The Razor's Edge by Seanan McGuire
He glanced at her. “Ah. My angel of mercy, I presume?”
Startlingly, she noted his soft brown eyes. Puppy dog eyes. An absurd thought, for which she chided herself. “Yes, yes, I hope to be. I am Lena.” A good beginning.
“Well, knock yourself out, Fräulein.” He went back to his book.
She took her seat, summoning patience. Outside the windows, the elms were budding out, signaling spring. Hope. A better future. “What are you reading, Mr. Becker?”
He sighed, closing the book, but kept it in his lap as though he might continue reading at any moment. “You can skip the cheery stuff. I’m just a number to you Reconciliation types. ‘Room 303’ or Maximilian the Murderous Rebel or Becker the Butcher. How about we start there?”
With an attitude like that, Lena doubted that he would sign a remorse statement today. Fortunately, she was allotted four visits with the man. Time enough to move the discussion forward.
She put her satchel on the floor. “There is no need to be sarcastic.”
“There’s plenty of need,” he objected. He put the book on the nightstand, twisting in the bed to reach it.
As he did so, Lena noted the flatness of the blanket above what would have been his right foot.
He went on. “Reconciliation. A big, phony word, don’t you think?” His eyes almost danced with merriment as he warmed to what she feared would be a tirade. “Why not just say ‘shame’ and be done with pussy-footing around?”
Now she had firmer ground on which to meet him. She was not a personage of importance but the National Reconciliation Women’s Auxiliary had trained her well. “There is a difference, Mr. Becker, between shame and remorse. Remorse acknowledges the suffering you have caused. Acknowledgment leads to compassion. Compassion leads to rehabilitation and pardon.”
“Louis L’Amour,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“The novel I’m reading. By a new author who does cowboy stories. Hell of a good writer, missy.”
Lena glanced at the narrow spine of the book. Westward the Tide. He was starting to warm to her, she felt. It would be a problem though, if he could not bring himself to make amends. They might have to take his other foot.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it would be best to read something that dealt less with guns and violence.”
Becker shook his head in bewilderment. “They send me a slip of a thing who’s afraid of guns!” He pointed a finger at her and made a sound like the report of a gun. At her expression, he frowned. “Come on, Lena, live a little.”
“How can you make a joke of what has happened—what you have done—in your life? The shootings, the bombings … the …”
“Carnage?” he suggested.
Now he was mocking her. She rose, shouldering her satchel. “You can laugh your troubles away, Mr. Becker, but things can get very much worse for you. You realize that, don’t you?”
He picked up his book again, effectively dismissing her.
“I’ll come back another day.”
“They never come back,” he murmured, opening the novel with its well-creased spine.
March 5, 1950.
“Visit number two,” the nurse snapped as Lena entered the ward.
“Oh yes, I am keeping track, thank you!” A couple nights of rest left her ready to start again with Mr. Becker.
He was reading as she approached his bed. Settling herself in the chair at his side, she began, “I have a question for you this morning.” It was best to take charge, direct the conversation toward productive topics. She felt that Mr. Becker liked a bit of mental stimulation; a challenge, even if it was from a lower echelon girl from Reconciliation.
He looked up from his book, then went back to reading. He muttered, “I didn’t think you’d be back.”
“Never give up, that’s my motto.” Lena put her satchel at her feet. “Would you like a sip of water?” She glanced at the cup on the side table.
“Got anything stronger?”
She pursed her lips, determined not to get side-tracked this time. “My question, then. You have a Talent. One of the psychic abilities we are becoming accustomed to these days. It is, in fact, precognition. Seeing the future. You told the authorities that you committed your crimes because you saw that bad things would happen if the current government stayed in power.”
“No. Not bad things.”
A flicker of hope kindled in her chest. “No?”
“Not bad things. Heinous things. Unimaginable things—” He overrode her attempt to break in. “Brutality on an industrial scale, the murder of men, women, and children, the collapse of civilized society.” He pinned her with a look both bland and unrelenting. “Little things like that.”
“But you began your rampage before the so-called brutality started. In fact, you became what you wished to prevent. Brutal.”
He put the book on the bedside table. “Not as much as what came to pass.”
“I’ll leave that point for now. But what I’m curious about is how a person, or a society, can be held to account—punished—for what it might do.”
“But it’s what you people did do.”
“Nevertheless, at the time you began your guerilla tactics, most of what you opposed hadn’t happened yet. This was, what, 1940?”
He glanced at her satchel. “It’s all documented in there, right? So you know the dates. You know how the court looked at my defense. They convicted me anyway. No reprieve from my—rather ghastly, you have to admit—sentence.”
Lena sighed. “But you felt your glimpse of the future gave you permission to act as though it had already happened.”
“I’m glad you agree with me. And if we’re done with the subject, I’ve got a question for you.” He pulled the blanket up around his armpits and settled back into his pillows. “What do you like to read?”
“Read? Oh …” She tried to think of the last book she had read. Newspapers of course, but she knew he meant books. “Well. I am so busy. I do like a short story now and then.”
