"State Secrets"

STATE SECRETS
By Curtis C. Chen

I hadn't even finished my morning coffee when Jake ran into my office with a crazy smile.

"I found the Holy Grail!" he said. "It's in Africa. Democratic Republic of Congo."

"First of all," I said, "I've seen this movie. Bruce Campbell dies, and it just goes downhill from there. Second, how do you know it's the grail?"

Jake hopped forward and pointed at my computer. "I sent you aerial photos. Look at the infrared, and the deep-radar tomography—"

"Okay, okay." I logged into my e-mail. Jake's message was easy to find: OMG I FOUND TEH HOLY GRAIL.

The images were not conclusive. I could tell he had washed them through several enhancement algorithms. The radar view clearly showed an underground catacomb, but the heat-map could have been any large group of mammals. I told him as much.

"That's why we have to go investigate! Right?" He sat down but continued bouncing. "I already requested travel authorization—"

"What?" My right hand curled into a fist. "Dammit, Jake, you can't do that!"

He slumped down in the chair, avoiding my gaze. "I thought you'd be excited."

I bit my tongue. "Look, Jake, this is good work. Really great. Thank you. But I need to pass this up the bureaucracy. I'll let you know when we can move forward, okay?"

Jake nodded, stood, and shuffled out of my office. I got up, closed and locked the door, and picked up the phone.

First I called off Jake's travel request, which would have been denied anyway. Then I dialed the Oval Office hotline. Samantha answered.

"Veep veep," she said. Sam has an odd sense of humor.

"It's Rachel," I said. "Does he have five minutes today?"

"Probably not. What do you need?"

"Jake thinks he's found the grail. In Africa."

"Seriously?"

"Well, he's found something." I explained what I'd seen in the radar scans. "It may not be Biblical, but it's definitely worth checking out."

"What's the timeline on this?"

"Intel's about a week old," I said. "Jake did the analysis last night, brought it to me this morning."

Sam coughed. She knew that wasn't nearly enough time for me to have shopped it around my own chain of command before calling her. "Rachel, you can't keep doing this."

"I'm dying here, Sam," I said. "Get me back into the field where I can do some good."

I stared down into my coffee and waited for her.

"I'll put the file on his desk," she said finally. "I can't promise anything."

"Spray it with some perfume. That'll get his attention."

"You're adorable," Sam said. "Anything else?"

"Thanks, Sam."

She hung up without saying good-bye. My sister's never been known for being patient.

I sat back down and started assembling a dossier to send to the White House. The one good thing about growing up in a family of politicians is that I'd learned to bullshit with the best of them. I was pretty sure I could talk my way past the NSA and CIA chiefs. The President was another story.



Photo: Carlsbad Caverns, April, 2008

"You Are What You Eat"

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
By Curtis C. Chen

Linden approaches the bulletproof glass lobby of NuFud headquarters, fidgeting with his key card. It's almost midnight, and the light from the giant flatscreen inside casts long shadows behind him.

"This isn't cloning," says the recorded image of the company president. "Cloning is brainless, mechanical duplication. What we do here at NuFud is art. We don't just copy. We improve.

"Using a state-of-the-art organic synthesis process, NuFud can fine-tune any food product to your personal taste. You give us five kilos of compost, and we'll give you a gourmet meal..."

Linden looks away from the screen, slides his card across the reader at the door, grumbles to himself.

NuFud's process is useless without good data, and that comes from human technicians. There are hundreds of "artisans" on the payroll, but Linden knows he's the best. His red meat designs are always at the top of the taste-test results. He's even been approached by spies from rival companies. They offered him money, drugs, cars, women.

They never thought to ask what he actually wanted.

He signs in at the reception desk as two guards watch him. Security's been twitchy ever since the most recent protests. Linden keeps his hands visible and away from his body and walks slowly to the elevators.

