by Scott Meyer
“What?” Phillip cried.
“When she wakes up, she’s going to believe that Brit the Younger caught you in a lie and discovered you’d been sneaking off to have an affair. She chose to confront you here, at Gary’s, in front of everyone, and Brit the Elder came because she remembered what an awful experience it was and wanted to offer moral support.”
Brit the Much Elder laughed. “Huh! I remember that! It didn’t happen, eh?”
“No,” Phillip said. “It didn’t. I didn’t cheat on Brit. I’d never cheat on Brit.”
The Brit at the computer pointed at the unconscious Brit the Elder. “Yeah, well, try telling her that. She won’t know who you cheated with. You denied it, of course, but she caught you repeatedly sneaking away to be with whoever it was, claiming you were just going for a walk. I find the most believable lies are the ones that are pretty much the truth. Brit, while you’re fixing Brit the Elder, and Atlantis, and Phillip’s hand, and Brit the Elder’s memory, you’ll also have to come up with eight years’ worth of plausible memories for Brit the Elder. Not what she had for lunch, or how often she blinked, just the highlights. That’s still a lot of work, believe me. As a cover, to explain all the work you’ll be doing, you’ll make Brit the Elder believe you’re working on a different project: trying to find the purpose of the program and, if possible, who wrote it, since it’s the first question everybody always asks. She’ll remember the project as a total failure and a complete waste of time. She’s a real pain about it, by the way. Constantly picks at you. Ugh! Anyway, then you’ll have to encode all of these fake memories into her brain, and put them in your journal so that the whole thing won’t get spoiled when Brit the Elder reads it.”
“Wait, what?!” Brit the Younger sputtered. “You read my journal?”
“No,” the Brit at the computer said, pointing at Brit the Elder and Brit the Much Elder. “I edited my journals, just like you will. They read our journals.”
Brit the Much Elder said, “Wait a minute. They’re our journals, too. And I don’t read them. Not anymore. Brit the Elder does. I did, but that was a long time ago, when I was her. And apparently you two were using them to lie to me anyway. Phillip never really cheated on me, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
She smiled at Phillip. “Huh. That’s good to know. I mean, in time I stopped being angry at you for it. Never fully trusted you again, but now I see the whole thing differently.”
The Brit at the computer said, “Yes, you do, but you won’t for long. When the fix kicks in you’ll forget this conversation and believe he cheated on you again.”
“But why mess with my memories?” Brit the Much Elder asked.
“For the same reason I’m doing all of this in the first place. It’s what happened before, so now I have to make sure it happens this time. Furthermore, all of us Brits are the same person. All I’m doing here is messing with your memories! It’s galling that I have to explain all of this to you, but then again, I wouldn’t have to if I hadn’t already messed with your memories. You’d remember why you did it, back when you were me. You’re gonna forget this whole fiasco, and that you were ever here as Brit the Much Elder. It may seem unnecessary to you, but it doesn’t to me, because I don’t want to remember anything about any of this, even way off in the future, when I’m you.”
Martin spread his hands out, drawing attention to his surroundings. “But what about the mess? Brit the Elder’s going to wake up and find the place trashed and all of us standing ankle deep in a blood-soaked carpet.”
“Yeah, that was difficult. I had to make her false memory of the confrontation pretty traumatic to explain this mess. But it’s plausible. All I can say is, if you’re dating a sorceress, don’t be unfaithful.”
Brit the Much Elder closed her eyes and concentrated on her memories. “Yeah, heh, things did get out of hand. I was piiiiissed!”
“Yeah. It didn’t help that Phillip lost his cool and said a lot of things he couldn’t take back. Brit the Elder got so upset by it all that she fainted.”
“But she didn’t! That didn’t happen! None of that ever happened!”
“No, but when she wakes up, Brit the Elder will remember it, and eventually all the rest of us Brits will too.”
Phillip grimaced, sank down, and sat on the floor, making an unpleasant squishing noise and taking on the exact posture Future Phillip had.
The Brit at the computer said, “The code in Brit the Younger’s head, my head eventually, will lie dormant for now, but in the future when we’re Brit the Elder, just before the whole dragon thing starts, it’ll kick in and change our memories so that we’ll think Kludge turned down the offer. After we and our Brit the Younger discuss it, our legs will start glitching out and the whole mess will kick off.”
“So, you caused Brit the Elder’s memory problem?” Gwen asked.
“No. I didn’t cause any of this. I’m just fulfilling my part in it.”
“And your part is to write the program that starts it all?”
“Yes, this time.” She pointed at Brit the Much Elder and Brit the Younger. “But she did already, and she will again.”
“So there never really was an error?”
The tired, angry Brit said, “Yes, there was. It just wasn’t in the layer of the program we thought it was. We thought it was a problem with the code, but the code was sound. The error was a logic issue caused by the way we interacted with each other. Who or whatever wrote the program, whatever it’s for, didn’t design it with time travel in mind, didn’t think we’d start interacting with earlier iterations of ourselves, and certainly didn’t expect us to lie to our former selves through our boyfriends. We all always knew we might cause some sort of terrible paradox someday that could screw everything up. Well, this was it.”
