by Scott Meyer
“Uh, guys, do you think I could get you to take off your shoes and put them by the door?” Gary asked.
Roy growled, “No, I don’t. You got a lotta nerve, embedding our shoes in concrete then complaining that we’re tracking concrete into your house.”
Gwen said, “He’s got a point, Gary. Besides, there’s not really much anyone can do to mess this place up.”
Gary said, “Thank you!”
Jeff shook his head. “Gary, that was an insult.”
Gwen said, “No, Gary, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Sure, your place is a bit rough around the edges. And through the middle. Really, it’s one homogeneous slab of roughness, but it suits you.”
“Thank you!” Gary said.
“That was also an insult,” Jeff said.
Roy touched down and walked to the dining area, which housed a matching set of chairs and a glass-topped table of the kind meant to grace a retiree’s patio, complete with a hole in the table’s center designed to accommodate a large umbrella. He nodded to Martin and Phillip but removed his hat to the ladies. “Hello, Gwen. Hello, Brit. It’s good to see you again today.”
This confused Brit. “I’m sorry?”
Jeff said, “No, Roy, that was Brit the Elder who came over. This is Brit the Younger.”
Roy shrugged. “Still. They’re the same person, so we have seen her twice today.”
Jeff gritted his teeth. “It would kill you to be wrong, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll let you know if it ever happens.”
“Why did Brit the Elder go see you?” Phillip asked.
“She had some technical questions,” Jeff said. “Stuff about the dragons, and what I learned trying to manipulate living things in the shell.”
“Mostly, not to do it?” Gwen asked.
“Exactly,” Jeff said.
“That answer didn’t make her happy,” Roy said. “Poor thing. She seemed pretty strung out. Not just tired, but upset, too. I’m thinking maybe I should go over to her place and see if she needs some support.”
“What kind of support?” Phillip asked.”
Roy shrugged. “You know, comforting.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“And I don’t know if that’s any of your business, Phillip. I mean, you always say that you don’t believe she and Brit the Younger here are the same person, so the way I see it, dating Brit the Younger gives you no say in Brit the Elder’s affairs.”
“It doesn’t actually give him any say over my affairs either,” Brit the Younger said.
“Right,” Roy agreed. “And if you’re wrong, and they are the same person, by the time she becomes Brit the Elder, you don’t seem to be in the picture anymore.”
“But I am,” Brit the Younger said, “because I am convinced that we’re the same person, and I say leave her alone. If she needs help, let her ask for it. I hate people meddling in my affairs, so when it comes to hers, which are going to be mine eventually, I say we all stay out of it.”
Martin asked, “But by making that decision for her, aren’t you meddling in her affairs?”
“The affairs are either hers, mine, or both, depending on how you look at it, but none of it’s any of your business, so drop it. Okay?”
At that moment, the entire group heard a quiet splash and a loud burst of energetic swearing. They all turned to see Tyler, the last wizard to arrive and the only African American man in Medieval England, standing ankle deep in the kiddie pool full of hardened concrete. He tried to pull his staff free, straining mightily, but it would not budge. He continued swearing, first at the concrete, then at Gary, then at himself for trusting Gary and not anticipating the concrete.
Tyler teleported away, leaving the empty kiddie pool behind. Almost immediately, he rematerialized, minus the large disk of concrete that had been fixed to his feet.
“So he got you,” Phillip said. “Don’t let it ruin your night.”
“I’m mad at myself for not seeing it coming,” Tyler said. “But I’m much, much madder at Gary, for being such a turd!”
Tyler turned his attention to Gary. “Okay, we’re all here. Three of us are angry. Why don’t we just get started?”
Gary stood and held his arms out wide. “Yes, let us begin! Welcome, one and all, to our weekly movie night. As the host, I get to pick the movie. This week’s selection is Blade Runner!”
Phillip said, “Haven’t we all seen that?”
Roy said, “I haven’t. What’s it about? A guy who runs with scissors?”
“No,” Gary said. “And while the rest of you have seen it, which version have you seen? The original, with the narration that the producers made the director put in, or the later version where the director took the narration out?”
“And added a scene to completely change the whole point of the movie,” Tyler said. “Or the even later version, when they restored the film so it would look good on DVD?”
“Or the version after that,” Martin said. “Where they remastered it again and redid a few of the scenes to look better at high resolution?”
“Or,” Jeff asked, “the even later one where the original producers put the narration back in?”
Brit wrinkled her nose like she smelled something bad. “They did that?”
Jeff shrugged. “They do eventually. Ridley Scott released his director’s cut to make Blade Runner fit his original vision. The producers released their cut to make it fit their original vision, which was for the film to earn them as much profit as possible.”
Gary said, “There’s no reason we only have to watch one version. I was thinking we could watch all of them as a marathon.”
Roy said, “Who’d want to do that? Watch the same movie three times looking for minor differences, like it’s a puzzle in Highlights for Children. This sounds worse than when Martin made us sit through that four-hour version of Dune.”
