Out there, p.1
Out There, page 1
Praise for All Out
“Readers searching for positive, nuanced, and authentic queer representation—or just a darn good selection of stories—need look no further than this superb collection.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“This anthology of distinct stories and experiences is exceptional in scope and quality, and gives voice to the experiences that have long existed but often go unrepresented.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“LGBTQIA story collections are scarce, but even if they weren’t, this one would be essential.”
—Booklist
Out There
Edited by Saundra Mitchell
Featuring stories from:
Ugochi M. Agoawike
K. Ancrum
Kalynn Bayron
Z Brewer
Mason Deaver
Alechia Dow
Z.R. Ellor
Leah Johnson
Naomi Kanakia
Claire Kann
Alex London
Jim McCarthy
Abdi Nazemian
Emma K. Ohland
Adam Sass
Mato J. Steger
Nita Tyndall
THIS ANTHOLOGY IS FOR
Ugochi M. Agoawike, Dahlia Adler, K. Ancrum, Kalynn Bayron, Fox Benwell, Tanya Boteju, Z Brewer, Mason Deaver, Alechia Dow, Z.R. Ellor, Sara Farizan, Tessa Gratton, Kate Hart, Shaun David Hutchinson, Kosoko Jackson, Leah Johnson, Naomi Kanakia, Claire Kann, Kody Keplinger, Will Kostakis, CB Lee, Mackenzi Lee, Malinda Lo, Katherine Locke, Alex London, Nilah Magruder, Jim McCarthy, Anna-Marie McLemore, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Hillary Monahan, Cam Montgomery, Abdi Nazemian, Emma K. Ohland, Mark Oshiro, Natalie C. Parker, Caleb Roehrig, Meredith Russo, Alex Sanchez, Adam Sass, Kate Scelsa, Eliot Schrefer, Tess Sharpe, Tara Sim, Mato J. Steger, Robin Talley, Scott Tracey, Nita Tyndall, Jessica Verdi, Elliot Wake, and Julian Winters.
Thank you for going all out with me.
Contents
DOUBLERS
AESTHETICALLY HUNGRY
THE RIFT
RENAISSANCE
LIKE SUNSHINE, LIKE CONCRETE
TRANSLATING FOR THE MACHINE
RESHADOW
THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMEGOING AFFAIRS
THE UNDENIABLE PRICE OF EVERYTHING
PRESENT: TENSE
NICK AND BODHI
CRASH LANDING
BEAUTY SLEEP
CONCERTO
H O M E
FRACTAL EYES
NOBODY CARES WHO WE KISS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE EDITOR
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DOUBLERS
Alex London
I didn’t send my consciousness to be reborn on Mars because I thought you would fall in love with me again. I think you should know that. Whatever we do next, I want you to know that. I did a lot of things because I thought you would fall in love with me, but not this.
Remember in soccer, when I twisted my ankle slide-tackling you, even though I had no clue how to slide tackle? That wasn’t because of my deep commitment to my team’s defense. That was so that you’d notice me. So that our limbs could tangle as our bodies fell; so we’d taste the same cut grass in our mouths and our sweat might mix across our skin.
So, yeah. Joining the school soccer league? Totally about you falling for me and, literally, on me. Beaming my disembodied consciousness to another planet? That was something else.
* * *
I didn’t send my consciousness to be reborn on Mars because I thought you would fall in love with me again, but when I open my eyes in the regeneration room, there you are, sitting by the slab, and I think you’re holding my hand. My muscles are stiff, but I look down, and sure enough, that feeling in my hand is your hand holding it.
Except, of course, it is not your hand and it is not my hand, at least, not that I recognize them. They’re both bigger and there’s a silvery tint to the skin, undertones of copper and gold, with crackly lines running through like on old pottery. The feeling’s unfamiliar too, duller but also clearer, like my nerves work differently than they did on Earth.
You squeeze and the signal fires up my arm, through my shoulder and into my brain. I actually feel it happen and there is a moment where I know I can decide how to feel the squeeze. Is it affection? Does it hurt? Do I choose to feel it at all?
This is super strange.
“It’s super strange, right?” you say, your thoughts echoing mine. For a moment, I think holy shit, you’re psychic now? But I know that’s not how the process works; that’s just how we work. You always knew what I was thinking at the same time I knew. It’s why we were such a good couple...until we weren’t. “The rebuilt nervous system is slow to wake up,” you tell me. “And it’s designed to give you more control over it than you had on Earth. Helps manage some of what we have to do here. We’re all assigned pretty physical jobs.”
I remember something about this from the orientation video they made me watch before the Upload procedure. Our consciousness would be converted into data and broadcast on a tight beam to a server on Mars. There, it would then be downloaded into a body grown on Mars by our contract holder, to specifications for thriving in an environment that is hostile to human bodies.
The lungs work differently because of the atmosphere; the eyes, skin, and bones too. Everything that Earth biology spent millennia evolving had been redeveloped and repurposed for life on humanity’s new home. If indeed we are still humanity and not just, like, human-adjacent beings.
