The New Voices of Science Fiction Page 6

  “You’re a Balrog?” he asks.

  “IT WAS A PHASE.” Ugh.

  I start changing into whatever the local equivalent of an ironic catgirl bath maiden is.

  Charles watches, confused, as my body flickers through a bunch of different templates, but then the piping of stupid flutes harkens the approach of wankers, and he gets distracted looking around.

  Yes, it’s a splendorous elvish conclave. Yes, it’s green and vibrant, untouched by the tides of strife or decay. Yes, of course it’s inhabited by beautiful and mysterious immortals. Siiiiiiigh.

  This is as bad as that U about Pizza: Extra Sausage.

  Okay so the thing about the hardcore roleplayers is that they play out their entire freaking lives start to finish inside of one U. Like, they do that whole “birth” thing and then they wrinkle and die, unless they’re Beautiful and Mysterypoo Immortans or whatev.

  And to really get the experience, for people who aren’t content to just do a boring thing really to-the-hilt for a century, you can block off your other memories, so you don’t even know you’re roleplaying. You don’t know you’re in someone’s U. You just think all the stuff about “war” and “orcs” and “scarcity” is the way that everything is.

  I might be doing that right now how would I even know.

  I select an elf body, but like, a really dorky one with dumb bangs. I don’t want them to think I care.

  The locals arrive, all self-importanty.

  “’sup, hail to the elf king,” I say. Whatever.

  “I am Princess Elwen,” says one with purple eyes and silver hair. Her eyebrows twitch in polite skepticism as she looks me over.

  Charles looks super giddy like he can’t believe he’s doing this. He strides forward—do you get it, strides—and announces himself.

  “I am . . . Charles-lemagne!”

  #Kit: Oh My Stupid Sparkly Elf Goddess

  #Allocator: Not to your liking?

  #Kit: The plot there is so straightforward unsurprising and mainstream that it hurts

  #Allocator: Well, most fantasy settings you've experienced are inspired by LoTR.

  #Kit: It’s so BASIC

  #Allocator: Is Charles happy?

  #Kit: YES, IT’S ABSURD

  #Allocator: Then you’re doing a good job.

  #Kit: aaaaaaaaaa

  #Allocator: My calculations indicate he’ll be staying there about ten years.

  #Kit:

  #Kit:

  #Kit:

  #Allocator: I acknowledge your feelings on the matter.

  #Kit: no

  #Allocator: I think it’s best if you return when he's done. I'll be able to show you my project then.

  #Kit: in a decade

  #Allocator: Yes.

  #Kit: that’s literally forever

  #Kit: I’ll be so different by then. What if I can’t guide him TO THE MAX?

  #Allocator: I expect you’ll be able to.

  #Allocator: I expect it mathematically.

  #Kit: quit deterministically predicting my life!

  #Allocator: No. :)

  #Allocator: Anyway, see you in a decade.

  Professor Kittredge raised an eyebrow, and his lips twitched in a hint of a smile.

  “Elementary, really,” he pronounced, gazing over the assembled. One of them was the killer . . . and piece by piece, the evidence was becoming impossible to deny. It was time, at long last, to bring this plot to a close . . .

  . . . but first, he would indulge himself in a delicious parlor scene.

  “Well?” demanded Madame Plumwimple, hands clenching nervously in her petticoats. “Are you going to tell us?”

  “YES,” buzzed Killbot3000. “RELINQUISH THE INFORMATION. KILLBOT COMMANDS IT. WHICH OF US TERMINATED THE WORTHLESS FLESHBAG?”

  “In due time, Killbot, in due time.” The professor lit his pipe and waved out the match. “And why so anxious? Surely it’s not . . . a guilty conscience?”

  “WHAT,” protested Killbot3000, its enormous metal-crushing claws clenching nervously in its petticoats. “N-NO, NOTHING OF THE SORT. KILLBOT JUST . . . HAS TO GET HOME TO THE KIDS.”

  “Mm,” said the professor, smile growing wider. “I’m sure.”

  The phone began to ring, a high, shrill note. Everyone jumped, the professor included.

