INTERZONE 254 SEPT-OCT 2014 (9 page)

“Everywhere.”

Vish gives me a swift kiss and takes a seat on the couch. I follow Dr Kritikos to the next room.

I undress behind a screen and it feels as if I am undressing my soul. I peel off layers of cloth and they flutter to the wood, soundlessly. There is no sleeve to hide the knob in my elbow. Naked, I cannot pretend.

“What have they done to you, my poor girl? I have never seen anyone with this many laser tattoos.” Dr Kritikos is holding a device. It looks like a camera, but there is no screen at the back. “I’m not a pornographer,” she says with an amicable laugh. I can tell that she has made this joke to the others before me. “These photos are for your records only, so that you will remember how to re-create them for the exhibitions. However you do that is your choice.”

“Have they caught any of your clients before?”

“I don’t know what happens to them. It is better for everyone that way. How many tattoos in total do you have?”

I tell her. She nods. “I can only remove three a session, for your safety,” she says. “You’ll come back.” She names the price. I nod. It is a quarter of the sponsorship I got for my surgery. “Acid, abrasion, or the peel?”

“Since these tattoos are made by laser, can’t you also erase them by laser?”

“Are you able to get one of these machines on the black market without a trace? Acid, abrasion, or the peel.” She puts her eye to a tube on the camera.

I think on it through our photography session. Every time she takes a photo it prints itself out of the front of this camera. It is very old technology, nothing to leave a digital trace.

Dr Kritikos explains the different procedures to me. My tattoos penetrate my skin, and run deep as the fat that separates it from flesh. She can part my skin by scalpel, then peel it off layer by layer until the muscles beneath are unwrapped. With salt and a brush of crystals, she could wear down my skin and chaff it into flakes. I warn her of my condition, and she chooses the acid for me. The abrasion or the peel could leave bruises deep within me and harden into more bone.

She takes me to the next room. It is as bare as the others: a massage table that she encases in fresh plastic, and a series of white cupboards unlabelled. It hurts my eyes, and I gladly close them after I press my face into the headrest.

“Let’s rid you of your stigmata.” And so she begins. She holds the sponge in her gloved palm. Her touch is gentle, masked by the agony of the acid. After each press she waits. I hear her whispers. One two three. Through the pain I feel her eyes watch. The acid annihilates my skin and my skin annihilates the acid. She adds a little bit and never too much. This also is a form of surgery. Her hand controls the acid minutely and she has my trust. She must stop the moment she uncovers muscle.

I don’t scream.

***

Chimes tinker against the glass door of Manaia’s Tattoory. She is alone again, painting a watercolour of swallows soaring free from a rabbit hole. I wonder if she ever gets any customers other than the branded. I slide a glowing page onto her desk. It is the contract for my newest sponsorship.

She puts on her glasses and looks at the page before she looks at me. “I dislike seeing my clients again so soon, and I mean this in the nicest way possible.”

“Now you can see your pumpkin the way Cinderella does. I’ll give you a cut of this,” I say. “Can you do my sponsorship in ink?”

Manaia washes her paintbrush in the jam jar, clouding the water. She wipes one hand on her apron, and then the other. A smile pulls her lips wide, the smile of a conspirator. “And they will never find out? You will never tell them that I used needles instead of a laser?”

I pull the photos from my sack, the ones that Dr Kritikos took of my tattoos before the acid.

“Triple vintage. I approve.” She seems more interested in the photos’ format than their content.

“There’s more. I also need for you to reproduce my old laser tattoos, just as you see them in these photos, in ink.”

“I won’t ask you where they all went, pumpkin.”

“And I want a little ink of my own. You’re more than a laser technician. I will be a canvas and not a billboard.”

She yanks open a drawer that is crammed with papers. Swirls of stars and entwining roses, calligraphy sweeps and music notes flutter. The sketches tumble over the sides. “In one colour or fifty? Words or photos or cartoons? Impressionism, Realism, Surrealism?”