Sort of how our phones stopped really being phones eighty years ago, but we just kept calling them that. Most of them are rings or watches or implants now and nobody actually “calls” each other.
So yeah, I guess we’re still human. We’re just an expanded definition of it.
I realize now, this isn’t my own idea. It’s something you once told me, and it came from an essay you read for class. I never read a single one of the essays we were assigned. Probably why my grades were crap.
Though, if I’m being honest, my grades were crap because I spent more time staring at the back of your neck than I did listening to the lesson modules.
“What are you doing here?” I ask you, and my voice comes out weird. I suppose it’s the first time these vocal cords have been used. How long had this body been in storage before I was downloaded into it? How long ago had my signal been broadcast from Earth? Was I already dead down there?
* * *
I didn’t send my consciousness to be reborn on Mars because I thought you would fall in love with me again. I know that’s impossible after how we broke up, after the things you said to me and I said back, but when you see me walking through the vacant lot behind the southeast solar farm, I take a grim satisfaction in how you shoot up to your feet like you’re gonna run, then go network error still, like a game frozen midsequence.
“What are you doing here?” you ask me, your voice coming out strained.
And you thought I couldn’t surprise you anymore. I believe that’s one of the last things you said to me when we broke up, remember?
Nothing surprises me anymore, you told me. Not school, or work, or games, or even you. Everything’s like a tram on a track, moving along the same route, over and over and over. I need something new. Someone new. Maybe a lot of someones.
I remember that pretty clearly. You basically dumped me to sleep around, which, sure, I get it. We’re young and discovering all the different things our bodies can feel and make someone else feel and yeah, okay, I’m shy about that stuff, but our relationship was more than our bodies. It hurt me a lot more that you wanted to be with other people romantically, to have real relationships with people who weren’t me. I’d have liked it better if you just cheated on me in secret.
Except no, I wouldn’t have. I wanted you to still want me, but I also didn’t want to change.
I remember that you told me: “You’re too cynical.”
You were crying. That was rich. I was getting my heart broken, but you were the one crying.
“Sorry,” you said, wiping your eyes. “Lacrimae rerum.”
You always did that, dropped in quotes and sayings, and sometimes they weren’t even in English. People thought it made you deep and intellectual. I used to. I was so impressed by how impressed everyone else was. Dating you made me feel smarter, so being dumped by you felt like failing an exam.
I didn’t realize that remembering trivia is not a personality. At the time, it seemed like one, at least, one that was better than mine. I guess I was using how people saw you as a way to like myself more. Obviously, it didn’t work.
“It’s Latin,” you told me, though I hadn’t asked. “It’s from Virgil. A brokenhearted Aeneas tells the sad tale of the fall of Troy and weeps for the world and its suffering.”
“So I’m a city in ruins and you’re the noble survivor?” I scoffed. I had the urge to punch you. I admit it. I wanted to hit you but also to let you throw me down and ravage me like barbarians sacking an ancient city. Or was it the Greeks? I don’t know history. I just knew I wanted your hands on me, one more time, hard. Like with the slide tackle. Something about making you hurt me turned me on.
I probably need therapy. You always said I did. Of course, my mental health is no longer your problem. You don’t get to have an opinion or your hands on me anymore. Not in this life.
But you still weren’t done dumping me. Remember?
“Disliking things isn’t a personality,” you said, mirroring my own thoughts about you, though the mirror had a jagged edge. “I’m sad for you”
“I dislike things that suck,” I explained. “Ocean acidification. Water speculation. The Star Wars-Dickens Crossover Universe.”
“That’s what I mean!” you told me. “The SWDU isn’t even out yet and you’ve decided it sucks. I’m tired of it. I want to be excited about things. I want the thrill of potential. I need optimism in my life.”
“I’m optimistic about us,” I told you.
You snorted, like a laugh and snort at the same time. Is that a chortle? You chortled at me. “That’s one thing you shouldn’t be optimistic about,” you said. “We’re done.”
And then you walked away. You even left me with the bill for two teas and an untouched scone, even though your family is loaded and mine’s on public income. I used to think it was nice how you didn’t let your family’s money be a thing between us, but acting like it didn’t matter was actually bullshit. I understood I had to pay for the scone—I’d ordered before I realized what our conversation was going to be—but you didn’t need to make me buy your rosemary pepper tea. That was just cruel.
Also, who orders rosemary pepper tea?
Still, I shouldn’t have done what I did next, outing you to the marketing software like that. I apologize. The technology makes destroying each other too easy. I updated one little link on my profile, one little status change, and boom, suddenly all the ads that popped up in your life were gay, gay gay.
It was only a matter of hours before your grandma turned on the TV with you in the room and saw what the system was selling you. She knew that the marketing never made mistakes. She probably knew about you before then, but it’s one thing to suspect, and another to see it right there on the screen in half-naked rainbow-lit discount prices.
