Interzone #244 Jan - Feb 2013 (4 page)

That crude laughter again and then, as if by some unspoken agreement, or command, the crowd began, slowly, to disperse.

Achimwene found that his heart was beating fast; that his palms sweated; that his eyes developed a sudden itch. He felt like sneezing. The girl, slowly, floated over to him. They were of the same height. She looked into his eyes. Her eyes were a deep clear blue, vat-grown. They regarded each other as the rest of the mob dispersed. Soon they were left alone, in that quiet street, with Achimwene’s back to the door of his shop.

She regarded him quizzically; her lips moved without sound, her eyes flicked up and down, scanning him. She looked confused, then shocked. She took a step back.

“No, wait!” he said.

“You are…you are not…”

He realised she had been trying to communicate with him. His silence had baffled her. Repelled her, most likely. He was a cripple. He said, “I have no node.”

“How is that…possible?”

He laughed, though there was no humour in it. “It is not that unusual, here, on Earth,” he said.

“You know I am not – ” she said, and hesitated, and he said, “From here? I guessed. You are from Mars?”

A smile twisted her lips, for just a moment. “The asteroids,” she admitted.

“What is it like, in space?” Excitement animated him. She shrugged. “Olsem difren,” she said, in the pidgin of the asteroids.

The same, but different.

They stared at each other, two strangers, her vat-grown eyes against his natural-birth ones. “My name is Achimwene,” he said.

“Oh.”

“And you are?”

That same half-smile twisting her lips. He could tell she was bewildered by him. Repelled. Something inside him fluttered, like a caged bird dying of lack of oxygen.

“Carmel,” she said, softly. “My name is Carmel.”

He nodded. The bird was free, it was beating its wings inside him. “Would you like to come in?” he said. He gestured at his shop. The door, still standing half open.

Decisions splitting quantum universes… She bit her lip. There was no blood. He noticed her canines, then. Long and sharp. Unease took him again. Truth in the old stories? A Shambleau? Here?

“A cup of tea?” he said, desperately.

She nodded, distractedly. She was still trying to speak to him, he realised. She could not understand why he wasn’t replying.

“I am un-noded,” he said again. Shrugged. “It is – ”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I would like to come in. For…tea.” She stepped closer to him. He could not read the look in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, in her soft voice, that strange accent. “For…you know.”

“Yes.” He grinned, suddenly, feeling bold, almost invincible. “It’s nothing.”

“Not…nothing.” Her hand touched his shoulder, briefly, a light touch. Then she had gone past him and disappeared through the half-open door.

* *

The shelves inside were arranged by genre.

Romance.

Mystery.

Detection.

Adventure.

And so on.

* *

Life wasn’t like that neat classification system, Achimwene had come to realise. Life was half-completed plots abandoned, heroes dying half-way along their quests, loves requited and un-, some fading inexplicably, some burning short and bright. There was a story of a man who fell in love with a vampire…

* *

Carmel was fascinated by him, but increasingly distant. She did not understand him. He had no taste to him, nothing she could sink her teeth into. Her fangs. She was a predator, she needed
feed
, and Achimwene could not provide it to her.

That first time, when she had come into his shop, had run her fingers along the spines of ancient books, fascinated, shy: “We had books, on the asteroid,” she admitted, embarrassed, it seemed, by the confession of a shared history. “On Nungai Merurun, we had a library of physical books, they had come in one of the ships, once, a great-uncle traded something for them–” leaving Achimwene with dreams of going into space, of visiting this Ng. Merurun, discovering a priceless treasure hidden away.

Lamely, he had offered her tea. He brewed it on the small primus stove, in a dented saucepan, with fresh mint leaves in the water. Stirred sugar into the glasses. She had looked at the tea in incomprehension, concentrating. It was only later he realised she was trying to communicate with him again.

She frowned, shook her head. She was shaking a little, he realised. “Please,” he said. “Drink.”

“I don’t,” she said. “You’re not.” She gave up.

Achimwene often wondered what the Conversation was like. He knew that, wherever he passed, nearly anything he saw or touched was noded. Humans, yes, but also plants, robots, appliances, walls, solar panels – nearly everything was connected, in an ever-expanding, organically growing Aristocratic Small World network, that spread out, across Central Station, across Tel Aviv and Jaffa, across the interwoven entity that was Palestine/Israel, across that region called the Middle East, across Earth, across trans-solar space and beyond, where the lone Spiders sang to each other as they built more nodes and hubs, expanded farther and farther their intricate web. He knew a human was surrounded, every living moment, by the constant hum of other humans, other minds, an endless conversation going on in ways Achimwene could not conceive of. His own life was silent. He was a node of one. He moved his lips. Voice came. That was all. He said, “You are strigoi.”

“Yes.” Her lips twisted in that half-smile. “I am a monster.”

“Don’t say that.” His heart beat fast. He said, “You’re beautiful.”

Her smile disappeared. She came closer to him, the tea forgotten. She leaned into him. Put her lips against his skin, against his neck, he felt her breath, the lightness of her lips on his hot skin. Sudden pain bit into him. She had fastened her lips over the wound, her teeth piercing his skin. He sighed. “Nothing!” she said. She pulled away from him abruptly. “It is like… I don’t know!” She shook. He realised she was frightened. He touched the wound on his neck. He had felt nothing. “Always, to buy love, to buy obedience, to buy worship, I must feed,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I drain them of their precious data, bleed them for it, and pay them in dopamine, in ecstasy. But you have no storage, no broadcast, no firewall…
there is nothing there
. You are like a simulacra,” she said. The word pleased her. “A
simulacra
,” she repeated, softly. “You have the appearance of a man but there is nothing behind your eyes. You do not broadcast.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Achimwene said, anger flaring, suddenly. “I speak. You can hear me. I have a mind. I can express my – ”

But she was only shaking her head, and shivering. “I’m hungry,” she said. “I need to feed.”

