Interzone #244 Jan - Feb 2013 Read Online Free PDF Page A

something repulsive about it all, as well as a strange, shameful excitement. There was no sex: sex was not a part of it, although it could be. Carmel leeched knowledge – memories – stored sensations – anything – pure uncut data from her victims, her fangs fastening on their neck, injecting dopamine into their blood as her node broke their inadequate protections, smashed their firewalls and their security, and bled them dry.
    “Where do you come from?” he once asked her, as they lay on his narrow bed, the window open and the heat making them sweat, and she told him of Ng. Merurun, the tiny asteroid where she grew up, and how she ran away, on board the Emaciated Messiah , where a Shambleau attacked her, and passed on the virus, or the sickness, whatever it was.
    “And how did you come to be here?” he said, and sensed, almost before he spoke, her unease, her reluctance to answer. Jealousy flared in him then, and he could not say why.
    * *
    His sister came to visit him. She walked into the bookshop as he sat behind the desk, typing. He was writing less and less, now; his new life seemed to him a kind of novel.
    “Achimwene,” she said.
    He raised his head. “Miriam,” he said, heavily.
    They did not get along.
    “The girl, Carmel. She is with you?”
    “I let her stay,” he said, carefully.
    “Oh, Achimwene, you are a fool!” she said.
    Her boy – their sister’s boy – Kranki – was with her. Achimwene regarded him uneasily. The boy was vat-grown – had come from the birthing clinics – his eyes were Armani-trademark blue. “Hey, Kranki,” Achimwene said.
    “Anggkel,” the boy said – uncle , in the pidgin of the asteroids. “Yu olsem wanem?”
    “I gud,” Achimwene said.
    How are you? I am well.
    “Fren blong mi Ismail I stap aotside,” Kranki said. “I stret hemi kam insaed?”
    My friend Ismail is outside. Is it OK if he comes in?
    “I stret,” Achimwene said.
    Miriam blinked. “Ismail,” she said. “Where did you come from?”
    Kranki had turned, appeared, to all intents and purposes, to play with an invisible playmate. Achimwene said, carefully, “There is no one there.”
    “Of course there is,” his sister snapped. “It’s Ismail, the Jaffa boy.”
    Achimwene shook his head.
    “Listen, Achimwene. The girl. Do you know why she came here?”
    “No.”
    “She followed Boris.”
    “Boris,” Achimwene said. “Your Boris?”
    “My Boris,” she said.
    “She knew him before?”
    “She knew him on Mars. In Tong Yun City.”
    “I…see.”
    “You see nothing, Achi. You are blind like a worm.” Old words, still with the power to hurt him. They had never been close, somehow. He said, “What do you want, Miriam?”
    Her face softened. “I do not want… I do not want her to hurt you.”
    “I am a grown-up,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”
    “Achi, like you ever could!”
    Could that be affection, in her voice? It sounded like frustration. Miriam said, “Is she here?”
    “Kranki,” Achimwene said, “who are you playing with?”
    “Ismail,” Kranki said, pausing in the middle of telling a story to someone only he could see.
    “He’s not here,” Achimwene said.
    “Sure he is. He’s right here.”
    Achimwene formed his lips into an O of understanding. “Is he virtual?” he said.
    Kranki shrugged. “I guess,” he said. He clearly felt uncomfortable with – or didn’t understand – the question. Achimwene let it go.
    His sister said, “I like the girl, Achi.”
    It took him by surprise. “You’ve met her?”
    “She has a sickness. She needs help.”
    “I am helping her!”
    But his sister only shook her head.
    “Go away, Miriam,” he said, feeling suddenly tired, depressed. His sister said, “Is she here?”
    “She is resting.”
    Above his shop there was a tiny flat, accessible by narrow, twisting stairs. It wasn’t much but it was home. “Carmel?” his sister called. “Carmel!”
    There was a sound above, as of someone moving.