The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

A kind of roar is spreading all through the crowd.

“You won’t pay taxes. You won’t let us into your houses. We save and plan and invest and insure and in the end that still is NOT enough. What you should do is love us. It’s too late for love, now. Now is the time for money. What you are going to do now is give us your wallets.”

Some fat guy in a baseball cap is shouting. An exo arm is raised. The suit is like a metal cage around some ancient old dear, and you can see that she’s blinking and confused. I realize all the CCTV is on, and it’s edited out later. That’s entertainment.

The gun goes off. The fat man ducks and yelps, but his hat has already spun off his head. Those suits can aim to within a fraction of a millimetre.

“That’s one move he won’t pull again in a hurry,” says announcer John. He chuckles, like it’s a wrestling match. This stuff, you react to it like a movie. It performs the same function.

All along the rows, a gentle sideways motion begins towards the suits, like a rippling river. It all looks so gentle and calm. On the field police cars pull up and rub noses like it’s a BBQ on a bank by a river on a summer’s day.

The announcers can only tell us what we can see for ourselves. But you know, it becomes more real when they say it. “John, it looks like the police on the field are conferring with both the team heads and stadium security managers.”

“It’s a real problem for them, Marie. How can they apprehend the VAO without injuring any of the fans?”

The great burbling voice begins again. “What do you think of, when you see us? Do you think getting old is something we did to ourselves? Do you think it won’t happen to you? Do you think you won’t get ugly, sick, and weak? Do you think health foods, gyms, and surgery are going to stop that? We’re going to go now. But just remember. Your kids are watching you. And learning. What you do to us, your kids will do to you.”

The crowd is kind of silent, no motion, just a kind of hush, as if the sea had decided to be still. The siren goes round and round, but you have the feeling no one’s listening. The suits march the old guys inside them back down from the stands towards the rescue platform.

The weirdest thing: some kid in a foilsuit helps one of the VAOs up. And I realise that they understand. They’re halfway there, all these people in this stadium, with their soyaburgers and beer and team shirts. They’re halfway there to being on our side.

You got to them Jazza.

And the platform snores itself awake and coughs and whirs, and sort of tilts a bit getting up, like all of us old stereotypes. But once it’s steady, it soars straight up.

And Jazza stands. Just stands still. The program has given him nothing to do, but’s also like he’s finished. He looks up to the sky, like he always does now, up at nothing. He stands like a king on the prow of his ship praying to heaven, and sails away.

And oh god I’m leaking again. Mandy can’t look at me. Her mouth does a bitter little twist and she says. “Silhouette was Jazza…”

Gus says, “What?”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to explain or talk or do anything at all, but I can’t sit still either. I feel sick. I feel messed up. I feel angry. I stand up and lurch out of there. Gus calls after me. “Hey, Brewst, what is this? Brewst?”

I’m walking and I don’t know where or why. I walk into the Solarium and walk into the gym, and walk into the garden, and I go to the library but that only has books, and in the end, there’s only one place to go.

I go back to Jazza’s room. The Kid is still there, like he said he would be. “Scram,” I tell him.

I really look at Jazza. I think that maybe he was going back to Maryland for one last time. Maybe he was going to climb a tree and just stay there.

I’m thinking how we lose everything. Everything we were, everything we made ourselves into. If you were strong that goes, if you were smart that goes, if you were cool that goes.

Jazza’s face is brown and blue like a map. He’s sitting up but his head has dropped backwards, so he’s staring up at the ceiling with his mouth pulled open. His blue eyes go straight through me to nowhere, like he’s looking for an answer but forgot the question.

And that’s when I finally say to myself. He’s gone. Jazza leaked away a long, long time ago. There’s been nothing left of Jazza for months. So I let him go.

I’m not too clear about the whole show after that.

Armament comes back and tries to sound like they’re going to be tough on my ass. Secret Squirrel keeps asking the same questions over and over. The message is: if we find you had anything to do with this, we’ll still get you.

The Armament looks at me. “We know about your hacks. That’ll have to stop.”

Curtis stands there watching, and he starts to squirm a bit and look in my direction.

“Given that you cooperated, we may take a tolerant view of that. But only if you continue to cooperate, only if the attacks stop.”