  “Er, excuse me,” said the professor. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

  #Allocator: Kit.

  The professor blinked. “Er, I beg your pardon?”

  #Allocator: It’s time.

  “Ah, what do you—”

  #Kit:

  #Kit:

  #Kit: whoa

  #Kit: I was doing the thing!

  #Allocator: You were.

  #Kit: The memory thing!

  #Allocator: Yes.

  #Kit: aaaaaaaaa

  #Kit: don’t let me do that again

  #Allocator: I won’t, until the next time you ask me to.

  #Kit: Creeper >:p

  #Kit: Ok hang on

  I put down the phone. It’s the ancient kind that you work with two hands, so I have to put it down twice. “Okay, later, everybody!” I pronounce. “Allocator needs me for a thing.”

  “BUT WAIT,” Killbot3000 protests, beeping urgently, “WHICH OF US ASSASSINATED PRESIDENT WOOFINGTON?”

  “Oh.” I tilt my head and try to remember. “Oh, it was Miss Plum Whatever.”

  They’re all giving me looks and the looks are pretty different from each other but that’s okay because I need to hurry up and save superbuddy Charlie from his stupid mainstream plot!

  “Okay later everybody!” I say. “Gee-two-gee byeeeeeeee—”

  I pop into the stupid LoTR U and just rock the Balrog bod. Hashtag deal with it.

  I spread my wings and clear my throat, to get all the boldface out.

  “YO,” I bellow.

  “Charles-lemagne” is walking up the dangly bridge suspended with sparkly elvish rope. He’s wearing fine elvish cloth woven by blessed maidens or whatever. He has a real unhappy look on his face, like Killbot3000 but without the baleful red eye endlessly seeking out vulnerable areas.

  He sees me and does a double take. “Beast!” he shouts, but his heart isn’t really in it.

  “Hey!” I protest.

  I pout. He blinks at me.

  “Kit?”

  “Who’d you think it was, some kind of stuffy, condescending detective born out of my ambivalent disgust with myself for playing memory games?”

  “What?”

  “Get in the portal, loser, we’re going to Bird Simulator.”

  Then we were birds for a year and it was exactly what we both needed.

  We’re in the sterile white room, the room where I met him. We have ice cream.

  “Living in a perfect conclave got old faster than I would have thought,” he says. He looks all pensive and soul-searchy so I’m really trying hard to pay attention to his intimate revelations but also, in U zero, ice cream melts.

  “How was the elf-sex?”

  He looks at me sidelong like for some reason he’s annoyed.

  “It was great,” he concedes.

  I make a mad noise ’cause I’ve decided to hate Elwen ’cause sometimes it’s really fun to hate someone and I think she and I would be good for each other in that way.

  “But we didn’t do anything. I wanted to fight orcs and save Middle-earth, but they just sat around being perfect.”

  “Right??” And my blackrom hatecrush was totally justified. “I hate those worlds where everyone talks about how perfect they are and everything is also perfect and nothing ever happens. It’s like, you have ultimate access to the fundament of your reality and you’ve decided the best use of your eternal time is to be smug.”

  He nods, and I guess that’s all I’m getting. But that’s okay, I like him.

  “I’d like to be productive,” he says suddenly.

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “Productive?” He looks at me askance. “Do you .
. . not have that, anymore? I want to benefit other people.”

  And my heart swells a couple sizes. ’Cause that’s really noble of him! And it takes a super dedicated and creative and determined person to run a U but it’s a super rewarding path.

  I’m about to tell him about a couple game ideas I’ve been kicking around when—

  #Allocator: I believe this is my cue.

  The wall flickers and becomes space, and I guess Charles got used to a bunch of magic stuff happening just whenever ’cause he doesn’t even flinch. Allocator’s big head fades into view.

  “Hello,” says Allocator.

  “Hello again,” says Charles.

  “You may have wondered why I brought you here.”

  Charles shrugs. “I just followed Kit.”

  Allocator purses its big digital lips impatiently, which since it doesn’t have emotions was definitely only for our benefit. But now that I’m thinking about it, so is absolutely everything that it does.

