The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine Page 7

“Oh.”

  I stepped closer. She opened the door a little wider.

  She looked disheveled, in disarray. Her hair was unkempt and her clothes were crumpled as if she’d been wearing them for a number of days. There was a disturbing, almost forlorn look in her eyes and her face was drawn and pale, pasty, even. She looked tired, unraveled, as if she were starting to come apart at the seams. I had to fight the urge to suddenly gather her up in my arms and hold her, to try to save her from the world, from herself. Behind her, the laboratory was a riot of noise: the sound of a pump, gurgling with fluid; a printer spewing out a data file; a radio insistently hammering out an unfamiliar dance tune. I understood why she hadn’t heard me calling her name from down the hall.

  I tried to get her attention, but she seemed distracted, keen to get back to the lab, or to get away from me.

  “How have you been?”

  She shrugged. “Okay.” Her eyes flicked back and forth nervously as though it made her uncomfortable to look me in the eye.

  “Look, can we go somewhere to talk?”

  Her reply was drowned out by the insistent droning of the pump from the other room. I pushed on the door, trying to see over her shoulder. I raised my voice above the clamor. “What are you doing in there...?”

  Isabella shuffled awkwardly, blocking my view. “No. Not now.” Her voice was firm. I realized she was responding to the first of my questions. “You need to go.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, to try to reassure her that I only wanted to make things right between us, but she winced and twisted away from me as if the simple act of me touching her was enough to cause her pain. Her elbow struck the door as she shifted around and it bounced open, banging loudly as it clattered against the wall. I caught a view of the inside of the lab. A naked male corpse was lying prone on a trolley in the centre of the room, wired up to a host of elaborate medical machinery. Cables snaked from the man’s chest in a web-work of plumbing and bags of unidentifiable fluid hung on intravenous drips from a metal framework over the bed. It looked like a scene from a cheap horror movie; the workshop of a latter-day Frankenstein, a crazed scientist in the process of creating a monster. I pushed past Isabella, forcing my way into the room. Electric light gave everything a clean, clinical sheen. The radio continued to hiss with the pounding of drums and static.

  “What the hell?”

  The pump was thumping noisily as it sucked blood from the body, feeding it through long coils of piping. I could see it sloshing into a large glass bottle by the foot of the trolley red and dark and syrupy.

  I wheeled on Isabella, confused and a little scared. “Where did you get a human corpse?”

  She stared at me, a stern, emotionless expression on her face. “It’s not a corpse.”

  I looked again. The body, although emaciated, was still breathing, its chest rising and falling to a slow, soft rhythm, in time with the labored wheezing of the apparatus that was slowly alleviating it of its lifeblood.

  She shifted closer. Her voice was gentle in my ear. Her breath felt warm against my cheek. “Look closer.” And more quietly—“It’s you.”

  I gazed down in abstract horror at the man lying on the trolley before me. It was true. He had my face.

  For a moment everything seemed to stop. The noise was gone; replaced only by the roar of blood rushing through my ears. I stared down at the body before me in grim fascination. His eyes were closed, his face unshaven and covered in a burr of fine black bristles. He had the same long, equine nose and the same square chin that faced me in the mirror every morning. Yet he was thin, painfully so. His cheeks were hollow and drawn and his ribcage was clearly visible through his translucent, papery skin. His lips were dry and cracked. It was clear he was both severely undernourished and dehydrated. His blood was flowing freely through the fat tubing, sloshing into the glass demijohn with every beat of his weak heart, assisted by the pump that was inexorably drawing him closer to his death. I wanted to feel sick but, instead, I felt simply numb. He wasn’t me, couldn’t be me, but he was a part of me, somehow.

  I turned to Isabella, unable to speak. She could see the question in my eyes. She took a moment to fiddle with the volume on the radio, then turned to me and began to explain.

