upright. Sonata’s newbody responded automatically as well. Kent touched her lightly on the shoulder and indicated a direction. “Run.” His touch transmitted his plan to her.

  There was a flash of light, and Kent’s arm went flying. Sonata saw another drone scoop low, tracking after a small group fleeing for the parking lot. Everyone was scattering. Kent followed her as she ran toward Sheridan Road. Satchya caught up with them and passed them just as they ran across the road, heading for a stand of trees. Her blue-skinned friend’s body was in an erratic hyperdrive. Smoke curled from the side of Satchya’s neck, then her form suddenly jerked and crumpled at the base of a trunk.

  Sonata felt fear in her mind, but she moved with efficient confidence. With Kent on her heels she headed under the cover of the trees, and they made their way through to the far edge of the tree line, where they saw their goal within reach. They paused to locate the drone’s position and calculate when they could make their final move with the least amount of risk. Then on Kent’s subvocalized signal they burst through into the open again on the other side of the grove, sped across a short span of lawn, leapt a hedge, and landed on the sand leading to the safety of the lake.

  As they entered the water and submerged, Sonata subvocalized to Kent. What was that?

  Attack of the idiots, he replied. Anti-NB sentiment has bloomed into terrorism, my dear.

  Everything suddenly fell into place. From her mother’s voiced worries the day Sonata had left her home, to the distasteful moues on the street, to the Forum interview, and up to this moment, she’d been so into herself she’d been oblivious to what was going on in the world. That damned interview had played into the anti-NB sentiment.

  Satchya. The subvocal protocol couldn’t convey the grief she felt, nor the sense she’d contributed to her friend’s destruction.

  Kent reached out with his one arm and tou
ched her shoulder with tenderness. I’ll restore her from backup when things calm down. They can’t annihilate us. We’re their future.

  Yet Sonata recalled how she’d felt the day she’d pushed impatiently through the crowds. When any species is confined to an overcrowded space, the stress can cause them to attack one another. The haters were acting on emotions she’d once experienced herself. The interviewer who had mocked her knew he would eventually become an iteration. Every day, 150,000 breathers died, and over 25 percent now went into iterations. The birth rate was starting to decline, but not quickly enough. At some future point there would be no more breathers—or at least so few their breeding would not matter—and population would stabilize. There was a long time till then, however. What would happen in the meantime? She refused to run those scenarios.

  * * *

  A long, hot summer night was succumbing to a predawn rain bringing cooling northern winds when Sonata burst in the door of her mother’s house, slammed it behind her, and drew the dead bolt into place. She’d shut off her tattoos so she could blend into the shadows unseen. Looking around the living room for something to use as a weapon, she noticed the old couch had been replaced with matching loveseats facing each other across a sleek glass cocktail table. A chilling thought crossed her mind. Maybe her mother had moved. Maybe Sonata was standing in someone else’s house now. She felt a wave of deep regret wash through her mind, but her body remained calm and functional, so she let the feeling pass.

  She heard a movement, and then a light went on, illuminating her mother standing at the top of the stairs. Her hand lingered on the switch, then fell away. Slowly, using the railing as support, the older woman made her way down the stairs and stopped, staring at Sonata.

  Sonata remembered her tattoos were off, and turned them on again so her mother would recognize her.

  “It’s you.”

  “Yes.” They stood there, neither one moving. “The iteration hospital is gone, mother.”