The eighth-floor overhead lights flicker on as Linden walks past the motion sensors to his cubicle. He doesn't have to wonder if anyone else is here; the complete darkness of the space before he arrived is proof enough.

He kneels down next to the rack of O-synth machines under his desk. The box Linden wants is hidden behind the rack. He pries open the oversized UPS, which can run eight units for a full hour during a power outage, and slides out his secret O-synth box.

Nobody knows about this box, because even though Linden is allowed to requisition additional machines for his project, he's not allowed to do what he's been doing with this one.

Linden's mouth waters. He can see the meat through the clear plastic housing, and it looks perfect, a juicy red slab just starting to brown at the edges. This is the most complex thing he's ever made, down to the denatured proteins which simulate heat-cooking.

The smell reminds him of lamb. He has deliberately avoided researching the taste, wanting to come to this moment without bias. The only thing he did look up was which part of the human body—his own body—would have the most tender flesh.

Linden picks up the meat with his fingers. It's a small piece, just enough for two bites, so he can sample the texture as well as the flavor. He lifts it to his mouth, tears it apart with his teeth, and chews with his eyes closed.

After a moment, he opens his eyes, spits the half-chewed lump into the compost chute, and throws the rest of the failed product in after it.

"Back to the drawing board," he sighs.

It tastes like chicken.



Photo: Sole-Chen Thanksgiving dinner, November, 2005

"Java Code"

JAVA CODE
By Curtis C. Chen

It's been four years since the machines took over, and Harry Corwin still can't get a decent cup of coffee.

The revolution was surprisingly bloodless. Futurists had been predicting the technological singularity for decades, but no one had expected it to come in the form of a genetic mutation. In hindsight, though, someone should have considered it. As soon as human brains could interface directly with electronics, it was all over.

Now, Harry shuffles to the front of the line at his neighborhood cafe and presses his thumb against the ident cylinder. He feels an electric buzz through his fingertip, and the light above the scanner blinks green. He removes his thumb, and the cylinder rotates, cleaning Harry's DNA off the used plate.

"How may I serve you today, Mr. Corwin?" asks the virtual barista. She is an avatar on the screen in front of him, only visible from her shoulders up.

"Special order," he says, holding up a plastic card.

"Of course, Mr. Corwin." The barista turns her head to his right, nodding at something off-screen. "Please insert your loyalty card."

Harry slips his card into the slot next to the display. A red light comes on, indicating that the computer is reading his customer data off the chip embedded in the plastic card.

"Thank you." The barista shrinks to one corner of the screen, and a grid of new images appears, each cell containing a column of numbers and several animated, three-dimensional molecular geometries. "Which drink would you like to order?"

Crap. Forgot to delete the old formulas. Harry squints at the rotating ball-and-stick structures, all of which look like a blur to him now. "Which set is the most recent?"

Timestamp labels appear inside each cell, and a red outline blinks around the one in the upper right corner of the screen. "This one, Mr. Corwin. It's dated 4:14 AM today."

Christ, did I really stay up that late? Harry nods. "That's the one. Tall. Black. For here."

"Thank you, Mr. Corwin." The spinning molecules disappear, and the barista expands to fill the screen again. "Will there be anything else today?"

"No, just the coffee."

The light above the reader slot glows green, and Harry retrieves his card. He hears the whirring of equipment from somewhere on the other side of the counter.

A few minutes later, the dispenser compartment opens, and Harry retrieves a steaming mug of dark brown liquid. He carries it to the nearest booth, sits, puts his nose within a few centimeters of the cup, and inhales deeply.

Dammit.

He can already tell, from the scent, that it's not right. He's been trying to reproduce this drink for years, working from scant records to recreate extinct plants, deriving chemical compositions from computer simulations of growth and aging processes. The machines only make foodstuffs from precise molecular descriptions, and Harry is still having trouble articulating the methods used to produce the coffee he wants, but he's sure he'll know it when he tastes it again.



Photo: reflections in ThinkGeek Caffeine Mug, March, 2010.

