January Fifteenth

by Rachel Swirsky

Genres: Action & Adventure; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Cyberpunk

Synopsis

A near-future science fiction novella by Nebula Award-winning author Rachel Swirsky, out from Tordotcom Publishing in June 2022.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: June 14, 2022

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 144

Sample

Hannah

The blizzard first touched land in Maine. It glazed lakes and lighthouses and red-shingled roofs, and billowed through naked ash trees. It chased coastal waves southward to New Hampshire and then moved inland through Concord and into upstate New York, past Saratoga Springs and Syracuse. In Canastota, the historic Erie Canal froze beside iced railroad tracks, neither taking anyone anywhere.

Hannah Klopfer felt grateful once again that she and the boys had been able to find a furnished rental inside their budget that was within easy walking distance of necessities like the post office and the grocery store. She zipped up her down jacket and tugged her hat over her ears. She patted her pockets: wallet, phone, keys. As she grabbed her scarf from the aging brass rack by the door, it made a shuddery twang against the greasy metal.

As the twanging faded, Hannah heard a distant, quiet shuffle from the back of the house. Something wooden groaned. Hannah’s mouth went dry. The ends of her scarf dropped from her hands, unwound, and fell loosely across her chest.

Her heart pounded. She hadn’t expected Abigail to find them so fast. She took a deep breath to shout upstairs for Jake and Isaiah to start piling furniture against their bedroom door.

A high-pitched giggle broke the quiet, followed by another. Hannah exhaled in relief. Thank God. It was just the boys playing.

Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding, though. Damn it. Damn it! What was she supposed to do when the boys wouldn’t listen? This wasn’t about sticking their fingers in their cereal or getting crayon on the walls. Did it really matter that it was developmentally normal for a seven-year-old to test authority if it ended up giving Abigail a way back into their lives?

God forbid, what if Abigail came with a gun? People shot their exes and their kids all the time. Hannah didn’t think Abigail would do something like that—but at one point, Hannah had believed Abigail would never hurt her, and then she’d believed Abigail would never hurt the kids, and there were only so many times she could be wrong before she realized her instincts were bullshit.

She scanned the front room. Despite being crammed awkwardly between the kitchen and the stairs, it was full of places for kids to hide among the crowded armchairs, end tables, and obsolete music systems. The landlady stored her cartoon-themed collectables on motley bookcases; the figures cast weird, elongated shadows shaped like rabbit ears and dynamite.

“Hey, Jake! Isaiah! Where are you?” Hannah called.

There was a lot of silence. Don’t shout, Hannah told herself.

There was another little giggle, followed by, “Shh!”

She told herself, Don’t cry. They don’t need to know how scared you are.

She breathed to calm herself, and then did it again. Her voice was scratchy. “Okay, dudes, for the next five minutes, I’m willing to believe you two were transported down here by aliens.” She waited a second for them to answer. “Or fell through a tunnel under the bunk bed.” She gave it one more try. “Or you’ve been sleepwalking until this very second.”

There wasn’t even a giggle this time. Jake was getting better at herding his little brother.

“Please?” Hannah’s voice broke. “Come on, Jake, we’ve talked about this. Isaiah only does things like this if his big brother does it first. Don’t you want to be a better big brother?”

No, damn it, that was shaming, not helping. Kids could be crushed so easily. They picked up on things you didn’t even know you’d dropped.

She tried again. She didn’t mean her tone to be so sharp; she really didn’t. She was just scared. “I needyou to be a better brother. You’ll get him hurt.”

That was worse.

Still, it coaxed Jake out from between a love seat and a record player, leading his brother, Isaiah, by the hand.

Resentfully, he said, “It was . . . j-just a game.” His lip wobbled; he began to cry. His emotions were so big right now, and changed so fast. “Mama, I’m sorry, Mama. Mama! I’ll be—better—I wa-want—to be good—”

He was so anxious to please. It broke her heart in pieces.

She crushed Jake into a hug, scooping Isaiah in with them. Their arms compressed her down jacket with a comforting wintery sound.

She said, “You’re good. You’re good enough. I’m sorry, Jake. You’re only seven. You shouldn’t have to worry ab—” She cut herself off before she could finish the sentence, scolding herself for almost scaring them again. There had to be another way to get them to listen than talking about nightmare scenarios. “I know it’s fun to break rules. It’s funny to trick me. But you can’t, Jake. I’m so sorry. Okay? I’ll tell you a rule tomorrow you can break. Play with your food or color on the walls or—” She gestured helplessly. “Just take care of Isaiah for me today, okay? Just be good today. Go up to your room and stay there, and you can play if you don’t make any noise, but I need you to stay there, and I need you to listen to anything I say, okay? Okay? And if someone else comes in the house, pile furniture against your door like we practiced. Okay?”

Sniffing and snuffling, Jake nodded, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Isaiah looked up at Hannah with his enormous blue eyes. “Mama, I don’t want to see Mom.”

