Asimov's SF, April-May 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The thing worth noticing, that caused Martha to echo Jennie's “holy shit” when she finally looked, was a yellow-greeny glow leaking out from underneath the hood. “What the hell is it?” Martha asked.

  Big Patti shrugged. “Dunno. Haven't looked yet,” she said.

  Martha took off her hat and swiped her forearm across her face. “Well, hell,” she said, walked up to the front of the truck, reached though the grille for the hood latch and, “Shit,” she said.

  “Already tried that,” Patti said.

  “Well, why didn't you say so?” Martha demanded, sucking on her knuckles where she'd barked them pulling her hand out.

  Patti shrugged. “You didn't ask.”

  Pen, precise and neat, surprised them all by lying flat on the ground and sliding underneath the far side where the truck body was canted up on an old set of livestock panels. Martha tossed her hat on the hood of the truck and dove in after her.

  Muffled curses and sharp instructions could be heard from Martha.

  “Jesus!” Martha said. Then silence.

  It wasn't until Pen was all the way out from under the truck and standing that Jennie saw that she had something in her hand. It was green and glowing, pulsing like a heartbeat—beat, beat, beat. Not round or square, but ... pliable, loose.

  “What the hell?” Jennie said.

  “Feel it.” Pen grinned, which was remarkable all on its own. Jennie slowly put her hand out, aware even then—even then—before anything had happened that this was big, beyond the realm of junkyards and drill teams and cowgirls in Nebraska in July.

  Jennie laid a careful finger on the thing and immediately she felt a cool warmth spread up her finger into her hand. She jerked her hand back. “Pen,” she began.

  “It's okay,” Pen said. “I think it's okay.”

  “Let me have it,” Martha said, elbowing Jennie aside. Pen passed it over willingly enough though the thing seemed to stick to her fingers, stretching then separating as Martha pulled away. It didn't feel sinister, though, and Jennie wondered what that meant, why she'd even had that thought when she'd only touched it once and besides it was just a thing, a weird glowing thing. Why would it be sinister?

  Martha stretched it until it seemed like it would snap, but it didn't. She let it lay in the palm of her hand and it slowly curled itself up into a ball.

  “Huh,” Pen said.

  “What is it?” Martha asked.

  Jennie could hear Callie and Sallie calling for them back up by the office. “We better get back,” she said, throwing one more long look at the green glowing ball of whatever.

  “Shit,” said Martha. She picked up her hat and waved it like a fan in front of her face. “I wish it wasn't so damn hot,” she said.

  A hot July wind came up as they made their way back, swirling gritty dust up into their faces. “Give that thing to me,” Big Patti said to Martha as they clambered over an old truck bed.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I found it,” Big Patti said and with a deep sigh Martha handed it to her. Big Patti stuffed it in her shirt pocket.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Jennie asked.

  Patti shrugged. “Figure out what it does, I guess.”

  “Oh yeah,” Pen said, nodding. “We can do that.” Pen and Patti were the two best science students in the school—Patti more about putting things together and taking them apart and Pen more about the theory and the future. Jennie wasn't sure that anyone else knew—even Martha—but Pen dreamed about being an astronaut—seriously. She had a whole list at home of the things she'd need to do to get into the program at NASA. Jennie figured Big Patti would follow right along and build the rockets.

  By the time they reached the main office, the wind was strong enough to push against them as they walked. Martha had one hand jammed down on her hat to keep it from flying away. Pen and Jennie had taken their hats off and were carrying them.

  “Load up!” Jennie had to shout for the others to hear her. Clouds were moving in from the west and it would probably be raining before any of them got home. The horses balked at the rising wind and the steady bash and clatter of old metal doors. By the time Jennie got back home, the rain was steady, sheeting nearly sideways in the wind. The whole storm lasted almost three days, long enough to wash out the middle of the three-mile track that led to Martha's house. She had to ride her horse out the rest of the summer and wait for Pen to pick her up on the way to the junkyard or a parade or pretty much anywhere.

