Entanglements Read online

  Entanglements

  In 2011 MIT Technology Review produced an anthology of science fiction short stories, TRSF. Over the next years Technology Review produced three more volumes, renamed Twelve Tomorrows. Beginning in 2018, the MIT Press will publish an annual volume of Twelve Tomorrows in partnership with Technology Review.

  TRSF, 2011

  TR Twelve Tomorrows 2013, edited by Stephen Cass

  TR Twelve Tomorrows 2014, edited by Bruce Sterling

  TR Twelve Tomorrows 2016, edited by Bruce Sterling

  Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Roush, 2018

  Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends, edited by Sheila Williams, 2020

  Entanglements

  Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends

  Sheila Williams, editor

  The MIT Press

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  London, England

  © 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book was set in Dante MT Pro and PF DIN pro by The MIT Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Williams, Sheila, 1956- editor.

  Title: Entanglements : tomorrow’s lovers, families, and friends /

  Sheila Williams, editor.

  Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2020] | Series:

  Twelve tomorrows | Summary: “Anthology of original science fiction short

  stories, published in conjunction with the MIT Technology Review”--

  Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019051424 | ISBN 9780262539258 (paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction, American.

  Classification: LCC PS648.S3 T83 2020 | DDC 813/.0876208--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051424

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  d_r1

  Contents

   Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Sheila Williams

  1 Invisible People

  Nancy Kress

  2 Profile: Nancy Kress

  Lisa Yaszek

  3 Echo the Echo

  Rich Larson

  4 Sparklybits

  Nick Wolven

  5 A Little Wisdom

  Mary Robinette Kowal

  6 Your Boyfriend Experience

  James Patrick Kelly

  7 Mediation

  Cadwell Turnbull

  8 The Nation of the Sick

  Sam J. Miller

  9 Don’t Mind Me

  Suzanne Palmer

  10 The Monogamy Hormone

  Annalee Newitz

  11 The Monk of Lingyin Temple

  Xia Jia (translated by Ken Liu)

   Artwork: Tatiana Plakhova

  Contributors

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude is due to Gideon Lichfield, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, and Susan Buckley, associate acquisitions editor at the MIT Press for shepherding the Twelve Tomorrows series and for their guidance. I am especially grateful to Susan, my editor throughout the process of creating Entanglements: Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families, and Friends. This book would not exist without her valuable input. Thanks are also due to Noah J. Springer, assistant acquisitions editor, for his help and persistence; Kathleen A. Caruso, senior editor, for her meticulous copyediting; and everyone else at the MIT Press who helped bring this anthology to fruition.

  I am grateful to every author who contributed a story to this book. Their unique talents gave us ten diverse and unexpected ways of looking at tomorrow’s lovers, family, and friends. Tatiana Plakhova’s imaginative and innovative art, Lisa Yaszek’s insightful profile, and Ken Liu’s excellent translations skills were additional distinctive and welcome contributions to Entanglements.

  My last words of appreciation are for some of the people who make up my own entanglements. I received practical advice and emotional support from my longtime friend, the author Jim Kelly. Finally, my husband David Bruce and our daughters, Irene and Juliet, lovingly allowed me to test our family bonds as I focused on this anthology for hours on end. Thank you for understanding.

  Introduction: Entanglements

  Sheila Williams

  An entanglement is a complicated relationship. This is true whether it refers to a brother with a drug addition, a child genetically altered without her parents’ knowledge, friends getting together for their “weekly bad rosé night,” a casual hookup arranged by a personal avatar, or a particle whose quantum state can’t be described independently of one or more other particles even when those particles are very far apart.

  Science fiction explores the future, and it does that very well. The future can’t be explored without also considering the effects that scientific and technological discoveries will have on all the relationships that tie us to each other. Entanglements is the sixth volume in the Twelve Tomorrows series and the first to have a central unifying theme. The book’s ten fiction authors were asked to write tales about the emotional bonds that hold us together. They had a broad canvas. Their tales could be about families, friends, or lovers, but they all were asked to explore different ways in which these bonds would be affected by our ever-evolving knowledge of science and advances in technology.

  I’m sure the relationships of the future, be they romances, platonic friendships, or family ties, will be just as loving, messy, complex, affirming, disturbing, heartbreaking, all-embracing, and fulfilling as they are today. They will be affected by our changing world. Infrastructure changes brought on by our warming planet, scientific discoveries, and technical innovations will put new stress on the forces that entangle us with each other even as they relieve some of the issues that complicate life.

  The subjects of the fiction in this anthology range from genetic engineer-ing to AI family therapy to neural webs, floating fungitecture, and the modern equivalent of a love potion. Friend groups form while people try to survive a terrifying natural disaster, children are oversupervised by well-meaning parents, and lovers attempt to resolve their differences by leaning on a therapeutic sexbot. A different sort of robot improves the life of a woman dealing with Parkinson’s, and events get very interesting when a co-op of mothers attempts to raise a child.