People spent so much time trying to make sure their kids were precocious, but when you had kids with intuition like heat-seeking missiles, how were you supposed to protect them?

Hannah said, “I know, honey, I don’t want to see Abigail either.” She coughed to cover the break in her voice. “Jake, will you take your brother back upstairs? Either of you need to pee?” When neither spoke, she continued, “Good. Go straight up. Close the door, and don’t open it again until I say it’s okay. It’s important, remember? Okay . . .” she said, exhaling and trying to calm down. “Okay, okay. I’ll be back real soon.”

She watched the boys go upstairs as she wrapped the scarf around her neck. The old steps were so steep, they could almost be a ladder. Jake ran them at full speed, knees going up and down like pistons. Isaiah’s awkward little hop from step to step made Hannah ache to grab him and carry him upstairs in her arms—but he preferred his own feet, and she had to leave anyway.

Janelle

West of Canastota, New York, the storm skulked across the Finger Lakes, too grumpy to decide between rain and snow. It pushed restless and sullen waves westward across Lake Michigan before taking land again as a wintry mix that turned to slush on the Chicago streets.

Somewhere around Revere Park, one of Janelle Butler’s buzzcams started acting up. The thing was finicky about the cold. It was supposed to be top-notch, but Janelle hadn’t found any difference between brands. Top or bottom dollar, freelance reporters got screwed.

She didn’t need this. January was bad enough with the endless demands from news aggregators asking for the same, repetitive Universal Basic Income stories. It had been interesting to go around and ask the man, woman, and child on the street how they felt about UBI when the program started. Since then the aggregators had been sending her out every year to do the same old interviews and wear out the same old questions that someone else had already worn out, earlier and probably better.

She felt like a bee doing the same mindless tasks year after year, just like all the other bees. Get the honey. Do a dance. Interview someone who thinks her cats should get UBI.

Interview a violinist who uses their money to fund lessons for disadvantaged kids. Interview a new mom about the savings fund she set aside for her baby. Interview a lawyer representing a class action lawsuit against a landlord for extorting his tenant’s disbursements. Interview a senior citizen who lost his home because of problems with the transition from social security. Interview the protestors wherever they are this year. Interview the protestors protesting the other protestors wherever they are this year.

The stories weren’t all terrible. Her legitimate, non-cynical, favorite piece had been “interview an ex-con who spent her UBI on land and a trailer so she can live off the grid and make pots.” Interesting, specific, quirky. Of course, that had been the first year—and of course, none of the aggregators had ever wanted a follow-up. Still, Janelle and Dynasty had clicked, and Janelle called her up for a chat every UBI Day. So, hey, her job had been good for something at least once. And it was something to look forward to after all the boring interviews were done.

It occurred to Janelle, not for the first time, that the aggregators would probably love to run her story too, if she wedged it into the right box. Sentimental: Chicago-based twenty-eight-year-old raises fourteen-year-old sister after parents die in plane crash. Political: Former activist relies on legislation she championed to care for orphaned sibling. Socially responsible: UBI keeps Black families together.

Anyway. The upshot was that there was always work for two weeks in January, even if you didn’t have a great relationship with the major aggregators. A lot of the year was hit-or-miss. UBI stories were a pillar of her income.

So of course one of her buzzcams was broken.

On the porch of the very fancy home where she was supposed to conduct her next interview—heterosexual couple Carinna and August, married eleven years—she banged, tapped, cursed, and cajoled the cam at increasing volume. Finally, it sputtered awake like a sulky teenager, emitted a grinding screech, and lit up. She touched the pendant cross she wore around her neck in brief thanks.

The obstreperous buzzcam and its twin gave their signature cicada-like whine as she set them to record. They rose to hover over her shoulders. Both of them jittered, even the one that was theoretically in fine working order.

She put on her “Hello! I’m nice and you should open up to me about interesting things!” smile, and hoped her interviewees hadn’t heard her swearing through the door.

The White woman who answered wore a loose long-sleeved navy jumpsuit from a fancy brand. A bit of wear at the seams suggested she might only have a few $3,000 outfits instead of whole racks. Most of her jewelry managed the trick of sophistication through modesty, except for the diamond in her wedding ring which was definitely a braggart. She wore her hair skinned back into a tight bun at her nape. She had a bottle of wine in one hand, as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of entertaining. People had weird ideas about what they wanted to be found doing on camera.

“Sorry, I was reorganizing the wine rack,” said Carinna.

“Don’t worry, they probably won’t use this part,” Janelle said.

Carinna’s face fell for a moment but quickly regained its polish.

She led Janelle into the front room where the modernist leather furniture showed a few scuffs. The fireplace with the marble tile looked like it hadn’t been used very much. Her husband, August, turned out to be Black, which a cynical part of Janelle suggested was why she’d been assigned this particular interview. An open case of cigars sat on the table in front of him. Only one cigar had been taken out.

Oh, the amazing tapestry of the human subconscious. They probably didn’t realize they were telegraphing class anxiety with every detail. ...