Annabel Scheme

by Sloan, Robin

  She stepped out of the Shard, and I screamed: STOP!

  From my station across the street, I could see her. Or, more accurately, I could see many versions of her, all streaming out of the Shard’s front doors.

  Scheme, if you take another step you’ll die.

  It looked like a multiple-exposure photograph, with all the Schemes overlaid on top of each other, all doing something different. Some ducked left. Some ran right. Some came straight across the street. All of them died.

  I saw every imaginable and unimaginable scenario. Scheme exploding into a red mist. Scheme doubling over, barfing blood. Struck by lightning. Melting and transmuting into a puddle of gold. I was racking up trauma points like a pinball game.

  But actually—no—not all of them died. There was a small set of possible Schemes that made it more than a single step. And a thin trickle that made it even farther.

  Scheme. Do exactly as I say. Take two steps forward, three steps to the left. Then hop once to the right.

  She nodded. We were walking a tightrope. She moved at my command, surrounded by a cloud of deadly possibilities. I saw Scheme, hit by a bus. Hit by a plane. By a meteorite. But my Scheme was dodging them all, was step-by-step staying alive.

  Then we ran out of rope. She was standing in the street in front of the Shard, safe on a small island of stability in a sea of non-deterministic death. But there wasn’t a path forward anymore; from across the street, I saw all of Scheme’s possible selves blossom around her and bleed or burn and fall.

  Scheme, there’s nowhere to go—I’m looking, I’m trying to figure it out, but I can’t, I can’t see—

  The street was warping and shifting, shimmering like glass.

  “Issokay Hu,” she whispered, “issgonna be okay.”

  From high above, there was a crack like thunder, and the skin of the Shard rippled with a giant wave of—something bad. The banana box's last gasp pushed a huge, bulbous distortion down the side of the building—straight toward us. Scheme shook her head and clamped it between her hands. Slowly, deliberately, she said:

  “Rule. Number. Fifteen—”

  The wave crashed down into the street, right through the spot where Scheme stood, and everything went fisheye and colors didn’t line up right, and when it passed, she was gone.

  Now I only had one view of the world, the one from just below the Tata’s rear-view mirror. The other feed was dead.

  THE COMMITTEE

  Here’s what happened after that.

  First the cops came, and then some emergency squads from the New Fleet. They hustled people out of the Shard and shut down all the streets in Fog City. They pulled Nelson out of the Tata’s passenger seat and put him in an ambulance, then towed the car away. My eye sat dangling in a police lot for three days before the battery in the surveillance earring finally died.

  But I am not blind. I can follow what happens in the world from my perch in Locust Grove. For instance:

  That night, everybody was freaking out. They thought it was the forty days of Fog City all over again. But, when morning came, it seemed like the space-time continuum had settled down. And then the same image was on the front page of all the news filters: The Shard, gleaming in the sun. The fog was gone, maybe for good.

  Sebdex survived, and even though Grailers were hallucinating and bleeding from the ears at San Francisco General, he released a triumphant statement about an exciting new era for his company. In the video, warm afternoon light was beaming across the Shard’s forty-seventh floor, lighting up his bushy black hair and glinting green in his eyes. They were obviously computer-generated.

  Annabel Scheme is still in business—she’s just not around to run it right now. So I take clients, all of them over the internet, and I try my best to help them out. This isn’t a memorial. I’m keeping the lights on at Zeroth Avenue until Scheme comes back.

  She will come back.

  Two days after Scheme disappeared, Nelson woke up in a hospital bed. He couldn’t calculate tips anymore and he had a brand-new memory of a surfing trip that didn’t make any sense—Nelson didn’t surf—but he was otherwise unscathed. He had an email waiting for him. In it, I explained myself, explained that I’d been with Scheme all along. Later, I played him the video of our trip up and down the Shard. I showed him images of himself, passed out in the Tata's passenger seat. And I showed him the moment where Scheme vanished. There one frame, gone the next.

  We decided to team up. Now, with Nelson’s arms and legs, Octav’s money and my memory, we’ve formed the Committee to Find and Rescue Annabel Scheme. You’re holding the first phase of our work in your hands. Stories are quantum-stable (check Open Britannica, it’s true) so they can be a special kind of messenger. With the help of a Russian friend who has learned to keep a banana box more secure than Sebdex ever did, we have sent this story to a thousand different worlds.

