“What are you going to do?” Olivia asked. “After.”
“You mean, am I going to commit sati and throw myself on her funeral pyre? No. Even if I wanted to, she wouldn’t let me.”
“How would she know?”
“Oh, Sophie would rise from the grave and strangle me. She always sings this song: Time is a gift, precious and rare...”
“Take it and make of it all you can, use all you can, there’s not a moment to spare!” Olivia sang. “I loved that movie when I was a kid.”
“The remake, the remake of the remake, or the original?”
“All of them,” Olivia said.
“Well, Sophie wants me to use my time. She says I still have work to do.”
“What kind of work?”
“The work of living,” Ned said. “She wants me to keep consulting with my firm. She wants me to travel and enjoy the fruits of my labor. She wants me to love again.”
“Love again?” echoed Olivia. “Do you think that will be possible?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “When she dies, she is going to take so much of me with her. I don’t know how much of me will be left.” Ned paused. “Are you using your time, Olivia?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you Peacing Out with Joe? I’ve been wanting to ask you, but it didn’t seem right to do it in front of him.”
“How long have you and Sophie been together?”
“Forty years.”
“Can you imagine your life without her?”
“No.”
“I can’t imagine my life without Joe.”
“Just because you can’t imagine it doesn’t mean you should Peace Out,” Ned said. “His gift of time is almost over. Yours isn’t. Aren’t there things you want to do? Things for yourself?”
“Not really,” she said. “I never wanted more in my life than to be a wife, mother and homemaker. I’ve done all of those things.”
“What about your children? How are they taking your decision?”
“Not well at all,” she said. “They’ve accepted it though. We haven’t talked with them much since we left. We do see the grandkids every day. They don’t know yet.”
“You can still be a mother and homemaker,” Ned said. “A grandmother.”
“No thanks,” she said. “I don’t want to live with either of my daughters-in-law. They run their homes in their own way. I’d be allowed, but not welcomed. It wouldn’t be home. My daughter and her husband don’t have the space.”
“Buy them a bigger place.”
“They would never accept that from me, and even if they did, I wouldn’t want to make her feel beholden to me.”
“So Peace Out is the answer?” Ned asked.
“Holding hands with Joe, my family around me,” Olivia said.
“So what’s going on with Joe?” Ned changed the subject. “He seemed fine yesterday.
“I think he is in pain, more than he lets on.”
The yellow umbrella stopped in front of two Jeeps. They divided into groups, Olivia and Ned with the other couple in one Jeep and the Texas ladies in another. Adisa sat in the front seat of Olivia’s Jeep next to driver Michael. It was a long drive to the reserve and Adisa entertained them with stories of Tanzanian history, food, and culture. She informed them they would be trying one of the staples of the Tanzanian diet, cassava mush.
“Sounds appetizing,” murmured Ned.
Olivia laughed.
About thirty minutes into the drive, Adisa announced that she would be taking a break. Olivia heard a click and the earbud went silent. The couple across from them smiled at Ned and Olivia.
“I’m Jane,” she said. “This is my husband Bill.”
“Ned.”
“Olivia.”
They all shook hands.
“So how long have you two been married?” Jane asked.
“Let’s see,” Ned said. “I’ve been married forty years. How long have you been married, Olivia?”
“Forty-two,” she said.
Jane looked at them uncertainly.
Ned laughed. “Our spouses weren’t feeling up to a safari today. We’ve been on ship together for what, a month and a half now?”
“Seven weeks.”
Jane looked relieved. “Bill and I have been married for thirty-five years,” she said. “He turned seventy last week and I’ll turn seventy in a few months. So we are doing a little trip before we Peace Out.”
“Pledge 70?” asked Ned.
“Oh yes,” Jane said. “It is so important these days, things being the way they are.”
Adisa took up her narration again and they listened attentively. Once they entered the reservation, everyone got out their cameras. Michael drove slowly, stopping each time anyone saw something of interest. The next few hours sped by. They stopped around lunchtime in a compound in the middle of the reservation. The tourists followed Adisa into the welcome coolness of the restaurant. Michael and Gabriel passed out icy glasses of water.
Olivia took a long drink and wiped the sweat from her forehead. They had seen a pride of lions, giraffes, elephants and a solo rhinoceros so far, along with a bunch of colorfully plumaged birds. The roads were unpaved and bumpy, the Jeep’s seats were hardly padded, the temperature was sweltering, and the air was dry and dusty. Olivia didn’t care. She was having a wonderful time.
Joe was asleep when Olivia got back to the room. She felt grimy after a day on the veldt so she took a shower. When she went back into the bedroom, Joe was sitting up in bed, reading on his tablet.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Amazing,” Olivia said, going to the closet to get dressed. “We got so close to the animals. Ned and I shared a jeep with this couple from Minnesota. Our guide was very informative, but also knew when to be quiet and just let us marvel at the scenery. My least favorite part was lunch. That exotic stuff is not really for me. But at least we had dinner at a more American-style place. I had a burger.
