The Future, Imperfect: Short Stories Read online

  To her surprise, Andy's face materialized on the screen, an agent at Softec who she hadn't talked to for months. Then he winked. Andy never winked. But Max did.

  "Hi, Kenna." It was Andy's voice, but she was almost certain it was the morph. "The weather has turned so fine, I was wondering if you'd like to meet me in Volunteer Park this afternoon."

  Kenna shrugged. "Why not? I have a couple of days off to recover from the last job."

  The Andy-face grinned. Max's grin. It was him. "Great. Half-an-hour too soon?"

  "No, that'll be fine. In front of the greenhouse?"

  "I'll be there."

  "See you. Comm off," she said absently, staring at the blank screen. Now she could warn them. The morph was taking quite a risk, contacting her like this — for all he knew, she'd betray him to the corporation for a generous sum.

  But she wouldn't betray Max, and he knew that.

  Twenty-five minutes later, she was striding up the pathway through the trees to the greenhouse. They had the corporations to thank that there was still any nature left to enjoy; they had developed the technology to clean up the water and keep the forests from dying. Just decades ago, it hadn't looked as if mankind would be able to save its environment or itself. Now the worst was averted. The corporations had saved the good life — and kept it for themselves.

  Max was even more punctual than she. Max, not Andy. Her heart constricted and her stride slowed.

  "Glad you could make it," the Max-morph said, smiling. He touched her hand, a light touch and then gone. Kenna pulled away. A pair of the ever-present corporation security officers were nearing, and she sighed in relief when they didn't stop.

  "Shall we sit by the wading pool?" she suggested. They would have more privacy there, with all the little children screaming and chasing each other around, making eavesdropping impossible.

  He nodded, and they ambled over to the pool and sat down on a vacant bench bordering on a grove of trees, a little apart from the joyous madhouse. A faint scent of chlorine was in the air, and splashes, laughter and childish screeches surrounded them. "David wants to send me to the burbs again," she murmured. "With Rhea."

  "Rhea." The morph looked at her, his eyes wide. Then he leaned back, locking his hands behind his neck beneath the braid. Kenna had the insane desire to undo it and comb her fingers through his autumn-colored hair, feel its softness across her palm. But this wasn't Max, she reminded herself. This was a morph with all the necessary data on Max to replicate him.

  "Softec is serious about this," the morph said, a smile flitting across his mouth. "Maybe we should feel honored."

  "'We?"

  "Certainly. You may still see me as property to be recovered, but I find it hard to think of myself that way."

  Kenna watched a toddler try to chase after some bigger children. She lost her balance, fell to her knees and started crying as if the world were about to end.

  "I don't think of you that way," she said.

  He looked at her, his eyes shadowed. "Are you going to do the job?"

  "I don't have any choice."

  "Right."

  "You'll have to make sure they all go underground," she said hurriedly. "Sebastian and Gabe and the rest."

  "You're not the woman I used to know."

  Kenna gave a humorless laugh. "You certainly are not the man who used to know me."

  The morph laughed with more humor than she had, looking so much like Max her stomach hurt. "No, I'm not, am I? Most of my memories are of being Max, it's the identity that feels most complete to me, but I also have memories of him through your eyes. It's enough to make a guy conceited."

  She shook her head, smiling, her mood lightening. "You always were." Then she realized what she'd said and her smile disappeared.

  The morph unlaced his fingers from behind his neck and took her cheek in his hand.

  "Kenna."

  The kiss was slow and thorough. Kenna broke away and looked down at her knees. "Would you do the same thing if you ran into Nadine?" she asked without looking up.

  "Andy never loved Nadine as much as Max loved you." His voice was serious, but she could hear the smile in it.

  She straightened her shoulders and looked at him again. "I'm not sure how much of a comfort that is." The Max-morph laughed, and to her surprise, Kenna found herself smiling. "I mean, who knows who you'll remember 'you' loved next?"

  The morph shrugged, still chuckling. She chuckled with him, feeling strangely free. He placed one hand on the back of her neck, and the fingers began gently stroking the fine hairs there. "Will you be alright, Kenna?"

  "Why shouldn't I?"

  "You could join us, you know," the Max-morph said softly.

  Kenna searched the children for the little girl who had fallen down. She was squirming out of her mother's lap and tottering towards the water. When Kenna was a child, the wading pools were all closed. It was Softec and Bioco and corporations like them who had made the water safe again. They were the good guys — at least that's what she'd always thought. "Go to the burbs? For good?"

  "It's either that or with Rhea." His normally cheery voice sounded bitter.

  She turned to him, pulling away from his hand. "But what about you? How long will you last?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You, your tech — how long? Will you break down before I have a chance to get used to you again, or after? Do I grow old next to a machine? Or do I get dumped when other memories take over?"

  The morph looked away. "I don't have an answer to that."

  Kenna got up. "I have to go. Make sure Sebastian and Gabe disappear."

  "Gabe is a burb boss, Kenna. He has responsibilities."

  "Well, there must be someone else who can take over those responsibilities," she said impatiently.

  The morph looked at her steadily. It wasn't a Max-type expression. It was herself in him.

