The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (94 page)

“Sick of this.”

“Mister Pergoletti says—”

“You tell Pergoletti to stick it. I’m gone. Seriously.” She handed him the wad of bills. “You take care of these girls, now. And have a good life.”

“Got something else lined up?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

There was one bottle of beer in Cody’s fridge. She opened it, poured it carefully into a glass, stared at the beige foam. A glass: she never drank beer from a glass. She poured it down the sink. She had no idea what was real anymore but she was pretty sure alcohol would only make things worse.

She made green tea instead and settled down in the window seat. The sun hung low over the bay. What did Susana see from her apartment? Was her ankle better? Contraceptive pills, Jesus. And, oh, the smell of her skin.

She was losing her mind.

She didn’t know who she hated more: Richard for making the proposal, or herself for accepting it. Or Susana. Susana had done it for money.

Or maybe . . . But what about those contraceptive pills?

And what if Susana did feel . . . whatever it was? Did that make it real? It was all an experiment, all engineered. Fake.

But it didn’t feel fake. She wanted to cradle Susana, kiss her ankle better, protect her from the world. The Richards of the world.

She picked up the phone, remembered for the tenth time she had neither address nor phone number. She called information, who told her there was no listing under Susana Herrera in the Atlanta Metro area. She found herself unsurprised, though surprised at how little it mattered.

She got the number for the Golden Key instead.

A man called Pergoletti answered. “Cookie? She’s gone. They always go.” The music thumped. Cody’s insides vibrated in sympathy, remembering.

“ – don’t have a number. Hey, you interested in a job?”

Cody put the phone down carefully. Sipped her tea. Picked up the phone again, and called Richard.

It was open mic night at Coffee to the People. Richard was in the back room on a sofa, as far from the music as possible. Two cups on the table. One still full.

“You knew I’d call.”

“I did.”

“Did you program that, too?”

“I didn’t program anything. I primed you – and only about the sex.” He patted the sofa. “Sit down before you fall down.”

She sat. Blinked. “Give me her phone number.”

“I can’t. She gave me a fake. I called her at the club, but she hung up on me.” He seemed put out.

“What does she know?”

“I talked fast. I don’t know how much she heard. But I told her she wouldn’t get the rest of the money until we’d done follow up.”

The singer in the other room sang of love and broken hearts. It was terrible, but it made Cody want to cry anyway.

“How long does it last?”

“Love? I don’t know. I avoid it where possible.”

“What am I going to do?”

Richard lifted his laptop bag. “I planned for this eventuality.” He took out a small white cardboard box. He opened it, shook something onto his hand. A grey plastic inhaler.

“What is it?”

“A vasopressin analogue, formulated to block oxytocin receptors in the nucleus accumbens. That is, the antidote.”

They both looked at it.

“It works in voles,” he said. “Female voles.”

Voles. “You said it tasted bad.”

“I’ve used it. Just in case. I prefer my sex without complications. And I’ve had a lot of sex and never once fallen in love.” He arched his eyebrows. “So, hey, it must work.”

The elephant whistle hypothesis. Hey, Bob, what’s that whistle? Well, Fred, it keeps elephants away. Don’t be an asshole, Bob, there aren’t any elephants around here. Well, Fred, that’s because of my whistle.

“Cody.” He did his best to look sincere. “I’m so very sorry. I never thought it would work. Not like this. But I do think the antidote might work.” His face went back to normal. He hefted the inhaler. “Though before I give it to you, I have a favor to ask.”

She stared at him. “On what planet do I owe you anything?”

“For science, then. A follow up scan, and then another after you take the antidote.”

“Maybe I won’t take it. Give me the number.”

“Love is a form of insanity, you know.”

“The number.”

In the other room, the bad singing went on and on.

“Oh, all right. For old times’ sake.” He extracted a folder from his bag, and a piece of paper from the folder. He slid it across the table towards her, put the inhaler on top of it.

She nudged the inhaler aside, picked up the paper. Hand written. Susana’s writing.

“Love’s just biochemical craziness,” he said, “designed to make us take a leap in the dark, to trust complete strangers. It’s not rational.”

Cody said nothing.

“She screwed us.”

“She screwed you,” Cody said. “Maybe she fell in love with me.” But she took the inhaler.

