Asimov's Science Fiction: March 2014 Page 12

"I don't care," I say. "We can throw all of it away."

  "Si aaaa oooo. Sa-Sa. Ta-Ta."

  We look over at Shep. He's so lovely, so beautiful. He looks a bit like Cheryl and a bit like me. With a little help from the Old Man, he'll be saying "Mama" and "Daddy" in a month. Hell, in a week.

  I can hardly wait.

  * * *

  DRINK IN A SMALL TOWN

  Peter Wood | 1020 words

  Pete is a criminal defense attorney in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he lives with his loving wife and demanding cat. His stories have been published in many markets, including Daily Science Fiction, Bull Spec, and Stupefying Stories. Of his first tale for Asimov's, he says, "Twenty years ago I worked as a law clerk in a sleepy Georgia town where a bar near the courthouse served cold beer and the best hamburgers in the world."

  Wallace picked a hell of a place to watch the first Mars expedition land. The small Georgia town probably hadn't changed in a hundred years.

  He parked in front of Scooter's Tavern, the place the interstate gas station attendant had suggested. He wondered how dives like Scooter's survived. Except for the bar he saw nothing but boarded-up buildings. The dark street had only one other car.

  He thought twice about leaving the interstellar drive's blueprints in the trunk. But he didn't feel like lugging them around. After the frustrating week trying to get money to manufacture the drive, he half hoped somebody would steal the damned plans.

  Inside, the wheezing window air conditioner fought August's heat and humidity. A teetering stack of water-stained boxes leaned against a dented video poker machine. Wallace hoped he hadn't made a mistake coming in here. "Do y'all serve food?" he asked the bartender, a greasy-haired man in a NASCAR T-shirt.

  The bartender's eyes opened wide. He grabbed a half-filled beer off the counter and gulped it down. "Evening, sir. I'm Ray. We got burgers and chips. Want a drink?"

  Wallace sat down on a duct-taped stool. He needed a drink. After trudging through South Carolina and Georgia, he still hadn't found a single investor. The real world was even less interested in his ideas about string theory and exceeding light speed than the Ph.D. physics program. Days like this he almost wished he hadn't dropped out. "Burger and chips. And whatever you have on draft."

  Ray slapped a patty on the grill and poured Wallace a tall Stroh's. He turned on the flat screen TV with a remote. "Those boys are about to land."

  "I wouldn't want to be the first man out of the lander. Too much pressure. Hard to top Neil Armstrong." "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind," Ray said. "You know your history," Wallace said. Ray smiled. "It's my specialty." Wallace sipped his beer. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was. "How old's this place?"

  Ray shrugged. "Who knows? Ninety years? I was here when the Supreme Court ended segregation. The Vietnam War. The Moon landing." His voice was slurred.

  "You were here?"

  "Of course not." Ray coughed. "I meant the bar's been here that long."

  "This must be a slow night with the landing and all," Wallace said.

  "Nope. Normal crowd." Grease spattered as Ray flipped the burger. The rich smell of sautéing onions filled the air. "It's our last night." He poured himself another beer.

  "So, I'm celebrating."

  Wallace studied the unswept concrete floor, and the cracked plastic chairs and Formica tables. He wondered if the dusty pinball machine worked. "Hard to make money downtown with the interstate, I guess. Everybody goes to Red Lobster or Applebee's."

  Ray leaned against the counter. "Our work's done is all. I'll miss it. A good spot to watch the world. Nobody bothers you."

  Wallace doubted anyone could see much of the world from a street that probably had less traffic than a suburban cul-de-sac. The countdown clock on TV said thirty minutes to landing.

  Ray placed a steaming hamburger before Wallace. He unclipped a bag of barbecue chips from the wall. "Sorry, we're out of plain and sour cream. Not much point in restocking."

  Wallace slathered the burger with mustard and Texas Pete hot sauce. He took a bite and remembered why he had left the generic chains near the highway. "This is great."

  "You're a long way from home, ain't you?" Ray asked.

  "I'm from Florida." Ray took another sip of beer. "Good day's drive to Miami."

  "How'd you know I was from Miami?"

  "You must have told me, sir." Ray pointed to the TV. "There's going to be a delay."