  Yours is one of them.

  And here’s why I’m telling you all this:

  Now you’ll know Scheme if you meet her. She might look a little different. She might be acting strange. But then again, she might be exactly the same, with bright red hair and pockets full of tricks, and she might be trying to find her way home. You’re part of the committee now, and you have an assignment. If you meet her, say:

  Annabel Scheme. What’s rule number fifteen?

  This will be the signal that you know who she is and where she’s from. Say it—but then, before she can answer, interrupt, and just tell her that Octav and Nelson and Hu all miss her.

  Tell her that we’re going to bring her home.

  A VERY STRANGE...

  In the beginning, I told you I wasn’t a normal server. I always knew it. Scheme knew it. Now Nelson knows it, and you know it, too. So what am I, exactly? I’m not sure. But here’s what happened, six days after Scheme disappeared.

  It was late, past midnight, and a shadow was moving in Scheme’s office on Zeroth Avenue. For a moment I was sure it was her—Scheme was back!—but the shape was different. This woman was shorter, more compact. Her hair was blonde, not red. She was wearing jeans and her feet were bare.

  It was Carlotta.

  She was wandering the perimeter of the front room, tracing a finger along the edge of the shelves. She came, slowly, to Scheme’s desk, where she picked up the toy tugboat, turned it over in her hands.

  “She did the right thing, you know,” she said, and I knew, somehow, that she was talking to me, not just starting a soliloquy. I turned up the lights to see her clearly.

  “That’s better,” she said. “She did the right thing. Sebastian Dexter would not have been successful, and the demon Angelus Novus has a very well-developed vision for the best of all possible worlds.” She set the tugboat back down on the desk and said, softly, “It looks a bit like the surface of the moon...”

  Then her head snapped up. Carlotta was looking straight at me, straight into the camera above Scheme’s desk, and her eyes were bright, bright blue.

  “I know you’re waiting for her,” she said. “But when she returns, remember. I get her first.”

  Her face softened, just a little. She was quiet for a moment, still peering into the camera, into my eyes, searching for something.

  “You don’t know what you are, do you?” she said. She smiled, and there was pity in it. “Hugin. You’re a demon.”

  EOF

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, first, to the founding patrons of the Committee to Find and Rescue Annabel Scheme—an interdimensional team of humans, computers and demons:

  Ray Aguilera, Eric H. R. Alchemist, nicole aptekar, Vuokko Aro, DJ Ashkenazi, awc, Andy Baio, Joshua Bales, Erik Banner (HELL YEAH!), Maya Baratz (@mbaratz), Carolyn M. Barry, Robert C Baruch, Dylan Beadle, Lane Becker (my personal hero), Todd Berman, Brian Bilbrey, Matt Bittner, the Bonobos pants ninjas, Björn Burger, Connie Blauwkamp, Richard J. Boehme III, Dan Bouk, Henri Bourcereau, @brew7vwp, Noah Brier, Joe Brilliant, Nick Britsky, Jeremy Brooks, Brunchboy, Sarah Burnes and Jen Burt.
Oh, that’s not all.

  Caede, Brea Cali, Brandon Campbell, Case, @ChloeS, Chris, S. Chun, Jason P Clark, Paul Cloutier, Chris Coldewey, Keith Collins, William Couch, Gavin Craig, Contance Culbertson, Leah Culver, Brendan Curry, Narco Cynicalist, Ruchira S. Datta, Saheli S. R. Datta, Dave (a.k.a. Nev the Deranged), Adam M. Daw, digdoug, Doug Dinero, Tim Douglas, Eve and Joe, Mike Fancher, Howard I Finberg, Andrew Fitzgerald, Leonard Ford, Smith Forté, 4o66, Jason Franklin, freegovinfo, X Gallus X, Mahyad Gilani, Will Glozer, Gordo, Jeremy Gordon, Al Gore, Grecolaborativo, Jamie G., Jonathan Hart, John Hauschildt, Michael R Haydel (Internet Ninja), heliostatic, Casey and Kevin Henley, Burt Herman, Justin and Claudia Hetzer, Basti Hirsch, Jacob E. D. Hitze, Howard and hungerf9. But this is only the beginning.