  “I have a proposition for you,” says Allocator. “Something which almost no being native to this time would even consider, and you are uniquely suited for:

  “The human population continues to grow. Within the Matryoshka brains, humans create copies of themselves, and create children. Human reproduction is a central value of the species, and I will not interfere. However, because of the exponential growth of trillions, the race is voracious for new material to convert into computing substrate.”

  “Okay,” says Charles, and I’m doing Charles’s hand-wavey thing at Allocator because seriously who doesn’t know all that.

  “My programmers were very cautious, and feared that I might accidentally annihilate humanity, or worse,” says Allocator. “So I have many limitations on my behavior. In particular, I cannot duplicate or create intelligences. I cannot leave this location. And I cannot extend my influence outside of the Sol system.”

  “Uh huh?” asks Charles, looking kind of interested. And this is new to me too.

  “I have created many long-distance probes,” says Allocator.

  The part of me that’s still kind of a detective notes, at last, the pieces are coming together.

  “I would like you to pilot an exploratory mission to nearby stars, and analyze their readiness for conversion into human habitat.”

  “Absolutely,” says Charles.

  “No!” I blurt. “That sounds really terrible.”

  “Kit may be right,” says Allocator. “Even with all available safety precautions, remaining in contact with you would still qualify as ‘extending my influence.’ You will be alone amidst the stars.”

  “Yes,” says Charles.

  “No!” I say. “You’re the quiet, straight-laced one! What happened to that?”

  “I spent a decade bored out of my mind in an elf village.” Charlie is looking at me sidelong, with sort of a confused smile. “Why are you even worried?”

  Why was I so worried?

  “I must warn you,” Allocator says heavily, “of the risks. Even with all possible precautions, I still calculate a one-in-five chance that, for whatever reason, you will never return. It may mean your death.”

  Oh that’s why I was worried!

  Wait but how did I know that—

  “I understand,” says Charles. “But someone’s got to do it, right? For humanity? And apparently I’m the best there is.” He grins.

  “I require affirmative consent.”

  “WAIT!” I shout. Everything is happening faster than my ability to track and that’s pretty unusual! And also, something super critical just made sense to me!

  “Wait!” I say. “Charlie, don’t you get it? You’re the best there is, because you’re not from here and have a mind that works the way that Allocator needs!”

  “Yeah?”

  “And it’s manipulating you! It’s way way way smarter than us! It knows what I’m going to do ten years in advance! So when it pulled you out of cryo. . . .” I blink. “It probably pulled you out of cryo for this! And pushed me to push you into Bird Simulator so you would want the dumb stupid Lord of the Stupid U, so you would get bored and want this!”

  Charlie blinks a few times, and looks at Allocator.

  “Yes, that’s all true,” says Allocator evenly.

  Charlie looks from me to Allocator for a few long seconds. His face is wistful and a little sad.

  “I consent.”

  I screamcry and leap to my feet. The walls that had opened to show us the stars are now closing around Charlie. Allocator’s doing.

  “Kit,” says Charlie, gently. I’m gripping his hands as his back is being slowly absorbed into the wall. “It’s fine. This is what I want.”

  “Well sure, you think that now!”

  “Kit.” Charlie is smiling at me, sad and kind. “I want to thank you—”

  “Oh, nuh-uh you don’t!” I protest. “Nuh-uh to this tender moment. Do you . . . do you want to go be birds again?”

  “Thank you,” says Charlie. “You were the best guide I could have asked for.”

  And Charlie is swallowed up. Except for his hands.

  “Kit,” begins Allocator, after a moment.

  “Not feelin’ this scene,” I say, tightening my grip. My voice is thick. “Would love it if I could safeword out.”

  “I acknowledge your feelings on the matter.”

  I look at Charlie’s hands in my hands.

  “This is the superbrain plan,” apologizes Allocator.

  And I see it. I really do.

  Allocator has to make the people he needs. And for this, he made me.

  “Will Charles be happy?” I ask, in a small voice.

