Asimov's SF, January 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Sure. I still loved her. But now, in the way you love the best of your past. She had never been mine, and I was glad. I wouldn't have made her happy, and Ed—he had.

  We had a drink on the balcony. It looked out along Walnut towards Bate Street, and over there now you could see the bars flashing like fallen suns in the black city hollows of the dark. Loud music rumbled and pulsed. But it was faint enough back here.

  We talked about nothing, the old times, about when we'd gone to Greece, and to Italy, Venice, the lights on the Grand Canal, that kind of stuff. Pretending that this was just one more lit up night, meant for the young and beautiful, which once (had we?) we had been too.

  Then she brought the cake.

  It was like a birthday.

  She made me cut the first slice.

  It was like I remembered. No one cooks like that. It's taxable. And Ed, fat happy Ed, best buddy—how had he kept himself to just two hundred and thirty pounds?

  Over on the dresser was an enhanced photo of Marianna's dad, who died fifteen days ago. He had been eighty-six. At eighty-six, perhaps not so bad. But no, it had been. Bad.

  But they'd be all right. They'd be fine. You could see it shine out of them, I thought, the way that other thing burns from the rest.

  “What's wrong, honey?"

  Marianna touched Ed's arm.

  I hadn't noticed a thing, caught up in my inner dream, one eye still on the horizon of jangle-tangle disco lights.

  “Nothing—just ... I guess a bit of nut stuck in a tooth—"

  “Ed. I never put in any nuts. I know your teeth—you can break a molar on cold butter!"

  “Okay, honey, no. I know you wouldn't. Just something—hey, excuse me, folks. I'll go seek the kindness of the dental floss."

  Laughing he went, and laughing we let him go.

  “Are you all right, Jack?” she said then to me, so tenderly.

  “Sure, Marianna. Only I'm sorry I can't get you both out of here."

  “When we just repainted the apartment? It's fine, Jack. Ed wouldn't go anyhow. He takes the job seriously. And he's so needed now. Isn't he?"

  “You look wonderful,” I said. “You look—"

  “I look old,” she said playfully. “And isn't that exactly as it should be at my age?"

  Ed came back, wandering back smiling on to the balcony, his glass of wine still in his hand.

  “Better, sweetheart?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it was nothing. Only a bit of—well, honey, you said you didn't use any nuts."

  Marianna decided there must have been nuts in the flour which no label had revealed. She blamed the tome shut-down, and said she'd have a word at the store.

  Only about midnight, as he saw me down in the elevator to the cab I'd ordered via the Corp, did I ask him. “What was wrong in your mouth?"

  “Guess it's nothing, feller."

  “And?"

  “Old tooth, right the way back, broken in a ball game and extracted, I was about fourteen. Seems to be...” he paused. He said, as the elevator doors undid, “growing back."

  Outside, the cab and cab driver, and his side-rider in the passenger seat with his .22 special, catch off all through the ride. Beyond the windows the lightning of the lights, and the young lions out all over the streets, spilled like a river of gold and ice and ebony and diamond. Running, screaming, laughing, dancing, performing acrobatics, crying.

  A flood of glamour. Going crazy. But the young and the beautiful have always done that.

  At the hotel the security netted me in and slammed shut the thick bullet-proof glass of the doors. The cab drove off fast as fire through oil. But next minute there was a paramedic vehicle coming on a siren shriek, and soon the doors undid again to let the medics through. The hotel receptionist had long, pale hair, and when the trolley carried her out to the vehicle, this hair trailed along the floor. Someone whispered, “I didn't know—she doesn't look so different—Christ, we're in trouble—” She was very beautiful. And her eyes, crystal clear, green as glass, stared at me as they wheeled her by. “Wanna kiss me, gramps?” she murmured. Then smiled, “I guess you'd rather kiss the cunt of hell."

  * * * *

  Gane's Journal X7

  * * * *

  “Really, Miss Carradene. This is foolish, isn't it. Perhaps you are a friend, even a relative of the Miss Carradene who is on our books here. I can see a slight resemblance, I admit, in the PI image. But I'm afraid I can't treat you. I'm not your registered physician."

