The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 41

Her left eye was watering badly but she could see Call-Me-Anne rus.h.i.+ng back with a nurse. Their mouths opened and closed as they called her name. She saw them reaching for her but she was much too far away.

And that was how it would be. No, that was how it was always, but the five senses worked so hard to compensate for the one missing that people took the illusion of contact for the real thing. The power of suggestion-where would the human race be without it?

Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch. _________.

Contact.

The word was a poor approximation but the concept was becoming clearer in her mind now. Clearer than the sight in her left eye, which was dimming. But still good enough to let her see Call-Me-Anne was on the verge of panic.

A man in a white uniform pushed her aside and she became vaguely aware of him touching her. But there was still no contact contact.

Nell labored toward wakefulness as if she were climbing a rock wall with half a dozen sandbags dangling on long ropes tied around her waist. Her mouth was full of steel wool and sand. She knew that taste-medication. It would probably take most of a day to spit that out.

She had tried medication in the beginning because Marcus had begged her to. Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety capsules, and finally anti-psychotics-they had all tasted the same because she hadn't been depressed, anxious, or psychotic. Meanwhile, Marcus had gotten farther and farther away, which, unlike the dry mouth, the weight gain, or the tremors in her hands, was not reversible.

Call-Me-Anne had no idea about that. She kept trying to get Nell to see Marcus, unaware they could barely perceive each other anymore. Marcus didn't realize it either, not the way she did. Marcus thought that was reversible, too.

Pools of color began to appear behind her heavy eyelids, strange colors that s.h.i.+fted and changed, green to gold, purple to red, blue to aqua, and somewhere between one color and another was a hue she had never found anywhere else and never would.

Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch. __________.

C-c-c-contact...

The word was a boulder trying to fit a s.p.a.ce made for a pebble smoothed over the course of eons and a distance of lightyears into a precise and elegant thing.

Something can be a million lightyears away and in your eye at the same time.

Sight. Hearing. Smell. Taste. Touch. ___________.

C-c-c-con...nect.

C-c-c-commmmune.

C-c-c-c-c-communnnnnnnnicate.

She had a sudden image of herself running around the base of a pyramid, searching for a way to get to the top. While she watched, it was replaced by a new image, of herself running around an elephant and several blind men; she was still looking for a way to get to the top of the pyramid.

The image dissolved and she became aware of how heavy the overhead lights were on her closed eyes. Eye. She sighed; even if she did finally reach understand-ing-or it reached her-how would she ever be able to explain what blind men, an elephant, and a pyramid combined with Columbus's s.h.i.+ps meant?

The musty smell of surrender broke in on her thoughts. It was very strong; Call-Me-Anne was still there. After a bit, she heard the sound of a wooden spoon banging on the bottom of a pot. Frustration, but not just any frustration: Marcus's.

She had never felt him so clearly without actually seeing him. Perhaps Call-Me-Anne's surrender worked as an amplifier.

The s.h.i.+fting colors resolved themselves into a new female voice. "...much do either of you know about the brain?"

"Not much," Call-Me-Anne said. Marcus grunted, a stone rolling along a dirt path.

"Generally, synesthesia can be a side effect of medication or a symptom."

"What about mental illness?" Marcus asked sharply, the spoon banging louder on the pot.

"Sometimes mentally ill people experience it but it's not a specific symptom of mental illness. In your wife's case, it was a symptom of the tumors."

"Tumors?" Call-Me-Anne was genuinely upset. Guilt was a soft scratching noise, little mouse claws on a hard surface.

"Two, although there could be three. We're not sure about the larger one. The smaller one is an acoustic neuroma, which-"

"Is that why she hears things?" Marcus interrupted.

The doctor hesitated. "Probably not, although some people complain of tinnitus. It's non-cancerous, doesn't spread, and normally very slow-growing. Your wife's seems to be growing faster than normal. But then there's the other one." Pause. "I've only been a neurosurgeon for ten years so I can't say I've seen everything but this really is quite, uh...unusual. She must have complained of headaches."

A silence, then Call-Me-Anne cleared her throat. "They seemed to be cl.u.s.ter headaches. Painful but not exactly rare. I have them myself. I gave her some of my medication but I don't know if she took it."

Another small pause. "Sometimes she said she had a headache but that's all," Marcus said finally. "We've been legally separated for a little over two years, so I'm not exactly up-to-date. She sleeps on the street."

"Well, there's no telling when it started until we can do some detailed scans."

