“You can’t do this, Emilio. Please.”
“Fritz—” he paused “—if you won’t step down, I swear, my friend, I’ll fire this shit off into your fucking head.”
Tick-tock.
“No! Dear, no!”
Fritz grabbed the uterus as hard as he could and threw himself to the back of the room. There was a sound of gunshots blasting and he felt two stabs in his back. Something heavy and metallic bounced on the floor. There were glass cutting cables and jamming gears inside his joints. Tick-tock.
He hit the ground, the impact deflating the balloons inside his chest. Oh, no. God, please no. The uterus is broken. He could feel the liquid spilled over him, flowing inside his open wounds. He embraced the vial with all the strength he had left. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He lay between the wall and the two fallen aetherfoam cylinders. He saw Chaya being shot four times in the back while trying to run to him. He saw the seeds in her eyes wither and die before she fell. Emilio and his soldiers were almost on him.
He made his decision.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
He drew his gun and fired it off at the cylinders. There was a blast and a glaring radiance like a star.
Silence.
Tick.
On occasion, a mortar. A dull machine gun talking in the distance was his only companion. Fritz climbed the stairs of an abandoned building at the heart of a deserted neighbourhood. The carbine had been turned into a crutch to keep his body straight. Each step needed more than the strength he had left in him. It was martyrdom. His body cracked, his joints creaked and he limped. His body was bent to one side, the cables that served as tendons were shattered. He could barely reach the crank in his back to wind himself up. He missed Chaya so badly. He had no clue as to what to think of Emilio.
The motolang dragged himself across the corridor to the room, his new home since the explosion back in the lab. The war was very distant now and would soon be over. He had turned from militiamen to refugee in the space of just two months, hiding as he could amongst the ruins of the revolution. It’ll have to do for now. He felt bad.
There was a rocking chair close to the window. The reactor was framed in it, and high above, he could see an aethership docking at the station. He still had no way of escaping. He had no money for the tickets and the bribes. Besides, the trip was too dangerous these days. Maybe in a few more months.
He tried to relax, rocking on the chair, the carbine over his lap. Roots and wires sprouted up from the cracks in his carcass. The place wasn’t exactly home, but he felt somewhat happy. Now there was another tick-tock inside him, a seed. In a glass vial embedded in his belly, he and Chaya shone together the way only impossible things are likely to shine.
Editor Biography
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the BSFA Award nominated novel Osama (2011), and of the steampunk Bookman Histories trilogy, comprising The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012). His other works include the linked story collection HebrewPunk (2007), novellas An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), Jesus & the Eightfold Path (2011), and Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011). He is also the author of the picture book Going to the Moon (2012). He edited the first volume of this anthology series, The Apex Book of World SF (2009) and maintains the World SF Blog at worldsf.wordpress.com, for which he was nominated for a World Fantasy Award.
Artist Biography
Born in Mexico City, cover artist Raứl Cruz first put colors to paper at a young age when television and films inspired him to create his first fantasy illustrations. At the age of twenty, Raứl began a successful and prosperous freelance career, creating science fiction and commercial artwork for books, magazines, CD booklets, posters, ads, set designs, booth designs, television concepts, and more.
Raứl uses a combination of digital and traditional techniques (particularly watercolor, acrylic, ink and airbrush) to create a signature look that defines his style. His art has been exhibited in New York City’s Stehendall Gallery, in the Mexican Chamber of Plasticity, in numerous cultural spaces and events, and in different universities. Many of his pieces have also appeared in publications like Illustrators 39, Spectrum, Heavy Metal Magazine, Fantasy +3, and Erotic Fantasy Art.
To see more of his art and designs visit www.racrufi.com.
Apex Books Presents
Copyright
THE APEX BOOK OF WORLD SF 2
Copyright @ 2012 by Lavie Tidhar
Cover Art “Santa Adela” @ Raúl Cruz
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Published by Apex Publications, LLC
PO Box 24323
Lexington, KY 40524
First Edition, Auguest 2012
“Alternate Girl’s Expatriate Life” @ Rochita Loenen-Ruiz 2010. First published in Interzone.
“Mr Goop” @ Ivor W. Hartmann 2009. First published in African Writing.
“Trees of Bone” @ Daliso Chaponda 2005. First published in Apex Digest.
“The First Peruvian in Space” @ Daniel Salvo 2005, 2011. Translated by Jose B. Adolph. English publication original to this collection. First published in Spanish as El Primer Peruano en el Espacio in Ciencia Ficción Perú.
“Eyes in the Vastness of Forever” @ Gustavo Bondoni 2010. First published in Innsmouth Free Press.
“The Tomb” @ Chen Qiufan 2004, 2011. Translated by the author. English publication original to this collection. First published in Chinese as Fen in Science Fiction World.
“The Sound of Breaking Glass” @ Joyce Chng 2010. First published in Semaphore Magazine.
“A Single Year” @ Csilla Kleinheincz 2009, 2011. Translated by the author. English publication original to this collection. First published in Hungarian in 2009 as Egyetlen esztendő in the anthology Nyulak • Sellők • Viszonyok.
“The Secret Origin of Spin-Man” @ Andrew Drilon 2009. First published in Philippine Speculative Fiction IV.
“Borrowed Time” @ Anabel Enríquez Piñeiro 2007, 2011. Translated by Daniel W. Koon. English publication original to this collection. First published in Spanish as Deuda Temporal in Nada Que Declarar.
“Branded” @ Lauren Beukes 2004. First published in SL Magazine.
“December 8th” @ Raúl Flores Iriarte 2006, 2011. Translated by Daniel W. Koon and the author. English publication original to this collection. First published in Spanish as 8 De Diciembre at juventudtecnica.cu.
“Hungry Man” @ Will Elliott 2011. Original to this collection.