“It was nice to get to know Ned a little more. He told me all about how he and Sophie met. It was through an executive dating search. She was the CFO of this small company based in Melbourne and he had just made partner at his firm in Washington D.C. They dated long distance for over a year before she moved. Not like us. I told him how you swept me off my feet at that bonfire freshman year of college. Though it did take you ten years to propose. Anyway, remember how Sophie said she never wanted children? That wasn’t quite the truth. They tried for years and she couldn’t have them. It is so sad. Ned said she didn’t want to go with IVF, surrogacy, or adoption, so they just didn’t have any. Ned says he really envies you, that you have this legacy to leave in your children and grandchildren.
“I took a lot of pictures. I have them on my tablet if you want to see them.” Olivia went to the table to get it.
“Not tonight,” Joe said. “I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “And here I am talking your ear off. How was your day?” she asked, getting into bed beside him.
“Fine,” he said. “I went to the doctor and got refills, then I spent the rest of the day in here. I ordered room service and slept a lot. It was lonely, but I survived.”
“I would have stayed with you,” Olivia said.
“You wanted to go,” Joe said. “I just helped you make the decision.”
“You encouraged me to go,” she said defensively. “I went because you wanted me to go.”
“You’ve been talking about the safari for days,” he said. “Then I get sick and suddenly you don’t want to go anymore? Come on. If you had stayed, you would have sulked about it.”
“That is not true,” she said. “I wanted to be with you.”
“Yeah, right,” he said.
“So now you’re mad at me for going? That isn’t fair, Joe.”
“I’m dying, Olivia. That isn’t fair.”
“Why are we fighting?” she asked. “What are we fighting about?”
“I don�
�t want to talk about this anymore. Let’s go to sleep.”
“I love you,” Olivia said.
“I love you too.”
Joe fell back asleep rather quickly, but Olivia was too wired. She kept still and stared at the ceiling, thinking about her first major outing by herself in over forty years.
ANNA AND SCOTT
“Our courts have long recognized a constitutional right to privacy. This, combined with human dignity, affords the right of a competent individual to choose to end his or her life.” Peace Out v. United States, 1232 U.S. 262 (2026).
“There are five conference rooms down the hall, ten seats in each. The review tablets are cued up.” Nina Jenkins addressed the interns from a podium in the auditorium. “We just finished riffing all the paper documents from the first twenty years or so of Peace Out LA, but you know how bad handwriting can be. Many pages have something that riff has identified as illegible text. That is where you all come in. You’ll go through each of these flagged documents and enter the text as best as you can translate it. Sometimes it isn’t text. In those cases, you tap the box and tag it ‘null.’ Just like this.” Nina demonstrated on the large screen. “Any questions?”
There were none.
“You will spend at least four hours a day working on this project. Today you’ll all work together. After this, you will work out the timing with your mentors and their schedules. We’ll keep two conference rooms dedicated to the project. The review tablets must remain in the conference rooms.”
Anna sighed. “Can’t they farm this out to Greece?” she whispered to Scott.
“They cost as much as we do,” Scott said. “Besides, this is part of intern bonding. To forge ahead through crappy, mind-numbing work. It’s better than what we were doing before.”
“True. Manual labor never appealed to me.”
The interns filed dutifully down the hall, a sea of blue coats. Anna and Scott went into the first room. Dom was already seated and waved them over.
Scott sat down next to him, Anna taking the seat next to Scott.
“Tell me you’ve written an amazing program that will do this work for us,” Anna said.
“I wish,” Dom said. “I’ve already been through five documents. The handwriting is awful. I’ve nulled out a doodle of a happy face with fangs and a psychedelic swirly maze. I’ve also helped clear up some confusion over a grocery list someone made during Facilitation. Peace Out now knows that in 2038 Dr. Steiner needed eggs, milk, bread, and chocolate pudding.”
“Awesome,” Scott said. He pulled up a document on his tablet and squinted at the flagged section. “Is that a food stain? I can’t even tell what that letter is!”
Anna looked over. “I think that says reconciliation. It fits in the context of the sentence and the first four letters are definitely ‘reco.’”
Scott keyed it into the system. “And now we know that in 2034, Mabel Tanner was seeking reconciliation with her son before Peacing Out.”
The conference room was full. After a week of social events, all the interns knew each other. They had each gotten a booklet with each other’s photos and basic information. They had also divided into a few cliques. Anna and Scott weren’t the only couple, just the first. Dom had hooked up with a girl named Marissa. She worked in POP and was sitting across from Dom. Anna really liked Marissa and Scott decided Dom wasn’t so bad once you got him on a subject other than crystal computing. They had gone on a few double dates.
Anna felt Scott’s hand on her thigh.
“Oversight,” she whispered.
He removed his hand. There was no policy against interns dating, but she wasn’t going to get in trouble for unprofessional behavior at the workplace. At least, unprofessional behavior that could be caught. Anna dropped her voice even lower and tried not to move her lips. “By the way,” she whispered. “I’m not wearing panties today.”
Scott’s eyes widened and he looked down at her pinstriped pencil skirt. Anna crossed her legs and smiled innocently.