  imho.mikeho.com, Guy Incognito, Inishilra and Bigburlypanda, Robert Irby, Chef James (FoodReference.com), Kathy Jolly, Erica and Corey Jones, Josh and Mia Judkins, Russell Jurney (Caesar of the Willows), Joshua Katz, Matt Katz, Brandon Kelley, Marguerite Kenner, KevinPJackson, Diana Kimball, Spencer Kimball, Mike SPY GUY Kitchen, Big Kitty Junior, Steve Kowalsky, Kriana and the Dome, Michael Kruse, Oliver Ark Kurek, lauraglu, Bradley Lautenbach, Flory Leow, Rachel Leow, David Lim, Andrew Linde, Lawrence Lin, Linuxjoe, Will, Leslie and Pepe Longix, Jayson Lorenzen, Ben Love, Kathy Ly, Louise Ma, Tim Maly, Marie, Sean McDonald, Arleen McGlade, meg, Juliette Melton, kevin meyer, micahsaul, Erik Michaels-Ober, Helen Michaud, Amanda Michel, Elinor Mills (Empress of Infinity), Laura Brunow Miner, Wilson Miner, Boss Mojo, Jeffrey D. Myers, Rod Naber and Sami Niemelä.

  This committee is unstoppable. Continuing: Obscured by Code, Offbeatmammal, Paul “Poppy” Oppenheim, Pia Owens, Walt Pascoe, Will B. Payne, Nicholas Peihl, Brian J Plummer, Existential Pumpkin and Myrtle Miracle-Chicken, Eoin Purcell, Andrew Reinink, Rekarth, Renee and Craig (*kiss), Christopher John Richards, Borg Rickards, Kaliel Roberts, rodbegbie, Sara Krzyczkowski Ruckle, Valerie Hope Salazar, Max Salnikov, saul, Brooke Schreier Ganz, the Shamptonian Institute, Nina Simon (Private Exhibitionist), jamila jamison sinlao, Lyle Skains, Betty Ann Sloan, Jim Sloan, Lily Sloan, the Sniffen Family, Jimmy Stamp, Thomas Sutton, Bryan J Swift, Clive Thompson, fellow Snarkmaster Matt Thompson, John and Emily Thomson, Threadwell, Trevor and Allison Torrence, Alan Tou, Matthew Tragheim, Trammell, Tim Trautmann, Chronno S. Trigger and Theron Trowbridge. Finally:

  Harris Ueng, Lana Vaughan, Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson, Jesse Vigil, VittorioRoxanaShirin&Guià (San Francisco lovers!), Stijn Van Vreckem, Mason Wasp, the Welgan Family, DJ Whelan, Jen Whitfield, Phillip “PWinn” Winn, Black Dog Wisdom, Highland Wolland, Ethan Zlomke and Amanda Zoellner.

  Thank you all.

  Thanks also to Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, Charles Adler, Lance Ivy and Andy Baio for creating Kickstarter, the platform that made this book possible.

  Thanks to Tim Carmody and Matt Thompson for the shared space at Snarkmarket where new ideas are, without fail, encouraged, enlivened and expanded. This book would not exist without it.

  Thanks to Aaron McLeran and Matt Penniman for crucial, generous feedback on an early draft of this book. Thanks to Andrew Fitzgerald and Kiyash Monsef for transformative feedback on an early draft—and for the ongoing fellowship of the Moon Yeti.

  Thanks to Evelyn Erdelyi, one of my very first patrons.

  Thanks to Betty Ann Sloan, Jim Sloan and Lily Sloan for the very foundations: unwavering support and unreserved encouragement, from Imagination Bird to Annabel Scheme—and beyond.

  And thank you for reading. This is the first story I’ve written of this scope and length; frankly, you’re a beta tester. I appreciate the gift of your time and attention, especially at this stage. So now I’ll take a pledge, a bit like Jack Zapp’s: I’m going to keep working at this, and I won’t give up until I’ve figured it out.

  See you in Fog City.