Cody sat in the window seat with the phone and the form Susana had filled in. Every now and again she punched in a different combination of the numbers Susana had written and got the Cannot be completed as dialed voice. Every now and again she touched the form with the tip of her middle finger; she could feel the indentation made by Susana’s strong strokes. Strong strokes, strong hands, strong mouth.

She didn’t think about the grey inhaler in its white box, which she had put in the fridge – to stay viable a long time, just in case.

After a while she stopped dialing and simply waited.

When her phone lit up at 11:46 she knew who it was – even before she saw the 404 area code on the screen.

“Do you feel it?” Susana said.

“Yes,” and Cody did. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, it was there, as indelible as ink. She wanted to say, I don’t know if this is real, I don’t know if it’s good. She wanted to ask, Had you ever had sex with anyone for money before me? and Does it matter? She wanted to know, Have you ever loved anyone before? and, How can you know?

She wanted to say, Will it hurt?

Walking through the crowds at the airport, Cody searched for the familiar face, felt her heart thump every time she thought she saw her. Panic, or love? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything except that her throat ached.

Someone jostled her with his bag, and when she looked up, there was the back of that head, that smooth brown hair, so familiar, after just one night, and all her blood vessels seemed to expand at once, every cell leap forward.

She didn’t move. This was it, the last moment. This was where she could just let the crowd carry her past, carry her away, out into the night. Walk away. Go home. Use the inhaler in the fridge.

That was the sensible thing. But the Cody who had hung from the ninth storey balcony, the Cody who had risked the Atlanta contract without a second thought, that Cody thought, fuck it, and stepped forward.

You couldn’t know. You could never know.

I
DREAMED THIS IN
Sihanoukville, a town of new casinos, narrow beaches, hot bushes with flowers that look like daffodils, and even now after nine years of peace, stark ruined walls with gates that go nowhere.

In the dream, I get myself a wife. She’s beautiful, blonde, careworn. She is not used to having a serious man with good intentions present himself to her on a beach. Her name is Agnete and she speaks with a Danish accent. She has four Asian children.

Their father had been studying permanently in Europe, married Agnete and then “left,” which in this world can mean several things. Agnete was an orphan herself and the only family she had was that of her Cambodian husband. So she came to Phnom Penh only to find that her in-laws did not want some strange woman they did not know and all those extra mouths to feed.

I meet the children. The youngest is Gerda, who cannot speak a word of Khmer. She’s tiny, as small as infant though three years old, in a splotched pink dress and too much toy jewellery. She just stares, while her brothers play. She’s been picked up from everything she knows and thrown down into this hot, strange world in which people speak nonsense and the food burns your mouth.

I kneel down and try to say hello to her, first in German, and then in English. Hello Gertie, hello little girl. Hello. She blanks all language and sits like she’s sedated.

I feel so sad, I pick her up and hold her, and suddenly she buries her head in my shoulder. She falls asleep on me as I swing in a hammock and quietly explain myself to her mother. I am not married, I tell Agnete. I run the local casino.

Real men are not hard, just unafraid. If you are a man you say what is true, and if someone acts like a monkey, then maybe you punish them. To be a crook, you have to be straight. I sold guns for my boss and bought policemen, so he trusted me, so I ran security for him for years. He was one of the first to Go, and he sold his shares in the casino to me. Now it’s me who sits around the black lacquered table with the generals and Thai partners. I have a Lexus and a good income. I have ascended and become a man in every way but one. Now I need a family.

Across from Sihanoukville, all about the bay are tiny islands. On those islands, safe from thieves, glow the roofs where the Big Men live in Soriya-chic amid minarets, windmills, and solar panels. Between the islands hang white suspension footbridges. Distant people on bicycles move across them.

Somehow it’s now after the wedding. The children are now mine. We loll shaded in palm-leaf panel huts. Two of the boys play on a heap of old rubber inner tubes. Tharum with his goofy smile and sticky-out ears is long-legged enough to run among them, plonking his feet down into the donut holes. Not to be outdone, his brother Sampul clambers over the things. Rith the oldest looks cool in a hammock, away with his earphones, pretending not to know us.

Gerda tugs at my hand until I let her go. Freed from the world of language and adults she climbs up and over the swollen black tubes, sliding down sideways. She looks intent and does not laugh.

Her mother in a straw hat and sunglasses makes a thin, watery sunset smile.

Gerda and I go wading. All those islands shelter the bay, so the waves roll onto the shore child-sized, as warm and gentle as caresses. Gerda holds onto my hand and looks down at them, scowling in silence.