A sheet sways towards the ground and I rest my hand beneath to catch it. This tattoo is mine, a helix of willow catkins to weave spine and scars and brands across my back.

Manaia flicks on a switch, and the world inside her Tattoory is no longer dim.

***

S.L. Nickerson’s writing has appeared in
Analog
,
Kaleidatrope
,
Pulp Lit
,
The Colored Lens
, and
The Prairie Journal
, with an upcoming short story in
Tesseracts 18
. Currently, she is working on her PhD thesis in astrophysics at the University of Zürich. Her job involves playing with galaxies like toys, and real life unfolds for her like a science fiction story.

DARK ON A DARKLING EARTH

T.R. NAPPER

Illustrated by Richard Wagner

Mist turns to jade-white ice that scars and wilts the maple trees. I follow the Stomach of the White Tiger, shimmering overhead in a moonless sky, taking me towards the capital on the sea. I carry a dying solar torch in one hand and the pistol in the other. My joints ache from the cold and I’m ten times the age of this sleek young weapon, my hand shaking as I try to hold it horizontal. It would be better if I knew what the buttons did, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s not like I’m going to be shooting anybody.

The white sand path is slender, curling its way up into Wu Mountain, a thin pale line in the darkness. I just need to walk this path, then I am home. Just this path and I see my sons and my wife again. My too-young wife with her crooked mouth and crooked hair, and my too-energetic sons and their scraped knees and faces pressed into my skinny thighs. Just this path, and a thousand more like it, five thousand
Li
of winds and mists and cold as the world turns to winter.

That’s all.

My numb fingers lose their purchase on the torch and it clatters at my feet, turning itself off in the process. “Ah,” I mutter, “your mother!”

I lean forward, preparing to groan mightily as I bend my beleaguered back, when the
snick
of a twig
breaking straightens me up. I jump as a large shadow moves onto the path, and accidentally press one of the buttons on the side of the pistol. It makes a spitting sound and sparks fly at the point where the needle strikes the shadow. I jump again at the fact I managed to fire the pistol and drop it as I turn to run. My escape, unfortunately, is short-lived. I step on my robe and trip myself up, sprawling, face bump-and-sliding against the cold hard path.

The shadow stands over me and a voice comes with it, deep and angry: “Silly old son of a bitch.” There is a
clack-clack
as preparation for my execution takes place.

I turn onto my back and put my hands over my face. “No! Please don’t kill me – please. I am an Omissioner, an Omissioner!” If I were a prouder man, I would be embarrassed by the pleading, the begging in my tone. If I were a prouder man.

A second voice from the shadows, a woman’s, lands with the steel rod of authority: “Wait.”

The big shadow over me pauses, the stars above glinting on the gun barrel as he lowers it. A torch blares into my eyes and I blink rapidly into the beam. The small circle of light ranges over my body until it alights on the chest of my robes.

“Look,” says the woman.

The man’s shadow reaches down and grabs the front of my robe roughly, at the insignia. “You’re an Omissioner?”

“Yes,” I say, for the first time being pleased to admit it. “I was cut off from my—”

“—we can’t have this conversation here, we’re too exposed,” says the woman. “Bring him, Corporal; we’ll see what is truth and what is the lie back at camp.”

He grabs me, far more roughly than required.

I am pushed and shoved for a dark and cold ten minutes up a steep thin path, the mist returning to press against us. We arrive at a campfire set in a clearing among tall trees, the tops of which I cannot see. I’m thrown down in the arc of flickering orange light. Despite the jarring in my old bones, I am glad of the warmth on this bitter night. I put my hands out to the heat of the fire and glance around the clearing.

There are bedrolls here and a silver dome tent, and I smell the tantalizing smell of cooking rice. Boots scrape behind me and I turn to see the man I shot, the Corporal. He glowers above, cracking his knuckles. His uniform is a faded green, his black armoured vest worn and scratched (with a new scratch courtesy of me) and his jawline looks like standard-issue military – extra-large size. His brow is as low and thick as his voice: “Don’t try anything.”