Tyler asked, “But there isn’t any flaw in the program?”
“Yes, there is. A logic error, as I said. The fact that it appears to have been created by my efforts to solve it is what makes it a logic error!” said angry Brit. “Our having access to the file and enough intelligence to use it is a flaw in the program. This problem was a symptom. We, all of us in this room, we are the glitch. We’re not supposed to be here! We’re assets from other parts of the program all clustered together in a place and time where we shouldn’t be, doing things that make sense to us, because they’re in keeping with the rules the program set out for us, but that any objective viewer would have to say are completely bizarre.”
Phillip looked at his surroundings: his friends from various walks of life, geographical areas, and decades, all standing in a demolished, blood-soaked bachelor pad built inside a cave that resembled a skull, in Medieval England. “It’s hard to argue with what you say.”
“And yet you’re trying to,” the Brit at the computer said.
Phillip asked, “So, why did you make the error spread to my hand?”
“I’ll tell you what, just for fun, let’s see if anybody has managed to follow the situation better than you have, Phillip. Anyone want to tell him why I had to make his hand glitch?”
Pretty much everyone but Phillip mumbled words to the effect of she had to, because that’s what happened before.
“That’s right,” Tired Brit said. “All I’ve done is what I saw me do. That said, I’ve spent eight years hard at work, going over and over all of this, and getting madder and madder at you, so giving you the ick was one chore I did sort of enjoy. And speaking of things I’ll enjoy, I’m going to leave. The changes are about to take effect, and I don’t want to be here when they do.”
“Because you don’t want to have to explain to Brit the Elder why you’re here,” Gwen said.
“Correct. And I don’t want you to have to explain to me why I’m here. I’m wiping my memory of all of this as well. I passed the technical information I acquired to Jeff, but in
a minute or two, I’m not going to remember any of this. I’ll have a ton of false memories, mostly about being mad at Phillip for cheating on me.”
Martin shook his head. “I understand why you’re angry with Phillip. I just don’t see why you’re this angry.”
“Because if Phillip had been right about free will, and had committed to it, he could have prevented all of this. But he didn’t have the courage of his convictions, and he was wrong to begin with, so he’s spent our entire relationship giving me false hope and telling me that what I know to be true was a lie. Either way, I’ve had over eight years working full-time on a subject I don’t find interesting, doing things I don’t like, mentally going over and over his failure in my mind. I’m bitter and angry, and I don’t like who I’ve become, which just makes me more bitter and angry. So I’m going somewhere nice and forgetting all about this mess. Brit the Much Elder, you have to scram, too. Thanks for all the help you’re going to give me, everybody. The first dance-fight rehearsal is in one week.”
She teleported away, leaving an empty seat in front of the computers. Brit the Much Elder shrugged and teleported out as well.
For a moment, nobody said a word.
Gary said, “I just had this place redone.”
“Yes,” Gwen said. “And now you have the chance to do it better.”
Tyler said, “Yeah, and this time I suggest not having a conversation pit. It, uh, really collected a lot of the blood. It’s like a wading pool in here.”
Phillip said, “Brit, I—”
“Don’t,” Brit the Younger said quietly.
“I just want to say—”
“And I don’t want you to say it.”
Phillip nodded. “Okay. I understand. Just know that—”
Martin said, “Phillip, drop it.”
Roy agreed. “Yeah, Phillip. Think about the fact that Martin is telling you not to do something.”
They sat, bathed in fake blood and awkward silence for a few more moments, then Brit the Elder started to stir. Everyone rushed forward, a cacophony of wet squishing noises coming from the carpet.
Brit the Elder’s eyelids fluttered, her head jerked up, and she was awake. She looked around at the small mob of wizards surrounding her.
Brit the Younger asked, “Are you okay?”
Brit the Elder swallowed hard, blinked several times, and said, “Yeah. I’m fine. I guess I just passed out. I guess I must have gotten too upset, remembering what Phillip did.”
30.
Later that night, after all of the wizards and the Brits had gone home, Gary sat on his ruined couch in the conversation pit of his blood-drenched living room, thinking about what he would do differently when he remodeled. He lifted his left leg, a prosthetic from the knee down made to look like a skeleton leg and foot. He noted that the entire sole of his foot, or the mass of tiny bones that made up the sole of his foot, was coated in blood. He watched it drip in thick drops from the heel bone, and thought about setting up a macro so that the prosthetic foot would leave bloody footprints wherever he stepped.
He heard the door to the vestibule open. He looked up and saw Hubert peeking around the door.
“Master? The lads and I would like to have a word. Is this a good time?”
“Sure, come on in. Have a seat.”
Hubert said, “No, Master, I think we’d prefer to stand.” The apprentices all filed in. Gary noticed that Hubert, who had been spared the direct blast from the fake-blood hose, was still wearing his tuxedo. The rest of them had changed out of their work clothes and had put back on the filthy burlap rags they had worn when they first arrived on his doorstep. The apprentices stood at the opposite edge of the conversation pit, looking down at Gary who remained seated in his bloodstained robe, on his bloodstained couch, sitting in a bloodstained hole.
