Peter Watts - Bethlehem # SS.pdf - Peter Watts - aachenac

, edited by Yves Meynard and

Robert Runté, one of a semiregular antho series put out by

Tesseracts 5 , edited by Yves Meynard and

Robert Runté, one of a semiregular antho series put out by

Tesseracts Books of Edmonton (now engulfed and incorporated

into Edge Books, of Calgary). It basically uses a failed

relationship as a vantage point on global ecological collapse,

through the eyes of a failed academic who's learned that quantum

mechanics can be used for things beyond the usual parallel worlds

and DVD players.

Denial, for instance...

Bethlehem

Peter Watts

It was her own damn fault.

No. No, that's not right. But Christ, look at this place; what did

she expect, living here?

A dried blood stain smears a meter of sidewalk, a rusty

backdrop for broken bottles and the twisted skeleton of an old ten-

speed. Everything is too big. All this jagged structure, so solid

and visible, frightens me. I focus on the stain, search for some hint

of its unseen complexity. I want to throw myself down through

familiar orders of magnitude and see

; dead erythrocytes,

molecules of ferrous haemoglobin, single atoms dancing in

inside ; dead erythrocytes,

molecules of ferrous haemoglobin, single atoms dancing in

comforting envelopes of quantum uncertainty.

But I can't. It's just a featureless brown blot, and all I can see is

that it was once part of someone like me.

She's not answering. I've been buzzing for five minutes now.

I'm the only one in sight, sole occupant of a narrow window in

time: all the victims have made for cover, and the monsters aren't

out yet. But they're coming, Darwin's agents, always ready to weed

out the unfit.

I push the buzzer again. "Jan, it's Keith." Why doesn't she

answer? Maybe she can't, maybe someone got in, maybe...

Maybe she just wants to be alone. That's what she said on the

phone, isn't it?

This showed up in

This showed up in Tesseracts 5

Bethlehem

It was her own damn fault.

familiar orders of magnitude and see inside

Bethlehem

So why am I here? It's not that I didn't believe her, exactly. It's

not even that I'm worried about her safety. It's more a matter of

So why am I here? It's not that I didn't believe her, exactly. It's

not even that I'm worried about her safety. It's more a matter of

procedure; when your best friend has been raped, you're supposed

to be supportive. That's the rule, even these days. And Janet is my

friend, by any practical definition of the term.

Glass breaks somewhere in the distance.

"Jan--"

If I leave now I can still make it back before it gets too late. The

sun doesn't go down for at least another twenty minutes. This was

a stupid idea anyway.

I turn away from the gate, and something clicks behind me. I

look back; a green light glows by the buzzer. I touch the grating,

briefly, jerking my hand back after the slightest contact. Again, for

longer this time. No shock. The gate swings inward.

Still no words from the speaker.

"Jan?" I say into the street.

After a moment, she answers. "Come on up, Keith. I

After a moment, she answers. "Come on up, Keith. I-- I'm glad

I'm glad

you came by..."

Five floors high, Janet bolts the door behind me. The wall

holds her up while I step past.

Her footsteps trail me down the hall, stiff, shuffling. In the

living room she passes without eye contact, heading for the fridge.

"Something to drink?"

"There's a choice?"

"Not much of one. No dairy products, the truck got hijacked

again. They had beer, though." Her voice is strong, vibrant even,

but she walks as though rigor mortis has already taken hold. Every

movement seems painful.

The room is dimly lit; a lamp with an orange shade in one

corner, a TV with the volume down. When she opens the fridge,

bluish light spills across the bruises on her face. One of her eyes is

swollen and pulpy.

She closes the refrigerator. Her face falls into merciful eclipse.

She straightens in stages, turns to face me, bottle in hand. I take it

without a word, careful not to touch her.

"You didn't have to come," she says. "I'm doing okay."

Peter Watts

Janet smiles through the swelling. Even that seems to hurt.

"Thanks, but I picked up some stuff coming back from the

precinct."

"Janet, I'm sorry." How else can you say it?

"It wasn't your fault. It was mine."

I should disagree. I want to disagree.

"It was," she insists, although I haven't spoken. "I should have

seen it coming. Simple scenario, predictable outcome. I should

have known."

"Christ, Jan, why are you still living out here?" It sounds like

an accusation.

She looks through the window. By now it's dark enough to see

the fires on the east side.

"I lived here before," she reminds me. "I'm not going to let the

fuckers drive me out now."

Before. I follow her gaze, see a tiny dark spot on the sidewalk

below. Families lived here once. It's April. Warm enough that

kids would be playing out there now. There are people who think

that somewhere, they still do. Somewhere at right angles to this

twisted place, some place where the probability wave broke onto a

more peaceful reality. I wish I could believe that. There would be

a little solace in the thought that in some other timeline, children

are playing just outside.

