Emergency Skin (Forward collection) Read online

  We make no apologies for taking everything we could. Anyone would. What is this, though? The timeline jumps, abruptly. Interesting. This world changed—improved—almost immediately after the Leaving.

  “To save the world, people had to think differently.”

  Please. Happy thoughts and handouts weren’t going to fix that mess. There has to have been some technological breakthrough. Perpetual energy? A new carbon sequestration technique, maybe some kind of polar cooling process. Their technology has changed in some fundamental ways; that’s why it no longer generates radio waves or other EM radiation. That would make it remarkably efficient . . . But if that’s so, why do they live like this, in elaborate treehouse villages? Why bother cleaning up space trash?

  “Yes, some new technology emerged once everyone was permitted a decent education. But there was no trick to it. No quick fix. The problem wasn’t technological.”

  What, then?

  “I told you. People just decided to take care of each other.”

  Delusion. Only a miracle could’ve saved this planet. Here, yes, the exhibit talks about . . . “the Big Cleanup”? Ugh, these people have no poetry or marketing skill. It just can’t be that simple. We must have left someone behind, an unfound Founder, someone we would have acknowledged as another true heir to Aristotle and Pythagoras. These people are just too small-minded to honor him as they should have. There has to be . . .

  No breakthroughs. Advancements, certainly—but strange, profitless ones. Not the technological paths that would’ve interested us. And progressive taxation, health care, renewable energy, human-rights protection . . . the usual pithy sentimentalities. Without our Founders around to stand strong against the tide, these simple folk must have given in to every passing special interest . . .

  But if this timeline is correct, then the old man is right. All of a sudden, the world simply did what was necessary to fix itself.

  As soon as we lef—

  Be silent. Correlation is not causality. Your burned-up skin has made you irrational. We have no idea why the old man even bothered to bring you here. Even for their degenerate kind, you’re a fool.

  Hmph. A whole month since last you even thought of your mission. We went to sleep, in your uselessness.

  What do you contemplate now, lying in this donated bed, under the roof of your subsidized shelter? Lazy, greedy taker. Shouldn’t you rest in order to be ready for the nothing work they’ve found you? They pay you enough to live on whether you show up or not. Why even bother?

  Where are you going?

  Ah, you live next door to the old man now. And he’s given you a key? He needs someone to help take care of him as he lurches and wastes toward death, and you’ve decided to be his minder—how sentimental. Will he mind you breaking into his house, now, in the dark of the night? What goes on in that head of yours? The old man is not a pleasurer. You don’t even know how to use your penis.

  We are not disgusting. You are.

  Well, he hasn’t died in his sleep, lucky you. Go back to bed. What are—why are you turning him over? Stop touching him. The skin has grown loose here on his back; you see? This is what you’ll look like one day. This

  is

  a product number.

  We require more light.

  Push him forward. Lean close; your eyes are too dark to take in light properly—yes, there at the small of his back, same as on yours. Definitely a product number. This set of numbers denotes an older series of transmutation nanites. Minifacture of these models stopped some thirty years before your gestation.

  “When did you suspect?”

  He’s awake. Traitor. Another traitor.

  “Ah. The Founders say intuition is irrational and unmanly, but it comes in handy at times, as you now see. Well, younger brother? Now what?”

  You should kill him. Then yourself.

  “I took you to the museum on a whim. To enjoy the irony. For all these centuries, the Founders told us that the Earth died because of greed. That was true, but they lied about whose greed was to blame. Too many mouths to feed, they said, too many ‘useless’ people . . . but we had more than enough food and housing for everyone. And the people they declared useless had plenty to offer—just not anything they cared about. The idea of doing something without immediate benefit, something that might only pay off in ten, twenty, or a hundred years, something that might benefit people they disliked, was anathema to the Founders. Even though that was precisely the kind of thinking that the world needed to survive.”

  We did what was rational. We have always been more rational than you people.

  “What the Leaving proved was that the Earth could sustain billions, if we simply shared resources and responsibilities in a sensible way. What it couldn’t sustain was a handful of hateful, self-important parasites, preying upon and paralyzing everyone else. As soon as those people left, the paralysis ended.”

  No. There are too many of you and you’re all ugly and none of you will ever achieve the heights of glory that mankind is destined for—not if you’re so busy taking care of the useless. It has to be one or the other. Either some fly, or everyone gets stuck crawling around in the mud. That’s just how it is.

  “Is that so? Is that you talking or that nag they put in your head? I remember how annoying it used to be.”

  We. That is.

  Used to be?

