Nebula Awards Showcase 2009 (43 page)

Alice jerks her head up from the bar, jolted from a familiar dream just in time to keep it from turning into a nightmare. Her parents, a sunny day, a ball, the rooftop terrace. She doesn’t have to relive the terrible shadow, the whistle and crash of the projectiles, the blood, the screaming, the—

No, she
doesn’t
have to relive it. She rubs her mask with her hands and calls up a fractal pattern to drive the dream images away. “How long have you been typing at me?”

“. . . wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey . . .”

“Selene, I’m awake already.”

“. . . wakey wakey wakey woke?”

“Yes.”

“. . . wokey wokey . . .”

“That’s not a word, Selene.”

“. . . wokey wokey donty carey . . .”

Alice grabs the padded bar of her walker and forces herself forward a few steps, the tubes tugging at her puckered skin as she pulls them along. “Is anyone paying attention to Selene?” she types.

Dr. Mishima says, “Don’t worry, we are.”

Alice calls up the clock and feels a sickening buzz of adrenaline. “Why isn’t she on shift? There’s no one on shift right now.”

“She needs a break, so we’re giving her one.”

Alice drags herself forward, raising her heavy head, straining to face what she hopes is the control room. “Hook me up. Put me on.”

“There hasn’t been an attack in over ten years. A third-day without monitoring shouldn’t—”

“NOW!”

“There’s no need to shout,” Dr. Mishima says.

“. . . chair hurts spurts furts get me off off off off off off . . .”

“Shit,” Dr. Mishima hisses, and then the audio connection slams shut.

“What’s going on?” Alice types.

Nothing.

“Somebody talk to me. What’s going on? What’s wrong with Selene?”

Nothing.

“Please. Somebody talk to me. Is anyone in the control room? Anyone?” She drags herself forward until her wheels hit the wall, then turns and painstakingly walks forward until she hits the next wall. “Someone talk to me.”

Nothing.

“Or you could hook me up. I could patrol. Please. Don’t just leave me here. Someone say something.”

She hits another wall, and leans her mask against it.

“Don’t just leave me here.”

 

“There’s just the two of you now,” Dr. Qureshi says.

“Grt,” Jayna types.

If Alice still had eyes, she would roll them. “Use vowels,” she types.

“Fck u.”

“Well, that was one vowel.”

“We can’t do full shifts with just two of you.”

“I’ll work extra,” Alice types, pulling up her happy family slideshow for inspiration. “Put me on for a half-day. I can do it.”

“Crzy btch.”

“Or have us do quarter-days on, quarter-days off, twice daily.”

“No, that’s unacceptable. We’ll stick with third-day shifts for the two of you, and leave Selene’s shift unmonitored.”

“No, THAT’S unacceptable,” Alice types.

“It’s been over ten years—”

“—since I watched my parents die.”

“Alice, I know you feel—”

“You can’t know.” Alice is seething behind the mask, her happy family slideshow flipping from image to image so quickly that it’s nothing but a blur. “I watched my parents burn. I still hear them screaming in my dreams.”

“Alice—”

“Unless you’re sitting in one of these chairs, don’t tell me you know how I feel.”

There is a pause, then just as Alice is convinced that the connection’s gone dead, Dr. Qureshi says, “For all we know, those ships aren’t coming back.”

“For all we know, they are.”

“And what are the chances that they’ll come during the third-day that we’re not watching the skies?”

“About one in three.”

“Thr nt cmng bck?”

“We can’t say for sure.”

“Gt m ot of ths chr.”

“What was that?”

“Gt me out of ths chr. Gt ths fckng msk off m fce.”

“Jayna, I didn’t say the program was coming to an end, just that we don’t think we need captive minds monitoring space all day long anymore.”

“GT THS FCKNG MSK FFFFFFFF M FCE!!!!!!!”

“Jayna, I think you need to rest.”

“GT THSSSSS FKKKKkkk k kk”

The typing stops.

“What did you do?” Alice types. “What happened to Jayna?”