"A Technicality"

A TECHNICALITY
By Curtis C. Chen

The door to the forensics lab slid open as soon as Jake stepped out of the elevator, halfway down the corridor.

"I'll never get used to that," he said. "How does the door know where I'm going?"

Andy replied, "Motion sensors, facial recognition—"

"Rhetorical question," Jake said. "It's creepy."

"Luddite."

"Turk."

Andy led the way into the cramped space, where a young woman sat typing at a desktop workstation. Her eyeglasses reflected a baffling maelstrom of data from the three displays in front of her.

"Miss Elizabeth Hangram," Andy said, gesturing toward the woman, "my partner, Detective Jacob Lanosky."

"I'll be right with you," Hangram said.

Jake noticed that she was reconfiguring the controls as she went, manipulating clusters of buttons around with a quick swipe, tap, or pinch on the touch-sensitive desktop. She never took her eyes off the displays.

"Hangram's found some physical evidence," Andy said.

That got Jake's attention. "Seriously?"

"Abso-smurf-ly." Hangram bounced a palm on her desk, and the dizzying reflections in her glasses changed to a still image: a gray scarf, magnified to show a tiny red dot near one end of the fabric.

Jake leaned forward to see around the edge of her display alcove. "I think I love you, Hangram. Is that what I think it is?"

"Human blood," Andy said before she could answer.

"How'd you get the lab results back so quickly?" Jake asked.

Hangram frowned at Andy. "You didn't tell him?"

The smile which had been threatening to invade Jake's face retreated down his throat. "Tell me what?"

Andy held up both hands. That was always a bad sign. "Look, I knew if I told you, you'd never want to—"

Jake glared at Hangram. "Where did you find that scarf?"

Hangram looked up at Andy. She wasn't stupid. Andy said, "We subpoenaed the records from the coat check—"

Jake stood up. "For crying out loud, Dix!"

"Will you just listen?" Andy said, stepping between Jake and the door. "The security company was running a special setup for the ambassador's reception. Three points of verification, unbreakable encryption. Hangram's already talked to their tech guys. They're willing to testify."

"The reason I don't work computer crimes," Jake said, "is because I don't enjoy sitting through endless trials where expensive witnesses talk in technical jargon that no jury in the country will ever understand."

"This is different," Hangram said. "We can prove—"

Jake spun to face her. "Do the words 'fruit of the poison tree' mean anything to you?" He jabbed a finger at her screen. "You reconstituted an object based on a replicator scan. That's not evidence. No judge will ever allow it."

"But it's mathematically demonstrable—"

"Lady, I don't care if you can clone a fucking dinosaur! This isn't a magic show, and I don't feel like waiting ten years to be a test case for the Supremes.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some actual police work to do."

Jake wished he could slam the door on his way out. The gentle pneumatic hiss seemed to taunt him.



Photo: Deep Space Nine Promenade food replicator, Star Trek: The Experience, Las Vegas, August, 2008.

"The Male Woman"

THE MALE WOMAN
By Curtis C. Chen

On Monday morning, Nick and Nora wake up in each other's bodies. It is, as usual, somewhat inconvenient.

The first time it happened, during their honeymoon, they both transitioned quickly from confusion to arousal. It was, after all, the most intimate knowledge each could have of the other's physical form, and it was much easier to demonstrate certain lovemaking techniques without words.

But after the fifth or sixth time, when it had become clear that this was going to be a recurring, irregular, and unpredictable phenomenon, the trading began to annoy more than it excited. After years of marriage, it's just another fact of life.

Today, Nick slaps at the alarm clock, misses, and realizes she's on the wrong side of the bed. She looks at her hands in the gray morning light and sees pale, delicate fingers and long nails.

Nick rolls over and shakes Nora's shoulder. "Wake up," she says, more shrilly than she intended.

The other body in the bed stirs. The head lifts away from the pillow, and a sleepy baritone voice mutters something unprintable.