  Wallace glanced at the ticking countdown clock. "Everything looks on schedule." Ray grinned. "Wait a second."

  A commentator replaced the picture of the rapidly approaching surface of Mars. "The computers are out of sync, but Mission Control promises they'll fix the problem in ten or fifteen minutes. We—"

  Ray picked up the remote and muted the sound. "The landing will be fine."

  "How do you know?"

  "The same way I know your fund raising trip went well." Had he told Ray about that? God, he was tired. "Nobody's interested in my company."

  Ray finished the beer and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "That venture capitalist in Macon wants to invest. He'll call tonight."

  "Are you watching me?"

  "We're watching this time in history. Tomorrow we return to our time." The Georgia accent was gone. He poured another Stroh's and pushed it to Wallace. "On the house."

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "I'm saying too much, but I don't drink usually. And there's something I have to tell you in a minute." He smiled. "What do you think of the Mars landing?"

  Wallace squinted. Was the man crazy? Maybe he was just drunk. "You don't want to know."

  "Sure I do."

  Wallace rolled his eyes. "It came in billions over budget. We should have a base on Mars by now. We should have friggin' FTL drive. And why is space travel still a national project? We need to work with India, Japan, China, Brazil. Don't get me started."

  "Don't worry," Ray said. "Your little startup will fix that faster than light problem, but I got to tell you something. Helium 3 is a dead end. It's inefficient and too expensive to mine."

  Wallace sighed. "Then what do you suggest?"

  "Water. And fission. There's plenty of water." He scrawled something on a napkin and handed it to Wallace.

  Wallace stared at figures and symbols. "That'll really work?"

  "Yes, sir. You'll be exploring places you never imagined."

  "Where?"

  "The planet hasn't been found yet." Ray poured another beer... "And you'll discover something else when you're tinkering with that drive."

  Wallace's mobile phone rang. He recognized the number of the Macon investor.

  "What?" he asked Ray.

  Ray raised his drink in a toast. "Time travel."

  * * *

  SOLOMON'S LITTLE SISTER

  Jay O'Connell | 3921 words

  Jay O'Connell tells us that "Solomon's Little Sister" began with an attempt by the middle-aged author to compete with his tweenage sons on the Xbox 360, culminating in several completed Halo campaigns and a disturbing quantity of on-line multiplayer. "Could the video game be a metaphor for the post-singularity world? Assuming any humans stay human, Solomonic wisdom will remain a precious commodity... though it is available, as always, at www.jayoconnell.com. "

  "Your sister is at the door," House said.

  "How does she look?"

  "Upset."

  Of course. "Let her in."

  Jean was in character, wearing the Sixties—the late Sixties; tie-dyed T-shirt, a faded denim miniskirt, beat-up moccasins, the works. Her pale green eyes skewered me through round, wire-rimmed lenses. She flipped a yard of dirty blonde hair back over one shoulder, hands on her hips.

  "I left Peter," she said.

  Peter had been a good friend of mine before he'd married my sister, back in the Before. We'd become brothers-in-law and somehow stopped being friends. Still, he'd called me, looking for his wife.

  "He was two-timing me. Did you know?" She narrowed her eyes.


  "Of course not," I lied.

  I carried her backpack into the family room. It was an absurdly large thing topped with a paisley sleeping roll. It didn't weigh nearly enough. Null-grav in the aluminum tube frame?

  Jean flung herself into the leather couch across from the fireplace. She frowned at my video-wall.

  "What the hell are you watching?" The show had frozen when I answered the door; on screen, a cute woman in a nun's habit was superimposed, badly, on a clear blue sky.

  I winced. "Old program from the Before . The Flying Nun. One of my clients loves old TV . My Mother the Car. My Favorite Martian. Hogan's Heroes. "

  "I sort of remember that one."

  "A comedy set in a Nazi concentration camp."

  "Ugh." She took a good look around then, the beat-up, period furniture, the static prints on the walls, the light slowly dawning in her eyes. She stared up at a pair of Klee drawings on either side of the fireplace— The Poet and His Wife. "This is the house we grew up in."

  I nodded. She'd never visited.

  "What's it like living here alone?"

  "Wonderful."

  She shook her head. That was enough about me.

