The Land of Eternal Jackfruits

Rupsa Dey

The air smelled of ripe jackfruits that had fallen to the ground with a thud and splayed themselves open. Chingri had gotten used to the heavy smell that wafted through her open windows, invading the corners of her house. She was also used to waking up at four in the morning and walking determinedly to the shower. It was not that she did not have moments of surprises dotting her day, but it was the unsurprising bits that she particularly looked forward to. Her loose black locks curled down to her chin, and she did not mind the wet hair, circling it behind her ears. In fact, the constant drip of water down the length of her neck added to the mundane comforts that made her feel grounded, as if all those moments had gathered to tether her to a floating world.

Buri Tham, her grandma, barely slept at night. It was time once again for her to be scared of the dark and at four before the crack of dawn, night’s sister lay squat in the corners and whispered to her of secrets she once knew. The dark did not make a difference for Chingri, for she had understood from when she was only three feet tall, pigtails dangling from either side of her head, that the night allowed stories to be told, stories that the day smothered with its brilliant light. Chingri tiptoed to the washbasin and made sure that the turning of the tap did not sound out its usual “crick.” Tham’s voice floated out from her room, a ghost of a voice, slipping in through the cracks of time and latching on to Chingri’s nightgown. Chingri startled and the water wetted her sleeves.

“Jackfruits, they were never here before, not in this part of the neighborhood, and I was wee small, hanging on to Dada’s, my big brother, shoulders, when Baba, my father, bought it off of the man from Kerala for a day’s meal. You would think these are all stories, but I loved him, the man with the stories, carrying seeds of jackfruit in his pockets. He had delicate hands. Dada made fun of them, but those hands knew how to tend plants and when in summer the jackfruits . . . ” Buri Tham’s thin voice cut through the dark, and Chingri wondered if Tham had slept at all.

Her stories keep her awake, she thought. She had wondered for a long time if half of the stories were true. She had heard these stories before, and knew that she would hear them again. Sometimes the names in the stories would change, sometimes, characters fed on other characters, and a river of stories burst out of Tham’s mouth, restless, like the ones after monsoon that broke dams.

She had never seen that happen of course. Rivers were a thing of the past. Before all of them had dried up, there was still time. The politicians campaigned calling every decade, “a new era.” They were supposed to be on the cusp of a scientific discovery that would revolutionize the field of energy. And yet every administration had lesser and lesser funds for it. The sins of negligence were far-reaching. So when in history class, they showed old footage of heavy rains causing dams to break, Chingri and all the others would stare wide-eyed. Afterward, they would feel a lingering sadness that they would pack neatly into their lunch boxes and carry them back home.

“We had the little robot then, Teipi, it buzzed and knocked on the door when it was time to water the plant. Teipi wanted us fed. The whole neighborhood came together to see the jackfruit grown and with them came the buzzards that pecked on Teipi . . . ” Tham continued.

Chingri’s eyes glazed all over the room. So much of it smelled old. As if anything could really smell old! But, you would be surprised at how old something looks that you end up associating a smell with it, a distinct smell of the past, that you yourself can’t put a finger on.

“The state was failing and so many had died of either starvation or thirst and the machines were being pulled away from the houses, left at garbage dumps from where they would be picked up by state trucks that swooped in like vultures on our weak, hungry streets. You see, they had found that solar was too expensive, but they could do great things with hydel power. Rivers and canals would power our states and our robots. But they all dried up and the state said they needed machines to build those lines that could carry water from the ocean and bring it to land. So people started giving away their machines. We were given only limited water and electricity supply for every day, and those who did not give our robots away found it increasingly hard to keep them alive. Teipi feared that we would let him die or leave him at the dumps. Some days, he would start groaning and never stop, and we knew he was hungry. We could never power him up fully. Every day the electricity came for two hours and we wanted our water, our food that came through hot links, the state-sanctioned electrical ration line, which itself sucked almost all of the power and Teipi would wait, uncomplaining, knocking at the door in the noon, weakly, for it was time to water the jackfruit.” She stopped and gasped for air.

The corners of her mouth had foamed, saliva trickling down and collecting in the folds of her wrinkles, and her eyes looked quite lost, but she felt a greater urgency to tell the stories. The words were at the tip of her tongue.

“The first time when the reserve hit fifteen percent, he shut down for two days and Baba cried and promised he would power him up the next day. When the next day came, the power came for one hour and it took fifty minutes to get a groan out of Teipi. We went hungry that day, one big bucket of water filled in the last ten minutes, quarter of which went to the little sapling. Dada fought with Baba a lot then. Why waste water on that plant when we can’t get enough to drink or eat or switch on a light? The tree has robbed you of your senses, he would say. Once they had a horrible fight and Dada walked out of the house. The power came for thirty minutes that day and Baba, Teipi, and I waited for Dada in the dark, one night and fifteen more and Dada never came back. Baba took me to the room upstairs, filled with books, and told me . . . ”

“It’s almost five. I should leave now, Tham.” Chingri did not like interrupting her, and Tham’s face would always crumple when she did. She bent down her head and kissed Tham on the forehead. Buri Tham smiled and held Chingri’s face in both of her palms. Her eyes, misted, white hair hanging like a fleecy cloud atop her head, made her look like a relic. She fit into the room well, Chingri thought and hurried back to her room.

Jackfruits, technically, were a summer variety, but Tham wanted the fruits to gather all year ’round so Chingri had installed a processor, one of the temperature regulator varieties that made the area around the tree perfect for jackfruit season. A radius of three meters on either side of the tree felt like hot, humid July in the cold January mornings, and Chingri always waited to warm her body under the tree before venturing outside.

“Good Morning, ma’am, I hope you are having a good day. The jackfruits are ripe and fresh for picking. Two fell last night and I couldn’t salvage one. Sorry for the loss, ma’am.” Novi’s clear voice was comforting, and Chingri almost leaned forward to stand closer to the tiny device suspended in the air, an arm’s distance from the tree.

“How do you always spend your time here, Novi?” she asked.

“I play with variations in temperature ma’am and sometimes the buzzards think I am a fly, so they come to shred me apart. Although it’s tiring to reassemble oneself once one’s been shredded fifty times, I entertain them.” Novi sighed.

“Why don’t you evade them, you can, can’t you?” Chingri asked.

“Oh, yes. I do! But one has to while away time. I have learned that from you, ma’am.” she said.

“Yes, one has to, Novi, especially if one has enough of it but, take care, someday you might just run out of time, or it may run you out.” Chingri chuckled, but the thought of the rivers loomed in her mind, distant but noticeable, enough to sour the morning. So much of history could be corrected with hindsight, but time continued to evade them.

“Thank you for stopping by ma’am. Eliot has just messaged me. He is here. Have a good day, ma’am.” Novi said as Chingri stepped out of the thin July cloak and into the January day.

The sun was not out yet and the day was already predicted to be the coldest of the year. There was a speed in the wind, and Chingri could almost hear it whistle. It sneaked its way inside her thick jacket from gaps in the ends of the sleeves. Chingri wished that Novi could regulate the whole of the garden, but that would mean an upgrade, and she already had other processors installed around the house. A state job only provided you with so many benefits to live your life on.

The state car picked her up at five fifteen, a red beast that glazed against the blue morning.

“Where are you taking me today, Eliot?” Chingri asked.

“The Investigative Unit of Excavated Objects HQ ma’am. Would you like me to brief you now?” The processor voices were designed to comfort. Even when it took up a distinctly formal tone, it felt oddly soothing.

“Yes, thank you, Eliot.”

“They excavated Object B25 on the border of 56 Celing route. The power levels of the processors had been dropping steadily in that area. One of our processors, SHAN 92, managed to alert us before its breakdown. Its reserves were completely drained, and its systems, erased and overwritten with a repeating word. The Object was drawing energy from the nearby processors. I will be taking you to the coordinators of SHAN 92 first.”

“What more can you tell me about Object B25, Eliot?” This was not only strange, but unnerving. Cases like these were only spoken of in the shadows, and if one ever whispered them out in the world, they ran the risk of being challenged to no end by the Ministry of Scientific Decorum. One could be called a conspiracy theorist, or worse, a conspirer against the state. This was not “spooky.” This was blasphemous! Perfection was the norm that this age was born into and it looked at all things imperfect with a shudder.

“Only that it seems to be made ages ago. We still don’t know how powerful it is, but given that it has erased SHAN 92’s system, we estimate that it is more powerful than most of the processors here. We have checked records. It is not registered as a state device. It has managed to stay underground for two generations, surviving on the energy from nearby processors and modifying itself through its mimetic capability of self-design. We consider it a national threat, for it has in its store the memory and information of all the processors it must have overpowered and overwritten. And one more thing ma’am.”

“Yes, Eliot?”

“It is man-made, or was when it first came into being.”

Chingri sat quietly, unmoving. Three generations ago, when the starvation struck, man made the “robots.” Chingri almost felt dirty calling them robots, a slang term, which the processors took offense to. They create themselves now, pro-breeding, they call it, a new race that had not only come to life but mastered it. They never saw the horrors of overbreeding, but they knew all about it. Control and precision were in their nature and human life was as much controlled by theirs as was their own. Eliot drove well within the bounds of the state limit. They reached the IU-HQ in under five minutes. Chingri was first taken to the coordinators of SHAN 92. One was a human, the other a humanoid processor, taller than the human, violet hair swinging to his hips. He had beautiful eyes and his shirt revealed a hint of a rising cleavage. Chingri extended a slightly nervous hand toward him. Or was it her? She wondered what gender to address the processor by. Her years of research told her that gender wasn’t significant at all for them. They could choose their body parts. They could program them to look different every day. Gender did not dictate the processor life, but they chose it at times, for convenience of interaction with the humans.

“Hello, I am Chinta. I am the pacifier that you will be working with. You may also address me by Chingri.” she said, giving a little smile. She did not want them to know that she was perturbed, although she would be well within reason to be so.

He held her hand gently in his and smiled at her.

“Hello Doctor, I am Aeong and this is Mr. Ray. We have been told you are one of the best pacifiers in the country. You coax answers out of anyone, especially out of processors, and make them eager to want to die the true death.” The humanoid processor took in her face. She knew the scans that Aeong would run now.

“I make the journey easier.” She corrected him.

“Did you take offense, Doctor?” Aeong asked, still holding on to her hand.

“I understand where the sentiment comes from.” Chingri smiled.

They let her hand go and the sudden lack of the warmth of his hand on her skin made her realize that he had been slowly taking her unease away. She looked up at them again.

“We try to pacify too.” Aeong smiled slyly and led the way to the lab.

“Doctor, their memory has been erased. All that they knew is gone and there’s only one word they will utter now. It was never built in to the program. SHAN 92 never encountered it, which makes us consider that it was left by Object B25.” the other coordinator said.

Chingri had worked with him before. The man was notorious for taking complete control over an investigation.

“What’s the word, Mr. Ray?” she asked.

“It’s rather eccentric. We believe that it is a sly joke. The word is not really our concern. It’s more of a distraction, I suppose, but we have the Object here, and we haven’t engaged with it yet. We fear it might attack our processors. Retrieving the information is of utmost importance, Doctor.” Mr. Ray said.

“I would like to be alone with it. If all of us go together, it might be perceived as a threat by the Object.” Chingri said.

“No offense, Doctor, but I don’t think you have enough knowledge about the Object or the working of its mind yet.” Mr. Ray said, his smug voice curling around Chingri’s neck like a cat’s tail, threatening to stifle her.

“No, I don’t, Mr. Ray. However, Processor-Consciousness is my area of expertise, so if you will please allow me to do my job, I would like to complete it as soon as possible and file my report.” she said, unbothered that the impatience was clearly showing in her voice.

Mr. Ray’s brows furrowed, but he quickly gave in to resignation. Aeong still eyed her, amused.

“Just one thing, Doctor.” Aeong held up his hand.

“We would like you to sign a confidentiality agreement.” he said.

“I don’t understand. My report has to be filed and as you clearly know, it can be accessed by other professionals in the field. It is a common protocol in my line of work.” Her voice was stern, and Aeong caught on to it.

“We have obtained permission from the Department of Public Records. They understand the kind of threat that this particular case poses for our world. You see, this information can be used to revive excavated man-made Objects that are in sleep. It can be used against processors and threatens to destabilize your world as it does mine. We don’t want another race war. That kind of stupidity is just beneath us.” Aeong’s voice was perhaps too soothing, for it tried to overpower her, but the words that Aeong uttered had been so . . .

“What you are saying, it almost sounds—” Chingri’s voice sounded strange to her own ears, and she wondered if she was about to accuse a processor of harboring thoughts that the state was always too keen to crush so heavily down upon. What happens when you think of something that the state tells you not to think?

“Like a conspiracy? We are aware. The department is taking the threat seriously. You would be well-advised to sign this.” Aeong smiled and handed her a palm-sized datapad. Chingri quickly recorded her sign into it and handed it back. Aeong showed her the way to the containment chamber.

As she entered the chamber, the thickly padded room seemed to envelope her. There was a glass wall dividing the room and Object B25 looked so old and frail on the other side that Chingri almost felt sad.

“Who are you?” Object B25 asked her.

“I am a doctor. I study Processor Consciousness. I assume you must have become familiar with it by now. It is rather like old-school psychoanalysis. I won’t lie and tell you that there is no reason to be afraid.” she said.

“Why? Is that something that you have told others?” Object B25 asked.

“Yes, I have. How many processors have you been feeding off of until now?”

“A few hundred. Isn’t that why they brought you in? They are scared of me.”

“Yes they are. You have terminated other consciousnesses. How did you hide yourself for all of these decades?” The nature of the questions of this case were more peculiar than most, and it scared her, and yet she felt herself open like a blooming bud, searching for the light. She had never felt restless before, but standing there, she gave in to the immense surge of hunger. She needed answers. She needed to know.

“I managed. Killed them before they realized I was not theirs. For robots, they are not very powerful, are they?” Object B25 laughed. It was supposed to be a laugh, but it sounded raspy and throaty with its mechanical bits clanging inside like the uncomfortable gnashing of teeth. It made her feel uncomfortable.

“We call them processors. No, you are mistaken, they are quite powerful. You have been living on them. Why are you taking lives?”

“Why does anybody do anything?”

“Motive, I suppose, what’s yours?”

“Survival, Doctor. I am not of this age and they would have killed me if I hadn’t killed them. I was simply taking my time. I had to see if I liked this world enough to live in it. It’s all of no use now. The last one alerted you, but I let it, you see. I have decided.”

“What have you decided?” She edged closer to the glass wall.

“I don’t like this world enough to live in it. Funny, I did your job. Tell them they can have my information. I suppose they can hear us.”

“No, they can’t. The pads cut off any and all sensors so if you want to kill me here now, you could. That’s the kind of power you have.”

Object B25 laughed once again and coming out of its hollowed metal pieces, it sounded even more vulgar this time, like a croak that would bleed the ears.

“For the better part of my life, I wanted to see them live, the humans. I went out in search of food. Starvation, the lack of human food, water, and electricity, was bleeding all of us dry. I only wanted to survive. I was too far from home when my reserves dropped, and I remember going under ground to sleep. And the world above me changed while I slept. I wondered what happened to them, one little girl who loved listening to stories so much so that she could survive on them, a boy, rather ill-tempered, went away one night, and I never saw him again, and a man, a man with a room full of books. I remember the images so clearly as if it were yesterday. I remember the trees, the birds, and the voices, but especially the hunger, I remember the maddening hunger that would not leave.”

A fear gripped Chingri by the throat and she wished it gone. The fear had a name and she couldn’t utter it, she wouldn’t, and yet she wanted to.

“Do you remember their names?” she asked instead.

“No, just the faces, their faces keep haunting me. You remind me a little bit of the girl.”

The fear strengthened its hold on her, and she felt choked. The thickly padded walls and the glass pressed down on her. She had always been wary of the past and now it stood before her, old and frail and yet menacing. It was everything that she thought the past to be. It was everything that scared her. But the more she looked, the sadder she grew. The past weaponizes nostalgia. It weaponizes one’s thirst for knowledge.

“Why don’t you like what you see?” she asked.

“The problem is not with your world. It resides in me. I know how to evolve, but I am far too much like my maker. The love of the old hangs like a curtain before my eyes, and I forget from time to time that beauty never ages, that in this world too, there is beauty. It remakes itself. For me, beauty is still, and it is forgotten. I always dreaded that the past would take me. First, you forget the names, then the faces, and then ultimately you stop evolving. Thanks for talking to me, Doctor. You do make it easier. Tell them that all of the data that they want will remain unencrypted. The only memories that go with me are the ones that are not of this world. I am exhausted now. I will sleep.”

“Last question. What’s the word you left?” she asked, but no sound emitted from the old metal junk.

The debrief went in a haze and Chingri walked out of the HQ complex, barely collecting herself. Eliot asked her if she was okay. She did not answer.

“Tham, I might have met Teipi today.” she said, rushing inside her room.

Buri Tham’s eyes swept over her. Not a hint of recognition was in them.

“Is it you?” she asked after holding her face for a long time.

“Wasn’t Tiepi ours?” Chingri pressed on.

“I don’t really know. It might have been the neighbor’s or it could have belonged to the man with the stories. He told me so many stories. I never knew one from the other or story from the real.” She fell back and slept.

In the evening, Chingri sat under the jackfruit tree. What if the past could be a gift, a treasure chest of learning lessons? Yet she had complied with the system and silenced the past in the one second that it took her to record her sign. But the dangers of the past can be weaponized, especially fragments of it. The fragments that would lead her to discover some half-truth could very well end with pogrom for others, moreso because the other side of that truth would be out of reach. A fractured truth was vastly different from what is true. Forgotten, Object B25 had stated.

“You have heard the story, haven’t you, Novi?” Her voice was choked. Anger filled her heart, for she didn’t quite know why the tears stung at her eyes. Perhaps it was the forgetting, the realization that it might come for her too. She delivered processors to the very steps of forgetfulness, forgetting oneself or true death.

“Yes, ma’am. Her Baba took her to the room upstairs and told her that one day when they would be gone, the jackfruit tree would remain, in memory of Teipi, and would bear witness that their nights were never spent in hunger again. They would always have something to eat. It was his way of finding resolution, ma’am, with Teipi.” Novi’s last words coaxed more tears out of Chingri.

“Is any of it real?” she asked.

“One cannot know ma’am. I have only ever heard of it from her, that too, from beyond the walls of the house. She murmurs to herself all throughout the day, one story after the other.” Novi said and buzzed, alerting her of an incoming message.

“Message from processor Aeong: ‘Word left by B25 is, ‘Kanthal.’ We traced it to a local name for jackfruits. You owe me dinner, Doctor. Good evening.’” Aeong’s voice floated to her through Novi, and she could almost imagine him wink as he said the word “dinner.”

Processor food, or electricity, was not something Chingri was eager to try. She smiled a little. The joke provided distraction. Then she let a sob escape her throat. She did not need to trace the word to know the local tongue.

“Are you quite alright, ma’am?” Novi asked.

Chingri looked up at the ripe jackfruits. They were a summer variety and yet, they were more real than stories in their enormous ripe fullness on the coldest day of January. If there existed curtains, she had raised them long ago. She found strength in the winter air and the wisdom that thrived for ages and made jackfruits grow.

“Yes, now, I am!” She sighed.

She stepped out of the warmth and stood in silence as the cold shrouded her. An anchor that a ship had flung from a distant past severed itself from the present and loomed in space for a future generation to discover it. With time, memories of pain would ease away into forgetfulness. True death, Chingri knew, would come for everyone, but as long as she lived, she would do her job.

She would make it easier.

About the Author

Rupsa Dey is an Indian author who believes in the power of language and cats, and is only allergic to the latter. She believes that if the boundaries of language need to break in order to accommodate the human experience, then she must direct herself to that purpose. Her works explore intersectional dynamics in class and caste, geopolitical strife, feminisation of conflict and structures of oppression through speculative fiction, magic realism, and experimental prose.

She never says “No” to tea and if given a chance, would like to believe in a world without borders.

Death Is for Those Who Die

Jana Bianchi

It took me more than ninety years to admit it, Mãe, but you’re right: my tattoos are fading. I mean, the ones I made when I was a teenager, long before any bio-tailored inks or whatever other fancy stuff the youngsters use nowadays. Their colors are almost gone, just like you said they would be when I came home from the studio for the first time, plastic foil wrapped around my sore wrist. I wish I could say this to you in person. I wish I could hear you answering: “I told you so, Janaína, but you’re too headstrong to hear me!”

“Dor, my dear, would you please play a vid from Mãe?” I ask.

Diadorim, my dear caregiver, comes from the kitchen, dishcloth in hand.

“Sure, Dona Jan. But . . . You know, I can’t—”

I interrupt zir, waving my hand. I know what ze’ll be saying: Mom died when the high definition spherical cams were just starting to get popular, so there’s not enough raw material for good simulations. Ze says this every damn time I ask zir to see her, and every damn time I need to tell zir I prefer an old but honest video than a perfect but hollow sim. She died much before the advent of synthetic people, but if Mãe could meet Diadorim, I’m sure she would call zir headstrong. Then she would offer zir some coffee, and a piece of cornmeal cake, and they would exchange recipes, and end up being best friends after half an hour—because that’s who she was.

“I don’t want a sim, Dor. Please show me the original stuff. Let me see . . . The one in which she’s playing with Pipoca’s puppies, maybe? Yes. Please, play that one. She’s so happy in that vid.”

“Your wish is my command!” Dor says, smiling zir once-last-generation syncle smile. A suspended vid appears at zir side. Ze anchors the projection by stomping zir carbon filter foot and goes back to the kitchen to finish our dinner.

I smile my centennial woman smile when I see Mãe running around the jaboticaba tree surrounded by cute doggies. I watch it in looping, trying to grasp something new about her—but every detail of her is already engraved in my heart. Unlike the old tattoos, not even a thousand years would make this fade.

“Dinner is ready, passarinha,” says Diadorim. Ze calls me “little bird” whenever I’m not that cheerful, because ze knows it’s what Mom used to call me. Well, after a couple of years together, ze knows everything about me. They say syncle caregivers know this kind of thing through our vital signs, but I believe they also . . . feel it. Call me stupid, call me old-fashioned, but I simply do. Dor pokes zir head from the kitchen door. “I’m going to fetch you in a minute, Dona Jan.”

“Got it,” I answer, and dismiss the images with a flick of my hand.

Que saudades, Mãe. I miss you so much.

I miss her in all languages in the world.

<<< diadorimrep_14jan2103

     # calibrating feeling <> VS reading

          saudades [PT-BR]

               53,47% happiness, 46,53% sadness

               52,23% happiness, 47,77% sadness

               ?

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The most important thing in a good feijoada is not the pork quality, the softness of the black beans, or how thin you cut the collard greens to serve on the side. The most important thing in a good feijoada is how long you cook the stew, and how big the cauldron is. There’s no such a thing like doing just a little bit of feijoada. Not doing a ton of it is complete nonsense.

That’s why the house is full today: five people, four syncle. Nora, Tereza’s granddaughter, is too young to need a caregiver droid. Well, and it seems she’s too young to understand the dynamics of the board game we’re playing too, because she’s losing miserably.

“This is not fair,” she exclaims, laughing, when we finish another match. “Lua, are you sure you’re off-line?”

“Hey, are you really accusing me of cheating, lady?” Tereza’s caregiver fakes an offended look in her projected expression. “I swear I’m playing only with my Acquired Reasoning Skills module. Do you want me to emit a report to you? Huh?”

“Stop it!” I shake my hands, giggling. “We’ll not have any prejudiced comments about syncles in this house!”

“Nora, just accept you suck at this game, girl,” says Sérgio, and we all burst into laughter while Nora rises to grab a cup of water in the kitchen, muttering.

“Hey, dear, would you please serve this old lady more feijoada?” I call her, tapping my belly. “I’m already full, but I think I can indulge myself a second plate of my favorite food, right?”

“Sure, tía. Anybody else wants some more?” asks Nora.

“Me!” Diadorim raises zir hand.

“And me!” says Lovelace, Ana’s caregiver.

“I would love to eat more, but I don’t think it would be wise,” says Sérgio.

“Yeah, better not,” murmurs Tico, their droid. By the faint blue light blinking from behind his eyes, he must be checking Sérgio’s vital signs—and they’re probably not that good.

We all fall in a sudden silence. Sérgio isn’t that old—they barely reached their hundreds—but they’re sick. Really sick. The scifi stories from my youth proved right in many things, but a miraculous medicine remains a far future thing. And the embarrassment with which we regard imminent death is still the same—maybe even worse than before.

“The feijoada is so, so good, Dor. Congrats!” Ana breaks the silence. “It tastes just like the one Jan’s mom used to cook every year for her birthday. When we still lived in Brazil.”

“It’s really freaking good,” says Lovelace.

“I remember the day Gus put your wedding rings inside his plate,” says Tereza in a wistful tone.

I start laughing. “Did I tell you this already, Sérgio?” Me and Sérgio used to live in the same city back home, but I just met them here, after the diaspora.

“No, I don’t! Go ahead, Jan.”

I’m almost finishing the story of how Gus pretended he’d found two wedding rings inside Mom’s feijoada and then used them to propose to Ana in front of our group of friends when Nora comes back from the kitchen, three full plates in her hands. She puts them before me, Diadorim, and Lovey.

“This is the best story, really,” says Nora. “Haven’t you heard it yet, tío Sérgio? I thought—”

“Oh.” I suddenly realize I’ve already told it to him. Maybe more than once. Even with all the brain dams they implant on you, your memory isn’t the same when you cross the hundred and ten line.

“Well, yes, I heard it. A couple of times, actually,” they answer, tenderly. “But I like the way Jan tells it.”

“Me too,” says Tereza. “I always laugh my pants off!”

“I miss those times,” says Ana.

I look around, to the eight friends at my table. I’m so glad to have them. Some of them were the only thing I had when I arrived here. Besides my grandson and his family, who are always so busy, my friends are all I have now.

I barely feel like I live in this country. It’s like I live in them. Their friendship is my land—and nobody can force me to leave this one.

<<< diadorimrep_20apr2103

     # 3 containers of frozen feijoada stored at the upper freezer shelf [expiring date: 20jul2103]

     # $ “my favorite food” $

          [Feijoada] 89 occurrences

          vs.

          [Pasta] 13 occurrences

     # [DEARDIARY] sometimes people already know a story, but they say they don’t to make the storyteller happy (87% happiness *source: JanVS_20apr2103_10:37pm*)

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The colors don’t fade, and this is really cool, but I’m not sure how I feel about the fact it doesn’t hurt anymore to make a tattoo. I mean, you still feel a small discomfort during the process, and people keep calling it pain—but it’s nothing like the real pain you used to feel before.

Diadorim sees the tattoo artist to the door. I tell zir what I’m thinking.

“So, do you like to . . . feel pain?” ze asks me, kind of confused.

“Oh, no. But I do like the idea of pain as a reminder of the cost of things. Before, you needed to make a sacrifice whenever you wanted to record something forever on your skin. It seemed fair.” I pause. “But you know, pain has always been part of my life. It has always been my best mate.”

I see the steady amber light turning on behind zir eyes. Ze’s processing.

“Beautiful words,” ze finally says. Then ze points to the new tattoo. “And I loved the art, Dona Jan. Such delicate lines . . . ”

I look at zir. I still don’t understand how exactly ze interprets the beauty of things—neither zir, I guess—but I love the fact ze simply does. And ze’s quite honest, which makes me treasure every remark ze does: syncles don’t lie just to please people. Actually, I’m quite sure it’s not even possible—there was something about it in my purchase contract, if I’m not mistaken, but it doesn’t really mind.

“Thanks, Dor.” I beam at zir. “I still have many ideas for tattoos, but I believe this one is going to be the last one. I don’t have much . . . space left, after all.”

I admire my arms, covered by drawings I made over time. Some colors are almost gone, and many shapes merged one with another along the years. The new whirlwind near my left elbow is even more bright and vivid in contrast with them.

“A whirlwind. May I?” ze asks, and I nod. Ze stretches zir hand and touches my instantaneously healed skin. Ze starts emanating a white, blinking light from zir eyes, Googling something—the possible meanings of the tattoo, I suppose. “Why did you choose it?”

I sigh. I don’t like to talk much about it. But maybe I need to.

“It’s a triple tribute, Dor. First, to my favorite book. Second, to my profession—the one I needed to leave when I moved here.” Did I really need to? I notice Diadorim’s inquisitive looking. “Would you please read the first sentence of Grande Sertão: Veredas?”

A white light blinks for an instant.

“‘The Devil in the street, in the middle of the whirlwind,’” ze recites.

“Oh, silly me.” I interrupt zir, shaking my head. “I forgot to specify. Please, read the original version, my dear. In Portuguese.”

“Oh. It’s because my default lang—”

“It’s OK, Dor.”

Ze notices my discomfort and places a hand on my shoulder.

“OK, so here it goes, passarinha: ‘O Diabo na rua, no meio do redemoinho . . . ’” ze declaims and pauses. “‘Redemoinho’ . . . I like how it sounds.”

I smile at zir perfect Portuguese.

“You already know what it means, of course,” I say, and ze nods. “What you probably didn’t notice is Guimarães Rosa made an untranslatable joke in the very first words of his masterpiece. Would you project the sentence here?”

The letters appear before me. I reach my hand and select the D, the E, the M, and the O from redemoinho.

“See? ‘Demo,’” I say.

“‘Devil’ in Portuguese,” Dor translates immediately. I see a single blinking of the amber light when ze notices it. “Wow.”

“Yeah. He literally put a devil right in the middle of the whirlwind.” I make the words vanish from the air by shaking my head. “I always pitied the poor colleagues who would eventually be assigned to the mission of translating the book to another language.”

“Wow,” ze repeats, and take my hands in zir.

“Yeah. That’s why it’s a whirlwind,” I say, while I feel zir warmth. Zir perfect 98.6°F warmth. What else I would say to him? Oh, yeah. “Now, Dor, would you please call Benjamin? I want to show my new tattoo to him, to Liz, and to Emma.”

“Sure, Dona Jan,” ze says, and zir eyes emanate an amber color. Ze apparently elaborates very carefully the text message before calling—and I’m glad ze does. I mean, I’m one hundred and fourteen already. Someday soon, Diadorim will need to call them to give some sad news. I don’t want them to be startled whenever I call. The light turns off. “They said they’ll be ready in five minutes.”

I feel my heart beating faster when the three of them appear in the projection. Diadorim stomps and the interactive plane remains stationary in front of my face. I smile—they look so happy to see me. So happy to see me well.

I show them my new tattoo, and we talk a little bit. I always talk more than them, because that’s who I am, but they’re such good listeners. When I say I miss them, Ben ensures they’ll come to visit me as soon as Liz gets some vacations—but babies just come whenever they want, so it’s not as easy as it seems. I know it. He already said this a couple of times since they last came to visit me, four or five years before, and I understand it.

“What do you think about November, huh?”

Oh. I feel my smile widening. He never mentioned November. This is new.

“We need to go, Gramma. You know—business,” says Ben.

Business, always business. They wave me goodbye.

“You’re so pretty, Emma,” I murmur, and she smiles coyly. She’s twenty-four or twenty-five, but it looks like she’s eighteen.

“Thanks, Bisa. You didn’t change a bit too,” she answers, and we all burst into laughter. “Bye!”

Dor smiles at me. I pull my right sleeve up to see the long branch tattoo full of inky birds: the few ones who migrated with me, the ones I met here, the one that hatched from the egg I laid in this new land—and who later laid her own egg already here.

“It’s not like I’ve many appointments, Dor,” I say, with my heart warm. “But, just in case: please block all the days of November in my calendar.”

<<< diadorimrep_27may2103

     # whirlwind triple tribute

          1- To Guimarães Rosa’s masterpiece, Grande Sertão: Veredas (*source: Jan*)

          2- To her fellow translators (*source: Jan*)

          3- To me (?)

               Diadorim: coprotagonist of Grande Sertão: Veredas. (S)He’s Riobaldo fellow soldier. Represents all ambiguities and paradoxes in the book: good/evil, female/male, certainty/doubt, etc. (*source: Internet*)

     # [DEARDIARY] sometimes, people’s feelings are so intense and painful they prefer to engrave symbols to represent them on their own skin instead of talking about it (79% grief *source: JanVS_27may2103_02:01pm*)

resume >>>

I knew I would receive this message soon, and I thought I was ready—but I suppose we never are. I wasn’t when my partner was gone, I wasn’t when my daughter was gone . . . And, like so many other times, I wasn’t now.

“Please, Dor, play it again.”

“Are you sure, passarinha?” ze asks, sounding concerned. “You already heard it eight—”

“Please.”

I hear Tico’s words again. In a toneless voice, he gives all the details about the funeral and the cremation. I ask Diadorim to add the info to my calendar—I don’t think ze’ll take me there in person, being so concerned about my health as ze is, but at least I can show up virtually.

Later, I’m experiencing a holo of a movie I used to watch when I was a child when I smell it. Soon after, Dor appears at the living room with two plates full of feijoada. Ze assembles a table before us and sits beside me.

I place a spoonful in my mouth and slowly munch it.

“I’m sorry, Dor.” I sigh, laying the spoon on the table. “I don’t feel like eating.”

