Periphery (31 page)

A lithe Black woman in a sage silk suit stands next to a grassy gully, Serena’s car on it’s side in the background. “This is the site of the accident. As you can see, Sullivan’s red 2057 Chevoyota Old Glory did flip, but no cause for the mishap has been confirmed. However, a spokesperson for the Environmental and Medical Hygiene Agency has confirmed that Sullivan, who was driving, had a blood-alcohol level more than double the legal limit. Apparently her sister, with whom she shares a Somerville apartment, is a compostable and the reason Sullivan became interested in the group of compostable terrorists and camp followers, NDY.”

The picture flashes to a stocky, white police officer. The tag line at the bottom of the screen identifies him as Jerry Westlake, Chelmsford Police. “You can understand, having a family member like that,” he nods, “could drive you to drink, sure. Sullivan was probably an alcoholic. It’s amazing she never had a DUI before today.”

The cameras return to Spooner. “Official word from EnMHAg is that Sullivan and Sjorgren were taken to Bayer General Hospital, where they are being held indefinitely under the Medical Detention Act, due to the extensive nature of their injuries. When—or whether—they’ll be released remains to be determined and will be based on their medical and mental status. However, even if EnMHAg clears either for release, other authorities will surely step in to gather information relating to NDY activities.”

“This is crazy! They’ve got everything all wrong!” I’m making for the phone. “We have to call Bayer General. I have to talk to Rena. We need to get her out of there right now!”

“Easy, honey.” Jill flicks off the phone. “We have to be careful. They know she’s with NDY.”

“But the rest of it’s insane—” I fling out my arms in desperation. “Serena, drunk driving? An alcoholic with twice the legal limit in the middle of the day? And with that guy? I don’t know who the fuck this Sjorgren is, but she’s not ‘fornicating’ with him, she’s doing it with me! They think I’m her sister!”

“Yeah,” Jill whispers, so I have to lean in to hear her. “Where do you think they got that idea? How do they know Rena’s in NDY and that she calls you ‘Sis’?”

A wave of nausea overtakes me, and I put my head in my hands, bent over. I just stay like that. “Someone’s been spying on us.”

Theoretically, I’ve always known we live in a world of lies, but I thought somehow Rena and I had spun a protective web around ourselves that cradled us in some kind of sanity—in a different reality. That we were bound together and held aloft from the pit of deadly deceit. Now, I’m falling. I don’t know where Rena is. If parts of the story are true, like her being in NDY and living with me, what about the other parts—the injuries? How bad is she hurt? And is she really in the hospital?

“There must be someone we can trust who can call the hospital, who won’t raise a red flag—”

“Shush,” Jill interrupts. “Look.” She gestures to the TV.

I gasp. Rena is talking right into the camera. After the initial shock, I recognize the clothes she’s wearing, how she looks, what she’s saying—it’s a cut from our phone conversation yesterday. She’s crying and her shirt is stained with grass and mud. The only difference is that the angle’s tilted to make it look like the car’s on its side. “Ow! Sis, I’m bleeding,” she says to me again, in this edited version of our lives. “Let’s talk—by which I mean drink heavily—when I get home.”

“But that’s—that’s parts of our phone conversation from yesterday,” I explain to Jill and Burt. “She’d only bitten her cheek. She wasn’t really hurt!”

“Well, according to Burt, that’s the clip they showed earlier, too,” Jill is alternately squeezing my hand and aggressively wiping tears off her face.

“God, Jill, our phones are definitely tapped.”

“Yeah.” She simply nods.

Serena is back on the screen. I keep hoping she’ll say something to me that is real, that is truly to me, now. This time I don’t recognize the footage. It’s badly shot and shows her rolling and kicking her legs on a grassy slope.

“When the fuck—?”

But Sandy Sanderson seems to read my thoughts. “We believe that film to have been shot by Sullivan herself, a photographer for ExxonMobilCBS/PBS, or—” Sanderson pauses, half-smiling, “I should say a former photographer, as that network has just announced their official termination of her contract. Rhianna,” Sanderson twists to the image of the field reporter behind him, “any explanation for the sequence of this footage?”

“Yes,” Spooner picks up the thread faultlessly. “If you’re referring to the fact that we see her in the car, muddy, disheveled, grass-stained, and referring to her injuries—clearly after the accident—but we also see her becoming injured on the ground?…”

“Exactly,” Sandy grins pompously.

