Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

Next the tourists in their protective suits and helmets got out of the car. A pile of wreckage juts out from the walkway and into the water. Security escorted them up there so they could see the show, then stood guard.

Dare and the boys looked up at them. Not said, “Aliens,” and spat into the water, but Dare signaled him to cool it. Not and Nice became partners that summer, and Nice rubbed his back and whispered something. They and Hassid, who’s single and older than any of us—eighteen—stepped out of their shorts and moved right to the edge of the cement. Rock, our fourth boy, was new and not at ease with us yet, but he did the same.

Tourists get off on American kids staring up like starving dogs. Tourists want to see us bare ass and risking our lives. Dare and me hated them as much as Not did, but this was the cleanest way we’d come up with to get money out of them.

At first this bunch seemed the usual: half a dozen figures with white insulated helmets to keep the sun off their faces, conditioned coveralls to make them comfortable, shields to protect their eyes, and masks so they breathed clean air.

Under all that protection, you can’t even tell what sex they are. They could be alien conquerors built like insects, soft and lovely ladies in silk from China where everyone is rich, kings and queens from Fairyland. You hear stories of creatures like those coming to see how New York got laid low. I maybe could have gone into their brains, but I didn’t want to give away that secret until I really knew what I was doing.

Then the tourists shifted and one who’d been hidden by the others stepped out front and showed me something very different.

This one didn’t wear coveralls, helmet, or mask, and was female with copper skin and hair not so different from mine. She wore goggles and took breaths out of a tube she carried while someone held a metal shade above her.

She looked familiar as I saw her through Dare’s eyes, and I felt my partner’s surprise at how much the tourist girl looked like me.

This one was the center of the group’s attention and concern. They clustered around like they’d stop bullets for her. Because of the goggles, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could tell she was staring my way.

Thinking back, maybe I kept my talent too much a secret. If I’d gone inside a couple more heads we’d have been spared a lot of grief. As it was, when Rock turned to look my way, Dare said, “Eyes front,” under her breath, because we didn’t want me drawing attention.

Dare checked the boys one last time, made sure their skin was intact and that they had the safety lenses in their eyes before they hit the water. She took some extra care with Rock. Dare was a diver herself before she hooked up with me. She got out of it in time, but she remembers.

If no one managed divers, tourists would make them compete so they drove each other to death. With murder and the diseases they get, and being drafted to serve in the militias, boys are scarce, and talented ones like ours are rare. Dare and I kept the ones we had healthy.

Then sunlight flashed as a tourist’s hand came out of a pouch. Dare, calm and steady, nodded to the boys to stand right on the edge of the busted pavement in the spaces where there are no rails.

The hand went up, snapped the gold coin into the air, where it turned over as it fell toward the water a bit too far away for a boy to make an easy catch.

Dare had tapped Nice, and he dived forward in an arc, snapped it up as he hit the water. Nice flipped over and swam back and the tourists applauded, laughed. Nice was back up on the pavement with Dare taking the gold out of his mouth as the next coin sailed up in the air.

This was farther away and thrown harder, but Hassid kept his eyes on it as he dived, and was a yard away from where it went into the water. He came up with the coin and headed back as the next coin went farther out, and Not showing his skill and class went under and grabbed it.

The tourists applauded but this is how they always do it, throwing each one a little farther away, watching kids risk skin and eyes in water full of everything from turds to nuclear waste, seeing if their nerve will fail, hoping for the thrill of having one go under and not come up. The girl on the wreckage watched it all intently. It didn’t seem possible anyone from this world could have the wealth and power she did.

Jackie Boy is the legend they’ve heard about. Jackie skimmed over the surface of the water, and no matter how far or hard it got thrown, could catch tourist money in his teeth before either he or the gold hit the river. Maybe he wasn’t human. I’d started wondering if I was.

The tourists that day didn’t work the boys as hard as lots of them do. We got all the coins except for one that Rock missed. But it turned out this was just a test.

One time that afternoon, a plane, a fighter, flew low over the city and we flinched but the tourists paid no attention. This meant that it was nothing important.

Then maybe they got bored, because they started climbing down the wreckage. Right that second, a chimera, the one called Silky, who’s half seal, half woman, and old like they all are, came out of the water a bit farther upstream and caught their attention. Her skin is tough and she doesn’t stay in long, and maybe that or luck lets her survive.

Chimeras come from when things were falling apart but some people in the city still had money and tech and a big need to keep amused. There aren’t any new chimeras; probably no one knows how to make them anymore.

Tourist helmets flashed as they took pictures of Silky. I saw the girl look my way again and say something to one of the guys in protective gear, who took a few pictures of me.

When tourists lose interest, and city smells and poisons start getting in their masks, they go back to the expensive air at hotels in the Security Zone. Seeing the lights from the Zone way uptown always twisted my stomach, made me want to do a lot more than spit in their direction.

We got the boys cleaned off. There’s stuff the UN clinic in Times Square gives to people exposed to the river or harbor, and we rubbed them down. We used expensive pure water to clean out their eyes and mouths.

All of a sudden Depose’s car drove up. She got out and the girl said something to her before the tourist party climbed into their big ground car and took off.

Depose, wide and mean, and her bodyguard stayed behind. Through Dare’s eyes I saw her stride to us. But I didn’t look up until Depose went right past Dare without even nodding to her.

“Real.” Her voice is this low growl and she motioned for me to step away from the others, stood over me bearing down, sticking her face close to mine. “My clients are in the city to shoot a Net episode. I brought you out today so they could look at you and your fags. Mai Kin wants to use you!”

She watched through those heavy lids for a reaction. Depose went through girl- and boyfriends like they were toilet paper, but liked them a little older than me. Otherwise I’d want to stay away from her. I nodded that I understood, shrugged like it was no great matter.

But that was why the tourist girl looked familiar. Mai Kin was a rising star right then, playing Astasia X99 , a girl superheroine who’s supposed to be around sixteen and who goes from place to place having adventures, fighting crime and vampires, and it’s so dumb that you can laugh at it.

Astasia has the power of disguise. She’s totally different in each episode. The last time I saw her she was in a big city in Africa and she was dark with wild black hair, infiltrating a revolutionary group.

What I just saw, I guessed, was the way she’d look here in New York. Pictures of Mai Kin before Astasia X99 show an okay-looking Asian girl who’s maybe twenty.