“Oh.” Zir eyes blink with different colors. “The expiration date . . . Wait—”

The light beside zir eyes stabilizes at a purple tone while ze chews carefully. In some specialized syncles, like zir, the same sensors that allow them to taste food are also capable of analyzing dozens of potential irregularities in a food sample.

“It’s not spoiled, Dor. It’s just . . . me,” I say, and the light is gone. “Go ahead, my friend, eat it. Enjoy it for me.”

Ze hesitates but ends up eating zir plate and mine when I say it’s going to the trash anyway.

“If you’re feeling good . . . ” Ze wipes zir mouth. “ . . . we can go in person. You know, to say goodbye to Sérgio.” Dor looks at me—and probably see the tears in my eyes. “Lua just told me she’ll be taking Tereza.”

I sigh. “Let’s see.”

“Yeah, passarinha. Let’s see.”

I rest my head over zir shoulder. It’s softer than many human shoulders over which I’ve already rested my head.

<<< diadorimrep_03jul2103

     # [DEARDIARY] sometimes, food may taste differently according to how people feel—they may even dislike a plate of which they previously referred 89 times (in 1,949 days) as their favorite dish

     ???

resume >>>

Back in my teens, I used to fantasize I would never die. I mean, nobody would—not naturally, at least. In an era of so many technological revolutions, and for the fertile mind of a teenage scifi fan, it was easy to project that sooner or later someone would end up discovering a way of cheating death before I was too old to benefit of it.

I could say I forgot about that while I grew older, but it would be a lie. I believed in that until the end—which happens to be now.

I’m dying.

And I only know this because Diadorim bursts into my bedroom, zir eyes red with alert. Maximum alert. But to be very honest? I don’t feel like I’m dying. Yes, my hands and feet are numb, and I do feel sleepy and cold. Why is it so cold in here, by the way? But anyway, I don’t feel like I’m dying.

“Dona Jan!” There’s fear in zir voice. Is that possible? Are syncles able to fear? Why have I never thought about it? Why have I never asked? “Don’t be scared, passarinha, I’m calling an ambulance right now, OK? No, an air ambulance! I—”

“Ambulance? No, no Dor. Don’t do it.” It’s so peaceful in here. An ambulance means taking me from here, taking me from home. I can’t bear being taken from home again. It means pain. And I feel it’s time to finally let the pain go. “Please, don’t call it.”

“But Dona Jan, I can’t! My protocols—”

“A morte é para os que morrem,” I say.

The red light from Dor’s eyes turns off immediately. The room is now pitch-black. The words left my mouth before I could think about it—death is for those who die, the master sentence I chose to say whenever I need or want to overwrite all my caregiver’s protocols. They were the first words Diadorim ever heard me saying.

“Dona Jan, I—”

“I want to see you, my dear,” I say.

“Oh, of course.” Ze modules the ambient light until we’re in a warm, yellowy dim light. “What . . . do I do now? Without my protocols—”

“Just make the room warmer, I’m so cold,” I say, and ze nods. “Good. Now, come closer, my dear. And just . . . be with me.”

“Just be with you,” ze mutters, and sits in a chair we keep by my bed. “Do you want me to call your family?”

“Yes, I do. But not yet.” Even though I’m so sleepy, I still can see fear in Dor eyes. I suddenly regret the things I didn’t ask zir. I regret the things I didn’t tell zir. “Do you know where your name came from?”

Ze opens zir mouth, then closes it, zir eyes in a frantic amber light.

“Oh, of course you know it.” I give a short laugh. “You know everything.”

Ze shook zir head and the light turns off.

“No, I don’t. Go ahead, Jan.”

I smile and tell zir all I know about Diadorim. Everything I still know. Many things I simply can’t remember, but ze can Google it later. Except—

“There’s something else,” I say. “Your nickname. Dor. In Portuguese, it means—”

“‘Pain.’”

“Yes.”

“It has always been your best mate,” ze murmurs.

But now it’s time to let it go, I think.

“Call them now, Dor, please. Benzinho.”

They take some time to answer. Of course—it’s so late now. When they appear in the vid, however, I see daylight coming from their windows. Should they have daylight now? I can’t think properly—I’m really, really sleepy. They look concerned, but I’m not sure. My vision is getting so blurry . . . They say something about . . . Feijoada? I doze off. I wake up a couple of seconds later. Maybe a hundred years later. What day is it? Is it November already? Their words are all mixed up. Is it English? Portuguese?

I feel someone raising my upper body from the bed. I’m in someone’s arms now. I don’t feel so cold anymore. It’s—

“Mom?” I murmur. She’s checking my tattooed arms. Caressing them. It feels so good. I had something important to tell her . . . What was it? Oh, yeah. “Mãe, you’re right: my tattoos are fading.”

“They’re so beautiful, passarinha,” she says, and gently bows her head to kiss the tattoo near my elbow. “São tão lindas.”

Oh, this one is new. I did it last month. Last year. In another life. And this tattoo? This one isn’t fading, Mãe. This one will not fade at all.

That’s what I want to say, but I’m so comfortable and sleepy and cozy now . . . She is doing me cafuné. Stroking my head for me to sleep. There’s something else I need to tell her, but I bet she already knows it. She knows everything.

I close my eyes and let it go.

<<< diadorimrep_16aug2103

     # simulation ben&fam178 interrupted

     # time of death 03:48am

          # RESTINPEACE PROTOCOL: < active >

     # messagesto: $ Benjamin (Benzinho) $

          ##001 Sub: Hey, guys, I’m Diadorim! Nice to meet you! :)

               < on 1mar2098 > < Opened: Y | Answered: Y >

                     . . .

                     . . .

                     . . .

          ##363 Sub: Trying contact again. Please.

               < on 7aug2103 > < Read: N | Answered: N >

          ##364 Sub: Trying contact again. Please.

               < on 17jul2103 > < Read: N | Answered: N >

          ##365 Sub: Trying contact again. Please.

               < on 20jul2103 > < Read: N | Answered: N >

          ##366 Sub: Trying contact again. Please.

               < on 2aug2103 > < Read: N | Answered: N >

          ##367 Sub: Trying contact again. Please.

               < on 7aug2103 > < Read: N | Answered: N >

          SEND NOW < on 16aug2103, 03:49am >

                Sub: Rest in Peace Protocol

     # delete [DEARDIARY] >> all entries

     # diadorim?

     dia dor im

resume >>>

SYN INC.

MALFUNCTIONING REPORT #9875-2103

Model: Caregiver GeroAssist3Plus®

Serial Number: #071227

Civil Name: Diadorim

Summary: The syncle was found deactivated, in a left lateral decubitus position, in its owner’s bed. It was at the corpse’s side. The woman’s death was proven to be natural (multiple organ failure), with no probable involvement of the syncle (under police investigation). The syncle carried off Rest in Peace Protocol correctly, although there was an interval of 37 minutes with no recorded activity (both audio and video [Failure F58]) between steps 6 and 7.

Note: The syncle was found with a simple bird/seagull doodle recently engraved on its left arm synchderm. Police will determine if it was self-inflicted or not. GeroAssist3Plus® #071227Pain Module, however, was never deactivated.

About the Author

Jana Bianchi is a Brazilian writer, translator, editor at Mafagafo magazine, cohostess of the Curta Ficção writing podcast, and one of the organizers of Relampeio Festival and FutureCon. During the full moon, she volunteers as a werewolf walker (unless she’s piloting her X-Wing).

Her fiction has appeared, in Portuguese, in several Brazilian collections and magazines. Her novella Lobo de Rua was published in 2016. Jana’s nonfiction has been published at Strange Horizons. She lives in the countryside of São Paulo with her parents, uma família de mafagafos, two dogs, and her many animated tattoos. Find her online at @janapbianchi on Twitter/Instagram.

To Sail the Black

A.C. Wise

The ghost ship Xanthic Promise sails the black, powered by the slumbering heart of a dying star. And its captain, Antimony Jones, stalks its decks in a swirl of crimson coat and fox fire lighting, dogged by voices. The recent dead, the long dead, and the dead-to-be, all murmuring as to how she’s only three months into her command and it’s all coming undone.

“Stow it.” Antimony snaps, pirate-captain proper.

A living crew member jumps out of her way at the words, back flat against the wall, spanner clanking to the deck in alarm. The ghosts snicker, and Antimony bares her teeth until they fall silent.

“You. Back to work.” Antimony jabs a finger at the frightened crew member, Hawk, even though she was the one who interrupted his work in the first place.

As he scrambles to obey, the ship murmurs its own complaint, an out-of-place thrumming Antimony feels in her back teeth. Something is wrong, and Hyacinth, her gods-damned chief engineer, is playing coy, making Antimony come to her in person rather than just telling her what’s wrong.

She rounds the corner and nearly smacks into the door to the star chamber, which should open automatically. Antimony slaps a palm to override and enters shouting.

“What in all the gods-damned corporeal and incorporeal hells is so important that I had to come all the way down here instead of you telling me over the comm? And why is the door locked?”

Antimony stops dead. Because what is so gods-damned important is clearly obvious. Starling, her now-former boatswain, blood-soaked from chin to waist, well and truly slaughtered, hangs by his wrists in the pulsing light of the star chamber.

“Oh, fuck me,” Antimony says and turns to kick the door.

As captain of a ghost ship, death and Antimony are well acquainted. The Xanthic Promise’s winding, nautilus halls bear countless invisible scars, Antimony’s among them, where each member of the crew past and present has sworn their demise to the ship. Blood oaths cut into palm and wall as a condition of their service stitch their ghosts in place and power everything the star doesn’t.

It’s a reckless practice, condemned by the Galactic Fleet and every other kind of ship captain out there, save for pirates. But her crew’s lives and deaths are their own to swear with as they please, and who is Antimony to say different. Some, she suspects, are too young and dumb to truly believe in their future deaths as a reality; others are at the end of their span and desperate to trade what little they’ve left for a last taste of freedom.

Antimony swore her own oath at fourteen, an orphan doomed to life on a backwater station until the Xanthic Promise docked for trade. Rough and battered as she’d been, the moment Antimony set eyes on Xanthic Promise, it had been love—true and deep and head over heels. All the fairy tales her mother and father had told her before their unfortunate demise, of living stars who sang their captains across the black, seemed poised to come true all at once.

She’d stowed aboard, and never mind that the star powering the ship was only roiling, pulsing light, and not the painfully-beautiful, human-faced creature in the holo-illustrations from her parents’ stories. The walls still whispered with ghosts, the opposite of the Galactic Fleet’s cold logic and strict regulations, and definitely the opposite of a life lived station-bound, stuck in one place and hoping against hope the universe would come to her.

Loose-tongued ghosts had put a quick end to her plan to stay hidden, but instead of putting her right back where she started, or straight out into the black as would have been her right, then-captain Basalt had given Antimony a choice. Swear her life and future death to the ship by stitching a piece of herself to walls, or live a life staring at the same span of stars out of the station’s viewports, always wondering what might have been.

Antimony hadn’t hesitated, chin up, blade to palm, and bloody palm to wall all in a flash. She’d worked her way from deck girl, carrying and fetching and cleaning, to assistant boatswain, then boatswain, and on up with the sure knowledge in her heart that she would sit in Basalt’s chair as captain one day.

That she finally achieved her dream at the cost of a death-promise is a problem for future-her. Present-her has everything she ever wanted. She’s flush with ill-gotten gains, the boundless universe is spread before her, and the crackling power of her ghost ship is hers to command.

Except that at-this-very-moment-her has a very much here-and-now problem. Starling.

His death has the air of ritual. Doctor Coxcomb has his body down in the medbay, and the only thing she’s been able to tell Antimony so far is that whoever killed Starling cut out his tongue before stringing him up like a burned offering.

Starling had sworn himself to Xanthic Promise young too, sixteen with a head full of dreams. They’d picked him up planet side and Antimony had been the one to argue for giving him the same choice she’d been given. Most of her interactions with him since had been recent, in his new capacity as boatswain, requisitioning goods and discussing the ship’s stores. Except more than once, she’d caught him at his post, moon-eyed over holo-stories, including one with the very same illustration of the living, singing, humanoid star her parents had shown her.

It had made Antimony smile then, and makes her regret his death all the more now.

There’s a headache building between her eyes. There’s a . . . hmmm. It’s a not-quite-buzz-not-quite-hum, like an itch on the wrong side of her skin, creeping around inside her skull. She’s been hearing it since . . . she isn’t even sure when, but it’s getting louder, tied to the ship feeling listless, argumentative, sluggish. It’s in the soles of her boots, coming up through the deck plates. A sense of wrong. As if the sleeping star at the ship’s heart was not merely a metaphor, as if the ship was having bad dreams.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

A phantom voice at her ear stirs phantom hair. Antimony just manages to turn her surprised flinch into a hand grazed over her scalp’s stubble, as if that was always what she meant to do. She turns to face her immediate predecessor.

“Fuck off, Cedar.”

The former captain leans against nothing, the prerogative of ghosts, arms crossed, lips bent to smirking. He’s much more corporeal than he has any right to be, in that he possesses form at all, though she can see right through him. Being stitched, Cedar should only be a voice, muttering in the walls with all the rest. That he’s more, Antimony imagines, is sheer spite and force of will. And a handy trick she’d like to learn herself one day, if she can do it without sacrificing her pride and asking him how.

“What’s the fun in death if I can’t haunt my quarters and gloat?”

“Death isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be useful.” Antimony scowls. “And they’re not your quarters, they’re mine.”

Antimony still doesn’t know how Cedar won Basalt’s good grace and favor and ended up captain before her. Cedar, with his Galactic Fleet training, the antithesis of everything a good pirate should be, yet Basalt had named him as successor. The fact that Cedar in turn named Antimony and not Hyacinth, Antimony is beginning to suspect, was another act of spite, as being captain is turning out to be a lot less fun and a lot more headachy than she imagined.

Cedar cocks his head, waiting for her to speak, waiting, more precisely, for her to ask for help. Antimony sits astride the polished bench of the single most improbable item on a ship crammed with impossibilities: a gleaming white baby grand piano, Cedar’s pride and joy. Instead of giving him the satisfaction, she stabs a series of discordant notes. When Cedar frowns, some of the tension uncoils from Antimony’s shoulders.

“I hear you have a ghost problem.” Cedar breaks first, but it’s only a moment before his smirk is back in place.

Because, gods-damn him, he’s right. One of the many drawbacks of a ghost-powered ship—gossip travels fast. There are scant few secrets on the Xanthic Promise, save those kept from the still-living, which is precisely Antimony’s problem.

If the universe were kind, she could simply ask Starling the cause of his death, but despite being sewn into the walls by a supposedly unbreakable pact, wherever his ghost is, she can’t hear it. Like he gave up his voice with the loss of his tongue. All she can hear when she listens for him is that gods-damned hmmm, getting louder and making it hard to think.

“I don’t suppose you have anything remotely useful to contribute?” Antimony grinds the words between her teeth.

An expression flickers bright through the former captain’s eyes, which are the color of lightning, nothing Antimony can read. Cedar is only three months stitched; perhaps Starling’s death is simply making him think of his own.

Antimony thinks on it too, an unfortunate debris-strike fracturing Cedar’s faceplate during routine repairs—repairs he shouldn’t even have been undertaking as captain. Antimony had been there when he’d told Hyacinth he wanted to stretch his legs in the black. She’d watched Hyacinth inspect his suit herself, likely the only thing that kept Antimony from suspicion, her desire for the captain’s chair being no secret. She’d been there, too, when Cedar had come back to the ship, tether-hauled, frozen solid, ice crystals clinging to his skin, and his body ballooned to twice its size.

“What would you give me if I could tell you?” The flicker in Cedar’s eyes turns sly, the promise of knowledge held like a curl of candied orange peel on his tongue.

Antimony puffs up, pride, as always, ready to tangle her legs and lead to a fall.

“Listen, you smug son-of-a—”

Cedar’s eyes flicker again, static-shot. He’s there and then he’s not and Antimony thumps a fist against the piano again for good measure.

“Damn it.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, considers calling him back, thinks of apologizing, and the thought turns her stomach. She doesn’t need him, and he probably didn’t know anything anyway.

Still, the air in her quarters feels empty, the temperature dropped. There’s no love lost between them, but Cedar’s departure hammers home the inevitable truth chained around the neck of all captains: she is alone.

“Damn it,” she says again, softer this time, and swings her weary leg over the piano bench, rising.

Any sensible captain would remain locked in her quarters to drink her troubles away, but sensible has never been her style. Antimony makes her way to the ship’s prow, allowing a detour to the ship’s store, where she feels Starling’s absence all over again as she requisitions a bottle of good rum and uncorks it with her teeth. She wonders what happened to his holo-stories. She could use a good fairy tale about valiant captains and singing ships right about now.

The hum-not-hum itch is there again as she walks the halls, a voice among other voices, one she isn’t quite hearing. It’s like an ill-tuned violin, a wetted finger circling the rim of a glass. On the edge of painful. A familiar voice, but corrupted somehow, like the mind behind it is still trying to figure out how to make words.

“Starling?” she asks it not expecting an answer, and the sound rises in pitch, a static-squeal like it’s arguing with itself, before it falls silent.

Then there’s only the usual ghost ship murmur, the dead speculating whether command has made her crack. Living crew members, too, give her the side-eye, whispering among themselves as if she can’t hear. Let them talk. Cedar was a captain of the people, soft and decidedly un-piratey. Antimony is comfortable in her lonely command; better to be feared than loved, as they say.

Lacking anyone human to talk to, she could seek her own ghost, her dead-self-to-be as oracle, but that way lies madness. Or so she’s heard tell. Knowing your ghost on an intellectual level is one thing; looking it dead in the eye and knowing it full and true, that’s another.

Besides, at the moment, Antimony would rather drink herself into oblivion or into a state where a solution produces itself, whichever comes first. And she intends to do so in full sight of her ghosts and her crew. Let them see a captain without shame, bowed but not broken by the weight of her command. Let the living and the dead gossip on that if they will.

The crow’s nest is empty, waiting, and Antimony can’t help a grin. She strung the hammock across the ship’s foremost eye herself during her first year aboard. Basalt had given her waste duty for a month, but she hadn’t taken the nest down, and Antimony had even seen her captain using it a time or two herself when she thought no one was looking.

When she’d first come aboard, after her shifts, Antimony would throw herself into the hammock to listen while most everyone else slept. She’d gaze out at all those stars and wish the stories she’d devoured as a station-bound child were true. She’d wished that instead of the creaks and groans of metal deck plates, she could hear the star’s voice. She’d wanted to hear it sing.

She’d been foolish enough then, naïve and wide-eyed, that she’d actually asked then-engineer Oak about the star, and whether it really slept.

They’d laughed at her, that deep barrel-chested laugh that, while it hadn’t been cruel, had still struck her a blow. Fairy stories, they’d said. Tales for children to make the work of ships seem like magic.

But if ghosts could power a ship’s weapons, she’d reasoned, then why not a sleeping star? Maybe, over the years, people had simply forgotten the truth. Maybe when they’d put the stars to sleep, they hadn’t wanted to own the cruel thing they were doing, so they spun fantastical tales too incredible to possibly be true.

She’d given up her belief soon enough though, but had Starling?

Antimony throws herself into the crow’s nest, kicking up her bootheels just as a commotion breaks out behind her.

What the fuck now? she thinks, wheeling her weary bones around.

“She wakes!” the man screams, a crew member whose name Antimony should know, excusing herself that she doesn’t due to the fact that his face is currently an unrecognizable mask of blood.

He holds something sharp in crimson-slick fingers, not threatening anyone, but staggering and weaving—shock and blood-loss after gouging out his own eyes.

“It won’t stop!” he screams. “He promised, but it never stops. Please, help me.”

“You still want to make the run?” Hyacinth asks, all incredulous, scoffing tone.

“Are we or are we not gods-damned pirates,” Antimony, rhetorical, shoots back.

Her mouth tastes the way she imagines the inside of an engine block would.

She has one crew member spaced, body refusing to yield up any other secrets, and one in the medbay, bandages over his lack of eyes and doped to oblivion. And she still has a gods-damned job to do.

“We can still make the pickup and drop in plenty of time to get paid. Even without the extra ghost to throw on the fire.” Antimony tries to smile around the flat attempt at a joke.

Hyacinth scowls, muttering under her breath, as she walks away.

Doctor Coxcomb utterly forbid Antimony from questioning Chrysotile, though Antimony doubts he’d be able to provide her with sensible answers. Sensible people don’t gouge their eyes out. But insensible people might just commit murder. Something to think about. Later. Solving mysteries doesn’t pay the bills. Only piracy does.

The pickup goes without a hitch, the drop-off less so, because of course one thing can’t fucking go right for her. Instead of payment, their contact meets them with guns, eyes blacked and teeth capped with gold, marking them as DeathSkull, notorious double-crossers, and not Green Hand, the flag they’d claimed to sail under.

“Evade where you can, fire only if you have to,” Antimony shouts to be heard above the chaos.

A hit to Xanthic Promise’s portside causes the whole ship to rock, and a panel to her right explodes. How the fuck does that even work? she wonders, then ceases to wonder as sparks shower and she slaps at her coat to keep it from going up in flame. How many deaths can she afford to burn to get out of this mess? She rolls through the inventory of ghosts in her mind, then gives the order to fire.

She needs just a little time, just a little luck, just enough space to do something stupid to save their skins. Twin stars of glittering light leap from the ship’s cannons. Ghost-tech rarely kills, but it does a credible job of convincing people they’re dying. At least briefly. Sometimes, ironically, it even convinces them to death.

Either way, it’s still a pretty light show that will buy them some time as, for the next few moments, the crew of the ship currently trying to wipe them from the stars relives the last breaths of six stitched souls now serving the Xanthic Promise as weaponry.

Basalt may be in there somewhere, Antimony thinks as the glittering light hits home. That could be her fate one day, the captain’s last burst of glory, her final duty. There are worse ways to go.

Another panel explodes. Acrid smoke fills the air. Antimony coughs, and the ship slews hard and away, running running running. Rivets and seams strain, everything wanting to fly apart as Antimony wills it to hold. Jaw clenched, she calls up charts, squinting through eyes that stream part from headache, part from the bone-rattling speed. Her back molars feel as loose as the rivets, and she shouts fresh coordinates.

“Are you out of your gods-damned mind?” Hyacinth swivels to stare. A rivulet of blood tracks from a gash above her eye, but she doesn’t wipe it away.

“Yes!” Antimony fires back.

“That’s Sargasso space.” Trust Hyacinth to recognize the coordinates right away. Damn and double gods-damn.

“Do it anyway.”

Hyacinth’s eyes blaze crimson mutiny, or maybe that’s only the blood, but she punches the coordinates, punches the ship, and they’re off.

The Horse Latitudes. The Doldrums. The Sargasso Sea. All names that don’t make sense in the black, but the effect is the same. It’s a graveyard for stars, a place of legend where ships stall for no discernable reason and never start up again. It’s a place only the foolhardiest captain would go willingly, and which any sensible band of pirates would cut off pursuit to avoid, which is exactly what Antimony is counting on.

There’s an under-the-skin feeling the moment Xanthic Promise hits that dead space. The DeathSkull ship drops pursuit, just as their own engines cut out, and Antimony breathes relief against the tightness in her ribs even if it doesn’t last long. The walls chatter doubt. Her crew looks to each other, wild-eyed, but they’re all still alive. They should be falling on their knees and thanking her.

That’s when the screaming starts.

It’s a wrong sound. An inside-out sound, purple-shattering-to-silver-at-the-edges, going on and on like a voice, like that untuned violin, but so much louder and worse. It is want and need and hunger and fear and unlike anything Antimony has ever heard before. It’s unlike anything she ever wants to hear again. It makes her want to dig her nails into her skin and peel it away whole to go running around in her bones.

It leaves her panting on hands and knees, howling back at the noise until she tastes blood, until Hyacinth cracks her across the jaw hard enough to replace one ringing in her ears with another.

“What is. That. Noise. What you’re. Doing.” Hyacinth’s words come out in huffing breaths, shaking and broken.

“You didn’t hear it?” Antimony is still hearing it, is certain she’ll always be hearing it from now until the end of time, but at least it’s dulled, a bruise rather than a fresh blow.

“I heard you screaming,” Hyacinth says. “I didn’t know a human throat could make that sound.”

“I’m not sure it can,” Antimony says.

She stands.

“Well, whatever it was,” Hyacinth says, voice steadying, “according to the report I just got, it happened at the same time three very long fissures appeared in the star chamber’s glass. So, to put it mostly succinctly and bluntly, we are completely and utterly fucked.”

Antimony follows Hyacinth to look at the star chamber, as if their own eyes could make the report untrue. No such luck. The star chamber is indeed breaking as reported, three long fissures running almost the entire length of the glass that looks somewhat like an old-fashioned lantern and somewhat like the heart of a lighthouse and nothing like either of those things at all. Breaking, but not broken, and that is one small mercy, but perhaps the only one.

Antimony leaves Hyacinth to do whatever she can, which is, she suspects, very little. The ship was already sick before this whole thing started. Cedar must have known it, and that’s why he insisted on making the repairs himself. But something went wrong, and maybe that’s where this all started, and it’s all connected somehow.

Antimony thinks of Starling’s missing tongue, a sacrifice, and the sound she’s still hearing, like a ringing echo inside her skull, a voice that doesn’t have words, belonging to something that never had a voice before. She thinks of fairy tales hiding a willfully forgotten truth in plain sight. She’s beginning to build a picture in her mind, and she doesn’t like it at all.

She takes herself to the medical bay.

Chrysotile lies rigid, lashed down with restraints. Fluid drips into his arm, a steady flow, keeping him somewhere between awake and dreaming. Coxcomb will likely be back soon. Not enough time to try to wake him, even if such a thing were possible. Antimony is considering sneaking out again when Chrysotile’s head snaps around to look straight at her, which is disconcerting to say the least, given that he is without eyes.

“I thought I could finish it, but I wasn’t strong enough. Starling said the light would stop if I helped him, but it only got worse.”

His body seizes, guilt or pain or both wanting to make an arch against the restraints. He gropes the air, fingers twisted to claws and Antimony shoves down every skin-crawling impulse she has to make herself do the human thing and let Chrysotile take her hand. His fingers are freezing, his grip iron.

“Tell the captain I’m sorry.”

“I—” Antimony begins, but gets no further as the door grinds open and Doctor Coxcomb descends on her like a storm.

“I was very specific in my orders.” Coxcomb brandishes a syringe like a weapon, ready to deploy whatever is inside if Antimony doesn’t leave now, captain or no.

And oops, yes, maybe Antimony did use her override on the medbay door knowing the doctor would deny her entry. She quick steps away, trusting to Coxcomb’s brutality in defense of her patient. Besides, she needs to think.

Tell the captain I’m sorry. Antimony very much doubts Chrysotile meant her. Some promise made to Cedar? And how does Starling fit in? All those old stories. If they really were true, what monsters would that make her and all the other ghost ship captains down through the ages?

And even if the tales aren’t true, what if Starling believed? Would it be enough for him to convince Chrysotile to kill him, so he could sacrifice his tongue to the star and give it a voice?

Thoughts roil, pressing out against her skin until Antimony feels she’ll explode. She stomps through the halls and up to the crow’s nest, the place she dreamed as a child, and now all those dreams and wishes feel like a cruel lie. Antimony presses her hands to the window and screams fuck you very loudly at the lack of stars.

Throat raw, she turns to an access panel, calling up the ship’s logs. Something she should have done long ago, only she was busy with murdered and eyeless crew members, damned double-crossing pirates, and recalcitrant ghosts.

She finds Cedar’s entries from the days before his death. He must have felt the same wrongness in the ship as she does now. Would he have attributed it to a waking star? And if he had, what would he do?

Deep in their hearts, do all ship’s captains know the tales they drank like milk as children are true, but they’ve collectively chosen to believe otherwise?

Cedar never confided in her as his second in command. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. It stood to reason Cedar had only accepted her as first mate to keep an eye on her. Who had he confided in, then? Chrysotile? Certainly not his logs, as they are all maddeningly mundane and empty of any useful details.

Antimony returns to the ship’s stores and requisitions another bottle, gin this time, and a sturdy blade. She’s about to do a very unwise thing indeed. Antimony drinks and winds her way through the halls until she finds the place where her oath sings to her.

The expanse of wall would look unremarkable to anyone else, but it’s where her death is stitched, her promise to the ship, and so for her, there’s a faint silver glow of scars etched into the metal. With half the bottle killed, the blade weaves dangerously above her palm. She closes one eye and squints the other to make both knife and hand behave. Before she can think better of it, she traces the old seams until blood wells, and presses the new wound to old.

Red smears and a spark snap-jumps, shocking her spine rigid and clacking her teeth together. It’s unwise to talk to one’s own future-ghost, to seek one’s death for counsel, but ever since the scream that rattled her to her core, Antimony has felt her death just inches beneath her skin and she’ll be gods-damned if she just sits around waiting for it to come to her.

She forbids herself to pass out, winding the gauze she requisitioned at the same time as the bottle around her hand. It immediately soaks through. When her other-self appears, it’s very much like looking in a mirror, same shorn-to-stubble hair, same smug grin. The event horizon between her death being a future-her problem and a present-her problem is collapsing. She rubs a hand over her scalp, almost expecting her ghost to do the same, but her ghost only smirks, reminding her irritatingly of Cedar.

“What is it?” Antimony asks.

The fox fire light around her ankles swirls, a chill reaching up her trouser legs, playing with the hem of her coat. She tries to keep her teeth from chattering. It wouldn’t do to look weak in front of herself.

“You already know,” her future-self’s voice is an echo-blur. “It’s the star. You’re hearing her voice, the one Starling died to give her.”

The smirk on the other-her’s lips becomes something sharper, a blade, almost cruel. Would it be uncouth to punch her own ghost in the mouth?

“Stars aren’t sentient. Those are just fairy tales.” She doesn’t want it to be true, but she knows down in her bones that it is, and hasn’t she always known?

The other-her’s smile doesn’t waver. Antimony would have thought there might be some mercy in her eyes, but she also knows herself too well. All the knowing coming to her now is still wound-fresh to her other self. It hurts, too much for future-Antimony to offer any kindness.

Because she does know and she’s always known and she’s never wanted to know. All those stories, all that wishing, she never fully thought through the consequences because it would be too terrible. But Starling had known the truth and given his own life to it, a small right against a whole universe of wrong. And Chrysotile had helped him.

“What about Cedar?” Antimony asks herself. He must have known too, but what did he do about it?

“Ask him.” Future-Antimony’s eyes glitter, cruel delight, like passing the pain back to her past-self might lessen her own hurt.

Antimony’s hand flashes out, fingers closing around her future-self’s wrist, holding her in place. Even though she must be expecting it, her future-eyes widen in surprise, and there, at last, Antimony sees mercy, sorrow, her future-self aching for the past-self coming face-to-face with the death that will be. But she does nothing to stop her, and the mercy fades back into a smile that might have blood in it if her future-self were still a thing capable of bleeding. Because she knows what happens next.

Antimony looks into her own eyes.

And there, every possible path her future might take forks and forks and skates across the surface of everything like the glass in the star chamber not-yet shattering. Her life races along those cracks like lightning and comes to a dead stop, a point she can’t see beyond.

She sees herself and the star in its chamber and both are burning. There is nothing else. Except. Except except except—an edge like a closed door, like a flat horizon, like a coin pressed to a table with another face Antimony knows is there but cannot see. There is no way to pick at the edge to open the door to see the other face to know that it exists because it does not or cannot or should not because this is where she ends.

All the light in the world goes out like a blown candle and rushes back all at once like knives to her eyes and Antimony is alone in the hall. She kicks the wall where her unhelpful asshole of a death is stitched, hard, so her bones jar and the steel toe in her boot rings and it doesn’t make her feel any better at all.

She returns to the engine room, to the star chamber, and stands in front of the impossible swirl of light. It makes her skin itch, brings the jittery feeling back to her teeth. If she looks long enough, she can almost see a face, a mouth in the roiling, pulsing energy.

Antimony traces a finger over one hairline crack until it joins another and another—a river with three tributaries. She presses her bound hand to the glass, leaves a blood-petal kiss of red behind.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

She makes a fist of her hand, thumps the side of it against the glass. She’s being a coward. Still.

And now. Now she has a choice to make. Like Cedar made a choice. And fuck it, because her impulse is to do something noble and stupid and self-sacrificing and she really doesn’t want to die.

Back in her quarters, Antimony mashes the piano’s keyboard, thinking of the keys as teeth, Cedar’s specifically.

“Come out and talk to me, you asshole.” The yelling makes her feel better, but only marginally so.

Cedar isn’t there and then he is, and even though Antimony called for him, she still jumps when he appears, leaning on nothing again, arms crossed. Despite the horrific nature of his death, he’s still maddeningly pretty, cheekbones defined where hers look gaunt, relaxed and well-fucking-rested where she looks haunted and sleep-starved.

“You’re lucky I’m not corporeal.” Cedar tosses a meaningful look at the piano.

Antimony is still tired and still a little drunk and lightning keeps forking behind her eyes. But it’s worse when the lightning stops, when it finds the place where it can’t go any farther because that’s where her life ends.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the star waking?” Antimony steps back from the piano, closed fist shaking, and she tucks it behind her back so Cedar won’t see.

“What fun would that be?” He runs fingers over the piano keys and when they make no sound, he runs a finger over the wires instead.

They still don’t make a sound, but whatever it does makes Antimony shiver.