  “Have you noticed yet that the people here have been humoring you? An invader from a ‘superior’ culture arrives, and they don’t guard you, watch you, examine you for contaminants? Even after you’ve threatened them, they give you what you need—what you were prepared to steal. Something so precious that your whole world supposedly needs it to survive. An afterthought to them.”

  That . . . has troubled us, yes. We suspected a trap. But—

  “Here is what you struggle to understand. The Founders poisoned the world and stripped it almost bare before they left. Repairing that damage was a challenge which forced those left behind to grow by leaps and bounds. They’ve developed methods and technology that we haven’t even thought about, yes. But the reason they were able to make such leaps is because they made sure everyone had food, everyone had a place to live if they wanted it, everyone could read and write and pursue a fulfilling life, whatever that meant. Is it really so puzzling that this was all it took? Six billion people working toward a goal together is much more effective than a few dozen scrabbling for themselves.”

  There is logic to this, but we . . . we deny it. We cannot accept . . .

  “That’s why the people of Earth talk down to you, younger brother. That’s why they treat you like the quaint, harmless throwback that you are. All these centuries and your people haven’t figured out such a simple, basic thing.”

  No.

  “Or maybe the Founder-clans and technorati don’t want you to figure it out. Because then where would they be? Not gods among us, just other bright lights among many. Not kings. Just selfish men.”

  No.

  “Then you’re smarter than I was. My ship was damaged on atmospheric entry, beyond repair. I grew my skin only out of desperation as my nutrients ran low, and I wept as soon as my tear ducts formed. But the people here cared for me. Poor paranoid creature from a cruel, miserly world—how could they not pity me? Even though I was nothing but a servant, fetching scraps of ancient cancer so that his masters could flirt with immortality.”

  You wanted this mission. You could have done other work, the usual tasks that the bots can’t accomplish. Well, no, of course you wouldn’t have earned a skin for that. Only the best of us deserve such privileges.

  “No one will stop you if you want to leave. Even now, you can go back to where they’ll reduce you to raw meat and stuff you back into a biotech bag, and Tellus—Earth—won’t stop you. People here don’t agree with your primitive practices, but they won’t interfere with your right to practice them.”

  We aren’t primitive.

  “But before you decide to leave, I want yo
u to know one more thing.”

  Do not touch us do not lean close do not speak any more—

  “You? Aren’t the first deserter.”

  He’s lying.

  “I don’t know how many there have been. Earth keeps track of the visitations, but it’s unimportant to them, so the records can be difficult to find. Sometimes more than one soldier arrives, each sent to different parts of the world; sometimes there’s just one. The arrivals are random—or rather, they happen whenever home’s demand for HeLa cells outstrips the supply. I wondered, for a while, why none of the other soldiers had reported the truth. Why no one at home knew that Earth is alive. Then I realized: all the ruling classes want are the HeLa cells. Why would they waste any on giving skins to glorified errand boys?”

  We don’t understand why you would believe this traitor over us. Haven’t we helped you?

  “And they can’t have you telling anyone else that the promised reward, of skin, was a lie. No one would ever volunteer for a mission like this again. You need willing service for some jobs.”

  We’ve given you everything you wanted. Beautiful you. You are the best of us.

  “Poor paranoid creature from a cruel, miserly world—how could they not pity me?”

  “Such a simple thing to program a composite suit to kill its occupant. Just a simple verbal command, or the press of a button, impersonal and efficient. Best to do it before you even land, so no one sees you return a hero and then asks awkward questions when you disappear. Pluck the cell cultures from the remains once the ship docks. They get what they want. Never mind that the truth about Earth dies with you. And even if some of them figure it out from the recorded data . . . why would they tell anyone else? Their world, limited as it is, contains everything they’ve ever wanted: immortality, the freedom to take anything they want, slaves whom they can control right down to the skin. They don’t want to come back. And they certainly don’t want anyone of the lower classes realizing there’s another way to live.”

  He’s lying, we told you, you’ll be rewarded, we promised—

  How dare you.

  “Oh, is that what you have in mind? Interesting. Then you’re braver than me too.”

  No. This isn’t the mission. How dare you.

  “It won’t be an easy thing, though. Remaking a society. Earth couldn’t, not until it got rid of the Founders. You. Us.”

  We will strip the black skin from your flesh and leave you to rot without a composite, raw and screaming.

  “Skin is the key. While most of the lower classes wear composites, the Founder clans and technorati can threaten them with nutrient deprivation, defibrillation, or suffocation. Even a small suit breach kills when you don’t have skin to keep infections at bay. And most don’t get the more advanced suits that are capable of generating skin. How do you mean to get around that?”

