The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 31

"For your man," they said now, when they brought her a chicken, or some cheese, or a bottle of red wine. "Be sure you share it with the man with the knives."

She did not ask to look at the knives again. He never took them out when she was there. But she knew the knives came out when she was gone. He would show her when he was ready, she thought. She could look at his books, and study them, and wait.

He cried, so, in his sleep.

His lover often went for walks at night; it was not much darker to him than day, and there were fewer people about. He liked to fight the wind.

Night, and the wind. He had not heard him leave the bed, had not felt his weight s.h.i.+ft away.

Hadn't they both been happy? Hadn't they?

In his sleep, she learned his language from his dreams. She learned the words for No No, and Stop Stop. She heard him speak in tones she never heard him use by day, dry and acerbic, like powdered lime without any honey.

His lover was a swordsman, with nothing to fight now but the wind.

His lover could see nothing in the dark, and not much more by day.

Had he seen where the rocks ended and the night sky began?

Had the wind caught him, challenged him, and won?

She did not mean to spy on him. It was a hot day. She had been weeding; he'd been was.h.i.+ng clothes. He'd hung them out all over the big bushes of rosemary and thyme to dry sweetly in the sun, and he'd gone inside her thick-walled house to rest, she thought. After a while, she went herself, to get out of the heat.

She opened the door, and stopped.

Her love was sitting at her long table, the case of knives open before him.

She watched him pick up each knife in turn, hold it up to the light, and touch himself lightly with it, as if deciding which one should know him more deeply.

She watched him place the tip of one to his arm, and gently press, and watch the blood run down.

"Campione," she said from the doorway.

He spoke some words she didn't understand. He cut himself in yet another place.

"Bad?" she asked.

He answered her again in that other tongue. But at least he laid the knife aside as the words came pouring out of him, thick and fast and liquid.

"I understand," she said; "I understand."

"You don't." He looked at her. "You cannot."

"You're hurt," she said. He shrugged, and ran his thumb over the shallow cuts he'd made, as if to erase them. "No, hurt inside. You see what is not bearable to see. I know."

"I see it in my mind," he muttered. "So clear-so clear-clear and bad, I see."

She came behind him, now, and touched his arms. "Is there no medicine for your grief?"

He folded his face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hearing her living heartbeat.

"Can I cure you, Campione?"

And he said, "No."

"Can I try?" she asked.

And he said, "Try."

They brought his lover up from the sea, from the rocks under their window. He hadn't heard him fall, would never know if he had cried out in surprise, or silently let himself slip from the rocks and into the sea that surrounded them.

The man with the knives married her on midsummer's day. There were bonfires, and feasting and dancing. He got pretty drunk, and danced with everyone. Everyone seemed happy in her happiness. They jumped over the dying fire, and into their new life together.

And, carefully, he placed the feel of her warm, living flesh over the dread of what he had left, buried, for the earth to touch, on the other side of the island; what he'd left, buried, for the earth to take of what he once had; for the earth to take away the beauty that had been taken away from him by a foot that had slipped, sure as it was always sure, out into the s.p.a.ce that would divide them forever.

THE JAMMIE DODGERS AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE LEICESTER SQUARE SCREENING.

CORY DOCTOROW.

Cory Doctorow is the co-editor of the popular Boing Boing Boing Boing website (boingboing.net), a co-founder of the internet search-engine company OpenCola.com, and until recently was the outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org). In 2001, he won the John W. Campbell Award as the year's Best New Writer. His stories have appeared in website (boingboing.net), a co-founder of the internet search-engine company OpenCola.com, and until recently was the outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org). In 2001, he won the John W. Campbell Award as the year's Best New Writer. His stories have appeared in Asimov's Asimov's, Science Fiction Age Science Fiction Age, The Infinite Matrix The Infinite Matrix, On Spec On Spec, Salon, Salon, and elsewhere, and were collected in and elsewhere, and were collected in A Place So Foreign and Eight More A Place So Foreign and Eight More and and Overclocked Overclocked. His well-received first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, won the Locus Award as Best First Novel, and was followed shortly by a second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe Eastern Standard Tribe, then by Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Little Brother, Little Brother, and and Makers Makers. Doctorow's other books include The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publis.h.i.+ng Science Fiction The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publis.h.i.+ng Science Fiction, written with Karl Schroeder, a guide to Essential Blogging Essential Blogging, written with Sh.e.l.ley Powers, and, most recently, Content: Selected Essays of Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future Content: Selected Essays of Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future. His most recent book is novel For the Win For the Win.