  The stories differ in tone and length. Xia Jia’s novelette, which is brilliantly translated from Chinese by the Hugo Award–winning science fiction author Ken Liu, is a thriller set in a Buddhist monastery. Cadwell Turnbull’s short story is a quiet look at a plant geneticist and her family coping with grief, while Annalee Newitz’s short tale charms us with an often hilarious depiction of their character’s interactions with friends and lovers.

  With six Hugos and two Nebulas, and a large body of groundbreaking fiction, Nancy Kress is one of science fiction’s most distinguished authors. She is known for her diligently researched tales about the ways in which genetic modification and other new technologies may transform humanity, and “Invisible People” is no exception. Nancy is profiled for Entanglements by Lisa Yaszek, professor of science fiction studies at Georgia Tech in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication.

  The stunning artwork that accompanies the stories and Nancy’s profile is by Tatiana Plakhova. Tatiana considers her work to be “infographic abstracts.” She uses mixed media software to reveal the webs of data connections that exist among people, mathematics, and landscapes.

  In addition to those already named, this book includes stories by s
ome of science fiction’s best known authors—Mary Robinette Kowal and James Patrick Kelly—as well as tales by exciting newcomers like Sam J. Miller, Suzanne Palmer, Rich Larson, and Nick Wolven. Our writers, who hail from across the globe, are here entangled with stories of intimacy in our technological future. Presented for your reading pleasure are ten thought-provoking stories, strikingly different and yet deeply connected. Enjoy these science fiction entanglements!

  1

  Invisible People

  Nancy Kress

  1.

  When I rushed into the kitchen, already late for work, Jen and Kenly were bent over her tablet, Brady was flinging oatmeal from his high chair, and the wall screen blared the animal channel. Leopards flowed sinuously through tall grass.

  “Why didn’t you wake me? I have a deposition in twenty minutes!”

  “I did wake you,” Jen said. “Why did you go back to sleep?”

  “And why is the TV on at breakfast? Kenly, you know the rule!”

  “It’s homework,” Kenly said. “I have to write a report. Look, Daddy! Scientists made a baby leopard!”

  A blob of oatmeal landed on my pants leg. “Damn it, Jen—”

  “Daddy said a bad word!”

  Jen said, “Tom.” That’s all she had to say. In a marriage, good or bad, one word can say volumes. This word said It’s not my fault you overslept plus I may choose to be the stay-at-home parent, but that doesn’t mean I can control a one-year-old armed with oatmeal plus Lighten up. Now.

  I lightened up. “Sorry. Kenly, what’s your report about?”

  “Leopards. See the TV?” But she didn’t meet my eyes; she knew what was coming next. Jen took the oatmeal away from Brady, but not before another blob of it landed on the cast on Kenly’s wrist. She or her friends had decorated it with glitter and hearts and tiny glue-on mirrors, currently a necessity among second-grade girls.

  I raised my voice to be heard over Brady’s howling about the loss of his blobby missiles and the shrieking of some jungle birds on the wall screen. “When is the report due?”

  “Well . . . the outline is due today. An outline is when—”

  “I know what an outline is, honey. When were you supposed to start it?”

  “Monday.” Two days ago. Kenly never lies to me. And she knows I’m never really angry with her. Jen and I waited too long for her, struggled too hard, made too many sacrifices in order to adopt her. And Kenly is everything parents hope for: kind, honest, smart, sunny. All children, adopted or biological, are lotteries, and with Kenly we won big. Then we got lucky again: after all our years of failed IVF, Jen got pregnant “spontaneously” with Brady.

  I said, “I’ll help you write from your outline tonight.”

  Kenly knew a victory when she saw one and, like any good lawyer, she pushed for more. “If Mom would let me talk in the report like normal people, with spell-check and everything—”

  “No, your mother’s right. You need to learn to write and spell.”

  “Sophie’s mom lets her use spell-check!”

  Jen said, “Your mom is not Sophie’s mom. And I don’t know what that teacher is thinking.” She walked with Brady, whose eyes drooped from the exertion of the Great Oatmeal War.

  I kissed her and grabbed my briefcase, now really late for my deposition. The doorbell rang.

  “Two people on the front porch,” the house system said. “No matches in facial recognition deebee.” The wall screen had replaced the exotic jungle birds with two strangers holding up badges.

  You never anticipate the moment your luck runs out.

  FBI Special Agents Rosa Morales and Mia Friedman gazed around our living room, missing nothing. Not the shelf of lopsided, handmade gifts from Jen’s former first-grade students. Not the three-foot-high toy space station that I’d put together wrong. Not the one expensive object, an Eric Hess sculpture that had been a gift from a client for whom I’d won a tough custody case. The object, shelved high to be safe from the kids, was spectacularly out of place. Jen wanted me to sell it, not so much for the money but because we aren’t the kind of people who have museum-quality art. We aren’t rich; we aren’t socially prominent; we aren’t saints or sinners. I don’t handle the kind of divorce cases that make the news. We’re invisible people, with no reason to have FBI agents sitting on our sofa, which, I now saw, had peanut butter smeared on one worn arm.