* *

There were willing victims in Central Station. The bite of a strigoi gave pleasure. More – it conferred status on the victim, bragging rights. There had never been strigoi on Earth. It made Achimwene nervous.

He found himself living in one of his old books. He was the one to arrange Carmel’s feeding, select her victims, who paid for the privilege. Achimwene, to his horror, discovered he had become a middleman. The bag man.

There was something repulsive about it all, as well as a strange, shameful excitement. There was no sex: sex was not a part of it, although it could be. Carmel leeched knowledge – memories – stored sensations – anything – pure uncut data from her victims, her fangs fastening on their neck, injecting dopamine into their blood as her node broke their inadequate protections, smashed their firewalls and their security, and bled them dry.

“Where do you come from?” he once asked her, as they lay on his narrow bed, the window open and the heat making them sweat, and she told him of Ng. Merurun, the tiny asteroid where she grew up, and how she ran away, on board the
Emaciated Messiah
, where a Shambleau attacked her, and passed on the virus, or the sickness, whatever it was.

“And how did you come to be here?” he said, and sensed, almost before he spoke, her unease, her reluctance to answer. Jealousy flared in him then, and he could not say why.

* *

His sister came to visit him. She walked into the bookshop as he sat behind the desk, typing. He was writing less and less, now; his new life seemed to him a kind of novel.

“Achimwene,” she said.

He raised his head. “Miriam,” he said, heavily.

They did not get along.

“The girl, Carmel. She is with you?”

“I let her stay,” he said, carefully.

“Oh, Achimwene, you are a fool!” she said.

Her boy – their sister’s boy – Kranki – was with her. Achimwene regarded him uneasily. The boy was vat-grown – had come from the birthing clinics – his eyes were Armani-trademark blue. “Hey, Kranki,” Achimwene said.

“Anggkel,” the boy said –
uncle
, in the pidgin of the asteroids. “Yu olsem wanem?”

“I gud,” Achimwene said.

How are you? I am well.

“Fren blong mi Ismail I stap aotside,” Kranki said. “I stret hemi kam insaed?”

My friend Ismail is outside. Is it OK if he comes in?

“I stret,” Achimwene said.

Miriam blinked. “Ismail,” she said. “Where did you come from?”

Kranki had turned, appeared, to all intents and purposes, to play with an invisible playmate. Achimwene said, carefully, “There is no one there.”

“Of course there is,” his sister snapped. “It’s Ismail, the Jaffa boy.”

Achimwene shook his head.

“Listen, Achimwene. The girl. Do you know why she came here?”

“No.”

“She followed Boris.”

“Boris,” Achimwene said. “Your Boris?”

“My Boris,” she said.

“She knew him before?”

“She knew him on Mars. In Tong Yun City.”

“I…see.”

“You see nothing, Achi. You are blind like a worm.” Old words, still with the power to hurt him. They had never been close, somehow. He said, “What do you want, Miriam?”

Her face softened. “I do not want… I do not want her to hurt you.”

“I am a grown-up,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Achi, like you ever could!”

Could that be affection, in her voice? It sounded like frustration. Miriam said, “Is she here?”

“Kranki,” Achimwene said, “who are you playing with?”

“Ismail,” Kranki said, pausing in the middle of telling a story to someone only he could see.

“He’s not here,” Achimwene said.

“Sure he is. He’s right here.”

Achimwene formed his lips into an O of understanding. “Is he virtual?” he said.

Kranki shrugged. “I guess,” he said. He clearly felt uncomfortable with – or didn’t understand – the question. Achimwene let it go.

His sister said, “I like the girl, Achi.”

It took him by surprise. “You’ve met her?”

“She has a sickness. She needs help.”

“I
am
helping her!”

But his sister only shook her head.

“Go away, Miriam,” he said, feeling suddenly tired, depressed. His sister said, “Is she here?”

“She is resting.”

Above his shop there was a tiny flat, accessible by narrow, twisting stairs. It wasn’t much but it was home. “Carmel?” his sister called. “Carmel!”

There was a sound above, as of someone moving. Then a lack of sound. Achimwene watched his sister standing impassively. Realised she was talking, in the way of other people, with Carmel. Communicating in a way that was barred to him. Then normal sound again, feet on the stairs, and Carmel came into the room.

“Hi,” she said, awkwardly. She came and stood closer to Achimwene, then took his hand in hers. The feel of her small, cold fingers in between his hands startled him and made a feeling of pleasure spread throughout his body, like warmth in the blood. Nothing more was said. The physical action itself was an act of speaking.

Miriam nodded.

Then Kranki startled them all.

* *

Carmel had spent the previous night in the company of a woman. Achimwene had known there was sex involved, not just feeding. He had told himself he didn’t mind. When Carmel came back she had smelled of sweat and sex and blood. She moved lethargically, and he knew she was drunk on data. She had tried to describe it to him once, but he didn’t really understand it, what it was like.

He had lain there on the narrow bed with her and watched the moon outside, and the floating lanterns with their rudimentary intelligence. He had his arm around the sleeping Carmel, and he had never felt happier.

* *

Kranki turned and regarded Carmel. He whispered something to the air – to the place Ismail was standing, Achimwene guessed. He giggled at the reply and turned to Carmel.

“Are you a
vampire
?” he said.