The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

SHE SPENT HER first days doing tests. Abba watched her jump and stretch and run on a treadmill. For hours upon hours, he recorded her answers to his questions.

It was tedious for her, but abba was fascinated by her every word and movement. Sometimes he watched as a father. Sometimes he watched as a scientist. At first Ruth chafed under his experimental gaze, but then she remembered that he had treated Mara like that, too. He’d liked to set up simple experiments to compare her progress to child development manuals. She remembered ima complaining that he’d been even worse when Mara was an infant. Ruth supposed this was the same. She’d been born again.

While he observed her, she observed him. Abba forgot that some experiments could look back.

The abba she saw was a different man than the one she remembered sitting with Mara. He’d become brooding with Mara as she grew sicker. His grief had become a deep anger with G-d. He slammed doors and cabinets, and grimaced with bitter fury when he thought she wasn’t looking. He wanted to break the world.

He still came down into the basement with that fury on his face, but as he talked to Ruth, he began to calm. The muscles in his forehead relaxed. He smiled now and then. He reached out to touch her hand, gently, as if she were a soap bubble that might break if he pressed too hard.

Then he went upstairs, back to that other Mara.

“Don’t go yet,” Ruth would beg. “We’re almost done. It won’t take much longer.”

He’d linger.

She knew he thought she was just bored and wanted attention. But that wasn’t why she asked. She hated the rain that silvered his eyes when he went up to see the dying girl.

After a few minutes, he always said the same thing, resolute and loyal to his still-living child. “I must go, nu?”

He sent Abel down in his place. The dog thumped down and waited for her to greet him at the foot of the stairs. He whuffed hello, breath humid and smelly.

Ruth had been convinced – when she was Mara – that a dog would never show affection for a robot. Maybe Abel only liked Ruth because his sense of smell, like the rest of him, was in decline. Whatever the reason, she was Mara enough for him.

Ruth ran the treadmill while Abel watched, tail wagging. She thought about chasing him across the snowy yard, about breaking sticks off of the bare-branched trees to throw for him. She could do anything. She could run; she could dance; she could swim; she could ride. She could almost forgive abba for treating her like a prototype instead of a daughter, but she couldn’t forgive him for keeping her penned. The real Mara was stuck in the house, but Ruth didn’t have to be. It wasn’t fair to have spent so long static, waiting to die, and then suddenly be free – and still remain as trapped as she’d ever been.

After the disastrous Shabbat, she went back down to the basement and sat on one of abba’s workbenches.

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