  “Accelerated cloning.” She shrugged, her face still an emotionless mask, unreadable. She hesitated and I thought for a moment that she wasn’t going to continue. I think she was as numb as I was, shocked by the confrontation, the need to relive everything all at once. Then: “I grew him when I thought you weren’t coming back.” A pause. “I wanted to be close to you. I needed to be close to you.” It sounded like she was pleading for forgiveness. I couldn’t believe her, couldn’t understand how she could do this, how she could go to these incredible lengths. I shook my head.

  “Then why this?” I waved at the jar of blood on the floor and the tubing coming out of the man’s—out of my—chest. My voice was a hoarse whisper. “Why?”

  “It didn’t work. He’s got no mind. He’s not you. He’s just a body, a bag of blood and bones. I didn’t know what to do.” I realized now that she was weeping, tears running in sparkling tributaries down her cheeks, splashing her clothes. “And then it hit me. O-Negative blood. Anyone can take a transfusion of O-Negative blood. If I drained him I could sell it on, make a fortune. I’d already seeded him with nanomachines, the moment he was fully formed. All I had to do was bag it up...” She sobbed, coughing back on the tears. I think my face must have betrayed my horror, my judgment. “What else could I do!” She broke down, collapsing to her knees, her face in her hands.

  I looked back at the body on the table before me. “It was never me, Isabella. It never could have been.” And then I did the only thing I could. I couldn’t let it live like this. I grabbed for an implement from a nearby tray–a sharp, surgical scalpel–and thrust it deep into his throat. It was soft and offered little resistance. The body shuddered and began to spasm, but his eyes remained closed and no sound escaped his lips. I pulled the scalpel out and thrust again, channeling all my anger, my frustration, my fear into those blows.

  “No!”

  I heard Isabella scream behind me and turned, realizing too late that she was rushing me from across the room. She fell against me hard, sending us both sprawling to the floor. I jarred my elbow sharply on the trolley and cracked my head against the tiles.

  For a moment, the world turned upside down. I lay there, dazed, the pressure of Isabella on top of me like a dead weight. My head was spinning with pain. I tried to speak, but the weight of her on my chest made it difficult to breathe. Gasping, I pulled my arms free, then pushed her to one side, before rolling over and scrabbling up onto my knees.

  “Isabella? Are you okay?”

  She was still, unconscious. Her hair had spilled out across the floor and her face looked slack and peaceful, all the tension, the concern, the confusion drained out of her. I blinked, trying to get my bearings. One of the medical monitors was screaming, a howling alarm to warn us that the man on the trolley had arrested, his heart failing, the remaining blood draining out through the gaping hole in his throat. I turned to Isabella; shook her gently to rouse her. She remained still. Confused, I looked her up and down. Then I saw it: the scalpel sticking out of her chest, surrounded by a growing Mandelbrot of blood. It was stark and red against the clean white of her lab coat. The knife had struck her straight through the heart, like a stake, so forceful in the fall that it had buried itself almost halfway along its shaft. I fumbled, unsure whether to pull it out or not. My mind went completely blank. I became aware of a terrible, animal keening sound and, for a moment, thought the clone on the trolley was still alive before I realized that the sound was coming from me.

  I gathered Isabella up in my arms, rocking her from side to side, telling her everything was going to be okay. Only, in truth, I knew that was not the case. She was already dead, and, in more ways than one, so was I.

  There was no p
anic, no call to the police. For some time I sat with Isabella, the world in tattered shreds around me, the red ruin of the laboratory and the spilt blood a mockery of everything her life had been. I couldn’t forgive her for what she’d done to me, her strange, exotic form of vampirism. She had taken the very essence of what I was and toyed with it, made it something alien, turned it into something it was never intended to be. But all the same, I never wanted this. I smoothed her hair back from her face, closed her eyelids with my fingertips.

  After a while, sitting there in stunned silence, the sounds of the medical equipment still loud and insistent around me, my remorse began to give way to a strange kind of shocked relief. There was a sense of peace, of closure. It was over. At least, this way, I had my answer.

  In a haze, still numb from the shock, I took the corpse from the trolley, disconnecting the myriad pipes and wires, and laid it beside her on the laboratory floor. Then, after cleaning myself up as best I could, I fled the house, leaving the two of them together, peaceful, as if sleeping. I hoped they were happy in their dreams.

