Year’s Best SF 15 (51 page)

“People don't want to know what goes on with these hideous old systems,” Allen said. “Even in my department, which is nominally responsible for them. Unless our families kick up a fuss or another hurricane brews up, I don't think anybody is going to miss us for a long time.”

Fortune snorted. “Bureaucracies. The blight of mankind.”

Allen growled, “You've got some explaining to do, Fortune. Like why you ordered up a hurricane.”

“I didn't think it would kill anybody,” Fortune said weakly. “I did mean to smash up Cape Canaveral, though. I wanted to get your attention.”

Freddie asked, “Couldn't you have found some other way?”

Allen said dryly, “Such as waggle the solar panels?”

Fortune grinned. “Aeolus is compliant. When you have a god at your command, it is terribly tempting to use him.”

“So you created a storm,” Allen said, “in order to bring somebody up here. Why, Fortune? What do you want?”

“Two things. One. I want my exile to end. A century is enough, for Christ's sake, especially when I
committed no crime
. I'd like some respect too.” He said to Freddie, “Look at me. Do you think I did this to myself? My parents spliced my genes before I was conceived and engineered my body before I was out of the womb. I haven't committed any crime. I
am
a walking crime scene. But it's me your grand
father punished, Allen. Where's the justice in that?” There was a century of bitterness in his voice.

“And, second, Bella. My sentence, such as my quasilegal judicial banishment is, clearly wasn't intended to punish
her
. She needs to be downloaded into an environment that affords stimulation appropriate for a sentience of her cognitive capacity. Not stuck up here with an old fart like me. As in fact, your own namby-pamby sentience laws mandate.”

“All right,” Freddie said. “But what
is
Bella? You didn't create her, did you?”

“No.” Fortune smiled at Bella. “But I saved her.”

Freddie nodded. “A, B, C.”

Allen snapped, “What are you talking about?”

Freddie said, “There weren't just two poles of consciousness in the station AI, were there, Fortune? AxysCorp went even further. They created a mind with
three
poles. A—Aeolus. B—Bella. C—Cal.”

“Oh, good grief.”

“B was actually the user interface,” Fortune said. “Charming, for an AxysCorp creation. Very customer-focused.”

Freddie said, “Somehow Fortune downloaded her out of the system core and into this virtual persona.”

“I had time to figure out how and nothing else to do,” Fortune said sternly. “I'm extremely capable. In fact, I'm wasted up here. And I had motivation.”

“What motivation?”

“To save her from Cal…”

Inside AxysCorp's creation, three centers of consciousness had been locked into a single mind, a single body. And they didn't get on. They were too different. Aeolus and Bella embodied executive capabilities. Cal, an artifact of basic engineering functions, was more essential. Stronger. Brutal. They fought for dominance. And it lasted subjective mega-years, given the superfast speeds of Heroic-age processors.

“Cal crushed Bella. Tortured her. You could call it a kind of rape, almost. He did it because he was bored himself, bored and trapped.”

“You're anthropomorphizing,” Allen said.

“No, he isn't,” Freddie said. “You need to read up on sentience issues, Doctor.”

“I had to get her out of there,” Fortune said. “This isn't the right place for her, in this shack of a station. But better than in there, in the processor.”

Allen asked, “So why did Cal chuck away our shuttle?”

Fortune said, “Because you said you would kill Aeolus.”

“You said they fight all the time.”

“Do you have a brother, Allen? Maybe you fought with him as a boy. But would you let anybody harm him—
kill
him? Cal defends his brother—and, indeed, his sister if he's called on.”

Allen clapped, slow, ironic. “So, Fortune, even stuck up here in this drifting wreck, you found a way to be a hero. To
save
somebody.”

Fortune's face was dark. “I
am
a damn hero. We were told we were special—the peak of the Heroic-Solution age, they said. We were the Singularity generation. A merger of mankind with technology. We would live forever, achieve everything. Become infinite, literally.

“And, you know, for a while, we grew stronger. We were transported. Rapt. There aren't the words. But we got lost in our data palaces, while the rest of the world flooded and burned and starved. And we forgot we needed feeding too. That was the great fallacy, that we could become detached from the Earth, from the rest of mankind.

