Hub - Issue 22

by I C Johnson / Alasdair Stuart / James Bacon / Paul Kane / Marie O'Regan

  Hub

  Issue 22

  1st September 2007

  Editors: Lee Harris and Alasdair Stuart.

  Published by The Right Hand.

  Sponsored by Orbit.

  Issue 22 Contents

  Fiction: The Mechanism by I.C. Johnson

  Reviews: The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics, 1408

  Interview: Shaun Hutson

  Rescheduled Feature and Review

  The 2000AD feature we had planned for this week’s issue has had to be postponed until next week. Apologies to everyone, especially Al, who wrote it with a very tight deadline, and managed to get it ready despite hourly phone calls asking “is it ready yet?”. He only knows as he’s reading this… Sorry, Al! To make up for this, we will be running a very special competition alongside the feature. Tune in next week – same time, same inbox. Also, the review of Mike Carey’s Dead Men’s Boots will also feature next week (hint: it’s excellent – buy it now!)

  Rescheduled Hub

  Hub has a new publication day. From this week you should enjoy your regular fix of short fiction, features and reviews every Saturday instead of Friday.

  Spamalot

  If you have tried to get in touch with us recently, and received no reply, it may be because our spam filters seem to be working overtime. We’re currently trawling through our spam box, and finding emails that need answering. Be gentle with us – we’ll be in touch, soon (this goes doubly to anyone who has submitted a story – we plan on having our slushpile cleared by the end of this month).

  About Hub

  Every week we will be publishing a piece of short fiction, along with at least one review (book, DVD, film, audio, or TV series) and we’ll also have the occasional feature, too. We can afford to do this largely due to the generosity of the people over at Orbit, who have sponsored this electronic version of the magazine, and partly by the generosity displayed by your good selves. If you like what you read here, please consider making a donation over at www.hub-mag.co.uk.

  The Mechanism

  by I.C. Johnson

  Every day I’ve watched her on her routine inspection of the freighter. I have followed her, one shadow behind, down into the machinery of the vessel, then back to her living quarters. Her tour is confined to a relatively small area. It takes forty minutes at most. Then I watch her showering. It is easy for me to do this. We are alone on the five-million-ton ship — the only crew it needs.

  Chanya. I'm watching her now from the gallery outside her quarters, gripping the wire mesh. She is working gel over herself methodically. My fingers flex in sympathy. Her skin has turned silver under the cool overhead light. Her mouth is a straight line. I want to touch her, to feel warm metal against warm flesh. As I imagine it.

  I’m a pervert.

  #

  FILENAME: First Entry

  My name is Rheia. I’m not so different from you. I have tried to explain why to myself. I will try to explain why now.

  I work as an onboard engineer for a large freight company specialising in interplanetary contracts. Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been possible for one like me to attain such a position, but even my kind has unions now. The Company covers my health and maintenance insurance and the pay is good enough to satisfy my other needs.

  I have never seen my manager at Company headquarters. He knows I’m a competent worker. My intelligence and my various enhancements see to that.

  When at Company HQ I’m not permitted to spend time with most of the other employees or to use their cafeterias. Separate facilities are set aside for my kind. In my off time you can usually find me in the research section of the Company library.

  Sometimes I get advertising from the Company’s clothing and cosmetics departments on the second level. It never contains anything I can use of course, but I do cut some things out and paste them in a small notebook which I take with me when I go into space on the carriers. I have the notebook with me now, though I never look at it.

  I don’t buy from the Company’s music stores either. I could record the tracks which the Company pipes into my apartment, but the Company’s copyright tax on data units has become too expensive. Besides which, the music tends to be trite. I used to record documentaries, ‘til it became difficult to find shows dealing with other than shipping and promotion.

  Company HQ is a long way behind us now and we aren’t yet halfway to our destination, the Mars terraforming project.

  And I’m not sure I have explained anything after all.

  #

  An Earth news report is showing on the wall monitor, but neither of us is watching it. I am closing up my wrist and returning the tools to my utility belt, which I have placed on the desk. My work is less nominal than Chanya’s. I carry out running maintenance and occasionally sustain minor damage. Chanya’s official role is down as Ship's Inspector. We cyborgs are aware that this term really means Ship’s Captain.

  The wrist repair has left a sharp tang in the air. Disposing of the residue cleared from the joint, I stand to fasten the utility belt around my middle.

  The news report switches to politicians in a studio. They are taking turns to answer questions from an audience. A voice-over says: “However, scientists are optimistic that a cure for these disorders...”

  “Rheia, doesn’t doing that bother you?”

  “Working on my arm? No. Why should it?” I try to hear concern in Chanya’s voice, but catch only distaste. I sit facing away from her, pretending interest in the report.

  “I just wish you’d do it where I can’t see it.”

  “Sorry.”

  An earnest-looking woman is addressing the show’s presenter: “It is self-evident that poetry succeeds where reason does not. These people are broken. What they need, in my opinion...”

  There's nothing much to do in the rec room. I come up here hoping that Chanya needs some company, but all she does is sit around and channel-surf.