“What’s up?” Gary asked.
“Master,” Hubert said, “the lads and I have been talking. Today was the first time any of them fought anyone with magical weapons, or, most of ’em, fought anyone at all.”
Gary nodded. “Yeah, not surprised. What did you think of it?”
“It was all quite a bit more . . . hands-on than they expected, Master. They had always pictured fights between wizards being more at a distance, using spells and charms and such to do the dirty work.”
Gary nodded. “Yeah, that’s the hope. It usually starts that way, but it doesn’t last. It’s like when two guys fight. It starts out as a cool-looking boxing match where they both stand up straight and dance around each other, but as soon as someone starts losing, they’ll grab the other guy around the waist, pull them down to the floor, and start punching them in the crotch.”
Hubert said, “That’s what we suspected, Master. The thing is, fighting people in a rough, brutish manner is a career option that was already open to us. We wanted to learn wizarding to avoid all of that.”
“I see.”
“So, we thank you for the opportunity, but we’re going to stop the training. Is that all right?”
Gary smiled. “Yeah. That means I’ll have to remodel this place on my own, but I’ll manage.”
One of the apprentices, a small, thin young man with a stooped posture and dried fake blood behind his ears, asked, “Can we borrow the magical tools from time to time, if we need them?”
Gary said, “Um, you know what? I don’t think that’d be a good idea. It was okay here because you were under my supervision, and we’re miles from anybody who might be bothered by the screaming if things go wrong, but the tools are too powerful to just let you borrow. But if any of you ever need anything, or just feel like coming by to say hello, feel free.”
“We will, Master. And I have a request.”
“Sure, Hubert. What is it?”
“I was hoping that I could perhaps stay on as your buttster.”
“Butler. It’s called a butler. You’d want to do that without the magic training? You mean, just, like, a job?”
“Instead of going back to sifting dung, yes, Master.”
“Well, of course, Hubert. I’d love to keep you on.”
“Splendid, Master!”
“And, Hubert, you don’t have to call me master anymore.”
“No?”
“Of course not. Calling me sir will be fine.”
* * *
Martin knocked on the front door to Phillip’s shop and waited.
He knocked again, and waited some more.
It became clear to Martin that Phillip either wasn’t there, or was not going to answer the door.
Makes sense, Martin thought. He probably wants to be alone.
Martin teleported past the door into Phillip’s shop. He ducked his head through the beaded curtain that led to the séance room and found it empty. He walked around the table to the door that led upstairs.
He knocked, waited a tasteful amount of time, then teleported to the other side.
The first thing Martin noticed was the sound of a quiet piano and an anguished voice promising someone that if they ever changed their mind, he’d be there.
Martin walked up the steps to Phillip’s rec room. When his head rose over the level of the banister, he paused to look around. He saw Phillip sitting on his white leather sofa, staring at the wall, motionless. Martin knocked on the wall.
Phillip didn’t move.
Martin knocked again.
Phillip remained still.
Martin said, “Okay, I know you’re concentrating on your moping, but you’re going to want to acknowledge me, because the next logical move is to knock on your forehead.”
Phillip shook his head. “If I wanted company, I’d have answered the door.”
“I know. There’s a difference between what you want and what you need.”
Martin picked up
Phillip’s iPod and scrolled through the active playlist. “‘One More Night,’ ‘Throwing It All Away,’ ‘Against All Odds,’ ‘Misunderstanding,’ ‘Separate Lives’? Geez, did Phil Collins ever have a successful relationship? I wonder if it ever occurred to him that maybe he was the problem. Phillip, it isn’t healthy for you to be listening to this stuff right now.” He ended up setting the iPod to play “In the Air Tonight,” because it was at least a different kind of morose.
Martin looked at the bare patch of wall that had, until recently, held the enchanted door that led to Brit the Younger’s home in Atlantis.
“I guess that’s one bright side,” Martin said. “All you had to do to move out of the place you shared with Brit was remove the doors. No cardboard boxes or piles of stuff thrown out on the lawn. Nice and clean.”
Phillip said, “I wish it had been that easy. No, I had a bunch of stuff strewn around Brit’s place. I had to gather it all up. Nik followed me around the whole time. He said he knew I was prone to forgetting things.”
“Not fun.”
“No. Not fun at all.”
“Phillip, I know you want to be alone, but I told everyone I’d check up on you.”
“Everyone?”
“Yeah.”
“Even Brit?”
“Yes. I mean, don’t get the wrong idea. She didn’t want me to check on you, or ask me about you at all. She was just present when I said I was going to check in on you.”
“And what did she say?”
“Nothing. She was busy. All she wants to talk about lately is how she’s too busy to talk.”
Phillip shrugged.
Martin slowly approached the couch. “So that’s what I’m doing. Checking up.”
Phillip shrugged again.
“So, how are you?”
Phillip didn’t look at Martin but took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been thinking about this whole mess.”
Martin sat down in a chair opposite the couch. “Yes?”