  No one said anything until Jen got Kenly on the school bus and Brady in his crib. Then I said, “What’s this about?”

  Agent Friedman, older and clearly in charge, said, “This is about your adoption of Kenly Sarah seven years ago.”

  Instantly Jen went on the attack, a lioness with cubs. “There shouldn’t be any problem with that. We have legal adoption papers, we went through proper channels—”

  “Yes,” Agent Friedman said, “but unfortunately, the adoption agency did not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? My husband’s a lawyer and—”

  “Please calm down, Ms. Linton. Neither you nor your husband did anything wrong, and the child is legally yours. We’re here to ask you exactly how the adoption progressed. The Loving Home Adoption Agency may be involved in violations of U.S. Code Title 18, Chapter 96.”

  I said incredulously. “The RICO Act? Racketeering?”

  “Engaging in a criminal enterprise, yes.”

  “How?” Jen said. “Kenly wasn’t bought illegally or anything. We met with the biological mother once and talked to her through an interpreter; she was accidentally impregnated by her boyfriend who then skipped out, and her religion forbade abortion. All we did was pay for her medical expenses and care during pregnancy, and we were in the hospital when Kenly was born! St. Mary’s Hospital!”

  “Yes, we know,” Agent Friedman said. “And eventually you may be called on to testify about all that in court. But for now, we just want to hear what happened from your perspective.”

  Jen said, “And no one is going to try to take Kenly away from us?”

  “No, ma’am. I can promise you that.”

  It was what Jen needed to hear. The lioness morphed back into my wife. I said, “I want our lawyer present.” I am an attorney, but a divorce lawyer is a long way from racketeering indictments.

  “If you wish. Meanwhile, I can at least tell you that your daughter is not the result of an accidental pregnancy, as you were told. She is the result of an offshore operation that hires indigent women to carry IVF embryos to term in order to be adopted out. You’ve had annual follow-up visits to the Loving Care Agency, right? Visits that included interviews with both of you, a well-child medical exam of Kenly, and a detailed questionnaire?”

  Jen said, “That’s all part of our contract with Loving Home. That we participate in a long-term study of adoptee adjustment.”

  “Not exactly,” Agent Friedman said.

  Brady began to fuss. The robotic arm on his crib activated and checked his diaper, then dangled a toy in front of him. He went on fussing, but for the first time ever, Jen ignored him. She demanded, “What did they do to Kenly? In those medical exams? I was right there and—”

  “Nothing in the medical exams. It happened long before that, during in vitro fertilization.” Agent Friedman hesitated, then apparently made a decision to say more—maybe because I was a lawyer and would find out anyway, maybe because we looked conventional enough to be trusted, maybe even out of sympathy. She said, “Your daughter’s genes were illegally altered. Illegally and without consent.”

  “Altered? How? She’s a normal seven-year-old, healthy, nothing different about her—I don’t believe you!”

  “It’s the truth. I’m sorry.”

  “Have other kids been ‘altered’? Who are they?”

  “The FBI cannot give out names of other potential witnesses.”

  “You didn’t answer my first question! Altered how?”

  Brady went from fussing to full-out howl. Jen didn’t move. Neither did I.

  Agent Morales spoke for the first time. H
er coloring matched Kenly’s: smooth tan skin, exuberant dark curls, deep brown eyes. There was even a faint island lilt to her voice.

  She said, “How did Kenly break her arm?”

  LEOPARDS

  By Kenly Linton

  Some syentists made a Amur leopard. That is one kind of leopard. It went xtink many years ago. The syentists found its genes someplace and put them into a African leopard and the baby was borned! It is very cute. The mother licks it. That is leopard kisses.

  2.

  Mary, my assistant, had rescheduled the deposition, but I had a new client coming in at eleven o’clock. Until then, I sat in my office with the door closed, a cup of coffee growing cold beside me, and stared at the picture of my family on my desk.

  Jen, laughing, her hair blowing in an ocean breeze.

  Agent Friedman said that the scientists who “altered” the genes in the embryo that would become Kenly—those unidentified people—were part of a large, well-funded, offshore private organization. They implanted the embryos in poor young single girls who desperately needed the money, and then adopted out the babies through agencies like Loving Home. The girls were paid only if they agreed to parrot the pregnancy story they were given.

  Brady, six months old, grinning around his first tooth.

  The FBI would not tell us the name or location or purpose of the organization because it was “part of an on-going investigation.” But it seemed to be an exercise in eugenics, that disgraced twentieth-century idea, done with twenty-first-century genetics.

  Kenly in a ruffled blue swimsuit, pointing proudly to the sandcastle she’d just built, pail-shaped and topped with a seagull feather.

  To be told even as much as we were, Jen and I had to sign papers swearing us to silence until the case came to trial.

  Behind my family, the vacation cottage we’d rented on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, gray clapboards weathered by wind and wind-borne sand. Every year we rented the same cottage for two weeks.