“Just gave her something to help her sleep.”

“You drugged her?” Alice tugs at her feeding tube. “Through this?”

“Why don’t you start your shift now?”

“You drugged her? How could—”

And then her mind is untethered and flying through space, searching for any hint of the black ships, determined to keep any other little girls from suffering her same fate.

 

When she comes back, Marika is waiting for her. “We’re alone,” she breathes.

Alice grabs the walker tightly as she feels a trail of kisses snaking down her exposed spine.

“Marika. How—”

“They’re in a meeting. About the project. None of the caretakers were invited. They say we’re not objective enough.” Hands reach into the gown to cup Alice’s small breasts, and when fingers caress her nipples, she feels electricity all the way down to her seat/body interface.

The lips plant feather-light kisses back up to her bare scalp, and then a tongue gently caresses the scar tissue ringing the mask.

“We can’t,” Alice types. “We can’t.”

“They’re not watching. They’re finally not watching.” The hands smooth up to the mask, cradling it, fingertips just barely touching Alice’s skin, and with a jolt, she realizes that Marika is kissing the metal right over her mouth.

Alice works her mouth helplessly inside the mask, straining to feel some contact, anything, anything that would make her human again.

But she can’t.

“So beautiful,” Marika whispers.

Inside the mask, Alice feels her face working up into a dry cry. Her lips tremble so hard she can barely type, “I’m not.”

“You have no idea—”

“Then let me see myself.”

“Alice—”

“Let me see what I look like if I’m so damned beautiful.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

A hand snakes down to her seat/body interface, and Alice shudders, collapsing forward onto the bar, her arms straining helplessly to push her back up. “Stop.”

“But we’re finally alone. We don’t have to hide anymore.”

“I said STOP.”

The hand vanishes. All tactile evidence of Marika vanishes, and Alice calls up her tiny picture so she won’t feel so crushingly alone. “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Marika stammers. “I thought . . .”

“No. Not like this,” Alice types.

“What do you mean? There is no other way.”

“They’re ending the program, aren’t they?”

Alice sits alone, with no input, just a picture and buzzing speakers, waiting for an answer.

“Please say something,” she types. “Please don’t leave me like this. I have a right to know.”

A shaky hand rests on Alice’s shoulder for an instant before pulling away again. “It sounds like it, yes. Selene’s caretaker told the government about the three of you, and the President’s calling for an immediate end to the whole thing.”

“What do you mean, someone told the government? We work for the government. Didn’t they know?”

“They didn’t know the details. We didn’t tell them. They never would have let us do it if they’d known that we were blinding, deafening, and crippling little orphan girls.”

“You couldn’t do it any other way. We were the only ones—”

“—the right age to accept the implants, I know. I helped design them. We should have found a way to make it work with adult brains. Doing this to little girls was—”

“We all volunteered.”

“And Selene’s gone insane and Jayna just unvolunteered.”

“I want to keep working.”

Marika lets out a hard breath. “I don’t think they’ll let you.”

“But the ships—”

“Never came back. And they say they have machines that can search the sky just as well as you can now.”

“The machines didn’t warn us last time.”

“They’re better now. A lot better.”

Alice gropes at her mask, fingering the indentations over where her eyes once were. “What will they do with us?”

“That’s what they’re discussing right now. They think . . . they think they can make you normal again.”

“Normal,” Alice echoes, and struggles to remember what that means. Eyes instead of empty sockets, ears not hooked up to speakers, a mouth she can talk with, breathe with, eat with, legs strong enough to hold her up. And no mask.

She reaches up to touch the metal, and for the first time in ages, she wants it gone.

“Are you positive the machines are as good as we are?”

“I think so. I mean, they don’t have the flexibility of a human mind behind them, but humans will be analyzing their data, so . . .” Another exhale. “We should be safe.”

“And I’ll be normal again.”

In a small voice, Marika says, “Yes.”

Alice struggles to tie the back of her gown closed and says, “When I’m normal, then we’ll finally . . .” She trails off, not actually able to type the words.