A woman with a sergeant’s insignia stands next to the Corporal. She removes a dented black helmet to reveal hair as short as the Corporal’s. Her mouth looks like it hasn’t laughed in a long time and she’s as lean as she should be, given the way of this world. Everything about her – her posture, her way of speaking, the way her black boots gleam in the low light – speaks to a woman who suffers no fool.

A third soldier stands nearby. She’s much younger – a private by the look of it – with long, ragged dark hair she wears down, an ironic smile, and a pistol she lets ride low on her hip.

I stand, gingerly, and push the mane of grey hair back from my face. “I am Omissioner Du Gongbu, formally of the Thirty-Third,” I say, bowing at the Sergeant. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She doesn’t return the bow. “Thirty-Third – are we at war with you?”

I point at the faded army markings on the breast of her armoured vest. “You’re from the twelfth special brigade,” I say, and then I lie: “We are allies, having fought the battles of Huaihua and Shaoyang together.” I have no idea whether we were allies, of course, or whether either army had fought in those battles. But they are all too young here to remember who was meant to be fighting who.

The Sergeant steps over to me, limping slightly, and stands a foot away, eye to eye. Up close she smells of honest sweat and rifle grease. She holds out her hand. “Let me see your Memento of Office.”

Without hesitation I pull at the heavy gold chain around my neck, removing the badge from under my shirt. It glints chrome as I place it in her hand, the symbol of the paradise flycatcher, feet grasping the
智
. The state of the world is such that even fools like me are given the mark of wisdom, intelligence and knowledge.

She pauses, mouth a fixed line, while she studies my claim. I’ve thought about throwing the Memento away a hundred times. My indecision may yet prove beneficial. The magnum-jawed Corporal tries to say something but she holds up a hand, cutting him off. She stares at it for another long half-minute, before the tension eases ever-so-slightly from her shoulders.

She takes a step backwards and bows, deeper than the one I gave her. “Then it is an honour to welcome you, Omissioner. I am Sergeant Hu. This is Corporal Zhong.” She points with her chin at the man I shot. His eyes still hold an undisguised desire to snap my old man’s neck. “This is Private Xu.” The young woman nods at me and sits on a nearby log, resting her forearms on her knees. There’s the flash of the devil in her eyes.

“This is our cook and his son, On.” A man emerges from the shadows, smiling at me, open and unreserved. He wipes his hands on a dirty white cloth and his son grasps his leg, looking out at me from behind his father’s thigh. The son is slim, the cook has the face of a fat man but the same lean body everyone else has here.

“Have you eaten?” asks the Sergeant.

“Pleased to meet you all,” I say, with a flourish of my faded red-ragged robe. “Not in three days, Sergeant Hu.”

They make concerned noises, even though such a thing is quite common. The cook disappears and soon comes back to place a bowl in my hands. It is a small bowl of rice, some bamboo shoots and a few drops of fish oil. It’s the best meal I’ve had in months, I bring the chopsticks from bowl to mouth with unseemly haste, still standing, gulping it down in a short minute. My stomach twists when the food hits it, partly with pleasure, partly in shock.

The cook passes me a bucket and scoop when I finish. I hand him the empty bowl and drink deeply of the fresh water, slurping it from the wooden scoop.

There was a time when my hunger would have brought me shame, and shamed others to see one of my rank brought so low. But those days are long gone. The cook simply nods, smiling, and takes the bucket and bowl away when I finish. The rest take their seats around the fire and look at me with that familiar air of expectancy; with that yearning that has followed me across this cold earth ever since I donned the Omissioner’s robes.

I sit down on one of the blackened trunks near the fire. “Tell me Sergeant, do you have wine?”

“No,” grunts Corporal Zhong.

“We’ve been saving a bottle we found,” says the cook, earning a glare from the Corporal.