There is a phone, there is a phone, there is a phone like no phone that was ever hatched by the feverish imaginations of the world's phone manufacturers, a phone so small and so featureful and so perfect perfect for my needs that it couldn't possibly have lasted. And it didn't. And so now I hunt the phone, and now I have for my needs that it couldn't possibly have lasted. And it didn't. And so now I hunt the phone, and now I have found the phone!

I saw it sitting in the window of the Cash Converters in the Kentish Town High Street. This little p.a.w.n-shop was once a tube-station, believe it or not, used as a bomb-shelter during the Blitz, and you can still find photos of the brave Sons and Daughters of England sleeping in ranks on the platform rolled up in blankets like subterranean grubs waiting to hatch, sheltering from Hitler's bombers as they screamed overhead. Now the top of the station is a p.a.w.n-broker's, and around the back there's a "ma.s.sage parlour" that offers discreet services for the discerning gentleman.

I am no gentleman, but I am am discerning. And what I was discerning right discerning. And what I was discerning right now now is a HTC Screenparty Mark I phone, circa 2014, running some ancient and crumbly version of Google's Android operating system and there, right is a HTC Screenparty Mark I phone, circa 2014, running some ancient and crumbly version of Google's Android operating system and there, right there there, on the back panel, is a pair of fisheye lenses: one is the camera. The other is the projector projector.

That's the business, that projector. The Screenparty I was the first-ever phone ever delivered with a little high-powered projector built into it, and the only Android phone that had one, because ten minutes after it s.h.i.+pped, Apple dusted off some old patent on putting projectors in handheld devices and used the patent to beat the Screenparty I to death. And yes, there were projectors in the iPhones that followed, but you couldn't do what I planned on doing with an iPhone, not with all the spyware and copyright rubbish that Apple's evil wizards have crammed into their pocket-sized jailers.

I had to have that Screenparty. So I squared up my shoulders and pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, and I thought, You are a respectable fellow, you are a respectable fellow. You did not eat garbage this morning. You did not sleep in an abandoned building. You did not grow up on a council estate. You are a b.l.o.o.d.y toff You are a respectable fellow, you are a respectable fellow. You did not eat garbage this morning. You did not sleep in an abandoned building. You did not grow up on a council estate. You are a b.l.o.o.d.y toff. A deep breath-fog in the cold air-and I was through the door, winking back at the CCTV that peered down at me from the ceiling, then smiling my best smile at the lad behind the counter, who looks like any kid from my estate, skinny and jug-eared with too many spots that are the color that spots go when you pick at them.

"h.e.l.lo there, my son," I said, putting on the voice that a toff would use if he wanted to sound like he was being matey and not at all superior.

The lad grinned. "You like the phone, mister? Saw you lookin' at it. Just got it in, that one."

"It's a funny little thing. I remember when they first came out. Never worked very well. But they were good fun, when they did."

The lad reached into the window-the shop was that small, he didn't even have to get off his chair-and plucked out the phone. I saw that it was absolutely cherry-mint condition, the plastic film still covering the screen. Which meant that the battery was almost certainly in good nick, too. That was good-no one made batteries for the Screenparty anymore. He handed it to me and fished behind the counter for a mains-cable, then pa.s.sed that over, too. I plugged one into the other and hit the power b.u.t.ton. The phone chimed, began to play its animation and then the projector lit up, splas.h.i.+ng its startup routine on the ceiling's grimy acoustic tiles, a montage of happy people all over the world watching movies that were being projected from their happy little phones and played against nearby walls.

I waited for it to finish booting up its ancient operating system with something like nostalgia, seeing old icons and chrome I hadn't seen since I was a boy. Then I tapped around and finally said, "You won't be wanting much for this, I suppose. A fiver?" It was worth more than five pounds, but I was betting that the lad didn't really know what what it was worth, and by starting the bidding very low, I reckoned I could keep the final price from going too high. (Well, it couldn't go it was worth, and by starting the bidding very low, I reckoned I could keep the final price from going too high. (Well, it couldn't go too too high, since all I had in my pocket was ten pounds plus some change). high, since all I had in my pocket was ten pounds plus some change).

The boy shook his head and made to put the phone away. "You're having a laugh. Something like this, worth a lot more than five quid."

I shrugged. "If that's how you feel." I sprinkled a little wave at him and turned for the door.

"Wait!" he said. "What about twenty?"

I snorted. "Son," I said. "That phone was obsolete four years ago. It's a miracle that it even works. If it breaks, no one'll be able to mend it. Can't even buy a battery for it. Five pounds is a good price for a little fun, a gizmo that you can amuse the boys with at the pub."

He took the phone out of the window. "I got all the packaging and whatnot, too. Came in from a storage locker that went into arrears, the company sold off the contents for the back-rent. Will you go ten?"