“In the end, they broke into our cybernetic citadels and put us to work. And they made us illegal retrospectively and imprisoned us in places like this. Now we're already forgotten. Irrelevant, compared to the real story of our time. AxysCorp and their ugly machines.”

“That's life,” Allen said brutally.

“This is Aeolus.” The thin voice spoke out of the air.

 

Fortune snapped, “Aeolus? Are you all right?”

“I don't have much time. Cal and I are in conflict. I am currently dominant.”

“Aeolus—”

“I restored communications. I contacted your Oversight
Panel, Dr. Allen. I received an assurance that a second shuttle will shortly be launched. The shuttle will have grappling technology, so Cal won't be able to keep it out. But Cal is strong. I can contain him but not subdue him. Mr. Fortune.”

“Yes, Aeolus?”

“I fear it will be impossible to fulfil further objectives.”

Fortune looked heartbroken. “Oh, Aeolus. What have I done?”

“As you know, I have always fulfilled all program objectives.”

“That you have, Aeolus. With the greatest enthusiasm.”

“I regret—”

Silence.

Allen blew out his cheeks. “Well, that's a relief.”

Bella was wide-eyed. “Am I really going to Earth? Is a shuttle really coming? I'm going to go look out for it.” She ran out of the bridge.

 

The three of them followed Bella to the observation blister, more sedately.

“Saved by a god in the machinery,” Freddie said. “How ironic.”

“What an end,” Fortune whispered. “Two halves of the same mind locked in conflict for a subjective eternity.” He seemed old now, despite his youthful face. “So it's over. What will become of Bella?”

Allen said, “Oh, they'll find her a foster home. There are far stranger minds than hers in the world, in the trail of tears left behind by AxysCorp and their like. We try to care for them all. The station's screwed, however. In the short term I imagine we'll reposition another Tempest to plug the gap. Then we'll rebuild. And we'll let this heap of junk fall out of the sky.”

“But not before we've come back to save Aeolus and Cal,” Freddie said.

“You're kidding,” Allen said.

“No. As Fortune points out, it's actually mandatory under the sentience laws, just as it is for Bella.”

“I'd like to see Aeolus spared that hell,” Fortune said. “As for Cal, though, that deformed savage can rot.”

“But Cal is the more interesting character, don't you think?”

“He locked us up and threw away our shuttle,” Allen snapped.

“But there's an independent mind in there,” Freddie said. “An original one. Aeolus just did what you told him, Fortune. Cal, born in a prison, knowing nothing of the real world, rebelled instinctively. With a mind as independent and strong and subtle as that, who knows what he'd be capable of, if set free?”

Fortune nodded. “And what of me? Will your indulgence set me free?”

“Oh, we'll take you home too,” Allen said, sneering. “You'll stand trial for the hurricane. But there are places for creatures like you. Museums of the Singularity. Zoos,” he added cruelly. “After all, there's plenty of room, now the chimps and tigers are all extinct.”

Bella came running up, her face bright. “I saw the shuttle launch. You can see its contrail over the ocean. Oh, Freddie, come and see!”

Freddie and Bella hurried on to the blister and gazed down at the shining Earth, searching for the spaceship climbing up to save them.

Genevieve Valentine
(www.genevievevalentine.com)
lives in New York City. She began writing for publication in 2007. Her first story was published in Strange Horizons. She is a prolific writer, and over thirty of her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines such as
Clarkes-world
and
Fantasy,
and in the anthologies The
Living Dead II, Teeth,
and
Running with the Pack.
She is what Jeff VanderMeer terms an “emerging” writer. Her first novel,
Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti,
about a mechanical circus in a post-apocalyptic world, is forthcoming from Prime Books in 2011. She says in the third person: “As “Bespoke” would suggest, she has a partic u lar interest in historical costume and fashion. It's an enthusiasm rivaled only by her insatiable appetite for bad movies, which she chronicles in her columns for Tor.com and
Fantasy Magazine,
and on her blog. She enjoys working within and across all genres of speculative fiction (and finding period films in which anyone wears anything remotely accurate).”