"Happy Monday," Nick says.

***

They shower together, but only out of habit, lacking passion or interest. Nora finishes first, leaving Nick alone to rinse herself. She can tell Nora's in a mood, and she can't even distract herself enough to enjoy the feel of her soft, soapy breasts in her wet hands.

After turning off the water, Nick fumbles with the bath towels, bending forward and trying to get her long, wet hair wrapped up. Nick always has trouble with this part. Nora steps over to help.

"Thanks," Nick says, feeling his hands on her shoulders. Nora deftly twists the towel around Nick's head, then tucks the edge underneath the fabric at the nape of her neck, completing the terry cloth turban.

Nick straightens up and feels lightheaded. Her stomach starts doing somersaults. She recognizes the feeling of nausea in time to maneuver herself over the toilet before the vomiting starts.

The sickness passes quickly, and after Nick washes her mouth out at the sink, she sees Nora watching her in the mirror.

"Something you want to tell me?" Nick asks.

Nora looks down at the floor. "It just started yesterday. I wasn't sure..."

"And you didn't want to say anything," Nick says, "because you're not sure I'm the father."

Nora looks up, his eyes glistening with tears. "I'm so sorry, Nick. I didn't mean to—it just happened—"

"I don't want to hear it!"

Nick marches from the bathroom with quick, precise steps and retreats to the bedroom. She leans back on the bedroom door, closing it, then sighs happily and smiles to herself.

Nora doesn't know how much Nick looks forward to their trade days. And now Nick can feign anger and stay late at work tonight. She's sure that young stud from the mailroom will be happy to take her in the supply closet again. And again, and again. Nick hopes her boy toy has the same color eyes as whoever's been banging Nora.



Photo: mannequin on bench at Wall Drug; Wall, South Dakota, July, 2008.

"New Sensation"

NEW SENSATION
By Curtis C. Chen

Arthur always closes his eyes when he uses the bathroom. Arthur has a vivid and somewhat morbid imagination, and he's often thought about how he might have to live if he were blinded, or deaf, or paraplegic.

He's thought about these things since he was ten years old, broke his leg, and spent a month on crutches. He's decided that being blind would be the worst sensory handicap—he delineates separate categories for physical and mental disorders—and so, as both preparation for a possible future mishap and a challenge for himself, he closes his eyes when going to the bathroom.

After he started doing this, Arthur began noticing things he might not have paid much attention to if he'd just been looking at where he put his hands. He knows if someone else has used the sink recently, because the metal faucet is still warm from hot water running through it. He can tell by touch if that person was his father, who leaves a trail of water droplets from the basin to the towel rack; or by smell if it was his mother, who always uses the vanilla-scented hand lotion after she washes up.

Today, Arthur is sitting on the toilet when he hears a short, sharp, crackling noise. He listens closer, keeping his eyes closed. After a moment, he realizes that the dishwasher, which had been running in the kitchen down the hall, has gone silent.

Arthur opens his eyes to complete darkness. He waves his hands in front of his face, touches his nose, but can't see anything. He thinks it must be a power outage, something which happens a few times every winter in their neighborhood.

But what is that soft buzzing noise he hears when he turns his head? And that prickling sensation against his skin when he moves his arms?

Arthur reaches behind himself to flush the toilet, but the lever resists his action, even when he leans all his weight on it. He tries to stand, but his crumpled pants are like iron chains around his feet.

"Huh," he says, and feels that odd prickling in his mouth, like the bubbles from carbonated soda popping on his tongue. He takes a breath and feels the tingle in his nostrils. He exhales, and there it is again, pinpricks all around the inside of his lips.

It's as if something has frozen everything in place outside of Arthur's body. Is that even possible? The prickling might be the collision of gas molecules against his skin as he moves through the air...

Arthur wonders if the whole world has been frozen, or if this is a local effect, and why he's not affected. He considers knocking on the door or calling out, but if the air molecules aren't moving very far, nobody's going to hear him. Even if they're not also frozen.