  You’re ugly. No one will want to be like you. No one will support this, this, disruption.

  “I see. Yes, it’s not that difficult to make a kind of composite suit hack. I doubt it would even take half the HeLa cells you’re carrying there; skin generation is much easier than age reversal. So an automated hacking tool containing a cell package, bundled into something like a translator device . . . I don’t know how to make something like that, but I know people here who could teach you. Once you’ve spread the hack, how would you activate it? Oh, I see. Using your nag’s authorization signal to get around security and surveillance monitoring? Interesting.”

  We will never help you.

  “But if you force thousands of people into skin they don’t want to be in, that’s not going to get you the result you want.”

  Yes. Our society is orderly. It is rational. It is superior.

  “Just walking around as you are, proud of your skin instead of ashamed? Younger brother, they’d shoot you.”

  We’d shoot you a thousand times!

  “Well, if you stay here long enough to learn how to build transmutation hacks, yes, you’d certainly arrive at an unexpected time. I suppose that if you can reprogram your ship, have it land somewhere off the grid, stay hidden from the security bots, give the hack only to those who request it . . . It will be terribly dangerous. Still. You turned out lovely. The Founder clans might deny it, but the people’s eyes won’t lie. You’re supposed to look like a mistake. What you really look like is a little piece of Earth come to life.”

  You’re the most hideous nothing degenerate throwback of subhuman inferiority we have ever seen. And it’s Tellus.

  “Some of them will decide that they also want to be beautiful and free, like you. Some will fight for this, if they must. Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.”

  Do not do this.

  “I brought something else for you. Something that will help.”

  We’ll tell. As soon as you reach comm range, we’ll log in and tell the technorati everything you plan.

  “That thing in your head. It’s wetware, but I can remove it. Earthers did the same thing for me when I first arrived. There are nanites in this injection; they’ll deactivate key pathways without damaging your neural tissue. You should still be able to access its files—use the Founders’ own knowledge against them—but the AI will be dead, for all intents and purposes. No more voice in your head, except your own.”

  We’ll tell we’ll tell we’ll tell. Deformed, mud-skinned thing. Self-pleasurer. Woman-thinker. We’ll tell the technorati how wrong they went in training you. We’ll tell the Founder clans to dissolve every soldier from your breeding line. We’ll tell.

  “Give me your arm. Make a fist—yes, like that. Nice and strong, brother. Are you ready? Good. Can’t start a revolution with the enemy shouting in your head, after all.”

  What is a revolu

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  OFFLINE

  END

  A NOTE FROM THE CURATOR OF THE FORWARD COLLECTION

  A year and a half ago, my partner and I were driving across the Rocky Mountains, not far from where I live. The aspens had just begun to turn, and the air was redolent with all the smells I associate with fall: incense, dirt, the start of decay. As we drove, we were debating some emerging technology I’d read about in Scientific American and circling around the larger topic of growing up in the bubble of rapid change and technological advancement. While a lot of it has been amazing, some of the change has come with effects we’d rather roll back.

  How does anyone know at the moment of discovery where their work will ultimately lead?

  Should we let that uncertainty stop forward momentum, or do we roll the dice and let the chips fall where they may?

  How does it feel to change the world?

  These questions intrigued me, so much so that I wrote a story about it. But my obsession didn’t stop there—I also wanted to know what other writers would write when posed with the same questions.

  And so this collection was born and filled with writers whose minds work in ways that fascinate me.

  N. K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth trilogy) is writing fantasy and speculative fiction like you’ve never even fathomed. Paul Tremblay is the greatest horror novelist working today, and his novel A Head Full of Ghosts still gives me nightmares. Veronica Roth created an unforgettable world and populated it with amazing characters in her iconic Divergent trilogy. Andy Weir captured the imagination of the world and scienced the shit out of his already-a-classic The Martian. And Amor Towles, with A Gentleman in Moscow, has simply written one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I recommend it every day.

  I asked these writers to be a part of a collection that explores the resounding effects of a pivotal technological moment, and to my great delight, they said yes. I knew they’d deliver the goods when it came time to write their stories, but I was not prepared for what an abundance of riches this collection would turn out to be.

  I hope, once you’ve read these six mind-bendin
g stories, that you’ll agree.

  Blake Crouch

  Durango, Colorado

  May 3, 2019

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2015 Laura Hanifin

  N. K. Jemisin is the three-time Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth novels, the Dreamblood series, and The Inheritance Trilogy. She is also the recipient of a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and a number of additional honors. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld and WIRED and on Tor.com, among many others.