He nodded. “Not much of a reader, then. For shame, Miss Reconciliation. Maybe you’d like to read this Louis L’Amour. When I’m done with it you can borrow it.” He looked over at the nurse. “But don’t come again this week. I’m scheduled for punishment again.”
“Oh! Mr. Becker.”
“They’re taking my left arm. This one’s in retaliation for a bomb nine years ago. A government official lost his left arm below the elbow. But the thing is, they’re taking my whole arm.” He looked up at her with challenge in his voice. “Is that fair?”
“Oh!” Truly, it did not seem fair.
“But it keeps me kind of even. Right foot, left arm.” He shrugged, and for a moment she thought he might say more, might see how he had brought it upon himself, might perceive how his suffering, reflecting the suffering of his victims, was just. But he maintained his sense of superiority. I did it for humanity. Whereas you people are just brutal.
“How,” Lena asked, “do they choose which atrocity to seek justice for, when you have so many maimings and deaths to account for?”
“The tribunal decides. It depends on how important the injured person was. In this case, it was a colonel.” He felt for the book on the bed stand, but it seemed an unconscious gesture, as though for a moment he had gone inward.
“Mr. Becker. I’m sure their decisions are more clearly thought out than that.”
As he looked at her, he seemed to really see her for the first time. “Do you think you could call me Max? No one ever called me Maximilian, much less Mr. Becker.”
“Yes. I think I could. Max.”
He shut his eyes then, and if he had found a moment of peace, she did not wish to intrude. She crossed the room as quietly as she could.
As she passed the nurse at her desk, the woman muttered. “Two visits left.”
But Lena did not want to answer her, nor did she.
March 9, 1950.
Max lay in bed, breathing deeply, the medications helping t
As Lena pulled the chair close to the bed, Max’s eyes fluttered open. “Lena, the Angel of … of Reconciliation.”
She wondered if this was sarcasm or if perhaps he had at last come to remorse. “I’m here, Max.”
He fell asleep again, or so she thought, but in a moment he said, his words slurring: “Could you read to me? I don’t like … to go so long without my stories.”
It was not strictly her mission, to give comfort, so she decided to redirect him to their increasingly vital topic. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“Do you mean … what they did to me … in surgery?”
“Oh, Max, no. I mean what you did when you planted the bomb that ruined the colonel’s arm.”
A whisper: “You mean when I saw my target and decided to go for him?”
“Yes, if you want to put it that way.”
He made the faintest of smiles. “Well, I had a vision. Of what the man would do a few years’ hence.”
“Your precognition.”
“Yes. When I saw him I thought, well, let’s kill the son-of-a-bitch.”
“Oh, Max!”
He smiled, and it was impossible to tell whether he had been trying to fluster her or whether he really had so little pity in his soul.
From across the room, the nurse coughed. Lena turned to see the woman frowning. If she had heard Max curse, she could report that Lena’s ministrations were not efficacious.
Lena reached down for the satchel and began to unbuckle the clasp. Perhaps she would offer the initial paper to sign. Or at least let the nurse see that she was trying.
As she leaned over to fetch the document from her briefcase, Max whispered, “Come closer.”
He grasped her wrist with his remaining hand, pulling her toward him. When they were almost nose-to-nose, he said, “Get me out of here.” She drew back in alarm, but he pulled her close again, whispering, “On Friday, they’re taking my eyes.”
Friday. Four days from now. Her time was running out.
Max locked onto her gaze with his deep brown eyes. “I don’t mind not seeing. What is there to see anymore, after all?” He jerked his head to indicate the beige ward room with only the nurse to look at, since he could not readily see out the windows behind him. “But … my books. You understand?”
She stayed hunched over the hospital bed, saying gently, “They would catch you. There are soldiers in the hallway, going about their duties. And besides, what can I do… the nurse …” But what was she saying? She obviously could not contemplate helping him escape. Maximilian Becker, of all people.
Max whispered, “A pill, my angel. There are such things. Medications that make it look like a heart attack. I need it before Friday. I know those surgeons like to stay busy, but I feel like making trouble for them.” He lay back on the pillow, closing his eyes, continuing, barely audible: “In return, here’s my gift to you; something I’ve seen. You’re going to … to leave National Reconciliation Women’s Auxiliary and when you do you’ll find a companion. I’m sorry that I can’t see whether it’s a nice young man or a loyal dog. Personally? I would choose the dog.”
Lena’s chest tightened in dismay. She knew his precognition Talent to be genuine—he had been certified—but he was also capable of lying. “But, leave Reconciliation?”
“Well, you’re no damn good at it, so you might as well.”
As an excuse to stay close to him, she straightened his blankets. “Max,” she whispered, “tell me you feel remorse. Give me something to work with. I’ll stay up all night and do the paperwork. Please.” It was one thing to take a man’s limbs. But his eyes. Obviously, they had noticed that he loved to read.