“What do you need it for?” asks the Sergeant.

“Wine is a gift from the gods, to warm our hearts and make us speak the truth,” I say. Then I lie: “The first rule when meeting an Omissioner is this: give them wine. Do this, and they will speak the truth of your memory, and do so with a warm heart.”

“I don’t remember that rule about the Omissioner,” says Private Xu, eyes twinkling.

“Of course you don’t, child. Someone as young as you remembers nothing.” I say it stern enough so she blushes and drops her gaze for a moment.

The Sergeant watches me, face like iron, then directs her voice at the cook. “Pour the Omissioner some wine.”

The cook disappears into the shadows at the edge of the fire.

“Why did you leave the Thirty-Third?” asks the Sergeant.

I lie: “We were ambushed by the Fifty-Eighth, in a pass down near Qingshen. They fired the camp, saying we brought contaminated food and bodies from the cities.”

“A purist line?” questions the Sergeant. “I thought the south was dominated by eco-revisionists.”

“Don’t you mean eco-rightists?” someone asks.

The Private pulls her memory card from her pocket – a translucent golden square glowing with its own internal luminescence – her face softly lit in its deep yellow backwash. “No – the opposition in the south are holders of the Liu-Deng line, in league with the American eco-reactionaries.”

While they argue over imaginary foes, the cook gives me a bamboo cup half-filled with wine. I nod and smile up at him, hiding my frustration at the miserly portion.

“Americans?” someone says, “There’s no Americans left. There’s not even an America anymore.”

“What role do the Rixin-Kong line holders have in all of this?” asks Corporal Zhong.

“Who are they?” asks Private Xu.

“I met them on the road when I was travelling to join the Thirty-Third,” he says, looking at the Sergeant, even though the Private had asked the question. “They said they were comrades of ours, collecting funds for the war effort. One of them showed me a memory card listing us as allies. I helped them out as much as I could.”

The Sergeant shrugs: “I’ve never heard of them,” and looks at me. “Omissioner?”

I looked up from the dregs at the bottom of my cup. “Rixin-Kong? Never heard of it.”

“But you’re the Omissioner,” says the Private, with ironic politeness that apparently only I hear.

“I know.” I look over at Corporal Zhong. “Tell me, what did the Rixin-Kong look like?”

He squints into the fire. “I just remember that name. I wrote it down after.” He takes out his memory card, tapping his finger on the glowing golden square, looking for the entry. “I’ve written here they were a ragged group of soldiers, close to starvation. Only one had a gun. Six men and a woman, the woman was the one that spoke to me. She wore an armoured vest, dark blue with a silver dragon.”

“They weren’t Rixin-Kong line holders.”

“No?” he rumbles, “What were they then?”

“Bandits.”

He lowers the memory card slowly.

“There are no Rixin-Kong revolutionaries. By your description it sounds like deserters from the Guangxi campaign – the Third Flying Squadron – convinced you they were on your side. Such occurrences are common these days. They carry around memory cards that show them as allies with just about everyone.” I could have left it there. But my hip still hurt from where he had flung me onto the ground, and my wine cup was empty. “Being gullible is one thing. But gullible in a world without memory is fatal.”

The Corporal stands, a deep rumbling coming from somewhere in his chest. I smile up at him; now they’ve confirmed me as an Omissioner he can’t lay a hand on me.

“Enough,” says the Sergeant, her voice as flat and smooth as a pond of ice. Just one word is all she needs and the Corporal sits, and the smile is gone from my face. “You’ve had your wine,” she continues, indicating my cup with her chin. “Now earn your keep. Tell us our stories and our history: tell us who we are.”

I nod my head at her in an outward display of complete agreement. Inwardly I wonder how many bottles of this wine the cook has secreted away. “What would you like to hear?”

“Tell us of great events. As Omissioner, you would have dined with generals, with the poets who weave the common memories of our nation, with the princes and princesses who seek to bring unity.”