John Adams - Brave New Worlds

And a small price it is, in light of how blessed those who live here have always been.

Just about all Caralys can do, as the two of us begin to sway together in a sweet slow dance, is continue to murmur reassurances. Just about all I can do is rest my head against her chest, and close my eyes to the sound of her beating heart. Just about all we can do together is stay in this moment, putting off the next one as long as possible, and try not to remember the dogs, the hateful snarling dogs, caged for now but always thirsty for a fresh taste of blood.

"The mere absence of war is not peace. "

— President John F. Kennedy

For J. H.

Tobias S. Buckell is the author of the novels Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose , and the New York Times bestseller Halo: the Cole Protocol . He is a Writers of the Future winner, and has published more than thirty short stories, which have appeared in magazines such as Nature, Lightspeed, Science Fiction Ag e, and Analog , and in anthologies including Mojo: Conjure Stories, New Voices in Science Fiction , and I, Alien . Much of his short work has been collected in Tides from the New Worlds . He currently lives in Ohio with a pair of dogs, a pair of cats, twin daughters, and his wife.

In November 2008, American voters elected Barack Obama president of the United States. The race was not as close as it has been in recent elections, but the real excitement of the day was the high voter turn-out. With an estimated 61 % of all registered voters choosing to cast votes, the 2008 election stands as the highest voter turnout in more than three decades.

Of course, that means 30 % or so of all registered voters didn't bother to turn up. And who knows how many U. S. citizens never got around to even registering in the first place?

There are thousands of explanations for voter apathy, but in the world Buckell portrays in our next story, none of those excuses really matter; it's a techno-democracy failed by its own voters. But Buckell knows first-hand about systems that begin with high hopes only to crumble into disaster. He was born during a 1979 coup d'etat in Grenada, where the new government, according to Buck-ell, "fell into the spiral of quashing opposition to the point where it became draconian and people ended up lined up against walls and shot. "

It would appear that a utopian government is only as strong as the voices of its resistance.

Four days after the coup Stanuel was ordered to fake an airlock pass. The next day he waited inside a cramped equipment locker large enough to hold two people while an armed rover the size and shape of a helmet wafted around the room, twisting and counter-rotating pieces of itself as it scanned the room briefly. Stanuel held his breath and willed himself not to move or make a sound. He just floated in place, thankful for the lack of gravity that might have betrayed him had he needed to depend on locked, nervous muscles.

The rover gave up and returned to the corridor, the airlock door closing behind it. Stanuel slipped back out. The rover had missed him because he'd been fully suited up for vacuum. No heat signature.

Behind the rover's lenses had been the eyes of Pan. And since the coup, anyone knew better than to get noticed by Pan. Even the airlock pass cut it too close. He would disappear when Pan's distributed networks noticed what he'd done.

By then, Pan would not be a problem.

Stanuel checked his suit over again, then cycled the airlock out. The outer door split in two and pulled apart.

But where was the man Stanuel was supposed to bring in?

He realized there was an inky blackness in the space just outside the ring of the lock. A blotch that grew larger, and then tumbled in. The suit flickered, and turned a dull gray to match the general interior color of the airlock.

The person stood up, and Stanuel repressurized the airlock.

They waited as Stanuel snapped seals and took his own helmet off. He hung the suit up in the locker he'd just been hiding in. "We have to hurry, we only have about ten minutes before the next rover patrol. "

Behind him, Stanuel heard crinkling and crunching. When he turned around the spacesuit had disappeared. He now faced a tall man with dark skin and long dreadlocks past his shoulders, and eyes as gray as the bench behind him. The spacesuit had turned into a long, black trench-coat. "Rovers?" the man asked.

Stanuel held his hand up and glyphed a 3-D picture in the air above his palm. The man looked at the rover spin and twist and shoot. "Originally they were station maintenance bots. Semi-autonomous remote operated vehicles. Now they're armed. "

"I see. " the man pulled a large backpack off his shoulders and unzipped it.

"So. what now?" Stanuel asked.

The gray eyes flicked up from the pack. "You don't know?"

"I'm part of a cell. But we run distributed tasks, only checking it with people who assign them. It keeps us insulated. I was only told to open this airlock and let you in. You would know what comes next. Is the attack tonight? Should I get armed? Are you helping the attack?"

The man opened the pack all the way to reveal a small arsenal of guns, grenades, explosives, and — oddly — knives. Very large knives. He looked up at Stanuel. "I am The attack. I've been asked to shut Pan down. "

"But you're not a programmer. "

"I can do all things through explosives, who destroy for me. " the man began moving the contents of the pack inside the pockets and straps of the trenchcoat, clipped more to his belt and thigh, as well as to holsters under each arm, and then added pieces to his ankles.

He was now a walking arsenal.

But only half the pack had been emptied. The mysterious mercenary tossed it at Stanuel. "Besides, you're going to help. "

Stanuel coughed. "Me?"

"According to the resistance message, you're a maintenance manager, recently promoted. You still know all the sewer lines, access ducts, and holes required to get me to the tower. How long do you guess we have before it notices your unauthorized use of an airlock?"

"An hour," Stanuel said. The last time he'd accidentally gone somewhere Pan didn't like, rovers had been in his office within an hour.

"And can we get to the tower within an hour, Stanuel, without being noticed?"

Stanuel nodded.

The large, well-armed man pointed at the airlock door into the corridor. "Well, let's not dally. "

"Can I ask you something?" Stanuel asked.

"Yes. "

"Your name. You know mine. I don't know yours. "

"Pepper," said the mercenary. "Now can we leave?"

A single tiny sound ended the secrecy of their venture: the buzz of wings. Pepper's head snapped in the direction of the sound, locks spinning out from his head.

He slapped his palm against the side of the wall, crushing a butterfly-like machine perfectly flat.

"A bug," Stanuel said.

Pepper launched down the corridor, bouncing off the walls until he hit the bulkhead at the far end. He glanced around the corner. "Clear. "

"Pan knows you're in Haven now. " Stanuel felt fear bloom, an instant explosion of paralysis that left him hanging in the air. "It will mobilize. "

"Then get me into the tower, quick. Let's go, Stanuel, we're not engaged in something that rewards the slow. "

But Stanuel remained in place. "they chose me because I had no family," he said. "I had less to lose. I would help them against Pan. But. "

Pepper folded his arms. "It's already seen you. You're already dead. "

That sunk in. Stanuel had handled emergencies. Breaches, where vacuum flooded in, sucking the air out. He'd survived explosions, dumb mistakes, and even being speared by a piece of rebar. All by keeping cool and doing what needed to be done.