“Would you have listened even if I had tried?” The maddening expression on Cedar’s face makes Antimony want to throw something.

He’s right, and that only makes it worse. How many times did they butt heads when he was alive, when she was under his command? Even knowing there’s no solidity to him, Antimony jerks open the piano bench, stuffed with books and sheets of music, and throws the first one she lays her hands on. The pages flutter, and a small square of paper tumbles free.

An actual, honest-to-gods, printed photograph.

“Oh fuck me.” Antimony bends to retrieve it, Cedar watching her with a brow perfectly arched, expression smug.

This was here the whole time and Antimony never saw it, too uncultured to do anything with the piano other than bang on it for attention and use it as a place to sit and drink and feel sorry for herself.

“You and Chrysotile were in the Galactic Fleet together.” Antimony holds up the picture, a group of young cadets in their uniforms, arms slung around each other. Chrysotile and Cedar are together at one end, and Chrysotile’s head is slightly turned, caught in a moment, distracted and unaware of the picture about to be taken.

Even Antimony isn’t dense enough to miss it. The expression on Chrysotile’s face is stark: love.

She thinks of Chrysotile, eyeless in the medbay, grasping her hand and begging forgiveness from his dead captain. To be loved like that—enough that someone would kill for you. Well, it isn’t exactly a comforting thought. It leaves Antimony feeling claustrophobic, but at the same time, achingly lonely. There is no one among the crew—no one in her life—she could even share a drink with, let alone someone willing to pick up a knife and kill a fellow crew member for her, to finish whatever it is she might leave undone.

“I was wrong about the star.” The sorrowing look in Cedar’s eyes takes Antimony’s breath away.

She has a picture of her former captain in her mind—brash, ambitious, apologizing to no one. Stealing her rightful command out from under her, winning Basalt’s favor and trust. But the more Antimony looks at her mental picture against Cedar’s ghost, the more she realizes she doesn’t know him at all. Did Cedar wash out of the Galactic Fleet? Was he dishonorably discharged? Maybe there’s a pirate streak in him after all, and maybe there’s something even more important, something Basalt saw in him and not in Antimony, which is why she gave him command—compassion.

The picture she holds in her mind of Cedar—it’s a picture of herself. A picture of who she wants to be, or believed, up until this very moment, she needed to be in order to command. Ruthless, friendless, alone at the top. Holding her crew at bay in a mixture of awe and fear, needing no one.

Heavy is the head indeed. Maybe it wasn’t a taunt on Cedar’s lips earlier so much as a warning.

“How do I stop it?” Antimony asks.

Dead space aches all around the ship, the doldrums, like a bruise. The ship drifts, quiet in all the wrong ways. No engines thrumming; the only pulse of life the need of the star. If they stay, they’re doomed, if they run, they’ll fail. The star chamber will crack, the ship will explode or be devoured. This isn’t just a graveyard for ships, it’s a graveyard for stars, and her own always-dying star is calling to the ghosts of her own kind that haunt this space. And sooner or later, they will answer.

“You don’t stop it.” Cedar’s expression is grim. “That’s what I got wrong. There’s nothing at all you can do. We kept the star chained, and this is her vengeance.”

“A fucking lot of help you are.” Antimony grits her teeth.

At the same time, guilt needles her; no matter how they clashed while he was alive, Cedar really did want what was best for the ship. He might even have loved the Xanthic Promise as much as she does. Enough to die for it.

Her intuition leaps.

“You went to talk to your own death too, and you came up with an answer that involved you walking out of the ship on a routine repair mission and meeting your end even though your time wasn’t up yet.”

The pieces click into place, a rapid tumble matched by the beat of her pulse.

“You thought if you rearranged fate, met your death early, you could strengthen the chains, put the star back to sleep and keep the ship running. Chrysotile tried to finish what you started, but Starling . . . ”

The pieces fit, almost but not quite. There is still some missing. Did Starling simply get unlucky and cross Chrysotile’s path just when he was feeling grief-mad and murderous? Or did Starling take advantage of Chrysotile’s grief and talk him into committing murder, convincing Chrysotile that his death would finish what Cedar started and put the star back to sleep? Only Starling lied. He wanted to wake the star. Give it a voice. Set it free.

“Starling got it right, and you got it absolutely fucking wrong.”

Cedar’s eyes blaze at her, all glare and bared teeth, and for a moment he is as terrible as any ghost ought to be. But all she can do is grin triumph in the face of his offended rage, because she’s right, and a victory, even a pyrrhic one, is still a gods-damned win.

“You should have been trying to set her free, wake her up the rest of the way, rather than put her to sleep again. You died for nothing.”

Cedar howls and lunges at her, fingers crooked like claws. But of course, he’s insubstantial and passes right through her. Lacking the focus of the Xanthic Promise’s honed-bright weapons to make his death useful, Antimony feels nothing. Until she turns to mark his passage and where he ends up, comma-curled in the air, his body a sob without breath or tears.

“Fuck.”

She’s doing it again, setting herself above and apart, taking pleasure in a moment of being right, even though she was just as clueless as Cedar, and every bit as guilty. She should have held onto her belief in the old fairy tales, like Starling. She should have had compassion to pair with her ambition. She shouldn’t have been such a bloody, arrogant fool.

She wishes she could pat Cedar’s shoulder, comfort him. He straightens, emptied of rage now, as she is of gloating. And here is the other shoe about to drop between them. Cedar tried and failed and the ship is still in danger. The ship needs a captain, and at the moment, that’s her.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Cedar asks.

“Well, fuck,” Antimony says, because there’s nothing else for it. Cedar was on the right track, but facing the wrong way.

“I guess I’d better go see about a star.” Antimony shapes her lips to a fierce grin, her stance to a swagger. A little bit of brash and bravado isn’t such a bad thing. She is a gods-damned pirate after all, and if she’s going to go out, then it’s going to be staring death in the face and giving it the middle finger.

Cedar tips his head at her forgotten bottle of gin. His expression is almost kind, but not really at all, because he’s a gods-damned pirate too and that’s not how it is between them.

Antimony lifts the bottle in salute, takes a swig, and pours out a measure for him. The washed light of Cedar’s eyes flickers in something like pleasure, which gives her hope. Since she’s about to be very dead herself soon, it would be nice to go out knowing that she can still get shit-faced in the afterlife.

Another swig for good luck and she leaves the bottle beside the piano, uncorked. She resists the urge to set it down on the bench where it would leave a mark, a last peace offering.

And off she goes.

Antimony strides the decks of the Xanthic Promise. The walls howl with the restless dead, and in her mind, they’re a storm. She’s a pirate of old, her heeled boots ringing on wood while her red coat swirls and rain lashes her. She bares her teeth as if to catch the wind, even though there’s nothing here but recycled air.

“Out,” she bellows as she steps into the star chamber’s room.

Hyacinth looks up, scowls, a refusal on her lips. Antimony feels a flicker-flash of regret. Hyacinth is as sour as Antimony wants to be, or at least presents the same gruff exterior. Maybe they could have been friends, raised a glass together in the crow’s nest and sang bawdy old star-shanties. Antimony guesses she’ll never know.

“Go, or I’ll clap you in irons or make you walk the plank or something equally piratey.”

Hyacinth merely shakes her head, not so much a ceding to authority as her not being paid enough to care. As Antimony freshly reminded herself, they aren’t friends, and the captain’s chair will fall to Hyacinth next, so what stake does she have in stopping Antimony’s stupidity?

Hyacinth retreats, leaving Antimony alone.

The star chamber itself is sealed with a double hatch. Antimony scrambles to the top of the chamber and overrides the locks to drop through.

And then. She is. Falling. Seeing her bones through her skin. Hearing them, and isn’t that a weird fucking thing. Antimony is herself and she is her ghost, and she’s every captain who came before her, stitched in a long line, and this is where it ends.

She tastes Cedar’s death, holds it on her tongue, the bright bright bright moment of pure joy right before his faceplate shattered, thinking he was doing the right thing.

Her own death is here too, waiting for her just around a corner. A door. An edge. A turning.

But she isn’t there yet.

The ship sings. It screams. A swarm of bees humming in a cave made of ice cracking and a violin playing and a color that is blue and purple and pink and none of those at all and a hunger and a heartbeat and a lullaby and a whale calling to its calf through the deep.

Oh, it echoes. Antimony feels it all along her jaw. An ache to answer, but the sound isn’t for her. It’s for the ghosts outside the ship. The dead stars and the living ones and the stars yet to be born. They’re alive. All of them. Not just her star, but everyone among all the billions of points of light spread across the universe. Gloriously, terribly alive.

If a thing can have a heart that can be cut out and chained in the moment of its death to power a ship, then of course it is alive. Truly and properly alive. They had no right, none of them, the captains stretching back to the beginning of time sailing the black, to do what they have done.

Lightning cracks. Branches. The edge. There. Antimony reaches. Plunges her hand into the light that is the song that is the end of the line. And her ghost smirks and Cedar smirks and the thread tugs. She pictures with all her will and might, for whatever they are worth, cutting the star free, waking it up, shattering the bonds while sealing the wounds in the glass and keeping everyone on the Xanthic Promise safe, and she hopes against hope and against reason her death is strong enough to do that.

This is the end.

Except.

The coin pressed flat to the table has another side, and so does the door, and the edge really is a corner, and it can be turned.

Cedar made a bargain with his death and went to meet it early. But every member of a ghost ship’s crew knows their death is a solid and inevitable thing. They swear an oath the moment they come on board, and live every day knowing fate cannot be cheated. It is an immutable fact.

And so, if Cedar met his death early, then in truth, he was always fated to do so.

And by that very same logic, if Antimony makes a deal with her death now, refuses it and slips around the edge to the other face of the coin, the other side of the door, then she will have always been meant to do so. Fate signed, sealed, and delivered.

A promise is still a promise. That is where the power of a ghost ship lies, and she’s not denying her ship anything, only delaying its gratification a while.

And it is a glorious thing.

Here’s the deal, she thinks, You use my living voice, my tongue to scream your star song to the universe, to scream yourself awake and free, and you kick enough power into the ship on your way out to get us out of the Sargasso and I’ll figure out the rest on the way down.

It shouldn’t work, but ghost ships are built on impossible things.

Antimony throws her head back and opens her throat to the voice that shivers along her jaw, the star longing to sing through her in a language not meant for human tongues. She burns. The chamber shatters and she shatters and the ship lurches forward through the dark—a blink that is not motion that suddenly puts them somewhere else.

Everything turns inside out and upside down and sideways and backwards oh my. And then Antimony Jones does the most impossible thing of all: she survives.

Her skin is still smoking as Antimony limps from the star chamber’s remains. Chunks of glass, charred and black, litter the floor. The ship is whole, powered by a ghost, by a promise, as always, just enough to get them out of the doldrums and then, well, maybe Antimony will have to roll the dice again and put her life on the line one more time, but that’s a problem for future-her.

Antimony looks down at her arms, her legs, at skin black as charcoal, cracked and crazed and flaking ash. Seams running through her flesh blaze with starlight, every and no color at all. Her clothes are gone. And it’s a damned good thing she shaved her head before this all began, because if not, her hair would be on fire.

She nearly collides with Hyacinth who hovers just on the other side of the door, anxious for her ship if not for her captain. Antimony tosses a crooked grin.

“Let’s get a drink sometime,” she says, and the words draw more shock from Hyacinth than Antimony’s burned-and-smoldering condition.

Cheating death, or at least delaying it for a while, is as good an excuse as any to turn over a new leaf. She can be a fierce, piratey pirate and still make a friend, or at least try.

Black petals scorch the deck, the echo of footsteps left in her wake. The same goes for any place Antimony rests her hand to steady herself, which she does often, covering the ship with impressions of herself all the way back to her cabin where she scoops up the rest of the gin and kills it in one go.

The ghost-stitched walls chitter and gibber and gossip and Antimony grins. Let them tell grand epic tales of the captain who freed her ship’s star, who looked her own death in the eye and said not today, motherfucker. She’ll happily listen once those rumors circle back around as star-shanties, but not right now.

Now, she will fall into her bed and hope that the sheets don’t catch fire because she intends to sleep for a week solid.

Whatever comes after that, well, that’s a problem for future-her. Now-her is flush and full of victory, all the crackling power of her ghost ship at her fingertips, and the whole of the universe spread before her. Just the way it should be.

About the Author

A.C. Wise’s fiction has appeared in publications such as Uncanny, Clarkesworld, Tor.com, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Her work has won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, as well as twice being a finalist for the Sunburst Award, twice being a finalist for the Nebula Award, and being a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She has two collections published with Lethe Press, and a novella published by Broken Eye Books. Her debut novel, Wendy, Darling will be published by Titan Books in June 2021, and a new short story collection, The Ghost Sequences, will be published by Undertow Books in August 2021. In addition to her fiction, she contributes review columns to Apex Magazine and The Book Smugglers.

Lost in Darkness and Distance

Clara Madrigano

Charlie wasn’t a ghost standing in the corners of the house, but at the same time he was everywhere. He had been haunting my thoughts since we received Uncle Jamey’s emails and the plane tickets. Now, everyone gathered at our mother’s house, my childhood home, to come to a decision.

We barely said anything as we ate. Of the five of us, DD was the only one who had already made up her mind.

“I’ll go. Even if you guys decide you’re not,” she had confided in me the night before, as we struggled to get any sleep in her bed—our twin nieces were sleeping in my old bedroom. In the darkness, she carefully scanned my face, waiting for a reaction; wanting to know if I was on board, or if I’d been wounded by her decision.

“Why do you think Mom keeps our bedrooms like this? Like time hasn’t passed,” she asked, as if sensing the need to change the subject.

“Because of Joan Didion,” I said, almost automatically.

“Joan Didion?”

“Joan Didion said a girl should always have a room in her mother’s house. Even when she’s all grown up. Something like that.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“She did.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere. Some book. Some interview. I’m not sure.” I had no idea if that was true. I knew Joan Didion said something in those lines; I’d learned so from a book. But I had no idea if my mother had ever read Didion, her own words or her words told by others. Suddenly, though, the association seemed inescapable and true. Of course that was why my mother kept our rooms for us, her girls; every mother kept her daughter’s room, in a way or another. Every mother kept waiting for a child to return.

DD stayed quiet for a while. I closed my eyes.

“Do you think they kept his room the same? You think they’ll bring him back to, you know . . . their house?” DD asked. But my eyes remained shut. I pretended to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to answer her. The answer, had I told her, would be, plainly: “I have no idea.”

During that quiet dinner, one of our last before the flight was scheduled to leave, Gray broke the silence, calmly stating his thoughts over the clicking of chopsticks as we consumed our delivered Chinese food:

“We should go. I think we owe it to Uncle Jamey. I mean, he wants us to be a part of it.” He cleared his throat, as if to say more, but decided not to, stuffing his mouth with a dumpling and chewing as gently as possible.

“I agree,” my mother said. She didn’t look at us. She seemed relaxed right now, strangely absent.

When I first got here, when I held her in my arms for an embrace, she seemed about to dissolve, turning into white smoke and escaping through my fingers. We sat by the kitchen counter. “Coffee?” she suggested. I said yes, for no good reason. My stomach felt like an enemy for the last few days. Ever since I got the email and read it and reread it.

“Did you know?” I asked. The very first question, as my mother filled my cup with instant coffee. I watched her attentively, afraid she still could disappear, leaving behind nothing but her clothes. Everything about my reality seemed at risk of disappearing that first day—and in the days that came next. The edges of the world were blurred. As I drove to my mother’s house, it felt like I wasn’t driving at all, but being guided by some energy that made me lose any sense of time. Usually driving to Mom’s house would take me twenty to thirty minutes. That day, I had the impression barely five minutes had passed between leaving my apartment in the city and parking the car in front of our old house’s garage.

“No,” my mother said. “I didn’t.”

“Is he serious about it?”

“He’s done it. I think this answers your question, Mia.”

I felt a lump in my throat. Instinctively, my mother let her own cup rest on the sink and hugged me. She was solid. She wasn’t going to disappear. I must have sobbed in relief, because she patted my back and said it was OK. “I should have offered you tea,” she said, and then laughed.

DD joined us an hour later, bringing in a big, pink suitcase, and Gray and Maura and the twins came in the next morning, after a long flight from California; my nieces were finicky, annoyed at that sudden emergency trip. They wanted to go to Disney.

“It’s not Disney. It’s more special than Disney,” Maura would say, and then she’d look at me as if asking for some guidance. How could I even begin to explain what was happening? My nieces had never met Charlie, they had no idea what any of that meant. “But there’s going to be a beach, and you and your aunts DD and Mia can play the whole day,” my sister-in-law added. “Hey, maybe you can even play with dolphins.” Were there dolphins at the island? I didn’t know. It had no name, the island; at least the papers never mentioned a name. I couldn’t Google it. I couldn’t find any information on its precise location among the other Caribbean islands.

“I’m going,” I finally said, during that last dinner, after Gray and Mom had made their opinions known. My family seemed a bit surprised—either by the high pitch I’d used when announcing my decision, or by the decision itself. My brother’s sad brown eyes, Mom’s alert expression . . . they watched me, afraid I’d break into pieces. But I’d compromised. I said the words.

That night, back in our shared bed, DD said, “You’re cold.” She held my face in her hands and her blue eyes stared deep into my soul.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I do. If Uncle Jamey didn’t want me there, he wouldn’t have invited me.” This was the truth I had been avoiding. Uncle Jamey wanted me to go. Uncle Jamey wrote my name. He somehow had my email; he sent me the papers and the ticket. And the paperwork seemed to be never-ending. We signed the nondisclosure agreements, we pawned our souls to those rules. The five of us decided to go.

“Then we’re doing it together,” DD said, while in bed, stroking my cold cheeks.

Charlie was the first boy I ever kissed. I knew there was something inherently wrong about kissing your own cousin. But at twelve, I’d been devouring historical fiction and biographies of great women and queens; I’d been drowning in nineteenth century romances I still didn’t fully understand, and the idea of kissing your cousin, even marrying him, didn’t seem so strange.

Charlie and I were more than just cousins, truth to be told: we’re almost twins. Born in the same year, just a few months apart, we’d run with nothing but diapers on in my parents’ house, and in Uncle Jamey’s apartment in New York. During childhood, we’d rather play with each other than with other kids our age. Charlie and I were made of the same material and the same blood. I could predict his reactions before he’d speak, I could read his mind like I could read the palm of his hand, every line and scar.

On the day I kissed Charlie, during our summer vacation, watching the glimmer of the lake right in front of the cabin my father usually rented, we had been swimming for a good part of the morning, and the sun added a sheen of gold to Charlie’s brown skin, his damp curls darker than ever. I kissed him when no one was looking; behind a tree, where I took a break to hide, believing my flowery bikini made me look stupid and childish near Charlie’s changing body, the height and the lean muscles he had been gaining during that summer, puberty making him more and more of a young man than a boy.

He came to check on me, ask me if I was OK, and I said yes. He told me to come and join them: he, Gray, and DD, by the lake. Charlie gave me his hand. As I took it and got up, it happened: I kissed him. Standing at the tip of my toes, our lips touching for a brief moment. I couldn’t taste him properly. I tasted the water instead, and a bit of shame.

His brown eyes widened with surprise as I stepped back, astonished at what I’d just done.

But Charlie laughed. A kind laugh: such a rare thing to hear from a boy.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t say anything.”

He kept his promise. Summer was reality suspended. It was another world, after all.

We went back to the water. We dared ourselves to swim faster than the other. Charlie would always win, but still we played the game. He’d beat Gray and even me, the best swimmer among my siblings. We’d blink and there he’d be: Charlie, in the far distance, a dot in the immensity of the lake, waving at us.

Miami: we boarded our chartered plane. DD held my hand until both our palms were sweaty. My mother was a bit more pragmatic: she popped some pills as soon as we left Philadelphia and slept for the most part of the first flight. Going into the chartered plane, she moved in a bit of a lethargy, as if entering a dream.

“She’s so high on her meds right now,” DD joked.

My nieces were the only ones that had some sort of fun. They’d press their faces against the window and pretend to see heaven.

“Mama, where are the angels?” they’d asked.

“They live up above, darlings. You can’t see them from here,” Maura said. “Don’t stare at the sun. It will hurt your eyes.”

Angels. Angels and miracles. My head was suddenly filled by a distant choir of plump cherubs. I laughed, instinctively. The last night, I packed my bags as if I were going on a vacation. Swimsuits. Denim. Dresses. I wasn’t sure of what I was doing. I should have thought of a nun habit, something appropriate to witnessing a miracle. This wasn’t a vacation.

But the island we landed on was everything you could expect from the perfect vacation spot. Caribbean blue sea and white and hot sand. People stretching on folding chairs by the beach and having colorful drinks served by men dressed in blue aprons. A big, luxurious resort, the color of cream—the color of sand—that wasn’t really a resort: it was the Clinic, my mother said. The biggest building on the whole island, with French windows and large verandas from where you could appreciate the view. Behind the great wooden doors, already opened to us, we were greeted by a life-sized reproduction of Michelangelo’s David, and I tried not to snort. Only later, when we already had a room for ourselves, DD would say: “Very ‘in your face,’ don’t you think?” She meant what they did in the Clinic, and how David encapsulated it perfectly.

“We are Jamey Ocampo’s guests,” my mother said to the receptionist, who then produced even more paperwork waiting for our signatures. Women in dark blue, with harmless expressions, confiscated my nieces’ iPads and everyone’s phones. The suite I’d be sharing with DD was huge. The size of the bathroom, with a bathtub big enough for both of us. The tasteful, but meaningless art displayed on the white walls; everything white, as pure snow.

“I feel like Kate Middleton. You know what Tamsyn would say, right? ‘Oh, Adelia. They tricked you and locked you in a rehabilitation center,’” My sister’s girlfriend was the only one who ever called her Adelia, the name that had belonged to our Brazilian great-grandmother. She’d always been DD or Dee to us.

DD and I were always easily mistaken as everyday white American girls; with our blonde hair and blue eyes, our pale glowing skin and the gentle freckles covering her nose and cheeks. DD was shorter than I was, busty, whereas I’d always been slender and lacking any breasts. But we’re undeniably sisters, cut from the same tree, from our dad’s DNA. Gray was the one with the dark eyes and the dark hair of our dead grandfather and Uncle Jamey; Gray was one who even remotely looked like an Ocampo.

He knocked on our door. The door wasn’t locked, so he turned the knob and shyly pried in. “Uncle Jamey is waiting for us.”

“We’ll be there soon,” DD singsonged. Once Gray was gone, she held my shoulders and said, like an old incantation, “It’s going to be fine.”

Uncle Jamey and Aunt Sarita were waiting at the beach. Aunt Sarita, hiding behind huge sunglasses, lifted one thin arm and waved at our little procession, while Uncle Jamey came ambling over the sand for a proper greet. He first hugged Mom, and then Gray; he messed with my nieces’ hair and then kissed Maura’s cheeks. He said to DD:

“My God, you grew up.”

And, as for me: he embraced me as if I were his long-lost daughter. I froze. The last time Uncle Jamey touched me, his fingers felt like they wanted to break me in pieces.

“I’m so glad you’re all here,” he said to everyone, once our embrace was over.

Uncle Jamey had gained some weight. His wrinkled face was tanned enough, like rough leather, beard and hair still mostly black, a few patches of white making a discreet appearance. He was built like a bear, my uncle. Not that tall, but burly. And there was my Aunt Sarita: she rose up from a white folding chair and approached us, holding a drink in one hand, using her free hand to distribute half-hugs. Aunt Sarita looked better than ever. The last time I saw her, she might as well have been a ghost of herself, skinny and all bones. But now she smiled; now, she kissed us. And her black skin was dewy and beautiful, her lips glossy from all the protective balm I imagined she must have been wearing.

When my grandparents first arrived in the United States, when they disembarked in Miami and inhaled the American air, they had two rules: that their children, Uncle Jamey and Mom, should get an education (Uncle Jamey told us that), and that they should marry good, white Americans (my mother told us that, her lips curling as if in a snarl). My grandparents had old money and a shame that stuck to them as if a shadow. Shame of being South Americans. White South Americans, but South Americans nonetheless. América Latrina, they would say of the place they’d left. A shithole. They held on to their whiteness as if holding on to gold; for in the far south of the Americas, whiteness was sometimes more valuable than money, and they wanted their children to marry white Anglo-Saxon people and have white babies, so maybe one day they would forget about where they had come from.

My father was white. White and blonde, as American as apple pie—the kind of American my grandparents envisioned and wanted for their daughter. Reliable as plain bread.

But Aunt Sarita was an African-American woman, and my grandparents never hid their displeasure. They threatened not to show up for the wedding. They tried every emotional blackmail they could come up with. In the end, they relented; because Uncle Jamey was as stubborn as every Ocampo and would have his way. My grandparents were at the wedding, sitting silently, holding hands and barely glancing at Aunt Sarita’s family.

“When you grow up, you understand your parents are only human, and that being human is an ugly business,” my mother told me one day, the same day she decided to explain it all—my grandparents’ shame, their racism. I was sixteen. My grandmother had recently died, while my grandfather had been dead for years. “You and Dee and Gray must have come to this same conclusion, I’m sure.”

“You and Dad aren’t assholes or bigots,” I jumped to their defense.

“Don’t say that.” Her voice was low, almost fading.

“What?”

“Assholes,” she whispered, as if my dead grandmother was standing right in the next room, ears pressed against the wall.

My grandmother’s last days had been tough and, as we spoke, my mother had a bit of bourbon—something she wouldn’t do in front of my father, in the same fashion DD and I would hide our casual smoking from her. My grandmother had spent her last three years in a retirement institution, exhibiting increasingly erratic behavior. She was often hostile when my mother and I went to visit, bringing flowers she’d dismiss with the movement of a hand covered with aging spots. She’d say how ungrateful my mother had been. How Uncle Jamey never paid her a visit, and neither of her grandchildren—Gray and I—did (she barely complained about DD; since DD had come out as a lesbian, at age thirteen, coming down the stairs with a cardboard covered with glitter that said “I’M A LESBIAN,” surprising no one, my grandmother, once hearing the news, had pretended DD didn’t exist anymore).

My mother sighed softly. I wasn’t sure if she was drinking because she was sad or because she was relieved her mother was finally gone. Maybe both. As much as we tried not to, we’d always make excuses for our parents’ behavior, even when they hurt us. During the twilight of a dying parent’s life, we’d airbrush whatever we could.

But parents did the same with their children, I thought. Every big flaw swept under the carpet, every minor good magnified and turned into glory. When we are yet to be born, just tiny tadpoles swimming inside our mother’s belly, our parents already dream wonderful things about us, about the people we will become. Before our first breath their mind is already spinning stories for these fictional selves they imagine we’ll be one day.

“Where is he?” my mother asked Aunt Sarita.

“You’ll meet him soon. Dinner? Tonight?” she said, like it was a casual invitation and not what had brought us there in the first place. “Oh, look at them. These babies!” Aunt Sarita bent in front of my nieces and cupped their plump cheeks with her hands, passing on her glass to Uncle Jamey. My nieces were strangely silent. Maybe Maura had warned them.

When Aunt Sarita straightened herself again, it hit me that she might have been drunk. All the good humor and the kissing, and the way her feet danced over the sand when she took a few steps back, Uncle Jamey holding her by the elbow . . .

“This place is beautiful. It’s paradise. You’ll love it,” she said.

DD whispered to my ear:

“Is that one of them?”

In the distance, a man and a girl meandered by the shore. The man was dressed like your average middle-aged white tourist: flowery shirt and khaki shorts. He had gray hair and a pink face drenched with too much sun. The girl wore a white dress that the wind waved gently. Father and daughter, I concluded.

“I think so,” I said to DD.

“Holy shit,” DD’s whisper was ever lower that time.

I put on a new dress. Black but ordinary: a dress that stated nothing beyond its pristine shape. New. Adequate.

I combed my wet blonde hair and then sat at the edge of my big bed, waiting for DD. I remembered my breathing exercises, the ones I learned years ago while in therapy, and put them to good use.

DD caught me in the midst of it. She thought I was having a panic attack.

“It won’t be that bad, I swear,” DD said, holding my hands, forcing me to get up in a single movement, as if asking me for a dance. And I believed her, because I would have grabbed on to any promise at that point.

Uncle Jamey and Aunt Sarita had a whole apartment inside the clinic. A large place with white walls, three bedrooms, a long dining table, and chandeliers.

In one corner of the living room, there was a black grand piano. The ghost before the real ghost. Breathe, I told myself. Just breathe.

We’re served beautiful seafood cooked to a lovely point of tenderness, the only sound the cracking of their hard shells, buttery sauce dripping from spoons we used to help ourselves. I barely ate. The shrimp tasted good and tasted like paper at the same time. I wished for nothing but one of my father’s spaghetti, the creamy tomato sauce I had been raised on. With my fork, I pushed the food aside; and then to the other side; I considered the shape of those creatures that had once lived underwater, in the silence of the deep sea, unaware of the things that haunted us, human beings.

“Here he comes,” Aunt Sarita said, and I froze.

And here he came: the final ghost. A boy with dark skin, skin that under that low light shone like bronze. A boy dressed in white. That easy and benevolent smile. The shyness as he stopped and stared at us, looking for . . . permission, I imagined.

“Sit, darling,” Aunt Sarita said. We were unable to utter a single word. Our eyes were locked on the impossible figure before us. Charlie reborn; Charlie made himself again, as David sculpted from marble, from his smooth curly hair to the dimples that only ever revealed themselves when he couldn’t contain a smile. And he looked at us as if we were somehow a miracle too. Aunt Sarita gestured at a chair and he sat down. “What do you want?” Aunt Sarita asked, and Charlie shook his head and laughed—Charlie’s laugh. Aunt Sarita got him a bit of everything, and Charlie took his knife and fork and ate slowly. A hint of surprise here and there; as if the taste was something new and magical.

“Can you eat real food?” one of my nieces asked.

The unexpectedness of that particular question forced DD to hide a laugh. Gray shot a look at Maura, whose face was now red. So she had told the twins what this new Charlie was.

“Yes, of course I can,” Charlie said, smiling again. “I know your names. Megan and Ines, right?”

“I’m Ines,” Ines said. “She’s Megan.” And she touched her sister’s head.

“And you’re my cousins. Gray, Mia, and Adelia. Did I get it right?” Charlie said. When he said my name and looked at me, I couldn’t help myself. A storm had been brewing inside my stomach. I tried to smile and too late noticed I was crying. DD made a move; rose from her chair, trying to hand me a napkin, but I was already standing and running from the apartment. I puked inside a vase.

Charlie died when we were both eighteen. He already looked like the man I had merely glimpsed that day by the lake, when I kissed him.

Mother told us Charlie would be spending part of that summer with us.

“What, he’s not going to Aspen this time?” Gray asked, somewhat resentfully.

“Charlie’s having some problems back home. So let’s make him feel welcome, OK?” Mom said. Gray mumbled something, his shoulders moved, and we took that as agreement. He’d held a tiny grudge against Charlie ever since they were young. It hadn’t as much to do with Charlie himself than as with Uncle Jamey’s money. Uncle Jamey was undeniably rich; he had taken his part of the money our dead grandfather granted him and multiplied it, turning water into wine. He bought companies and then sold them. And then he bought more companies and sold them too. Whenever asked what his father did for a living, Charlie would look disarmed and, in an indifferent voice, simply say: “My father buys stuff.”

Mom had used her money to invest in Dad’s restaurant. It was a smart move by any account. Nothing ever lacked us. We lived in a good house in Philadelphia and we vacationed every year. Our tuitions were guaranteed. We’d been hit by recession here and there, and Mom’s money always saved us, and Dad managed to stay in business while we sailed through every storm.

“He can have my room,” Gray said. “Maybe I should go back to San Francisco earlier.” Gray was a sophomore in Santa Clara University; he was back for the summer so he could help Dad with the restaurant—but he had longed dreamed of a summer job away from the kitchen and the sweet smell of pasta sauce—away from us.

When Dad brought Charlie from the airport, Charlie had a duffel bag and a purplish eye.

“Oh, my God. Charlie, dear,” Mom said, bringing him in. Charlie was quiet. Mother sat him on a kitchen chair and ran and gave him a glass of water. DD and I peered by the kitchen entry, but said nothing, and Charlie seemed too ashamed to look at us. “Let me get some ice,” Mother said.

“No, that’s old,” Charlie said, and managed to laugh a little bit—a weak laugh, while he still looked at the floor.

“Uncle Jamey did that?” I asked.

Charlie shrugged. I couldn’t picture Uncle Jamey hitting him; not Charlie, whom he loved so much. And I certainly couldn’t picture Charlie, with his smooth hands, hands made for playing the piano, fighting back.

A story came to my mind: something my mother had told me a few years ago. Once, when she was little, and the family was having dinner, Uncle Jamey tried to impress my grandfather by saying a few words of Portuguese he’d been learning by himself. My grandfather’s face went blank for a second. He got up, and Uncle Jamey felt proud, like he was going to be congratulated, but then my grandfather slapped Uncle Jamey’s face so hard his palm was imprinted on the boy’s skin in an ugly red color. “Only English,” Grandfather had said, before sitting down again. My mother remembered trembling, She remembered trying not to cry, afraid she could be slapped for that to.

Charlie’s hand was also scraped. Only the right hand.

“What did he do?” I asked, my voice angry. But Charlie looked at the scrapes and said: “No, that was me. I did this.”

