by Laurie Penny
They looked out together over the college lawns, toward the hills of Headington. A small forest of turbines churned away on the horizon. There were hardly any in the old city.
“It’s amazing, when you think about how it used to be,” said Parker quietly.
Daisy took a swig. “Not going to argue with you on that.”
It was always somebody else’s apocalypse. Until it wasn’t.
The end of the world was an endless dark tomorrow: always arriving but never actually here. For generations, the elected and unelected leaders of the world had weighed the cost of averting drastic climate change via collective, immediate and lasting technological investment against the considerable inconvenience to their personal lifestyles, done some calculations on the back of a napkin and come up with the answer that it was somebody else’s problem. Somebody who probably hadn’t been born yet. If all else failed, their own children and grandchildren would probably be able to afford a place on the last helicopter out of the drowning lands. So, that was alright.
The fix changed everything.
Suddenly, the same people had to plan for a future in which they’d actually be around to see London and New York swallowed by the hungry ocean. Suddenly, the end of the world was a story about them.
The solutions came fast. But not fast enough to save Bangladesh. Or Venice. Or San Francisco.
“In all the world, we’re the only two creatures quite like us,” said Parker after a while. He lifted his second glass of champagne and looked at Daisy. “Remind me again why we’ve never fucked?”
“That’s easy,” said Daisy. “It’s because I don’t fancy you.”
For an instant, a flicker of real, childlike anger chased across Parker’s cherub face, and was gone. He ran his fingers through his perfect blond hair and smiled.
“Ever considered lesbianism?”
“Thoroughly. And regularly. You know I prefer dicks when they’re attached to women.”
This was a complete and utter lie. Daisy had not had sex in ten years. Daisy had not had fun of any kind since she could remember, but particularly not horizontal fun involving other humans. Keeping her appearance static at awkward mid-puberty helped with that. It was one of the few decisions she’d never regretted. Plenty of people might like the idea of an eternal fourteen-year-old, but they changed their tune when they met her, all gangly limbs and acne scars and flashes of anger.
A long time ago, there had been someone who’d seen past her defenses. Someone who’d made her feel that she was more than a brain trapped in a twist of preserved flesh, a specimen suspended in amber. Someone who had loved her—actively, he always said, because love is not something you feel but something you do.
But he had been dead these forty years.
Daisy picked at her fingernail and glared at Parker.
“Actually,” she said, “speaking of dicks attached to women, where’s your better half? Lila, wasn’t it? I liked her. She was funny.”
Parker went quiet.
“We had different life goals,” he said eventually.
“She wouldn’t fix, would she?”
Parker’s expression twisted and flushed. There was something truly unnerving, Daisy thought, about watching extremely good-looking people trying not to cry, like seeing a beautiful painting slashed and torn.
“Bitch,” said Parker.
He took a deep breath and put his face back into his champagne. Daisy swigged from her hip flask.
“I know what you’re up to,” he said quietly.
“If you did, you wouldn’t say so,” she said.
“You want to be careful,” he said. “You haven’t got many friends in this company, you know. If it wasn’t for my vouching for you—”
“I haven’t got any friends in this company,” said Daisy. “‘Friend’ is not the correct word for what you are to me. Friends don’t veto friends’ research proposals. Or read friends’ internal mail.”
“Alright,” said Parker. “Alright. I tried. Don’t say I didn’t try.”
“Nice catching up,” said Daisy. “Let’s do it again in a decade or so.”
Daisy watched him leave.
When she was sure he was out of sight, she went back to scanning the crowd.
Somewhere here, somebody else didn’t belong.
She would find them. She was waiting.
* * *
By one in the morning, the ball had taken on that manic edge every party develops when people have accepted that it’s going to hurt tomorrow and only care about delaying the pain as long as possible. Even the hired entertainers, dressed up in janky rags and ooga-booga tribal outfits, circulating among the undergraduates in their tuxes and ballgowns, were getting sloppy. One of them even dropped a tray of little blue pills.
Fidget and Nina saw it happen and rushed in to clear up the mess, sweeping most of it into the padded pockets sewn into their costumes. They were here, after all, to steal as much as they could.
Alex watched them move, wondering what it would be like to move like that, with such bold, casual grace. Maybe you had to be born an artist. He fumbled for a cigarette.
A sharp suck and a slow burn at the back of his throat. A rush of smoke cooled from the lungs, slow-trickled over the teeth, the scrag of rolled tobacco scraps in the mouth and this is the way the world ends—not with a bang but a bonfire.
Nina was suddenly behind him, winding her arms around him, sweet and fast. Her pockets already packed with pills.
“When are we distributing all these, again?” Alex brought his mouth down to Nina’s level so he could murmur in her ear.
She just giggled. “Need to know,” she said.
“You never tell me anything anymore.” Alex squeezed her arm. “I’m starting to think you’ve gone off me.”
“Never-not-ever.”
“Or maybe you think I’m police.”
Alex said it casually, teasing her. Teasing himself. Made it a joke, deflecting her attention. And it wasn’t precisely a lie—he wasn’t police; the company employed him to spy on activists. In three years doing this job, he was sure Nina hadn’t suspected a thing.