  Outside, night had fallen and the world existed only in the impassionate glow of the streetlamps. I made my way back to the car. Behind me, the house was silent, still.

  I dropped my jacket onto the passenger seat, running a hand over my face. I clambered into the driver’s seat. My heart was pounding in my chest. I looked back at the house, thinking of her there, in the lab, her eyes tired and glazed, her smile fixed and unmoving. It was as if there had been only one inevitable outcome of our dark and passionate affair, only one possible resolution, and there had been nothing I could have done to stop it. Now, finally, it was over.

  I knew the police wouldn’t come looking for me; as far as their forensic tests would show, I was dead, lying on the floor beside my lover, murdered in bizarre circumstances, in a strange laboratory at the back of an old house. The clone and I had changed places, adopted each other’s roles. Now, like him, I was new to the world. A world without Isabella. Somehow I had to find my place in it, had to start again. I had no idea where to even begin.

  I turned over the car engine and crawled slowly away from the curb. I could hear Isabella’s voice, echoing around in my thoughts:

  “Sometimes it just feels like the whole world is conspiring against you, and you only wish you could step back for a moment to take a breath.”

  A moment later, I flashed the car headlamps at a pedestrian making his lonely way home, and moved off into the anonymity of the night.

  Scenting the Dark

  Mary Robinette Kowal

  Lifting the stopper from the vial to his nose, Penn inhaled slowly. Against the neutral backdrop of his ship’s cleanroom, he picked out aromas of quince, elderberry, and bright Martian soil that hinted of blood, with undercurrents of cinnamon and Zeta Epsilon’s fragrantly sweet longgrass. He sighed, blowing the scents out again. The perfume was still out of balance.

  The boarding chime rang, letting him know that Madison had returned. The round tones resonated off the glass labware and sent vibrations across his scalp as it slowly, slowly faded. God, it was gorgeous—picking up the temple bell when they were on Mosholu had been one of his better choices. He’d eventually get the whole ship converted to real things instead of all the virtual hoo-ha it came with. Well, maybe not the whole ship; the skip drive had to exist in quantum state, but by God, the controls at least were made out of real ebony and brass.

  The intercom buzzed and Madison’s honeyed voice came over the wires, “Hey there, Mr. Man. Got a surprise for you.”

  “A musk lion?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Come on out.”

  “I anticipate the pleasure of your discovery.” He slid his left hand forward until he found the wire stand that held his work trials. His fingers followed the trail of braided metal up to the smooth glass vial. He slipped the stopper into it with practiced ease.

  With one hand touching the stainless steel work bench, Penn paced the distance to the cleanroom’s door. Opening it brought a chaotic swirl of scents containing the dark mineral oils that lubricated the doors, and the green plants grown to filter the air, and dog and...something else. Something new. Penn lifted his head, scenting in anticipation. Madison, that tease...she must have found a musk lion.

  The boarding chime rang again. Maybe more than one. Good.

  “Cody?” He held his left hand down while the tick-tick-tick of claws hurried to his side. Cody thrust her damp nose into Penn’s hand, and licked once with her warm tongue before sliding forward into working position.

  Penn fondled his dog’s silky ears, as she slipped past to bring the harness under his hand. The leather handle was warm where it had lain against Cody’s back.

  “Airlock.”

  Without hesitation, Cody led him down the hall, her shaggy tail beating against the back of Penn’s legs. Truth be told, even if his blindness were repairable, he would be hard pressed to give up his dog. She was a real lady. Not like a machine or electrodes in his brain. Loyal and true. Hell’s bells. The fool dog was so excited to be working that Penn didn’t even have the heart to let on that he knew the ship well enough to find his way to the airlock without help.

  The new scent was so rich. Pungent with sexual intensity and spices that only flirted with the familiar. Penn quickened his pace; his clients would pay top dollar for a perfume with this. “Smell that, Cody? That’s why parfumiers like Lenox will never rise to the sublime. Synthetics. Feh. Any Joe with a copier can make a fake.” That’s why he did expeditions to new worlds before they were opened for colonization. Hitting the market with a unique ingredient guaranteed that he maintained the top position in his field.