  “They checked my PI at the desk."

  “Yes, yes."

  “So how did I get through if I'm not who I say?” “I really don't know, Miss Carradene, but identity theft isn't unknown. Perhaps I should call the police."

  I got up then and walked out of his office.

  He'd always been fairly stupid, making a fuss and frightening me over my weight, when I couldn't do another thing about it. And although there was the big poster out in front, he apparently said all that was nonsense—I'd heard the assistant talking on her CP about this, she thought I couldn't hear. Well, a month before I wouldn't have.

  Going back home, I bought myself another dress a couple more sizes smaller. I'd gotten a new haircut too. No need to do much with my hair now though. This deep red color. Thick silk.

  I saw more of the posters. They were here and there. Anything unusual, consult your health center.

  But it was nothing to do with me, whatever that was. I'd only gone to him because I wanted a contraception shot. I had a date tonight. A really good one. (I'd been peri-meno for a while, but I didn't take risks.) I could buy the shot anyhow, at Fast-Hosp. I'd just do that.

  I was just happy. Finally it was all paying off, the boring grueling exercise, the strict starvation diet, the prayers and lit candles. Even that whole-body alternative vitamin.

  I noticed some big tracks running by on the overhead, the kind of rail-vehicle they use for building work. Some copters too, off to the west and east, buzzing around on the sky's edge like big black flies.

  But you live in the city, things go on. Don't they.

  It was the start of the foundation for the dome—the tome. But I didn't know, and there was still another month before anyone properly did.

  * * * *

  Alexander the Great wanted to conquer the world, so did Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler. A few others, too, come to that, who didn't make it quite so far, or earn so much media attention.

  You get your troops and you march. And you blast and burn and you kill. And then each bit of land, a village, a city, a country, a continent, belongs to you. But you've made a mess of it, getting there. A real mess. In the end all you can really say you are is a king of the dead.

  * * * *

  The next day I saw to most of the remaining business. A couple of the cab drivers—I made certain I always used a different one—congratulated me. “How old are you? Fifties, I guess. No spring in your step. Like me. Look, see these brown spots on my hands. I count ‘em every morning. All present and correct, yessir!"

  And then the last one, that afternoon, a young attractive guy who said, “'S'okay, mister. I ain't no problem. Look, here's my license. I'm twenty-nine years and four months legit, see? And look, see—broken tooth."

  Something made me say—it had been one helluva day—"You could have broken that this morning. Still be like that, maybe."

  And he swore at me. “You wan’ my fuckin’ wheels or ya don't."

  “I want them. Pardon my big mouth."

  “Yeah,” he said, letting me in. “Yeah. Ya wanna watch that big mouth of yours."

  “Sure. You're absolutely right."

  “My dad,” he said. That was all. My dad. Another father.

  Then, twenty miles on: “He was only forty-seven. Young enough. And fit as they go. Fitter'n me driving this tin can shit around and around. Used to play ball, my dad, for the Ruby League. Ya think—"

  “Yeah. I'm sorry."

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just watch your mouth."


  It isn't better for the fit ones anyway. I could have told him, but I was watching my mouth, as I damn well should have. As I had with Rosso Centi at the Overmile Building.

  I'd seen the moment we met. Anyone would.

  And he saw me see, by now practiced.

  “What do you think, Jack?"

  “You tell me,” I said. “If you want."

  “I've joined the army,” he said, as we pulled out chairs and sat, with the double-screen lappo-lux between us.

  “Army...?"

  “The conquering horde, Jack. What else. I'm enlisted."

  Centi was sixty-seven, and he'd kept his hair, something Ed but not I had always envied. Only now that hair was a deep rich molasses brown. Dark eyes clear as a child's.

  A couple of years ago, I'd have thought he'd been off for a plasti-job. But he hadn't, of course.

  We completed the task with the screens, exchanged discs.

  A robo brought us coffee.

  “I've always been healthy, stayed fit,” he said, when we shook hands. “So I won't have long. See you next time, Jack. Wherever, if ever. Always nice to work with you."