  * * * *

  Kenna spent her days of freedom jogging around Green Lake or biking along the Burke-Gilman Trail, trying to run away from her thoughts. But they were persistent, one in particular.

  She could still change her mind.

  She pulled up next to an empty bench with a tremendous view of Lake Washington, leaned her bike against the back rung, and sat down. Two more days before she had to go back to the burbs. With Rhea.

  A group of children raced past her on their bikes, and one lost his balance and went sprawling. But instead of crying, he limped bravely back to his bike and followed his companions, his face a mask of pain, blood running down his leg from his torn knee.

  Kenna watched the lake until the reflection from the sunset behind her began to bleed into the ripples on the water. At some point, she noticed that her cheeks were wet with tears. She dried them with the back of her hand and headed for home. As soon as the door closed behind her, she started pulling off her sweaty clothes.

  "Welcome home, Kenna," the house greeted her. "You have mail."

  "Okay. I'm listening."

  "No. Physical mail."

  That was odd. She rarely got the old-fashioned kind of mail.

  "You checked to see if it was safe?" she asked the house.

  "Perfectly harmless," the house replied. "A postcard."

  Kenna opened the mail slot and pulled out a postcard from the Cascades Recreation Area.

  Dear Kenna,

  Wish you were here! It's lovely, what with the new growth forest and the meadow flowers the corporations have planted. Many plants still have a hard time surviving, though. It's too bad we won't be able to visit you on our way back south, but you can still change your mind and meet us. We plan to be at Mt. Rainier on the 20th — you know the spot.

  Love,

  Aunt Maureen

  It wasn't Aunt Maureen's handwriting. It was Max's.

  Kenna sat down in the nearest chair. She could still change her mind.

  She could give up everything, her job, her security, her house, her whole life, give it up for a memory of a meadow of purple and
yellow flowers, on her back and shielded from the world by a cascade of autumn-colored hair.

  Or she could keep all that and go to the burbs with Rhea.

  She leaned her head on the back of the chair. If she gave it all up, what would she be giving it up for? An intelligent piece of tech with a composite personality. A man who wasn't a man but shared memories with a man she had loved. A morph unit that could break down at any time.

  Certain heartbreak.

  But the alternative was remaining in her safe world, half-alive — and taking on a job with an assassin.

  She checked her wrist calendar. June 19. She had one day.

  * * * *

  Kenna hiked up the mountain trail from Sunrise, grateful to be out of the city. Her lungs were clear, but her mind was anything but.

  She came around a bend in the trail, and the colorful meadow was spread out before her like a promise. She should have come back to this spot long ago.

  He was sitting on a rock at the opposite end of the clearing. She approached slowly, steeling herself against the tightening in her chest.

  When she was about five meters away, he rose, moving with the same easy grace Max always had, and the smile on his face, the light in his eyes, they were all Max's. Right now they were more green than blue, reflecting the color of the trees.

  She stopped an arm's length away from him.

  "I wasn't sure you'd come," Max's replica said.

  "I don't blame you. I still don't know what I want here."

  He was silent a moment, a deliberation that was hers, not his. She smiled.

  "Are you taking the job?" he asked finally.

  Kenna shook her head. "Everything I own is on my back." She attempted a grin. "The freedom is a bit like morphing."

  "No one followed you?"

  "Why would anyone follow me? Besides, I'm a good agent, even without a morph unit."

  "Oh, I know that." His intense green gaze caught and locked with hers for a moment before she glanced away. "We need more agents in the movement. Will you come back to the burbs with me?"

  Kenna shrugged. "What else am I supposed to do? I've already given up my identity." She looked out over the meadow, sprinkled with yellow columbine and patches of spreading phlox. Here you could almost imagine everything was all right with the world. "You do remember, don't you."

  "Yes."

  She forced herself to look back into his eyes and smiled. "That's a start."

  END

  Exit Without Saving

  Spending credit illegally was difficult, but there were ways, if you were clever. There were always ways. Using a morph unit illegally was even more difficult, but to Mallory it was worth the risk.

  Friends like Lorraine made it possible. Lorraine was a lab technician for Softec, and she was both clever and greedy; to make a little extra on the side, she allowed Mallory to use the units during off hours. Mallory had no idea if any of the other morph agents were also clandestine customers — Lorraine could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

  "I don't understand why they don't market these things for entertainment purposes," Lorraine said as she adjusted the download cap on Mallory's head.

  "I'm testing them for that," Mallory said, grinning.

  Lorraine frowned. "It isn't a joke. Softec just lost Max to identity scramble last month. You be careful, girl."

  "I am."

  "Hope so. Another thing I don't understand is why you of all people feel the need to change shape." She looked pointedly at Mallory's bare breasts, which men had a tendency to describe as perfect.

  Mallory glanced in the mirror behind Lorraine and shrugged. She might not have anything to complain about as far as her own appearance was concerned, but that wasn't the point. As a morph, she wasn't tied down to herself, to her own identity; she could get out of it, escape to any shape she wanted, be anyone she wanted.

  "It doesn't have anything to do with that, Lorraine."

