The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven

by Jonathan Strahan

  We call it plague, but it’s not. Each of us is an ecosystem. We’re inhabited by a host of Makers. Some repair our bodies and our minds, keeping us young and alert, and some run our atriums. But most of our Makers exist only to defend us against hostile nanotech—the snakes that forever prowl the Garden of Eden, the nightmares devised by twisted minds—and sometimes our defenses fail.

  A general alert had not been issued—that was standard policy to avoid panic—but as soon as I was spotted on the paths wearing my skinsuit, word went out through informal channels that something was wrong. By the time I reached the day-venture center people had already guessed where I was going and a crowd was beginning to form against the backdrop of prairie. The city’s emergency response team hadn’t arrived yet, so questions were shouted at me. I refused to answer. “Stay back!” I commanded, issuing an order for the center’s locked door to open.

  In an auto-defense lockdown, a gel barrier is extruded around the suspect zone. The door slid back to reveal a wall of blue-tinged gel behind it. I pulled up the hood of my skinsuit and let it seal. Then I leaned into the gel wall, feeling it give way slowly around me, and after a few seconds I was able to pass through. As soon as I was clear, the door closed and locked behind me.

  The staff and children were huddled on one side of the room—six adults and twenty-two kids. They looked frightened, but otherwise okay. Robin wasn’t with them. The director started to speak but I couldn’t hear him past the skinsuit, so I forced an atrial link to every adult in the room, “Give me your status.”

  The director spoke again, this time through my atrium. “It’s Robin. He was hit hard only a couple of minutes ago. Shakes and sweats. His system’s chewing up all his latents and he went down right away. I think it’s targeted. No one else has shown any signs.”

  “Where is he?”

  The director looked toward the nap room.

  I didn’t want to think too hard, I just wanted to get Robin stable, but the director’s assessment haunted me. A targeted assault meant that Robin alone was the intended victim; that the hostile Maker had been designed to activate in his unique ecosystem.

  I found him on the floor, trembling in the grip of a hypoglycemic seizure, all his blood sugars gone to fuel the reproduction of Makers in his body—both defensive and assault—as the tiny machines ramped up their populations to do battle on a molecular scale. His eyelids fluttered, but I could only see the whites. His black curls were sodden with sweat.

  I unrolled the bivouac kit with its thick gel base designed for a much larger patient. Then I lifted his small body, laid him on it, and touched the activation points. The gel folded around him like a cocoon. The bivouac was a portable version of the cold storage drawer that had enfolded Glory. Robin’s core temperature plummeted, while an army of defensive Makers swarmed past the barrier of his skin in a frantic effort to stabilize him.

  The city’s emergency team came in wearing sealed skinsuits. I stood by as they scanned the other kids, the staff, the rooms, and me, finding nothing. Only Robin was affected.

  I stripped off my hood. Out in the playroom, the gel membrane was coming down and the kids were going home, but inside the bivouac Robin lay in stasis, his biological processes all but stopped. Even the data on his condition had been pared to a trickle. Still, I’d seen enough to know what was happening: the assault Makers were attacking Robin’s neuronal connections, writing chaos into the space where Robin used to be. We would lose him if we allowed him to revive.

  I checked city records for the date of his last backup. I couldn’t find one. Robin had turned three a few weeks ago. I remembered we’d talked about taking him in to get a backup done… but we’d been busy.

  The emergency team came back into the nap room with a gurney. Tishembra came with them. One glance at her face told me she’d been heavily tranked.

  At first she didn’t say anything, just watched with lips slightly parted and an expression of quiet horror on her face as the bivouac was lifted onto the gurney. But as the gurney was rolled away she asked in a defeated voice, “Is he going to die?”

  “Of course he’s not going to die.”

  She turned an accusing gaze on me. “My DI says you’re lying.”

  I cursed myself silently and tried again, determined to speak the truth this time. “He’s not going to die, because I won’t let him.”