  * * * *

  Gane's Journal X7

  * * * *

  That date was even hotter than I'd dreamed. Best first date I ever had.

  Strange to say—or maybe not—I'd been attracted to a guy about my own age, well, a few years younger, fifty-two, fifty-three. And he, well, he'd taken to me all right.

  You get used to what you see in a mirror.

  I'd gotten used to seeing this fat ugly thing that wasn't ever me. And somewhere in the deepest core of the real me, gotten used to always knowing I would one day change. Cinderella goes to the ball, doesn't she? Snow White and Beauty get kissed back out of living death? And that girl in the mouldy catskin, she gets to throw it off.

  My nose, my blubber lips—they had been only fat, obviously. They'd melted back to what they always must have been, there under the disguise of ugly. A slim nose, a full but well-shaped mouth, all ready for a prince to kiss.

  And two big blue-as-blue eyes.

  And redhaired, as if from the finest henna I'd never ever tried, silk hair falling grass-thick over my shoulders, to my new firm full breasts, and just touching my reinvented slender waist and those lovely dancer's hips. Legs—I had legs now, not chopped-off tree trunks. Ankles you can circle each with one strong hand.

  Pretty. I'm so pretty.

  He and I had dinner and went to a hotel. I'd never had so much sex in all my life. He was fit enough, a great lover, even for a guy younger than he was. Or maybe it was already kicking in.

  I didn't need, had I known, the contraceptive shot. Shame, really, I could have saved the money. But then, for what.

  He said, “I'm old enough to be your ... uncle.” Amused at the old line.

  “Don't be worried,” I said, “I'm—"

  “Don't tell me now. God. Twenty-four?"

  And, delirious from the wine and the love-making, and the glimpses I caught of myself in the mirrors, I thought, no, I won't tell you.

  Because I was sixty-one. Hormonal-delayed menopause. Ugly.

  But that had been the me before I changed.

  After our first date there were several others. He had dough and we went to Flores Beach. And he said, “You've woken me up, Ganey. I never felt so good. I feel young. And look, are you proud of me? I've lost three inches off my waist."

  Later, when the dome went up, he'd stopped calling me. They all did, all the five men I'd gone with by then. The youngest one, he was about thirty—he stopped first. I don't know now if he knew, or if he—it's worse then. I wish with him I hadn't—but how could I know any of that?

  The older ones, maybe I meet them sometimes on the street at night, when we party, and fuck against the walls in the neon lights, and throw bottles to try and smash the bullet-proof glass shutters of the bars. They'll know me, but maybe I won't know them. Not like they are now.

  * * * *

  Who wants to get old?

  Who'll buy? Anyone?

  None of us?

  It's in the smallprint when we're born. When we're struggling through the challenged incapacity of infancy and childhood and the teenage years. It's the monster behind the glittering door.

  Eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five: the staircase top. Then down.

  Nobody wants it, but nobody wants to die either. Unless you make them want it. No one.

  * * * *

  Ed called me at a quarter to four in the morning, when outside, despite the noise-resistance of the hotel, I could just dimly hear the crash of music and of breaking things, and see, through a nip in the dark blind, a ripple of red light that was a burning car.

  “Have to speak soft, Jack. I'm in the downstairs john with the CP. Sorry, sorry to wake you."

  “Was awake, Ed.” I didn't mention the noises had woken me, the flames. “Working."

  “Sure. Sorry, pal."

  “What is it? Is it the tooth?"

  “Oh boy. If only. It's—it's my frigging hair, Jack.” He says it on a screaming whisper. “All over my head, growing back. Thought this morning—shaved it. Just tidy up the wisps. But tonight—it itches me. And I can feel it now, like—it's like thick felt, a nap, all over my scalp."

  “Okay, okay, Ed."

  “But I was just normal yesterday. I'd gained weight. The weight-winner the doc gave me showed it. But tonight I ate, deliberately, I ate like a hog. And I've lost six pounds, Jack."

  We stay in silence. A silence rimmed, like the camp in the jungle, by watching unseen sounds and eyes of flame.

