Clarkesworld: Year Six

by Aliette de Bodard

  “Mai! Hold your position,” Nguyen orders.

  “Duc, stay here,” Mai says, and then before he can reply she turns off communications.

  She’s across the open ground and into the woods before she’s drawn even two full breaths, kicking through underbrush. It’s like running in sand, and she’s leaving a trail of broken tree limbs and shattered logs behind her.

  There are attackers, of course. Gunshots ping off her armor from every direction, and she’s veering this way and that to get around uniforms that pop up in her way.

  She’s still broadcasting video live. She can’t turn that off. The whole world is watching this, probably. She can’t afford to harm anyone.

  But Mai has to stop that howitzer.

  Because it’s going to be so much louder than those little execution pops she’s been hearing in the distance.

  It’s going to be a bang. It’s going to wipe out lives in an instant. And it’s going to keep doing it for as long as the Point Defense Array is down.

  And she can stop it.

  She can rip it apart with her augmented hands.

  Gravel crunches and pops under her feet as she bursts out into open terrain, accelerating down a road.

  The firepower aimed at her kicks up an order of magnitude. The popping sound has gone from occasional plinks to a hailstorm. There are soldiers taking cover behind small boulders and shooting at her. Mai covers the last kilometer in giant lopes, leaping over heads and vehicles and hastily dug fighting positions.

  But she’s too late. She can see the howitzer. It is basically a large tank with an obscenely larger artillery gun bolted on top. It looks unbalanced, like it should tip forward.

  The long barrel is raised just slightly, and on target. It will fire like a tank, at this range, the round arcing just over her head, at the very low end of the Point Defense Array’s envelope. If it’s even operational yet.

  Six soldiers are scurrying around the platform. Unlike most of the world’s current self-propelled artillery, the operators are not encased in tank armor.

  When Mai reaches the unit, she will be able to disable it and move the soldiers away.

  But one of them is already shutting the breech and stepping back.

  Another is pointing her way and shouting.

  She will not make it there before they fire.

  Mai slows and rips a three-foot wide boulder up out of the ground and throws it as hard as she can. Two soldiers dive clear of the vehicle, but the two near fire control have nowhere to go.

  Blood spatters the railings around the vehicle. Brain matter drips from the barrel of the howitzer.

  Seconds later Mai reaches it and slams her fist into the breech, disabling it.

  For a long moment she stands on top, too stunned to move.

  Then something loops over her head from behind, wrapping around her neck. The armor stops it from choking her, but the loop is strong. Possibly braided cable.

  Mai tries to jump free, but the cable yanks her back down. The ground meets her back hard, and despite all the protection, Mai gasps for breath and her vision blurs.

  They drag her across the ground as she fights to breathe again, her body bouncing as the armor scrapes along the ground. She can hear the rumble of an old truck, accelerating, dragging her farther away.

  She reaches up to the noose, trying to get purchase, but she’s being bounced around by the uneven terrain.

  If they can drag her far enough away, she’ll be just one person in armor. Far from camp. Far from backup.

  Mai screams with rage, and then suddenly, she’s free, tumbling along the side of the muddy road. On shaky arms she pushes herself up. First to her knees, then to her feet, every twitch and tremor amplified by the armor.

  She pulls the cable up toward her until she comes to the cut edge, then looks around.

  A cluster of blue-armored figures are walking down the road at her.

  Mai turns her communications back on.

  “Nong Mai Thuy?”

  “Yes, Captain Nguyen?”

  “We have some things to discuss.”

  “Are you ready to go home?” Nguyen asked.

  “No,” Mai replies. But she knows her preferences do not matter.

  She’s standing in front of Nguyen’s desk wearing her old Marine Police uniform. Everything’s crisp and tight. Ribbons for bravery and accomplishment no longer feel like things to be proud of, but strange, non-functional baubles.

  She should be in armor, not in this uniform.

