But Kanku doesn’t answer, or even seem to notice I am there.
I stay with my body as Kanku takes his first trip in an airplane, watching his eyes light up in the body he never grew to inhabit because of Baba. I felt his pain, his rage, when I left my skin to him, but that anger is gone as he looks at the world from above the clouds. When a flight attendant speaks to him in English, I share his delight when he understands.
I pass my spirit across my skin, just enough to check on my body and check on Kanku. I catch a memory as I slide through—my trip to the airport—and when I see Kanku’s familiar thinking expression—same as mine—I wonder if he saw my memory too. I don’t know how it works to give over one’s body. I worry about something I read last year: that our cells send out a death signal, a call taken up by all our cells to shut down. It’s how our bodies know to die, how we die, and all it takes is one. Our bodies are smart. I’m afraid mine will realize Kanku, though identical, is not me, and this transplant will fail, and my body will die on Kanku before he finally gets the life I promised.
I slide around the edges of my body, checking for a death signal, pushing just far enough inside that it notices my presence.
Kanku never does.
I talk to him, try to calm him with my energy as Baba picks him up and I feel his anger build again.
And then Baba pulls out a necklace an interviewee gave him years ago.
And then Baba cuts Kanku’s hair and his shirt and skewers them to a doll, and leaves Kanku slumped in a kitchen chair like some back-alley anesthesia victim, like he’s trash.
And Baba half carries Kanku up to my bedroom and I think, Maybe things will be okay.
And he drops Kanku on the floor and snarls at him like a rabid, angry dog.
And as he slams the door, I see Baba’s face as Kanku sees it—finally—full of pain and rage and righteousness, and I realize what this means.
Baba will not suffer Kanku to live. He will not murder my brother—murder me—but he’ll cage him until he dies all over again.
For years I keep our body alive. No one knows I’m there—not Kanku, not Baba, and they are the only people who come inside the house.
I go into Baba’s room, go into his office, read over his shoulder, hover through his shoes—but mostly I stay with Kanku. I try to show him I’m there, to give him comfort. I tell him stories just inside our fingernails, jostle my brain to show him my first trip to the zoo, the magic of my first automatic door, my sorrow when Izzy asked questions that reminded me of him. I don’t know if they work, if he hears me or feels me, but I see his eyes when the memories curl through him. It eases my heart that in this way I can still make him smile, give him life.
Two years in, I miss a death signal. After that I struggle to keep up, to limit the spread, to chase down the signals passing with synaptic speed without dislodging Kanku’s spirit. I don’t have to sleep, but the body is composed of billions of cells, and I am only one man, an impotent spirit who’s going to lose his brother again.
This time, it’s entirely my fault.
Enter Izzy. She’s all grown up. Shed some of her quiet compliance. Still curious as ever, but wary of my bedroom now. She argues with Baba. She drags family back into his life with phone calls and showing up outside. She likes his interviews, helps him one summer, has come back for this one. I tell Kanku to stay away from her, but she sleeps in the office and he crowds her door at night. I worry for her in a way I don’t for Baba, but he leaves the necklace with her and it calms me that she’s protected, though I don’t dwell on from whom.
It’s her second summer with Baba since Kanku came home. His body is falling apart. Flies land and hatch maggots in his skin, and I hope enough of his nerves are dead so he doesn’t feel crawling inside his cheeks, at his hips, in the meat of his thighs, in the fat of his buttocks. It is hard to see him like this, but it’s all my fault, so I watch, I stay with him.
He doesn’t know, but I know. I pretend knowing is enough.
This night feels different. Kanku waits at the door that locks only from the inside, trapped by Baba somehow, by magic, though I never believed in it until I found Kanku again. At midnight wrath propels him out once again. One o’clock is my hour when energy’s high, so when it all goes wrong I see Baba collapsed on the stairs, a heart attack maybe, and he needs a hospital, but Kanku seems bent on destruction, and I am not strong enough to intervene.