  “Do you want me to fast-track you into Corp medicare, Ed? Get you a proper check? This may only be—"

  “Jack, I can see it. My face. It's different. And Marianna—she can see it too, I can tell."

  “Is she—"

  “She doesn't say a word."

  “But how is she?"

  “Oh—no, she's—I think she's fine, Jack. Only. Only. We.” He falters. The longest pause of all. “We had relations yesterday. We do, Jack, y'know. She and I."

  “Listen. We both know this fucking shit gets passed by anything. By a sneeze in a crowded room. By a patch of damp from a sweaty palm on a handrail. A sobbed out tear. Even contact with a piece of clothing like a dry clean scarf. You pick it up—"

  “I know. I know. I just—"

  “I know, Ed. It's okay."

  “Christ, it isn't. I put the light on in here, Jackie, and I can see my face. Even in four more hours it's firming up. It's smoothing off. I always have to stop on the twenty-fifth stair at work, just a quick breath. Only today ... I didn't have to stop."

  “Let me help. What can I do?"

  “How do I know?"

  “Come into the medicare. Wilson's outfit is able—"

  “It's all right.” He sounds deadly calm now. “I've booked a session with the doc, did it earlier ... thought he might reassure me. Tomorrow at five PM. Only appointment he has left. Decent guy. He's just thirty. The other feller—the one Mari and I knew. The arthritis in his knee went, scan showed the bone had straightened, gone back into shape. That was all. He had to leave the practice. Last I heard he killed himself, ran his car into the West Bridge."

  * * * *

  Tome.

  It comes from two words, one of which obviously is dome. Each dome is city-wide, and takes in the suburbs too. They bulldoze out a kind of no man's land at the perimeter. Sure, some people lose their homes, the freeway's interrupted. They rehouse you, inside. And make new tunnels for the rail service. Airlocks, landing strips. But it's surprising how fast they can do it. When they have to.

  Condition red.

  But why the “t” and not the “d"?

  You guessed, possibly. T is for Tomb. A tomb-dome, a tome.

  Because once it starts it isn't going to stop. One case, two cases, that is the same as one thousand, two million. And rising. Soon to be billions. Like it was, and is, in those other two—three now—plac
es.

  So all you can do is wall it in, cover it over, put on the lid. Rev up the support services inside and the surveillance. Then monitor, and care. But care from a distance.

  And censor the TV channels, to protect that Sensitive Viewer, whoever the fuck that can be.

  Tome.

  Entomed.

  * * * *

  I was sitting in the waiting area, nicely air-conditioned and noise-proofed, with not unpleasant Muzak playing to keep us all serene, when the redhead walked in.

  Long legs, perfect figure, hair swinging to the kind of waist you used to see only in old technicolor movies. Only now, here and there, you see it quite a lot, especially once the afternoon advances.

  A hush falls. A few of them put on their little portable masks. But most of them know the masks aren't a lot of use. It will get in at any crack, and it probably did already.

  And anyway, maybe this is just one of those rare beings, a naturally stunningly physically beautiful human.

  She speaks to the reception assistants, gives them her card. They process that.

  The processing is auto, and there is a partition between the staff here and all the patients, exactly as there is now in there, where Ed is, talking to the doctor.

  Even so, the assistants kind of huddle away.

  She walks back from the desk and hesitates, looking for a seat that's far off from everyone.

  What will it matter, the screens, the separation? Under the tome, with its ever-clean recycling air, the germs of all of us move in a never-ending dance, threading and re-threading, so every breath any of us inhales, exhales, is laced with minute unseeable beads of somber potential.

  There was outcry when the first tome went up, over and on.

  But, like the cement and bomb-proof glass, it settled.

  Perhaps this thing can be contained? Surely better to sacrifice X number trillion lives, and so save the greater number, whatever in the end that will be? And there is always, with these events, a percent of natural immunity, too. Not everyone, not all—

  “Why don't you sit here?"

  She glances at me. Oh, I must be already infected, even if I don't look it, not a smidge. And I'm parked well away from the rest.

  “Thanks."

  She sits on the seat next to mine.

  After a moment she says, “I shouldn't have come here."