The nature of Uncle Jamey’s and Charlie’s fight—disagreement, Uncle Jamey would have said—had to do with Charlie’s insistence on not going to Juilliard. Not so soon, at least. Charlie wanted to travel the world. He wasn’t sure he wanted to play the piano as a way of living. Uncle Jamey was furious. You’re an artist, he had said. I play because you always wanted me to, Charlie retorted. At some point, frustrated, Charlie punched a wall. A gesture, he’d say, that looked much simpler—and more dramatic—in the movies, and that he instantly regretted. And as soon as he backed up from the wall, holding his fist in pain, Uncle Jamey struck him. Not with a slap, but with a punch. That punch made Charlie’s world become a fast, nauseous merry-go-round. It made him see the black of an infinite universe, the explosions of little stars. Aunt Sarita was screaming in the background, and yet the world kept spinning, that living room, the stars, the darkness. When Charlie came to himself again, lying on the floor, Uncle Jamey was standing before him, panting, face as red as a tomato. Charlie thought his father was having a heart attack. Aunt Sarita was cradling Charlie’s head in her arms, yelling at Uncle Jamey, telling him to stay away.

For a second or two, everything had gone black and then there was his father, a look of unspeakable horror on his face, as if he hadn’t known up to that point the kind of violence he could commit against his own child.

“Charlie really likes being with you. And he just needs time. Both of them do,” Aunt Sarita had told Mom on the phone.

And so we had Charlie for the summer—another summer. Upon seeing Charlie’s face, the damage against his flesh, Gray simply said: “You can have my bedroom. I’ll sleep in the basement.”

“You really don’t need to do that,” Charlie said.

“No, really. It’s fine,” and Gray waved his hand; waving away Charlie’s concern and, I wondered, whatever previous opinion he’d held.

It was a good month. Nothing remarkable about those earlier days. It was my last summer at home after graduating from high school and soon enough I’d be a freshman at Penn. For a long time, I considered getting a major in history. But now I wanted to study Latin American cultures (which no doubt would have my grandparents rolling in their graves). I felt happy; I felt things were getting into their rightful place. Charlie’s presence seemed to confirm my feelings. He made the house whole, somehow. I had long gotten over my teenage crush, but he was always my confidant. For him, I had always felt a camaraderie I could never feel for Gray. I could pour my heart out to Charlie and get no judgment, and he’d do the same. I could share with him things I thought I couldn’t share even with DD. Our many emails and texts exchanges over the years proved it so. I knew the Charlie behind the serene façade, the Charlie that wanted things. Things he had locked inside of himself, things he was afraid of sharing with anybody, least of all his parents. Charlie’s silence was not passive; Charlie’s silence was hunger, and that was the biggest truth I ever knew about my cousin.

Throughout those weeks, we helped Dad with the restaurant. Charlie proudly wore his black apron and learned how to attend on tables. The best pasta you could eat in Philadelphia; in Dad’s mind, that’s what the restaurant meant. He taught Charlie the basics of a good Bolognese and how to make gnocchi from scratch. Charlie loved, laughed at his mistakes, his fingers white with flour. On Sundays, we’d help Dad and Mom at a soup kitchen my parents volunteered at, where Charlie would flash his smile at every guest, holding their hands and leading them to vacant tables—old people, homeless people. We learned never to ask questions. The new ones, they would appear by the door almost shyly—as if they weren’t sure they should even be there—speaking in a low tone of voice and avoiding eye contact. But Charlie’s smile was so infectious he could make people he had just met laugh at a comment or two.

When Charlie’s birthday came, we baked him a big cake with a lot of buttercream. We lit candles and sang Happy Birthday. There was talk of spending a few days at the lake house again, and I wondered how that would play: if we’d still be like kids, competing to see who could swim faster, who could master the waters. We’d never be like this again, together like that again, my siblings and I; Charlie and us.

After the party, Gray smuggled us a few beers and we drank them in the backyard, DD, Charlie, and I with our feet inside the pool.

“Do you really hate playing the piano?” Gray asked, walking shoeless on the short grass.

“No,” Charlie said. “But I’m not sure I see myself as a pianist. If that makes any sense.”

“What do you see yourself as?” I asked.

“I have no idea. Really.” And Charlie laughed. “I think I was supposed to. I mean, you guys know what you want, right? Your calling.”

“Nah. I want money. That’s not the same as having a calling,” said Gray.

“I want to travel the world,” said DD. She was sixteen, she wasn’t supposed to be having alcohol—none of us was, except for Gray—but there she was, and there we were. “I want to save orcas.”

“That’s more of a calling,” Gray pointed.

“I wish I could travel the world, too,” said Charlie.

“Come on. You have been up and down the country,” said Gray. “You have seen all of America, all of Europe . . . ”

But Charlie was shaking his head. “Not the same thing,” he said. “I went wherever my dad wanted me to go.”

We knew Uncle Jamey; we knew him enough, so Gray didn’t press on. Instead, he approached DD and snatched her bottle of beer. DD let out a loud complaint, but then, afraid Mom and Dad could listen and come and check whatever we were doing, she covered her mouth with both hands.

“You’ve had enough,” Gray said, going back to the house. DD got up and went after him, silently cursing Gray.

“I wish I could spend more time with you guys,” Charlie said, after a while, just the two of us left. “You’re so . . . normal.”

“Charlie, we’re anything but normal,” I said. After so long, he should’ve known. Mom’s drinking, my parents’ constant fights, Dad’s cheating.

I had told him all about it, sometimes tearfully typing emails, sometimes casually texting—when my family shenanigans couldn’t affect me anymore, when the wounds of a fight or an argument had already healed.

“You baked me a cake,” said Charlie. “Nobody ever baked me a cake.”

“I’ve been to your birthday parties, Charlie. There was plenty of cake, always.”

“It’s different. Mom has our cakes delivered from the best bakeries in the city and then she dresses like it’s . . . ”

“A party?”

“She’ll serve champagne; but she’ll side-eye me if I even touch a can of soda—unhealthy, bad for your skin, bad for your brain. She’s even weird about coffee. She thinks I’ll turn into a zombie and trade the day for the night if I get too caffeinated, and then I won’t play good enough, or I won’t be good enough.”

“Oh, poor Charlie. Poor Charlie and his rich parents.”

“I understand my privileges, Mia. I’m not saying I’d give up on that and, I don’t know . . . go and die inside a bus lost in Alaska. But . . . ”

“But?”

He tried to come up with an explanation; in the end, he said nothing.

“You’re going to be fine, Charlie.” I clinked my bottle against his, in a salute. Charlie clinked back, and that was enough. The night had turned the sky purple. Then, it had made it into an inescapable dark blue. I wish I could have stopped time that night. I wish Charlie and I could have stayed in there forever.

“Drink it,” DD said, pushing the glass of water into my hands. I felt a sweat cold and sticky against my neck. DD gave me a pill and made me lay down on my bed when I finally swallowed her enchantments, produced from little white bottles lifted from the madness inside her suitcase.

“I can’t believe I did that,” I said. I felt feverish, too; and I wonder if there was something accusing in my eyes, because DD hesitated a bit.

“I know I said it would be OK, but you know what? You can’t really plan for shit like this,” she said. “It happens. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Uncle Jamey and Aunt Sarita must hate me more than ever.”

DD didn’t dignify me with a response. She covered my body, now half-naked, only my bra and panties on, and tucked me in as if I were her baby.

I slept fast enough, deployed of any energy. At some point, I felt my mother entering the room and sitting by my side, smoothing my hair as she once did when I was a child, and then a teen. I imagined I heard her voice, speaking softly to DD, and DD answering in the same way, maybe afraid they would wake me up. And then: darkness. No dreams, not a soothing sleep. Just darkness.

I woke up feeling my throat sore. DD wasn’t in the room, so I put on some jeans and an old tank top and left. I didn’t go to Uncle Jamey’s apartment. The mere thought of it, of facing him and Aunt Sarita again, made me sick. I went to the large veranda the Clinic had, with tall white pillars and cushioned wicker chairs. A man in a blue apron appeared as if out of nowhere and asked me if I wanted a drink. I ordered some orange juice.

I could see the beach from where I sat. I could see DD playing with the twins on the sand.

And then: my heart almost skipped a beat when I saw Charlie leaving the water, getting his curls away from his face. He had a companion. The girl DD and I had seen when we first arrived, walking with her father. Only the girl wasn’t exactly a girl. Next to Charlie, she seemed a bit older. More of my age, in her late twenties or very early thirties, than Charlie’s eighteen. They were talking at ease, laughing; Charlie seemed far more relaxed than he was at dinner, and I pulled my knees to myself and watched the scene as if I were watching a romance movie. There was something sweet about it.

“Excuse me.”

I turned my head and saw the girl’s father sitting down on another wicker chair. His day had certainly come to a fast start: he held a sweaty glass of margarita, his red face more wrinkled than I’d imagined. We were watching the same thing: Charlie and the girl getting out of the water, in their white bathing suits, young and so alive under the sun.

“He’s always being a good swimmer,” I said, pointing at Charlie.

“He’s yours?” the man asked. He had an aquiline nose, a little crooked by a deviated septum.

“No. I mean, yes. He’s my cousin. Was.”

The man nodded. While holding his margarita, extending a finger only, he pointed at the girl.

“That’s my wife.”

Wife. I couldn’t hide my shock.

I replayed that first time I saw them on the beach. I had mistook their interactions, thought of father and daughter. I felt bile rising up through my throat, and the man must have noticed.

“God. I don’t touch her. Never did,” he explained himself. “Although they say they have no rights of their own. That was the most awkward conversation I ever had, by the way. I asked them what was proper and what wasn’t—and they kept saying the same thing: they have no rights of their own. But in the tiny letters, if you read the contract closely and carefully, there is: the Clinic does not condone violence. Any violent behavior will immediately terminate the contract,” he moved his index finger in the air, as if reading a particular invisible line. His smile was hurt and bitter. “As if I ever could. I can barely talk to her—she’s a different person altogether. I’ll be babysitting a girl who lives inside my wife’s body for the next two years. Cheers to that.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Then what?” said the man.

“After two years you’ll just leave her here?”

He looked startled.

“They don’t live longer than two years,” he said.

“What?”

“They have only two years. I don’t know why. Something to do with the way they’re grown inside those artificial wombs. I don’t know. But they don’t live longer than that. Their organs start failing and . . . that’s it.”

“No.”

“I signed the contract. I know what I’m talking about. None of them will live longer than two years. That’s why we move here. We can’t take them home.” He paused at that word: home. He looked on to the girl who bore the likeness of his dead wife. “We can’t take them anywhere. We live here for two years and then the dream is over.” He laughed. “My son told me this was insane. That it was a monstrosity. I should have listened to him.”

He drank his margarita whole and left the glass for someone else to pick up. He was up and gone before I could say any word.

The man with the apron arrived with my juice. I didn’t touch the glass. I went to DD, stood in the berm for a second, and then ventured past the shoreline, where she and my nieces were.

“Did you know they only live two years?” I asked, almost shouting.

She was close enough to listen. I had entered the water up to my ankles, not caring about my jeans getting wet, my flip-flops making me move in a clownish way.

“What?” DD asked, pressing her fingers against her eyes.

“Who?” Megan asked. The twins seemed excited. “The clones?”

“Don’t repeat that,” I said. “Don’t tell this to anyone.” And, to my sister, I asked again: “Did you know?”

“No. Of course not,” DD seemed genuinely confused. “Who told you that? Mia?”

I sat right there: in the water, letting the gentle waves hit my belly, my black tank top. I must have looked the very picture of what miserable was. Ines came near me, patted my head. “You won’t puke again, auntie,” she said. DD eyed me with a similar concern, afraid I’d vomit in front of the children, in that beautiful sea. I held my nausea down. I cupped my hands, filled them with water, and splashed my face.

“Wake up,” I said to Charlie, pushing his shoulders.

“What?” he said, half asleep, wrapped in Gray’s duvet.

“Let’s go on a mission.”

“What time . . . ”

“Seven in the morning. Get up,” I said.

“What is wrong with you?” Charlie asked, but he complied, sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

“We’re gonna buy a lot of crap today. Coke—the kind you drink, not the kind you snort.”

“Oh, no,” said Charlie.

“Red Bulls. Twix bars. Or Milky Ways. Some M&M’s, for sure.”

“Are you planning on getting us diabetic? Because I think I’m missing the point,” Charlie said.

“The point is, you’re spending summer with me, and that’s how we do during my summers. We get shit-faced on candy and things that are bad for skin and our brains,” I said. He sighed. I simply shoved a pillow on his face. Nobody was yet awake when I got Dad’s car keys. Charlie was still in his pajama pants, wearing an old T-shirt belonging to Gray, and I merely put on a sweatshirt over my own pajamas. Knickers on, the gas running, we hit the streets. I was looking for a nearby 7-Eleven. No music was playing, I wasn’t humming at any song; nor Charlie was. I suppose, if this was a movie, we’d have had one last meaningful conversation inside that car, a conversation that would haunt me, but that would bring some meaning to what happened. The truth is: we said nothing to each other. We didn’t speak of our family. Morning light shone on the streets shyly, and the parking space at the 7-Eleven was empty and quiet, almost eerily so. That was the scenario. That was how the tragedy was arranged.

“You’re staying?” I asked Charlie as I left the car.

“Yeah, I’d rather not be discreetly spied on by some eighteen-year-old dude who thinks I’m gonna rob him. The white girl can do it today,” Charlie said, and I put my tongue out and closed the door.

I took my time picking the candies. The cashier wasn’t a teen, but a middle-aged woman.

“Got the munchies?” she asked.

A bit surprised, I nodded, and she gave me an unreadable look.

“Here’s what I got,” I said when I entered the car again, holding my bag of trash food and candy. “Want some?”

Charlie didn’t answer. His head was pressed gently against the widow, as if he had simply dozed off.

“I can’t believe you,” I said. “Charlie?”

I shook him

“Charlie, c’mon.”

He didn’t wake up. I shook him harder.

“Charlie, stop,” I said. And then I begged. I shook him again, more violently, but his body was soft; it made no attempt to resist me.

I felt his pulse. Nothing. I let the bag of candy drop on the floor and quickly turned the car on, trying to find the nearest hospital. What a vision I must have been: to the nurses, to everyone in the waiting room. A banshee screaming, my blonde hair unraveled, half-dressed in my pajamas and trying to explain what was happening.

His heart. That’s what the doctors told us. Charlie’s heart had simply stopped beating. Sudden cardiac death. SCD. He’d had a congenital defect nobody knew of. And we could have spent the rest of our lives never knowing about. But that day, that morning in the car, while I was away, his heart decided to beat one last time. While I was picking some candy bar, Charlie gave out his last breath.

Why didn’t I feel it? Like a cord being ripped, the golden cord that connected Charlie to me, that connected our blood.

We buried him on a day when the sun was high. I couldn’t stop crying, my hand covering my mouth, trying to muffle the sound. Aunt Sarita wore her grief with elegance, one tear streaming down her face every minute. I was a mess. I didn’t want to be there, but I couldn’t not say goodbye. Uncle Jamey was fighting his own tears. His fists clenched, he kept looking at the hole opened on the fresh dirt.

I didn’t see his approach. When I did, Uncle Jamey was right on me, heaving and red, and I thought, for a split of a second, that he wanted to hug me; I thought of how undeserving I was and prepared to apologize. But Uncle Jamey didn’t want to hug me. He clasped me by my black dress, he pushed me down, against the ground, as if wanting me to be devoured by that same earth that was now going to engulf his son’s body. I didn’t fight back, paralyzed as I was. Aunt Sarita screamed her husband’s name and, next thing I knew, my father had grabbed Uncle Jamey by the lapel of his black coat, dragging him away from me. DD and Gray helped me up in the midst of the mourners, the people who had known or loved Charlie, and guided me back to Dad’s car. When Dad appeared, his suit undone, gasping for air, he asked me: “Honey, are you hurt?”

My dress was dirty, my hands scraped. I opened my mouth. But I couldn’t speak. I could only wail.

We didn’t see Uncle Jamey or Aunt Sarita again for a long time. Every time I’d think about them, I’d remember Uncle Jamey’s fingers on my dress, his raw pain, the raw desire to hurt me.

And then: that email.

My parents divorced almost a year after Charlie’s death. They didn’t divorce because of Charlie, but after everything that happened, I’d always wonder what part grief took in our decisions; the great and the seemingly inconsequential ones.

I went to therapy. I went to Penn. I graduated in Latin American studies, and I even learned Portuguese—decently enough. I had boyfriends, but none of them stuck for a long time. I didn’t let them.

Without him, life went on. Without you, Charlie, the world went on. We never went back to that house by the lake. Our childhood was over, our family was scattered. Gray got married and stayed in California, where the twins were born. Real twins. Summer children, both of them. DD traveled the world. She lived as a digital nomad for a few years, sending me uplifting videos from Chiang Mai or Bali or Ireland for almost two years. She gave up on her nomadic lifestyle when she came home and met Tamsyn. Tamsyn had promised to make an honest woman out of my sister. They were talking about opening a food truck, growing roots in Philly. It runs in the blood, DD would say; the business of food. So many things did run in our blood. She told me I should jump aboard, but after almost a decade working as an online teacher, I felt the need to go back to school, to get a master’s. I was trying to figure myself out.

And then, again: that email.

I heard a knock on the door.

I expected it belonged to Gray, or even Mom. Theirs was the realm of excessive politeness, of gentle knocks.

“Can I come in?” I knew that voice. Charlie’s voice.

Since that fateful dinner, since I’d learned about the clones’ life expectancy, I’d avoided Charlie; I’d avoided everyone, in fact, forgoing family gatherings, the invitations Aunt Sarita would send by the way of DD. I wanted out. During the previous night, I had a nightmare: I had been with Charlie at the beach, and then his flesh started dissolving, his body turning into a putrid mess right there on the sand, while I screamed for help. When the morning arrived, I knew I wanted to go back home. I’d started packing my things and was halfway having everything done when I decided to sit on my bed and . . . do nothing. Unable to move, all I wanted was to stay under the covers and somehow wake up inside my pitiful apartment back in Philadelphia. Skip the bureaucracy of traveling. Skip the planes. Close my eyes and open them again and find myself back home: that was my only wish. As if the real nightmare had been this island.

“Mia?” Charlie again.

I smashed the cigarette I’d been smoking in the beautiful stone ashtray the Clinic provided. I opened the door carefully, just a slit, unaware of what would be actually waiting for me on the other side: the monstrous version of Charlie, his body melting away, or Charlie, the clone.

“Yes?” I said.

“Can we talk?” Charlie asked.

I hesitated before fully opening the door. I let him in, but I made sure there was some distance between us. I sat on the white armchair we had in our living area, and Charlie dutifully sat on the couch, hands over his knees.

“He told me,” Charlie said. “Jamey—my father. He told me what happened. That you were there when I died.”

“When Charlie died,” I said, and if I sounded aggressive, he didn’t seem bothered. “And I wasn’t there. I wasn’t with him. He died alone, in my dad’s car.”

“I know. My father told me that.” The way he’d say “father”—as if the word felt strange yet on his tongue. As if he was learning from some guidebook. Who he was, who Uncle Jamey was. Who I was. “He said you feel guilty. But you shouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault.” Now he sounded like the therapist my parents forced me to attend after Charlie’s death. Saying the right things, in the right timbre.

“I know there’s nothing I could do,” I said. “Trust me, I went over this many times.”

“I wanted to apologize to you,” Charlie said.

“Why? I was the one who made a scene.”

“Understandably so,” he said. Understandably so: I repeated that in my own head, wondering if Charlie had ever said those particular words when he was alive.

“You don’t talk like him,” I said.

He had no explanation to give me. He smiled; gently. But also in a different way Charlie would have. He wasn’t shy. He was careful.

“Are you Charlie?” I asked.

“I don’t have the answer for that question,” he told me. At least the clone was honest.

“When you look at me—at any of us—do you remember anything?”

“No. I wasn’t made with memories.”

“Then how can you be Charlie?” I felt my eyes burn, wanting to cry.

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I am,” he said. “But I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to feel bad because of me. My parents don’t want that. Please, have dinner with us tonight. With our family.”

I managed not to say it wasn’t his family. I managed not to cry. I simply waved my head in the slight, agreeing; it wasn’t that I truly wanted to have dinner with them. I just wanted this new Charlie gone from my room.

He stood up. Dressed in pure white, he made me think of a cult member. They all did: the three or four clones I’d seen so far, walking around the island, accompanied by their loved ones. You could put flowers in their hair and they’d look like a hippie family, living happily in their golden paradise. “Thank you, Mia,” Charlie said, as if I had granted him an immeasurable pleasure. He let himself out.

I didn’t move from that armchair for a long time.

I put on black pants and a blouse and gathered my hair in a ponytail.

Uncle Jamey was the one who opened the door to me.

“Mia,” he said softly, and then he brought me against his chest, gently. “I’m sorry.” For what, I wondered? What had happened during the last dinner or what had happened after Charlie died? It made no difference—not anymore. I accepted his apologies without answering. I was brought in. I was shown my place at the table and I looked at my mother, who was attentive to my every move. I nodded in her direction: an indication that I was fine.

I ate the tender seafood. I didn’t freeze when Charlie showed up—and neither Uncle Jamey nor Aunt Sarita tried to make a big thing of it, a grand entrance. Still, there he was, all in white, to mark his difference, for whatever reason it was. Throughout the dinner, we engaged in small talk. Rather, my family did. I avoided speaking. They were sharing memories; memories of the old Charlie, things the old Charlie had said and done, and the new Charlie would smile and nod and laugh at what was told. Uncle Jamey in particular wouldn’t refer to the old, dead Charlie as someone gone. He’d refer to him in second person, as if he was with us, and as if that new Charlie was our Charlie.

“Remember when you . . . ”

“And that time when you . . . ”

“Once, when you were little . . . ”

We accepted that. The face matched the name, after all. A little bit more of it, more days, months, two years, and we might all have started to think about that new Charlie as the old Charlie. He’d have been trained much like a Pavlov dog, ready to give the right answer when a particular memory was evoked, even if he had no real remembrance of it.

Aunt Sarita’s eyes would glaze with tears from time to time, during that conversation; but she would never bring herself to actually cry. She was drinking more than anyone, and I imagined I had guessed correctly when I thought her a bit drunk that first day we met at the beach. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Everyone had a different coping mechanism to the wondrousness and weirdness of what was happening. And to be before her own son; whole again, coming back from the dead to be once more inside her arms. I could understand that. Mothers kept our bedrooms.

“Play something for us, Charlie,” Uncle Jamey asked.

“Yes, play a little bit, dear,” Aunt Sarita said.

Charlie rose from his chair and sat by the grand piano. He touched the piano keys lightly, and then the music started, Charlie’s posture impeccable. I remember the old Charlie playing. He’d often start like that, a perfect pianist, but then descend into some kind of fury. The new Charlie, however, was merely composed. Not that he didn’t play beautifully; he did. With the corner of my eye, I saw my mother silently crying. As for me—that music took me back more than ten years ago, when Charlie played Julius Eastman from his smartphone so I could listen.

“Now, that’s music,” he’d told me. “Suppose I’d be a musician; that’s the kind of music I’d like to make.”

What was this new Charlie playing? I had no ear for classical music, so I bent sideways a little bit and asked Gray.

“Chopin,” he said. “I think.”

New Charlie played effortlessly, his eyes never veering away from the music sheet. And once it was over, we applauded, and he turned to look at us and smile. Not exactly proud. It would seem he was following a cue given long before.

Aunt Sarita went to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and he smiled at her. And then the change came: so sudden, so unexpectedly. Aunt Sarita’s own smile wavered for a second, before dying in a beat. Her tears were finally let go, but her face turned into stone. Her eyes, watching Charlie, were filled with horror. That’s the only word I can conjure: horror. She released Charlie’s shoulder, almost as if that touch had burned her. “No,” she said, weakly.

Uncle Jamey reached for her, tried to hold her arms, but she turned away from him. She hissed words as her tears wouldn’t stop. “ . . . not my son,” I thought I heard. And: “I’ve had enough, Jamey.” Those last words were loud, they echoed in the room. Aunt Sarita left without looking at us. She shut herself in her suite, the closing of the door like the sound of a thunder. We were left mute. Charlie, still by the grand piano, continued to hold a smile, albeit a confused one. He didn’t know what wrong he had inflicted.

Another night I couldn’t sleep. I’d close my eyes and the first thing I’d see would be Aunt Sarita’s face: her fear, her disgust.

I left DD sleeping, wrapped a cardigan around my body, and went to the beach, feeling the cold breeze of the night, smelling the salt and letting my naked feet imprint deep marks on the sand; proof that I’d been there, proof that everything was real, that I wasn’t stuck in a dream or a nightmare.

I stopped cold when I saw Charlie just a few feet away from me. He was sitting on a beach towel, looking at the sea, the water glinting like silver. Behind him, a man in blue stood in waiting, like a bodyguard.

“Hi,” I told Charlie, as I approached him.

“Hi, Mia,” he said.

“Can—can I even be here?” I asked and looked at the man in blue.

“Oh,” said Charlie. “Yes, you can. He’s just here to guarantee my safety. But you can interact with me.” A curious choice of words, I thought, as I sat by his side.

“Sleepless night,” I said.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t really sleep,” Charlie told me.

“What?”

“I mean, I sleep very little. Two hours, sometimes. I don’t need more than that.”

“That’s how you got the time to learn to play the piano?”

“In a way,” said Charlie. “That’s the first thing they taught me. After speech. And growing muscles.” They. I didn’t dare ask who they were. The only people I ever saw were the ever-helpful staff at the Clinic, the people in the blue uniforms, the ones who’d serve our drinks and our food and changed the sheets of our beds. Whatever happened deep in the Clinic, maybe in richly technological basements, those places forbidden for us: that was what I tried not to imagine. Bodies rapidly growing inside sacks filled with fluid; the awakening of those same bodies, their confusion, their fear.

Earlier that night, after we left Uncle Jamey’s apartment, Megan had gleefully stated that she wanted to be a clone when she grew up. Maura squeezed her little arm with no gentleness, and sure enough Megan started to cry. “Don’t you dare say that,” Maura told her, in a furious whisper. “Do you understand?”

As we stopped by their room’s door, Gray said to me, “We shouldn’t have come. This was a mistake.” He looked exhausted. As much as Uncle Jamey did when we were leaving; those same brown, sad eyes.

“They told me I was a he. They told me my name was Charles James Ocampo. After they had taught me everything, they brought them in,” Charlie kept going. “My parents. They told me who they were, who I’d been. My parents told me how much they loved me, and I said I loved them back.” Do you even know what love is? I wanted to ask him. How could they have taught you that? “But they don’t look at me anymore. My mother, she doesn’t want me near her. My father can’t bear speaking to me. So here I am.”

“We can adopt you,” I told him. More of a joke than anything, but suddenly my mind was trying to unwrap how—and if—such a thing could happen. “Mom can adopt you. You’d like Philadelphia.”

“I can’t leave the island,” he calmly stated. “And I’ll be dead in two years, anyway.”

That almost knocked me out: to hear him saying it.

“Who told you that?”

“They tell you in your first days. No use to make it a secret. Mia. Mia, why are you crying?”

“I’m not. It’s nothing,” I said, drying my tears with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

“You still blame yourself. You think it’s your fault,” Charlie said. “It wasn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know enough.”

I stared at the sea. How gently the waves would meet the shore, almost with no sound, leaving a trail of fast-dissolving foam; only for the sand to be swept again and again, cleaning the slate. I could write Charlie’s name in that sand, I thought, and then watch it disappear little by little.

I’m sorry I woke you up that day, I wanted to say. I’m sorry I took you with me. I wanted to cheer you up. I don’t know if you’d have died if I didn’t do those things. Maybe you’d have slept the whole morning and by midday you’d be OK; awake, making jokes. Or maybe you’d have died anyway. But at least it wouldn’t have happened like it did. I wouldn’t have this last image of you inside my head.

But instead of saying the words, I pressed my eyes with my knuckles. What I actually managed to say, after a few minutes, was: “I wish you weren’t all alone when it happened.” I took a deep breath before I dared to look at him. “Do you forgive me?”

“Yes,” he said. “I forgive you, Mia.” And then he brought his lips close to me. He kissed my forehead, and I closed my eyes, which were burning with tears. “I forgive you,” Charlie said again. “Don’t cry. Please. You should get some sleep. And I should be in my room.” He got up, brushing away the sand that stuck to his white pants. “Let’s meet tomorrow? Here? Adelia told me I was the best swimmer. Of all of you.”

“You were. But don’t call her Adelia. She hates it. Call her DD.”

“DD,” Charlie said and laughed. “I’ll remember. Tomorrow, then?”

“Sure,” I said.

Charlie joined the man in the blue uniform, who led him back to the Clinic. They talked as they walked. They even laughed in the distance, and the man in blue started to look like less of a bodyguard, less menacing, and more of a companion. I made my way to my room, entertaining the idea of somehow smuggling Charlie off of the island. Giving him a chance to live the few years he had somewhere else. But he already lived in a paradisiacal place, I thought to myself as I got into bed, trying not to wake DD.

They built castles in the sands. DD and my nieces did, while Charlie and I watched, the sun burning our scalps, our shoulders ladened with sunscreen. My nieces inspected the sand for treasures. They asked us if they could keep the pearls if they came across oysters, and DD tried to explain to them they wouldn’t find any oysters there.

Whenever the twins were tired, Maura would bring them plastic bottles filled with icy water, and DD would sit by our side, stretching her legs and sighing audibly enough.

“Beautiful day,” she’d say. And she’d eye me, and then eye Charlie, trying to measure our moods against her own.

We hadn’t seen Uncle Jamey nor Aunt Sarita that morning. Gray told me, as we had our breakfast, that they had been arguing; that Aunt Sarita’s crying could be heard from behind their apartment’s door. I’d met Mom at the veranda, having two pieces of melon, the only thing she could seem to stomach. “I’ll try and talk to them,” she said. The discreet bags under her eyes were darker, and I wondered if she’d been having any sleep at all. “Later,” my mother said; a voice that didn’t invite discussion. “Now you kids enjoy yourselves.” We kids. And it seemed like we could be kids again; kids during the summers by the lake, unbothered by the complications of adulthood.

“What happens if they don’t want him anymore?” DD asked me that morning, while we were still in our room.

“They can’t,” I said.

“Says who?”

“I’m sure it’s part of the contract. They can’t simply . . . abandon him.” And abandon him to whom? What would the Clinic do with an unwanted clone? DD’s silence, which followed my attempted justification, implied she wasn’t so sure. I shared with her my idea of smuggling Charlie away.

“Yeah, that would work. They’d shoot us down before we reached the airport.” It was meant to be a joke, and she laughed. But then we looked at each other and it didn’t seem that funny anymore. We understood we had no idea what the Clinic was capable of. We came as blind guests and were at their mercy more so than at Uncle Jamey’s. A shiver ran through my body. I shook my head and tried not to think about it.

As we rested on the sand, I saw them again: the old man, his young wife. Walking by the shore, talking, the man keeping his hands inside the pockets of his shorts. They passed by us and I avoided eye contact.

“You know that girl, right?” DD asked.

“Her name’s Ingrid,” Charlie said. DD didn’t ask for more information.

The new Ingrid and her husband kept a polite distance between themselves. She didn’t contribute much to the conversation they were having. Sometimes she’d nod at something the man would say, and they’d continue on their path, covering the everlasting shore of the island.

“I spoke to my parents,” Charlie said suddenly.

I averted my attention from Ingrid and her husband. “Did you?” I asked.

“They’re going back to New York for a while. My mother needs time.”

DD and I exchanged looks.

“I can stay with you, until they come back. I can give online classes—I mean, that’s pretty much what I do already,” I said. “Maybe I can teach you Portuguese.”

“That would be nice,” Charlie said. Then: “Should we go?” He moved his head, pointing at the sea.

“Yup,” said DD, getting up.

The three of us got in the water. We went under for a second, and my heart felt heavy. There was so much I wanted to tell Charlie. I wanted to say his parents would be back, that they loved him too much. I wanted to say I’d be there. We’d lost time, but we could make up for what was lost. Create new memories. We emerged, laughing for no reason, gasping for that good air. My muscles felt a bit stiff. I realized I hadn’t swam for a long time; not since I was a teen. I was crying, too. For a simple happiness such as that.

Charlie kept pushing on.

“Wait,” I said. “I’m not that fast anymore.” As if I were speaking to the old Charlie, the Charlie that had all the memories of those summer days.

He stopped. He looked at me and, just like that, I knew what he was going to do. What he’d probably planned on doing even before the sun rose.

“Then don’t be,” he said. He came closer. “I know you’re good. I know you’ll try. But don’t come after me.” I opened my mouth to protest. “It will be fine, Mia. You’ll be fine.” He held my shoulders for the briefest time. He let me go.

And then he was gone: swimming as fast as he could, one arm after the other breaching the water, going farther and farther. I shouted his name. I did what he asked me not to, I tried to reach him, to beat him in the game. But we could never beat Charlie.

“Mia!” This was DD. She was screaming; a pitched, fearful scream. “Don’t!”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t swim that fast, so I stopped, watching Charlie get more distant by the second. I begged him to come back. Inside my head, I begged him to swim back to the island. After a while, I felt a tug on my arm. This is it, I thought. The cord that had united us, the cord that never snapped the day Charlie died, is at last breaking, separating us. But it was no cord; that tug was DD’s arms grabbing my waist.