"How much do those cost?" Marcus asked. Then after a long moment: "Hey, she she left left me me to sleep on the to sleep on the street street after I'd already spent a fortune on shrinks and prescriptions and hospitalizations. Then they tell me you can't force a person to get treated for anything unless they're a danger to the community, blah, blah, blah. Now she's got brain tumors and I'm gonna get hit for the bill. Dammit, I shoulda divorced her but it felt too-" The spoon sc.r.a.ped against the iron pot. "Cruel." after I'd already spent a fortune on shrinks and prescriptions and hospitalizations. Then they tell me you can't force a person to get treated for anything unless they're a danger to the community, blah, blah, blah. Now she's got brain tumors and I'm gonna get hit for the bill. Dammit, I shoulda divorced her but it felt too-" The spoon sc.r.a.ped against the iron pot. "Cruel."

"You were hoping she'd snap out of it?" said the doctor. "Plenty of people feel that way. It's normal to hope for a miracle." Call-Me-Anne added some comforting noises, and said something about benefits and being in the system.

"Yeah, okay," Marcus said. "But you still didn't answer my question. How much do these scans cost?"

"Sorry, I couldn't tell you, I don't have anything to do with billing," the doctor said smoothly. "But we can't do any surgery without them."

"I thought you already did some," Marcus said.

"We were going to. Until I saw what was behind her eye."

"It's that big?" asked Marcus.

"It's not just that. It's-not your average tumor."

Marcus gave a humorless laugh. "Tumors are standardized, are they?"

"To a certain extent, just like the human body. This one, however, isn't behaving quite the way tumors usually do." Pause. "There seems to be some gray matter incorporated into it."

"What do you mean, like it's tangled up in her brain? Isn't that what a tumor does, get all tangled up in a person's brain? That's why it's hard to take out, right?"

"This is different," the doctor said. "Look, I've been debating with myself whether I should tell you about this-"

"If you're gonna bill me, you G.o.ddam better tell me," Marcus growled. "What's going on with her?"

"Just from what I could see, the tumor has either co-opted part of your wife's brain-stolen it, complete with blood supply-or there's a second brain growing in your wife's skull."

There was a long pause. Then Marcus said, "You know how crazy that sounds? You got any pictures of this?"

"No. Even if I did, you're not a neurosurgeon, you wouldn't know what you were looking at."

"No? I can't help thinking I'd know if I were looking at two brains in one head or not."

"The most likely explanation for this would be a parasitic twin," the doctor went on. "It happens more often than you'd think. The only thing is, parasitic twins don't suddenly take to growing. And if it had always been so large, you'd have seen signs of it long before now.

"Unfortunately, I couldn't even take a sample to biopsy. Your wife's vitals took a nosedive and we had to withdraw immediately. She's fine now-under the circ.u.mstances. But we need to do those scans as soon as possible. Her right eye was so damaged by this tumor that we couldn't save it. If we don't move quickly enough, it's going to cause additional damage to her face."

Nell took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She hadn't thought they would hear her but they had; all three stopped talking and Call-Me-Anne and Marcus scurried over to the side of her bed, saying her name in soft, careful whispers, as if they thought it might break. She kept her eyes closed and her body limp, even when Call-Me-Anne took her hand in both of hers and squeezed it tight. After a while, she heard them go.

How had they done that, she marveled. How had they done it from so far away?

Something can be a million lightyears away and in your eye at the same time.

Her mind's eye showed her a picture of two vines entangled with each other. Columbus's s.h.i.+ps, just coming into view. The sense she had been missing was not yet fully developed, not enough to reconcile the vine and the s.h.i.+ps. But judging from what the doctor said, it wouldn't be long now.

THE EXTERMINATOR'S WANT-AD BRUCE STERLING.

Bruce Sterling published his first novel, Involution Ocean Involution Ocean, in 1977. The author of ten novels and four short story collections, he is still perhaps best known in science fiction as the G.o.dfather of Cyberpunk. He edited the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades Mirrorshades, and his early novels, The Artificial Kid The Artificial Kid and and Schismatrix, Schismatrix, are perhaps the closest things he wrote to cyberpunk. After closing the 'zine are perhaps the closest things he wrote to cyberpunk. After closing the 'zine Cheap Truth Cheap Truth and leaving cyberpunk to others in November 1986, he went on to write major science fiction novels like and leaving cyberpunk to others in November 1986, he went on to write major science fiction novels like Holy Fire Holy Fire, Distraction, Distraction, and and The Zenith Angle The Zenith Angle. He is the author of a large and influential body of short fiction, much of which has been collected in Crystal Express Crystal Express, Globalhead Globalhead, A Good Old-Fas.h.i.+oned Future, A Good Old-Fas.h.i.+oned Future, and and Visionary in Residence Visionary in Residence. His most recent books are new novel The Caryatids The Caryatids and major career retrospective and major career retrospective Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling.