“Nothing could be worse than that,” Gwen muttered.
Martin laughed. “Gary, remind me, next time it’s my turn to host movie night, to get the three-part, basic-cable Dune miniseries.”
Gary said, “Only if I don’t have to attend.”
5.
Brit the Elder sat uneasily in a chair made from enough welded square-tube steel to be indestructible, which was covered with just enough foam padding and vinyl upholstery to not quite be comfortable.
She sat in an office that was instantly recognizable as the habitat of an executive-level civil servant. Deluxe imitation wood-grain paneling covered the walls, and a computer and phone that were only ten years out of date sat atop the wood-grain-painted-on-steel desk, right behind a name plate that read Director Brittany Ryan.
“No,” Brit the Much Elder said into her phone. “I’ve made my decision. Absolutely not.” She winked at Brit the Elder and smiled.
Brit the Elder thought that Brit the Much Elder’s voice sounded similar to her own, but slightly higher pitched and more nasal, like an audio recording of her own voice that seemed like a different person when played back. Brit the Much Elder really sounded like Brit the Younger, but less whiny. She looked much the same as Brit the Elder, or Brit the Younger for that matter, with the same face, same build, and same reddish-brown hair. Instead of the retro-hip horn-rimmed glasses the younger two Brits preferred, Brit the Much Elder wore a pair of frameless spectacles. And instead of a light blue wizard robe or a flowing tropical-weight dress, Brit the Much Elder wore a highly structured suit with a knee-length skirt.
Brit the Much Elder said, “I understand all of that, and my decision stands. You are to keep the subject under surveillance but do not move on him under any circumstances. Is that clear?”
She listened for a few seconds to the barely audible squawking noise of the other person talking before cuttin
g him off. “You have your orders, Agent. That will be all. And Agent, try not to fall for the banana in the tailpipe.”
She broke into a wide grin, almost laughing as she ended the call and placed her phone on the table. “I transferred those two doofuses to my task force so I could keep an eye on them, since they knew too much, but man, they’ve been worth it just for the entertainment value.”
Brit the Elder was not amused. She knew from the beginning that conferring with Brit the Much Elder was the simplest, most practical, and most logical thing to do. The fact that she tried several other things first demonstrated how unpleasant she found the prospect.
She had also gone to talk to Jeff, as he had experience tampering with the code of living things, but he’d been very careful to leave their memories and other brain functions alone. All she learned from the visit was that Roy was not subtle about it when he took an interest in a woman.
Brit the Much Elder leaned back into her desk chair. She smirked at Brit the Elder and raised her eyebrows playfully. “Sorry I had to be such a hard-ass just then. It goes with all this, I’m afraid.” She waved her right hand in the air to signify the office, her title, and the job that gave her both of those things.
Brit the Elder cleared her throat. “I was just asking you if you remember any of this happening from back when you were me.”
Brit the Much Elder nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. And I don’t. It got a lot harder to keep track of our life events after I took off and became Brit the Much Elder. Brit the Younger’s only met me once, so her journals are no help. You don’t keep a journal at all, and you barely ever see me anyway, so there isn’t a pre-written record of what’s going to happen to me from day to day. I tried to work from memory for a while, but then I just sort of let it go. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’ve learned to enjoy surprises again.”
“Good for you. And you have no memory of this problem, or of having this conversation before, when you were me?”
Brit the Much Elder leaned back and closed her eyes. “No, I have no memory of this conversation.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Brit the Much Elder nodded. “Oh yeah, totally, but I’m sure there’s an explanation. Maybe Brit the Much Elder made me so mad that I went home and got black-out drunk. I really disliked me when I was you.”
“Yeah, and you had—I have my reasons.”
“You do. And with the advantage of age, I see now that those reasons are silly. You’re holding a grudge against me because of how I treated you when I was Brit the Elder and you were Brit the Younger. But that’s how Brit the Elder treated me when I was Brit the Younger, and it’s the exact way you’re treating Brit the Younger now.”
Brit the Elder leaned forward and spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not mad because of how you treated me. I could take it. I’m mad at you because it means I have to treat Brit the Younger the same way, and I hate myself for it.”
“No more than I did. What’s done is done; multiple times, in our case. You’ll get over it in time. I did. In fact, to make that easier for you, speaking as Brit the Younger, who I was, I forgive you.”
Brit the Elder blinked several times as she attempted to process what she’d just heard. “That’s very nice, I think. Thank you.”
Brit the Much Elder smiled. “Of course. In fact, while I’m at it, I was also you, and on behalf of you, in advance, I forgive myself, who you will one day be.”
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes. And it will. By the time you’re me you’ll be perfectly at peace with all of this crap.”
“Fantastic. In the meantime, we have a real problem, and you don’t seem to be taking it seriously.”
Brit the Much Elder held up her palms, signaling that Brit the Elder should calm down. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I agree, it’s weird.”