Alex wasn’t a bad person. He spent a significant amount of time feeling horrible about the whole thing. Especially since he’d got truly fond of them all. Especially since he and Nina had become a thing.
The problem was, love turned out to be the perfect cover. A white-hot thread of emotion was strung between them, and he spooled it out and pulled it tight, careful not to let it slacken. He did this daily, diligently, with the practice of a professional, and the fact that he really did love her too only made the act more convincing.
He hadn’t expected to fall in love, doing this job. Sex, yes, that was understood and even encouraged as part of his cover. A tacitly understood perk. Forge strong relationships, his supervisor had told him after he was seconded to the company. Translation: fuck whoever you like. But Nina—Nina was different. Some girls you fucked, and some girls you married, and some girls were different from all the others. You’d find one of them in a lifetime, maybe, if you were lucky.
Nina was a wonder. A dream in the shape of a girl.
He wasn’t going to let go of her.
A breath, a beat. The music stopped.
Then the applause, the whooping of undergraduates who had been drinking since noon.
Alex and Nina swayed together, watching the debutantes dance.
“It’s different for them,” said Nina, after a while, “these kids. They’ll never have what we have.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. You only have a few years to be young, and you’re spending them with me. Isn’t that marvelous?” She took both his hands and spun in them, wrapping herself in his arms. The feel of her small, tight body warm against him.
“You don’t ever feel like we deserve another decade or two?”
“Everyone deserves it,” said Nina. “But I don’t want it until everyone gets it.”
&nbs
p; Alex palmed a couple of pills from his pocket. Little blue jewels. He held one up to the hollow of her throat.
“Look,” he said, “I stole you a diamond.” He lifted it to her lips.
“Don’t eat the fairy food,” she said, smiling a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She was trying to be cute, but it was still a warning.
“Nobody would know.”
“I’d know,” she said, swatting his hand away. “Be serious.”
Alex was being serious. When Nina furrowed her brow in annoyance, which she did often, the lines took a few seconds to disappear. That was new. Pretty soon, she wouldn’t be his girl anymore. She’d still be his, but she wouldn’t be a girl. He wished that didn’t matter, but it did.
“I’m cross with you now,” said Nina. “You’ll have to kiss it away.”
So, he kissed her. She tasted of champagne and hormones; the taut firm weight of her in his hands as he dipped her back, putting on a show for the drunk undergraduates. A smattering of applause.
“See?” she whispered into his mouth. “They won’t remember tonight. We will. When you have less time, all of this matters more.”
But Alex knew it mattered less.
Nina disappeared to charm some more fix from the fountain-stands. Alex watched her go, the roll and bounce of her walk, and thought, without guilt, of his wife. Ex-wife in all but name. Helen had asked for a divorce three years before. After he took this job. After it became clear that the undercover work was going to be long-term.
“You don’t belong here.”
Alex turned around as slowly as he could without acknowledging the statement.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t belong here.”
The speaker was a little girl in a dress that she was not so much wearing as occupying under protest. Her bony arms and legs poked out of a confection of pink frills and expensive lace that neither fit nor suited her, and despite the copious champagne on offer, the girl was swigging what looked like neat whisky, swirling in a small tumbler. A slick of lipstick threw her scowl into sharp relief. She looked like an angry macaron.
“I’m with the entertainment,” said Alex. “My pass—”
“Got lost, right?”
The girl laughed and pulled a lanyard from somewhere in her frills. The TeamThreeHundred logo winked on the all-access pass, blue and green and sickly.
“I saw the guest list,” said the girl. “You and your friends aren’t on it. That makes you the most interesting thing at this otherwise boring, shitty party.”
Alex said nothing. He made fists to stop his hands darting to the pouch of pills in the folds of his own outfit.
“We’ll do a deal,” said the girl. “You tell me why you’re really here, and I won’t call security right now.”
“That’s really not going to work out well for you,” said Alex. Whoever this girl was, she had enough access to see the guest list but not enough to know that the company employed freelance undercovers.
“Oh, yes? Why’s that?”
Just as Alex opened his mouth, he felt Nina slip a hand into the crook of his elbow.
“Is there a problem?” said Nina, putting on the sweet-and-probably-a-bit-stupid smile she reserved for authority figures who got between her and a clean getaway. “We’re with the entertainment.”
Alex groaned inwardly. Nina’s sweet-and-stupid-smile trick worked on everyone except other young women.
“Please,” said the girl, “let’s not patronize each other. I have a proposal you’re going to want to hear.”
Nina dropped the smile like a hot dish.
“Do we have a choice?” she said. All business now.
“Oh, yes,” said the girl. “You can choose to help me have a less boring evening, or you can choose to explain to college security and to my employers why you invaded this party, because it wasn’t for the free booze.”
The girl sat down and patted the wall beside her. When Nina sat down, the girl nodded and knocked back the rest of her whisky, and tossed away the tumbler. It shattered on the flagstones with a satisfying crash.
“Aren’t you too young to drink?” said Alex.
The girl pinned him with a look that made Alex think of dissection tables. “I’m ninety-eight years old,” she said.