Obviously, I knew how she would feel about it. She was one of the last people on the planet who ate those chicken sandwiches. I’d been offended by the ads the algorithm showed her for as long as we were together. I guess it was time to return the favor, give her a taste of her own marketing.
Did you know I did it on purpose? Of course you did.
I’m curious, is that why you decided to do the Upload? Was it to get away from your family’s judgment, to find freedom someplace they couldn’t follow? Or did they push you to do it, thinking it’d be better if you had a new life on Mars, away from them? Away from me?
I ask, but to be honest, I don’t care about the answer. You made your choice. You dumped me; I hurt you; you signed up.
We were never supposed to see each other again.
Except here you are, standing stunned in the firelight below a bridge past the shantytown, looking as gorgeous as ever.
I admit, for a moment, I don’t want to hurt you. I want to take your hand gently in mine and run away with you, both of us on the road, always moving, from haven to haven, hiding out from the scanners and the hunters, and looking up at the night sky together, daydreaming about what the two of us might be up to on Mars.
But the moment passes.
“You know why I’m here,” I tell you, because that old trick still works. You know me as well as I know myself.
“You’re here to kill me,” you say.
I shake my head and remind you, “You’re already dead.”
* * *
I didn’t send my consciousness to be reborn on Mars because I thought you would fall in love with me again, but you help me sit up on the slab and find my footing in the lower gravity.
Our new bodies have more mass, so we still stick down to the ground like on Earth, but it takes a bit to recalibrate the brain. We’re in no rush.
“Of all the gin joints...” you say, quoting a movie neither of us has actually seen, but I laugh, because you’re not really referencing an old movie; you’re referencing us, all the other times you said that to me. “It’s not a coincidence you’re here, huh?”
“No,” I tell you.
I look out the open window onto the rocky fields of Mars. The clouds are low, yellowy-pink and grey. They remind me of the sickly storm that was drifting in the day I went for the Upload.
My ears buzzed, I was so nervous. No one ever talked about the procedure hurting, but I still worried. I never liked needles and didn’t have any tattoos. I remember them warning me that yes, there would be some pain.
“Pain is a part of life,” they said. “We need to record your responses to it. Pleasure too.”
They showed me pictures of us together from public surveillance. They showed images that were real and deep fakes of us together, of you with other people, of me with other people. Of me as a child. Of my parents. Bits of movies I like. Bits of movies I hate. “The process is content-agnostic,” they explained. “We measure physiological response and synaptic connections. Your memories and emotions are the by-product of those reactions. We record and transmit the phenomena, not the by-product.”
Can you believe that? The technology to transfer human consciousness to bodies on Mars treats human consciousness as a by-product, like toxic sludge from a refinery. I’m shocked it works.
When my dads were teenagers, it took eight months to get to Mars from Earth. A massive amount of energy was burned just to get out of Earth’s orbit, and they had to haul everything they needed with them. Once on Mars, the people had to live and work in sealed pods and could only go outside in intense spacesuits that carried their own atmosphere inside them. A puncture in the suit could be fatal. A puncture in one of the habitats was catastrophic.
The Upload solved that problem by converting us into data and transmitting in minutes more settlers than they could’ve previously done in generations.
Those first settlers established labs to engineer the new bodies in, set up receiving stations, built a whole system of competing settlement corporations to download humanity’s settlers and put them to work on labor contracts.
Genetic engineered and biohacking made life on Mars possible. Contract capitalism made it thrive. Now there are open windows.
The view of the red dust mountains and gleaming new buildings makes me think of sci-fi novels I read in middle school. Humanity builds its daydreams, and we marvel when they become real, as if there was any other source for reality. At some point, all this was a fantasy. It was never my fantasy. Not until you.
“So it’s not a coincidence you’re here,” you say. “You signed a contract?”
“I did,” I tell you.
These better bodies have a cost.
Of course you chose one of the most expensive Upload services. Your new body is stunning and strange, and I suppose mine is too, now. You wouldn’t believe what I had to agree to in order to pay for this Upload. Then again, what I had to agree to was the whole point of doing it. I could’ve chosen any service. I chose the one you used.
I need your help crossing the room. You support me as you lead me to the supply locker like you once led me to the toilet at Safaa Nargasian’s party. Remember that?
I’d had one too many hits from two too many vape pens, and turned a seriously awful color. You know when you feel your face changing color and don’t need a mirror to tell? Shame does that, and so does puking. I had both about to burst out, and you took me by the arm and led me to the toilet, and rested your hand on my back while I hurled.
“It’s okay,” you told me. “Our bodies teach us what we need to know. They don’t want to hurt us.”
I loved that, the tenderness of it. Yes, it was a lie; our bodies hurt us all the time, but as far as lies go, it was a nice one.
So I gave up vaping because of you. That wasn’t the last thing you taught me about my body. Even right then, that night, you taught me more. You handed me a towel to wipe my face, gave me a little spritz of the mouthwash you always had on you, and then, after a far-too-brief interim since I puked, you kissed me. Even with the mouthwash, it was a bold choice. Once you decided on something, you did tend to go all the way with it.