  * * * *

  Jennie finally got hold of Big Patti on Thursday and drove up to the Rapid City airport on Friday afternoon to pick her up. Jennie almost hadn't recognized her—a red power suit and heels, for god's sake! What the hell? But Patti'd grabbed her luggage off the carousel and ducked into the bathroom and when she came out she was wearing blue jeans and a faded red T-shirt and a barn coat that had been washed enough times that the green had leached to gray and that had felt familiar, real, to Jennie. She could figure out where she stood when things looked the way she thought they ought to look, or at least a way she recognized.

  “Did you bring it?” she asked Patti as they were winding down out of the Black Hills.

  “Well, yeah,” Patti said. She didn't look at Jennie as she spoke. The half-cracked window blew strands of hair back and away from her face, like they were trying to escape the bounds of gravity. Several miles passed, the only sound the steady thrum of tires on pavement. Then, Patti turned toward her and said, “Think Pen's right? Think there's another one?”

  “I hope to Jesus not,” Jennie said. “But...”

  “Yeah...” Patti turned back to the window. “Pen coming?”

  “Tomorrow,” Jennie said.

  “All right,” Patti said. Then, “All right.” Like a promise and a curse.

  Callie was at the ranch before 7:30 the next morning, already talking the minute she walked through the kitchen door. “Where's the coffee? My god! I swear I'm never going drinking again, but Randy said, ‘Oh, sweetie, let's just—’ Patti, you look great, you look— Can you believe this!” She finally stopped and turned around, the coffeepot in one hand and a cracked ironstone mug in the other. “Pen's not just making things up, is she?”

  Jennie rolled her eyes and didn't even bother to hide it. “It was on the news, Cal.”

  “Oh,” Callie shrugged. “Well...” She pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “Have you talked to Sallie?”

  “Haven't you?”

  “Oh, hell,” And there was something sharp and indefinable underlying the words. She shrugged. “We don't talk,” she said. She grabbed the mug in both hands and raised it to her lips, then she just sat there, staring at either nothing or Big Patti. Jennie couldn't tell.

  “Do you ever—” Callie said softly after a few minutes of silence. “I mean, sometimes...” She looked up. “I still think about Martha, you know?”

  Like we don't, Jennie wanted to say. Like every minute of the day?

  Patti's chair screeched on the old linoleum floor.

  “Shit—” Callie began.

  “I'm going for a ride,” Big Patti interrupted her and didn't look at either one of them before walking out the door.

  “Was it something I said?” Callie looked at Jennie.

  Jennie didn't answer. She stood at the sink and watched Patti jump the corral fence like she did it all the time. She raised her hand and Old Boy was there, like he'd been expecting her, like Patti hadn't left him years ago and moved to California, like time had somehow just stood still.

  * * * *

  It had been late fall, still warm, but most of the leaves off the trees and the afternoon light brittle and thin, shadows longer than they'd been, the promise of winter underlying everything. It was still warm in the sun, but in the shade of hollowed out old pickup trucks it was cold. Jennie'd snugged her jacket up around her neck.

  They'd figured out pretty quick what the Thing did.

  “Dude, it invents reality,” Martha'd said. �
��That's awesome!”

  “Bad things happen,” Jennie'd said. “You wanted cooler weather; it flooded out the roads.”

  “I know,” Martha said. “It was awesome.”

  “It's dangerous. What about when Patti wanted Mark Hafhalt to ask her to the dance?”

  “I didn't want Mark—”

  “What was wrong with that?” Martha asked, her hands on her hips and her stance wide, like she expected angels to descend and knock her down.

  “Shelly Waskowski was in the hospital for three weeks!”

  “She was in a car accident.”

  Jennie pointed, “Because that—that—Thing made it happen. You know it did.”

  “We just have to be smart, think things through. I mean someone invented this Thing. It wasn't because they wanted to flood the world or push deer in front of cars.” Pen hadn't spoken at all for the last half hour, so when she did finally say something even Martha stopped talking and listened.

  And they'd talked about it, researched it—Pen said there was no account of anything like it anywhere—and figured out one big last spectacular thing.

  “We've got to do it!” Martha'd said. “I mean, Jesus! Why not?”