  I am checking my chronometer against the ship’s settings when she yet again changes channels.

  “The project to transplant the Terran biosystem...”

  It’s time. Turning in the seat, I say —

  “I need to put the drip in. Would you mind giving me a hand?”

  — and stand and cross to the nutrient units, stealing a look in her direction as she rises to follow.

  She has prepared the drip without needing to think about it, and is brushing my hair back from my temples, when she notices the scent.

  #

  I visited CyTech factory on a weekend in May. The sun was high. Stepping down from the transport, I paused to look around me. The other passengers were mostly elderly humans, and they tried to not notice me. We stood in front of a crouched complex of buildings under the blue and white sky.

  Entering the lobby, I immediately saw several other cyborg visitors. Like me, they were keeping to themselves. Teachers from regional schools stood along the plastic-panelled walls, watching as their pupils wandered across the expanse of blue floor. Someone pointed out the café overlooking the lobby. “It’ll be quieter up there.” I hung back, not seeing any reason to follow them. Instead I sat in a window niche and scanned the lobby more closely. A small red balloon was caught in the exposed machinery under the white ceiling. It had the factory logo on it, so had probably been bought at the gift shop...

  It was 2.30 before our tour guide appeared.

  I’d received the application to visit the factory not long after the emancipation, as part of a community promotion package by CyTech. It was actually the standard form sent out to schools, but accompanied by a letter saying that many of the criteria wouldn’t apply to me, and that CyTech hoped the
trip would be productive in building relations between humans and cyborgs. Irrespective, I applied immediately.

  We were just inside the visitor’s route when our guide mentioned that CyTech had been open to the general public since before the emancipation, something I’d not been aware of.

  The tour became increasingly and uncomfortably aware that cyborgs were among them. Our guide, apparently embarassed, felt more obliged to acknowledge us. He paused the tour outside the assembly area to say a few words about our history:

  “Cyborg production was undertaken because of the need for an additional technologically skilled workforce. Could robots with top-ranking human ability be manufactured, the cyborg class might never have come about. As you all know, until very recently this class was not accorded full human rights. Emancipation has now been declared. We are, ah, encouraged to welcome these new people into our society.” He made no mention of the continuing widespread segregation.

  A matronly woman remarked to her neighbour: “What makes me uneasy is that not one of them has a face the same as another, and they even use facial expressions. If they had blank, identical faces like robots, I'd know how to react.”

  Those around her laughed nervously. I ignored them. Humans often behave as though neither children nor cyborgs understand the spoken word.

  We were led into the assembly hall. Brains and spines were grown there, developed from cloned cells. These were immersed in nourishing liquids before being fitted into cyborg bodies. Further on were the long aisles of nurturing casks in which the matured brains were fed information, preparing them for the outside world. Finally, we saw the nuclear-powered bodies being put together. The cyborg body is like that of a robot, though our sensory network is more advanced and rivals the organic body in its subtlety and suppleness. It is a combination of light metal alloys and polymers.

  As we came out into the lobby, we were handed glossy leaflets extolling the future. I scanned mine and disposed of it in a recycling unit. I would not realise until later that I did not know which of the several assembly lines I had emerged from. But does that matter? My understanding of myself would not be deeper for my knowing which ores went into the making of my body.

  The group disappeared into the mezzanine café until it was time to leave. I wandered off down a side corridor toward a small rest area, regretting that I had not brought reading matter...

  Sitting alone and dejected on the bench was another cyborg. She didn’t look up as I approached. Sitting down beside her, I caught a pleasing scent which I had only ever associated with human women.

  She, a cyborg, was wearing perfume.

  I studied her face. It was more individualised than normal cyborg faces. That meant CyTech had not permutation-sculpted it from the list of standard features, and that meant —

  “You were human once, weren’t you?”

  She raised her head and nodded. A double-helix pendant hung from her neck.

  “Why?”

  “The usual reason.”

  “The usual reason” never means disease or injury. Medical science can pre-empt the need for a prosthetic body. Human-cyborg transfer is almost always done to prolong life-span. Cyborgs live about fifty years longer than humans.

  “How old were you?”

  “A hundred and nineteen. My face is like it was at thirty-five. And I feel thirty-five.” She shifted until she faced me. “But I’m not happy.”

  I’d heard that many who’ve undertaken the transformation have led profoundly unhappy lives, failing to adapt. I felt unable to understand this, having always been a cyborg.

  “Have you considered suicide?” I asked.

  She stared, then laughed. “Ah, like the rest of the assembled ones, you've no sense of tact.” She smiled. “Kill myself? I can't. They put in a neural block to stop you.”

  That hadn’t occured to me.

  A few tourists were descending from the café and making for the transport. I rose to follow them. She rose too. “Please, come this way. I want to show you something.”

  She led me down a corridor at the end of which was another exit, but before reaching it she took my hand and drew me into an alcove.

  “This is what I miss.”

  Cyborgs are forbidden by law to wear human clothing. Our bodies are clad in a light alloy with a rubbery substance which doesn’t take scuff marks and maintains a pristine whiteness. We ourselves are designedly slim, epicene, but with groins which preserve the female inward curve. She reached down with one hand and began to stroke me there. The plastic sensation was peculiar, novel, unexpected. I have only minimal pleasure receptors, but her closeness, her obvious excitement, were enough to reach dormant neurons. I, too, was excited. I, too, felt pleasure.

  My arms went around her. She brushed her face against mine. Then she placed her head on my shoulder and began to sob. “Them. Human women. They won’t touch me. They won’t touch me!”

  #

  “Rheia,” I say, and pause.

  Why would a cyborg wear scent?

  “Please put the drip in, Chanya.”

  The perfume is stronger as I lean in to make the insert. Rheia sighs as the nutrient pumps into her central nervous system. Does she feel fed? I remove the drip and let her hair fall back into place. It’s dark, soft. Funny that most cyborgs have hair like this one does, a nod to their femininity — and, as her hair goes whispering through my fingers, I remember that humanity’s new technical cadré is all one-sex. The male brain is always poisoned by its own toxins during cybernisation...

  I’m still touching the edge of her hair. I put my hands behind my back and clear my throat. “Rheia, can't you do things like this on your own?”

  She turns and looks up at me and I can’t read her expression. I’m about to tell her that I'm too tired to play guessing games when her eyes, nearly indistinguishable from human eyes, take on some quality. She says: “You have something I want.”

  Her metal fingers are warm through their rubbery integument when she touches me, brushing my neck. I flinch and reach up to push her hand aside — to ask her what the fuck she thinks she’s doing. Then her other hand is on my waist. My breath catches. Rheia’s body gives off heat but not sweat or arousal, just the white smell of warm polymer.

  Her hand moves beneath my tabard, drags across my belly...

  I push her away, hold her out at arm's length, ignoring the stab of arousal. I am shaking. I let my hands fall to my sides. Someone in training college once said to me: Remember, they aren’t human.

  “Get out.”

  She parts her lips to speak —

  “No, get out!”

  With Rheia gone, I sit and try to think, but I’m dwelling on the way her body looks. Her boyish chest, like so many young men I've lain down with. Her spare, unnavelled belly. Her clean limbs. Her body’s texture. What she did. What she nearly did. That texture.

  I close my eyes and hunch forward over my need. Rheia may not be human, but I’m alone on this ship with her. Alone and tens of millions of miles from anywhere. It’d only be like masturbating. And no one will know. If necessary, I can make sure of that. I’m her superior.

  Composing myself, I wave at the intercom. “Rheia, come back in.”

  I stand when she returns. Her head’s hanging like she expects to be chastised. My hand goes under her chin and I bring her face up, guide her to the table and push her back. After a moment she parts her thighs and I press myself in against her, rubbing. Dissatisfied with that, I pull back and shrug off my suddenly too-tight Company slacks. I hook my arm beneath her leg, lift it — press, indulgently testing the sensation. The integument is smooth against me and the metal pelvis is firm and warm through it.

  I glance up at her eyes. No arousal there, of course.

  I close my own eyes and concentrate on the sensation. Eventually, I bring myself off. The strength of my release surprises me. I’d meant to climb off her and go straight to the shower. Instead, I lower myself trembling across her.

  Then sh
e does it. Her arms go around me and she begins exploring me with her hands. She murmurs appreciatively, methodically touching my depilated body everywhere she can reach. She moves her hands to follow the movement of my muscles every time I shift. I don’t know or care why she's so fascinated by my body. What she’s doing is effecting me. So when she begins kissing along my shoulder with her small mouth, I push myself up on my hands and quickly find my rhythm again.

  After an hour, I can’t come any more. I’m too aware of her and the smell of my own sweat and what I’m doing.

  But Rheia still clings to me. Her physical passion has turned to affection, as if compensating for her lack of pleasure nerves. She rests her cheek against mine.

  She tells me she loves me.

  I pull back and look at her, allowing myself a luxurious shiver of self-disgust.

  Then I head for the showers.

  #

  Maintenance and inspection continued as usual, but Rheia no longer spied on Chanya.

  Chanya’s advances inevitably brought Rheia into the woman’s sleeping quarters. There, nervous that she had declared her feelings too soon, Rheia concentrated on satisfying Chanya’s greater capacity for sensory pleasure. She didn't dare to speak of love again until, after many weeks, Chanya’s dutifully severe expression had relaxed into one of ecstatic languour. And when Chanya drowsily murmured words in return, Rheia became inexpressibly happy.

  #

  FILENAME: Life Before the Emancipation

  The knowledge and skills of an inflight spacecraft engineer were impressed upon by brain during my assembly at CyTech. So too was a rudimentary set of social skills. Yet my contact with humans was limited to such things as delivering progress reports to employers. Interaction between cyborgs was confined to the few offtime work facilities set aside for us in the Company communal sector.

  In the early days of CyTech production, corporate psychologists noted that cyborg conversation tends to be flat, factual, and lacking in social nuance. What I remember from the offtime meetings is the range of emotions which the other cyborgs expressed — especially when they discussed our human masters.