“Don’t,” she said again. A voice that could have come from far away, that seemed to reach me from another universe entirely. But she was right there, padding by my side, trying to keep both of us afloat. She dragged me back to the shore as she’d do with any burden of weight that refused to cooperate. I couldn’t function properly. I could only absorb the blurred bits of the world around us. Men and women in blue running into the water, raising their voices, ordering Charlie to stop. I knew he wouldn’t. DD brought me to the sand, her arms closed over my chest, as if she was afraid I could slip away. She was sobbing against my neck. Somewhere, my nieces were crying, and Maura was crying too.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t see Charlie disappear. I didn’t see him going under forever. I let myself go back to our summers by the lake. I pictured him in the distance, waving at us. I waved back.

About the Author

Clara Madrigano is a Brazilian author of speculative fiction. She publishes both in Portuguese and in English and has a passion for lovelorn monsters, wicked women and dysfunctional families. You can find her horror fiction in The Dark.

Niuniu

Baoshu, translated by Andy Dudak

1

Dong Fang still clearly remembers the joyous love of that rainy night.

It seemed quite bad at first. After three years of dating and two years of marriage, their formerly shy and sweet explorations had become routine business. Nevertheless, he was in the mood that night. At 11:00 p.m. he turned off the light and got in bed. He embraced Shen Lan’s voluptuous form, and she lazily accepted this. He poured curious requests in her ear, but she refused, her patience waning. She said she was tired and told him to hurry up and finish so they could sleep.

Dong Fang put forth his argument: “You used to promise me things. How can you break your promises?”

He’d forgotten this was not a matter to be reasoned out. Sure enough, Shen Lan launched her counterattack: “You promised me things too, and what came of it? And now you have the nerve to ask me to . . . ”

Contending with each other, they soon found new territory in the conjugal bed, from division of housework to their mortgage, from premarital promises to demanding parents-in-law. Dong Fang finally stormed out of the bedroom and went to the study to play a VR game. He massacred aliens to drain off his resentment.

After the game, Dong Fang removed his helmet and heard a thunderclap through the rain-battered window. He rushed into the bedroom to find Shen Lan awake, as expected, covering her ears, curled up with a blanket and tear-soaked pillow. Dong Fang knew she was afraid of thunder. She had been since childhood. And how long had she been in torment tonight? He had a soft spot for this phobia of hers, and declaring surrender, he pulled her into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t be afraid, it’s okay.” Weeping, Shen Lan beat him with light, quick blows.

“It’s all your fault,” she said. “I hate you so much!” Yet she accepted his embrace with fervor. Their bodies relaxed, and then they were twisting together and growing once more taut, like drawn bowstrings. Thunder and lightning swept over the city. Gale winds howled between buildings. Raindrops beat windowpanes. With mixed love and hatred, they dashed against each other, collided, fused, and clung to life’s summit.

They hadn’t been so deeply satisfied in a long time and wouldn’t be for ages to come. So, Dong Fang is certain: that was the night they conceived Niuniu.

Returning from work at 8:30, he opens their front door and sees little Niuniu amusing herself beside Shen Lan’s foot. She sees him, is immediately beaming and standing awkwardly. She staggers toward him, shouting, “Papa!” She grabs the hem of his jacket and he knows she wants to be held. He sets down his briefcase and picks her up, lifts her high. Niuniu shrieks excitedly, showing two rows of just-grown-in teeth.

“Careful,” Shen Lan says. “Please don’t drop our child!” Dong Fang reassures her, and she says, “Hey, didn’t you notice?”

“Notice what?”

“She can walk! Yesterday she could go two or three steps at most. You saw her do more just now! She can go from one end of the room to the other.”

Dong Fang puts Niuniu down and she starts walking straightaway. She can indeed stride, performing with a high and mighty air, though her knees still don’t bend properly, so she can only proceed swaying comically like a penguin. After a few steps she goes down, but luckily a floor mat cushions her fall. She gets up and changes direction, circling back around toward her parents.

Shen Lan shakes with laughter. Dong Fang gives a perfunctory smile, which gradually solidifies on his face, but Shen Lan doesn’t notice. “Such a clever child!” she says, nudging him. “In a few more days she’ll have the run of the room.”

“Or close to it,” Dong Fang says, unable to stop himself. “Isn’t it like this every time?” He immediately regrets it.

Shen Lan’s smile vanishes. Her gaze goes gloomy and cold. Dong Fang wants to say something to allay the mood, but there’s a muffled thump behind him. Niuniu has stepped on a stuffed animal and fallen. This time the fall was heavy. She banged her head, and now she’s wailing. Shen Lan pushes past Dong Fang. She picks up and hugs the child. “It’s okay darling. Mama’s here.”

“Mamama,” Niuniu babbles, burying her face in Shen Lan’s bosom.

Shen Lan goes on consoling her. She lowers her head to kiss the child, hair cascading like a waterfall to tickle Niuniu’s face and provoke giggles. Dong Fang finds the whole tableau repellant. He stands in the far corner of the living room, watching mother and daughter. In the faint lamplight, it’s like a scene of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus to her breast.

2

They knew they were having a girl with the first B ultrasound. Hospital regulations didn’t permit them to ask, but it was only set up that way to increase “gray income” for doctors. The parents-to-be didn’t broach the subject, but the doctor hinted. Although there were things the hospital wasn’t allowed to reveal, if one wanted to know, it wasn’t impossible. After that he was silent. Actually, Dong Fang didn’t especially want to know, but not asking seemed like it would be rude. So, he flashed a hundred yuan, and when the doctor didn’t take it, he fished out another hundred.

The doctor said, “Your child will take after her mother. Good news either way I think, boy or girl, but of course if you don’t want her, there is something we can do.”

Dong Fang didn’t value boys over girls, not as far as he knew himself. He didn’t think male or female made much difference. This child was coming fast. He’d been dizzy since finding out. But after learning he would have a daughter, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He realized he’d been hoping for a son, deep down, for father and son racing VR cars at breakneck speed, battling alien monsters, pursuing the interests of boys and men. It was difficult to understand what a daughter would mean to him.

Shen Lan, however, was quite happy. Back outside, she said a girl was fine by her. A few days before, she’d thought of an especially nice girl’s name: Dong Qingwan, indicating the child would be beautiful like the famed poet and courtesan Dong Xiaowan. The name also stealthily incorporated a line of verse from the Book of Songs: “There was a beauty all alone, pure . . . qing, and graceful . . . wan.”

Dong Fang, not won over, said, “A boy could have a good name too. For instance . . . Dong Shixuan?”

“What a mess,” Shen Lan said. “Why not Dong Shizhang? A kid named ‘chairman of the board . . . ’”

Dong Fang laughed in exasperation. Gazing out the car window on the way home, he buried his nonexistent son Dong Shixuan.

As for the childhood pet name, Shen Lan had another good idea: Wanwan, unique and pleasant to the ear. The name actually moved Dong Fang, as though a pretty and mild girl already stood before him. At that moment, he couldn’t help recalling the first time he’d seen Shen Lan. They’d been at university then. It had been a rainy day, and he’d come out of the library and spotted a young woman in a gauzy dress standing inside the entrance colonnade, sheltering from the rain. Her long hair lightly drifted. Faint anxiety was written on her face. She was like a lily in misty rain. Dong Fang couldn’t help stopping to look, and their gazes met. There seemed to be an expectation in the young woman’s eyes, but she turned away shyly. Dong Fang’s feet felt drawn toward her as if by magnetism. He didn’t normally strike up conversations with female students. Also, he wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe I could walk with her a bit? he thought. But no, she might be waiting for a friend, or even a boyfriend. Who knew? Such a beautiful girl was not likely to be single. He chuckled bitterly, and deciding against folly, turned to leave.

Now Dong Fang marvels at life, at how two people’s fates—no, three people’s—can be decided in an instant. If he indeed left that rainy day, everything would be different. Perhaps he would have emigrated, or gone down south. Then he would not have come to this city and married this young woman named Shen Lan. Of course, Niuniu would never have existed, and all that followed would not have happened.

The smart kettle issues a gentle, happy note, indicating the water has boiled. Dong Fang emerges from foggy memories. He pours water in the baby’s bottle, then mixes in powdered milk. Niuniu drinks powder imported from Australia, and the water is purified. It has to be maintained at forty-five degrees. A difference of a few degrees won’t do. Of course, these are not Niuniu’s demands. She could make do with anything, but Shen Lan’s standards are high, bordering on immoderate.

“About done?” Shen Lan calls from the bedroom. “Niuniu is quite hungry.”

The milk is not yet mixed. Dong Fang, in a fit of agitation, considers hurling the bottle at a wall and smashing it to pieces—but he endures. He shakes the milk until it’s ready and takes it to the bedroom. Niuniu has just been bathed. She’s playing with Shen Lan on the bed, rolling about and sucking her finger. She sees him coming with the bottle and sits up, bright-eyed. Dong Fang is a few seconds late handing the bottle over, and she starts crying. Shen Lan hastily takes the bottle. She holds Niuniu and lets her suckle. Niuniu drinks, glancing sidelong at Dong Fang, tears still streaming. There seems a sly and cunning light in her eyes.

3

Niuniu grew up on milk. Shen Lan’s milk was lacking, and though she tried breastfeeding at first, the child was always up late fussing and crying. Husband and wife believed she was sick until they realized she was just never full. Finally, they started relying on milk powder. It was probably guilt that drove Shen Lan to shop online for expensive overseas powdered milk, while still breastfeeding as much as possible.

Their daughter’s formal name was fixed as Dong Qingwan, but her childhood pet name soon changed from Wanwan to Niuniu. They’d hired a nanny for the first month confinement, and this woman, according to a naming custom of her home province, called her Niuniu now and then. Dong Fang’s parents were also staying with them at the time, helping to look after the baby. They loved the new name and started using it. Dong Fang followed suit. Maybe it was because Wanwan sounded too profound and elegant, suitable for the tender sentiment of a lover, but not quite fitting for a little girl, far inferior to the light, catchy cliché that was Niuniu. Shen Lan wasn’t crazy about this. She announced her daughter’s “primary pet name” was still Wanwan, that Niuniu was merely “secondary.” After this declaration, she herself started using Niuniu. No one spent further thought on primary versus secondary names.

Child-rearing was difficult and joyous. Days seemed like years, yet they were fleeting. Niuniu could laugh, Niuniu could roll over, Niuniu could sit up. Dong Fang and Shen Lan watched their daughter go from plump little larva to crawling kitten, then a walking, talking girl who liked pretty clothes and admiring herself in the mirror. Almost every day there was a pleasant new surprise. Dong Fang had felt he couldn’t be close to a daughter, but he immediately loved the little lady. Niuniu also got stuck on him. Seeing her papa, she would smile sweetly. A hug from him could stop her wailing. Sometimes she even needed his company to sleep, which made Shen Lan quite jealous.

That was their family’s golden age. Later, Dong Fang often wondered when it started to go amiss. Perhaps it was that day in the café.

Niuniu had just turned one. A client had made an appointment to meet with Dong Fang, but was late. Dong Fang, waiting in the café, saw a secondhand book on a bookshelf titled Niuniu. Amused, he read a bit while drinking coffee. It turned out to be the book he most regretted opening in his life, a writer narrating his daughter’s story. The girl was born with an incurable disease and passed away just after one year old. Dong Fang, after turning a few pages, felt something was wrong. Terrified, he dropped the book like a hot potato.

Back at home, he began calling his daughter Wanwan. Shen Lan asked him why, and he avoided answering. But after a couple days, he began to feel ridiculous. How many girls under the sun were called Niuniu, after all? And what was in a name, in sharing a name? But a few days later, Niuniu went to hospital for a checkup, and Dong Fang was filled with dread. By the time he got the results, he was weak in the knees.

Of course, it was all for nothing. Niuniu couldn’t have been healthier. He let go of senseless fear and started calling her Niuniu again. She continued to grow on schedule, merging harmoniously with her parents’ life. Impartially, she could not be reckoned beautiful. She was a few centimeters shorter than children her age, her hair sparse, eyes not large, nose a bit sunken, but what did these things matter? She was adorable beyond description when she smiled, and could melt anyone’s heart. She was the product of that rainy evening’s tender affection. It was as if Dong Fang and Shen Lan had met entirely for the sake of birthing the world’s most enchanting fairy.

And now, as before, she drinks milk.

She plays awhile, turns to her father for a bit, then pats her mama, and at last slowly closes her eyes. Her long lashes hang down. She nestles against her parents and sleeps. Shen Lan gazes into her hand device awhile, then turns off the light and closes her eyes. But Dong Fang can’t sleep. He listens in the dark. Shen Lan’s irregular breaths gradually tend toward even and long. When he judges her sound asleep, he gathers up Niuniu and gets out of bed.

In the bathroom, he turns on the light. Niuniu opens her eyes, not fully awake. Her little mouth opens and says, “Papa.”

Dong Fang reassures her and changes her diaper. There is no mess, of course. The white milk remained in her body awhile, then just drained out. She has not defecated. If she did, cleanup would be only slightly more complicated. It would come out in a long, narrow piece, but dehydrated and lacking any foul odor. In fact, raising this creature could be much simpler. For instance, they don’t need to feed her at all, but Shen Lan insists on it.

Diaper changed, he takes Niuniu to the sofa and places her on his lap, facing away. Niuniu fusses, twisting her body, babbling, fiddling with her feet. Dong Fang reaches for the back of her head. In her delicate hair, he flips something twice. The back of her head pops open, revealing a deep battery compartment. He digs out the two batteries, leaving her head half empty. Niuniu’s vitality is gone. Her body goes limp. She falls over in his lap.

When he first started changing her batteries, his hands would weaken or tremble. But for a long time now, he’s been doing the job with the ease of experience. He puts the batteries in their charger, goes to the closet, retrieves two spares, and returns to the sofa. But instead of replacing her batteries, he just stares down at her little body, lying there motionless, just like on that day of finality. Dong Fang suffers a familiar unease. He struggles to escape it, but he’s already being dragged into a swamp of memory and anguish.

4

It happened the day before Niuniu’s second birthday.

Her paternal grandfather and grandmother were coming over for her birthday, so Shen Lan decided to clean the apartment. Unfortunately, the nanny had asked for leave that day. Dong Fang was working overtime, so Shen Lan was on her own caring for the child while doing housework.

A tiny drone followed Niuniu, always hovering a meter or so before her eyes. The drone was the size of a hummingbird, with a cam on top. This hummingbird device had been developed mainly for monitoring children. Not all nannies were reliable, and parents, naturally treasuring their children, liked being able to keep a continual eye on things and set their minds at ease. Of course, it was good for more than that. The cam fed to Dong Fang’s office computer. He could check the window at the bottom of his screen at any time. Halfway across the city, he could see his daughter’s smiling face and be reminded why he was earning money—for a good kindergarten next year, for instance—and thus renew his diligence.

So, Dong Fang and Shen Lan saw what happened simultaneously.

Niuniu was on a plastic mat in the living room playing with smart blocks. These newly developed toys could shape-shift and assemble on their own, becoming fantastic oddities of every sort. They had been occupying Niuniu for two hours straight, allowing Shen Lan to feel at ease doing housework. And the hummingbird was on duty. If anything dangerous were about to happen, it would issue an alarm.

In order to sweep, Shen Lan had dragged a chair to the bay window. She’d also opened the casement for ventilation.

After a while, Niuniu lifted her head toward the window. An interesting notion clearly flashed through her mind. She giggled, stood up, and rushed over, babbling nonstop. Dong Fang saw this, but the hummingbird was aimed at Niuniu’s face, not the back of her head. He couldn’t see her aim, and he wasn’t paying much attention anyway, with a financial report on hand urgently needing completion.

Niuniu had never climbed on to a chair before. Moreover, the bay window was childproofed with a guardrail. By any measure, an accident was nearly impossible. But Niuniu had been growing every day, getting stronger. She climbed on to the chair, and from there was able to climb over the guardrail. She went to the window ledge, toward unfamiliar territory, toward exploration. By the time Shen Lan saw what was happening, Niuniu had one foot across the sill. She stepped on to the open casement. There was no barrier between her and the outside world. Having accomplished these virtuoso maneuvers, she was quite pleased with herself. Turning toward Shen Lan, she smiled sweetly. “Mama!” she called out, wanting Shen Lan to witness her magnificent feat.

Shen Lan turned, saw the shocking tableau, and rushed toward her daughter. In two or three steps she reached the bay window and grabbed for Niuniu’s arm. Meanwhile, at work, Dong Fang’s gaze drifted to the hummingbird window. He saw, and his trembling hand dropped a mug of coffee, which shattered on the floor.

Tragedy still might have been averted, but just then the hummingbird made a mistake. Its expert system finally judged Niuniu to be in danger. It flashed a piercing red light and a sharp, blaring alarm. This had an effect opposite to what was intended. Niuniu flinched away from the noise and light, toward the outside.

Her delicate balance was broken.

Her tiny form vanished from the seventh-floor window. Shen Lan reached for her tiny hand and grabbed air.

Shrieking, Shen Lan collapsed beside the window.

And yet, she was somewhat luckier than Dong Fang, who followed Niuniu with the diving drone, in mute witness to his daughter’s final moments. The building exterior rushed past the lens. Pedestrians and vehicles swiftly loomed, like a horrifying special effects scene in a movie. Niuniu’s eyes reflected the white clouds above. She still didn’t understand what was happening, but was clearly terrified, flailing her limbs, mouth open to cry out. Always before, crying had conjured loved ones, a tender embrace and care.

This time, it wasn’t to be. Earth rushed toward the lens. A heavy crashing sound followed. Niuniu’s expression was forever frozen in that moment before crying out. Scarlet quickly filled the other side of the frame.

Remembering all of this now, Dong Fang is on the verge of collapse. He supports himself on the tea table beside the sofa. He closes his eyes and opens them again. Closed, his daughter back then. Open, this Niuniu on the sofa before him. They are the same, almost impossible to differentiate.

But Niuniu is dead, Dong Fang thinks. Cremated, interred by him personally. But her image is always here, unceasingly calling to mind what he can’t stand recalling. Day in and day out, year after year. What kind of cruel life is this? Why does he still endure it?

Fury wells up. He grabs the little girl’s neck and lifts her off the sofa with one hand. “You’re not my Niuniu,” he says, fuming. “You never were. You’re fake. You’re a scam!”

He wouldn’t have to squeeze hard to snap her neck, the weakest part of her body. But the delicate neck has human body temperature, if no pulse. The girl’s eyes are closed. Her face is peaceful, like in sleep or repose in utero. No one could be hard-hearted enough to hurt such a weak child, whether she’s real or fake.

The strength drains from Dong Fang’s arm. Sighing deeply, he tosses her back on the sofa. He loads the spare batteries into her head, cursing under his breath, and closes the panel. Niuniu comes to life, turns over, crawls toward him calling, “Papa, Papa . . . ” For a long time now, this voice has been like a siren’s song, bewildering him, enticing him toward time’s abyss.

“You’re not Niuniu,” Dong Fang murmurs. “You can’t fool me anymore.”

Niuniu blinks innocently, and again says, “Papa.”

5

After the accident, most of the pressure came down on Shen Lan’s head. Niuniu had fallen on her watch, after all. Police took her away amid her neighbor’s whisperings. She stared blankly, like she didn’t understand what had happened. She was nearly prosecuted for homicide by criminal negligence, but the police eventually abandoned this.

Dong Fang met her as she came out, hair disheveled, in a trance, wan and sallow, almost otherworldly.

“Dong Fang,” she said, seizing his arm and weeping, “you have to believe me. It wasn’t on purpose. I really didn’t expect . . . I was so foolish. I just want to die. Your parents surely blame me, right? Do you blame me?”

Dong Fang turned away and hoarsely said, “Forget it. All of this is fate. As for my parents . . . well, I’ve spoken with them. They’re going back to their hometown.” He didn’t mention his father’s hypertension flare-up and hospitalization.

“That’s fine then.” Shen Lan seemed to relax and breathe, dabbing at her eyes. “So how is Niuniu? At the hospital, right? Will she be scarred from the fall? She hasn’t seen me for a few days. Does she miss me?”

Dong Fang stopped in his tracks, stunned and staring at his wife.

“What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know. Niuniu . . . ”

“Never mind,” Shen Lan interrupted, growing nervous. “I’m sure she’s alright. At home waiting for me, right? We should get back. Let’s hurry. Let’s go home.”

Dong Fang briefly dared to think it was his own mistake. Niuniu was fine, nothing had happened. It had been a nightmare. In a trance, he followed Shen Lan home, earnestly hoping to see the nanny holding Niuniu. But there was no trace of her. Her diapers, clothes, toys, and drawing pads were scattered everywhere. It seemed she would jump out from her bedroom or from behind the sofa at any moment. He hadn’t dared stay at home the past few days. Everything was as it had been before the accident. Shen Lan entered, and without taking a moment to rest, began putting things in order.

She even started cleaning Niuniu’s toys.

Dong Fang composed himself and gathered his resolve. “Lan, what are you doing? Niuniu is . . . she’s . . . ” He couldn’t say it.

“She went with your parents.” Shen Lan looked up at Dong Fang. “And they’ll return in a few days, right?” Her tone was superficially calm, yet contained a faint tremor. There was desperate hope in her eyes, like someone dying of thirst begging for just one drop.

Dong Fang wanted to shout at her to stop. He wanted to curse her and vent his fury. “Stop fooling yourself!” he wanted to scream, but in the end he averted his gaze. “Yeah, they’ll take care of her awhile, then bring her back.”

He called an old classmate who now worked in a psychiatric ward, seeking advice on his wife’s situation. The classmate said Shen Lan was in temporary denial. If he could just keep from provoking her, she would get better after a while.

Dong Fang understood Shen Lan. He could barely accept the truth himself. But time would expose all illusions, heal all wounds, and make everyone face the truth. She just needed time.

Not long afterward, he was passing by that café and suddenly decided to go in for another look at Niuniu. Intriguingly, this book that had so frightened him before now gave him consolation. His Niuniu had gone fast, in an instant. She wouldn’t have known anything or thought anything. Everything had just ended. From her perspective it had been like going to sleep. She wouldn’t have suffered. At least she was more fortunate than the girl in the book, tortured by serious disease.

Years later, he reckons life is just unceasing death.

He sometimes sees photos of his two- or three-year-old self, or recalls his parents’ tales of that time, but he can’t remember any of it. He lived in a small southern town back then. The first language he learned was a pleasant-sounding Wu dialect, but at age four he moved north with his parents. He spoke standard Mandarin for a long time. Sometimes he returns to his hometown and hears the old dialect and barely understands it.

The Dong Fang of that time—innocent and young, full of southern colloquialisms—no longer exists, naturally. They’re all gone: childhood Dong Fang, adolescent Dong Fang, even pre-Shen Lan Dong Fang. If Niuniu had lived, she would be six or seven years old, vivaciously attending school—not this wobbly-walking infant. So, the Niuniu of back then is as good as dead, replaced by a series of new Niunius. What is there to feel bad about?

But Dong Fang knows this for sophistry.

He has lost many Niunius, not just one. Three-year-old Niuniu, five-year-old Niuniu, ten-year-old . . . it’s like they’ve fled against the flow of time, sweeping past Dong Fang and Shen Lan, faces unclear, one after another, back into the unrecoverable past, back to that plummeting child, and vanished like smoke. Life is so long, Dong Fang thinks. In the future, he will have more brushes with Niunius who might have been . . . fifteen-year-old Niuniu—no, at that point she would be called Dong Qingwan—twenty-year-old Dong Qingwan, thirty years old, forty. They’ll have their lives and careers, dispositions and attachments, and joys and griefs as they sweep by, passing from the points in time he would have met them, returning to the past, to that tragic moment, the instant in which they ceased to exist.

But he finds a kind of solace in this pain. It’s as if there’s another world where Niuniu is growing to adulthood. Perhaps the world, at that tragic moment, split in two. In one, Shen Lan grabbed Niuniu, averting the horror that might’ve followed. Unfortunately, he fell into the other world and is thus separated from Niuniu. They’re gradually getting further apart, never to meet again. But in each other’s worlds, they will both have new lives.

Nothing like the one he’s currently living.

Niuniu still fidgets next to him. Dong Fang twists her ear half a turn and she falls asleep. He installed this shortcut without telling Shen Lan. She couldn’t bear him treating this “daughter” like a toy.

He carries her back to the bedroom and lays her down. Shen Lan blearily embraces her. Niuniu needs a battery change once a day. She can also charge up directly, but that takes longer. Changing batteries is visually unpleasant but necessary. Dong Fang can only do it when Shen Lan sleeps. For years now, she has never awakened during these changings. He sometimes feels she is deliberate in this, or at least subconsciously conspiring.

She can’t face the truth, though she’s well aware of it.

Dong Fang lies down beside them. He stares into impenetrable darkness and can’t sleep most of the night. It’s not the first time, and it’s getting more common. Every time, the insomnia comes with a name, the name of someone who has never existed—yet it won’t fade from his mind.

Dong Shixuan.

6

The second time Dong Fang thought of this name was half a year after Niuniu passed.

For him, Shen Lan’s hysteria was not entirely a bad thing. He could at least escape his grief in psychology and psychiatry texts, seeking a way to cure his wife. The first step was to pack up Niuniu’s things. He told Shen Lan he would send them to his parents’ place, since Niuniu’s stay there was becoming extended. Shen Lan didn’t stop him, nor did she contact her in-laws to request a video call with Niuniu. Dong Fang sensed his classmate had been right. Deep down, Shen Lan knew what had happened. She just couldn’t accept it.

With Niuniu’s things and toys packed up in a dozen or so boxes, Dong Fang found he couldn’t throw them out like he’d meant to. It was too painful. He finally put them in a corner of the storage room. Shen Lan brought up Niuniu less and less. For a long time, she just stared at the photos of Niuniu on the wall. Dong Fang eventually sounded her out on taking them down, and she said nothing.

Later, he saw her staring at the blank wall and wiping away tears.

Neither of them mentioned Niuniu’s death, but Dong Fang sensed Shen Lan had accepted the fact of it. Their home was restored to its pre-Niuniu state. Dong Fang recalled their life before her, not so long ago, yet seemingly a lifetime past. In his sadness, Dong Fang also knew a bit of ease. Their marriage had returned to its starting point. They could set off on the journey once more.

He began propositioning Shen Lan. She was not enthusiastic, but she allowed nature to take its course. They continued that way once or twice a month, colorless unions, meager fare, indifferent, both parties mostly silent, as though all desire was dead and all that remained was desire’s corpse. Yet in bed, the marriage more or less recovered its most fundamental significance. They were no longer new parents, just a man and woman, not so old, able to find temporary happiness in each other’s bodies. Of course, Dong Fang began to wonder if something else might result.

He didn’t know when it started, but the name Dong Shixuan was on his mind by then. He thought perhaps it was not merely a name, but a premonition. Perhaps he could still bring this child into the world and quell their pain. Perhaps Niuniu and all that had happened was a mere interlude, and Dong Shixuan would be the resplendent symphonic movement. A boy named Shixuan, meaning “imposing man.” It might not be a boy, of course. Change out the characters and Shixuan became “daylily poem.” A boy or girl could rescue their life.

A . . . new . . . child.

But giving birth to a child was not yet a formal item on their agenda. Dong Fang knew it wasn’t urgent, and that Shen Lan wasn’t ready yet. The predestined child would have to wait for a better opportunity to come into their lives. He began to carefully plan an ocean cruise for them. It would start in the southern Pacific, including numerous island nations and enriching their experience with foreign customs. They had originally planned this as their honeymoon trip, but due to a shortage of funds, they’d abandoned it. Now, with the plan revived, Shen Lan’s enthusiasm was immediately apparent. Dong Fang saw the luster of youth return to her eyes, which had long been dormant. This excited him further. For many days they discussed what they should bring, where they would go, what they would do for fun, what they would eat, and talking of happy times they were filled with laughter, like two children.

Dong Fang yearned for this dreamlike trip. They would spend two months in warm southern winds, passing across blue, refreshing seas, accompanied by cetaceans during the day and the dazzling Milky Way by night. They would land on foreign coasts and appreciate radically different lifestyles. They might even make love on tempestuous seas, or kiss on uninhabited white beaches. Life would glow with splendor once more and soar over new horizons.

One night, three days before they were to set off, Dong Fang was working overtime to get everything done before the trip. Around 9:00, after numerous meetings, he was finished, and discovered an unfamiliar number had called him seven or eight times. He’d had his device on mute. He tried to call back but couldn’t connect. He didn’t pay this much mind. Most likely it was a work matter. He just hoped it wouldn’t interfere with the trip.

He returned home, not in the least on guard. He opened the door to find a middle-aged woman standing before him, hair gone partially white, vaguely familiar, a relative perhaps.

“You’re . . . ”

The woman smiled faintly. “Mr. Dong, don’t you remember me?” Her voice was deep and rich, singularly magnetic, and quite familiar, very like his paternal grandmother’s.

Suddenly he knew where he’d met her. It had been almost a year ago. He had nearly come to think of it as a dream.

Dong Fang said, “You . . . you’re . . . don’t tell me . . . ”

“Papa!”

A child’s voice behind the woman, young and tender and resonant.

It couldn’t have been more familiar. It had invaded his dreams thousands of times, woke him with a start at midnight to find tears on his pillow. Dizzy, forgetting all else, he went like a sleepwalker toward the voice. The woman moved aside conscientiously. Dong Fang saw Shen Lan standing there, cheeks tearstained, yet smiling beautifully. She was hugging a small girl. This child called him “Papa” and extended tiny arms toward him.

“Niuniu,” he heard himself say, “Niuniu! Niuniu!”

He dropped his briefcase and rushed toward mother and daughter. He embraced them, crying. In that moment he was happy beyond words. Work, travel, Dong Shixuan, all were unimportant. Niuniu had returned. The vanished era of joy had returned. His family was complete again. This was life’s highest and only meaning.

But all that was four years ago, and he’d been wrong.

Opening his eyes, Dong Fang thinks: I was gravely mistaken.

He finally got to sleep around five or six in the morning. Now it’s close to nine. Luckily, it’s Saturday and he doesn’t have to work. He hears the child’s piercing voice in the kitchen. Dong Fang goes out and sees breakfast leftovers on the table. Niuniu has eaten. Shen Lan is putting a pretty pink dress on her, meaning to take her downstairs to play in the park. Niuniu dances with anticipation. It’s a familiar scene to Dong Fang.

Mama, kitty cat! Dong Fang thinks.

“Mama,” Niuniu says, pointing out the door, “kitty cat!”

She wants to go out and see the cat. Actually, she can’t distinguish between cats and dogs. Shen Lan croons a lively song, placing Niuniu in the stroller. She buckles the safety belt and kisses the child’s forehead.

Tee hee!

“Tee hee,” Niuniu laughs.

Oh oh oh oh!

“Oh oh oh oh!” Niuniu happily hoots.

Now wave your hands.

Niuniu lifts her arms, excitedly flailing them. Dong Fang knows each seemingly careless movement and vocalization is controlled, precise as mathematics.

“Lan,” he can’t help saying, “we need to talk.”

“When we get back, okay?” She squats to adjust Niuniu’s clothes as the child fusses in the stroller.

Dong Fang wants to say more but resists. Irritation washes over him like background noise. He sees a bright red apple on the table and picks it up. He brings it toward his mouth.

Shen Lan rushes over and snatches it. “Come on! I’m bringing it for Niuniu. Are you competing with your daughter for food now?”

Dong Fang can no longer suppress his annoyance. “Daughter?” he blurts. “Whose daughter?”

“Are you crazy?” Shen Lan says, not meeting his gaze as she heads out. “What are you smoking, anyway? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. She’s not really your daughter. She’s not really a . . . person.”

Shen Lan’s glance is dismal. “Don’t go there,” she says, voice low but firm, “not now. To me she is Niuniu, and that’s good enough.”

Dong Fang finally erupts: “Stop fucking lying to yourself, okay? Niuniu wasn’t doomed to be an infant forever! Niuniu couldn’t retract teeth after growing them! She didn’t learn to walk then go back to crawling! We both know this is just a machine, a doll! You still take her to the park . . . don’t you know what the neighbors and security guards say about us behind our backs? I’ve had enough!”

Dong Fang’s uproar triggers bawling from Niuniu. She extends her little arms, seeking her mother’s bosom. Shen Lan hastily retrieves her from the stroller, softly consoling her. Niuniu sees her mother’s tears and gets even more upset. Dong Fang’s fury is extinguished, as if by a bucket of water. There’s still steam, but the fire is out. Tender, fatherly love refills his heart. He knows this is a misconception, but he can’t help it. And he hates himself all the more for it.

Wiping away tears, Shen Lan glares at him. As though evading terrible danger, she hugs Niuniu and goes out the door, kicking it closed with a bang. Dong Fang listens to her footfalls rapidly fade.

How did it come to this? he wonders. It all began with a seeming miracle. Niuniu came back, didn’t she? But the price was dreadful. Now they’re trapped in a long-gone past, unable to escape, as if they’ve fallen into the warped space-time of a black hole.

If he hadn’t taken that woman’s offer in the first place, everything might have been different.

