Interzone 244 Jan - Feb 2013 (6 page)

Carmel turned, wounded dignity flashing in
her green eyes. “Then take it!” she said, shoving a (priceless,
Achimwene thought) copy of Lior Tirosh’s first – and only – poetry
collection,
Remnants of God
, into Shimshon’s hands. She
hissed, a sound Achimwene suspected was not only in the audible
range but went deeper, in the non-sound of digital communication,
for Shimshon’s face went pale and he said, “Get…out!” in a
strangled whisper as Carmel smiled at him, flashing her small,
sharp teeth.

They left. They crossed the street and stood
outside a cheap cosmetics surgery booth, offering wrinkles erased
or tentacles grafted, next to a handwritten sign that said gone for
lunch. “Verboten?” Achimwene said. “Hagiratech?”

“
Forbidden,” Carmel said.
“The sort of wildtech that ends up on Jettisoned, from the exodus
ships.”

“
What you are,” he
said.

“
Yes. I looked, myself, you
know. But it is like you said. Holes in the Conversation. Did we
learn nothing useful?”

“
No,” he said. Then,
“Yes.”

She smiled. “Which is it?”

Military history
, Shimshon had said.
And no one knew better than him how to classify a thing into its
genre. And –
robotniks
.

“
We need to find us,”
Achimwene said, “an ex-soldier.” He smiled without humour. “Better
brush up on your Battle Yiddish,” he said.

* *

“
Ezekiel.”

“
Achimwene.”

“
I brought…vodka. And spare
parts.” He had bought them in Tel Aviv, on Allenby, at great
expense. Robotnik parts were not easy to come by.

Ezekiel looked at him without expression.
His face was metal smooth. It never smiled. His body was mostly
metal. It was rusted. It creaked when he walked. He ignored the
proffered offerings. Turned his head. “You brought
her
?” he
said. “
Here
?”

Carmel stared at the robotnik in curiosity.
They were at the heart of the old station, a burned down ancient
bus platform open to the sky. Achimwene knew platforms continued
down below, that the robotniks – ex-soldiers, cyborged humans,
present day beggars and dealers in Crucifixation and stolen goods –
made their base down there. But there he could not go. Ezekiel met
him above-ground. A drum with fire burning, the flames reflected in
the dull metal of the robotnik’s face. “I saw your kind,” Carmel
said. “On Mars. In Tong Yun City. Begging.”

“
And I saw
your
kind,” the robotnik said. “In the sands of the Sinai, in the war.
Begging. Begging for their lives, as we decapitated them and stuck
a stake through their hearts and watched them die.”

“
Jesus Elron,
Ezekiel!”

The robotnik ignored his exclamation. “I had
heard,” he said. “That one came. Here.
Strigoi
. But I did
not believe! The defence systems would have picked her up. Should
have eliminated her.”

“
They didn’t,” Achimwene
said.

“
Yes…”

“
Do you know
why?”

The robotnik stared at him. Then he gave a
short laugh and accepted the bottle of vodka. “You guess
they
let her through? The Others?”

Achimwene shrugged. “It’s the only answer
that makes sense.”

“
And you want to know
why.”

“
Call me
curious.”

“
I call you a fool,” the
robotnik said, without malice. “And you not even noded. She still
has an effect on you?”

“
She
has a name,”
Carmel said, acidly. Ezekiel ignored her. “You’re a collector of
old stories, aren’t you, Achimwene,” he said. “Now you came to
collect mine?”

Achimwene just shrugged. The robotnik took a
deep slug of vodka and said, “So, nu? What do you want to
know?”

“
Tell me about Nosferatu,”
Achimwene said.

* *

SHANGRI-LA VIRUS, the. Bio-weapon developed
in the GOLDEN TRIANGLE and used during the UNOFFICIAL WAR.
Transmission mechanisms included sexual intercourse (99%–100%), by
air (50%–60%), by water (30%–35%), through saliva (15%–20%) and by
touch (5%–6%). Used most memorably during the LONG CHENG ATTACK
(for which also see LAOS; RAVENZ; THE KLAN KLANDESTINE). The weapon
curtailed aggression in humans, making them peaceable and docile.
All known samples destroyed in the Unofficial War, along with the
city of Long Cheng.