I shook my head. "Five is my offer." I had noticed something when I came into the shop, a little ace in the hole, and so now I fished it out. "Five, and a bit of information."

The boy rolled his eyes. I upped my mental estimate of him a little. p.a.w.nbrokers must get every chancer and twit in the world coming over their threshold with some baroque hustle or other.

"I'll give you the information and you can decide if you think it's worth it, how about that?"

The boy narrowed his eyes, nodded a fraction of an inch.

"That game back there, that old DSi cartridge in its box, just there?" I pointed, then quickly put my hand back down. I forgot about the new cuts there, a little run-in with some barbed wire, not the sort of thing a toff would have. The boy reached into his case and pulled it out: Star Wars Cantina Dance Off Star Wars Cantina Dance Off, he said, setting it down on the gla.s.s. The box was a little scuffed, but still presentable.

"Google it," I said. He snorted and turned around to get his phone. In one smooth motion, I dropped the Screenparty in my pocket with one hand and opened the door with the other. One step backwards took me over the threshold, and I pivoted on my back foot so I was facing forward and did a runner, lighting off up the Kentish Town High Street toward the back streets, down the ca.n.a.l embankment, and off along the towpath. As I ran, I thumbed my panic b.u.t.ton in my coat pocket and the infra-red LEDs sewn into my jacket all went to max intensity, blinding ever CCTV I pa.s.sed.

Yes, I stole the b.l.o.o.d.y phone. But that lad got the best of the deal, have no fear: Cantina Dance Off Cantina Dance Off had a secret mode that let you make Jabba get up to all kinds of disgusting s.e.xy things with slave-girl Leia, not to mention what you could get Chewbacca to do to R2D2. It was pulled off the shelves in 48 hours and is the rarest video-game ever sold. As of today, copies are changing hands for upwards of 15,000 quid. So yeah, I stole the phone. But I had a secret mode that let you make Jabba get up to all kinds of disgusting s.e.xy things with slave-girl Leia, not to mention what you could get Chewbacca to do to R2D2. It was pulled off the shelves in 48 hours and is the rarest video-game ever sold. As of today, copies are changing hands for upwards of 15,000 quid. So yeah, I stole the phone. But I could could have bought have bought Dance Off Dance Off for three pounds and flogged it for 15 grand. The lad got the best of the deal. I'm an honest thief. for three pounds and flogged it for 15 grand. The lad got the best of the deal. I'm an honest thief.

Cecil was at his edit suite when I came back to the squat, a pub in Bow that some previous owner had driven into bankruptcy and ruin, but not before covering its ancient brickwork in horrible pebble-das.h.i.+ng, covering its crazed hand-painted signs up with big laser-printed vinyl banners swirling with JPEG artifacts, and covering up the worn wooden floors with cheap linoleum. The bank-or whoever owned the derelict building-had never got round to turning off the electricity which powered the boiler that kept the damp from eating the building alive.

Cecil sat cross-legged on a banquette, scowling at his screens, hands flying over his mouse and trackball, scrubbing the video on his screens back and forth. He didn't look up when I came down the stairs, having chinned myself to the upper floor by the moulding around back of the pub, through the window with the loose board. But he did did look up when I sat the phone down in front of him, with a precise look up when I sat the phone down in front of him, with a precise click click as it touched the table before his keyboard. He looked at me, at the phone. Rubbed his eyes. Looked back at me. as it touched the table before his keyboard. He looked at me, at the phone. Rubbed his eyes. Looked back at me.

"Oh, Fingo, you shouldn't have," he said, and smiled like a million watts at me, scratching at his stubbly chin and neck with his chewed-down fingernails. He picked up the phone in his nimble hands and turned it over and over."Been ages since we had one of these. What'd you pay for it?"

I smiled. "15,000 pounds."

He nodded. "They're getting more expensive."

There's about eight of us in the Jammie Dodgers, which is what Cecil calls his gang. "About eight" because some come and go as their relations.h.i.+ps with their families wax and wane. Cecil's 17 and he isn't the oldest of us-Sal is 20, and I once heard Amir admit to 22-but Cecil's got all the ideas.

Cecil and I grew up on the same estate, in a part of east London where rows of Victorian paupers' cottages had been taken over by rich children who turned the local pubs into "hotspots" where you wouldn't find anyone over 25, where the fas.h.i.+on designers came to spy on the club-kids for next year's "street wear" line. Pubs where you could get a pint for a couple pounds turned into places that sold "real ale" for a fiver and eye-wateringly expensive Scotch over perfectly formed ice-spheres.

