Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

“Where?” whispered Doc.

Gwyn pointed with his sword, across to a point below the ridge where the trees opened out and the undergrowth was not so thick.

Doc slid her sword back into its scabbard and reached inside her coat to take out a pistol instead. Since it was below the ridge-line, it was unlikely to be a creature.

Creatures were hard to kill with gunfire; the gold-plated swords worked better. But for a human, a gun worked fine.

And as Pal had said, Shade always did have plenty of true believers, escapees from the dorms who did whatever Shade told them to do without question…even if that might include tracking down and killing humans who Shade would undoubtedly have labeled traitors.

Particularly Doc, who Shade had labored over for so many years, tailoring educational programs and simulations to train her as a doctor. But not to help save human life. Shade had only wanted her trained up to help him with his research into the creatures, to dissect captured prisoners, to try to discover exactly how they worked, and how they were augmented by the strange energy that could be detected in the city after the Change….

A low branch quivered and whipped back, and something loped down the slope. It came toward them for a moment, till it caught their scent and suddenly changed direction, even before Doc recognized it and decided not to shoot.

“A dog,” whispered Gwyn. “Better make sure it’s gone.”

Dogs and cats were rare because the creatures killed them, as they killed anything that was not part of the complicated battles the Overlords played in the city—endless battles that soaked up the continuous production of the Meat Factory, and the dorms that fed it with their human raw material.

They waited for a few minutes, but the dog did not circle back.

“It’s gone,” said Gwyn. “Beyond my range, anyway. Let’s go.”

At the top of the ridge there was an old picnic station, an open structure with a galvanized iron roof and a single long pine table underneath. Gwyn set The Arkle down on the table while Doc laid out her instruments and drugs.

“Tie him down,” she said, handing over a package of bandages. “I can’t put him down deep enough he won’t react.”

Gwyn took the bandages. When he was done with the tying down, he looked over at Doc.

“Your eyes are bright,” he said. “You seeing?”

“Yes,” said Doc. She blinked and bent low over The Arkle’s open mouth. Her violet eyes grew brighter still, and she stared down, looking through the tooth, through the bone, seeing it all. Her eyes moved, following the blood from the roots up along the altered circulatory channels. She saw the infection flowing with the blood, swirling across the boy’s face, flooding into his brain, to join the pool of bacteria where it already dwelled and prospered.

Doc straightened up and looked across at Gwyn. Her eyes were shining still, but it was not with the light of her Change Talent.

“Too late,” she said. “Just too late. It must have been hurting for weeks and he never said a thing; he never asked for help.”

“They don’t know how, the young ones,” said Gwyn, who was all of twenty-one. “They just don’t know how to ask.”

The Arkle groaned, and one taloned hand fluttered under its restraint.

“Mom?” he whispered. “Mom?”

Doc picked up a hypodermic and plunged it deep, followed quickly by another. Then she took The Arkle’s hand and held it tight, despite the talons that scored her flesh.

“It’s all right, love,” whispered Doc. “It’s all right.

“You won’t feel a thing. You won’t feel a thing. You won’t feel a…”

This story is set in the same world as my 1997 novel, Shade’s Children , though it takes place about ten years before the events of that book.

IT WAS TIME FOR SEEDING, AND I HAD FINALLY REACHED THE age of apprentice. This year I would join the other Paters, and I would observe and help Jas with the counting and with the machines. The machines would be my responsibility, and I was already nervous. I lay the batteries out, like I had been told, and let them soak in the sun. I turned each one on and off. I even tested one on myself by pricking my finger and putting the bead of blood on the machine. It took a moment. It whirred. It blinked three times. A green light came on for the first three codes, and the display showed the letters that I was meant to look for.

AGGCTTACACCG

GAATCACCTAGC

CTTGTAACCTGG

It blinked a fourth time and made an unpleasant noise and blinked red, but I ignored the letters. It did not matter. Three for Four of the sequence was what mattered. Everyone knew that. Satisfied, I switched the machine off and packed them all away. It would be a long walk to all the towns, and I wanted to rest in a bed before I would no longer have one to sleep in. I blew the wick out and shut my eyes. But I could not deny the truth. I was excited to leave Sandig and see the outside world.

I am interested in everything—the others in town make fun of me for this. But Jas doesn’t. He turns a blind eye when I slip out of the gates and wander around the outskirts of Sandig. I am interested in the differences between home and away. I find things out there and add them to my collection of things. Things that are broken. Things that are from the past. Things that have no use. Things that interest me. Things that I take apart. Even the Romas, those who roam, the renegades, the outsiders who reject the Way, don’t bother me. But the Romas know where I like to go. Out beyond the boundaries to stare and contemplate the strange signs of faces, with their tongues out, in the fields that surround Sandig, and to notice how many animals I can spot: now none, now more, now here, now there. Sometimes they leave me the interesting things they find in exchange for cooked food, dried fish and seaweed that I smuggle outside the gates. It is my secret trade. On occasion, if they find something they think is very valuable, they will wait for me and ask for things they need. I will show them items from my collection and they will pick something, like a knife or some thread to stitch with, good for caring for a wound.

But no matter how much the others may laugh, I like my things. I like to observe.

How the fields are always green in a different way and no one notices.

How mostly I have only seen a bird in an old book that I keep in my room.

How much we rely on the tech that the SciTexts left us from those that came before, to survive.

How when something breaks it cannot be fixed.

The Paters leave from Sandig four times a year. News, Ides, Fourth, and Remembrance. We leave our town in our bright red robes so that everyone may know who we are, and our yellow scarves so that everyone may know that we are from Sandig. Sandig is the most important town. We are the Paters who have the Counter. We keep the count for all that are left. When we walk on our journey to do our duty, even the Romas do not bother us. They watch out for us, escorting the way to the next town. We are that important to the world.

I am so excited to leave that I get dressed before the sun is up. I adjust my yellow scarf, which is stitched with blue and lavender. I have blue and lavender tattoo rings on both of my arms so that everyone knows that when I am a full Pater I may only go with green, brown, orange, and red. But since there are not many left that I can go with, I will become the next Counter.