From Hartwell, David - Year's Best SF 11 (2006) and Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection (2006)
Hannu Rajaniemi (http://tomorrowelephant.net/) is a Finn living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is now working on his PhD thesis in string theory. His bio says 'Hannu was born in Ylivieska, Finland, in 1978 and survived the polar bears, the freezing cold and the Nokia recruiting agents long enough to graduate from the University of Oulu. After brief stints in Cambridge University and working as a research scientist for the Finnish Defense Forces, he moved to Edinburgh.' And he 'only recently switched to Queen's English as his primary medium of expression. His favorite method of writing involves starting at a blank A4 page until drops of blood form on his forehead.'
'Deus Ex Homine ' was published in Nova Scotia. An AI plague turns humans into deadly, near-omnipotent gods. Being a god is like having a disease, and it turns out that this can be sexually transmitted: fullblown godhood can appear in the child even if the parent has been cured. Jukka is an ex-god, his infection now burned away and part of his mind with it - human again, but not quite whole, a survivor of the war against the gods.
As gods go, I wasn't one of the holier-than-thou, dying-for-your-sins variety. I was a full-blown transhuman deity with a liquid metal body, an external brain, clouds of self-replicating utility fog to do my bidding and a recursively self-improving AI slaved to my volition. I could do anything I wanted. I wasn't Jesus, I was Superman: an evil Bizarro Superman.
I was damn lucky. I survived.
The quiet in Pittenweem is deeper than it should be, even for a small Fife village by the sea. The plague is bad here in the north, beyond Hadrian's Firewall, and houses hide behind utility fog haloes.
'Not like Prezzagard, is it?' Craig says, as we drive down the main street.
Apprehension, whispers the symbiote in my head. Worry. I don't blame Craig. I'm his stepdaughter's boyfriend, come calling during her first weekend leave. There's going to be trouble.
'Not really,' I tell him, anxiety bubbling in my belly.
'Beggars canna be choosers, as my granny used to say,' Craig replies. 'Here we are.'
Sue opens the door and hugs me. As always, I see Aileen in her, in the short-cropped blonde hair and freckled face.
'Hey, Jukka,' she says. 'It's good to see you.'
'You too,' I say, surprising both myself and the symbiote with my sincerity.
'Aileen called,' Sue says. 'She should be here in a few minutes.'
Behind her shoulder, I notice Malcolm looking at me. I wink at him and he giggles.
Sue sighs. 'Malcolm has been driving me crazy,' she says. 'He believes he can fly an angel now. It's great how you think you can do anything when you're six.'
'Aileen is still like that,' I say.
'I know.'
'She's coming!' shouts Malcolm suddenly. We run out to the back garden and watch her descend.
The angel is big, even bigger than I expect from the lifecasts. Its skin is transparent, flowing glass; its wings pitch-black. Its face and torso are rough-hewn, like an unfinished sculpture.
And inside its chest, trapped like an insect in amber, but smiling, is Aileen.
They come down slowly. The downdraft from the micron-sized fans in the angel's wings tears petals from Sue's chrysanthemums. It settles down onto the grass lightly. The glass flesh flows aside, and Aileen steps out.
It's the first time I've seen her since she left. The quicksuit is a halo around her: it makes her look like a knight. There is a sharper cast to her features now and she has a tan as well. Fancasts on the Q-net claim that the Deicide Corps soldiers get a DNA reworking besides the cool toys. But she is still my Aileen: dirty blonde hair, sharp cheekbones and green eyes that always seem to carry a challenge; my Aileen, the light of the sun.
I can only stare. She winks at me and goes to embrace her mother, brother and Craig. Then she comes to me and I can feel the quicksuit humming. She brushes my cheek with her lips.
'Jukka,' she says. 'What on earth are you doing here?'
'Blecch. Stop kissing,' says Malcolm.
Aileen scoops him up. 'We're not kissing,' she says. 'We're saying hello.' She smiles. 'I hear you want to meet my angel.'
Malcolm's face lights up. But Sue grabs Aileen's hand firmly. 'Food first,' she says. 'Play later.'
Aileen laughs. 'Now I know I'm home,' she says.
Aileen eats with relish. She has changed her armor for jeans and a T-shirt, and looks a lot more like the girl I remember. She catches me staring at her and squeezes my hand under the table.
'Don't worry,' she says. 'I'm real.'
I say nothing and pull my hand away.
Craig and Sue exchange looks, and the symbiote prompts me to say something.
'So I guess you guys are still determined to stay on this side of the Wall?' I oblige.
Sue nods. 'I'm not going anywhere. My father built this house, and runaway gods or not, we're staying here. Besides, that computer thing seems to be doing a good job protecting us.'
'The Fish,' I say.
She laughs. 'I've never gotten used to that. I know that it was these young lads who built it, but why did they have to call it Fish?'
I shrug.
'It's a geek joke, a recursive acronym. Fish Is Super Human. Lots of capital letters. It's not that funny, really.'
'Whatever. Well, Fish willing, we'll stay as long as we can.'
'That's good.' And stupid, I think to myself.
'It's a Scottish thing, you could say. Stubbornness,' says Craig.
'Finnish, too,' I add. 'I don't think my parents are planning to go anywhere soon.'
'See, I always knew we had something in common,' he says, although the symbiote tells me that his smile is not genuine.
'Hey,' says Aileen. 'Last time I checked, Jukka is not your daughter. And I just got back from a war.'
'So, how was the war?' asks Craig.
Challenge, says the symbiote. I feel uneasy.
Aileen smiles sadly.
'Messy,' she says.
'I had a mate in Iraq, back in the noughties,' Craig says. 'That was messy. Blood and guts. These days, it's just machines and nerds. And the machines can't even kill you. What kind of war is that?'
'I'm'not supposed to talk about it,' says Aileen.
'Craig,' says Sue. 'Not now.'
'I'm just asking,' says Craig. 'I had friends in Inverness and somebody with the plague turned it into a giant game of Tetris. Aileen's been in the war, she knows what it's like. We've been worried. I just want to know.'
'If she doesn't want to talk about it, she doesn't talk about it,' Sue says. 'She's home now. Leave her alone.'
I look at Craig. The symbiote tells me that this is a mistake. I tell it to shut up.
'She has a point,' I say. 'It's a bad war. Worse than we know. And you're right, the godplague agents can't kill. But the gods can. Recursively self-optimising AIs don't kill people. Killer cyborgs kill people.'
Craig frowns.
'So,' he says, 'how come you're not out there if you think it's so bad?'
Malcolm's gaze flickers between his sister and his stepfather. Confusion. Tears.
I put my fork down. The food has suddenly lost its taste. 'I had the plague,' I say slowly. 'I'm disqualified. I was one of the nerds.'
Aileen is standing up now and her eyes are those of a Fury.
'How dare you!' she shouts at Craig. 'You have no idea what you're talking about. No idea. You don't get it from the casts. The Fish doesn't want to show you. It's bad, really bad. You want to tell me how bad? I'll tell you.'
