He gazed into the shadows of the room, unable to decide if he was merely an empathetic onlooker, judging the old man with compassion—or the old man himself, repeating his own long-rehearsed defense.
How close was he to crossing the line?
Maybe he had enough, now, to write from the same dark place as the old man—and in time to outdo him, making all his fanciful ambitions come true.
But only by becoming what the old man had never wanted him to be. Only by rolling the same boulder to the giddy peak of impunity, then watching it slide down into the depths of remorse, over and over again, with no hope of ever breaking free.
11.
Adam waited for the crew from the thrift store to come and collect the boxes in which he’d packed the old man’s belongings. When they’d gone, he locked up the house, and left the key in the combination safe attached to the door.
Gina had been livid when he’d talked to Ryan directly and shamed him into taking the deal: The family could have the house, but the bulk of the old man’s money would go to a hospital in San Salvador. What remained would be just enough to keep Adam viable: paying his maintenance contract, renewing his license to walk in public, and stuffing unearned stipends into the pockets of the figureheads of the shell companies whose sole reason to exist was to own him.
He strode toward the gate, wheeling a single suitcase. Away from the shelter of the old man’s tomb, he’d have no identity of his own to protect him, but he’d hardly be the first undocumented person who’d tried to make it in this country.
When the old man’s life had disintegrated, he’d found a way to turn the shards into stories that meant something to people like him. But Adam’s life was broken in a different way, and the world would take time to catch up. Maybe in twenty years, maybe in a hundred, when enough of them had joined him in the Valley, he’d have something to say that they’d be ready to hear.
Kelly Robson’s book Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach is newly out from Tor.com Publishing. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and multiple year’s best anthologies. In 2017, she was a finalist for the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her novella “Waters of Versailles” won the 2016 Aurora Award and was a finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives in Toronto with her wife, fellow SF writer A.M. Dellamonica.
WE WHO LIVE IN THE HEART
Kelly Robson
R icci slipped in and out of consciousness as we carried her to the anterior sinus and strapped her into her hammock. Her eyelids drooped but she kept forcing them wide. After we finished tucking her in, she pulled a handheld media appliance out of her pocket and called her friend Jane.
“You’re late,” Jane said. The speakers flattened her voice slightly. “Are you okay?”
Ricci was too groggy to speak. She poked her hand through the hammock’s electrostatic membrane and panned the appliance around the sinus. Eddy and Chara both waved as the lens passed over them, but Jane was only interested in one thing.
“Show me your face, Ricci. Talk to me. What’s it like in there?”
Ricci coughed, clearing her throat. “I dunno. It’s weird. I can’t really think.” Her voice slurred from the anesthetic.
I could have answered Jane, if she’d asked me. The first thing newbies notice is how strange it smells. Human olfaction is primal; scents color our perceptions even when they’re too faint to describe. Down belowground, the population crush makes it impossible to get away from human funk. Out here, it’s the opposite, with no scents our brains recognize. That’s why most of us fill our habs with stinky things—pheromone misters, scented fabrics, ablative aromatic gels.
Eventually, Ricci would get around to customizing the scentscape in her big new hab, but right then she was too busy trying to stay awake. Apparently she’d promised Jane she’d check in as soon as she arrived, and not just a quick ping. She was definitely hurting but the call was duty.
“There’s people. They’re taking care of me.” Ricci gazed blearily at our orang. “I was carried in by a porter bot. It’s orange and furry. Long arms.”
“I don’t care about the bot. Tell me about you.”
“I’m fine, but my ears aren’t working right. It’s too noisy.”
We live with a constant circulatory thrum, gassy gurgles and fizzes, whumps, snaps, pops, and booms. Sound waves pulse through every surface, a deep hum you feel in your bones.
Jane took a deep breath, let it out with a whoosh. “Okay. Go to sleep. Call me when you wake up, okay?”
Ricci’s head lolled back, then she jerked herself awake.
“You should have come with me.”
Jane laughed. “I can’t leave my clients. And anyway, I’d be bored.”
Ricci squeezed her eyes shut, blinked a few times, then forced them wide.
“No you wouldn’t. There’s seven other people here, and they’re all nuts. You’d already be trying to fix them.”
Vula snorted and stalked out of the sinus, her long black braids slapping her back. The rest of us just smiled and shook our heads. You can’t hold people responsible for what they say when they’re half-unconscious. And anyway, it’s true—we’re not your standard moles. We don’t want to be.
Only a mole would think we’d be bored out here. We have to take care of every necessity of life personally—nobody’s going to do it for us. Tapping water is one example. Equipment testing and maintenance is another. Someone has to manage the hygiene and maintenance