“The answer is that she was thrown from the car and then climbed back into it to call her sister. At least, that is what the anonymous eyewitness who disclosed this footage to MerrillChaseNBCFox indicated. In the note that accompanied the chip containing the images, the eyewitness testifies that Sullivan was thrown from the car during the wreck and then, in a state of drunken confusion, crawled back in to call her sister.”

“Thank you, Rhianna. I need to cut in,” Sanderson glimmers. “We’ve just received word that Revered Edward Barns will be making a statement from his compound in Carlisle, Massachusetts, which is coincidentally, a neighboring town to the accident site. We take you there now, live.”

I’m desperate for the footage of Rena again. For them to talk about Rena, for them to show her talking to me, even if I know it’s all false. I need to feel connected to her.

Instead, Barns has taken her place: his dyed black hair slicked into place, his wife at his side holding an infant. Arrayed at their feet are their five other children, the boys in neat suits, the girls in pastel dresses. Barns places his hand over his heart and his wife blinks back tears. “This is a sad day for our family, the Barns campaign, the CFR/Green party and the leadership of this country, and for Americans everywhere—because someone we trusted and reached out to has let us down in the most heinous way.

“I’ll be honest with you, my fellow Americans: I did not know Peter Sjorgren. My aides tell me that he was a volunteer with the campaign. He worked for me, he attended my functions, but unfortunately I’ve been too busy working for God, my country, and the Earth to get to know everyone who has honored me with their loyal devotion to the Barns campaign and the values we represent.” Barns pauses to nod solemnly into the camera. “I see now what a mistake this was, in the case of Peter Sjorgren. Clearly, as a man of sin, he was unfit to represent the CFR/Green mission. An equally abominable possibility is that he was planted here by the terrorists, NDY, to sabotage our campaign. I can only express my thanks to God the Father and to Mother Nature, that no harm came to my family.” He pauses to squeeze his wife’s shoulders and pat one of the children’s heads. “As for any spying he might have attempted, I have no concerns, for we have nothing to hide here at Barns headquarters.” Some scattered applause and cheering break out, and the camera arcs to show the rest of the room, filled with members of Barns’s campaign. “Thank you, thank you,” he modestly nods to acknowledge the cheers, then turns a bright-white smile to the camera.

“As I understand it, Sjorgren and the Sullivan woman, who likely lured him into NDY activities, are now in care, under EnMHAg. My family and I bear him no ill will, and one thing I can promise you, my fellow Americans, is that we, and the whole CFR/Green party, will be praying for their souls, regardless of what happens to their sinful—and possibly now useless—bodies. Though I did not know them, I pray for them. God bless our planet’s health, and God bless America.” The crowd breaks into cheers again, then Sanderson is back. He begins recounting the story: “For those just tuning in….” The clip of Rena rolling and kicking in the grass starts playing. This time I notice her analog camera bouncing on a strap around her neck.

I gasp. I feel as if my body has turned to ice, and I start shaking. Jill turns to me. “What is it?”

“I know where that clip came from,” I wheeze, waving at the TV. “And I know who Sjorgren is.” I tell Burt and Jill the details of Rena’s gear getting stolen yesterday, of how she was filming Barns fellating a blond man at Barns’s house, of how she struggled in the grass with the unknown thief while her cameras were still filming.

“Barns couldn’t know if she had other footage or who she told, or if she’d ID’ed Sjorgren as his lover. And they were obviously onto her, anyway, being in NDY. Now they don’t have a problem anymore. Two birds with one stone.”

“It’s a hell of a stone,” Jill is still weeping silently.

“Yeah,” I say, thinking of how Rena left, telling me she loved me, and me ignoring her. Thinking of how I had been resenting her freedom, her health: her status as a non-compostable.

“Yeah,” I repeat, my throat constricted, “it’s a hell of a stone.”

*

SW:
A few years ago, I got the idea to write my first science fiction story, a humorous piece that satirized the way events, public spaces, and media were being taken over by, and named for, corporations. Specifically, the concept was conceived when my brother told me that The Boston Garden had been renamed The Fleet Center. However, in the course of writing, three changes took place: (1) As often happens in sf the spoof became truth sooner than expected (and I also learned that David Foster Wallace had already used my idea in his book,
Infinite Jest
). (2) My characters led me down a decidedly unfunny path, i.e., what will happen if legislation and public sentiment continue on their present trajectory, which justifies the killing of people with disabilities? (3) The story kept getting longer, and I realized that Fran demanded a novel. Thus, the short story in this volume is an excerpt of a larger work that I hope one day will become a novel.