“Weird?! You say it’s weird?! We’re talking about a logical paradox that casts doubt on every assumption we’ve ever made about our life, and threatens to corrupt and possibly even crash the computer program that generates our existence. I think it’s fair to say that goes beyond just being weird!”
“Okay, it’s really weird. I can see that this whole thing has you on edge.”
“Yes,” Brit the Elder almost shouted. “I’d say it’s fair to describe me as on edge. I haven’t shown you the best part yet.” She kicked off her ballet flats.
For the first time, Brit the Much Elder seemed genuinely alarmed. “What are you doing?”
Brit the Elder said, “Showing you these,” and lifted her feet up so that Brit the Much Elder could see them. At first, they looked just like Brit’s bare feet, which she’d seen many times before, since they were her own.
Then, they looked different.
Brit the Elder’s feet changed from perfectly normal-looking human feet to two crude collections of polygons approximating the basic shape of human feet without any of the details. Her feet remained that way for about a second and a half, then switched back to normal, then cycled to and from the polygon versions several times in the space of a second before changing back to normal feet.
Brit the Much Elder stared. “That’s not right!”
“No! No it is not! And you don’t remember any of this?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
“And your feet . . .”
“No, my feet are fine, and I agree that it’s a serious issue.”
“And getting more serious. It’s spreading. It started with just my toes, now it’s the whole feet. And it starts affecting whatever shoes I wear. I’ve gone through two pairs of flats since I noticed the problem.”
“I’ll help you in any way that I can.”
“Well, good, but I don’t understand how you can be so calm about this.”
“I’m calm because I’m you in the future, and I still exist. It seems like if this was going to cause some serious problem, it would have by now.”
“Don’t you see? This is an error, an error in the program that is our universe! The fact that you don’t get that but I do is proof that your memories are no longer tied to my actions or thoughts, which means that everything is, on a fundamental level, completely messed up! The fact that you still exist isn’t proof that things are fine, it’s a symptom of the problem! The universe could crash at any second. It could even be that me coming to you will cause the final logic error, but I didn’t know what else to do. And if I’m wrong, then what about the philosophical ramifications of that? What if all these years we’ve been tormenting each other because we thought we had no choice, but in fact we had a choice all along?”
Brit the Much Elder leaned farther back in her chair. “Eh, I don’t know if it’s . . . whatchacallit . . . the perspective that comes with age, or if it’s that I’ve seen so much weird stuff at this point that I just don’t notice it anymore. Or maybe those are actually the same thing. The point is, I stopped worrying about all of those philosophical issues years ago. When it comes to free will, these days I just figure if I’m meant to have it, I’ll have it.”
“That attitude must drive Phillip nuts.”
“How would I know?”
“Good point.”
6.
Brit the Younger was curled up reading in her favorite chair, when Phillip walked out of the bedroom in his full wizard regalia and walked toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” Brit asked, without lifting her eyes from the page.
Phillip stopped dead in his tracks, turned to face her, and said, “Just out for a walk. What are you reading?”
Brit turned the book around to look at the cover, a picture of two shirtless men with long hair, both obscured by motion blur. One appeared to be crouched low and somehow spinning at high speed while the other was suspended midjump, executi
ng a high kick. “It’s a book I borrowed from Louisa. It’s about this martial art they developed in Brazil called Capoeira. It’s a sort of a mix of fighting and dancing.”
“Kind of like slam dancing?”
“Well, it’s incredibly graceful and athletic, and an efficient fighting style, so no, it is in no way like slam dancing. Where are you going?”
“What?”
“On your walk. Where are you going?”
“Oh, nowhere. Just, you know, out.”
“Cool. Enjoy your walk to nowhere.”
“Yes. Very good. Quite. I will.”
After several seconds of Brit saying nothing further, Phillip again stepped toward the door. He had nearly reached it when Nik called out from the kitchen, “Phillip? Did I hear you say you’re stepping out for a moment?”
“Yes.”
“Remember, yesterday, how you said to tell you if there was anything you could do to make my job easier?”
“Yes, of course.”
Nik leaned to the side to peer around the corner at Phillip. “Well, if you’re going out anyway, could you pick up a chicken for tonight’s dinner?”
“Of course,” Phillip said. “A chicken. How would you like it?”
Nik furrowed his brow and stared at Phillip.
“Just the breast, or the whole thing? Boned? Unboned? With or without skin?”
Nik asked, “What? What are you talking about?”
“Live,” Brit said, quietly enough that Phillip would barely hear her, but Nik wouldn’t. “In this time period, the only way to buy a chicken is live.”
Phillip nodded a quick thanks to Brit. “Never mind, Nik. I was just being silly. One live chicken, coming up.”
“Thanks, Phillip. Feel free to wring its neck yourself, if you want.”
Phillip cringed and looked at Brit, who was also cringing, but she was smiling at him as she did it.