I won’t help him kill Baba, but I think, If Baba dies, Kanku will be at peace, and we can all move on from this.
But then Izzy comes out of her room to find Baba, and if I had a body my heart would have dropped to my stomach and punched out my breath with one beat.
And Kanku does the unthinkable.
I watch him shove inside poor Izzy’s body, leave ours in a heap on the landing. Izzy, kind Izzy, who kicked my hand when I was new to this country and she new to this world, not even born. Izzy, my favorite cousin, my adopted sister in spirit, is a spirit now, watching her body walk off.
I can’t let it end like this.
Izzy.
She hears me.
Mbuyi?
And she barrels through me like a hurricane. Our memories collide in a disembodied hug fraught with emotions and eddied by pressures of thoughts pushing from one mind to the next: Thought you were dead and You need to get back in your body and What happened and Kanku didn’t mean what he did and What’s wrong with Uncle and Kanku wouldn’t really hurt anyone and What is he looking for and the half-thought, Maybe he would, and from her, You do have a twin!
The clock strikes quarter to one as I push the death-signal thoughts into her consciousness. She needs to get back in her body. I need to make Kanku come out here with me. I push my idea between us. I tell myself I’m doing what’s right, that I’m not choosing sides. I tell myself I’m not robbing Kanku of his life, that I’m not like Baba.
To Izzy I say, It’s time for us to push.
Izzy’s body reels against us when we thrust under her skin. Kanku flinches her into the wall. His hands slap at us across the dim stairwell. Baba sits silent on the stairs. I know he’s dead.
I feel an echo of warmth, a reminder of home as it used to be. I want to fade toward it, go to it, but I won’t fail Izzy and I won’t leave Kanku, never again.
We push inside Izzy’s body. Our memories cloud together, knowledge crowding out thought in torrential bursts as our three lives flash-flood my mind.
Kanku curls Izzy’s lip when he feels us. “I killed you!” he shrieks.
I ignore how my heart breaks in three.
I press under Izzy’s skin, into her brain. Kanku, give her body back. Come with me. He shoves me back out. When I rush back in I feel Izzy’s fierce rage bashing his, her will to take what is hers like a gale. You killed Uncle and you killed Mbuyi, she shoves at him, but you can’t have me. Did you kill your mother too, witch?
Kanku’s stolen face twists with fury. He flings me—I barely hold on. “I did not kill Mama!” he bellows, Izzy’s voice in shreds. “Baba just wanted to blame a witch!”
Izzy’s voice snaps right back: So you’re a witch then, Kanku?
I bolster her, willing my brother to see what he’s done. Are you a witch, brother?
The rage on Izzy’s face freezes. She suddenly looks very young. Fragile and solemn, her mouth speaks: “Do you really think I am, brother?”
You’ve never lied to me, Kanku. I’ll believe you—
And I’ll believe you, Izzy tells me.
—and we’ll still be brothers, no matter what. Okay?
Izzy’s face stills. Her eyes blink, slowly at first, then more quickly. Her expression folds into itself like a house of cards. “I am a witch, brother,” her voice says in Tshiluba. “But not then. I tell you the truth: I never killed Mama.” A tear slides down one cheek. “You know that, right, Mbuyi?”
I know. You wouldn’t lie to me, Kanku. You never have.
Izzy’s body sags. Kanku curls into himself—and out of her bod
y—like a sea anemone retreating within its tubes. Relief tears through me as I watch him let her go.
Izzy pushes past me then, deep into her body. As she slides to refill her spaces, she sends me gratitude, love, and sadness I return with fearsome pride in who she’s become. I check her for the death signal—she’s safe.
Reassured, I sink like a wave after my brother.
Kanku’s hovering over Baba. I float to him as Izzy thumbs her phone. I join our spirits at the edges, but my twin pulls away.
He offers up his thoughts taking my body in Kinshasa. He passes me his determination, his refusal to feel pity, to feel shame.
I give him back my memory of that moment—why did he never look?—and then I let him feel my anguish watching over him, a shadow, since that day.