  "Aren't you curious?" she said. "About Peter?"

  "I thought you guys were doing Woodstock together." I wondered how many Woodstocks she'd done. "I didn't think people were monogamous at Woodstock?"

  "Of course we aren't! It's an acid mud orgy!"

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "Two timing. He's living parallel so he can be with Monica, and me, at the same time."

  I'd guessed something like this. My conversations with Peter had been strangely out of sync over the last few years. Parallelism isn't popular among the working class. The surcharges were prohibitive. Leasing two bodies cost ten times more than leasing one. Leasing three, one hundred. The Zeitgeist enjoyed diversity, to a degree. Thank God.

  Monica had been Jean's maid of honor. It had always been complicated with the three of them.

  The doorbell rang.

  "I don't want to see him. Ever." The tone of voice was familiar. She meant it.

  "I'll tell him to go home."

  They could sort this out later. Somewhere else.

  Peter looked exhausted. Hands in the pockets of his jeans. The tattered leather bomber jacket, a recreation of one he'd worn in college. He managed his trademark half smile.

  "She's here, isn't she?" he asked.

  "Go home, Peter."

  "I need to see her."

  I felt Jean behind me. I turned.

  She clutched my butcher's knife in one small white-knuckled hand.

  I sighed as she shoved past me.

  Peter didn't even take his hands out of his pockets.

  "Oh, come on," he managed. He looked down at the knife handle protruding from his tie-dyed T-shirt. The blade was buried somewhere in or near his heart. Crimson bloomed, erasing the shirt's cheerful, chaotic pattern.

  "Very immature," he murmured. The color drained from his face.

  "Fuck you, Peter." Jean said. She twisted the knife, which sent a jet of blood splattering across her face and chest.

  He fell to his knees, his eyes rolling back in his head. I lowered him to the ground. I checked his pulse. He was gone. I pulled the knife from his chest, grating against bone. I'd have to get a new one. Or erase these memories.

  We went back to the living room. I set the dripping knife on a magazine on the coffee table. Jean was crying. She was an ugly crier. Snot, red eyes, everything.

  I sat on a footrest and took her hands in mine. "It's over," I said. I hoped it was.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  "I'll make tea." Tea was my answer to this kind of thing. It took a few minutes to make. It was harmless. I wouldn't have to watch her cry, which frankly was painful. Appropriate for the mid-morning. Tea it was.

  "Chamomile?"

  She nodded.

  I left her in the living room, washed the blood off my hands, filled a kettle with water from the tap and set it on the burner. It took a minute or so for the water to boil and the kettle to sing. I usually enjoyed that wasted, nothing minute.

  House whispered in my ear this time.

  "It's Peter. Again."

  House had the good sense not to chime out loud this time. I didn't enjoy driving, or cities, so I'd picked a suburban place close to a spawn point, a small subdivision straight out of the late seventies, split level ranch houses with aluminum siding. I'd had mine built at the end of a cul-de-sac in the rolling hills of what had been central New York, in the Before.

  While I was trying to figure out what to say to Peter in private message there was a pounding at the door. I turned off the burner.

  "I'll get it," I hurried from the kitchen and opened the door halfway.

  Peter stood looking down at his body, frowning.

  "I need to talk to her," he said.

  "Later. That one didn't get more than a sentence out."

  "I have to try," he said. He looked miserable. More miserable than the body at his feet.

  I turned to see Jean standing behind me again. This time she had a cleaver. She slipped by me.

  I'm not a big fan of graphic violence. I try to avoid it when I can. I took a step back as she swung the cleaver in a gleaming arc at Peter's neck. I closed my eyes.

  Unpleasant sounds. Gurgling. Splashing. A falling body.

  "Leave me alone!" Jean sobbed.

  I opened my eyes. The porch was a mess, Peter's second body slumped over his first.

  "You have to say that before you kill him," I said gently. "Remote backups aren't that fast or that granular. You'll have to talk to him. Let it sink in. Give him a minute, let the memory sync. Then you can kill him. Otherwise he's going to keep coming."

  Jean shook her head. "The bodies. He can see the bodies."

  She had a point. He would see the bodies.

  I sighed. "Do you want to talk? I can listen. It's my job."

