Read Interzone #244 Jan - Feb 2013 for Free Online

“What?”
    They were walking the streets of old Central Station. The space port rose above them, immense and inscrutable. Carmel said, “When I came in. Came down.” She shook her head in frustration and a solitary dreadlock snaked around her mouth, making her blow on it to move it away. “When I came to Earth.”
    Those few words evoked in Achimwene a nameless longing. So much to infer, so much suggested, to a man who had never left his home town. Carmel said, “I bought a new identity in Tong Yun, before I came. The best you could. From a Conch – ”
    Looking at him to see if he understood. Achimwene did. A Conch was a human who had been ensconced, welded into a permanent pod-cum-exoskeleton. He was only part human, had become part digital by extension. It was not unsimilar, in some ways, to the eunuchs of old Earth. Achimwene said, “I see?” Carmel said, “It worked. When I passed through Central Station security I was allowed through, with no problems. The…the digitals did not pick up on my…nature. The fake ident was accepted.”
    “So?”
    Carmel sighed, and a loose dreadlock tickled Achimwene’s neck, sending a warmth rushing through him. “So is that likely?” she said. She stopped walking, then, when Achimwene stopped also, she started pacing. A floating lantern bobbed beside them for a few moments then, as though sensing their intensity, drifted away, leaving them in shadow. “There are no strigoi on Earth,” Carmel said.
    “How do we know for sure?” Achimwene said.
    “It’s one of those things. Everyone knows it.”
    Achimwene shrugged. “But you’re here,” he pointed out.
    Carmel waved her finger; stuck it in his face. “And how likely is that?” she yelled, startling him. “I believed it worked, because I wanted to believe it. But surely they know! I am not human, Achi! My body is riddled with nodal filaments, exabytes of data, hostile protocols! You want to tell me they didn’t know ?”
    Achimwene shook his head. Reached for her, but she pulled away from him. “What are you saying?” he said.
    “They let me through.” Her voice was matter of fact.
    “Why?” Achimwene said. “Why would they do that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Achimwene chewed his lip. Intuition made a leap in his mind, neurons singing to neurons. “You think it is because of those children,” he said.
    Carmel stopped pacing. He saw how pale her face was, how delicate. “Yes,” she said.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Then you must ask a digital,” he said. “You must ask an Other.”
    She glared at him. “Why would they talk to me?” she said.
    Achimwene didn’t have an answer. “We can proceed the way we agreed,” he said, a little lamely. “We’ll get the answers. Sooner or later, we’ll figure it out, Carmel.”
    “How?” she said.
    He pulled her to him. She did not resist. The words from an old book rose into Achimwene’s mind, and with them the entire scene. “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said.
    * *
    And so on a sweltering hot day Achimwene and the strigoi left Central Station, on foot, and shortly thereafter crossed the invisible barrier that separated the old neighbourhood from the city of Tel Aviv proper. Achimwene walked slowly; an electronic cigarette dangled from his lips, another vintage affectation, and the fedora hat he wore shaded him from the sun even as his sweat drenched into the brim of the hat. Beside him Carmel was cool in a light blue dress. They came to Allenby Street and followed it towards the Carmel Market – “It’s like my name,” Carmel said, wonderingly.
    “It is an old name,” Achimwene said. But his attention was elsewhere.
    “Where are we going?” Carmel said. Achimwene smiled, white teeth around the metal cigarette. “Every detective,” he said, “needs an informant.”
    Picture, then, Allenby. Not the way it was, but the way it is. Surprisingly little has changed. It was a long, dirty street, with dark shops selling