  “I guess the true question is . . . how do you move on?” Nguyen says. “I have two courses for you to consider.”

  “Two? I don’t understand.”

  “You killed two human beings, Nong Mai Thuy. All the while under orders to not leave your position.”

  “I saved many lives,” Mai protests.

  Nguyen flashes a smile. It isn’t a pretty thing. It’s an expectant one. Like a predator watching prey fall for a trap.

  “Yes. The inhabitants of the camp call you a hero. But you may have killed many more than you would have saved down the road. It’s a moral dilemma. Academics sometimes ask you to ponder: would you push a man in front of a train to save everyone on the train? It seems like a silly question, yes? But here we are: soldiers. We often shove people in front of trains to serve a greater good. You just faced one of your own moral dilemmas, Mai. I can’t blame you for what you did. But we cannot succeed if we answer violence with violence here. Our duty is to weather these storms and stand between danger and our charges. And doing so, calmly, allows us the unfettered world permission to continue our mission here. You jeopardized the larger mission. The North Koreans will claim they were unjustly abused by a technologically superior invading army, no matter how ridiculous the claim. You put this entire mission in danger of failing. It is unacceptable.”

  Mai considers the strangeness of this. The famous Captain Nguyen, who could be wearing three times as many medals as Mai if she chooses, who tasted violence on the Cambodian border, had eaten it for supper, is lecturing Mai about violence.

  “So what is to become of me?” Mai asks.

  “The Hague wants to court martial you and send you to jail.” Nguyen taps the desk. “Personally, I think the court of world opinion would side with you, and you will not go to jail. You are the hero of Camp Nike, after all. But this will drag out in public and focus the attention in all the wrong places. The advertisers, the people who run this, and the Generals back at the Hague, this will tarnish their images.”

  Mai shrinks back without thinking. The subject of world attention. Media circuses. It sounds alien and horrific to someone who prefers their privacy.

  Nguyen shoves a piece of paper forward. “If you think these people are worth protecting, if you think what the camps are trying to do is a good thing, then I suggest you take the second course.”

  “And that is?” Mai asks.

  “An honorable discharge. It is hardly your fault, really, that this happened. I should have seen the signs, your aggressive stance. A high need for justice. I ignored them because you were a good person with a good heart. I will not be making that mistake again. Sign these, and you can leave, but without any trouble to you, or trouble that makes our soldiers or country look bad. Go back to your family’s business. Go live a good life.”

  Mai stares at the papers for a long moment, then signs them, struggling to keep any emotion from her face as Nguyen watches.

  “Well done, Citizen Nong Mai Thuy,” Captain Nguyen says. “Well done.”

  The next flight out of Camp Nike is in the pre-dawn morning. Mai sits alone in an aisle, looking out of the window as the plane passes up through the flittering green of the Point Defense Array. The North Koreans are busy probing its limits once again.

  An extra reactor will be flown out to meet the needs of the camp soon. For now it is getting by on rolling blackouts for all non-essential power needs. Rumor is that a Californian solar panel corporation is going to ship enough
panels next week for most civilian domestic needs, but the advertising details are still being negotiated. When they’re installed, it should help the camp come up to full power.

  And she won’t be there to see any of that.

  The aircraft continues its tight spiral up and up, always staying within Camp Nike airspace as it climbs. Eventually, once up to the right ceiling, out of range of all missiles and without the grounded North Korean Air Force to worry about, they will break out of their constant turn and head out for Hanoi.

  “Miss Nong?” an airman asks. He crouches at the edge of the aisle holding a small wooden box in his hands.

  “Yes?”

  “Some of the refugees at the airstrip asked me to give this to the ‘hero of Camp Nike,’” the airman says, and hands her the box.

  She opens it to find a small bracelet held together with monofilament, decorated with charms made from recently recycled brass casings.

  When she looks back through the window, the camp is lost under the clouds.

