The Best of Nancy Kress

  “This last is the air flight stuff you wanted: No flights on major commercial airlines out of the country for Caroline in the last six years, except when the City Ballet did its three international tours, and then Caroline flew pretty much with everybody else in the group. Of course if she did go to Rio or Copenhagen or Berlin, she could have gone by chartered plane or private jet. My guess is private jet. Those aren’t required to file passenger lists.”

  It wasn’t what I’d hoped to find. Or rather, it was half of what I’d hoped. No dancer is injured that seldom. It just doesn’t happen. I pictured Caroline Olson’s amazing extension, her breathtaking leaps; she reached almost the height expected of male superstars. And her crippled horror of a mother had huge amounts of money. “Caroline had a good run.”

  I would bet my few remaining dollars that Caroline Olson was bioenhanced, no matter what her bioscans said. Jennifer Lang’s had been negative, too. Apparently the DNA hackers were staying one step ahead of the DNA security checkers. Although it was odd that the records didn’t show a single dancer trying to get away with bioenhancement, not even once, even in the face of Privitera’s fervency. There are always some people who value their own career advancement over the received faith.

  But I had assumed that Caroline would have needed to leave the country. Bioenhancement labs are large, full of sensitive and costly and nonportable equipment, and dozens of technicians. Not easy to hide. Police investigators had traced both Jennifer Lang and Nicole Heyer to Danish labs. I didn’t think one could exist illegally in New York.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  The Robin Hood watched me keenly. In the morning light from the window he looked no older than Deborah. He had thick brown hair, nice shoulders. I wondered if he had a life outside his lab. So many of them didn’t.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Susan—”

  “What?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re after with this data. But I’ve worked with friends of Michael’s before. If you’re thinking about trying to leverage anything to do with human bioenhancement…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t.” He looked intently at his console. “That’s out of both our leagues. Magazine reporters are very small against the kind of high-stakes shit those guys are into.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said. And then, on impulse, “Would you by any chance like a home-cooked meal? I have a daughter about your age, seventeen, she’s a dancer…”

  He stared at me in disbelief. He shook his head. “You’re a client, Susan. And anyway, I’m twenty-six. And I’m married.” He shook his head again. “And if you don’t know enough not to ask a Robin Hood to dinner, you really don’t know enough to mess around with bioenhancement. That stuff’s life or death.”

  Life or death. Enough for a bioenhancement corporation to murder two dancers?

  But I rejected that idea. It was always too easy to label the corporations the automatic bad guys. That was the stuff of cheap holovids. Most corporate types I knew just tried to keep ahead of the IRS.

  I said, “Most life-and-death stuff originates at home.”

  I could feel him shaking his head as I left, but I didn’t turn around.

  5.

  Caroline and I ride in a taxi. It is late at night. We ride across the park. Then we ride more. Caroline says words to a gate. A man opens the door to a very big house. He smells surprised. He wears pajamas. “Miss Caroline!”

  “Hello, Seacomb. Is my mother in?”

  “She’s asleep, of course. If there’s an emergency—”

  “No emergency. But my apartment pipes sprung a leak and I’ll be spending the night here. This is my dog, Angel. Angel, Seacomb is safe.”

  “Of course, Miss,” Seacomb says. He smells very unhappy. “It’s just—”

  “Just that you have orders not to let me use this house?”

  “No, Miss,” the man says. “My orders are to let you use the house as you choose. Only—”

  “Of course they are,” Caroline says. “My mother wants me to grovel back here. She’s been panting for that. Well, here I am. Only she’s taken a sleeping pill and is out cold until morning, right?”

  “Yes, Miss,” the man says. He smells very unhappy. There are no cats or dogs in this place, but there are mice. The mice droppings smell interesting.

  “I’ll sleep in the downstairs study. And, oh, Seacomb, I’m expecting guests. Please disable the electric gate. They’ll use the back entrance, and I’ll let them in myself. You needn’t take any trouble about it.”