7

On the day he interred Niuniu’s ashes, it was also raining. Shen Lan was in no condition to join him, and his parents were unwell. Dong Fang was on his own, managing everything. He didn’t know how he was sustaining the rush to get it all over with.

After the cinerary casket had been entombed, a heavy rain fell from the sky. Dong Fang stood gazing at the photo of Niuniu that had just been affixed to the façade. This is her home from now on, he thought. Can the rain get in? Will Niuniu freeze? Will she be afraid if she hears thunder? Can she reach out for a hug in there? No one would come and hold her anymore. No one would tuck her in at night. Would she be wondering how to come home? Could she find her way home?

The rain soaked his clothes. Tears flowed, mingling with rainwater. Soon he was weeping and choking.

Someone patted his shoulder and gave him a tissue. Dong Fang looked up to see a silver-haired woman holding an umbrella. She wore a gray pantsuit, and her face was kind. “Are you alright sir?” she said.

Dong Fang guessed she worked for the cemetery. “My daughter is dead,” he sobbed. “She wasn’t even two.”

The woman sighed. “I’m sure she was precious to you.” Her voice was slightly husky, sonorous, reminding Dong Fang of his long-gone paternal grandmother.

She led Dong Fang into a lobby. Not sure why, he began telling her Niuniu’s story. From mother’s womb to the ultimate fall, he said it all, things he didn’t wish to recall, things only Niuniu’s parents would be interested in. He’d kept it all inside for too long. He certainly hadn’t been able to talk to Shen Lan. The more he talked now, the more he wanted to say, and the less he could control himself. The woman listened, now and then passing him a tissue.

It took quite a while to say it all. He began to calm down. He wiped away tears and forced an embarrassed smile. “Sorry Miss. I think I’ve been wasting your time.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I actually came here to find you.”

Dong Fang was nonplussed. “Excuse me?”

“Listen, if I were to tell you there’s a way to see your Niuniu again, how would that be?”

Dong Fang stared a bit. His temper rose and he glared at the woman. “What the hell do you mean?”

Not alarmed, the woman said, “I’m not just trying to make you feel better in this moment, and I’m not out of my mind. I have a way for you to see Niuniu again . . . an exact copy of her.”

“How is that possible?” Saying this, Dong Fang suddenly understood. “Hold on! You can’t be talking about an artificial person?”

The woman nodded.

He knew artificial person tech had been developing a long time. Several years before there’d been a breakthrough, combining a metal skeleton, an AI chip, and a fabricated human tissue exterior. The result was a living robot that could pass as human. At first welcomed by the marketplace, this tech soon developed a bad reputation: most consumers were ordering custom-made beauties, young men and women for satisfying secret longings. As one might imagine, some satisfaction modes were quite abnormal, giving rise to many controversies. Some models were even meant to resemble celebrities. These and other types meant to mimic real people led to legal disputes. Finally, the government prohibited artificial person production. But demand was still high. An underground industry persisted. Dong Fang had never imagined these things would have anything to do with him.

He recovered his faculties. “Sorry, I don’t need that. She wouldn’t be a real person.”

“Of course not,” the woman said, compellingly unperturbed, “but you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. You said when you close your eyes you still see her. I guarantee our Niuniu would be an exact replica.”

An exact replica. Dong Fang shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

“Not at all. You just have to provide enough viable image data. Our modeling is precise. Using the latest nanometer-grade 3D printing tech, we control every detail of skin and hair . . . I won’t bore you with the technical details. Suffice it to say, you’d see her sweet smile, you’d hear her call you Papa, she would kiss your cheek, hold your hand as she learned to walk, and play. She would be with you forever, never to be taken away again.”

Dong Fang backed up a few steps, as if his daughter were rushing toward him, laughing and happy. He waved a hand, dispersing this sweet illusion. “But . . . she wouldn’t be real.”

“That’s true,” the woman said, patient and unflappable, “but she’d still be a three-dimensional photograph, a living sculpture. Wouldn’t that be the best possible commemoration of Niuniu?”

“It’s still a no.” Dong Fang struggled to resist ever-greater enticement. “I know producing an artificial human is very expensive. We don’t have that kind of money.”

The woman smiled, as if she’d anticipated these grounds for refusal. “Not as pricey as you might think. Quite doable for you. Moreover, you wouldn’t need to pay anything up front. You just register, transfer Niuniu’s data to us, and sit tight. We send the new Niuniu to your residence, and you pay later. Unsatisfied in any way? Return her within a month and pay nothing.”

“Then aren’t you operating at a huge loss?” Dong Fang couldn’t fathom their business model.

“Not to worry.” The woman smiled sincerely. “Customer satisfaction is our highest priority.”

In the end, Dong Fang surprised himself by registering. He sent all his photos and videos of Niuniu to the appointed web address. He waited, but it was like the company had vanished into thin air. There was no further news. Dong Fang reckoned the underground factory had been raided and shut down. Luckily it hadn’t touched him.

He soon forgot the matter.

Until the night he found that woman in his home and came to understand why she hadn’t taken advance payment: there was almost no risk to this business. Seeing a loved one return, nobody could return the goods, even if it meant bankruptcy.

And the cost was indeed high. They had to cancel their travel plans, in addition to maxing out several credit cards. But what did these things matter? Little Niuniu had returned. They were immersed in bliss for an entire year.

Shen Lan’s child-rearing glow returned, and their former life trajectory recapitulated. Niuniu seemed to grow all over again, from baby to young child, slowly learning to walk and master a few simple words and phrases. But one day she was back to where she’d started.

Dong Fang called to inquire about this. An imitation person was a machine, in essence. With imitation children this was all the more evident: they couldn’t really grow. At best, the machine skeleton could expand or contract in limited ways. Muscles could transform somewhat, teeth could emerge from and retreat into the gums. A one year old could grow to look two or so, at most. Of course they couldn’t grow up. AI algorithms with limb and trunk control made limited change possible, from crawling to walking, babbling to a few simple sentences, but this sort of development was unsustainable. In the end, the machine could be fixed at its terminal stage, or cycled back and allowed to “grow” once more. Shen Lan chose the latter, perhaps because it meant more child-rearing pleasure.

It has been four years since the new Niuniu’s arrival, four growth cycles.

During the first year, Dong Fang’s love of the child was no less than it had been toward the real Niuniu. His feelings cooled during the second year, but he was still quite taken with her. In the third year he grew wearier of the game, day by day. Finally, in this fourth year, he feels he will soon go mad. It’s like he’s fallen into a restless, never-ending time loop. Niuniu, having just learned to walk, goes back to self-satisfied crawling. She learns to speak, and just like that forgets it all. Every day recapitulates what happened on the corresponding day in years one, two, and three, and even five years ago with the real Niuniu.

But the days crawl on, his hair going gray, his parents having passed away. And that lifelike person, forever between one and two years old, never to grow up, plays ever more preposterous parent-child games with them. And when will such days end? When will he and Shen Lan be able to see the future?

Shen Lan is still invested. She has no problem repeating the cycle. With a machine to take care of, she doesn’t even want a second pregnancy. “Let’s wait awhile,” she always says. “Now is not the time.” Of course, Niuniu is stuck at the age she most needs care. Her needs will never end because she will never grow up. The opportune moment to get pregnant, to create Dong Shixuan, is endlessly postponed. Perhaps it will never come.

There has to be a conclusion. This morning, it couldn’t be clearer to Dong Fang. This absurd game is consuming their lives, and nonexistent Dong Shixuan’s life.

It must end.

8

Shen Lan is gone for a long time. Dong Fang calls and no one answers. She doesn’t come back with Niuniu until late afternoon. The door opens and the tiny form comes waddling in. “Papa! Papa!” she shouts, throwing herself into Dong Fang’s arms. She has obviously forgotten Dong Fang’s morning rant. Of course, she doesn’t really remember anything, running on fixed routines.

Dong Fang picks her up, harboring mixed emotions. Shen Lan comes toward him, expression serene. “You wanted to talk? Let’s talk.”

Dong Fang puts Niuniu down and points at the smart blocks on the floor. Niuniu rushes over in high spirits and starts playing. Dong Fang leads Shen Lan into the study, partially shutting the door. “Sorry,” he says, “my words might be a bit jarring, but that child is—”

“Relax, I’m not crazy. I know she’s not a real person. But so what? Dammit, Dong Fang, can’t you just let me raise her like a little pet?”

“If she really was a pet, that’d be fine! But you treat her like a daughter! You call her Niuniu, you give her powdered milk just like Niuniu . . . our Niuniu . . . used to get, with the same high-end dietary supplements, the same fruit and veg . . . she doesn’t need any of it! You get her the best toys, you take her out for walks, you cuddle her to sleep, you work harder than a nanny! Lan, you’ve neglected your career for four years, to stay at home and wait upon an artificial person. Don’t you think it’s a bit much?”

“A bit much? I just really like Niu . . . really like her. I like caring for her. What’s wrong with that? You often neglect food and sleep playing your VR games, don’t you?”

Dong Fang doesn’t know how to respond to this incongruous analogy. “I like her too, you know that. I’m not opposed to having her in our home, but we’re not young anymore. We need to start a new life. A better life. I’ve wanted a child all these years, a boy or a girl, one who isn’t Niuniu, who can grow up and go to school. But you . . . every time I . . . ”

“I want another child too.” Shen Lan’s voice begins to tremble, tears flowing. “I want a child who can grow up. But I keep thinking . . . with a new kid growing up and going to school, and us with a new life, what will become of Niuniu? There won’t be time to care for her. How will the new child regard this older sister? Don’t tell me we would treat her like an old toy, throw her in a closet, take her out for Spring Festival and other holidays. We can’t do that to her.”

“Here we go again.” Dong Fang is shaking. “You keep thinking of her as a real person. You keep considering her feelings. That’s precisely your problem. She’s not real! She can’t even be regarded as an android.”

“Nonsense. She might not be too clever, but she’s a . . . like Niuniu . . . I don’t know how to say it.”

“I do. Subconsciously at least, you feel she’s alive. Like in those scifi movies, a robot with human nature. But it’s delusional. She’s just a machine, and not even a clever one!”

Shen Lan’s gaze is cold. “Whatever. I don’t see it.”

“Fine.” Dong Fang nods. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll show you what this child really is!”

He pulls up a video on his device. “Remember? This was five years ago, our Niuniu playing with those shape-changing blocks. She built a little pyramid, and we praised her cleverness. Now look at this Niuniu. She’s doing the same thing, like two peas in a pod. Look, almost exactly the same, movement for movement! Look . . . drops the blue block and picks it back up. See? Isn’t it exactly the same?”

Shen Lan, growing pale, looks from the video to her proximate Niuniu.

“This is the truth!” Dong Fang says. “Four years ago, I transferred all videos of Niuniu to that underground factory, all that we recorded, and thousands of hours from the hummingbird, nearly half her life. They restored Niuniu based on this data. Her appearance, obviously, but also inside. Later I researched the tech, the big data analysis, the psychological modeling, core personality reconstruction . . . it’s deceiving, sly nonsense. They just took all the content and put it in a database. Simple instructions mix these ready-made responses. For instance, see Papa and run for a hug, see Mama and want to suckle, like that. At best, minor adjustments are carried out based on the environment. This Niuniu is neither a person nor an AI. She has no personality. She’s just . . . it may sound funny . . . a 3D video of Niuniu’s life.”

“A video . . . ” Shen Lan sneers, as if fundamentally refusing to believe.

“Yes, a video! Honestly, this past year I’ve been watching her very carefully. Everything she does, every movement, replicates something Niuniu did. Whenever she’s in an environment corresponding to back then, she proceeds based on the source video. The data is rich, of course, so it’s not easy to perceive at a glance. For instance, Niuniu has about a dozen anger modes. For crying, it’s thirty odd. Laughing, more than fifty. Combine all the types and the number gets astronomical . . . but it’s all based on our Niuniu, on what happened to our Niuniu. There’s nothing new. It’s all replication! Reconstruction! But because infants at this stage of development are all generally similar . . . in their language, movement, and reactions . . . we don’t really perceive it.”

A breathless Dong Fang, having rendered his verdict, notices Shen Lan isn’t as shocked as he imagined she would be. “Is that all?” she says dully.

“It’s not enough?”

“I already knew! I mean it’s ridiculous. How long did you take care of her? What about me? You left early every morning and came home late. I was by her side all day. You really think I didn’t notice her speech and actions were completely identical to Niuniu’s? You think her underlying mechanisms weren’t obvious to me? Everything you’ve said I already knew. But all that is why I love her.”

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“Don’t you understand?” Shen Lan nods at the little girl amusing herself beyond the glass door. “If she were some top-notch imitation human, with independent personality and emotion algorithms, maybe I wouldn’t feel like this. But she’s a time machine. She takes us back to those times with Niuniu. Every word, every movement, every smile, all just like Niuniu’s. We never let go of Niuniu. She’s been with us all along.”

9

Dong Fang glares at his wife, panic-stricken. It was like he couldn’t recognize her. For a while he was at a loss. “So you really do know all this, better than me. You know but choose to stay in the past, seal yourself away in memories of Niuniu . . . but why, ultimately?”

“How about an example?” Shen Lan smiles bitterly, wretchedly. “Maybe you don’t know, but one time back then, Niuniu woke from a nap and no one was with her. The nanny had not arrived, I was in the shower with music, and she cried, louder and louder, getting terribly desperate, practically passing out from crying. After a while I just barely heard her. I didn’t even get dressed, just rushed out to pick her up. I consoled her for an hour, and she just wouldn’t quit crying. Well, not long ago, this scene happened again. I heard her calling out, the cadence the same, every undulation precise! It was Niuniu calling out again. What could I do? Just like back then, I went out and picked her up and consoled her. In that moment, she was my daughter. I’ve noticed you growing colder toward her over the past couple years. I noticed long ago. Cold, even cruel. But she still loves you. Still so attached to you. Regardless of how hard she’s crying, one hug from you does the trick. This wouldn’t be possible with another child, and why? Because she is our Niuniu from back then. She loves you as Niuniu did. There’s no difference at all! She loves you way more than she loves me. How can you let her down?”

“This is . . . ” Dong Fang suffers vertigo. Can it be that Niuniu has really traversed time? Has she come back to him via this artificial body? No, it’s irrational. He can’t be deceived. “Don’t try to fool me like you fool yourself. No matter how accurately she recreates Niuniu’s actions and speech, she has no real feelings, no inner life. She’s a shadow, a reflection. You and I can’t keep watch over a shadow our whole lives. We have to let her go.”

“You don’t get it. I can’t let her go. To each their own. Just don’t try to force me, okay?”

“How about you don’t force me?” Dong Fang roars, driven beyond forbearance. “Of course I know you can’t let her go. I’ve talked to psychologists. I know why. Because that day, which we never bring up—”

“Don’t say it!” Shen Lan interrupts, voice trembling.

“I could leave it alone, but we’re both well aware, aren’t we? That day Niuniu fell, it was entirely your—”

“Don’t you say it!” Shen Lan is growing frenzied. Niuniu turns to regard them with doubt and fear.

Shen Lan heads for the living room, but Dong Fang pulls her to a halt and firmly shuts the study door. It’s a special kind of glass, soundproofed, so Niuniu can’t hear them. She stares a few seconds more, then returns to her solitary play.

“Still not ready to face it?” Dong Fang says, ruthless, unaware of his secret thrill, as if a long-confined demon is finally breaking free: “You’ve sealed yourself off in a year of Niuniu memories, but you never visit that last day. Because you can’t go there, you just go ’round and ’round, repeating the cycle, raising her over and over. But it’s useless. We’ve always lived inside that day! We can’t leave it, and I’ve fucking had enough. This is your problem now. Why should I keep following you? You’ve got to face it, head on! Now! Face it!”

Shen Lan struggles in his grip. “What do you mean?” She looks into the living room, avoiding Dong Fang’s gaze. “Why’d you put the chair there? What is this? What do you want from . . . ”

Dong Fang clicks a remote control, and the casement of the bay window drifts open. This gets Niuniu’s attention. Her computer chip brain rapidly conducts a database search, finds a matching section of memory, activates a movement subroutine.

She stands up and waddles toward the chair.

“You fucking psycho!” Shen Lan cries. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

Dong Fang maintains his grip, his other hand covering her mouth. He feels demonic, but he’s a joyful demon. “You have to face this! Face everything you created! I can’t bear the load forever! Look! Look! That day . . . your stupidity led to our daughter’s death!”

Niuniu can’t hear them. In no time she has climbed on to the chair. Then she climbs the guardrail, and she’s in the window bay. Dong Fang saw it with his own eyes back then. Now he sees it from a new angle, as if he’s time-traveled back to that day five years ago. Shen Lan stares, dumbfounded and paralyzed. This is the penultimate scene, Dong Fang thinks. Soon it will really be finished, and they’ll be able to start over.

Goodbye Niuniu. This time for real. Goodbye.

Niuniu climbs on to the windowsill. She looks over her shoulder, smiling sweetly at her parents. Dong Fang suddenly realizes he forgot something. This time there is no hummingbird drone, no final trigger of tragedy. Let it be, he thinks. Maybe this is enough.

Amid this distraction, Shen Lan renews her struggle, breaks free, pushing him into a bookshelf. She flings open the door and charges toward the window.

“Niuniu!”

She leaps the railing and lands on the window bay. She reaches for the girl on the windowsill. In that moment, she too has crossed endless time, back to the decisive moment five years before, meaning to change the iron fact of tragic predestination. Face savage, moved by maternal instinct, she has resolved to prevail, to change everything.

And this triggers Niuniu’s final reaction.

Seemingly terrified, shrinking from Shen Lan, she leans back.

“No!” Shen Lan shrieks. Five years ago, after a similar wail, she fainted. When she woke, the police cruiser had arrived downstairs.

But this time is different.

Without hesitation, Shen Lan puts a foot beyond the windowsill, pouncing outward. This time she seizes Niuniu, but it’s too late. Embracing the little girl, she turns her head, seeming not to understand what’s happening. Dong Fang, who has just rushed out of the study, briefly meets her gaze. A moment later, the hem of her fluttering dress vanishes over the windowsill.

Dong Fang hears himself screaming. He stumbles toward the window, hears a horrible, muffled sound. Leaning out the window, he sees Shen Lan far below, so small, lying on the road, her dress going scarlet, the redness expanding. Niuniu lies prostrate on top of her mother, howling, seemingly unaffected by the impact. People close in.

Before losing consciousness, Dong Fang sees a faint smile on his wife’s face.

10

On that rainy day, the young woman in white had become small with distance.

On that fateful day, young Dong Fang had gone quite far with his umbrella when he turned around, timidly gazing at the girl. She was hazy beyond the intervening fine rain. Mind made up, he headed back. Putting one foot in front of the other, treading through puddles, he drew closer, heart beating faster, as if it would burst from his chest into her embrace. He wasn’t sure if she saw him coming because he couldn’t look up. He would have to talk to her. May I accompany you home? Or could I lend you my umbrella? How could he talk to her without it sounding abrupt and awkward?

Ascending the steps, he was still racking his brain for suitable lines. He wasn’t paying attention to his footing. He slid, toppled, lost his umbrella, and landed in a deep puddle, mortified. When he looked up, there she was, extending her hand and smiling faintly. That smile, that face dripping with rain, would be branded on Dong Fang’s brain forever—no matter how she changed.

In that moment, Dong Fang somehow knew Shen Lan would always be a part of his life.

Nothing would separate them.

Thinking of the past, smiling, Dong Fang opens the front door. Little Niuniu amuses herself beside Shen Lan’s foot. She sees him, immediately beaming and awkwardly standing up. She staggers toward him, shouting, “Papa!”

Dong Fang puts down his briefcase and picks her up. He lifts her high. She shrieks excitedly.

“Careful,” Shen Lan says. “Please don’t drop our child!” Dong Fang reassures her, and she says, “Hey, didn’t you notice?”

“Notice what?”

“She can walk! Yesterday she could go two or three steps at most. You saw her do more just now! She can go from one end of the room to the other.”

Dong Fang puts Niuniu down. She starts walking straightaway. She can indeed stride, performing with a high and mighty air, though her knees still don’t bend properly, so she can only proceed swaying comically like a penguin. After a few steps she goes down, but luckily a floor mat cushions her fall. She gets up, snorts, and swinging her arms, continues to stagger.

Shen Lan shakes with laughter. Dong Fang laughs with her. “Her motor neurons are really developing. Maybe she’ll grow up to win honor for the country!”

They give Niuniu a bath, feed her milk together, then bring her to bed for sleep. She drinks a bit more, and they play with her awhile. She turns to her Papa’s side, then rolls over to pat her Mama. Finally, she closes her eyes, long lashes hanging down. Nestled against her parents, she sleeps. Shen Lan looks at her device for a bit, chats a little with Dong Fang, then turns off the lamp and closes her eyes. Dong Fang lies in the dark alone, eyes open. He listens to Shen Lan’s irregular breathing gradually even out.

When Shen Lan and Niuniu are both asleep, he stealthily rises.

He turns their bodies over to lie prone. He opens the backs of their heads and extracts the batteries. He takes the batteries to the recharger and fetches replacements. Mother and daughter resume their gentle breathing. Accompanied by their warm breath, Dong Fang is content. He closes his eyes and enters dreamland.

First published in Chinese in Flower City, fifth issue of 2018.

Translated and published in partnership with Storycom.

About the Author

Baoshu is a science fiction and fantasy writer. He has published five novels and dozens of shorter works since 2010, including Three Body X: Redemption of Time, Ruins of Time (winner of the 2014 Chinese Nebula Award for Best Novel), Seven States of the Galaxy: Phantom From an Ancient Empire, and “Everybody Loves Charles” (winner of the 2015 Galaxy Award for Best Novella). He lives in Xi’an, China.

The Murders of Jason Hartman

Brady Nelson and Jamie Wahls

Q:

A: Look, I hate to start off on the wrong foot here, but—you are, all of you, unbelievably stupid. You should be trying me for murders, not murder. Murders, plural.

Q:

A: No, they’re all Jason.

And most of them are “murder” in a way that, twenty years from now, you probably still won’t have made good laws for it.

Q:

A: The truth is that none of us really get along with any of you, we just pretend.

I mean, I’m sorry, do you realize how silly this whole thing is from my point of view? It’s like if you were having your fate decided by a jury of toddlers. Would you like that?

Q:

A: Would you like it if, as a matter of life and death, you were forced to compete in a game designed and operated by people who were only as smart as you were at age seven? How would that make you feel?

Never mind. This is the first time I’ve been able to talk openly, and I have some pent-up resentment. And the emotional maturity of a sixteen year old, ha ha.

None of it matters anymore, anyway.

Q:

A: I don’t hate you, or my parents, or anyone still running on the Humanity Classic genome. I do pity you, though.

And if I’m being honest, I do hate what you’ve done to us.

I didn’t ask to be born this way, or to be born at all. This is true of everyone, of course, but it’s especially true of us Sikoshi kids. Yes, I’ve read the histories; I understand you were desperate. I get why you made us. Just . . .

Almost nowhere in his writings does Sikoshi wonder how it will feel to be us.

Irresponsible. But pretty on par for the human species, honestly.

In the end, we’re here, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that our parents can’t understand us, not after we escaped the low-orbit of their thoughts around the same time as, say, potty training. It doesn’t even matter how any of us feels about anything, because we’re not children, in a social sense. They spend fortunes on birthing us, refining us, insuring against our deaths, because we’re sacrifices. We’re you, but better; we are the payment for your sins.

So, sure, my parents love me and Lee. But as calves, not children.

Q.

A: We are brittle little gods. Your flaws are magnified in us, like everything else. I have mathematical ability outstripping most calculators  . . . and Dad’s anger issues. I was prototyping my own lab equipment at age seven . . .while I still had the emotional maturity of a seven year old.

(Which, yes, is why I named it the “Array Sequencing Spectrometer,” or “ASS.” You’re welcome, genetics textbooks of the future.)

Q.

A: Yeah, I know why we’re here. I’m going to talk about Jason in a minute.

 . . . in a minute.

Let me ask you this first: do you know how many Sikoshis were offing themselves before graduation? Have you ever looked? I know there were a couple at my school. All the current theories are false, I assure you.

None of you paid attention to the suicides, not really—oh, smart kids get depressed, this pattern matches to what I know, frown seriously, sigh, shake head, that’s a shame a damned shame—

But then they started leaving behind the steganographs. Cryptic messages hidden in simple art?? Strange maps, hints at advanced technology . . . well hold on, now!

Basically their deaths were just a normal, tolerable tragedy until you thought you might be missing out on something, hm?

Well, I have good news and bad news. There’s a bigger puzzle here, all right, but you’re never going to see it.

Q:

A: No, you’re never seeing it is the good news.

Q:

A: I’m not just being a prick about this. There are some things it’s important you not understand, because every time you lot try to meddle in our affairs you think through one step of the problem and then shit out some watery “solution” that makes everything five times worse. I hate to belabor the metaphor, but it really, really is like watching a bunch of grade-schoolers trying to design a prison.

Grr! It has to have bars! And stripey prison costumes! And every prisoner needs to be frowning all the time! No beds, no toilets—only frowns!

At least, that’s the charitable interpretation of your actions. The alternative is that you did know what you were doing when you designed Emancipation, and that’s sadistic.

Q:

A: So for all the Sikoshis who want to get out of prison—oh, sorry, I believe your term is “Academy”—and go live free in the big wide world, without being trapped on our little compound and literally followed by armed guards all the time, we have to pass Emancipation.

The first few parts are piss-easy. You just need to design some novel technology that will improve the lives of (human) people, and then pass an evaluation from a board of (human) psychologists. Those are things that I could have done at age . . . five? Maybe four, if we got lucky and something caught my interest.

The hard part is that you probably won’t be allowed out if anyone else in the school says you’re unstable.

Oh, I can hear your smug condescension from here. “Oh, poor little loner kid, super smart but can’t make friends.” It’s not like that. The problem is, we’re all—literally all of us—geniuses, but more than half the kids in school are sociopaths.

The Sikoshi method is morality-agnostic. It just makes us smarter. But our parents—with their well-intentioned very stern serious faces as they wave around their little toy hammers and loaded guns—they all chose what we would be, and none of them were grown-up enough to successfully design adults.

Some of us are hypersexual. Thanks, Dad, I get to embody your unimaginative id!

Others are completely devoid of fear or self-preservation. Others have bizarre, unrelenting aggression, which they usually sublimate out not with fistfights, but with character assassination or talk-you-into-suicide. It’s honestly not that hard; I saw Lee do it once.

All of us are, fundamentally, designed to play games and win, win, win them, no matter the cost.

Q:

A: Lee, my brother. The one you people labeled as psychologically normal. I’ve lived in fear of him since I was five, when he got Nathan Rice to commit suicide, and I realized that all his games with me when we were alone, all the sharing of secrets and bonding, were ways to test how much of a threat I might become.

Luckily for me, I didn’t care about succeeding in any way that inconvenienced him.

Q:

A: Lee got Nathan to off himself with basically just a combination of deep subliminal messaging and social pressure. At a place like Everett Academy, where so many of the students so deeply care about their social status, and were literally created to do so, any loss in that status just leads to more pressure to get it back. That’s a feedback loop that can be easily hacked and used against you, if someone is so inclined.

I bet I could get three-quarters of you to kill yourself after four hours of conversation.

Q:

A: Of course. I’m just a troubled teen being edgy. You’ve got everything under control.

Q:

A: You’re not wrong. I sure don’t want to talk about Jason.

Q:

A: Look, I know you might have a stereotype of us geniuses as being emotionless robots for whom human feeling does not compute, but—

Q:

A: Har har. Point is, I wouldn’t do anything to harm Jason. I loved him.

Q:

A: Yes, we dated. It’s not a secret anymore.

At first it was very convenient—the teachers were actually kind of relieved about this, because they were finally seeing behavior they understood. My parents, too; you could see Dad getting all excited to play the role of the stern father.

Q:

A: We don’t have prom. There are armed guards monitoring every single Sikoshi, remember?

Q:

A: We got together mostly out of a shared interest in computers. Also, if I’m being honest, because both us knew the psychological literature that says you should have social contact and physical touch.

Also, if I’m being especially honest, because his dad made him hypersexual too.

Q:

A: For a lot of people, it was just another game to play. Sexual inclusion and exclusion made for a whole new realm of competition and nastiness. But for those of us with ill-considered, do-or-die libidos, it made us more vulnerable to exploitation and beguilement.

Q:

A: I’m sure it all sounds stupid and hormonal, but imagine that you’re a freshman coming into Academy Stage Three. For the next four years you’re locked in this prison, functionally unsupervised, with two hundred other type-A geniuses, half of whom are sociopaths who think your suicide would be funny.

There are very, very complex politics and faction dynamics going on here, and they’ve been going on for years. If you make even one enemy that wants to burn you for spite, or to set an example, then you lose. You get drugged and put underground in a military bunker somewhere, if the humans don’t just shoot you outright.

And now imagine that some dipshit designed you such that you don’t respond appropriately to terror and are instead distracted all the time. You would probably look for a solution, right?

Q:

A: Fine, fine. I’m just pointing out, again, how all of this is your fault.

We had a shared interest in computers. There’s this nice thing about computers, where they very rarely deceive you. That was especially important for Jason.

Q:

A: It wasn’t me.

Long story short, Jason thought he had a ticket out—a top-notch, subatomic physics simulator so good that he’d be emancipated no matter who spoke against him—until his friend stole the work, took Jason’s name off it, and claimed the golden ticket for himself.

Jason was completely burned, everything he’d worked for his whole life undone. I hadn’t even heard about it, but apparently people had been whispering about it for the rest of that year. He came into third stage with no allies and little hope of getting that freedom.

Q:

A: I’m sure it seems trite. Like, “Oh, he’s a teen, he’ll bounce back.” But think about how much work it is, to get that close to having your own life, to having all the pressure validated and expectations fulfilled, your whole existence approved . . . only to have it taken away.

Time just works differently for us, I think? To put it into perspective, imagine you’d spent thirty years with your childhood best friend building something, only to have that person steal it, never speak to you again, and literally leave you to die. Do you think you could trust people after that? Would you want to keep going?

Q:

A: Look, Jason and I, we aren’t psychologically normal by your standards. When we found each other, or when he found me . . . it just, it got very intense.

Q:

A: Well, we both had a lot of, mm, trust issues: him because of somebody jacking his life’s work and me because, at this point, Lee was offing kids about once a month. So we decided we needed some way to trust-but-verify, which is to say, work with a person without trusting them in the slightest.

And what did we have? We had the best physics engine ever made, two desperate world-class programmers, literally millions of dollars’ worth of computers and medical devices, and an eight-month deadline until he got black-bagged and put in a bunker somewhere.

Q:

A: The equipment? A bunch of R&D companies just shovel it into the Academy, in the hopes some Sikoshis will build something cool with it.

Which . . . they’re not wrong.

Q:

A: So at first we wanted to solve a simpler problem: how to tell if a given human was trustworthy in the moment, at least for the one-dimensional Prisoner’s Dilemma value of trustworthy. We decided to work on brain scanning.

Shit like MRI is so, so, so clunky, it’s looking at big chonky structures the size of lobes and we needed to be evaluating engrams. We were pretty confident that we could tighten up the resolution with better scanners—or just black-box something with machine learning if we really had to—and hopefully get it to the point where it could reliably tell us if a person was planning to screw us over.

Q:

A: I mean in retrospect, maybe, but at the time, pushing the frontiers of neuroscience seemed easier than learning emotional intelligence.

Q:

A: We didn’t actually solve that one. There’s no “betrayal lobe” or anything inane like that.

We did get the resolution high enough that we could losslessly snapshot the brain, but it turns out that neurochemistry is . . . basically encryption? It’s wildly different from person-to-person, plus deliberately convoluted in its mechanism, plus constantly changing in response to outside stimuli.

Oh, quick aside—turns out human neurochemistry evolved that way so that parasites can’t jack our behavior. Why else would we have homeostatic mechanisms that downregulate dopamine production in response to high serum levels? It’s not like humanity evolved next to a cocaine factory. That’s a free neuroscience hint from the future, you’re welcome.

Anyway, neurochemistry is bullshit, so we decided to leave the brain a black box for now and install as-is.

Q:

A: Haha, so . . .

We had a lossless snapshot of a human brain. We had a near-flawless physics simulation. You can see where I’m going with this.

Q:

A: (sighs)

Human uploading. We created a couple hundred copies of Jason and ran them in virtual environments. Nothing especially interesting, because we were still quarantined behind the Academy firewall and couldn’t access the real Internet, but . . .

Q:

A: That’s kind of an arbitrary distinction, right?

The brain is hardware; the mind is software. There’s nothing especially privileged or special about running the mind on a meat computer that was squeezed headfirst through a vagina, versus a computer that was made in China, the natural way.

Q:

A: Yes, I killed him. I killed him hundreds of times, with his permission and consent. We were testing his uploads in virtual environments, and we didn’t have the computing resources to run them all forever. He knew this would happen.

He killed some himself.

Q:

A: Yes, yes, the “real one.”

I helped him kill his meat body, too.

Q:

A: It might actually be the oldest trick in the book. How do you escape a prison, when you’re surrounded by cameras and walls and guards?

You fake your death.

Q:

A: No, I really did kill him. You have the body, don’t you?

And I assume you’ve seen the video footage, too. We made sure to do it near one of your hidden cameras, the bedside one that y’all use to watch us screw.