Marianne de Pierres
is the author of the Parrish Plessis series:
Nylon Angel, Code Noir
and
Crash Deluxe
.
Nylon Angel
was short listed for best sfnovel in the 2004 Aurealis Awards, and
Crash Deluxe
was short listed in 2005. Her short fiction has appeared in various book anthologies and magazines. She has been an active supporter of Australian genre writing and was the co-founder of the VISION writers group, and ROR—wRiters On the Rise—a critiquing workshop for Australian professional genre writers. Her next book is
Dark Space
, released in 2007. Visit her website at mariannedepierres.com.

Gwyneth Jones
is a writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, who also writes for teenagers using the name Ann Halam. Among other honors, she’s won two World Fantasy awards, the British Science Fiction short story award, the Dracula Society’s Children of the Night award, the P.K. Dick award, and shared the first Tiptree award, in 1992, with Eleanor Arnason.
Bold As Love
, the first novel of a near future fantasy sequence, won the Arthur C. Clarke award for 2001. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and son, plus two cats called Ginger and Frank, practices yoga, has done some extreme tourism in her time, likes old movies and cooking, and enjoys playing with her websites. Email: [email protected] Websites: boldaslove.co.uk and homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann.

Kristyn Dunnion
is a macho femme with anarcho-punk tendencies. Her collection of linked stories,
The Dirt Chronicles
, published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2011, is shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Awards. Her other noteworthy novels include
Missing Matthew
, a quirky mystery for young rebels,
Mosh Pit
, a queer-punk love story, and
Big Big Sky
, a futuristic queer fantasy (all on Red Deer Press). Kristyn lives in Toronto where she gardens ferociously on her balcony. She likes loud music, outlandish footwear, and living la vida vegan. For more details on Kristyn’s published work, please visit www.kristyndunnion.com.

Lyda Morehouse
is an award-winning science fiction author who now writes best-selling romances as Tate Hallaway. Lyda tries not to be jealous of her pseudonym’s successes, but given that Tate recently hit the
New York Times
bestseller list (for, Lyda would point out, a short story included in an anthology with much bigger names editing and contributing), it’s difficult. Lyda would point out that she has won the Philip K. Dick Special Citation for Excellence for her novel Apocalypse Array, but Tate would say that’s just a fancy way of being second place. Lyda has written five novels in the AngeLINK series, including
Resurrection Code
new from Mad Norwegian Press in 2011. Tate, meanwhile has written five novels in the Garnet Lacey series, three young adult novels in the Vampire Princess of St. Paul series, and is on to a new series that begins with
Precinct 13
(forthcoming in August 2012)...so there.

When not arguing with herself, Lyda enjoys the life of a stay-at-home parent to a precocious eight-year-old. Recently, she's become a huge Anime fangrrl which you can read about in her livejournal: http://lyda222.livejournal.com/. Tate blogs at
http://www.tatehallaway.blogspot.com
and as a contributor to the Wyrdsmith’s group blog http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com. Lyda lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Tracey Shellito
has been published in six genres: crime, erotica, speculative fiction, western, supernatural mystery and poetry.

Following the search for The Crème De La Crime competition,
Personal Protection
, an erotic crime novel featuring lesbian bodyguard Randall McGonagall was published by Crème De La Crime UK. (2005). Also in print are short stories
Free
in
Locked & Loaded
published by Torquere Press (2006). She has recently ventured into e-books.
Personal Protection
, (crime)
Red Skin
an erotic lesbian cowgirl story (2007) and supernatural mystery story
The Scantlebury Demon
(2009) are the result. Also from Torquere Press the anthology
Working Girls
features her story
Steel Toed Boots & The Uptown Girl
(2009)
The Frog Princess
: or
Sweet Surrender
in
Khimairal Ink
e-zine’s October 2009 edition and
Strange Relationship
in the Torquere Press anthology
Vamps
. (2009) And her first nonfiction article in
Velvet Magazine
’s 5th anniversary edition August 2009 edition about lesbian detective fiction.
Lucifer Einstein & the Curious Case of the Carnal Contraption
in Cleis Press anthology
Carnal Machines: Steampunk Erotica
.