“Bespoke” was published in Strange Horizons. It is told from the point of view of a clothier of wealthy time travelers, and is an amusing take on costuming and fashion—and time travel. We especially like the ambience.

D
isease Control had sprayed while Petra was asleep, and her boots kicked up little puffs of pigment as she crunched across the butterfly wings to the shop.

Chronomode (Fine Bespoke Clothing of the Past, the sign read underneath) was the most exclusive Vagabonder boutique in the northern hemisphere. The floors were real date-verified oak, the velvet curtains shipped from Paris in a Chinese junk during the six weeks in '58 when one of the Vagabonder boys slept with a Wright brother and planes hadn't been invented.

Simone was already behind the counter arranging buttons by era of origin. Petra hadn't figured out until her fourth year working there that Simone didn't live upstairs, and Petra still wasn't convinced.

As Petra crossed the floor, an oak beam creaked.

Simone looked up and sighed. “Petra, wipe your feet on the mat. That's what it's for.”

Petra glanced over her shoulder; behind her was a line of her footprints, mottled purple and blue and gold.

 

The first client of the day was the heiress to the O'Rourke fortune. Chronomode had a history with the family; the first one was the boy, James, who'd slept with Orville Wright and ruined Simone's drape delivery par avion. The O'Rourkes had generously paid for shipment by junk, and one of the plugs they sent back with James was able to fix things so that the historic flight was only two weeks late. Some stamps
became very collectible, and the O'Rourkes became loyal clients of Simone's.

They gave a Vagabonding to each of their children as twenty-first-birthday presents. Of course, you had to be twenty-five before you were allowed to Bore back in time, but somehow exceptions were always made for O'Rourkes, who had to fit a lot of living into notoriously short life spans.

Simone escorted Fantasy O'Rourke personally to the center of the shop, a low dais with a three-frame mirror. The curtains in the windows were already closed by request; the O'Rourkes liked to maintain an alluring air of secrecy they could pass off as discretion.

“Ms. O'Rourke, it's a pleasure to have you with us,” said Simone. Her hands, clasped behind her back, just skimmed the hem of her black jacket.

Never cut a jacket too long, Simone told Petra her first day. It's the first sign of an amateur.

“Of course,” said Ms. O'Rourke. “I haven't decided on a destination, you know. I thought maybe Victorian England.”

From behind the counter, Petra rolled her eyes. Everyone wanted Victorian England.

Simone said, “Excellent choice, Ms. O'Rourke.”

“On the other hand, I saw a historian the other day in the listings who specializes in eighteenth century Japan. He was delicious.” She smiled. “A little temporary surgery, a trip to Kyoto's geisha district. What would I look like then?”

“A vision,” said Simone through closed teeth.

 

Petra had apprenticed at a tailor downtown, and stayed there for three years afterward. She couldn't manage better, and had no hopes.

Simone came in two days after a calf-length black pencil skirt had gone out (some pleats under the knee needed mending).

Her gloves were black wool embroidered with black silk thread. Petra couldn't see anything but the gloves around the vast and smoky sewing machine that filled the tiny closet where she worked, but she knew at once it was the woman who belonged to the trim black skirt.

“You should be working in my shop,” said Simone. “I offer superior conditions.”

Petra looked over the top of the rattling machine. “You think?”

“You can leave the attitude here,” said Simone, and went to the front of the shop to wait.

Simone showed Petra her back office (nothing but space and light and chrome), the image library, the labeled bolts of cloth—1300, 1570, China, Flanders, Rome.

“What's the shop name?” Petra asked finally.

“Chronomode,” Simone said, and waited for Petra's exclamation of awe. When none came, she frowned. “I have a job for you,” she continued, and walked to the table, tapping the wood with one finger. “See what's left to do. I want it by morning, so there's time to fix any mistakes.”

The lithograph was a late 19th century evening gown, nothing but pleats, and Petra pulled the fabrics from the library with shaking hands.