  “It’s no trouble to—”

  “I said I’ll let them in myself.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Seacomb says. He smells very very unhappy.

  He leaves. Caroline and I go down stairs. Caroline drinks. She gives me water. I smell a mouse in a cupboard. My ears raise. There are interesting things here.

  “Well, Angel, here we are at my mother’s house. Do you remember your mother, boy?”

  “No,” I say. I am confused. The words are a little hard.

  “There are some people coming for a party. Some dancers. Kristine Meyers is coming. You remember Kristine Meyers?”

  “Yes,” I say. Kristine Meyers dances with Caroline. They run in circles and jump high. Caroline jumps higher.

  “We’re going to talk about dancing, Angel. This is a prettier house than mine to talk about dancing. This is a good house for a party, which is what we’re going to have. My mother lets me use her house for parties. Remember that, boy.”

  Later Caroline opens the door. Some people stand there. We go into the basement. Kristine Meyers is there. She smells frightened. Some men are with her. They carry papers. They talk a long time.

  “Here, Angel, have a pretzel,” a man says. “It’s a party.”

  Some people dance to a radio. Kristine smells angry and confused. Her fur stands up. Caroline says words to her. The words are hard. The words are long. I have a pretzel. Nobody touches Caroline.

  We are there all night. Kristine cries.

  “Her boyfriend is gone,” Caroline says to me.

  In early morning we go home. We go in a taxi. Somebody is sick in the taxi yesterday. It smells bad. Caroline sleeps. I sleep. Caroline does not go to class.

  In the afternoon we go to Lincoln Center. Kristine is there. She sleeps on a couch in the lounge. Caroline dances with Dmitri.

  John Cole bends close to my ear. “You went out with Caroline all last night.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Where did you go?”

  “We go to Caroline’s mother’s house. We go to a party. Caroline’s mother lets Caroline use her house for parties.”

  “Who was at this party?”

  “Dancers. Kristine is at the party. Kristine is safe.”

  John looks at Kristine. She still sleeps on the couch.

  “Who else was at the party? What did they do?”

  I remember hard. “Dancers are at the party. We eat pretzels. We talk about dancing. People dance to the radio. Nobody touches Caroline. There is music.”

  John’s body relaxes. “Good,” he says. “Okay.”

  “I like pretzels,” I say. But John does not give me a pretzel today.

  Caroline and I walk in the park. There are many good smells. Caroline sits under a tree. The long fur on her head falls down. She pats my head. She gives me a cookie.

  “It’s easy for you, isn’t it, Angel?” Caroline says.

  I say, “The words are hard.”

  “You like being a dog? A bioenhanced servant dog?”

  “The words are hard.”

  “Are you happy, Angel?”

  “I am happy. I love Caroline.”

  She pats my head again. The sun is warm. The smells are good. I close my eyes.

  “I love to dance,” Caroline says. “And I hate that I love it.”

  I open my eyes. Caroline smells unhappy.

  “Goddamn it, I love it anyway. I do. Even though it wasn’t my
choice. You didn’t choose what you are, either, did you, Angel? They goddamn made you what they needed you to be. Yet you love it. And for you there’s no account due.”

  The words are too hard. I put my nose into Caroline’s front legs. She puts her front legs around me. She holds me tight.

  “It’s not fair,” Caroline whispers into my fur.

  Caroline does not hold me yesterday. She holds me today. I am happy. But Caroline smells unhappy.

  Where is my happy if Caroline smells unhappy?

  I do not understand.

  6.

  Deborah didn’t get cast in Nutcracker. An SAB teacher told her she might want to consider auditioning for one of the regional companies rather than City Ballet—a death sentence, from her point of view. She told me this quietly, without histrionics, sitting cross-legged on the floor sewing ribbons onto a pair of toe shoes. Not wanting to say the wrong thing, I said nothing, contenting myself with touching her hair, coiled at the nape of her neck into the ballerina bun. Two days later she told me she was dropping out of high school.