* *

“
We never found out for
sure where Nosferatu came from,” Ezekiel said. It was quiet in the
abandoned shell of the old station. Overhead a sub-orbital came in
to land, and from the adaptoplant neighbourhoods ringing the old
stone buildings the sound of laughter could be heard, and someone
playing the guitar. “It had been introduced into the battlefield
during the Third Sinai Campaign, by one side, or the other, or
both.” He fell quiet. “I am not even sure who we were fighting
for,” he said. He took another drink of vodka. The almost pure
alcohol served as fuel for the robotniks. Ezekiel said, “At first
we paid it little enough attention. We’d find victims on dawn
patrols. Men, women, robotniks. Wandering the dunes or the Red Sea
shore, dazed, their minds leeched clean. The small wounds on their
necks. Still. They were alive. Not ripped to shreds by Jub Jubs.
But the data. We began to notice the enemy knew where to find us.
Knew where we went. We began to be afraid of the dark. To never go
out alone. Patrol in teams. But worse. For the ones who were
bitten, and carried back by us, had turned, became the enemy’s own
weapon. Nosferatu.”

Achimwene felt sweat on his forehead, took a
step away from the fire. Away from them, the floating lanterns
bobbed in the air. Someone cried in the distance and the cry was
suddenly and inexplicably cut off, and Achimwene wondered if the
street sweeping machines would find another corpse the next
morning, lying in the gutter outside a shebeen or No. 1 Pin Street,
the most notorious of the drug dens-cum-brothels of Central
Station.

“
They rose within our
ranks. They fed in secret. Robotniks don’t sleep, Achimwene. Not
the way the humans we used to be did. But we do turn off. Shut-eye.
And they preyed on us, bleeding out minds, feeding on our feed. Do
you know what it is like?” The robotnik’s voice didn’t grow louder,
but it carried. “We were human, once. The army took us off the
battlefield, broken, dying. It grafted us into new bodies, made us
into shiny, near-invulnerable killing machines. We had no legal
rights, not any more. We were technically, and clinically, dead. We
had few memories, if any, of what we once were. But those we had,
we kept hold of, jealously. Hints to our old identity. The memory
of feet in the rain. The smell of pine resin. A hug from a newborn
baby whose name we no longer knew.

“
And the
strigoi
were taking even those away from us.”

Achimwene looked at Carmel, but she was
looking nowhere, her eyes were closed, her lips pressed together.
“We finally grew wise to it,” Ezekiel said. “We began to hunt them
down. If we found a victim we did not take them back. Not alive. We
staked them, we cut off their heads, we burned the bodies. Have you
ever opened a strigoi’s belly, Achimwene?” He motioned at Carmel.
“Want to know what her insides look like?”

“
No,” Achimwene said, but
Ezekiel the robotnik ignored him. “Like cancer,” he said. “Strigoi
is like robotnik, it is a human body subverted, cyborged. She isn’t
human, Achimwene, however much you’d like to believe it. I remember
the first one we cut open. The filaments inside. Moving. Still
trying to spread. Nosferatu Protocol, we called it. What we had to
do. Following the Nosferatu Protocol. Who created the virus? I
don’t know. Us. Them. The Kunming Labs. Someone. St Cohen only
knows. All I know is how to kill them.”

Achimwene looked at Carmel. Her eyes were
open now. She was staring at the robotnik. “I didn’t ask for this,”
she said. “I am not a
weapon
. There is no fucking
war
!”

“
There was – ”

“
There were a lot of
things!”

A silence. At last, Ezekiel stirred. “So
what do you want?” he said. He sounded tired. The bottle of vodka
was nearly finished. Achimwene said, “What more can you tell
us?”

“
Nothing, Achi. I can tell
you nothing. Only to be careful.” The robotnik laughed. “But it’s
too late for that, isn’t it,” he said.

* *

Achimwene was arranging his books when Boris
came to see him. He heard the soft footsteps and the hesitant cough
and straightened up, dusting his hands from the fragile books, and
looked at the man Carmel had come to Earth for.

“
Achi.”

“
Boris.”