  Around the corner, something heavy scraped against the metal deck of the ship. Penn had wanted oak floors, but had to concede that they would not survive the heavy traffic through the boarding area. The thing, probably a cage, held something that squealed with a high rough voice. “Sounds like Madison had a successful expedition, eh, Cody?”

  She whined in response.

  The new aroma was definitely coming from the boarding area. It was mixed with the more familiar smells of Cody and the salty tang of Madison, but even with those distractions, the spicy musk begged him to breathe deeper and absorb the aroma into his pores.

  As they neared the boarding area, Cody hesitated.

  The boarding chime rang a third time and with it came a dry hissing, like sand blown across the steel floor. Cody flinched again. Then stopped.

  “It’s all right, lady.”

  She whined.

  “Cody, forward!” He fumbled, searching for her head with his free hand. Cody trembled and shifted. What had gotten into her? He smoothed the fur on her ruff. “C’mon, lady. You’re on duty.”

  The air in the corridor shifted and brought a smell like blood and offal. Sweat suddenly beaded under his arms and ran down his ribcage. “Madison?”

  Somewhere in front of him, the musk lion squealed once as if in answer to his call. Penn gripped Cody’s harness tighter. “Find Madison.”

  For a moment, Cody did not move. Penn’s mouth dried; if she refused to work…. She huffed—not quite a bark—and stepped forward. Hugging the wall, Cody led him down the corridor to the boarding area.

  The cage rattled and an animal raged in a high chattering voice. From the cage came the heavy spice of alien musk. Despite its intrigue, Penn found himself holding his breath.

  Cody whined as they crossed the threshold into the airlock but did not falter. The altar bell chimed their departure.

  On the ramp outside, warmth bathed Penn telling him that the sun was out. The dissonance of what passed for birdsong on this planet had stilled. Wind hissed in his ears, walling him in with white noise. At the end of the ramp, Cody led him across a spongy, uneven surface. The wind pushed him as if it were a bully on the playground, teasing the blind kid.

  Cody did not take him far from the ship—only nine paces—before she came to a dead halt. “Madison?” The wind
tossed his aide’s name aside.

  Under his grip, Cody hunkered into a crouch. Stiff and beginning to shake, Penn knelt with her, reaching out with his free hand. The ground was soft with thick short fronds like a living shag carpet—the moss Madison had described when they’d first landed. He slid his hand forward until it met cloth.

  Startled, he pulled back for a moment before reaching forward again. Quickly now, he recognized Madison’s arm and slid down it to grip her hand. Warm and sticky with what must be blood, it lay unresponsive in his grasp. “Hang in there. I’m here.”

  Penn toggled his communicator to call for emergency services. Flat tones confirmed his request, but he was so far out from a settled world it might be weeks before his call was answered.

  But his ship was only nine paces away. He could find his way without holding onto Cody, so enabling him to carry Madison.

  It wasn’t that far.

  Penn inhaled to steady his nerve and almost choked as the wind shifted to blow from his front. Something rank and wet with blood and urine lay along the wind’s path. Penn squeezed Madison’s hand again. “We’ll take care of you.”

  He let go of Cody’s harness.

  Using Madison’s arm as a guide, he slid his hand up to her shoulder. Raw wet meat filled the top of her sleeve, then nothing. Penn jerked his hands away.

  He fell back on his rump, retching. Something warm and moist touched his face. Penn screamed and slapped out, slamming into familiar fur. Cody yelped.

  “Oh God. Cody, I’m sorry. Sweet lady, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He reached for her, sobbing with relief when she came to him. Penn folded his arms around her and buried his face in her soft coat. Clinging to her, he rocked back and forth.

  Madison’s hand had still been warm, which meant it hadn’t been removed long ago, which meant she might be alive and needing him. His mind shied away from the likelihood that Madison had already bled to death. It hadn’t been more than five minutes since the boarding chime had rung and—“Bloody hell.”