Read Interzone 244 Jan - Feb 2013 for Free Online Page B

down.”
    Carmel turned, wounded dignity flashing in
her green eyes. “Then take it!” she said, shoving a (priceless,
Achimwene thought) copy of Lior Tirosh’s first – and only – poetry
collection, Remnants of God , into Shimshon’s hands. She
hissed, a sound Achimwene suspected was not only in the audible
range but went deeper, in the non-sound of digital communication,
for Shimshon’s face went pale and he said, “Get…out!” in a
strangled whisper as Carmel smiled at him, flashing her small,
sharp teeth.
    They left. They crossed the street and stood
outside a cheap cosmetics surgery booth, offering wrinkles erased
or tentacles grafted, next to a handwritten sign that said gone for
lunch. “Verboten?” Achimwene said. “Hagiratech?”
    “ Forbidden,” Carmel said.
“The sort of wildtech that ends up on Jettisoned, from the exodus
ships.”
    “ What you are,” he
said.
    “ Yes. I looked, myself, you
know. But it is like you said. Holes in the Conversation. Did we
learn nothing useful?”
    “ No,” he said. Then,
“Yes.”
    She smiled. “Which is it?”
    Military history , Shimshon had said.
And no one knew better than him how to classify a thing into its
genre. And – robotniks .
    “ We need to find us,”
Achimwene said, “an ex-soldier.” He smiled without humour. “Better
brush up on your Battle Yiddish,” he said.
    * *
    “ Ezekiel.”
    “ Achimwene.”
    “ I brought…vodka. And spare
parts.” He had bought them in Tel Aviv, on Allenby, at great
expense. Robotnik parts were not easy to come by.
    Ezekiel looked at him without expression.
His face was metal smooth. It never smiled. His body was mostly
metal. It was rusted. It creaked when he walked. He ignored the
proffered offerings. Turned his head. “You brought her ?” he
said. “ Here ?”
    Carmel stared at the robotnik in curiosity.
They were at the heart of the old station, a burned down ancient
bus platform open to the sky. Achimwene knew platforms continued
down below, that the robotniks – ex-soldiers, cyborged humans,
present day beggars and dealers in Crucifixation and stolen goods –
made their base down there. But there he could not go. Ezekiel met
him above-ground. A drum with fire burning, the flames reflected in
the dull metal of the robotnik’s face. “I saw your kind,” Carmel
said. “On Mars. In Tong Yun City. Begging.”
    “ And I saw your kind,” the robotnik said. “In the sands of the Sinai, in the war.
Begging. Begging for their lives, as we decapitated them and stuck
a stake through their hearts and watched them die.”
    “ Jesus Elron,
Ezekiel!”
    The robotnik ignored his exclamation. “I had
heard,” he said. “That one came. Here. Strigoi . But I did
not believe! The defence systems would have picked her up. Should
have eliminated her.”
    “ They didn’t,” Achimwene
said.
    “ Yes…”
    “ Do you know
why?”
    The robotnik stared at him. Then he gave a
short laugh and accepted the bottle of vodka. “You guess they let her through? The Others?”
    Achimwene shrugged. “It’s the only answer
that makes sense.”
    “ And you want to know
why.”
    “ Call me
curious.”
    “ I call you a fool,” the
robotnik said, without malice. “And you not even noded. She still
has an effect on you?”
    “ She has a name,”
Carmel said, acidly. Ezekiel ignored her. “You’re a collector of
old stories, aren’t you, Achimwene,” he said. “Now you came to
collect mine?”
    Achimwene just shrugged. The robotnik took a
deep slug of vodka and said, “So, nu? What do you want to
know?”
    “ Tell me about Nosferatu,”
Achimwene said.
    * *
    SHANGRI-LA VIRUS, the. Bio-weapon developed
in the GOLDEN TRIANGLE and used during the UNOFFICIAL WAR.
Transmission mechanisms included sexual intercourse (99%–100%), by
air (50%–60%), by water (30%–35%), through saliva (15%–20%) and by
touch (5%–6%). Used most memorably during the LONG CHENG ATTACK
(for which also see LAOS; RAVENZ; THE KLAN