Marika wordlessly helps her tie her gown, then sits with her, holding her hand, waiting for the meeting to end.

 

When Alice comes to in the hospital, there are bandages where the mask once was, and when she flutters her fingers over them, she can feel their gentle touch on her face. She draws in a deep breath, and is startled to feel it going in through her nose. Her fingers explore further, and find breathing tubes piercing the bandages. Her raw skin crinkles in a smile.

A warm, male voice says, “Can you hear me?”

She nods and tries to type a response, but instead of her tongue controls, she finds teeth.

“I’m Dr. Metz,” the voice says. “I’ll be coordinating your recovery. I’m happy to say that the surgery was a complete success. Your new mechanical eardrums work on a similar principle to your old speakers, so they should be easy to adjust to. The eyes, on the other hand—they’ll take more time. We’ll switch them on in stages once the bandages are off. The program surgeons did some serious rewriting of your visual processing centers. It’ll be tricky to get your brain to process normal human visual input again, but I’m confident you’ll manage with sufficient training.”

Alice finds more bandages on her chest and stomach where her tubes used to be. Her hands drift farther down, and find that there are still tubes in place of her old seat/body interface.

“Once you’re mobile, we’ll work on retraining those muscles.”

She nods again, and feels an odd tug on her arm. She reaches out to find out what it is.

“An intravenous drip. It’s replacing your feeding tube for now, but we’ll have you eating soon enough. Your digestive system was in fine shape.”

She points to her mouth.

“Ah, yes. We’ve implanted artificial teeth and a mechanical voice box, but it’s too soon to switch it on yet. Your gums and lips still need time to heal. Don’t worry. We should have you talking again in a few days and eating soon after that.”

How is she supposed to communicate until then? She raises both hands and gropes at the air helplessly before balling them into fists and bringing them down on the bed.

Dr. Metz takes one hand in his and says, “Just spell out what you need on my palm.”

M-A-R-I-K-A.

“Marika.” He gets curiously silent for a moment, then says, “She visited you a few times, but now that you’re awake . . .” He clears his throat. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be back. Is there anything else you need?”

She shakes her head.

“Want me to put on some music for you? Get a nurse to sit down and talk with you?”

She shakes her head.

“All right. I’ll see about getting a message to Dr. DeVeaux . . . er, Marika. If you need anything, just press the call button.”

Dr. Metz takes her hand and guides it over to the bed’s rail. The button is large and unmistakable. She nods in understanding, and he drops her hand. She hears footsteps, then nothing but the precious sound of her own breathing.

And until Marika comes to visit, it will be her only company.

 

The door opens, there are footsteps, and then a hand is in hers. “I’m here.”

The voice is richer and fuller than she remembers. She has never heard it firsthand before, only filtered through speakers embedded in a chair.

This will take getting used to. But she is desperately looking forward to it.

Alice runs her hand up Marika’s arm, up to her face, and cups her beloved’s cheek. There is so much she wants to say that she is grateful she can’t say anything at all, because the peace of the moment would just be lost in a frantic, jumbled mass of words.

“Oh, Alice.” A hand strokes her bandaged face. “You won’t be my captive girl much longer.”

No. Soon she will be something better. Soon she will be able to see the face of the woman she loves, be able to press her body against hers, unencumbered by her walker, to speak endearments in her own voice instead of with sterile text. She will be able to kiss, to stroke, to embrace, to explore. She will finally be able to be a full partner in the relationship, to fully reciprocate with every cell in her body.

And she will be able to do so secure in the knowledge that the planet is safe, that she had faithfully done her job as long as they had needed her, and that she had done it well.

“Look at you.”

Soon she would be so much prettier to look at. No matter how battered her face was, it had to be prettier than a solid metal mask.

Marika’s hands glide down Alice’s body and rest on her bandaged chest and stomach. “It’s like you’re a different person already.”

She shakes her head. No, not a different person. A more complete person. Why is Marika saying these things? Doesn’t she understand—