We weren't mates back then, not until both our families got dragged into the mandatory "safe network use" counselling sessions. He'd been downloading his obscure Keith Kennenson videos for his Great Work, whereas I'd just been looking to fill my phone up with music. We were both kids, dumb enough to do our wicked deeds without a proxy, and so we got the infamous red disconnection notice through the door, both our families were added to the blacklist of households that could not be legally connected to the net for a full year. We all got dragged down to the day-long seminars where a patronizing woman from the BPI explained how our flagrant piracy would destroy the very fabric of British society.

Between the videos where posh movie-stars and rockers explained how bad we were, and videos where the blokes that held the cameras and built the sets explained how hard they worked, Cecil and I began to pa.s.s files back and forth. He touched his phone to mine and I tapped the "allow" b.u.t.ton and got a t.i.tanic wad of video in return. I picked out a few dozen of my favorite songs to pa.s.s back, then snuck off to the bathroom to watch, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g in a headphone and turning the volume down.

It was about ten minutes' worth of video, and it was of Keith Kennenson, of course. I knew him because he'd just played a hard-fighting cop who fought the mob in a flooded coastal California town, but this was from much earlier. Much Much earlier. It had scenes of Kennenson as a ten-year-old, talking with his dad (a character actor I recognized, but couldn't place), then as a teenager, mouthing off to his teachers, then back to his dad-pretty sure that the character actor was in another role, but it was a very tight edit-then forward to the latest Kennenson cop role, and it became clear that this was all a flashback during a tense moment while Kennenson was hiding out from gangsters under a pier, his breath rasping in the wet dark. earlier. It had scenes of Kennenson as a ten-year-old, talking with his dad (a character actor I recognized, but couldn't place), then as a teenager, mouthing off to his teachers, then back to his dad-pretty sure that the character actor was in another role, but it was a very tight edit-then forward to the latest Kennenson cop role, and it became clear that this was all a flashback during a tense moment while Kennenson was hiding out from gangsters under a pier, his breath rasping in the wet dark.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" I whispered to him when I got back to my seat.

He grinned and rubbed his hands. "The Great Work," he said, p.r.o.nouncing the capital letters. "You know Keith Kennenson, yeah? Well, I'm making a movie that tells the story of all the lives he's ever played, as though it were one, long life-from the kid he played on Two Sugars, Please Two Sugars, Please to the Navy frogman in to the Navy frogman in Drums of War Drums of War to the President of the United States in to the President of the United States in Mr President, Please! Mr President, Please! to the supercop in to the supercop in Indefatigable Indefatigable-all cut together to make one incredible biopic!" He mimed a cackle and rubbed his hands together, earning us dirty looks from the BPI lady who'd been lecturing us about how poor Sir Keith Richards couldn't afford to keep up his fleet of Bentleys and Rollers if we didn't stop with our evil downloading. He ignored it. "The music you sent me looks pretty cool, too."

I felt inadequate. But I also felt like he was a certified nutter.

At the tea-break, he grabbed me by the arm and hustled me outside of the leisure centre. We hid under the climbing frame in the playground and he sparked up a gigantic spliff-"it's just something we grow in an abandoned building site, hardly gets you off," he croaked-and pa.s.sed it over. Then, as the munchies overtook him, he produced an entire packet of Jammie Dodgers-shortbread cookies with raspberry jam in the middles-from under his s.h.i.+rt, lifted from the snacks table.

"Jammie Dodgers! It's so b.l.o.o.d.y d.i.c.kensian," he said, giggling around a mouthful of cookie crumbs and fragrant smoke.

I laughed too. "We should start a gang!" I said.

And three months later, when my mum lost her benefits because she couldn't go online to renew them and couldn't get down to the Jobcentre to queue up for them, not with her legs; when his dad lost his job because he wasn't able to put in the extra hours on email that everyone else was doing, that's exactly what we did. We'd caused our families enough trouble-it was time to hit the road.

I put the new OS onto the Screenparty while I was recharging it. It was finicky work-the phone was so old that I had to update it three times before I could get it to the stage where it would even accept the latest bootleg Android flavour, the one with all the video codecs, even the patented ones. I was worried I'd end up bricking it, but I managed it. Thank Spaghetti Monster for HOWTOs!

But the battery wouldn't take the charge. Age or a manufacturing defect had turned it into a dud. That sent me on another net-trawl, looking for a recipe to convert another battery for use. Turned out that HTC had followed Nokia's lead in putting in a bunch of crypto on a little chip on the battery that it used to authenticate to the phone, to prove that it was a real, licensed battery-so I had to get a similar HTC battery and transfer the auth chip to it, which was even more finicky. It took the rest of the day, but when Cecil put one caffeine-shaky hand on my shoulder around 10PM, I was able to turn and beam at him and show him the phone in full glory. He beamed back at me and I knew I'd done right by him.