So, I'm required to write this want-ad in order to get any help with my business. Only I have, like, a very bad trust rating on this system. I have rotten karma and an awful reputation. "Don't even go there, don't listen to a word he says: because this guy is pure poison."

So, if that kind of c.r.a.p is enough for you, then you should stop reading this right now.

However, somebody is gonna read this, no matter what. So let me just put it all out on the table. Yes, I'm a public enemy. Yes, I'm an ex-con. Yes, I'm mad, bad, and dangerous to link to.

But my life wasn't always like this. Back in the good old days, when the world was still solid and not all termite-eaten like this, I used to be a well-to-do, well-respected guy.

Let me explain what went on in prison, because you're probably pretty worried about that part.

First, I was a nonviolent offender. That's important. Second, I turned myself in to face "justice." That shows that I knew resistance was useless. Also a big point on my side.

So, you would think that the maestros of the new order would cut me some slack in the karma ratings: but no. I'm never trusted. I was on the losing side of a socialist revolution. They didn't call me a "political prisoner" of their "revolution," but that's sure what went on. If you don't believe that, you won't believe anything else I say, so I might as well say it flat-out.

So, this moldy jail I was in was this old dot-com McMansion, out in the Permanent Foreclosure Zone in the dead suburbs. That's where they cooped us up. This gated community was built for some vanished rich people. That was their low-intensity prison for us rehab detainees.

As their rehab population, we were a so-called "resiliency commune." This meant we were penniless, and we had to grow our own food, and also repair our own jail. Our clothes were unis.e.x plastic orange jumpsuits. They had salvaged those somewhere. They always had plenty of those.

So, we persisted out there as best we could, under videocam surveillance, with parole cuffs on our ankles. See, that was our life. Every week, our itchy, dirty column of detainees got to march thirteen miles into town, where our captors lived. We did hard-labor "community service" there with our brooms, shovels, picks, and hoes. We got shown off in public as a warning to the others.

This place outside was a Beltway suburb before Was.h.i.+ngton was abandoned. The big hurricane ran right over it, and crushed it down pretty good, so now it was a big green hippie jungle. Our prison McMansion had termites, roaches, mold, and fleas, but once it was a nice house. This rambling wreck of a town was half storm-debris. All the lawns were replaced with wet, weedy, towering patches of bamboo, or marijuana-or hops, or kenaf, whatever (I never could tell those farm crops apart).

The same goes for the "garden roofs," which were dirt piled on top of the dirty houses. There were smelly goats running loose, chickens cackling. Salvaged umbrellas and chairs toppled in the empty streets. No traffic signs, because there were no cars.

Sustainable Utopia here is a densely crowded settlement full of people in poorly washed clothing who are hanging out making nice. Constant gossip-they call that "social interaction." No sign of that one percent of the population that once owned half of America. The rich elite just blew it totally. They dropped their globalized ball. They panicked. So they're in jail, like I was. Or they're in exile somewhere, or else they jumped out of penthouses screaming when the hyperinflation ate them alive.

And boy, do I ever miss them. No more billboards, no more chain stores, no big-box Chinese depots and no neon fried-food shacks. It's become another world, as in "another world is possible," and we're stuck in there. It's very possible, very real, and it's very smelly. There are constant power blackouts.

Every once in a while, some armed platoon of "resilient nation-builder" militia types would come by on their rusty bicycles. Sometimes they brought shot-up victims on stretchers. The Liberated Socialist Ma.s.ses were plucking their homemade banjos on their rickety porches. Lots of liberty, equality, fraternity, solidarity, compost dirt, unshaved legs, and dense crowding.

Otherwise, the crickets chirp.

Those were, like, the lucky people who were outside our prison. Those cooperative people are the networked future.

So, my cellmate Claire was this forty-something career lobbyist who used to be my boss inside the Beltway. Claire was full of horror stories about the cruelty of the socialist regime. Because, in the old days before we got ourselves arrested, alarmist tales of this kind were Claire's day-job. Claire peddled political spin to the LameStream Media to make sure that corporations stayed in command, so that situations like our present world stayed impossible.

Obviously Claire was not that great at this strategy. Me, I was more of the geek technician in our effort. My job was to methodically spam and troll the sharing-networks. I would hack around with them, undermine them, and make their daily lives difficult. Threaten IP lawsuits. Spread some Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Game their reputation systems. Gold-farm their alternative economies. Engage in DDOS attacks. Hara.s.s the activist ringleaders with blistering personal insults. The usual.