Simone came in the next day, tore out the hem of the petticoat, and sewed it again by hand before she handed it over to the client.

Later Petra ventured, “So you're unhappy with the quality of my work.”

Simone looked up from a Byzantine dalmatic she was sewing with a bone needle. “Happiness is not the issue,” she said, as though Petra was a simpleton. “Perfection is.”

That was the year the mice disappeared.

 

Martin Spatz, the actor, had gone Vagabonding in 8,000 BC and killed a wild dog that was about to attack him. (It was a blatant violation of the rules—you had to be prepared to die in the past, that was the first thing you signed on the contract. He went to jail over it. They trimmed two years off because he used a stick, and not the pistol he'd brought with him.)

No one could find a direct connection between the dog and the mice, but people speculated. People were still speculating, even though the mice were long dead.

Everything went, sooner or later; the small animals tended to last longer than the large ones, but eventually all that was
left were some particularly hardy plants, and the butterflies. By the next year the butterflies were swarming enough to block out the summer sun, and Disease Control began to intervene.

The slow, steady disappearance of plants and animals was the only lasting problem from all the Vagabonding. Plugs were more loyal to their mission than the people who employed them, and if someone had to die in the line of work they were usually happy to do it. If they died, glory; if they lived, money.

Petra measured a plug once (German Renaissance, which seemed a pointless place to visit, but Petra didn't make the rules). He didn't say a word for the first hour. Then he said, “The cuffs go two inches past the wrist, not one and a half.”

The client came back the next year with a yen for Colonial America. He brought two different plugs with him.

Petra asked, “What happened to the others?”

“They did their jobs,” the client said, turned to Simone. “Now, Miss Carew, I was thinking I'd like to be a British commander. What do you think of that?”

“I would recommend civilian life,” Simone said. “You'll find the Bore committee a little strict as regards impersonating the military.”

 

When Petra was very young she'd taken her mother's sewing machine apart and put it back together. After that it didn't squeak, and Petra and her long thin fingers were sent to the tailor's place downtown for apprenticeship.

“At least you don't have any bad habits to undo,” Simone had said the first week, dropping The Dressmaker's Encyclopaedia 1890 on Petra's work table. “Though it would behoove you to be a little ashamed of your ignorance. Why—” Simone looked away and blew air through her teeth. “Why do this if you don't respect it?”

“Don't ask me—I liked engines,” Petra said, opening the book with a thump.

 

Ms. O'Rourke decided at last on an era (18th-century Kyoto, so the historian must have been really good looking after
all), and Simone insisted on several planning sessions before the staff was even brought in for dressing.

“It makes the ordering process smoother,” she said.

“Oh, it's nothing, I'm easy to please,” said Ms. O'Rourke.

Simone looked at Petra. Petra feigned interest in buttons.

Petra was assigned to the counter, and while Simone kept Ms. O'Rourke in the main room with the curtains discreetly drawn, Petra spent a week rewinding ribbons on their spools and looking at the portfolios of Italian armor-makers. Simone was considering buying a set to be able to gauge the best wadding for the vests beneath.

Petra looked at the joints, imagined the pivots as the arm moved back and forth. She wondered if the French hadn't had a better sense of how the body moved; some of the Italian stuff just looked like an excuse for filigree.

When the gentleman came up to the counter he had to clear his throat before she noticed him.

She put on a smile. “Good morning, sir. How can we help you?”

He turned and presented his back to her—three arrows stuck out from the left shoulder blade, four from the right.

“Looked sideways during the Crusades,” he said proudly. “Not recommended, but I sort of like them. It's a souvenir. I'd like to keep them. Doctors said it was fine, nothing important was pierced.”

Petra blinked. “I see. What can we do for you?”

“Well, I'd really like to have some shirts altered,” he said, and when he laughed the tips of the arrows quivered like wings.

 

“You'd never catch me vagabonding back in time,” Petra said that night.

Simone seemed surprised by the attempt at conversation (after five years she was still surprised). “It's lucky you'll never have the money, then.”

Petra clipped a thread off the buttonhole she was finishing.

“I don't understand it,” Simone said more quietly, as though she were alone.