Alex stared.
“That’s not possible,” he said, doing the calculations in his head.
“The first fix only got FDA approval seventy-six years ago,” said Nina.
“I know,” said the girl, “I helped write the patent. You’ve got some pretty specific knowledge for a hired stripper.”
“That’s a bit sexist.”
“The world is a bit sexist. I’m Daisy. Professor Daisy Craver, currently for TeamThreeHundred.”
She held out a skinny, nail-bitten hand. Nina shook it carefully, like a package that might explode.
“And what should I call you?”
Nina shook her head. “Call security, if you’re going to,” she said.
“No, I don’t think I will. Not yet. Nice outfit, by the way,” said the girl.
“Thanks,” said Nina. “I like yours.”
“Don’t lie. Liars are boring,” said the girl. “Tell me what you’re stealing the product for and I won’t tell on you. Black market?”
“No.”
“Personal use?”
Alex moistened his lips. It had not failed to occur to him that the pills Nina was carrying could, in theory, give them both an extra three years if they rationed them all for themselves.
“No.”
“Now, that is interesting,” said Daisy. “What would you say if I told you I could get you as much as you want, without you having to sneak around in a bikini?”
“I’d assume you were wired to the teeth.”
“You’d regret it. Now, security will get wind of you soon, so I suggest you and your furry friends clear off sharpish. If you want to hear more, meet me in three days at Rose Hill Cemetery. Come alone, no backup, and so will I.”
The girl had clearly practiced that part of the speech. She fired it off all at once.
Alex was intrigued. His contacts would be intrigued too.
“We’ll meet you,” he said. “Where?”
“Can I have a cigarette before you go?” asked Daisy.
Smoking was an affectation shared almost exclusively by fixers and dirt-poor anti-gerontocracy activists with nihilist leanings. Fixers and wannabe fixers because it didn’t hurt them and was therefore a way of showing off. Nihilists because fuck it, weren’t they all going to die young anyway?
But Daisy Craver smoked in a different way. The same way Alex remembered his mother smoking after she got her final diagnosis. Sucking down each cigarette like it was her first and last.
She exhaled slowly through her nose.
“Fuck,” she said. “That’s delicious. Alright, go now. Rose Hill Cemetery, in three days. Bring bags like you’re foraging. If there’s anyone with me, keep walking. Now run away.”
They ran. Margo and Fidget saw them and ran too. The tall, thick grass of the deer park snatched at their limbs, like when you try to run away from a nameless enemy in a nightmare.
Alex would have a lot to report next time he saw Parker.
* * *
Letter from Holloway Prison, December 2098
Dear Daisy,
I live in a windowless cell, eight feet wide by ten. I am allowed out once a day to exercise, which means a slow shuffle around a cobbled yard. I speak to the guards, and occasionally to my visitors. By these lights I am not in solitary confinement—I am, however, largely alone. I find that solitude does not disturb me.
There is a mirror in my cell. I don’t know if there’s someone watching on the other side. Perhaps they have put it there so that I can see, every day, what has become of my face. I thank them for that. This is the face I was always meant to have, my true face. When I was beautiful, nobody thought of my words as worth considering. Not even me myself.
This face m
akes me invisible, and invisibility is its own power. I am an invisible woman locked away in a box of forgetting, scrubbed out by a world that still reaches me in hateful whispers—witch, bitch, murderer, monster.
And yet I am freer now than I have been for so many years. Free to tell you the truth of it. And here it is.
The truth is that life extension itself is not sinful. The only sin is to treat time as a privilege. We have been given the gift of extra time to live, to love, to do the work of our hearts. We discovered the fountain of youth, and then we put it behind high walls and poisoned its promise.
I believed this when I was young. I believe it still, now that I am old. This betrayal of the promise of technology is a betrayal of all humanity, rich and poor, male and female and everyone else, too. It is a betrayal as profound as the betrayal of a lover, making the memory of sweetness a sacrilege.
Anyway, I was halfway through the story of the Devil’s bridge. Where did we leave it?
The Devil makes his offer, to magic up this brilliant bridge for the carpenter who just wants to get to the other side with his girl, and the carpenter isn’t entirely a fool, so he asks—
What will it cost me?
Nothing at all, says the Devil. This is a win-win situation. I will simply wait for the first soul that crosses the bridge, and carry them off with me to hell.
The carpenter is an ordinary chap who works hard and loves his wife. He isn’t a bad man, but he makes a bad choice. There’s a difference, although you have to squint to see it.
Sounds good to me, the carpenter says.
The Devil snaps his fingers, and there’s a cracking sound as the air expands around a beautiful bridge that was not there before. It is sturdy, it is impressive, it has fancy crenellations without being over the top. It’s so lovely that if you passed by, however much of a hurry you were in, you’d simply have to stop what you were doing and go and stand on it, maybe take a picture.
If the carpenter knew what we know, he’d know what happens when you make deals with immortals. He’d know that time is different for them. They get more of it, and that matters. It changes everything about the way they relate to the world. To them, we are swift and fragile creatures, arriving after the party has already been roaring for hours, gone before the carriages arrive and the hostess is rascally drunk.