Claire and I had lots of co-workers all up and down K-Street. Both seaboards, too, and all over Texas. Lavishly supported by rich-guy think-tanks, we were the covert operatives in support of an ailing system. We did that work because it paid great.

Personally, I loved to buy stuff: I admired a consumer society. I sincerely liked to carry out a clean, crisp, commercial transaction: the kind where you simply pay some money for goods and services. I liked driving my SUV to the mall, whipping out my alligator wallet, and buying myself some hard liquor, a steak dinner, and maybe a stripper. All that awful stuff at the Pottery Barn and Banana Republic, when you never knew "Who the h.e.l.l was buying that?" That guy was me.

Claire and I hated the sharing networks, because we were paid to hate them. We hated all social networks, like Facebook, because they destroyed the media that we owned. We certainly hated free software, because it was like some ever-growing anti-commercial fungus. We hated search engines and network aggregators, people like Google-not because Google was evil, but because they weren't. We really hated "file-sharers"-the swarming pirates who were chewing up the wealth of our commercial sponsors.

We hated all networks on principle: we even hated power networks. Wind and solar only sorta worked, and were very expensive. We despised green power networks because climate change was a myth. Until the climate actually changed. Then the honchos who paid us started drinking themselves to death.

If you want to see a truly changed world, then a brown sky really makes a great start. Back in the day, we could tell the public, "Hey, the sky up there is still blue, who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?" And we tried that, but we ran out of time for it. After that tipping-point, our bottom-line economy was not "reality" at all. That was the myth.

My former life in mythland had suited me just great. Then I had no air conditioning. My world was wet, dirty, smelly, moldy, swarming with fleas, chiggers, bedbugs, and mosquitoes. Also, I was in prison. When myths implode, that's what happens to good people.

So, Claire and I discussed our revenge, whenever we were out of earshot and oversight of the solar-powered prison webcams. Claire and I spent a lot of time on revenge fantasies, because that kept our morale up.

"Look, Bobby," she told me, as she scratched graffiti in the wall with a ten penny nail, "this rehab isn't a proper 'prison' at all! This is a bulls.h.i.+t psychological operation intended to brainwash us. Leftists in power always do that! If they give you a fair trial, you can at least get a sentence and do time. If they claim you are crazy, they can sit on your neck forever!"

"Maybe we really are crazy now," I said. "Having the sky change color can do that to people."

"There's only one way out of this k.u.mbaya nuthouse," she said. "We gotta learn to talk the way they want to hear! So that's our game plan from now on. We act very contrite, we do their bongo dance, whatever. Then they let us out of this gulag. After that, we can take some steps."

Claire was big on emigrating from the USA. Claire somehow imagined that there was some country in the world that didn't have weather. The inconvenient laws of physics had never much appealed to Claire. We'd donated the laws of physics to our opponents by pretending that air wasn't air. Now the long run of that tactic was splattered all around us. We had nothing left but worthless paper money and some Red State churches half-full of Creationists.

We had gone bust. We had suffered a vast, Confederate-style defeat. The economy was Gone with the Wind, and everybody was gonna stay poor, angry, and dirt-stupid for the next century.

So: when we weren't planting beans in the former backyard, or digging mold out of the attic insulation, we had to do rehab therapy. This was our prisoner consciousness-building encounter scheme. The regime made us play social games. We weren't allowed computer games in prison: just dice, graph paper, and some charcoal sticks that we made ourselves.

So, we played this elaborate paper game called "Dungeons and Decency." Three times a week. The lady warden was our Dungeon Master.

This prison game was diabolical. It was very entertaining, and compulsively playable. This game had been designed by left-wing interaction designers, the kind of creeps who built not-for-profit empires like Wikipedia. Except they'd designed it for losers like us.

Everybody in rehab had to role-play. We had to build ourselves another ident.i.ty, because this new pretend-ident.i.ty was supposed to help us escape the stifling spiritual limits of our previous, unliberated, greedy individualist ident.i.ties.

In this game, I played an evil dwarf. With an axe. Which would have been okay, because that ident.i.ty was pretty much me all along. Except that the game's reward system had been jiggered to reward elaborate acts of social collaboration. Of course we wanted to do raids and looting and cool fantasy fighting, but that wasn't on. We were very firmly judged on the way we played this rehab game. It was never about grabbing the gold. It was all about forming trust coalitions so as to collectively readjust our fantasy infrastructure.