But that world, if it even exists, diverged from ours a long time

ago. Three, maybe four years...

"It happened so fast," I murmur.

"Fold catastrophe." Absently, Janet speaks to the window.

"Change isn't gradual, Keith, you keep forgetting. Things just

cruise along until they hit a breakpoint, and zap: new equilibrium.

Like falling off a cliff."

This is how she sees the world: not reality, but a trajectory in

phase space. Her senses gather the same data as mine, yet

everything she sees sounds so alien...

"What cliff?" I ask her. "What breakpoint? What's

"What cliff?" I ask her. "What breakpoint? What's breaking

breaking ?"

"What, you don't believe what they say?"

I shrug. "I just thought, if you needed anything..."

Janet smiles through the swelling. Even that seems to hurt.

Bethlehem

They say a lot of things. With perfect hindsight, they moan

about the inevitable collapse of an economy based on perpetual

They say a lot of things. With perfect hindsight, they moan

about the inevitable collapse of an economy based on perpetual

growth. Or they blame an obscenely successful computer virus, a

few lines of code that spread worldwide and turned the global

economy to static overnight. They say it isn't their fault.

"Twenty years ago they'd be blaming alligators in the sewers," I

remark.

Janet starts to speak; her voice erupts in a great wracking cough.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, winces. "Well, if

you'd prefer, there's always Channel six's interpretation," she says,

pointing to the TV.

I look at her, quizzical.

"The Second Coming. We're almost up to crucifixion plus two

thousand years."

I shake my head. "Doesn't make any less sense than most of the

stuff I've heard."

"Well."

Mutual discomfort rises around us.

"Well, then," I say at last, turning to leave. "I'll come by

tomorrow, see how you're doing

tomorrow, see how you're doing--"

She gives me a look. "Come on, boss. You know you're not

going anywhere tonight. You wouldn't even make it to Granville."

I open my mouth to protest. She pre-empts me: "There's a bus

goes by around eight every morning, one of those new retrofits

with the fullerene plating. Almost safe, if you don't mind being a

couple of hours late for work."

Jan frowns for a second, as though struck by sudden realization.

"I think I'll work at home for a few days, though," she adds. "If

that's okay."

"Don't be ridiculous. Take some time off. Relax."

"Actually, I doubt that I'll really be in the mood to relax."

"I mean

"I mean--"

She manages another smile. "I appreciate the gesture, Keith, but

sitting around just wallowing...it would drive me crazy. I want to

work. I

work. I have

have to work."

to work."

"Jan--"

"Jan

Peter Watts

"It's no big deal. I'll log on tomorrow, just for a minute or two.

Should be able to download what I need before any bugs get in,

and I'll be set for the rest of the day. Okay?"

"Okay." I'm relieved, of course. At least I've got the good grace

to be ashamed about it.

"In the meantime"

"In the meantime" -- she takes a wooden step towards the hall

she takes a wooden step towards the hall

"I'll make up the couch for you."

"Listen, don't worry about anything. Just go lie down, I'll make

supper."

"None for me. I'm not hungry."

"Well, okay." Damn. I don't know what else I'm supposed to

do. "Do you want me to call anyone? Family, or--"

"No. That's fine, Keith." There's just a hint of caution in her

voice. "Thanks anyway."

I let it lie. This is why we're so close. Not because we share the

same interests, or are bound by a common passion of scientific

discovery, or even because I sometimes give her senior authorship

on our papers. It's because we don't intrude or pry or try to figure

each other out. There's an unspoken recognition of limits, an

acceptance. There's complete trust, because we never tell each

other anything.

I 'm down in the real world when I hear her name.

It happens, occasionally. Sounds filter down from the huge

clumsy universe where other people live; I can usually avoid

hearing them. Not this time. There are too many of them, and

they're all talking about Janet.

I try to keep working. Phospholipids, neatly excised from a

single neuron, lumber like crystalline behemoths across my field

of vision. But the voices outside won't shut up, they're dragging

me up there with them. I try to block them out, cling to the

molecules that surround me, but it doesn't work. Ions recede into

membranes, membranes into whole cells, physics to chemistry to

sheer gross morphology.

The microscope still holds its image, but I'm outside of it now.

I shut off the eyephones, blink at a room crowded with machines

and the pithed circuitry of a half-dissected salamander.

"It's no big deal. I'll log on tomorrow, just for a minute or two.

Should be able to download what I need before any bugs get in,

and I'll be set for the rest of the day. Okay?"

closet-- "I'll make up the couch for you."

closet

Peter Watts - Bethlehem # SS.pdf

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