  All the Young Kirks and Their Good Intentions

  Helena Bell

  2249 A.D.

  All the young Kirks in Riverside Public High School are assigned to the same Homeroom class. They sit together in the back corner on the far side from the door. They speak only to each other.

  The young Kirk on the Moon goes to school with no one. Each of the colonists has a job and he or she is responsible only to the duties of that job. The others call him Fisher instead of James since he spends his days knee deep in the trout pond, allowing the fish to glide between his legs. When the fish become completely inured to his presence, he thrusts his hands into the water and grasps one around the belly. It fights and Fisher holds on. He is supposed to take it out of the water, to throw it into the white bucket by the shore, but Fisher never does. He lets the fish go and when he comes home, with nothing to show for it, his mother expresses her irrevocable disappointment and sends him to bed.

  Jamie

  All the young Kirks in Riverside are in love with Jamie. She wears tight green skirts and impractical shoes. When she crosses and uncrosses her legs all the Kirks, even the girls, turn their heads ever so slightly to watch. Jamie does not have a boyfriend as none of the Kirks are so bold as to admit their feelings to another. Sometimes, when the teacher lectures on the sixth extinction and flashes slides of West African frogs and fungal diseases, Jamie slides the heel of her shoe off and lets it dangle from her toes. She enjoys being wanted, but sometimes imagines instead that she is a girl named Lucy who is allowed to love whomever she chooses without upsetting the balance.

  Jamie Kirk has a plan. Every year they send the best and brightest students to the moon to join the colony. She hears there are animals there long dead on earth, and everyone is beautiful and kind and exotic. There will be no other Kirks there to demand she talk and act in a certain way. She will be free.

  The moon colony is very selective, only one couple from Riverside has ever gone, but Jamie knows she alone of the Kirks will be selected as she is the best, the brightest, the most adored. The other Kirks will beg her to bring them too as her one true love and companion. They will fight amongst themselves to see which of them is the most worthy, and Captain, or perhaps Jimmy, or Tiberia of the surreptitious movements, will win. When she is about to consent, a gleaming stranger with skin brighter than fresh fallen snow will appear as there is always a twist in these kinds of dreams.

  Jamie is in love with the Challenger. She has been in love with him/her since the first night she climbed to the top of her parents’ barn and saw him/her walking on the road leading away from the river. Jamie believes the Challenger must be a creature of magic: the embodiment of hope and freedom who walks the roads alone because he/she is unafraid of the nighttime creatures, of the illnesses which travel on the air. Jamie suspects The Challenger is an alien, an unknown race who wanders the dark roads for someone worthy of his/her company. Jamie is worthy. Jamie is worthy of all.

  But Jamie cannot tell any of the others about the stranger as they are all in love with her and she must pretend to not be in love with them all equally. To balance between the sharp edges of desire and duty to her companions is a very Kirk-like thing to do. And so she waits.

  T

  All the young Kirks ride their bicycles to the Wal-Mart parking lot after school. They draw straws to see which of them will go inside and attempt to buy a case of beer. Though he does not know how, T’s straw is always the shortest. Captain hands him a wad of sweaty, five-dollar bills and wishes him luck. With a confidence which is not his own, T walks in and slams the beer and the money on the counter.

  “Go home,” the cashier says.

  “Please,” T says. “Just once.”

  The cashier shakes his head.

  When T comes out, empty handed, Captain sighs and goes in himself.

  “You just have to know how to talk to them,” Captain says.

  “Yeah,” Jimmy says. “It’s all in the attitude.”

  Captain hands the cans out in order of his favorites. T is always last, and he always refuses to take it. “I don’t drink shit.”

  Captain smiles. “Now I see. You’re choosing not to buy it each time. Making an executive decision, saving us from this foul-tasting beverage.”

  T shrugs. “Think what you want.”

  T suspects that the cashier and Captain have a secret arrangement designed to humiliate T in front of Jamie and everyone else. He fears that one day Captain will kick him out of the group entirely unless he can find a way to be useful. One night, as they ride home, T tells Captain that there’s a tree on T’s property from which, with a telescope, one can see into Jamie’s bedroom window.

