Lavie Tidhar: The Apex Book of World SF 2

“I’ll slow you down,” Father had said.

But she wouldn’t leave him behind. And so they crept along behind the piles of junk and strip metal.

Their feet slipped on smooth steel and made clunky sounds in the silence. They waited, but when no-one came, they slid on forwards until they reached a surface less finished than the one they’d left behind.

“We’re almost there,” she whispered.

She could hear his joints creak in the silence, and she reached out a hand to help him.

“I’m fine,” he said.

And then they were out in the open. Beyond them, the road opened up and curled southwards to where the rift in the barrier had expanded.

The rising sun cast a golden glow over Father’s face, and it seemed as if he were made of light.

They were headed towards the rift when from behind came the sound of pursuit. The roar of the Mechanic and the clunk of boots on the hard surface of the road.

They raced down the blacktop as the sun made its journey to the apex. Alternate Girl ran, propelling Father onwards with a fresh surge of energy. The earth shook, and Alternate Girl slipped and lost her footing.

“Get up,” Father’s voice whispered in her ear.

“Run,” Alternate Girl gasped. “I’ll slow them down.”

“I’m not letting them take you,” Father said.

The Equilibrium Machine shrieked, and Alternate Girl cried out, as Mechanic loomed before them.

“What did you think to gain?” Mechanic asked.

What did I hope for? Alternate Girl wondered.

“Let her go,” Father said. “I will do as is required of me. Only let her go.”

“Do you think you still have the power to intervene?” Mechanic asked. He kept his gaze locked on Alternate Girl.

“No,” Father said. “I realise there is no forgiveness for what I chose to do. Still…”

Mechanic raised his right hand in a silencing gesture.

“Forgiveness is not up to you to decide,” he said. “Whatever follows lies in the hands of this girl you have created. She is ready to leave this place, and I am sure she will be an asset to the Expatriate Programme.”

Building bridges and abolishing barriers is central to the Expatriate Programme. Ignorance leads to misconceptions and stereotypes, hence the lumping together of certain groups of expatriates. It is hoped that the Expatriate Programme will give rise to mutual understanding and acceptance of each other’s differences.

Participants to the Expatriate Programme are given the freedom to appropriate what they deem necessary in order to achieve the central goal of total integration.

She’d found her partner on the other side of the gate. It had seemed simple enough to follow him home and to allow herself to be embraced and joined to him. That union made it possible for her to slip seamlessly into the pattern of his everyday life.

All the knowledge fed into her came to good use, and their lives entwined as if by rote. She became the housewife, and he, her model mate.

How he spent his days was a mystery to her. She imagined him spending all day behind a desk in an office somewhere. She thought of him lost in a maze of paperwork, one of the hundreds of thousands of Numbered Men wearing the same coloured shirt, the same suit from the same local haberdashery, the same haircut from some local barber, the same coat, the same tie. She imagined all of them, working together towards the same goal.

How many numbers have you added up today? That’s how Alternate Girl imagined their conversations went. How many more numbers before you meet your quota?

“If I do as you wish, will you return Father to me?” she asked Mechanic.

“Already, his body is good for nothing but the harvest,” Mechanic said. “But I can give you the essence of him. How you choose to restore him lies within your grasp.”

She turned the chip over in her hand. For all that it seemed small, it contained the entirety of Father’s memories as well as the history of their lives.

“A simple matter to appropriate a body,” Mechanic’s words whispered in her head. “You won’t even need to tell him what you’re doing. Let him fall away into an eternal dream, so Father may return.”

“Won’t he feel pain?” She asked.

“A relative thing,” he said. “Such things are unimportant and the outcome relies on your ability to do what must be done. You have done well, AG. Allowing you to regain Father is a small reward.”

The chip felt hard and hot in her hand. She’d made sacrifices working towards this goal, subjugated her will in order to build a life beyond the shadows of the Remembrance Monument. Already, she couldn’t remember the name of this man whom she’d shared a bed with for one hundred weeks.

Should she feel regret or remorse for what she was about to do?

She had no answer to that question. All she could think of was Mechanic’s admonition, she could only hear his voice telling her that she was free to do as she chose. If she chose to erase her partner’s life for the sake of regaining Father, it wouldn’t matter if she could no longer return to Metal Town.

She listened to her partner’s key turning in the front door, listened to the sound of his footstep in the hall, listened for the familiar creak of his joints, and turned to welcome him home.

Tamuka hated Mr Goop; it wasn’t as if it was really his anyway. He had the unfortunate distinction of being one of those kids. The ones with poor parents who could not afford to buy their children Geneforms of their own. Just this morning before class, in the translucent, dome-sealed playground, Tamuka had yet again been a victim. Well, at least he had not been alone this time: two younger kids and their inherited family Geneforms had also endured the playground circle of laughter and cruel taunts.

Mr Goop stood motionless outside the classroom; Tamuka could see its vague shadowy humanoid outline through the frosted glass wall. The adult-sized Mr Goop was too big to be allowed in the classroom. While everyone else in his class had their small—and very cute—Geneforms dozing on their desks or sitting quietly on their shoulders, he had Mr Goop standing outside.

Mr Goop. Tamuka shuddered at the name given to the Geneform by his grandfather, Manenji Zimudzi. A bad joke, Tamuka had been told when he had asked him. One that Grandfather had made when he had first bought it in better days, long before Tamuka’s father was even born, about it being a genetically manufactured lump of goo, which became a walking Mr Goop. And the name had stuck. It would respond to no other, no matter how hard Tamuka had tried to train it.

Tamuka then thought of Grandfather, alone on that mountain top in Nyanga where they had buried him last year. Tamuka wondered if Grandfather was lonely up there, and vowed to nag his mother into going to visit him. The truth was that he really missed Grandfather; he was the one person who always had time for Tamuka, no matter the hour or the problem. But during all the commotion that had surrounded Grandfather’s death—Mother in floods of tears, Father being strong for her—no-one had bothered to ask Tamuka how he felt about it all.

“Tamuka, what is the name of the English Isles’ capital city?” asked his teacher, Mrs Mudarikwa, breaking the spell of memories that surrounded Tamuka.

“London,” blurted Tamuka.

The class around him erupted in laughter. Mrs Mudarikwa, a wizened old lady whose wrinkles probably outnumbered the dunes of the seaward deserts, motioned for silence. But then she gave him that look, the subtle one reserved for her brighter students that showed a slight disappointment, that always left Tamuka feeling very disappointed with himself.