  She nodded, as if I’d got it right. The trank had turned her mood to smooth, hard glass. “I made this happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She turned her right hand palm up. A blue prairie butterfly rested in it, crushed and lifeless. I picked it up; spread its wings open. The message was only a little blurred from handling. On the left wing I read, You lived, and on the right, so he dies.

  So someone had watched as we’d dropped Robin off that morning. I looked up at Tishembra. “No,” I told her. “That’s not the way it’s going to work.”

  The attack on Robin was a molecular crime, which made it my case, and I was prepared to use every resource of the police to solve it.

  Tishembra nodded. Then she left, following the gurney.

  I could work anywhere, using my atrium, so I stayed for a time. First I packed up every bit of data I had on Robin’s condition and sent it to six different police labs, hoping at least one could come up with the design for a Maker that could stop the assault on Robin’s brain cells. The odds of success would go up dramatically if I could get the specs of the assault Maker—and the easiest way to do that was to track down the twisted freak who’d designed it.

  Easy steps first: I sent a DI into the datasphere to assemble a list of everyone at Nahiku with extensive molecular design experience. The DI came back with one name: mine.

  So I was dealing with a talented hobbyist.

  It could be anyone.

  I sent the DI out again. No record was kept of butterfly messages—they were designed to be anonymous—but surveillance records were collected on every public path. I instructed the DI to access the records and assemble a list of everyone who’d set foot on Level 5 at any time that day, because the blue prairie butterflies could only be accessed from there. The list that came back was long. Name after name scrolled through my visual field, many that I recognized, but only one stood out in my mind: Hera Poliu.

  I summoned the vid attached to her name. It was innocuous. She’d been taking the stairs between levels and had paused briefly on the landing. Still, it bothered me. Hera had been involved with Key Lu, she’d filed the complaint against Tishembra, and now I had her on Level 5. Coincidence maybe… but I remembered the chill I’d felt when she accosted me in the corridor… and how confused she’d been when I reminded her of the incident.

  I went by my office and changed back into my uniform. Then I checked city records for Hera’s location. She was at the infirmary, sitting with Tishembra… Tishembra, who’d been a quirk just like Hera’s brother except she’d eluded punishment while Hera’s brother was dead. Maybe it was baseless panic, but I sprinted for the door.

  The infirmary had a reception room with a desk, and a hallway behind it with small rooms on either side. The technician at the desk looked up as I burst in. “Robin Indens!” I barked.

  “Critical care. End of the hall.”

  I sprinted past him. A sign identified the room. I touched the door and it snapped open. The bivouac had been set up on a table in the center of the room. Slender feeder lines descending from the ceiling were plugged into its ports. Tishembra and Hera stood alongside the bivouac, Hera with a comforting arm around Tishembra’s shoulders. They both looked up as I burst in. “Zeke?” Tishembra asked, with an expression encompassing both hope and dread.

  “Tish, it’s going to be okay. But I need to talk to Hera. Alone.”

  They traded a puzzled glance. Then Hera gave Tishembra a quick hug—“I’ll be right back”—and stepped past me into the hall. I followed her, closing the door behind us.

  Hera turned to face me. She loo
ked gaunt and worn—a woman who had seen too much grief. “I want to thank you, Zeke, for not telling Tishembra who filed that complaint. I wasn’t myself when I did it. I don’t even remember doing it.”

  She wasn’t lying.

  I stumbled over that fact. Had I gotten it wrong? Was there something more going on than a need for misguided revenge?

  “When was the last time you had your defensive Makers upgraded?”

  She flinched and looked away. “It’s been a while.”

  I sent a DI to check the records. It had been three years. I pulled up an earlier report and cross checked the dates to be sure. She hadn’t had an upgrade since her brother’s execution. My heart rate jumped as I contemplated a new possibility. No doubt my pupils dilated, but Hera was still looking away and she didn’t see it. I sent the DI out again.