  And that was what had gotten them here, in the middle of the junkyard on a windy fall day, the wind sandpapering across their faces.

  “We should get rid of it.” Callie huddled in her jacket on a ratty blanket she'd scrounged from the office.

  “Get rid of it?” Big Patti just looked at her, like what she'd said didn't even make sense.

  “Shit,” said Martha, “Nobody made you come.”

  “Jesus, Martha—” Sallie began.

  “Quit,” Pen said, didn't even raise her voice, but everybody shut up.

  “Anyone who wants to go should go now,” Pen said. She didn't look at any of them when she said it.

  Jennie looked at Pen. The slanted light made the bones in her face stand out. Afterward, she accused Pen of being selfish; she'd wanted it to be about Pen, about intelligence and ambition and forcing the world to make a place for her. But they were all there, they'd all wanted to be part of something that big.

  No one left.

  “All right,” Pen said. “All right.” The Thing lay on a folded blanket in front of her. It had changed shape slightly with every Request they'd made—most of which they hadn't realized were Requests, just saying things with the Thing in their hands. It was a little less pliable, a little more angular, but still green and yellow and glowing.

  “Okay,” Pen said, her hands hovering just above the Thing. “This is it. This is—”

  “Yeah,” Martha said impatiently. “The big Request. We know. Get on with it.”

  “Okay,” Pen said and took a big breath. “If you're going,” she said. “You have to be touching it.” Everyone reached in and put a finger on the Thing, except Callie. Sallie raised an eyebrow, took her finger off, put it on, took it off again.

  “Oh for god's sake,” Callie said. “Do what you want.” Callie had gotten ahold of the Thing one day mid-summer and Requested red cowboy boots and a barrel racing saddle, which her father gave to her three days later when he came home and announced he and their mother were getting a divorce and he was marrying the checkout girl at the Swift Spot on Highway 40. Callie'd been off the Thing pretty much ever since.

  Sallie gave a huff and sat back.

  “Okay,” said Pen. “Okay?” No one else moved. “Okay.” Another deep breath. “We want to visit an alien planet. We want to be able to eat, breathe, live there. Nothing bad happens to any of us.” She looked directly at Callie. “Not to anyone who goes or anyone who doesn't. Not to anyone we know or anyone we don't know.”

  Right that second, right before the last word was completely out of Pen's mouth, Jennie pulled her hand away. She'd never been able to explain it down the years—because she didn't really believe in the Thing, because she thought it was all doomed to disaster, because it wasn't her Request, belonged to Pen and Martha and Big Patti?

  Because she did.

  Afterward, when everyone had a reason for what happened, had an accusation about something done or not done, Pen had said she hadn't put coming back in the original Request because they were taking the Thing with them. A whole lot later—years later—Jennie realized Pen hadn't included coming back because Pen hadn't intended to return.

  * * * *

  Jennie and the others always thought the consequences had been pretty damned obvious from the start. But now, she realized that maybe they weren't, maybe it had actually played out in subtler and harsher ways. Martha was gone, sure. But she was okay, she was, Pen had stipulated it. Pen wasn't okay. Big Patti either. Mid-level job at a big anonymous tech firm? Totally not Pen. California? Red power suits? Big Patti'd never touched that F-150 again, never set foot in a junkyard again as far as Jennie knew.

  “It was always Pen's fault. We all knew it.”

  “What?” Jennie startled at Callie's words, like their thoughts were running together down the past, each to a different end.

  “Jesus Christ, Callie, just shut the hell up.” Sallie walked into the kitchen, slamming the outside door behind her. In high school, she'd done her best to look just like Callie—same hair cut, same clothes. But now—short straight hair, red with gold highlights—she was all bone and angles, sharp and spiky where Callie'd grown soft and round.

  “Well, I'm just saying.” Callie's fingers playing nervously with her coffee mug, fingernails tapping against the porcelain, a sharp, hollow sound.

  Jennie rose and went to the window. Big Patti'd returned, hung her saddle on the fence and was climbing over with a bridle in one hand and Old Boy nudging at the back of her leg, like he could talk her into staying a little longer. She'd slung a leg across the rail and was getting ready to jump to the ground when she stopped and Jennie saw her dig a phone out of her pocket.

  “We didn't even go,” Callie was saying behind her.

  “For god's sake, Cal,” Sallie said. “Why are you here, then?”

  Callie didn't answer. Because she knew, Jennie thought, like they all knew. It was the Junkyard Girls who found that Thing. It was the Junkyard Girls who used it. They, all of them, knew what it did, the price it exacted, and what was going to happen in the world now that another one was out there.

  “Because,” Callie began, her voice dying on the end of the word.

  “Because you're not as big a moron as everyone says you are,” Sallie said sharply. “Because you're not as scared as you think you are. Because you care.”

  “Who says I'm a moron?” Callie said. “Besides you—” And then she laughed, like it had been startled out of her, and Sallie laughed a little too and Jennie figured that was probably the nicest they'd been to each other since Sallie'd moved to Laramie.

  “Where's Pen?” Callie said.

  Shit. Jennie looked at her watch. Pen should have been here an hour ago.

  She was halfway to picking up the phone when it rang.

  “Pen? Where are you?”

  “Almost— Look, there has to be a way to get it right.”

  “Well, that's ... isn't that what we're going to talk about?”

  Pen sighed. “Before—if I had paid the price it would have been worth it, you know? It would have been—”

  “Whatever that Thing is, wherever it came from,” Jennie's voice rose, her words coming quick, like she had to get them all out now. “I don't think it was a gift. I think it was, I think it's supposed to destroy us.”

  “Destroy the world, you mean?”

  “Yes, what—?” But Jennie knew that for Pen and Big Patti and Martha—always Martha—there had been a before—scholarships, fellowships, futures all change-the-world bright. And after—mid-level tech girl, the fake success of a red power suit, and gone, just gone.

  “This time,” Pen said, her voice fierce in a way Jennie'd never heard before. “I'm going to get it right.” And she closed the connection.

  Jennie said later that she kn
ew right then. Said it afterward, if anyone had cared. She heard the car, looked out. Pen looked exactly the same as she had the last time Jennie saw her—blond hair, blue jeans, shirt ironed like someone had used a ruler. She never looked toward the house and Jennie knew, she knew, had probably known since Pen called on Wednesday.

  “Shit.” She was out the door and halfway across the lawn with Callie and Sallie scrambling confused behind her and she was too late, had known she would be too late before she started to move. Big Patti met Pen halfway, held out her hand, greeny-yellow glowing between her fingers. Pen grinned at her, actually grinned, took her hand and—

  “Pen!” Jennie skidded to a stop. Between one second and the next, Pen and Big Patti disappeared, so abrupt that the bridle in Big Patti's hand was still dropping to the ground in a puffed-up cloud of dust. That was what Jennie remembered the clearest, the bridle falling, slow, like time had nearly stopped, the quick puff of dust when it hit the ground, the sound coming after.

  And Jennie and Callie and Sallie all standing there, frozen.

  * * * *

  Three weeks later, after the pictures from China, after the hole where the customs building had been, after it was clear that Pen and Big Patti were gone, Jennie saddled up Old Boy and Pen's horse, who never, as far as Jennie knew, had a name. She was mounted on Old Boy, ponying Pen's horse behind when Sallie drove up in a swirl of dust. She didn't say anything, just grabbed the reins from Jennie and mounted up. She was wearing old jeans and a pair of dusty cowboy boots that Jennie'd have bet she hadn't worn in years.

  After a few minutes of silence, Jennie asked, “Callie—?”

  “Yeah,” Sallie said, the creak of the saddle providing a quiet counterpoint to the slow swish-swish of each horse's tail. “She won't come. She's already pretending none of this happened. Ever.”

  “They're not dead,” Jennie said.

  “I know.”

  “We should have been—” Sallie started after awhile.

  “Yeah,” Jennie said. “Yeah.”

  They didn't talk much more until they'd ridden clear up Pants Bluff, tethered the horses and lay on their backs against the sun-warmed rocks, watching clouds and miles-high airplane trails, sky fading out to pale gray at the edges of their vision.