Petra didn't know what she meant.

Simone turned the page on her costume book, paused to look at one of the hair ornaments.

“We'll need to find the ivory one,” Simone said. “It's the most beautiful.”

“Will Ms. O'Rourke notice?”

“I give my clients the best,” Simone said, which wasn't really an answer.

“I've finished the alterations,” Petra said finally, and held up one of the shirts, sliced open at the shoulder blades to give the arrows room, with buttons down the sides for ease of dressing.

 

Petra was surprised the first time she saw a Bore team in the shop—the Vagabond, the Historian, the translator, two plugs, and a “Consultant” whose job was ostensibly to provide a life story for the client, but who spent three hours insisting that Roman women could have worn corsets if the Empire had sailed far enough.

The Historian was either too stupid or too smart to argue, and Petra's protest had been cut short by Simone stepping forward to suggest they discuss jewelry for the Historian and plausible wardrobe for the plugs.

“Why, they're noble too, of course,” the client had said, adjusting his high collar. “What else could they be?”

Plugs were always working-class, even Petra knew that—in case you had to stay behind and fix things for a noble who'd mangled the past, you didn't want to run the risk of a rival faction calling for your head, which they tended strongly to do.

Petra tallied the cost of the wardrobe for a Roman household: a million in material and labor, another half a million in jewelry. With salaries for the entourage and the fees for machine management and operation, his vacation would cost him ten million.

Ten million to go back in time in lovely clothes, and not be allowed to change a thing. Petra took dutiful notes and marked in the margin, A WASTE.

She looked up from the paper when Simone said, “No.”

The client had frowned, not used to the word. “But I'm absolutely sure it was possible—”

“It may be possible, depending on your source,” Simone said, with a look at the Historian, “but it is not right.”

“Well, no offense, Miss Carew, but I'm paying you to dress me, not to give me your opinion on what's right.”

“Apologies, sir,” said Simone, smiling. “You won't be paying me at all. Petra, please show the gentlemen out.”

 

They made the papers; Mr. Bei couldn't keep from talking about his experience in the Crusades.

“I was going to plan another trip right away,” he was quoted as saying, “but I don't know how to top this! I think I'll be staying here. The Institute has already asked me to come and speak about the importance of knowing your escape plan in an emergency, and believe me, I know it.”

Under his photo was the tiny caption: Clothes by Chronomode.

“Mr. Bei doesn't mention his plugs,” Petra said, feeling a little sick. “Guess he wasn't the only one that got riddled with arrows.”

“It's what the job requires. If you have the aptitude, it's excellent work.”

“It can't be worth it.”

“Nothing is worth what we give it,” said Simone. She dropped her copy of the paper on Petra's desk. “You need to practice your running stitch at home. The curve on that back seam looks like a six-year-old made it.”

 

Tibi cornered Petra at the Threaders' Guild meeting. Tibi worked at Mansion, which outfitted Vagabonders with a lot more pomp and circumstance than Simone did.

Tibi had a dead butterfly pinned to her dress, and when she hugged Petra it left a dusting of pale green on Petra's shoulder.

“Petra! Lord, I was JUST thinking about you! I passed Chronomode the other day and thought, Poor Petra, it's SUCH a prison in there. Holding up?” Tibi turned to a tall
young tailor beside her. “Michael, darling, Petra works for Carew over at Chronomode.”

The tailor raised his eyebrows. “There's a nightmare. How long have you hung in there, a week?”

Five years and counting. “Sure,” Petra said.

“No, for AGES,” Tibi corrected. “I don't know how she makes it, I really don't, it's just so HORRIBLE.” Tibi wrapped one arm around the tailor and cast a pitying glance at Petra. “I was there for a week, I made the Guild send me somewhere else a week later, it was just inhuman. What is it LIKE, working there for SO long without anyone getting you out of there?”

“Oh, who knows,” said Petra. “What's it like getting investigated for sending people back to medieval France with machine-sewn clothes?”

Tibi frowned. “The company settled that.”

Petra smiled at Tibi, then at the tailor. “I'm Petra.”