  "Yeah, I know. You're just not an easy gal to satisfy. Now lie down." Looking grim, Lorraine hooked the body Mallory would soon be leaving to the life support system.

  Some agents disliked the sensation of the actual morphing process. Mallory was not one of those. As she settled into the cushioned pallet, her stomach was churning in anticipation. On the other side of the transferal equipment was the long, dark morph unit. It looked inanimate, but it was actually a DNA matrix controlled by a neural network. With the mind upload, it would become her home for a couple of hours, and with its assembler technology she could become anything she wanted to be.

  "Ready."

  But Lorraine didn't start the download immediately, looking instead at Mallory with something other than greed in her dark eyes. "You make sure you tell me if you ever start feeling the effects of brain drain, you hear?"

  "Of course," she replied impatiently. It wouldn't happen. Her extra excursions were nothing. She'd never had a bout of dizziness, let alone the more serious symptoms like a fainting spell.

  Finally Lorraine began the transferal, and Mallory felt a sense of elation as her mind left her body. She was free.

  "Transferal complete," Lorraine said. "Begin anthropomorphing process."

  The unit began to take on human shape and sensation, and once done, Mallory adjusted the appearance of the morph to be her own twin, a double of the empty husk lying in the body case on the other bed. She would change that soon, but she had to leave the Softec complex as she had come — herself.

  The bed unit cooled the naked skin of her back, absorbing the warmth created while she morphed. She remained there for a moment, enjoying the sensation of cold against her hot skin.

  "I want you back in no more than three hours," Lorraine said. "Well before the next security audit."

  * * * *

  Somehow, things always looked more beautiful to her in a morph — even the glistening, rain-wet streets of the Softec corporate zone at night. Of course, the neural network of the unit was enhanced, hearing, sight, and memory all heightened. But it wasn't the neural network that stared at the halos of light beneath the street lamps sparkling on the rain-coated pavement of Pill Hill, marveling at the pattern of shine and shadow. It was her own mind, free of her life, of expectations, free to change and choose.

  The Softec complex was fairly close to both Elliot Bay and Broadway and a wide selection of bars and bands. Mallory chose Broadway. On the way, she ducked into an empty alley. It was already dark, but it was better to err on the side of caution. She had chosen her clothes carefully, an androgynous outfit of baggy pants with a draw string which could be let out, a wide silk tank top, loose blazer, and light rain jacket. Behind a garbage bin, she stood with her face to the wall as if she were a man about to relieve himself and loaded an image of the appearance she wanted into her processor-brain. The warmth of the morph process coursed through her veins and along her spine. She could feel her shoulders widening, her chest flattening, her clitoris transforming into a penis. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she wiped it away with the back of a hand which was now more square than before.

  After about five minutes, she left the alley again. Her hair was still the same, a shaggy shoulder-length dark gold, just in case anyone had noticed her enter the alley, but the rest of her was gloriously different.

  She had left the female morph agent who couldn't maintain a relationship behind and had become the guy who didn't need one.

  Mallory headed for the Down-And-Out, where she could always count on getting good music, and maybe more if everything played out right. She descended the stairs into a generous black and neon room full of noise and flashing light. The band was putting on an elaborate holo show, with half a dozen of each of the band members projected all over the bar. It was still too early to be full, but the illusion kept customers from noticing — it wasn't even ten and the place had people or projections at almost every table.

  She sat down at a table off to the side but still close to the front. She liked to be in the thick of things, but while
she was morphing, it didn't do to draw attention to herself. There were a few women glancing at her surreptitiously, though — it invariably happened when she morphed into a likeness of her brother Dane.

  She wondered where he was now. Not that she cared. He had abandoned them, abandoned her, chosen a life in the burbs, outside of the protective walls of the cities, an enemy of the corporations. Because of him, she had changed her name, had given up the last connection she had to their parents.

  The parents who had always loved him best.

  Mallory ordered a martini, giving them cash rather than her thumb, and watched the band and the audience, keeping an eye out for someone she might be able to spend an hour with before she had to go back to Softec. While she was trying to choose a candidate, the singer approached. Mallory smiled her most suggestive male smile and was rewarded by an armful of singing female. It was the real singer, not just a holo, and the body she was wearing sprang to life.

  They really were fools at Softec for trying to keep morph technology secret; they should be perfecting it for entertainment, not industrial espionage. She wouldn't be the only one addicted to the transformation and the sensations of another body.

  The singer continued to sing, pressing her ass into Mallory's lap, while Mallory moved her hips subtly to the music. With time and opportunity, she had often played this game to the end. Perhaps it was strange, but making love to women as a man had never led her to want to try anything with a woman when she was in her own body. The reason she wanted sex as a man was for the male sensations. But she wouldn't want to give up the female sensations permanently either — she wasn't a candidate for a sex change. What Mallory wanted was both.

  Everything.

  The singer got up, giving her a look of promise, and Mallory returned her attention to her martini and the other guests in the bar. One guest's gaze was trained on her with unusual intensity.

  It was her friend Sue.

  A fist closed around her stomach, tight. She had morphed to look like her long-lost brother, and her brother looked a hell of a lot like her. Sue was sure to notice the resemblance.