Kanku reaches for me then, and sudden as a crashing wave we are one person, whole, together as the day we were conceived. The feel of home and aftertaste of family dinners sitting around the foufou bowl and pondue bowl and plate of fish wisps slowly through my mind. And when we realize it, we startle, shocked as one: the feeling doesn’t come from us—it comes from somewhere else.
Mama.
The pull is there, sudden, deep: Mama’s waiting, family’s waiting there for us, elsewhere—the afterlife she spoke of?—and this elsewhere place is good.
Izzy passes through us, phone in hand. She’s checking Baba’s pulse, face wet. She doesn’t feel us, and my presence in this place begins to fade as I reach toward this elsewhere. But when I let myself drift up toward Mama, I’m alone.
I stop.
Kanku, aren’t you coming?
His hesitance is back, the bitter cast of fear upon him. I see memories of other bodies taken, used with glee. I don’t condone his actions, and I let him feel my disappointment, but I’ve loved him all my life and death, and he is family, he is mine.
I’m not going without you, not again.
Kanku says, It’s okay. You go on, Mbuyi. I’ll follow soon.
But he’s lying. I feel it deep: this first, heartbreaking lie, his hope I’ll believe one last time, forget him, let him waste away in penance here. I turn from Mama, curl around him like a suit of armor. I’ll wait, I say. We’ll go together. I bare my resolve.
You would wait for me? And once again he’s seven, trying to grasp why I’m not outside playing football like I want to be; why I’ve stayed in with him.
I’ve waited for you since I left Kinshasa—both times. You will always be my brother, and my best friend. I won’t lose you again.
Mama’s warmth is up there, in a place that’s bright, familiar, feels like home, like her love as she wrapped us in her arms and told us stories. I know she waits for us and loves us both. And for the rest of our dead family, I’ll hold tight to Kanku. They won’t leave me; they’ll have to take us both.
Lettie Prell
Justice Systems in Quantum Parallel Probabilities
from Clarkesworld Magazine
Cole sits on the hard slab of bed that cannot be tamed by the three-inch-thick mattress and scratchy blanket. The gray of the diffused light brings no warmth to the cell. There is nothing for Cole to do but wait, which he’s been doing for some time. Eventually someone will come for him and take him to a larger room, and the fate of what is to be done with him will unfold.
In the meantime he waits. His eyes are drooping, chin falling toward his chest. The guy across the hall, who Cole cannot see because the doors are staggered, is named Marco. He has been talking constantly. Perhaps Marco has a mental health issue. Marco’s current topic is about justice, its structure. The steady patter lulls Cole into a doze, where images begin to arise from the molecular structure of the universe, or from the realm of ideas. They take on form, become worlds unto themselves like the idealized scenes within so many snow globes. He picks one up and peers through the thin veil of snow at what is inside.
There is a justice system with no police. People turn themselves in to prosecutors voluntarily, or are persuaded to do so by others. The prosecutors hear the confessions. One prosecutor is turning someone away, saying, “We cannot help you. While your situation is unfortunate, you have committed no crime.”
The man is unhappy. “But how am I to live like this? How am I to restore the balance of things?”
“That is not my concern,” the prosecutor replies.
Cole watches as the man leaves the courthouse and goes down the street to a small shop providing justice-type services for people the prosecutors turn away. Cole peers over the man’s shoulder and reads the menu of sanctions and punishments. Some of the choices are more severe than those meted out by the real justice system. The man purchases two days in jail. The handcuffs they use to lead him away cost extra.
Cole shakes his head in confusion. Why would someone voluntarily turn themselves in and pay for their own punishment? As if answering his unspoken question, the scene fast-forwards to when the man is released from jail. Friends and family come to greet him. They hug. There are tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces.
No one has ever treated Cole this well upon release from custody. This world mystifies him. He turns to another globe and looks inside.