  “I know,” Captain says. “You can see into Red’s too,” and with a grin, rides off.

  Red

  Red has a job at the local Wal-Mart. She is the only one of the Riverside Kirks to have dropped out of school and seek employment elsewhere. She saves every cent and one day will buy a steamboat ticket to anywhere out of Iowa. She does not care about the moon or space or destiny. She loves her family and cheers for the local team at football games, but there is a deep restlessness in her feet. Each night she wakes from her dreams to find herself knee deep in the English River with her nightgown and underclothes floating away downstream. She doesn’t tell anyone of her plan to escape, least of all her brother T who will see it as yet another rejection. She suspects her presence is the only thing which protects him from the other Kirks. One day they will discover his birthday is not March 22, but 2 minutes past. She does not know what will happen then, but does not trust the calculated laziness in Captain’s eyes, or the pounding of Jimmy’s fists, or Jamie’s nonchalance, or any of the others whose only concern is moving in perfect synchronization with what is expected of them.

  It must be the thought of her brother, the need to protect him which wakes her before she can dive into the deep part of the river and float away forever.

  Walking back on the long dirt road Red feels her skin tingling in the moonlight and she knows that any boy looking out from his window will think she is a white stag or changeling or star. She hopes he falls in love with her so one day, when she is gone from this place, there will be an idea of her that takes root and grows. Perhaps in this way enough of her spirit will remain behind to cocoon her brother. Perhaps when she is gone he will fill into some of her Kirkness, enough to belong. Enough that the others will not push him away.

  Water is always the problem, Red thinks. It moves and carries where it will. Red caresses the open sores on her legs, and the infections taking root therein. She wishes her sleeping brain had the sense to put on waders before stepping out the door but knows that contagion is an inevitable condition. If not the river, then the rain, then the tap, then the bottled water they import from the Delta in exchange for organic crops. At Wal-Mart she prepares the sleeping lofts where the outlying farmers will come to live when the river floods. No one builds for permanence anymore and she ma
rvels at the other Kirks insistence on pattern.

  Every day her brother comes in attempting to buy beer. Every day he fails.

  “Why,” she asks T.

  “If I don’t, they’ll kick me out.”

  “Why,” she later asks the cashier.

  “Have you seen the crap floating around in one of those cans?”

  “But Captain?”

  “Little prick deserves whatever salmonella he catches.”

  In the winter months, Red returns to school and sits with the other Kirks in the back corner but she is ever so slightly out of step. While the others gaze longingly at the mauve pump dangling inches away from Jamie’s instep, Red is leaning back to examine the topographic maps on the walls. The Mississippi stretches from floor to ceiling, its many tributaries and old beds undulating in multi-colored bands. The teacher watches her and after class guides her hand up one stream and down the other.

  “This is where we lined it with concrete to save the port, this is where it jumped its banks. This is where we think it may go, and where we now try to guide it.”

  His hand on her wrist and the inside of her arm is insistent and imploring. “You can’t control a river forever. It goes where it wants. Or goes where it does not want, just to spite you.”

  Red pulls back, the backs of her legs tingling with flashes of hot then cold. In the bathroom she pulls up her pant leg and dabs at the cracked scabs. She considers telling the nurse, but there’s not much to be done. She will be dead by summer, like so many others before her.

  During her evening shift, Red tells the cashier she’ll make out with him if he agrees to sell T the beer.

  “Just once,” she adds.

  The cashier shrugs. “You’re not my type, but if it means that much to you.”

  T

  T’s mother says names have power. They are invasive, like a white fungus, a vine, a jumping carp. Names can take hold, changing the host and adapting it to become the perfect carrier. Why name your son and daughter after an ordinary person: Martha, George, John, Abigail when you can name your children something which will inspire them to a greatness which is not their own, but could be?