  “I need the time to dance,” she said. “You just don’t understand, Mom.”

  The worst thing I could do was let her make me into the enemy. “I do understand, honey. But there will be lots of time to dance after you finish school. And if you don’t—”

  “Finishing is a year away! I can’t afford the time. I have to take more classes, work harder, get asked into the company. This year. I’m sorry, Mom, but I just can’t waste my time on all that useless junk in school.”

  I locked my hands firmly on my lap. “Well, let’s look at this reasonably. Suppose after all you do get asked to join the company—”

  “I will be asked! I’ll work so hard they’ll have to ask me!”

  “All right. Then you dance with them until, say, you’re thirty-five. At thirty-five you have over half your life left. You saw what happened to Carla Cameri and Maura Jones.” Carla’s hip had disintegrated; Maura’s Achilles tendon had forced her into retirement at thirty-two. Both of them worked in a clothing store, for pitifully small salaries. Dancers didn’t get pensions unless they’d been with the same company for ten years, a rarity in the volatile world of artistic directors with absolute power, who often fired dancers because they were remaking a company into a different “look.”

  I pressed my point. “What will you do at thirty or thirty-five with your body debilitated and without even a high school education?”

  “I’ll teach. I’ll coach. I’ll go back to school. Oh, Mom, how do I know? That’s decades away! I have to think about what I need to do for my career now!”

  No mother love is luminous enough to make a sixteen-year-old see herself at thirty-five.

  I said, “No, Deborah. You can’t quit school. I’d have to sign for you, and I won’t.”

  “Daddy already did.”

  We looked at each other. It was too late; she’d already made me into the enemy. Because she needed one.

  She said, in a sudden burst of passion, “You don’t understand! You never felt about your job the way I feel about ballet! You never loved anything enough to give up everything else for it!” She rushed to her room and slammed the door. I put my head in my hands.

  After a while, I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Never loved anything enough to give up everything else for it.

  Right.

  Pers wasn’t available to yell at. I phoned six times. I left messages on E-mail, even though I had no idea whether he had a terminal. I made the trip out of the protected zone to his apartment. The area was worse than I remembered: glass, broken machinery, shit, drug paraphernalia. The cab driver was clearly eager to leave, but I made him wait while I questioned a kid who came out of Pers’s building. The boy, about eight, had a long pus-encrusted cut down one cheek.

  “Do you know when Pers Anders usually comes home? He lives in 2C.”

  The kid stared at me, expressionless. The cab driver leaned out and said, “One more minute and I’m leaving, lady.”

  I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and held it close to me. “When does Pers Anders usually come home?”

  “He moved.”

  “Moved?”

  “Left his stuff. He say he go someplace better than this shithole. I hear him say it. Don’t you try to prong me, lady. You give me that money.”

  “Do you know the address?”

  He greeted this with the scorn it deserved. I gave him the money.

  Deborah left school and started spending all day and much of the night at Lincoln Center. Finally I walked over to SAB and caught her just before a partnering class. She had twisted a bright scarf around her waist, over her leotard, and her sweaty hair curled in tendrils where it had escaped her bun.

  “Deborah, why didn’t you tell me your father had moved?”

  She looked wary, wiping her face with a towel to gain time. “I didn’t think you’d care. You hate him.”

  “As long as you still visit him, I need to know where he is.”

  She considered this. Finally she gave me the address. It was a good one, in the new luxury condos where the old main library had been.

  “How can Pers afford that?”

  “He didn’t say. Maybe he’s got a job. Mom, I have class.”

  “Pers is allergic to jobs.”

  “Mom, Mr. Privitera is teaching this class himself!”

  I didn’t stay to watch class. On the way out, I passed Privitera, humming to himself on his way to elate or cast down his temple virgins.