  We were standing beside an open door to an unoccupied office. I ushered Hera inside. The DI came back with a new set of records even before the door was closed. At my invitation, Hera sat in the guest chair, her hands fidgeting restlessly in her lap. I perched on the edge of the desk, scanning the records, trying to stay calm, but my DI wasn’t fooled. It sensed my stress and sent the paralytic ribbon creeping down my arm and into my palm.

  “Let’s talk about your brother.”

  Hera’s hands froze in her lap. “My brother? You must know already. He’s dead… he died like Key.”

  “You used to be a city councilor.”

  “I resigned from the council.”

  I nodded. “As a councilor you were required to host visitors… but you haven’t allowed a ghost in your atrium since your brother’s arrest.”

  “Those things don’t matter to me anymore.”

  “You also haven’t upgraded your defensive Makers, and you haven’t been scanned—”

  “I’m not a criminal, Zeke. I just… I just want to do my job, and be left alone.”

  “Hera? You’ve been harboring your brother’s ghost, haven’t you? And he didn’t like it, when you started seeing Key.”

  The DI showed me the flush of hot and cold across her skin. “No,” she whispered. “No. He’s dead, and I wouldn’t do that.”

  She was lying. “Hera, is your atrium quirked? To let your brother’s ghost take over sometimes?”

  She looked away. “Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

  “Giving up your body to another? Yes, it would be.”

  Her hands squeezed hard against the armrests of the chair. “It was him, then? That’s what you’re saying?” She turned to look at me, despair in her eyes. “He filed the complaint against Tish?”

  I nodded. “I knew it wasn’t you speaking to me that day. I think he also used you to sabotage Key’s railcar, knowing I’d have to look into it.”

  “And Robin?” she asked, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the chair.

  “Ask him.”

  Earlier, I’d asked the DI to bring me a list of all the trained molecular designers in Nahiku, but I’d asked the wrong question. I queried it again, asking for all the designers in the past five years. This time, mine wasn’t the only name.

  “Ask him for the design of the assault Maker, Hera. Robin doesn’t deserve to die.”

  I crouched in front of her, my hand on hers as I looked up into her stunned eyes. It was a damned stupid position to put myself into.

  He took over. It took a fraction of a second. My DI didn’t catch it, but I saw it happen. Her expression hardened and her knee came up, driving hard into my chin. As my head snapped back he launched Hera against me. At that point it didn’t matter that I outweighed her by forty percent. I was off balance and I went down with her on top of me. Her forehead cracked against my nose, breaking it.

  He wasn’t trying to escape. There was no way he could. It was only blind rage that drove him. He wanted to kill me, for all the good it would do. I was a cop. I had backups. I couldn’t lose more than a few days. But he could still do some damage before he was brought down.

  I felt Hera’s small hands seize my wrists. He was trying to keep me from using the ribbon arsenal, but Hera wasn’t nearly strong enough for that. I tossed her off, and not gently. The back of her head hit the floor, but she got up again almost as fast as I did and scrambled for the door.

  I don’t know what he intended to do, what final vengeance he hoped for. One more murder, maybe. Tishembra and Robin were both just across the hall.

  I grabbed Hera, dragged her back, and slammed her into the chair. Then I raised my hand. The DI controlled the ribbon. Fibers along its length squeezed hard, sending a fine mist across Hera’s face. It got in her eyes and in her lungs. She reared back, but then she collapsed, slumping in the chair. I wiped my bloody nose on my sleeve and waited until her head lolled against her chest. Then I sent a DI to Red Star.

  I’d need help extracting the data from her quirked atrium, and combing through it for the assault Maker’s design file.

  It took a few days, but Robin was recovered. When he gets cranky at night he still tells Tishembra she’s “wrong,” but he’s only three. Soon he won’t remember what she was like before, while I pretend it doesn’t matter to me.

  Tishembra knows that isn’t true. She complains the laws are too strict, that citizens should be free to make their own choices. Me, I’m just happy Glory Mina let me stay on as Nahiku’s watch officer. Glory likes reminding me how lucky I am to have the position. I like to remind her that I’ve finally turned into the uncompromising jackboot she always knew I could be.

  Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to help Hera, but she’d been harboring a fugitive for three years. There was nothing I could do for her, but I won’t let anyone else in this city step over the line. I don’t want to sit through another execution.

  Nahiku isn’t quite bankrupt yet. Glory assessed a minimal fine for Hera’s transgression, laying most of the fault on the police since we’d failed to hunt down all ghosts of a condemned criminal. So the city won’t be sold off, and Tishembra will have to wait to get free.

  I don’t think she minds too much.

  Here. Now. This is enough. I only wonder: Can we make it last?

  FADE TO WHITE

  CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

  Catherynne M. Valente [www.catherynnemvalente.com] is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the “Orphan’s Tales” series, Deathless, and the crowd-funded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She is the winner of the Andre Norton Award, the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Million Writers Award, and has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Spectrum, and World Fantasy awards, and was a finalist for the Pushcart Prize. Her most recent novel, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, is a Time magazine book of the year. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with her partner, two dogs, and an enormous cat.

  Fight the Communist Threat in Your Own Backyard!

  ZOOM IN on a bright-eyed Betty in a crisp green dress, maybe pick up the shade of the spinach in the lower left frame. [Note to Art Dept: Good morning, Stone! Try to stay awake through the next meeting, please. I think we can get more patriotic with the dress. Star-Spangled Sweetheart, steamset hair the color of good American corn, that sort of thing. Stick to a red, white, and blue palette.] She’s holding up a resplendent head of cabbage the size of a pre-war watermelon. Her bicep bulges as she balances the weight of this New Vegetable, grown in a Victory Brand Capsule Garden. [Note to Art Dept: Is cabbage the most healthful vegetable? Carrots really pop, and root vegetables emphasize the safety of Synthasoil generated by Victory Brand Capsules.]

  Betty looks INTO THE CAMERA and says: Just because the war is over doesn’t mean your Victory Garden has to be! The vigilant wife knows that every garden planted is a munitions plant in the War Fight Struggle Against Communism. Just one Victory Brand Capsule and a dash of fresh Hi-Uranium Mighty Water can provide an average yard’s worth of safe, rich, synthetic
soil—and the seeds are included! STOCK FOOTAGE of scientists: beakers, white coats, etc. Our boys in the lab have developed a wide range of hardy, modern seeds from pre-war heirloom collections to produce the Vegetables of the Future. [Note to Copy: Do not mention pre-war seedstock.] Just look at this beautiful New Cabbage. Efficient, bountiful, and only three weeks from planting to table. [Note to Copy: Again with the cabbage? You know who eats a lot of cabbage, Stone? Russians. Give her a big old zucchini. Long as a man’s arm. Have her hold it in her lap so the head rests on her tits.]

  BACK to Betty, walking through cornstalks like pine trees. And that’s not all. With a little help from your friends at Victory, you can feed your family and play an important role in the defense of the nation. Betty leans down to show us big, leafy plants growing in her Synthasoil. [Note to Casting: make sure we get a busty girl, so we see a little cleavage when she bends over. We’re hawking fertility here. Hers, ours.] Here’s a tip: Plant our patented Liberty Spinach at regular intervals. Let your little green helpers go to work leeching useful isotopes and residual radioactivity from rain, groundwater, just about anything! [Note to Copy: Stone, you can’t be serious. Leeching? That sounds dreadful. Reaping. Don’t make me do your job for you.] Turn in your crop at Victory Depots for Harvest Dollars redeemable at a variety of participating local establishments! [Note to Project Manager: Can’t we get some soda fountains or something to throw us a few bucks for ad placement here? Missed opportunity! And couldn’t we do a regular feature with the “tips” to move other products, make Betty into a trusted household name—but not Betty. Call her something that starts with T, Tammy? Tina? Theresa?]

  Betty smiles. The camera pulls out to show her surrounded by a garden in full bloom and three [Note to Art Dept: Four minimum] kids in overalls carrying baskets of huge, shiny New Vegetables. The sun is coming up behind her. The slogan scrolls up in red, white, and blue type as she says: