by Scott Meyer
“Or at least I would be,” he said, “if you weren’t all three just as powerful as me, Madam Director. Brit. Heck, if anyone here’s dangerous, it’s Phillip, judging by the look on his face.”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Phillip said.
Jimmy winced slightly. “You thought I was dead. That doesn’t mean I was supposed to be dead.”
“I never really believed you’d died.”
“Yes, and it’s perfectly understandable that you’d be so angry to be proved right. If you’d all please come in, it would be better not to have this conversation in the hall.”
They entered Jimmy’s condo, an eclectic mix of interesting, attractive furniture and dark, glossy finishes his decorator had picked to convey a clear impression that Jimmy had exquisite taste in decorators. One whole wall was made up of glass, much like Brit the Younger’s home. Instead of providing a portal into the deep sea, Jimmy’s windows looked out into open space—low-slung suburban sprawl, and bare brown mountains in the distance, both of which, despite their size and substance, just made the space look emptier.
Jimmy offered his guests a seat and a drink. The Brits accepted both offers, sitting side by side on a black leather couch built with just enough irregular curves to be both uncomfortable and expensive to manufacture. Phillip sat in an equally uncomfortable chair, but only glared sullenly at Jimmy as he puttered around the kitchen. After a moment, Jimmy handed Brit the Elder and Brit the Much Elder two cups of tea, served in cube-shaped black mugs.
Jimmy settled himself into a squarish black leather chair with a chrome framework of brushed stainless-steel supports. He sipped his own coffee, then addressed his guests. “I’m dying to know what I can do for you.”
Phillip let out a small, rueful laugh.
“But before you tell me,” Jimmy continued, “I’m sure Phillip has questions.”
“You faked your death.”
“Yes. That’s not a question, really. I know you meant it as one, but even then it wasn’t very open-ended. This is why some of your conversations feel so uncomfortable, Phillip. If I just answer the question as asked, the conversation stops dead, and we’re left with an awkward pause until you ask your next question.”
They sat in silence for a moment: Jimmy smiling, Phillip scowling. Both of the Brits sat looking at their cups of tea with their mouths pressed shut.
Jimmy said, “Like that one, just now.”
Phillip growled, “Why did you fake your own death?”
“Better. Much better.”
“Just answer the question!”
Jimmy sighed. “Phillip, I did it because it’s honestly what I thought was best for everybody.”
“You thought it was best for yourself!”
“Well, yeah,” Jimmy sputtered, “in that I am included in everybody. If I weren’t, I’d have said everybody else.”
Brit the Elder said, “You’re just deliberately baiting him.”
“Of course,” Jimmy said. “He’s sitting here openly wishing I was dead. He deserves some grief. Besides, treating him this way proves a point.”
“What, that you’re awful?” Phillip asked.
“Phillip. You’re acting all wounded, but in reality I did you a favor. You didn’t want me around. You didn’t like having me around. Just looking at me irritates you. After what I did, none of you were ever going to really like me again, no matter what I did, and you certainly weren’t going to trust me.”
Phillip thrust a finger at Jimmy and shouted, “I agree with both of those statements!”
Jimmy raised his coffee mug to Phillip. “Cheers. But that was the problem. You didn’t want me around because you didn’t like me, but you couldn’t let me out of your sight, because you didn’t trust me. You had three options. You could keep me around, which you didn’t want to do. You could send me away, which you didn’t want to do. Or you could kill me, which you didn’t want to do. I saw that having me around was making you all unhappy. If I had just escaped, you’d have just tracked me down. So, I had to make you think I was dead, or else you never would have relaxed until you’d found me, and there’d have been no point in leaving to begin with.”
Phillip didn’t so much smile as bare his teeth. “So you’re saying that because we didn’t trust you, you had to lie to us.”
“Essentially, but that shouldn’t imply blame, nor that I think there’s wrongdoing on your part. After what I did, I don’t blame you one bit for not wanting to have me around, or not wanting to let me out of your sight, and I think it speaks well of you that none of you wanted to kill me. Look, Phillip, I did awful things that I can never undo or make up for. All I can do is try to live the best life I can from now on, and do my best to prevent anyone from making the mistakes I made.”
Phillip stared at Jimmy for a long moment, then looked away in disgust. “I’m going to have to think about this.”
“I know the feeling,” Jimmy said. “I think about it every day. So, now that we’ve got all that settled, what brings you here?”
Brit the Elder said, “We’re going to be digging around in the deep code of a human being, like you did, and we want your help.”
Jimmy blinked several times. “Brit, I don’t know if you were listening, but I literally just said that I intend to prevent anyone from making the mistakes I made. Monkeying with other people’s code was one of the biggest mistakes.”
“We’re going to do it for a totally different reason.”
“Shooting yourself in the foot has the same effect whether you do it to get out of the army or to kill a mosquito on your shoe.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.”
“We don’t. We have a serious problem, Jimmy, and if we don’t get to the bottom of it, the results could be catastrophic.”
“The results could be catastrophic?” Jimmy turned to Phillip. “They’re talking to me about catastrophic results?”