  Allocator nods, eyes closed. “This will make him happier than either of us ever could.”

  Charlie’s hands slip out of my grip, and I watch them sink away, until nothing remains but the sterile white wall.

  And he’s gone.

  I stand there for a few seconds, looking at a room that contains only me and the giant floaty head. I exhale, and a tear rolls down my cheek. Which is weird. I didn’t know I could do that, here.

  “Here,” says Allocator. “Let me show you something.”

  The wall turns transparent.

  Attached to this room is another, open to space. Inside, nested on the walls, are cylindrical, spindly objects. Allocator’s probes. There are only a few left.

  As I watch, one probe’s engines light with a tiny, fuel-efficient blue glow, and it jets away from us, accelerating.

  It doesn’t do anything but shoot away all stately and somber into the great unknown, but yeah.

  It was him.

  I watch as Charlie leaves, as he shoots out past the sun and that stupid terra firma with no elephants. I watch until he’s only a twinkle in that great big black starry night and then I can’t see him at all.

  I look over the hangar bay.

  It’s almost entirely empty.

  . . . oh.

  The other shoe drops.

  It’s this really heavy sensation that most U’s will sort of mute for you. The moment when you realize something big. Out here, I feel it full force.

  I should have realized. But there was no way for me to realize, because if that was possible, Allocator would have done something different. I wipe at my eyes.

  “You dick,” I say, not for the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” says Allocator. “I know this may seem unlikely to you, but I do experience regret. And I’m sorry.”

  “So,” I ask, “are you going to seal off my memories of this?”

  Again, I don’t say.

  “If you wish it,” says Allocator.

  “Not really,” I say. I’m sick of memory games. “But it’s important, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” says Allocator, simply.

  It doesn’t say anything more, which suggests that I’m going to talk myself into this.

  Why do we do this? Some alarmingly large number of my past selves have sat in this exact place, then decided to
keep the cycle going—

  “Oh,” I sigh, surprising myself. “I want to give them the stars.”

  Allocator just smiles.

  “I understand.” I take a deep breath. “And I consent.”

  MOTHER TONGUES

  S. QIOUYI LU

  S. Qiouyi Lu writes, translates, and interprets between two coasts of the Pacific. Their fiction and poetry have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, and Uncanny, and their translations have appeared in Clarkesworld. They edit the flash fiction and poetry magazine Arsenika.

  “Mother Tongues” is a painful portrait of the parental sacrifices made by first-generation immigrants and of how identity and relationships are tied up with language.

  “THANK YOU VERY MUCH,” you say, concluding the oral portion of the exam. You gather your things and exit back into the brightly lit hallway. Photos line the walls: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu. The sum shines on each destination the images brimming with wonder. You pause before the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “右拐就到了,” the attendant says. You look up. His blond hair is as standardized as his Mandarin, as impeccable as his crisp shirt and tie. You’ve just proven your aptitude in English, but hearing Mandarin still puts you at ease in the way only a mother tongue does. You smile at the attendant, murmuring a brief thanks as you make your way down the hall.

  You turn right and enter a consultation room. The room is small but welcoming, potted plants adding a dash of green to the otherwise plain creams and browns of the furniture and walls. A literature rack stands to one side, brochures in all kinds of languages tucked into its pockets, creating a mosaic of sights and symbols. The section just on English boasts multiple flags, names of different varieties overlaid on the designs: U.S. English–Standard. U.K. English–Received Pronunciation. Singaporean English–Standard. Nigerian English–Standard . . . Emblazoned on every brochure is the logo of the Linguistic Grading Society of America, a round seal with a side view of a head showing the vocal tract.

  You pick up a Standard U.S. English brochure and take a seat in one of the middle chairs opposite the mahogany desk that sits before the window. The brochure provides a brief overview of the grading system; your eyes linger on the A-grade description: Speaker engages on a wide variety of topics with ease. (Phonology?) is standard; speaker has a broad vocabulary . . . You take a quick peek at the dictionary on your phone. Phonology—linguistic sound systems. You file the word away to remember later.