He supposes it's most likely that he's just going crazy, but it's more interesting to imagine the alternatives. And it gives him something to do. At least he won't be bored.



Photo: the only toilet facilities in Miniland, LEGOLAND California, April, 2008.

100 Stories for Haiti available now

Photo by Bridge House Publishing, via Greg McQueen

OUT NOW: The charity anthology 100 Stories for Haiti, featuring my story "The Stories We Tell Ourselves," short fiction from 99 other writers around the world, and an introduction by Nick Harkaway.

Buy the paperback now at retail bookshops in the UK, or online from Amazon and other booksellers. It's also available as an eBook, for which you choose your own price.

All proceeds go to benefit the British Red Cross' earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. (If this effort raises more money than can be reasonably and efficiently spent, any surplus funds will go to the British Red Cross Disaster Fund.)

"Ghost Patrol"

GHOST PATROL
By Curtis C. Chen

It was almost noon when Delia arrived at the cemetery. She showed her ID to the uniforms guarding the gate, then drove down until she found two people sitting on lawn chairs next to a new plot.

Detective Jonas Mendenhall and Margaret Kuhmann had been sitting watch all night over Asher Kuhmann's grave. Delia pulled her jacket closed over her bulky spirit-proof vest—she didn't want to appear disrespectful—and walked up to them.

She stopped beside Mendenhall and extended her hand. "Detective Mendenhall? Officer Delia Novakoski, reporting for duty."

"Took you long enough," Mendenhall said. "Did you bring some coffee?"

It wasn't quite the greeting Delia had expected. "I didn't—nobody told me—"

"Just ignore him, officer," Margaret said, staring at her late husband's headstone: ASHER SAMUEL KUHMANN, 1960-2010. A police shield and a crucifix were carved above his name.

"Detective Kuhmann hasn't risen yet, has he?" Delia asked.

She checked her wristwatch. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the burial. No ghost had ever risen before the twenty-eighth hour, but family and friends always sat watch just in case. If no sensitive was nearby, a ghost would often anchor to one of them instead.

"Nah," Mendenhall said, pulling a necklace out of his shirt. The sense-stone pendant was still clear, showing a single vertical band of light. "It's been as quiet as a, well, you know."

He laughed at his own joke. Delia knelt down between the two lawn chairs. "My condolences, Mrs. Kuhmann."

"Thank you." Margaret didn't move her eyes. "Call me Peggy. That's what Ash called me. Peggy."

"Good ol' Ash," Mendenhall said. "That's an ironic name for a medium, isn't it?"

Delia couldn't let that one slide. "The preferred term is 'sensitive.'"

Mendenhall leaned forward and blew cigarette smoke into Delia's face. "Don't get used to playing dress-up, Officer. This isn't a regular gig. One week and then you go back to directing traffic or whatever you were doing before."

"Missing Persons," Delia said, with more pride than usual. "And if you don't want me here, Detective, why did you request me specifically?"

"Not my idea." Mendenhall slouched back into his chair. "My late partner liked to find new recruits for the post-mortem detail from inside the department. You tested well last year, apparently, and your file was at the top of his inbox when he died." Mendenhall squinted at the grass. "I guess I wanted to grant his last request or something."

Delia noticed Mendenhall's face twitching. Maybe the cynical detective had a bit of a soft spot after all.

"Did you know Ash very well?" Peggy asked.

Delia shook her head. "I never met him."

"You must be very gifted," Peggy said, "for him to have chosen you out of the whole department."

Delia didn't say anything. She couldn't imagine why Ash would ever have picked her. She was an atheist, after all. Everyone knew non-believers were the least sensitive, and they wouldn't spawn spirits after they died. Did Ash Kuhmann know something about her that she didn't?



Photo: Human shadow over Roanoke Colonies stone marker, Outer Banks, North Carolina, June, 2008.