“I’ve seen my future, Lena, and it stinks. But there’s a future I prefer, the one where you bring me what I’m asking for.”
“So there are different futures. I always wondered about that.”
“Yup. A bunch. But usually one glows brighter. In your case, I don’t know whether I get the pill or not.”
From behind, the sound of the nurse snapping her pencil down on the desk. She did not like them whispering.
Lena watched him as he lay in the bed, the covers flattened over the gone foot, the gone arm. But Max Becker was still there, present in his eyes.
He tried to turn his head toward the side table, but ended up waving his one arm at it instead. “Hey, take my Louis L’Amour, would you? I finished it last night, and I think you’d like it.”
Lena walked out with the book, fearing that she had made a deal with the devil. One thing Max might be right about, though. She was no good at Reconciliation.
March 11, 1950.
The nurse looked up as Lena came in.
Lena breezed past her. “I know, last visit.” The old prune.
Max was waiting for her, sitting up in bed. He nodded at Lena and jutted his chin at the window behind him. “Those elms are sure taking their time getting going.” He shook his head. “They only have one more day to show me they’ve got some juice.”
“Juice?”
“Leaves. A future.” He glanced at her satchel, raising an eyebrow in mock conspiracy.
She took her place by his bedside, putting off for a few moments more what she had come here to do. “I started Westward the Tide. I like it.”
He slapped his wounded-leg thigh, wincing. “I knew it. Dang, girl, you got taste. They say ‘dang’ a lot in Westerns, you noticed?”
The answer never made it past her lips as she blinked back a surge of emotion. She nodded instead.
“I never even asked if you speak English,” he said. “Or, at least, read it. Glad you do.”
“There are a lot of things we’ve never talked about.” She felt a genuine regret that their time was at an end. A buttery yellow light poured through the windows, chasing regret away, but leaving something more real in its wake. It swirled just below consciousness, not quite taking form, until at last she knew what it was: remorse.
They settled in to talking about the Louis L’Amour story with their gunfighters, drifters, outspoken heroine, and a place in America called the Bighorn Mountains in a state with a lovely English name, Montana.
When she left, Max was clutching the capsule in his remaining hand.
Out in the hallway, Lena paused, steadying herself. A few deep breaths until she felt ready to move, ready to move forward with her life. Her new life, without National Reconciliation.
As she descended the staircase leading to the hospital foyer, she glanced at the red, white, and black banner that hung prominently on the wall. She was glad there was no such banner in Max’s room, though they might easily have hung one there to drive home how his efforts had all been in vain. He had not changed the outcome of the war, and the colonels and personages whom he had killed and hurt were certainly replaced by others. But by his lights he had aimed for justice, and though she could not agree, she did not wish him to suffer more.
A soldier in a smart SS uniform was coming up the stairs. He made eye contact with her. Outside of the city it was possible to avoid responding officially, but not in Berlin.
“Heil Hitler,” she dutifully said. She would have to consider her future responses when confronted by a uniformed member of the Nazi party. What did she believe any longer? It was all very confusing.
But for now, and on Max’s advice, she was already thinking about getting a dog.
Contender
Steve Perry
Death came for him in the form of a child.
“You’re Lazlo Mourn,” the child said.
Well, he wasn’t really a child, he was probably pushing twenty-five T.S., but that was more than twenty years younger than Mourn, who didn’t need this. He had things to do.
“Who?” he said.
“Yeah, you’re him,” the kid said. He wasn’t showing a weapon, and at six meters away, it would take him all day to get within range.
The kid grinned. “I don’t need to get there through you.”
The day was warm—all the days were warm here near Earth’s equator, on the island that Shaw’s money had bought. There was a smell of ripe fruit in the air—mostly bananas, some guava, maybe. The ocean lapped onto the narrow beach, only a few meters away, offering its timeless lullaby to anybody who wanted to listen.
Mourn had come to the dock to pick up a shipment of transponders for the auditorium, and next to the off-loaded cartons, all by himself, was this young man. He was medium height, fit, a light-heavyweight, dressed in tropical, loose orthoskins and dotic boots. He had strong tea-colored skin, short brown hair, brown eyes, nothing to make him stand out in a crowd.
Here, however, was no tourist come for the sea breezes and sunshine.
How could this kid have found him? That was the real problem, not what the boy wanted, which, of course, Mourn knew.
The kid kept talking: “You won the title and then you quit. Everybody says you could have sat on it for a while if you wanted. They say you were maybe the best ever. I’ve seen the only bootleg. You had something.”
Mourn shrugged. It had been a year since he’d found the final move in his martial system, the last of the 97-steps, the art he had started calling Sumito. He’d needed that last move against Shaw, who had unknowingly taught it to him. He hadn’t needed it against Weems, who had been the number-one-rated player in the Musashi Flex. Weems had been fast and strong and very skilled, but even lacking the final step, Mourn’s new skills had been enough. He took the title, something he’d wanted since he was twelve, and then he turned his back on it and quit, just like that. Because winning wasn’t the important thing any more.