Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF

I heard the news bulletin on the car radio. Dr Gregory Oldhams had died in a fire at his house. There were no details. I pulled off the road onto the shoulder and stared ahead through tears. He had called Trish to tell her goodbye. He had packed up things he couldn’t bear to have burned. A guinea pig, live in quarantine, in isolation, his own time, his own way…

Lights have come on in the house across the ravine. They are looking for me; Warren must have told them this is where I would come. Home. I wonder if he is with them; if he is, he may think to come up here. I rather imagine that they have him in a high-security lab somewhere, drawing blood, testing it, or packaging it to send to Atlanta.

They may send him back. He will be so tired. Would I scream at him if we met now? Probably, and he doesn’t need it; he knows, and he will know for the rest of his life. If we met, and if I had a gun, would I shoot him? I can imagine doing it, and I would want to do it, but would I?

Warren’s plane was going to be an hour late. It was five when I got inside the terminal; three hours stretched like eternity. I was too tired to do more than buy a book and a newspaper and then find a place where I could sit in peace. No food, I thought, shivering again.

Orange juice. I sat in the restaurant thinking about Greg, about yesterday, how he had driven me home. What he had said. Blood contact between an O and anyone else, airborne possibly after an A became infected. I remembered the Band-Aid on his chin, another Band-Aid on Warren’s knuckle. How Warren had wept, not because of the work, but because he had struck Greg, his mentor, his father, his god.

I knocked over my orange juice when I attempted to lift the glass, and I stared at the spreading pool until the waitress’s voice made me start. “You want another one?” she asked.

I fled to the restroom and studied my face in the mirror. Bloodless. It’s the flu, I told myself. Just the flu. My fingers were tinged with blue under my finger-nails, my palms were drained of color.

I know I talked to someone in Atlanta, but I can’t remember how it came about. There’s a vague memory of someone else punching numbers from my credit card. I must have asked for help. I had to go through so many people, wait so long before someone who knew something came on the line. “Is it airborne?” I asked, and he had many questions, which I must have answered. He kept asking, “Are you there? Are you all right? Can you hear me?” I know he said, “Stay right where you are. Don’t move from the phone. We’ll send someone to help you.”

Why didn’t I wait for Warren? I should have waited for him, but I didn’t, and then I remember, they would have come for me, and someone else would have met him and taken him somewhere. I think of all the people I was with in the restaurant, in the lounge, in the vast waiting room, buying a newspaper, a book, the shop where I bought the tape recorder I’m using, just walking around, in the parking lot… I forgot to tell the voice on the phone that I had stopped to buy gas, another contact.

I had to leave the phone because someone else wanted to use it, an angry man who told me to move my ass. I walked away from the phone and I stopped to buy the tape recorder, and then I kept walking, out to the lot, to my car, and I drove here. That much is clear in my head. As long as I don’t try to move, or lift anything, I don’t even feel too bad, just so tired, and so heavy. The oddest thing is the lack of coordination in my hands. I fumble with things, drop them; I can’t even manage the key in the ignition any longer.

I told the man how it happened. Warren got the viroid when he hit Greg. He used my razor the next morning and I used it later; we both always nick ourselves shaving. So simple.

They will spread their nets and try to catch everyone who was in the airport this evening, people flying off to Denver, Chicago, England, Hawaii… They will scoop up everyone at school, all my classes, my friends, committee members. My children.

I can’t weep now. I must be dehydrating too much. At first I thought Greg’s way would be mine. I would drive to my old house and arrange a great fire and at the last minute set it off, but I won’t burn myself. They’ll want to know what damage was done; they may even find a clue to help someone. Or maybe, without even thinking it through, I realized they would come to the house.

The house lights appear to be dancing through waves of water. The storm is so intense now my voice sounds faint to my own ears. I don’t even know how much I’ve said for the tape recorder, how much I have dreamed. The dreams are more real than reality. The car rocks, and the trees thrash about. I wish I could see them, but it’s enough to know they’ve seen this before many times. Maybe they like it as much as I do.

“Can we sleep in the loft, Mom?” Mikey yelled, racing to the stairs.

“Well, sure. That’s where I slept. Good enough for me, good enough for you.”

I shooed them all ahead of me and lay down on the built-in bed. “Look, if you put your head right here, as soon as the moon reaches that tallest fir tree, the shadow of the tree will come in and kiss you good night.”

Chris snorted in disbelief, but Sandra and Mikey lunged for the right spot, which I quickly vacated. Reluctantly Chris stayed close enough to see if it would really happen.

Later, Warren and I listened to them giggling and playing overhead. “Remember?” I asked. “You gave in and said okay to one.”

There was a thump and silence and we both tensed, then renewed giggling floated down, and we relaxed. My legs were cramping from the position we were in, but I didn’t tell him. I closed my eyes and listened to the laughing children.

Canadian-born Cory Doctorow burst on the scene in 1999 (though he had been bubbling under for some while) winning the Campbell Memorial Award in 2000 as the Best New Writer in the SF field, almost solely on the strength of one story, “Craphound”. He has gone on to cement his position as one of the most popular writers of the new millennium with his novels, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), Eastern Standard Tribe (2004), Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005) and Little Brother (2008). Selections of his short fiction will be found in A Place So Foreign (2003) and Overclocked (2007), and there’s much more at his website: craphound.com.

His stories bubble with a zest and energy as you’ll find in the following, which won the Locus Poll as the most popular short fiction of 2006. It brings us into the realm of terrorism, technology and the fate of the Earth.

WHEN FELIX’S SPECIAL phone rang at two in the morning, Kelly rolled over and punched him in the shoulder and hissed, “Why didn’t you turn that fucking thing off before bed?”

“Because I’m on call,” he said.

“You’re not a fucking doctor,” she said, kicking him as he sat on the bed’s edge, pulling on the pants he’d left on the floor before turning in. “You’re a goddamned systems administrator.”

“It’s my job,” he said.

“They work you like a government mule,” she said. “You know I’m right. For Christ’s sake, you’re a father now, you can’t go running off in the middle of the night every time someone’s porn supply goes down. Don’t answer that phone.”

He knew she was right. He answered the phone.

“Main routers not responding. BGP not responding.” The mechanical voice of the systems monitor didn’t care if he cursed at it, so he did and it made him feel a little better.