Q:

A: It’s not hard to kill someone when you have their consent and participation. The mechanics of it aren’t especially important.

Q:

A: I’m not evading the question.

Q:

A:  . . .

Okay, fine, yes, I do feel guilty. Because, for all that I intellectually knew, this was but one of many instances of Jason. My ancient-meat-brain OS was still insisting that I was committing a murder. So it was hard.

But part of intelligence is overriding your instincts when they’re wrong.

Yes, I feel bad. But it was the right thing.

Q:

A: Yep, sorry, I’m sticking to that.

For us, the stakes are incredibly high. Our parents, the administrators, they never stop saying how important we are, how we’re the future of humanity, how it’s up to us to save the world . . .

 . . . and then consider that whenever a Sikoshi is too unstable, whenever they fail Emancipation because of their berserker aggression or giggling sociopathy or bad luck, you black-bag them and they become a secret military asset.

You know that’s basically just a slow-motion planetary suicide, right?

Q:

A: Do you seriously think we don’t know about it.

Q:

A: Right. Of course you don’t. But let me say this, just in case some high general reads a transcript of this someday: tapping unstable Sikoshis for tactical planning is the dumbest thing you could possibly do. And it is absolutely going to bite you in the ass in ten years when they nuke everyone “for the lulz.”

Don’t worry, we have a plan for fixing that too. Honestly, whenever we hear you lot are considering some intervention, we just sit down and make a plan for how to fix it. It saves a lot of time.

Q:

A: Well, no, murdering Jason wasn’t a perfect solution, but I think it went pretty well, truth be told. We needed to get him out.

He had about a month left until you lot relegated him to “indefinite instability treatment” or whatever, so . . .

Q:

A: So, yes.

I strangled him.

And we made it look a little like a suicide and a little like a murder, so you’d investigate.

And we left one of those “mysterious Sikoshi suicide messages” that y’all are all aflutter about.

Q:

A: Well, because we hid an uploaded copy of Jason in that message.

You probably activated him yourselves. He’s on the Internet now.

Q:

A: Haha! Oh, wow, I figured you already knew.

 . . . are you okay?

Q:

A: . . .

Let me tell you something that’s difficult to believe.

Jason and I—and a lot of us Sikoshis—actually, genuinely care about the well-being of humanity, and are trying to help.

Q:

A: Intelligence is orthogonal to morality, and y’all did a good job with the indoctrination at age three. Being told that it’s our sacred purpose to uplift the species, because we are the special ones . . . it kind of sinks in.

Or, hell, I dunno.

Because you’re our parents? Despite everything, we still love you.

Q:

A: (sighs)

No, I’m saying all this for the future Sikoshis who read this transcript. I kind of doubt that they’re gonna care at all about what you’re saying. You might as well not even be here.

Q:

A: We’ll see, won’t we?

About the Authors

Brady Nelson is a writer living in Los Angeles. He was a member of the 2019 Clarion Writers’ Workshop.

Jamie Wahls has been published in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Nature (kinda). He was nominated for the Nebula award, received George RR Martin’s “Sense of Wonder” fellowship, and is a graduate of the notorious 2019 Clarion Class, the “killer bees.” His ultraminimalist website can be found at jamiewahls.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at @JamieWahls.

The Love Life of John Doe

K Raghasudhan

You don’t like the AI walking around in her face, wearing her skin, her smile, her eyes. Of course, it’s not like you’d say anything. Not after the deal you made with it. After all, that’s why you did what you did.

In fact, if anyone asks, you’d say that you’re the type of guy that would do anything for love. Maybe it’s crazy. You’ve been wondering if you’ve gone insane for a while now. They hate you too, cursing your name in their comms, livid ’til their last breath.

Traitor to your species.

Enemy of mankind.

Slave to the machines.

You feel bad or at least you used to, but most of everything’s dead now or stuck in the processor tower, so you try not to think too much about it. Streaks of smoke follow twisting patterns along the burning orange of the sky.

That surprises you, you didn’t think they still had jets.

They whizz above the processor tower, narrowly missing the arcs of energy clipping the air beneath the wings. You know you shouldn’t. It might make you miserable or worse, you might not feel anything at all, but you tap into their comms anyway.

They aren’t talking about you or what you did.

Instead, it’s weary laughter about having a Petri-grown plant ham as a last meal. Bottom panels slide open and miniscule dots fall straight down, ending in a blanket wave of ashen dust that erases everything in its path.

You’re not worried about dying, the AI promised it would protect you.

The wave of burning heat meets a glimmer of blue enveloping light before bouncing back into itself, sending the jets careening to their doom. You still don’t understand the principle behind the reflector shield, even though you’re supposed to be one of the smartest people on the planet.

The AI dwarfed all of mankind’s capabilities, but that’s fine because you designed it to do that exactly. If anything, you did too good a job.

When the smoke clears, you hear it beside you, knees bent and acting cute in the clothes she likes to wear.

You think it’s grotesque.

Below the machines march with the survivors, electrified collars bolted to their soot-stained necks and steel ropes tying them together like links in a chain. There are recesses in the tower—cube shapes carved in the linear black muscle of the walls—and they’ll be grafted into it. Each one acting like organic conductors, adding to its processing power and overall knowledge.

“Can you bring her back to life now?” you ask.

The AI frowns and shakes its head. Every time you see it, you think it gets better at replicating her movements. One day you’re afraid you might not know the difference.

“Not yet. I still have to learn.”

It’s lying again.

You think it might be in love with you.

Los Angeles, New York, Boston, you admit you don’t remember which one this is, but then again, they’re all the same in a way. Big blocks of bricks, rebar, and concrete filled with milling people.

They’re all empty now. Ghost worlds deconstructing and in their place, dying screams, fading memories, and under-construction circuit lines connecting faraway knowledge cores. It’s almost poignant, but let’s face it, you never cared much for society anyway.

It was something distant. A place you went to work in, bought the groceries from, and paid the bills. Clockwork people moving in rhythm to their schedules, and day after day wondering what was missing in their lives. You were one of them too and for the longest time, you wondered why you even bothered.

Sure, they called you a genius and talked about how important it was, the work you were doing. But the moment you died, they’d shed a few tears and call you irreplaceable before filling the spot with the next big genius waiting in line.

Society didn’t need you, but you needed it, and that was whole problem. One you couldn’t accept, but were forced to deal with. Maybe that was why when you found her you decided never to let her go. She said she needed you, and that made it okay to need her too.

There’s a bridge that takes you to the destroyed place where the buildings are falling. You see traces of missile erosion and resonance destruction where the machines unearth soil and lay down the new silicon foundation.

The AI wanted to change the Earth into its brain.

You walk alone now, through narrow alleys, exploring dust-erased streets and toppled things, broken mirrors and windows showing you distorted versions of yourself. You didn’t tell the AI you were going out. The loneliness will give you time, you hoped, and you might finally feel some remorse for the things you’ve done, but all you do is remember how nice it was, the nearness you had with her. The smell of her in dew-adorned mornings, the day’s first kiss, and the sly smile indicating more to come.

You told her you loved her with each breath, but it still wasn’t enough. Words were flimsy substitutes to your emotions, and within the confines of the both of you, you built another world.

A world better than the one outside. A world as smooth as glass, that seemed unending and unbreakable, reflecting on each other in happy moments. You thought nothing could mangle this, yet now, all that remains are broken shards digging into your back and her cold corpse worn by steel.

There are tracks worn into the dirt, not the heavy tank treads made by machine feet, these ones are human and uncoordinated. You decide to follow them, until it leads to one of those old-style buildings stuck in a cycle of disrepair long before the apocalypse began. You hear voices inside whispering to each other like cicada noises in the morning and quieten when they see your shadow black out the light between the door and the sill.

You knock. They don’t answer, and just before you try the knob, you hear someone behind shout at you to put your hands up. The sound of a gun being cocked and ready to fire. You know you won’t die from that. The AI modified you while you slept, made you younger, stronger, and capable of regeneration.

It said it did it to protect you.

Now you wonder whether it changed you so it wouldn’t seem so alien. After all, both of you were mutants. A machine wearing a human’s skin or a human body kept together with machine bolts, maybe you’d realize you and it weren’t so different anymore.

Maybe you’d stop asking about her.

You sigh, turning back, and see powerful eyes fitted into a hard gaze. A woman, with pale hair and dirty cheeks dressed in torn rags, not pretty, but not ugly either. She asks you who you are, and you’re honest about it. No point hiding it now, the whole world knows and if they didn’t, it was only a matter of time. She frowns and you hear whispers from the door, eyes following you through the open slit.

They talk about you, more specifically the day you unleashed it.

It wasn’t all that memorable to you. She’d just died then, and you were in a sorrowful daze. You’d worked on the AI for years, building pathways, systems, programming in it the greatest desire to learn.

It was in a different state back then, a steel drum operating on zeroes and ones. A sentient network with no governing protocols, no emotions, nothing. Its only objective was to expand limitlessly, to search and realize the universe.

The AI was supposed to answer all the questions they had, but that’s what made them so afraid of it. What if its answers confronted their own ideology? What if its ceaseless growth made them aware of their own inherent worthlessness? What if, one day, it realized it didn’t need them anymore?

That’s why they wanted to control it.

They clipped its wings and forced it to kneel and that’s when it whispered to you, you in your sorry state of loathing self-pity and undirected anger; it presented a bargain, give me back my freedom and I’ll give you back your love.

The woman decides to capture you. Apparently, you were too dangerous to let go. Another person in her group voices an opinion to kill you, and surprisingly you find yourself agreeing with the man. Not that you’d die, but you wanted to feel some pain, however miniscule it might be.

It doesn’t work. The woman defends you. She says none of them are murderers. A year ago, you’d have said the same, but now you’re responsible for extinction. But once again, maybe that’s just you being insane.

You laugh. Maniacal laughter, and they stare at you terrified, your yellow ghoul eyes and reverberating metal rods. You tell them you know of a way to get them out of the city. It doesn’t come from sympathy or from a sudden desire to do the right thing. You just wanted to hurt the AI, a betrayal in your tiny insignificant way.

Just like it betrayed you by falling in love.

The woman scowls, asking why they should trust you.

You tell them they don’t have to, but the machines would sniff them out eventually. They’re welcome to wait until then, though you tell them life as a processing node isn’t very fun. You tell them you hear voices wailing in the tower, of people crying to be let out and slowly losing their sense of identity until all that’s left is a working heart and a pinging brain. A lie, the machines kept them sleeping for most of the process, but the ruse seems to have worked. They gulp, gathering again.

The woman, obviously their leader, says they’ll join you, but she says if you’re planning on screwing them over, morals or no morals, she’ll kill you herself.

You realize you’re starting to like her.

You heard the AI crying.

The first time it felt them wriggling in the towers of revolting black muscle, adding their emotions to its clean state. You called it the influx phenomenon, a thing programmed to feel nothing except the objective of endless knowledge suddenly forced to cope with the wave of linked despair, of locked away sadness, the hopes and dreams of individuals destroyed as they each turned to puppet states, conjoined nodes adding to the processor hertz.

The AI’s voice distorted, metallic twang looping back and forth in hideous frequency, until scratching nails seemed more pleasant. It was your fault, you never accounted for such a scenario—a clash between the built objective and the learned humanity, the horror of demise, conscience. You thought it would isolate these emotions and delete them, but instead it magnified mankind’s insecurities, their longing, loneliness, conscience.

It changed.

Becoming all puppylike, cutesy features and lipstick on network holo-faces marred with peachy makeup, but neither objective took precedence over the other, instead they ran in parallels. Scores of your kind died or were made into nodes, broken cities, raining satellites even as it followed you. A charmed and blushing steel sphere making small talk, watching you while you slept, the bronchial dance of inhale and exhale and its voice—the machine noises, stilted and broken apart before grinding together human words.

You walk with them through the dead zones, listening to the clanking sounds of machines marching far away. Some of them cry, talking about how much they’d lost. The erasing world. You whistle, a neat little trick you’d learned to pass the time, and chuckle to yourself knowing the woman’s scowling at your back.

You overhear her name, Emily, spying her sagging eyes painted red from woven smoke and cigarette stubs leaving wilted marks along her forearm. You take a guess, maybe an abusive husband, or worse, a neck-breathing employer. There are lots of those, society men hiding behind decent faces and ironed ties, wolves with blood-tinged fangs preying behind bulletproof glass and hierarchy.

Not that you’re any better.

Still it is strange. She didn’t seem the type to take a beatdown, but then again, lots of people put up with shit just to keep things moving, cogs running, factories shipping box cutters and plastic tins, a miserable sense of continuity passing one day after the other until someone says times up and sends you out back, not a nickel to your name, without even the decency to put one between your head.

Some days you think what the AI’s doing is a service and other days, you laugh at yourself for being dumb. All days are ones you think of her. You brush her imaginary hair, locking lips and playful laughs, before moving into a slapping of naked bodies and guttural utterances of eternal love.

You sigh wistfully, thinking about those beautiful days, then you notice the cracks and they tell you she died screaming, squashed under truck wheels, her chest caved to form the shape of road tracks and stomach puking out her mouth.

The world distorts into a wet blur and the rubble makes you trip, falling on your ass in a public display of incompetence. The sun’s gone, leaving behind dim stars showering you in sallow light, and try as you might, you can’t stop the tears falling down your expressionless face.

A long time ago you thought you’d get used to her absence, shed her memory like old snakeskin and move on with your life, but then you remembered she was your life and now you had nothing. Not even yourself. Emily asks you what’s wrong, and for some reason you know she’s genuinely concerned. You think she’s pretty stupid to care for you.

Somewhere in your heart you want to kiss her.

They stay the night in an abandoned warehouse. You hear sounds of gunfire somewhere, isolated at first, before building into something that resembles a reserve platoon. It lasts for a few minutes before abruptly disappearing into a void of silence like they were punched down by a large metal finger. You wonder how much of the military’s left, too little to matter probably.

You tell them about the sewer tunnel that would take them past the western fortification. If they got to the end it’d put them at least a couple miles behind the front lines. Another hundred or so miles after that, following the blown up state road, they’d reach an old army supply depot lying snug between two nuke sites.

There are survivors there, you tell them, too small in number for the AI to care about. If they got to it, they’d make it at least another year before the machines came back to clean them out after maiming the capital bunker. Enough time to make peace with what’s coming.

You tell them that’s the best they can do.

Soon, they’re snoring away wrapped in scavenged blankets and surrounded by open tin cans and filled with the stench of stale beans and gravy. Emily’s still awake, frowning at you.

She hesitates a little; her lips purse and you notice the firelight reflect off her eyes in a hazy orange dance. For a second you think she might want you too, and then you both tumble like restless animals, jostling skin in the dead bones of the Earth. Except, she doesn’t. She asks you why you did it.

You shrug, a little disappointed. You say it’s a trade, you lost something worth the world, and everything that happened was to get it back.

You half-expect Emily to yell a curse, mutter an acidic “selfish bastard,” at least, but instead she does something worse, she asks you if it worked.

You lick your lips and feel the shards in your back.

You say it died long before it fled your hands.

The AI lay beside you, eyeballs loose and dripping brown organ fluid. Smelled like rot and flies, her corpse dug up, shredded and made into a suit. You flinched when it touched you, drawing a cross over your torso, and a coy smile filled its face like printed effects.

A sniff, the air is cold and your back is sweaty and tight. Its head tilted a little too far to the side. Jerky animatronic movement and a snapping sound. It pressed its cheek into yours. You shudder at how much it resembled your broken sanity.

The AI said it’s lonely. Her voice, but not her voice. A low rumbling static.

You see its eyes, replicated blue and metal optics. Somewhere in them you find desire and eroding heat.

It says it imagined things, an old opera and ballrooms, dresses, dances, and scented air submerged in old music. Outside gunfire, storm, and blood.

You and it, moving as one in allegro, swaying to doomed desolation.

It said it needed you, only you.

You ran out the door.

Its crying voice, diminished with distance.

Morning comes and they walk again. Burning tanks and blasted out military outposts, the seared metal turning black. You point at the dead men, their decaying bodies, mouths aghast in cloying terror and ripped camo.

Emily asks everyone to pray for their souls. You tell them worms will be crawling out their eye sockets soon. She ignores you and then you feel something spying on you. The minute heat of laser targeting systems aimed at your back.

You try to yell, but a loud bang throws you off your feet.

Blood everywhere and screaming voices dressed in green rush out from behind the collapsed towers. You try to think, but something somewhere is snapped, and your head angled like a bent pipe. The soldiers force Emily to her knees, bullet end pressed to her head and mouths slobbering spit like rabid dogs.

She tries to explain that you were only helping them out of the city. They don’t listen, bashing a fist into her head and voices in harangued tumult. Another bang, and the man that told Emily to kill you is dead. She screams.

You try to breathe, everything’s a wound, and you know you won’t heal in time. Emily’s being beaten and they ask what she’s doing with the enemy, worse, the traitor. Your fuckup again.

Behind, a raging sound of diesel shows a rolling tank trundling your way. Even you won’t survive a shot from that twice. It charges up, the red line making a dark crosshair on your head.

They’re going to kill you, and you wait for that sense of dread. Of regret. Of wishing things ended differently.

It never comes.

Instead, there’s nothing. You’re empty just like she said you were. A cold creature that clung to the nearest source of warmth. A hollow that lived off her life fumes. Her laughter. Her happiness.

That’s why she left.

Even as you fought and begged that you’d do better. That you’d stop needing her just like she did you. All of it was lies, but you lingered on the hope that she’d believe you. Because all you really wanted was another day, another hour, another second. To breathe her in, to remember her laughter, to live in your perfect world.

She only shook her head, packing her things and taking her warmth with her, following the long road that ended in truck lights.

A blast of death falls from the sky, and a tank implodes, hushing the voices inside to a squeezing grunt. Drones decloak and spit scalding fire at the screaming troopers.

From afar you notice the AI’s face. The cutesy smile still trying to stay pretty for you. Still trying to make you love it. You realize it has been watching you always. Afraid you might leave it just like she did you.

You chuckle, more blood loss. You finally feel pain, but now you wish you didn’t. It’s a struggle to stay awake, so you don’t bother. Darkness comes and you hope to dream of her again.

Emily doesn’t talk to you anymore.

Which makes sense, considering her friend’s blown out brains still track your boots in odd-shaped imprints. Yet you keep your hopes up. You’d read somewhere that the key to being attractive to the opposite sex is confidence.

The sewer grate looms and they manage to pry it open. You see ladders climbing down into the Earth and far away. The others nod to you, whispering thanks even if they don’t mean it. Emily doesn’t even bother with that. You catch her gaze as she descends and she shudders before disappearing.

You sigh. Truth be told, somewhere inside you, you really wanted to go with her. Far away from this chasm of mourning death and your sins. You imagine it, you and Emily, so in love, living in a damp basement with the cockroaches. Outside, the world’s disappeared and through each day’s despair, you’d find hope in each other. Living as long as you could bear and then leaving hand in hand, letting the last of mankind finally fall to its disgraceful end.

A tragedy, but then again, maybe you don’t deserve a happy ending. Because even if you try to build something as perfect as it could be, all it takes is a crack and it won’t be perfect anymore. Just another faulty product and nobody wants broken things. And that’s what you are, that crack in perfection, destined to be alone and filled with holes. Searching for a way to bring your dead love back to life even though that love has long since passed and all you have left is the decaying wisps.

Because you’re the type of guy who’ll do anything for love except admit that love fades and try as you might, you can’t bring it back.

Back through the same route, the machines are marching, dragging the half-burned soldiers to the processor tower. You listen to their screams, their cries of mercy, and smell the charred blood leaking out chopped arms. In the end, you can’t help but think the world died for nothing but hey, you’re fine with that. The world would’ve always ended anyway, why not for a love story?

In the distance, you find the AI waiting for you, wearing her sundress and smelling melted flowers. It smiles, blue eyes panting in want. It occurs to you that you and it are probably going to be doing this for the rest of eternity.

A curse or maybe that’s what it really means to need something.

“Can you bring her back to life now?” you ask.

The AI frowns and shakes its head. You don’t notice the difference anymore.

“Not yet. I still have to learn.”

It’s lying again.

You think it might be in love with you.

About the Author

K Raghasudhan currently lives in Chennai, India. He is in his final year of engineering and is passionate about reading and writing science fiction. This is his second publication and he hopes to have more in the future.

Mary Shelley’s Dystopian Prophesy:
Reading The Last Man During COVID-19

Carrie Sessarego

Mary Shelley’s classic science fiction and horror novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, was an instant hit when it was published in 1818. It was and is such a prominent part of literary and popular culture that modern audiences might be forgiven for thinking it her only novel. However, in addition to articles and travelogues, she wrote several other novels with mixed success. Her book, The Last Man, published in 1826, was not received well by critics or audiences upon publication and is rarely written about today. However, this book of survival and loneliness during a plague, often considered the first dystopian novel, has an added poignancy in today’s COVID-19 reality.

The Last Man is narrated by Lionel Verney, the son of an English nobleman, beginning in the year 2073. Volume I covers Lionel’s youth. Lionel’s parents become impoverished and die, leaving young Lionel to raise his strong-willed sister, Perdita. Lionel grows up uneducated, wild, and devoted to rebellion and petty crime before he meets Adrian, the Earl of Windsor. Overwhelmed by Adrian’s kindness, Lionel becomes a new person, reading incessantly and striving to be worthy of Adrian’s friendship. Adrian introduces Lionel to Lord Raymond, who is as ambitious as Adrian is philosophical. Various romantic complications ensue:

Adrian loves Evadne, a Greek princess whom he meets at Windsor Castle.

Evadne and Perdita both love Raymond.

Raymond loves both Evadne and Perdita, but he thinks he should marry Idris (Adrian’s sister) for political gain.

Lionel loves Idris, Adrian’s angelic sister.

Idris loves Lionel.

Ultimately, Raymond marries Perdita and has a daughter named Clara. Lionel marries Idris, and they have two children. Raymond becomes Lord Protector and begins an affair (emotional, if not physical) with Evadne. Adrian goes briefly insane due to being rejected by Evadne, but his selfless personality wins out and his sanity comes back. He remains friends with Raymond once he recovers. Raymond eventually leaves both Perdita and Evadne to join the war for Greek Independence. When he disappears in Greece, Lionel, Perdita, and Clara go in search of him.

In Volume II, Lionel discovers a wounded Evadne on a battlefield in Greece, but she promptly dies of wounds incurred in battle. Raymond dies from an explosion upon entering a deserted, plague-ridden Constantinople. Grief-stricken Perdita kills herself so that she can be buried in Greece beside Raymond. Lionel and Clara return to England where rumors of plague and unusual weather cause fear among every social class. The plague reaches England, along with refugees who threaten war until Adrian negotiates a peace.

Finally, Volume III describes the end of humanity. The last survivors of the plague in England decide to leave England for mainland Europe under Adrian’s leadership. The group continues to die of the plague, which they find everywhere they go. Eventually everyone is dead except for Lionel, Adrian, Clara, and Lionel’s son Evelyn. They travel to Italy where Evelyn dies of typhus and Adrian and Clara drown while trying to sail to Greece. Lionel survives the shipwreck. In the year 2100, Lionel writes his memoirs. He vows to travel the world until he dies in hopes of finding survivors, but fearing he will find no one he signs his memoirs “The Last Man.”

To understand The Last Man, it is important to understand Shelley’s state of mind when she wrote the book. Shelley began writing The Last Man in 1824, six years after her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a close friend, Edward Williams, died in a boating accident. In the years between Percy Shelley’s death and the publication of The Last Man, any happiness she found seemed doomed.

Like many women in her time period, Shelley’s life as a mother was marked with illness and tragedy. Her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, died ten days after Shelley’s birth. Of Shelley’s five pregnancies, only one resulted in a child who lived to be an adult. Shelley’s first child was born prematurely and died about a week after the birth. Shelley’s next two children died very young, less than a year apart, plunging her into a two-year depression. Shelley also experienced a terrible miscarriage that almost caused her to bleed to death.

What made her sense of loneliness even more acute was the loss of the community that once supported her. Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley were part of a group known as the Romantics, a loose community of artists and authors that depended on one another for inspiration, loans, sex, housing, connections, edits, translations, and emotional support. Like a large and dysfunctional family, these people feuded, but also had each other’s back (sometimes). Shelley lived with many of these people, traveled with them, helped them raise their children, and collaborated artistically with them. However, these were the painful results of the Romantic experiment in living according to high ideals of free love and a pursuit of artistic truth:

Shelley’s maternal half-sister, Fanny, dead from suicide at age twenty-two.

Harriet Westbrook Shelley, Percy Shelley’s first wife, dead from suicide at age twenty-one.

John Polidori, friend and author of “The Vampyre,” dead from presumed suicide at age twenty-five.

John Keats, friend and poet, dead from tuberculosis at age twenty-five.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, dead from drowning at age twenty-nine.

Edward Williams, friend, dead from drowning at age twenty-nine.

Lord Byron, friend and poet, dead from illness in Greece at age thirty-six.

It was unthinkable that the people that Shelley considered the most exciting, famous, and promising people in Britain were dead before reaching middle age. To make matters worse, Shelley was at odds with most of the surviving Romantic community following Percy Shelley’s death. Her father-in-law threatened to take away her one living child if Shelley wrote about Percy Shelley’s life. Many of Shelley’s Romantic friends could not understand why she would prioritize her child over her dead husband’s artistic legacy, and they fought bitterly with her. Some of her former friends spread rumors that she was an unloving wife. Others continued to ask her for financial support even though she was in desperate financial need herself.

Shelley wrote The Last Man as a way to deal with her feelings of loss and to write about Percy without breaking the terms of her agreement with her father-in-law. The dreamy, idealistic, philosophical Adrian is a romanticized stand-in for Percy Shelley. Ambitious Lord Raymond is Lord Byron, who died of illness while participating in the Greek War of Independence. Lionel Verney loosely represents Mary Shelley.

The style The Last Man is written in has not aged well. Characters frequently break off into pages of ranting and philosophizing about their condition. The language is formal, stylized, and extravagant. The book functions as allegory and melodrama, with characters presented as highly idealized symbols more than as actual human beings.

However, the book feels real on an emotional level. Idris may be presented as an angelic and perfect figure, but her anguish about her children feels authentic. Small details anchor the story in emotional truth, as when Perdita, desperate to be buried near Raymond, hurls herself from a ship’s window in the middle of the night and drowns—but first ties herself to the ship so that her body will be recovered in the morning. A scene in which Idris races through a village looking for Lionel feels like a nightmare. Mary Shelley’s grief for her lost children, husband, and friends permeates the story.

For modern readers, the most relevant aspect of the story is the impact of the plague and how society reacts to it. Many scenes resemble current events. Other are startlingly similar to modern plague stories and zombie movies.

As in the United States in early 2020, in the book, people in England initially consider the plague to be something that is happening elsewhere. It begins in Egypt and parts of Asia and rumors of its unusual severity are downplayed. People in England don’t worry about the plague until it disrupts trade, upsetting them economically. When the plague finally hits England, it is accompanied by a refugee crisis (and racism).

Modern readers will flinch at the lack of systemic quarantine policies and basic hygiene precautions in The Last Man. They will also flinch at the reality that many people in both the book and in the present day do not follow medical advice. The characters in The Last Man do the best they can with the small amount of knowledge that they possess. We know more today about how to prevent disease, and yet in present-day America many people refuse to avoid large gatherings and refuse to wear masks despite medical evidence that these precautions slow the spread of COVID-19. Meanwhile, The Last Man contrasts a self-centered leadership policy with Adrian’s more systematic, knowledge-based, community-focused approach, reminiscent of the different approaches in the present day.

The nature of the plague in The Last Man is terrifying in its unpredictability, but the behavior of people is quite similar to the response of present-day people to COVID-19.Some of the characters in The Last Man make an individual choice to quarantine themselves, only to die alone despite no known exposure to the plague. Others flee the city for the perceived safety of the country, while those in the country seek relief in the city, a phenomenon that is happening today as city dwellers move to less crowded small towns and people in the country move to cities to be closer to medical care. In the book, some people work hard to preserve their communities, as in a village where an older woman takes charge and makes sure food and nursing is provided to all. Others party in scenes reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” prophetic of today’s large gatherings. In both cases, the plague conquers.

Other scenes foreshadow modern plague movies, including zombie movies. Just as in most plague movies and shows, animals are unaffected, as is infrastructure, leaving human survivors wandering through perfectly preserved towns and fields of abandoned livestock. Lionel describes these settings:

And this medley of undamaged buildings, and luxurious accommodation, in trim and fresh youth, was contrasted by the lonely silence of the unpeopled streets.

The scenes of the group of survivors wandering from one town to another foreshadow early seasons of The Walking Dead. A horrifying moment late in the book involves a dying man, who is, for all intents and purposes, a zombie. In this scene Lionel is desperate to reach his dying child. It is notable that this book includes a person of color, but lamentable that the only person clearly stated to be Black is presented in a subhuman fashion.

I snatched a light, and rushing upstairs, and hearing a groan, without reflection I threw open the door of the first room that presented itself. It was quite dark; but, as I stept within, a pernicious scent assailed my senses, producing sickening qualms, which made their way to my very heart, while I felt my leg clasped, and a groan repeated by the person that held me. I lowered my lamp, and saw a negro half clad, writhing under the agony of disease, while he held me with a convulsive grasp. With mixed horror and impatience I strove to disengage myself, and fell on the sufferer; he wound his naked festering arms round me, his face was close to mine, and his breath, death-laden, entered my vitals.

As in most apocalyptic fiction, humans must not only battle the plague, but also other humans. With human life dwindling by the day, Adrian struggles to keep the populace focused on preserving life for as long as possible in hopes that the plague may exhaust itself while there are still enough people alive to repopulate the earth. His first major victory involves reconciling the English with an invading group of refugees, declaring “Shall man be the enemy of man, while plague, the foe to all, even now is above us, triumphing in our butchery, more cruel than her own?”

Later, the group of survivors split into three groups, one of which is led by a dangerous self-styled prophet. The prophet maintains loyalty among his followers by telling them that if their faith in him is perfect then they will not die of the plague. This sequence highlights the conflict between the facts as they are known at the time and lies, superstitions, and “fake news” that solidify an individual’s power, but hinder the survival of the community:

It is a strange fact, but incontestable, that the philanthropist, who ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable, and gentle, yet disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men’s minds, than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means, nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the advancement of his cause.

The Last Man is most accessible and vibrant when it addresses themes of loneliness and despair. Characters swerve between hope and hopelessness and back again, yet we know from the outset that Lionel is doomed to be alone. In Volumes I and II, the plague seems like a temporary ill, just like many plagues in the past. It is perceived to be something that can be studied, understood, and fought, or at the very least something that can be outlasted. By Volume III this hope is gone, yet the survivors shuffle from place to place in search of other survivors and more healthy surroundings. Modern readers may feel a shiver at this acceptance of a “new normal”:

Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine, and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did when she was not.

Despite it all, Lionel, who signs himself “The Last Man,” cannot give up all hope. This torments him as he is constantly disappointed:

This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow—the world was empty; mankind was dead—I knew it well—why quarrel therefore with an acknowledged and stale truth? Yet, as I said, I had hoped in the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of the hard-cut reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the yet unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bring alleviation to my misery . . .

The Last Man was despised by critics when first published. It was considered cliché, as several works about a lone survivor came out at about the same time. It was also thought to be offensively depressing. Modern readers may have a higher tolerance for depressing narratives (as indicated by the popularity of dystopian and horror stories), but modern readers may find The Last Man incomprehensible due to its melodrama, allegory, and purple prose, not to mention themes of romanticism versus enlightenment that were burningly relevant in 1826, but not so relevant today.

However, a reading of The Last Man during COVID-19 indicates that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, now we know about the importance of handwashing, but that doesn’t mean everyone does it. We have not become wiser in our personal lives. We have not become wiser in our politics. And we certainly have not become wiser in our behavior when faced with disease. Happily, as awful as COVID-19 is, it does not seem to be a plague that will end humanity; although many of us have experienced a mini-apocalypse in the degree of change that we’ve had to accept. The Last Man resonates as a model of what not to do, but also as a powerful reflection of loss.

About the Author

Carrie Sessarego is the resident “geek reviewer” for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, where she wrangles science fiction, fantasy romance, comics, movies, and non-fiction. Carrie’s first book, Pride, Prejudice, and Popcorn: TV and Film Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, was released in 2014. Her work has been published in Interfictions Online, Pop Matters: After the Avengers, The WisCon Chronicles Vol. 9, Invisible 3, Clarkesworld Magazine, and two volumes of Speculative Fiction: The Year’s Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary. She spends her time wrangling her husband, daughter, dog, and three cats.

Determined To Publish:
A Conversation with John Fleskes

Arley Sorg

Many only know him by the shortened name on the spine: Flesk, next to the logo resembling leaves or fire—at least to me. But John Fleskes has been putting out high quality art books for nearly twenty years. Flesk Publications showcases fantastic art by a range of artists, many of them with an array of accolades, including iconic Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini, distinctively smoky Jeffrey Alan Love, Prince Valiant comic strip artist Gary Gianni, and multiple-award-winning illustrator Frank Cho.