  "I'm not your client!" she sneered. "I'm not a toady. I'm an actress."

  "You're an extra!" I snapped. "You're window dressing!"

  I took a breath. It was a stupid time to have this argument. We'd each been given a number of choices upon revival. We didn't like the choices the other had made. We'd never liked each other's choices.

  "I'm going to go do some work. Let me know if you want to talk. About anything."

  I went back to the sofa and resumed The Flying Nun, trying to understand what the hell had possessed a bunch of grown-ups to make such a thing. It wasn't easy. Sometimes, I wished my client were a little more neurotypical.

  A Shareholder, Gharlane was the only person I knew that had never been archived; his consciousness was continuous with the Before. The Zeitgeist had decided, as it had evolved during the Nanocalpyse, that people in debt must not be worth much. It had archived them as stable, but inactive, data structures, rather than let them continue to waste system resources.

  Thank God, in the words of Richard Feynman, there was Plenty of Room at the Bottom, in which we could be cheaply stored.

  Back when we bought computers, when they were like appliances instead of dissolved in our bloodstreams, remember how you never got around to throwing any of your old files away? How each new disk swallowed the older disk whole, with plenty of room to spare?

  Gharlane had brought me back. My work for him, as a professional Friend, had resurrected our circle of deadbeats, Jean and Peter included.

  I didn't appreciate Jean biting the hand that had resurrected her. But she'd always been like that. Dissatisfied with birthday and Christmas gifts. Angry at the state school Mom and Dad could afford to send us to, back in the day. Furious at every "modeling" gig that turned out to be handing out snack food samples in front of subway stations. The world owed her something, and it never, ever delivered.

  The doorbell rang about every fifteen minutes. Sometimes he got in a sentence or two, shouted, but it always ended abruptly. This was costing a fort
une. I didn't know how much extras made, but if Jean's constant demands for loans were any indication it wasn't much.

  Each of those bodies cost somewhere around ten thousand dollars. Ten hours of Friendship if I ended up footing the bill. Ten hours of The Flying Nun. My Mother the Car. Hogan's Heroes. Kamen Rider. Thunderbirds. Flipper. The Star Wars Christmas Special.

  At some point, he'd max out his credit and stop coming. Archived, until someone paid his way out of dead storage.

  Around noon, I tried to put an end to it.

  I gently pulled the bloody cleaver from her hand as she gazed down at her latest victim. There were somewhere between twenty and thirty bodies scattered over my front lawn. She was streaked with dried blood. She'd washed her face and glasses a few times, but hadn't changed or showered. Her hair hung in long bloody dreads.

  "Come on, Carrie. Get yourself cleaned up. I'll kill him for you, this time."

  She looked up at me, biting her lip. "You'd do that for me?"

  "Sure," I lied.

  I waited for Peter to show up while she showered. I didn't know what I was going to say. Gharlane called, and I told him I was having a family crisis. He gave me that look, the fake sympathy look, said the right things. Gharlane emulated most of his humanity, what they used to call Asperger's autism, back in the Before. A few dozen like him had brokered the Compact with the Zeitgeist after the nanocalapyse. Human beings smart enough for the Zeitgeist to consider equals, and wealthy enough for them to negotiate with.

  The Zeitgeist was big on intellectual property rights.

  Jean and I sat together at the kitchen table. Doesn't matter how nice your living room is, your family room, your dining room, everyone always sits around the kitchen table. Jean had ditched the sixties and was wearing khakis and a T-shirt from her backpack. An absurdly happy bunny leered from the T-shirt with the words "It's all about me," above in neon pink type.

  I sipped my tea. Oolong.

  "Okay. So Peter was cheating on you with Monica?"

  "In spirit. They swapped memory cores." Jean said.

  "Oh," I winced. Not good.

  "Look, I don't want to set you off, but how is that worse than porn? Or morn, I mean." Morn, morph porn, which had been big, before the Discontinuity. In that last year, social media feeds were littered with explicit ads starring you and whatever celebrity or historical figure your filter thought would amuse you. Friends told me they'd seen themselves bonking Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Gandhi, Einstein. Nobody ever admitted clicking on the things, but they were making money. Somebody must have bought it.