They worked in silence for thirty minutes. Then Ty the red-haired engineering intern asked if it would be OK if he played some music. Everyone engaged in a healthy argument over what kind of music to play. Dom was pushing for trip hop, but Marissa wanted something purely instrumental. She claimed that anything with words would distract her. They settled on new ambient.
With the music on, everyone relaxed and started chatting. They compared funny doodles and helped each other decipher truly horrific examples of penmanship.
“So I think one of my ideas is getting used,” Marissa announced.
“What is it?” asked Dom. The entire Peace Out Publicity Department was located in LA. Like all the other departments, it sought the best of the best. Marissa landed her spot with a self-made commercial for Peace Out. It was already airing nationally.
“They are making a documentary commemorating 50 years of Peace Out,” she said. “I have it on good information that Alana Baxter took the Pledge. I suggested they contact her for the doc. My brother’s friend has a friend who is one of her assistants.”
“No way,” Scott said. “A.B. took the Pledge?”
“She hasn’t Indexed it yet,” Marissa said. “Anyone breathes a word of this and I will kill you. We have to be delicate about the approach. I don’t want her assistant to get fired for violating a non-disclosure.”
“What is your favorite Alana Baxter movie?” Ty asked.
“Definitely Elementals,” Scott said.
“So highbrow,” scoffed Anna. “I like the Bond movies.”
Every boy in the room groaned. “What were they thinking?” Ty said. “Jenna Bond? Jenna?”
“Proof that sexism is alive and well, folks.” Marissa said. “Anyway, I think A.B. would be great to narrate the section on Pledge 70, maybe tell her own story if she is willing. POP is working with a big name director. Cameras have never been allowed in a Peace Out Center before. It is going to be huge. They are going to interview PO employees, terminals, families of directives. Full access.”
“Isn’t that risky?” Scott asked. “How can POP control the final product?”
“Well of course POP has to approve before the film is released.”
POPoganda, Anna thought.
“Are they going to show anyone Peacing Out?” Scott asked.
“I don’t know,” Marissa said. “What does it look like?”
“Like going to sleep,” Scott said. “They are given a combination of barbiturates and painkillers, enough to put them out. Then we put on a gas mask and turn on the helium. They wear a heart monitor so we can record time of death.”
“I think there are too many gadgets for it to be a good visual,” Marissa said. “But who knows?”
“Are they going to show the crematory?” asked Ty. “They have done some amazing things with energy reclamation and the incinerator.”
“Probably too morbid,” Marissa said.
“Peace Out is about death. It’s all morbid,” Anna said. “You should include something about the people who try to take advantage of Peace Out. We had this guy and his wife come through two days ago. They’re on BL. They have been to a Peace Out Center every year for the past five years. They treat it like a personal vacation spot. Free hotel, free food. I can’t believe Patrick let them stay again. I guess they have this rule that if you come to Peace Out and don’t do it, then you can’t come back for a year. So that is what this couple does. It’s ridiculous. They should be banned.”
“Who knows, maybe they’ll actually Peace Out this time,” Ty said.
“Doubt it,” Anna said. “They seem to enjoy Facilitation too. I have to sit there and listen to them blab about themselves while feigning interest. I just wonder how many other people are doing this. It’s so wrong.”
“Hey, sorry to change the subject, but did Nina say how many of these documents we have to get through today?” Dom asked.
“I think she said we should make 60 corrections per hour,” Marissa said.
> “Then I’m way behind.”
“Me too,” Scott said. “We better get back to work.”
Ty turned the music up.
“I almost forgot,” Anna said. “Patrick invited us over for dinner next Thursday. Do you have plans?” She was nestled in Scott’s arms, the covers kicked off the bed.
“Next Thursday?” Scott asked. “I should be available.”
“Great,” Anna said. “I’ll let him know.” She picked up her phone from the bedside table. “Italian?” she asked.
“Sure,” Scott said.
Anna put in an order for delivery. They got dressed and went to the kitchen. Anna sat at the breakfast bar while Scott selected a bottle of wine from the pantry and two glasses.
“You are the naughtiest good Christian girl I know,” Scott said.
“Stop with the compliments,” she replied. Anna poured two glasses of wine.
“Would your parents freak out if they knew how often I sleep here?” Scott asked.
“Absolutely. They would freak out if they knew half the things I’ve done,” Anna said. “The way I was raised, sex was the ultimate taboo. Like if I did it outside of marriage, the heavens would open and a pillar of fire would consume me.
“My youth minister gave this talk when I was in high school. He had a chart and on it were things like holding hands, hugging, kissing, French kissing, and French kissing in a reclining position. Then he drew a line under French kissing, and basically said that was as far as you should go before marriage. So I raised my hand and asked him how far he and his wife went before they got married. He was so flustered. He told me that was private and then he moved on with his talk. It was ludicrous. But I guess a youth minister can’t really tell a teenager he was diddling his future wife in her parents’ basement.
“So then I asked my parents how far they went. After much hemming and hawing, my Dad admitted that they went to third base, but he was quick to point out that was only after they were engaged. Such restraint. They were engaged about two months after they met and married another three months after that.
Peace Out (The Futures Trilogy Book 1) Page 8