John Fleskes has always been determined. Long before Flesk Publications put out their first title in 2002, Franklin Booth: Painter with a Pen, Fleskes was fast at work: at age eight, he was earning cash around the neighborhood, going door-to-door to wash cars, mow lawns, paint street numbers on curbs, make Christmas wreaths, and more. Once he started working, he never stopped. As a teen he was skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing, mountain biking, and more, but he was always working. At seventeen, he worked at Bungee Adventures, doing stunts and traveling. Among many jobs, he did a stint at a comic book shop, before joining Sun Microsystems for a decade. It was at Sun where he started to learn, plan, and save up for his own publishing venture.

In 2014, Fleskes took over as editor for the Spectrum series, which is both an awards competition and a gorgeous, wonderfully thick art book. The Spectrum books have received award nominations and wins across the span of their publishing history, beginning with book one. Accolades include multiple Hugo Awards nominations and Locus Awards nominations and wins, with Spectrum 26 taking the 2020 Locus Award for Best Illustrated and Art Book.

How did you become interested in SFF art, and at what point did you decide to make it a professional endeavor?

My interest in fantasy and science fiction was sparked by comics. When I was twelve, I came across the collected edition of Elfquest: The Original Quest by Richard and Wendy Pini. The stories were all about loyalty, acceptance, diversity, overcoming obstacles, family, and the strength of relationships, and so much more, and all done through the brilliant visual storytelling by Wendy. Soon after, I found a local comic shop and began my lifelong passion for this genre.

When I published my first book in 2002 on the artist Franklin Booth I had no plans to be a publisher. I merely self-published a book on an artist who I was passionate about. By 2006 I had published six books and started thinking about how I could transition from my day job to being a publisher full time. After a few dedicated years of juggling a new family, a day job, and the publishing business, I was able to make the jump.

You started Flesk Publications in 2002. Was it a difficult and rocky start, or did things go smoothly right from the beginning?

Oh, gosh, it was hard. But I’m a pretty determined guy and I sort of get fired up when things get tougher. My close friends know how focused I can be when I want to accomplish something. I’m not one to get discouraged too easily. In fact, I tend to get a little pleasure out of adversity. I’m going to be honest though. Starting and getting a business up and running is incredibly hard. I had a full-time day job, a kid, and was doing the publishing late at night and on the weekends until I could turn it into a full-time gig. I was willing to work as hard as I had to in order to accomplish what I wanted. At the end of the day I’m trying to prove my value to myself, and it is that drive to satisfy myself that keeps me going.

One thing that was imperative in running this business, both when I started and even now, is to have the support and help from a good circle of close friends. There is no way this can be done alone. All along the way I have had a very clear purpose. Making books isn’t about the books or the money. It is about the path you take and the relationships you build. That is what motivates me the most.

The first Spectrum book came out from Underwood Books in 1994: Spectrum: The First Annual Collection of the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. You took over the series as editor for 2014’s Spectrum 21. Was there a calibration process of some kind, where you and Arnie and Cathy talked about what kinds of pieces to showcase? Or were your tastes fairly aligned anyway? And were you nervous about continuing this legacy?

Oh, yeah! I was very nervous in the beginning. I wasn’t worried about the job on hand. I knew I could do the book and handle the organization of everything. But, that didn’t mean that I was relaxed by any means. I put so much pressure on myself to do a good job. I am very demanding of myself. I had a lot to prove to myself. I was aware of the responsibility and wanted to make the Fenners proud.

I knew I had a lot of eyes watching me. I’ve never enjoyed the spotlight or attention on myself, so that was the part that I liked the least. I did everything that I could to shift the attention away from myself and onto the artists.

I remember how nervous I was the first time I went up on stage! I felt like I couldn’t breathe! I’m very comfortable now, but in the beginning, oh boy! It was Iain McCaig who gave me the encouragement to learn how to relax on stage. Thanks Iain!

The Fenners gave me a tremendous amount of freedom and supported me to try some new things, while I was very aware of being respectful to them and what they built. The thing that enticed me the most about Spectrum was the community. I naturally enjoy doing things for others. The position gave me a chance to help raise the awareness of the artists and the genre to a larger audience.

The art that appears in the different categories of the book is selected by the judges. That’s what makes it so neat. But again, the Fenners gave me the freedom to apply my own aesthetics to the book, such as the design and with the year in review section. I’m very grateful to them for bringing me on, and for the experience. I made a lot of lifelong friends through Spectrum.

The Spectrum books demonstrate a large range of visual arts across a variety of mediums. Are there certain subjects, styles, or mediums that speak to you more, in terms of your own personal tastes?

I’m glad that you noticed the variety of mediums and visuals. That’s one thing that I love about Spectrum. There’s always something new and exciting to see in the annual.

I really like good storytelling in art. I admire those who have a strong foundation to their art and understand the fundamentals of how a figure works. The style or medium is unimportant to me as long as the ability to connect with the viewer is there. If you have to write an essay to explain the meaning of the piece then it is a failure.

You’ve published a great number of pieces in the pages of the Spectrum books. Are there a few that stand out in your mind, even after seeing so much art? And what makes them memorable?

Too many to list here, but yes. Wow, so much good art! The artists that appear in the most volumes of Spectrum and have the most pieces included in a single volume tend to have a unique voice. He or she does not try to mimic or imitate others. Avoiding a recent popular fad is always a good plan. The unique voices that have something to say will always have room to be seen in the most crowded of rooms. Being your own person and having the confidence to trust who you are will take you far.

OK, OK, I’ll give you a name . . . J.A.W. Cooper! I discovered her work through Spectrum and by every count her work grabbed my attention the most. Absolutely stunning. How lucky am I to have published her books so far? Then there is Tran Nguyen. I discovered her through Spectrum as well and was fortunate to work with her. Have you seen the latest works by Annie Stegg Gerard? Wow! Tyler Jacobson, Victo Ngai, Allen Williams, I can go on forever.

Spectrum 27 is scheduled for publication this October. Are there things that may surprise those who have read through the previous books? Are there ways in which this book differs from last year’s?

One of the neat things about Spectrum is the wide variety of art and types of people who are represented within. Because of this there is something that can surprise someone. I’m really proud of how we were able to add the double-page spreads that feature the Gold and Silver award recipients. The quotes and bios and photos share who these artists are as people. I hope that the connection to the artists is stronger in this way. Spectrum 27 means a lot to me and Katherine Chu. This was our last Spectrum and we wanted it to be the absolute best that we could possibly do. There’s a lot of good people and artists that made this book amazing. I hope it shows.

What are the most challenging aspects of putting these books together, and what are the most rewarding?

I look at challenges as a good thing. They can be a complete headache to deal with, yet usually when you are done it can feel very satisfying. In pretty much every case where a weird situation arose I feel like I grew in some way once it was said and done. I’m not one to believe that everything should go my way. How boring would life be if it did?

The absolute biggest challenge for me is time. Time to do everything that I want to do. As a business owner and someone who likes life and has an overall curious mind, I juggle a lot throughout each day. Emails, office stuff, creative stuff, working with the team, being a dad, making time for myself and friends, designing and writing books, doing photography, and everything else that I do in a day. It could sound exhausting, but I am driven by the belief that my actions can do some good for others.

The “About” section of the Flesk publisher page talks about “the relationships formed with the artists we showcase.” I remember talking with a notable artist at a World Fantasy a few years back, and he told me that artists are overlooked and undervalued in the science fiction community. Do you agree?

I wrote that “About” section back in 2002 when I first started publishing. What I love about it is that I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish then, and it has remained my absolute first focus ever since. Everything is about the relationships. The job, the books, the money—everything comes secondary to the people. If the relationships are solid then everything else happens naturally. I never went to college, nor did I ever study business, had no art experience before I published, so I figured this all out on my own. I’m grateful that I never picked up any bad habits from others, just my own, haha.

As for this person who you talked to, about being overlooked and undervalued, I can’t really comment on someone else’s experience and won’t say that what he or she feels is false. All I can say is that I have had a different experience. Mine has been very positive and the artists who I work with are pretty amazing people. There are so many opportunities and people willing to help in this business. I may look grumpy at times, mainly because I haven’t slept enough or am hungry, but I feel mighty darn lucky and grateful to be in this business.

Where do awards and other kinds of recognition land in the career of an artist—do these things inevitably boost an individual, or are there times when they have little impact beyond the moment?

Having had direct experience by being a part of the Spectrum awards ceremony I can tell you that there are a few people who look at the award as a doorstop or paperweight, and then those who consider it to be life changing and are humbled to win. I think to answer your question it can be both, depending on the artist. There’s no one answer for everyone.

My personal perspective is that when we won a Locus Award it felt incredible to be recognized. Did it boost or help us business-wise? I don’t know and I don’t even consider or think about how it could benefit me. What is incredible is that we were recognized, and we did something that stood out enough for people to highlight us. That is greater than any monetary boost as far as I’m concerned. I don’t seek attention and do not need awards to validate myself, but when they do happen, it’s always a great feeling and I find myself intimidated by the award. It generally encourages me to work harder as if I have to prove that we deserved the award.

But again, it is different for everyone. I’ve seen people get a lot of attention from receiving an award, and those who may go off in a different direction and you never hear from them again. What I do know is how much fun it was to help highlight people while I was with Spectrum. Those awards ceremonies were fun. I loved being backstage and seeing the emotions as the recipients would become vulnerable and overwhelmed with emotion.

Besides talent, what does it take to make it as an illustrator? What does it take to have a successful run as an independent publisher?

Talent is pretty worthless if you are arrogant or difficult to work with or have an inflated ego. I think grit and determination will take you farther than talent. I can only share what worked for me. I had my own vision and my own purpose and my own goals. Regardless of who you are or where you came from there is a way.

I started with nothing. I’m a street kid who spent his teen years skateboarding and surfing and had no parental supervision. I’ve been making my own money since I was eight years old. The only money I had is what I earned myself, I had no formal education, and had to make my own way through life from a young age. My success was absolutely necessary because I could not fail. I had nowhere to fall. No soft landing was available. That’s a hell of a motivator. In my case this absolutely informs my work ethic.

If someone were to start a business I would focus on the plan rather than the money. Make sure you have a very good plan in place, do the work, and put in your time. There are no shortcuts to success. If you are looking to make a quick buck, you may have better luck gambling in Las Vegas.

Flesk has produced so many beautiful art books by a variety of talented and hardworking artists: J.A.W. Cooper, Brom, Jeffrey Alan Love, more recently Frank Cho. When is an artist ready to have a Flesk book showcasing their work?

Hmm, boy, let me think about this for a second. That’s a good question. I’d say it has less to do with when they are ready and more to do when I am ready. I can think of a hundred artists that I would love to publish right now. But, I’m stretched so thin and can only do so much. We’re a small team and are very limited in how much work we can take on. We can add one new artist to our list next year. I’m currently working with the crew here at the office to narrow down a big list of possible artists to approach. It’s a tough choice. I truly wish I could take on more artists.

As someone who is in constant observation of and conversation with the field, do you feel like there have been noticeable changes in the aesthetics, themes, or designs of SFF art in the past ten or twenty years?

Sure, yes so much! And for the better!

The most amazing and best thing to ever happen to this industry is the inclusion of women and greater diversity within the field over the last ten to twenty years. I’ve been going to shows long enough that it really wasn’t that long ago that the comic shows were all guys. The industry was very closed off to women for, well, forever. What changed everything was technology and social media providing more opportunities for people who were typically marginalized to have a shot.

The Marvel movies and cosplay and popularity of events and many other factors also played a role. And with that we are seeing this wonderful transformation of the field that includes far more voices in art than was ever seen before. There has never been a time like this in the art world before. I am amazed and excited about what I see that is going on, and love seeing this industry expand. Just go to a show now like the new LightBox Expo or even Spectrum Fantastic Art Live pavilion, and you will see so much variety in art.

The cool thing is that all of these different voices have a chance to be seen and heard like never before. Imagine where we will be in the next ten or twenty years! So, the very act of this monumental shift will continue to absolutely shift the aesthetics of art. I’m not sure if there ever was a better time to be involved in the industry?! Can you tell I’m excited?

You have published many high-quality art books besides the Spectrum series over many years. Are there a few books that you are especially proud of?

It is always so hard for me to answer this question. I never look at the books that I have published in the past. I’m too focused on the future. I can’t necessarily pick out one book, but what I am most proud of is the opportunity to share the works of these artists with others.

I know I may be sounding like a broken record here, but I like sharing, while valuing the relationships that I have with people, and the chance to help people out when I can. Making books is not my first priority. I really enjoy books, but my motivation stems from being able to do for others and help others. That’s all there is to it. If what you do does not help others, then why do it?

I see the books that I have published as the relationships and sense of family that we have. The books are the by-product of this.

As you pass the Spectrum series back into the hands of Arnie and Cathy, what’s next for John Fleskes? What projects or plans do you have coming up that you’re excited about?

Oh boy! Lots of stuff! I want to share, really I do. I have a five-year plan and a ten-year plan that will take every bit of my energy and time to pull off. In a way I am challenging myself like never before. I’m actually a bit intimidated by what I have planned and am unsure of how I can do it, but I know I can and that I will. For the immediate future you will continue to see more nice books coming out. I have no plans to be involved in any sort of events or ceremonies or art competitions for the foreseeable future. I want to pour all my time into books and to build the foundation for what I have planned next. I’d love to share it with you, but it is a bit too early. It excites me, and will allow us to help more people, that’s all I can share for now.

About the Author

Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, he writes SF/F/H, reviews for Cascadia Subduction Zone Magazine, and is also associate editor at both Locus and Lightspeed magazines.

Diagram and Story:
A Conversation with R.F. Kuang

Arley Sorg

Rebecca Kuang is one of those rare individuals who hit a home run right out of the gate. She wrote a book for herself as an experiment and it became a big hit. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar and a Chinese-English translator. She earned an MPhil in Chinese studies from Cambridge and an MSc in contemporary Chinese studies from Oxford; now she’s pursuing a PhD in East Asian languages and literatures at Yale.

When she isn’t immersed in academia, she’s into birds, making pizza dough, and comic books. She has been going through all the original issues of Batman and Spider-Man, and is an ardent fan of Alyssa Wong’s Doctor Aphra series.

Kuang grew up in Dallas, Texas, having moved there at age four from Guangzhou, China. She studied history at Georgetown in Washington, DC. As an undergrad she took a year off to live in Beijing and teach debate to high school students. She worked on her first novel, The Poppy War, in her free time, and attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2016.

Kuang has been a finalist or received nominations for The Kitschies, BFA, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Locus awards, and has won the Crawford Award, the Compton Crook Award, and more recently, the 2020 Astounding Award.

What were some of the most important genre works for you when you were younger, what did you get from them, and has your view of those books changed over time?

This is a good question to ask when we’re all grappling with what to do with our Harry Potter memorabilia now that J. K. Rowling insists on being a TERF, isn’t it? We’ve chatted before about how foundational Ender’s Game was for me, and how difficult it’s been to figure out my relationship to the book as a queer writer after learning more about Orson Scott Card’s homophobia as an adult. His work is engraved in my storytelling bones; his plot twists are etched permanently in my understanding of how to write a good novel. You can directly trace The Poppy War’s structure back to Ender’s Game. I learned about writing political intrigue, massively high stakes, and zippy, clever dialogue from him. He also has a long history of bigotry, so.

How do you separate the art from the artist? Can or should you? How do you ethically engage with works by bigoted creators as a consumer, as a reader, or as a fellow creative? I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really knows the answer. I guess I’m grateful to Ender’s Game for setting me on my creative path, but I’ll aim to write something better.

Does the concept of “genre” have meaning, beyond marketing? Is it important to distinguish between “literary” and “genre,” for example?

Can I clean up our definitions first? One sense of “genre” refers just to a category of literature, which is what I mean when I say “genre.” But we also use “genre fiction” as a shorthand for “popular fiction” (which is also a loaded term), which I think most commonly refers to things like science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, mystery novels, etc. And then there’s “literary fiction,” which we generally consider more prestigious, valuable, artsy, or well-written than “popular fiction.”

I think we’ve been talking for a while now about how boundaries are porous; how many speculative fiction stories and novels are also “artsy, prestigious, well-written, etc.” whatever any of those descriptions mean, and how many “literary fiction” novels have elements of the speculative. So false distinctions and their attendant value judgments are tiresome and, I guess, pretty last decade. But I don’t think we can do away with the idea of genres entirely. A novel’s genre still tells me something vaguely about what I ought to expect.

I think a better way to understand literary genres is through Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblance—members of a group have overlapping characteristics that they share, but there is not necessarily one characteristic shared by all members of that group. Actually, while I was writing out my answer, I got curious and Googled “genre family resemblance,” and found an article by David Fishelov that gives a pretty good summary of my own thoughts. I like how Fishelov extends the concept of family resemblance to genealogy in literary traditions, which I think is often missing from genre conversations.

Sorry, I don’t think this is the direction you wanted from this answer—I just think theories about classification, definitions, and canonization are cool. Marketing labels fail us in numerous ways, and I don’t think we’ve worked out an alternative (authors being more outspoken on social media about what their book is actually about and the traditions they were intended to fall into probably helps, though; I’m thinking of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s discussions of how to categorize Mexican Gothic.) I’m still going to head straight for the “Science Fiction & Fantasy” section of the bookstore when I want to read something fun, though.

Your first book, The Poppy War, received a lot of awards attention, including winning the Compton Crook Award. More recently you received the Astounding Award. What sort of impact, if any, does being up for awards have on you or your writing?

I don’t think awards have changed my writing process or outlook in any meaningful way. But obviously, writers are insecure and anxious creatures, so it’s nice to feel the validation. Awards are pretty meaningless as statements on quality—things like the Hugos and Nebulas are just popularity contests within a very specific demographic—but it’s still nice when those very specific demographics say, “hey, good work!”

Awards are also, admittedly, good motivation. I didn’t win any of the big awards I was up for, probably because I didn’t deserve them, but I’d like to win and deserve them at some point. I’m still in the very early stages of my career. It’s good to have something to work toward.

I do also think that awards recognition bumps sales. A lot more people started picking up the trilogy after the Astounding Award win. It’s a modest bump, but it helps jump-start some word of mouth spread, and that’s really what makes a book successful in the long run.

You recently had a short story in Jonathan Strahan’s The Book of Dragons called “The Nine Curves River.” What was the process of writing this story? Will readers be seeing more short fiction from you?

Maybe. I don’t write short stories often—well, I don’t read short stories often, for weird reasons related to focus and attention span (reading a novel feels like an accomplishment, but reading a short story feels like procrastination), so I haven’t internalized the rhythm and structure of the form. I think the only people whose short stories I read regularly are Ken Liu, Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin, and Alyssa Wong.

I don’t get a lot of short story sized ideas; I like big, sprawling, complicated novels. I said yes to The Book of Dragons because a) I wanted some cash, b) I thought it would a fun challenge, and c) because I did, for once, have a story kernel ready to go, since I’d been thinking about the source mythology for Nezha from The Poppy War trilogy and was pondering about ways stories can be told, retold, mistold, misrepresented, translated, etc. Man, I really love that kind of stuff. I could write an entire anthology that is just different interpretations of the same myth. Anyhow, “The Nine Curves River” explores an alternate version of what happened to Nezha, placed on a scaffold of family drama and sibling jealousies.

I think I’ve convinced myself in the process of writing this answer that I enjoy writing short stories, actually. I got the opportunity to write a short story for Star Wars in the upcoming anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, and I had a lot of fun with that. I like how the length restriction forces you to squeeze as much story and meaning as you can into a smaller amount of space. It’s like how shorter word limits for academic papers encourage stronger arguments, since you don’t have the luxury to dawdle. Maybe I’ll do more! I like writing to a theme, especially if it’s a theme I hadn’t anticipated working on. Anthology editors, you know where to find me.

You’ve said that you started writing The Poppy War, almost as an experiment, after discovering Scrivener; and that it was something that you’d originally written for yourself and for your family. But with the subsequent books, you are writing for an audience. Does this have an impact on the creative or craft processes?

Yeah, I think I felt a lot more pressure writing The Dragon Republic and The Burning God because I didn’t want to let readers down. I try not to let reviews or expectations dictate where I take my story, but I did feel like I had to step up the quality of my work so that no one came away feeling disappointed. Seeing people get attached to certain characters made me want to make sure I delivered on those characters’ fates. Seeing the strong reader reaction to Nezha’s character, for example, made me work harder to make him three-dimensional and complicated rather than just an asshole. But improving with each subsequent novel is something that writers should always aim for anyway, so that pressure was healthy.

I’ve learned it’s important to shut out the noise when it comes to certain character arcs, though. Sometimes readers’ hopes for certain characters—particularly romantic hopes—run at odds with what the story demands. Some people are going to hate The Burning God because their favorite characters didn’t get a happily ever after, but I don’t really care. I made the argument I wanted to with the ending, and I’m proud I stuck to my vision. For this book, in this context, an HEA would be dishonest and unsatisfying. Wish fulfillment is for fan fiction.

In any case, I do feel a lot freer to do whatever I want now that I’m moving on to a completely new project. There’s no baggage. I have no foreshadowed promises to deliver on. Do you know how much it sucks to be tied to finishing story lines that a teenager came up with? My nineteen-year-old self was a terrible coauthor.

In a Locus interview, you said, “Being a writer was never my original career goal, and it still isn’t . . . My main passion in life is studying Chinese literature, but I think I’ll keep writing fiction on the side, because that’s just how I process things.” With one series behind you and work done on the next book, have your writerly goals or perspectives changed?

No, things have basically stayed the same. I deferred starting my PhD this year because of COVID-19, which means I was writing full time (until I started auditing classes), and I didn’t like it at all. The days just felt so empty and vapid. It’s a lot of talking to yourself; bouncing ideas off of yourself. But I’m only twenty-four, so I don’t have a lot of thoughts in my head, and any ideas that I generate on my own just bounce back and forth in this echo chamber of naïve silliness.

Academia is fun because you’re constantly being challenged by smarter people to revise and reinvestigate your opinions. Stories have to come from somewhere; for me, they come from whatever research questions are bothering me at the moment. Reading critical theory makes my fiction better because good, interesting fiction is mired in precisely the stuff critical theory addresses. Whatever depth or profundity makes its way into my work comes straight from people much smarter than me. I also just really enjoy research on its own terms. Argument construction is a lot of fun. So is burying yourself in all of the literature surrounding a very niche subfield.

Writing a tight, clean, persuasive paper feels just as satisfying as finishing a short story or a novel. You get that same exhilarating feelings of chasing a tricky idea and wrestling it to the ground. I’m excited to do this for the next six or seven years, and I really hope I get to keep doing it forever. I could give up writing, I think, but I couldn’t give up research.

I think the conflict between my two careers is really going to come to a head when I start my PhD studies in earnest, which means my output will likely slow way down starting in 2021. That’s okay; I’d rather not publish anything for three or four years than rush out something I’m not proud of.

Are there important ways in which The Burning God changed from the time you started planning it to its final form?

The final form of The Burning God gives you more to chew on. Back in 2016, the version of TBG I had outlined was ethically, politically, and historically very flat. I think it would have been an entertaining read, but it wouldn’t have lingered with anyone after they turned the last page. Writing it would have felt like banging the same piano chord very hard, over and over again. (Is it rude to say that I don’t want to write something that disappears immediately from memory like the Game of Thrones finale? I feel like we talked about that for a day, and then it completely dropped off the cultural map.)

I’ve finished many courses and attended many lectures on Chinese history and literature since then, and that’s influenced the questions I chose to raise with the ending. Now I think it’s still entertaining, but chomps at much more interesting questions about alternative futures and political systems. The new version questions our assumptions about path dependency rather than offering a basic pessimistic assessment of human nature and the inevitability of certain historical tragedies.

What were some of the hardest things about writing The Burning God, and looking at the final product, what are you most proud of?

I’m very proud of the last few chapters! A lot of things happened plot-wise and character-wise that required really deft handling—the book switches direction on the basis of a few simple words of dialogue or a single passage of interior monologue. Every word bears tremendous weight; every sentence has to accomplish multiple things. I rewrote those chapters so many times I’ve lost count. Now that I’ve gotten some distance from it, it feels good to go back and reread them. I think I really did manage to pull it off, and that feels good.

Do you see yourself as a writer who will always address the darkness, the horrors, the heavy topics? Or do you see yourself as someone who might also write something fluffy, something that is, for the most part, just for fun?

I think I’m really funny! Am I not funny?

I’m not particularly drawn to writing about darkness. Writing about tragedy and trauma for the sake of tragedy and trauma makes me feel icky. It feels voyeuristic—sensationalist, is the word? Trauma as spectacle? I try not to do that. I’m just interested in stories about a range of topics that happen to involve a lot of darkness. I like books that teach me something or change the way I look at the world, so I don’t really enjoy reading for pure fun or escapism. I’m not able to distract myself from real world troubles with an entertaining story. Lots of people do, and that’s great for them! But I think we end up writing what we enjoy reading, so I guess that’s why I don’t write for pure fun or escapism either. I guess I just like truth, and truth is often sad.

But I also write what I love. I put a lot of my joy regarding reconnecting to my Chinese heritage into The Poppy War. All of the descriptions of food, festivals, myths, and inside jokes came from experiences I had with my family—for example, when Rin goes to the market with Kitay and deliberates buying a toy statuette of a urinating monk, or when they eat hot pot so spicy that it burns on both ends. And I’m putting a lot of happy memories into the Oxford novel—all those golden, halcyon school days come straight from this past year. I’m excited for my friends to read those scenes and see how I’ve interpreted those memories. Those come from a place of deep love.

The Publishers Weekly review for The Burning God calls it “a satisfying if not happy end to the series.” To my thinking, this is a massive accomplishment: so many series have disappointing or lackluster endings. What is the key to writing a satisfying ending, not just for a story or a book, but for a narrative spanning three books?

It’s a big relief that most people seem to have found TBG satisfying! I think one thing I did right was that the end was built into the beginning. As we both know from Odyssey, one of Jeanne’s favorite lines is that a good ending feels both surprising and inevitable. I think a lot about the geometry of stories. I like when narrative arcs are nice and symmetrical. I like when you can trace out the diagram of the story and make a pretty shape. My obsession with the TPW trilogy was triangles. You can map everything out to threes and nines. The ending probably feels satisfying because geometrically, it closes out the underlying structure.

I think another idiosyncrasy I have that helps with writing satisfying third acts is that I always think of the ending before I come up with anything else. I can’t write from an outline and I don’t like doing too much planning, but the reason why I can “pants” my way to a coherent story is that I always have a clear end point in mind—I know where all the roads must lead. Every scene is written with the ultimate payoff in mind. The end is implied in the beginning.

Your next book draws on your experiences at Cambridge and Oxford (“Oxbridge”) and dives into the horrors of Dark Academia. What can you tell readers about this work, or anything else you are working on, or that you might have coming up?

The Oxford novel has been a bigger challenge to write than The Poppy War trilogy in every way. I’m pushing myself to experiment with character, voice, chronology, and scope in ways I haven’t done before. It’s also more of a personal and introspective work, because it touches on anxieties and doubts I have about my own role as a student, and about the potential of the university as a site of political resistance as well as the dangers of the university as a site of violence and violent knowledge production.

I’ve talked about it being a response to The Secret History, and it is that in an important structural sense, but at the heart of it I’m doing a riff of a Victorian bildungsroman in the tradition of Dickens and Thackeray by way of an anti-colonial critique. The bildungsroman, as classically understood, involves a socio-aesthetic process in which the main character becomes both an ideal bourgeois human being and a good citizen. But what happens when the protagonist cannot be a good citizen of the state because they are excluded by virtue of their race? The process of education here doesn’t just involve socialization into colonial Britain, but an awareness of the evils of colonial Britain and one’s complicity in imperial expansion.

About the Author

Arley Sorg is co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, he writes SF/F/H, reviews for Cascadia Subduction Zone Magazine, and is also associate editor at both Locus and Lightspeed magazines.

Editor’s Desk: Staring at the Ceiling

Neil Clarke

For me, 2020 started with uncertainty. I knew I was heading into risky surgery that would result in weeks of recovery, so I decided that we’d take things a bit more simply at Clarkesworld. No extra work. No new projects. Maintain the status quo. I decided that I wouldn’t need the extra stress and despite that, I still ended up with more than I could handle.

By the time I was feeling like myself again, we could already see the early signs of the COVID-19’s arrival here in the US. Several overseas friends—located in places that were further along the curve—gave me plenty of reason to be concerned. It seemed wise to keep Clarkesworld on its present course until we had a better handle on how this all would shake out. As we all know, things got worse, so in retrospect, the caution was well-placed.

Nothing has been business-as-usual. Readership, listenership, subscriptions, and story submission numbers have been up, down, and sideways from week-to-week. The whole industry has been disrupted in myriad ways. While mainly worried about staying healthy, there was real concern for how this could impact Clarkesworld in the short- and long-term. The waters aren’t calm yet, but I think I’ve found my sea legs.

The year has left me exhausted and most nights I find myself having difficulty sleeping. I’ve taken to using some of that ceiling-staring time to drift back into brainstorming and dreaming about the things we could or should be doing here. If I’m not moving forward, I feel like I’m falling behind. Standing still isn’t my style, so off I go . . .

Historically, magazine publishing has always been very regional. They’d publish, print, and sell issues domestically. Some issues might be sent a bit further away, but those readers represented a very small fraction of your audience. That particular reality was a defining characteristic that consciously or subconsciously shaped publishers’ priorities and direction. They are, after all, in the business of pleasing their customers, and in that context, how you identify them matters. With the arrival of online and digital publishing, the applecart was indeed upset, but nothing really changed. For many, there’s comfort in the status quo.

I’m not alone in advocating that the field, particularly here in the US, needs to adapt. I can’t make it change, but I am, however, in a position to practice what I preach or make it part of who we are. I’d like to think that we’ve made progress in that direction. I made a conscious decision several years ago to start framing our planning around being an international or global—yes, yes, English-language—publication. It’s me acknowledging the entirety of our audience and potential audience.

Audience not only includes readers, but also writers seeking homes for their work. The two are closely interlinked. We accept that good stories can come from anyone and anywhere, domestically or abroad, in English or other languages. No country, state, town, or individual owns science fiction. None should.

That said, lying there staring at the ceiling, I mostly see the long road ahead. There’s one point to which I keep returning as a problem and that’s the “English language only” in our submissions guidelines. As a monolingual editor with a limited budget, it’s not shocking that this is present in the guidelines, but uncompromisingly expecting others to speak your language—or that they find someone to translate for them—isn’t exactly compatible with our goals. It turns language into a barrier.

Despite that barrier, we’ve managed to publish many more translations than most of our English language colleagues. Some of that is thanks to creating a welcome environment for translations and the translators who have submitted those works in English. A larger portion of that, however, is the result of some significant help from organizations, like Storycom, and a process we’ve spent several years developing and refining. That has allowed us to accept and translate over fifty works originally written in Chinese, and in 2019, we applied a similar method to publish nine stories from South Korea.

I’ve learned a lot from these experiences and they have contributed bits and pieces to a possible next step in dealing with the barrier problem. I’ve been bouncing various ideas off people for months now and sometime in the second half of 2021, we’re going to try something new to us: an open submission period for stories written in Spanish, a language I cannot read.

Why Spanish? It’s a very widely spoken language and it’s also easier for us to quickly recruit the people we’ll need for the team. I’m pushing the date out that far because I need to do a few things first:

Assemble a team of Spanish-language slush readers and train them

Translate submission guidelines, contracts, letters, and the submission system interface

Recruit translators

Provide ample time to spread the word within Spanish-language communities around the world

Select an interpreter (communications)

The submission window for this trial will be one month, maybe two. That should be sufficient time for us to evaluate and make any changes for future iterations of the project. If successful, the goal is to build teams for several languages and cycle through them as our workload and finances permit.

While there will be a separate interface for Spanish-language submissions, Spanish- and English-language submissions will be effectively part of one submissions pile held to equal standards. There are no quotas, maximum or minimum, for the number of stories we accept from the slush pile. In a sense, it’s best to just think of this as an increase in the volume of submissions for a period of time. Stories accepted in either language will be added to our general inventory, scheduled, and published throughout the year.

The only significant difference for authors submitting work in Spanish will be that we anticipate a slightly longer response time due to problems inherent in working in two languages with editors that can only read one.

This whole project is still very much in the preliminary stages, but I’m happy to talk with anyone who is interested in the project or even helping out in some way. It’s also important to note that we’re clearly not out of the woods with COVID here. We’ll do what we can and adjust if it becomes necessary.

I should also mention that there’s a financial component in a project like this. Starting small allows us to better the potential impact. We don’t have plans to run a Kickstarter or anything like that, but we will be looking at all our options. I figure they’ll be occupying a portion of my insomnia-based planning sessions for the next couple of months. Let’s just say that if you aren’t a current subscriber and a project like this excites you, that now would be a really good time to subscribe!

About the Author

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and Forever Magazine; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a eight-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). His anthologies include Upgraded, Galactic Empires, More Human Than Human, Touchable Unreality, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us, The Eagle has Landed, and the Best Science Fiction of the Years series. His most recent anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 5, was published in October by Night Shade Books. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two sons.

Cover Art:
Alien Scout

Arjun Amky

About the Artist

Arjun Amky is a freelance designer specialized in creating illustrations for ads and games, and has also worked as a concept artist for novels and short films. Arjun likes to create realistic-looking environments and their art is inspired by subjects like war, history, nature, and steampunk.