  The police had released no new information on the ballerina murders.

  I turned in the article on the New York City Ballet. It seemed to me neither good nor bad; everything important about the subject didn’t fit the magazine’s focus. There weren’t too many metaphors. Michael read it without comment. I worked on an article about computerized gambling, and another about holographic TV. I voted in the Presidential election. I bought Christmas presents.

  But every free minute, all autumn and early winter, I spent at the magazine library terminals, reading about human bioenhancement, trying to guess what Caroline Olson was having done to herself. What might someday lie in Deborah’s future, if she were as big a fool then as she was being now.

  “Don’t get obsessed,” Michael had said.

  The literature was hard to interpret. I wasn’t trained in biology, and as far as I could see, the cutting-edge research was chaotic, with various discoveries being reported one month, contradicted the next. All the experiments were carried out in other countries, which meant they were reported in other languages, and I didn’t know how far to trust the biases of the translators. Most of them seemed to be other scientists in the same field. This whole field seemed to me like a canoe rushing toward the falls: nobody in charge, both oars gone, control impossible.

  I read about splendid, “revolutionary” advances in biological nanotechnology that always seemed under development, or not quite practical yet, or hotly disputed by people practicing other kinds of revolutionary advances. I read about gene-splicing retroviruses and setting them loose in human organs to accomplish potentially wonderful things. Elimination of disease. Perfect metabolic functioning. Immortality. The studies were always concerned with one small, esoteric facet of scientific work, but the “Conclusions” sections were often grandiose, speculating wildly.

  I even picked up hints of experimental work on altering genetic makeup in vitro, instead of trying to reshape adult bodies. Some scientists seemed to think this might actually be easier to accomplish. But nowhere in the world was it legal to experiment on an embryo not destined for abortion, an embryo that would go on to become a human being stuck with the results of arbitrary and untested messing around with his basic cellular blueprints. Babies were not tinker toys—or dogs. The Copenhagen Accord, signed twenty-seven years by most technologically civilized countries, had seen to that. The articles on genetic modification in vitro were carefully speculative.

  But then so was nearl
y everything else I read. The proof was walking around in inaccessible foreign hospitals, or living anonymously in inaccessible foreign cities—the anonymity of the experimental subjects seemed to be a given, which also made me wonder how many of them were experimental casualties. And if so, of what kind.

  Michael wasn’t going to want any article built on this tentative speculation. Lawsuits would loom. But I was beyond caring what Michael wanted.

  I learned that the Fifth International Conference on Human Bioenhancement was going to be held in Paris in late April. After paying the Robin Hood, I had no money left for a trip to Paris. Michael would have to pay for it. I would have to give him a reason.

  One night in January I did a stupid thing. I went alone to Lincoln Center and waited by the stage door of the New York State Theater. Caroline Olson came out at 11:30, dressed in jeans and parka, accompanied only by a huge black Doberman on the most nominal of leashes. They walked south on Broadway, to an all-night restaurant. I sat myself at the next table.

  For the last few months, her reviews had not been good. “A puzzling and disappointing degeneration,” said The New Yorker. “Technical sloppiness not associated with either Olson or Privitera,” said Dance Magazine. “This girl is in trouble, and Anton Privitera had better find out what kind of trouble and move to correct it,” said the Times On-Line.

  Caroline ate abstractly, feeding bits to the dog, oblivious to the frowns of a fastidious waiter who was undoubtedly an out-of-work actor. Up close, the illusion of power and beauty I remembered from Coppelia evaporated. She looked like just another mildly pretty, self-absorbed, overly thin young woman. Except for the dog, the waiter/actor didn’t give her a second glance.

  “We go now?” the dog said.

  I choked on my sandwich. Caroline glanced at me absently. “Soon, Angel.”

  She went on eating. I left, waited for her, and followed her home. She and the dog lived on Central Park South, a luxury building where the late-night electronic surveillance system greeted them both by name.