Phillip shrugged.
Jimmy looked directly into Brit the Elder’s eyes. “I killed a town. A town. Every man, woman, and child in an entire town, dead, because I was monkeying around in people’s code and made a mistake. There’s no way I’m ever going to do that again.”
Brit the Much Elder said, “We’re not going to ask you to make any changes to anyone’s code. We’re just going to explore the code to see if we can figure out exactly what’s going on and hopefully find a safe way to fix it. We were hoping you could share with us anything you learned, to help guide us. And we’re not going to be looking at the code of any large groups of people. Our explorations will be restricted to one person.”
“Who?”
Brit the Elder said, “Me.”
Jimmy looked at Brit the Elder, then at Brit the Much Elder, then at Phillip, who shook his head. Jimmy turned back to Brit the Elder. “You?”
“Yes.”
“You are literally the only person I know of who isn’t just one person. I’ve got two of you sitting here on my couch right now! Who knows how many more of you there are?”
“I know of at least one,” Phillip said.
“But we won’t be doing this to her,” Brit the Elder said.
“Yet,” Phillip muttered.
Brit the Elder kicked off one of her shoes, raised her leg up in front of Jimmy’s face, and let him watch as her foot phased between its normal and low-polygon versions.
“See?” she asked. “See why we’re willing to risk it? I’ve got an error, and it’s getting worse. There’s no way to know when it’ll get so bad that my file gets permanently corrupted, or the whole program crashes. We need to get this fixed, for everybody’s good, and you’re the only person we know of who’s ever dug that deep into a living person’s code.”
Jimmy leaned back in his chair a
nd thought for several seconds.
Brit the Elder pulled her shoe back on. “Will you help us, or not?”
“You’ve put me in a tough spot. Whether or not I help you monkey with your file listing, it will probably end badly. What part do you want to explore?”
“The part of the file listing that deals with memory. Do you know anything about it?”
“I do.”
“Good!”
“No, it’s not. It’s a minefield that’s been planted inside your own brain. And now, if I refuse to help you and you make some tragic mistake, it’s my fault for not sharing what I know. But if I do help you poke around in your own skull, and we make a mistake, which is almost inevitable, I’ll be blamed for not knowing what I’m doing, and Phillip here will almost certainly claim I did it on purpose.”
“That’s true,” Phillip agreed.
Brit the Much Elder said, “You missed a possible outcome. If you don’t help us, and her glitch brings down the whole program, then you’re just as dead as the rest of us.”
Jimmy thought for another moment. “Yeah, I see your point. Okay, look, I’ll show you everything I know, and I’ll help you map out and explore the part of the file that deals with memories, but I won’t be a party to making any changes to your, or anyone else’s, brain. Hopefully you’ll see how foolhardy and dangerous this all is and decide to come up with a better idea. Deal?”
“Deal,” both Brits said.
Phillip groaned.
Jimmy sprung up from his chair. “Great. I gotta tell you, despite the awful reason for it happening, it feels good to have company and be working with people who know what’s going on again. Say, how about before we get started, we all get dinner to celebrate? You could take in some local color. A genuine taste of Reno. No place on earth does mediocrity better. Down at the Nugget they’ve got a burger called the Awful-Awful!”
Phillip sighed. “Sounds appropriate.”
18.
The midmorning light of a fresh new day in Leadchurch didn’t so much cascade in through the windows of Phillip’s rec room as it tumbled in reluctantly and hit the floor in a chilly, flat, gray heap. Outside, an unbroken ceiling of clouds drizzled chilled water. Inside, all the lamps were off, and the curtains were drawn just enough to let light in but send the message that the light was not welcome, and had better mind its manners.
The room’s original entrance, and exit, was the staircase that led down to Phillip’s séance room and storefront, but in the time since Phillip “remodeled,” he had added two doors. One was a large wall panel that lowered like a drawbridge, designed to allow Phillip to drive his beloved Pontiac Fiero in and out, which he rarely did. The other was a simple wooden door set into the wall on the opposite end of the long, rectangular room. This door was linked magically to Brit the Younger’s apartment in Atlantis.
It was the small door to Atlantis that creaked open, allowing in yet more light, a bleary-eyed Phillip, and the sound of a conversation that was already in progress.
“No,” Phillip said, “I just didn’t sleep well.”
Nik’s distant voice drifted in. “I could make you some tea.”
“No thank you, Nik, I have it handled, thanks.” He shut the door behind him, and instantly his body sagged. For a moment he stood there, breathing and listening to the silence.
This room was full of items Phillip had handpicked to make himself happy, but he took no notice of any of them, not even glancing at anything beyond the wet bar. He reached for a coffee mug and an empty diner-grade coffee carafe to which he’d applied one of his better macros. He tipped it over the rim of the mug and freshly brewed, steaming-hot coffee poured out into the mug.
Phillip stared down at the mug long enough to take two heaving breaths, blinked so slowly it almost counted as a nap, then muttered, “Why not.” He reached for a bottle of Scotch and poured a shot into his coffee.