He remembered him as a loose-limbed, gangly
teenager. Seeing him like this was a shock. There was a thing
growing on Boris’ neck. It was flesh-coloured, but the colour was
slightly off to the rest of Boris’ skin. It seemed to breathe
gently. Boris’ face was lined, he was still thin but there was an
unhealthy nature to his thinness. “I heard you were back,”
Achimwene said.

“
My father,” Boris said, as
though that explained everything.

“
And we always thought you
were the one who got away,” Achimwene said. Genuine curiosity made
him add, “What was it like? In the Up and Out?”

“
Strange,” Boris said. “The
same.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“
So you are seeing my
sister again.”

“
Yes.”

“
You’ve hurt her once
before, Boris. Are you going to do it again?”

Boris opened his mouth, closed it again. He
stood there, taking Achimwene back years. “I heard Carmel is
staying with you,” Boris said at last.

“
Yes.”

Again, an uncomfortable silence. Boris
scanned the bookshelves, picked a book at random. “What’s this?” he
said.

“
Be careful with
that!”

Boris looked startled. He stared at the
small hardcover in his hands. “That’s a Captain Yuno,” Achimwene
said, proudly. “
Captain Yuno on a Dangerous Mission
, the
second of the three Sagi novels. The least rare of the three,
admittedly, but still…priceless.”

Boris looked momentarily amused. “He was a
kid taikonaut?” he said.

“
Sagi envisioned a solar
system teeming with intelligent alien life,” Achimwene said,
primly. “He imagined a world government, and the people of Earth
working together in peace.”

“
No kidding. He must have
been disappointed when – ”

“
This book is
pre-spaceflight
,” Achimwene said. Boris whistled. “So it’s
old?”

“
Yes.”

“
And valuable?”

“
Very.”

“
How do you know all this
stuff?”

“
I read.”

Boris put the book back on the shelf,
carefully. “Listen, Achi – ” he said.

“
No,” Achimwene said. “You
listen. Whatever happened between you and Carmel is between you
two. I won’t say I don’t care, because I’d be lying, but it is not
my business. Do you have a claim on her?”

“
What?” Boris said. “No.
Achi, I’m just trying to – ”

“
To what?”

“
To warn you. I know you’re
not used to…” Again he hesitated. Achimwene remembered Boris as
someone of few words, even as a boy. Words did not come easy to
him. “Not used to women?” Achimwene said, his anger tightly
coiled.

Boris had to smile. “You have to admit –
”

“
I am not some, some –
”

“
She is not a woman, Achi.
She’s a strigoi.”

Achimwene closed his eyes. Expelled breath.
Opened his eyes again and regarded Boris levelly. “Is that all?” he
said.

Boris held his eyes. After a moment, he
seemed to deflate. “Very well,” he said.

“
Yes.”

“
I guess I’ll see
you.”

“
I guess.”

“
Please pass my regards to
Carmel.”

Achimwene nodded. Boris, at last, shrugged.
Then he turned and left the store.

* *

There comes a time in a man’s life when he
realises stories are lies. Things do not end neatly. The enforced
narratives a human impinges on the chaotic mess that is life become
empty labels, like the dried husks of corn such as are thrown down,
in the summer months, from the adaptoplant neighbourhoods high
above Central Station, to litter the streets below.

He woke up in the night and the air was
humid, and there was no wind. The window was open. Carmel was lying
on her side, asleep, her small, naked body tangled up in the
sheets. He watched her chest rise and fall, her breath even. A
smear of what might have been blood on her lips. “Carmel?” he said,
but quietly, and she didn’t hear. He rubbed her back. Her skin was
smooth and warm. She moved sleepily under his hand, murmured
something he didn’t catch, and settled down again.

Achimwene stared out of the window, at the
moon rising high above Central Station. A mystery was no longer a
mystery once it was solved. What difference did it make how Carmel
had come to be there, with him, at that moment? It was not facts
that mattered, but feelings. He stared at the moon, thinking of
that first human to land there, all those years before, that first
human footprint in that alien dust.

Inside Carmel was asleep and he was awake,
outside dogs howled up at the moon and, from somewhere, the image
came to Achimwene of a man in a spacesuit turning at the sound, a
man who does a little tap dance on the moon, on the dusty moon.