There is a justice system with no prosecutor. People simply go before the judge for sentencing. There are two judges. One is insane. The other is astute and evenhanded. The people can choose which judge will hear their case. Sometimes they choose the insane one because, hey, at least you have a chance. Maybe the insane judge will dismiss your case no matter how much evidence is brought. Maybe you will receive a small fine to pay for the murder you committed. There is a fascination with the arbitrariness of the insane judge. Many people choose the gamble even though the fair judge is never overly harsh.
Cole is standing before the insane judge, who sits sideways in his chair applying white makeup to his face with his right hand while he holds a mirror in his left. Cole confesses and apologizes for his actions. The judge continues putting on his clown face. Cole explains himself, how he’d been laid off from his nothing job, how he’d been about to be evicted from his crummy studio apartment. The judge seems oblivious to Cole’s presence. Cole apologizes again, offers to make restitution to his victims.
The judge suddenly swings his chair to face Cole and slams down the mirror. “Are you done?”
Cole is shocked into silence. He can form no words in reply.
“Good.” The judge picks up the mirror and checks his clown eyebrows. “I’ve been thinking about what to do with you. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep . . .”
The scene dissolves before Cole hears his sentence pronounced.
There is a justice system where all offenders are considered mentally ill. Offenses are a symptom of their diseases. Instead of prisons there are hospitals devoted to therapies for offenders’ various conditions. There is a continuum of care, from outpatient treatment to acute units. This justice system has no death penalty, because it would be inhumane to put someone to death for being ill. However, terminal cases languish in the acute units. Doctors come and go, shaking their heads. Families are called in for counseling and leave in tears.
Cole watches as an offender in an acute-unit bed pleads for release. He is no longer ill. He wants to go home. He is so intent on convincing the staff of his sanity, he gestures wildly. They move in and subdue him. They place him in restraints, for his own good. They give him drugs.
Cole jerks awake to find he is sweating. He runs a hand through his hair. Marco is still raving from across the hall. It would be best if he were in the justice system where his mental illness would be the focus of the treatment.
Cole thinks about what he’d told the insane judge in the other justice system. It is never good to offer justification for one’s crimes. No matter how society stacks the cards against you, you’re not supposed to react by going outside the law. Cole sighs heavily, then turns onto his side and pulls the scratchy blanket up over his exposed ear to muffle the incessant talking, and falls back into dream.
There is a justice system that only focuses on the big crimes, and the small crimes go unpunished. People shrug off the small crimes as human nature, or the accidents of life. There are street brawls, petty thefts, acts of vandalism against enemies. In this society there is very little serious crime, because the consequences are large compared to committing small crimes. The society is boisterous, clever, alert, nimble. There is laughter, teasing, pranks, revenge. The large crimes are rarely publicized. Everyone cooperates in catching the criminal, the execution is not made public, and no one ever mentions the names of the criminals or visits their graves.
Cole finds he is lucid within this dream. He chooses an interesting and lively street, where he witnesses a good-natured brawl and a failed mugging that ends in a group of men laughing as they kick the would-be thief into a fruit stand. Apples spill. Several children dash forward to grab a handful and run.
Would my own crimes slide under the radar in such a world? The prospect gives him hope.
There is a justice system where most people are in jail. They get furloughs to go to work, and this is critical, because otherwise the economy would come to a halt. Most jails look like regular apartment buildings and sit alongside the housing of free people. It is difficult to tell an incarcerated person from a free person, because the rhythm of their lives from home to work to home is similar. People do not look down on the incarcerated, and even accept invitations to dinners in other people’s jails. They marry the sons and daughters of the incarcerated. With so much activity defined as a crime and the punishment always incarceration, there is tolerance and sympathy for the criminal, for they are family, neighbors, bosses, and they are everywhere.
Cole opens his eyes to find he is not in one of the homelike jails. For a moment he longs to return to that justice system. Isn’t his neighborhood full of people who have been where he is now? He closes his eyes, willing himself to return to that justice system, but Marco is talking about another world now, in a soft voice that makes it seem he is in Cole’s cell with him, murmuring in his ear.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 Page 8