He spent about five minutes standing there behind the bar in his darkened rec room, eyes closed, drinking his spiked coffee in silence. When the mug was empty, he set it aside and, with Herculean effort, took the three steps back to the door to Brit’s apartment. He gathered his energy, stood up straight, and opened the door.
“Okay, Brit,” he said, cheerily, “I’m almost ready to go on that walk we discussed. I just need to visit the loo first.”
Brit’s voice was distant, but easily understandable. “Actually, dear, I’ve decided not to come along.”
Phillip stepped into Brit the Younger’s apartment and pushed the door closed behind him. “Oh, in that case, I suppose I’ll just go get it over with. The sooner I start, the sooner I’ll be back with you, after all.”
As the door swung shut, Brit said, “But I thought you had to go to the bathroom?”
At the same time, Nik called out, “Oh, and while you’re out, can you please get me—”
The door closed with a thud, and the room fell back into silence.
The haggard-looking Future Phillip leaned out from his hiding spot behind the GORF machine and scanned the room, making sure Present Phillip was truly gone. Convinced that this was the case, he turned to the large empty space where Phillip’s Fiero usually sat.
“He didn’t even notice,” Future Phillip said. “All that trouble to steal my own car, and he didn’t even notice! I figured he’d spend the rest of the day looking for it!”
Martin said, “He seemed pretty distracted.”
Future Phillip jumped and spun around to see Martin’s eyes and hat poking up from behind the bar.
“I wouldn’t judge him too harshly. Neither of you noticed that I was hiding down here.”
Future Phillip snarled, “What are you doing here?”
Martin held up one finger, asking for Phillip to wait a second. Martin turned and moved forward in small lurches, raising a few inches with each step, making it look as if he was walking up a staircase behind the bar. When he was standing fully upright, he said, “I love that gag.”
“Yes,” Phillip said, “hilarious. Now, what are you doing here?”
“Watching you. I’ve been watching you for a while now. I watched while you stalked Phillip, Current Phillip, when he was out for a walk with Brit, Current Brit, yesterday. I watched you lurk outside their home all night. I followed and watched as you snuck into Phillip’s most private, personal space. I saw it all, and a disgusting sight it was!”
“You did all of those things, too!”
“Yes, but you did them to spy on Phillip and interfere with his life. I did them to protect Phillip and keep tabs on you.”
“I am Phillip!”
“Sometimes a friend needs to be protected from themselves. And I didn’t steal his car.”
Phillip pointed out the window. “I was just trying to distract him. The Fiero’s just outside, hidden under a haystack. I can have it back in here in less than a minute.”
“Then I suggest you get to it.”
Future Phillip sneered at Martin. “It didn’t work anyway.” He pointed his staff at the large drawbridge door set into the wall, but nothing happened. He tried again with the same result.
Martin snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. While I was waiting under the bar, I set up a zone around you where no magic can work.”
Phillip’s eyes grew wide, and he blurted, “Transporto hejmo.”
Nothing happened. Martin smiled.
“Yeah, inside an eight-foot box, there in that corner of the room, you can’t do magic.”
“An eight-foot box?” Future Phillip asked.
“Yes.”
“Right.” Future Phillip took two determined-looking steps, then slammed headfirst into an invisible wall.
Martin came out from behind the bar and stepped closer to Phillip. “I also put up force fields to keep you from leaving the ar
ea where you can’t do magic. Sorry, but I need to keep you from interfering with Phillip until I figure out what, exactly, is going on.”
“You know what’s going on! I told you what’s going on!”
“And now I’ll be able to verify it.”
“You’re just enjoying acting like a jerk, aren’t you, Martin?”
“Look who’s talking. You’re the one who stole a man’s car.”
“It’s my car! And I only did it to distract him! You know what, though, I can still get his attention. I’d hoped to avoid this, but you’ve forced my hand. All I have to do is yell loud enough, and they’ll hear me in there.” He pointed at the door to Brit the Younger’s apartment. “Phillip will come running, and he’ll see me, and that I’m him, and that you have him, i.e., me, trapped. That’ll distract him.”
“Phillip’s gone for a walk.”
“Then Brit and Nik will hear it, find us, call Phillip, and it’ll be an even bigger distraction.”
Martin shook his head. “You can’t do that.”
Phillip said, “Watch me,” and opened his mouth to shout.
Martin touched the head of his staff to the force field that held Phillip in place and said, “Mute.”
Phillip shouted, but no sound came out. He shouted again, louder, but with the same result: no sound at all. He extended his index finger, as if he intended to give Martin a piece of his mind, or poke him in the eye, or probably both. He took one step and ran into the invisible wall again. He let go of his staff and used both hands to explore the invisible wall by feel. It extended several feet on each side before bending at ninety degrees, completely enveloping him. Future Phillip bellowed at Martin with all of his might but couldn’t make a sound.
“You like it?” Martin asked. “It’s a macro I’ve been working on in my spare time. I call it the mime box. I was saving it for after Gary did something really over the line to one of us, which I figure is only a matter of time. I wanted to hold it for something special, because being trapped and forced to act like a mime is pretty much the worst noninjuring punishment I can think of.”
