“Not quite. There is a way around the problem. If our knowledge of the future remains with us. If we don’t allow the information to leak, then the future is unaffected by us. But that means we can’t interact with the world at all. We have to remain in the closed loop. If we send our knowledge out—if we even leave the silo with our knowledge and not say anything, the future changes and all our efforts are wasted. Our actions will be based on knowledge we didn’t have before we knew it.”
“Isn’t that the goal, to change the future?”
“We want to stop the conflagration, yes, but nothing we’ve done has affected that. We can’t come out until we can. Up to that time, we have to remain closed off. Any leak before we discover the cause could move the clues around. Some place we’ve already researched might then contain vital warnings about the end that didn’t exist there before. We can’t risk that.”
Gretta had been staring at Rye through Dr. Martin’s speech. “Your eyes look weird,” she said. She was wearing sweats and balancing a stack of papers on her knee. Lately she’d taken to sporting a baseball cap that perpetually shadowed her face, and Rye couldn’t find her eyes at all.
“You ought to see them from my side.” For several minutes, he’d managed to ignore the floaters, but now that she’d reminded him, he was acutely aware of the blemishes in his vision.
“And your bruises are worse,” she said.
“Gretta,” Dr. Martin said sharply.
“But they are! I’m just pointing out an empirical truth.”
Rye said, “Not bruises: Kaposi’s sarcoma. Has anyone ever told you that you need to work on your social skills?”
“Too much of a computer mind,” said Martin. “All her developmental years were spent in line code.”
“You’re patronizing me again. I’m sleeping in my own room from now on,” said Gretta, turning her back to both of them.
“Empirical truth,” said Martin.
The new chip snapped into place in the headset. “There,” said Rye. “Plug me into today, and we’ll see if this did the trick.”
The headset settled on his forehead, and the display screens flickered on, showing him a virtual rendering of the VR room. Martin looked up at him expectantly, his image crisp and flicker-free. Rye let his vision rove back and forth a few times so the eye-trackers could get a fix.
“What time?” said Martin.
“2:00 p.m. in the monitors’ room.”
Dr. Martin typed in the information on his keyboard; the display fuzzed out, and then cleared. Rye’s point of view was the silo now, where the missile had once stood, but now contained four computer monitors in the middle of the circular space. Each monitor scrolled the day’s news. Martin had told Rye that when he first started trying to discover what caused the end of the world, he had wandered through virtually rendered restaurants and shopping malls in the future, reading newspapers over people’s shoulders, or stood in front of televisions until the news came on. The process was time consuming and frustrating. “Everyone reads the sports and comics,” Martin had said, “and the science news coverage is pathetic.” Then, he realized, he could customize the news for his own benefit by setting up the monitors in the silo. They displayed detailed reprints of scientific journals; synopses of political events; reports of anything in the strange or unexplained category, and current events. But the monitors had revealed nothing so far. Even on the day before the end, they spewed out an unremarkable collections of stories and articles. Of course, there was never any mention of them either, which meant that they had decided to stay underground right until the Earth-searing fire. They never climbed out to warn the world. They kept sending messages to themselves until the end.
It was in the current events monitor that Rye had seen the news of the plane crash the day before.
Gretta stopped him at the doorway to his cubicle.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Did I?” She was wearing gray sweatpants and a blue Highlander T-shirt cut off just above her belly button, slicing Duncan Mcleod at mid-thigh. “I mean, just being factual about people shouldn’t get you in trouble, should it?”
Rye didn’t have a chance to answer. Gretta had a tendency to talk in furious bursts.
“Like, I think it’s more honest to confront disease. Denial, you know, is no good. This whole end of the world thing, for example, would be solved if we just told everyone what we have found out. That’s what we ought to do.”
“But…” offered Rye.
“It’s denial on a grand scale. NSA hides stuff by instinct. Their argument about our technology having security repercussions is hogwash. The end of the world is more important than petty national concerns. We’re caught in Martin’s closed-loop idea. He sold it too well, and look where it’s left us.”
Rye thought how weird it was that he didn’t find her attractive at all. Since the heavy medication had started, he hadn’t felt a whisper of sexual longing for anyone. He wondered if it was his body disengaging from life, letting go of one desire after another. First, sex. Eventually, eating, drinking and finally, breathing. She was the only woman he’d seen in months, and she was neuter to him, a personality, nothing else. He didn’t feel an urge to drop his eyes to her shirt (though clearly she wasn’t wearing a bra): he didn’t have a plan for maneuvering around her affections. He couldn’t decide if the change in attitude was a loss or a gain. Overall, though, he wasn’t sad, so he guessed it was probably a plus.
Gretta continued, “You know why I think we never see news of us in the monitors? It’s because we tried to tell the world—how could we not, eventually?—but NSA stopped us.”
She paused. Across the hall, Rye saw Dr. Martin wearing the headset. His thumb rested on the tiny joystick that controlled his point of view in the virtually rendered world. The computers behind him captured the images, processed them, analyzed them, made comparisons to the previously gathered information. One of the three of them were almost constantly under the headset, exploring the world and time for clues.
“Here’s what would make sense,” Gretta said. “That we had a hundred crews like us searching for the answer. Not that you would care.”
Startled, Rye looked at her. “Sorry. I wandered.”
“No, I mean you don’t have a stake in this. I told Martin it was a mistake to bring you on board.” She put a hand on his arm. “It’s not your fault, really. But the end of the world won’t affect you. Boom—the world’s gone, but you’ll be dead long before that.”
“Thank you for that grim assessment,” Rye said.
“Not grim—the truth. I’m not into denial. What surprises me is that you can get out of bed at all. Sheesh. Your days are numbered, but you not only keep working, you seem happy most of the time.”
“That’s true,” said Rye, cutting her off. “That’s true, but it’s always been that way. It’s just lately that I knew approximately the number of my days. There’s always been a number for me, though, just like there’s one for you. In fact, I think I’m luckier than you because I don’t know the exact date for me.”
“I do,” said Gretta. “I scanned for it when you first came down. It’s…”
“Don’t!” Rye backed away from her, breathing hard. “I don’t want to know the date.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Why not? We can’t be into denial down here, can we? Why wouldn’t you want to know?”
Afraid that she would blurt it out, Rye felt like covering his ears with his hands and yelling at the top of his lungs. Instead, he backed into his room.
“Let’s end this conversation now,” he said. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to take a nap.”
“Oh. Sure, if you want. Just so long as you’re not upset about what I said earlier. Martin, he says I talk too much too soon. I’m working on it. It’s just if a thought pops up, I generally say it right away. I don’t see it as a character flaw or anything.”
“Gretta, I understand. But I’m tired now, honestly.”
When she
left, he flopped face down on his bed and tried to enjoy his good news. The monitor had been empty of any report of a plane crash. When he had looked at today’s news yesterday, that was the main story. Now, nothing. Annie must have not only not gone on the flight, she prevented it. Rye smiled. He should have known. There’s no way she’d let a flight go without her if she thought anyone was in danger.
“The future is changing! The future is changing!” yelled Gretta.
Rye craned his neck around from his tiny desk. He’d been fighting off nausea by trying to figure out how he could tweak the equipment to gather information faster. There was no reason beyond the limitations of the computers that they couldn’t download the future at better than real time. The problem was how much information there was and how well they could handle it. In the meantime, his stomach hurt, and he kept getting dizzy. Some combination of the meds was bouncing his blood pressure all over the place.
“The future is changing?” parroted Martin as if he were an elderly Chicken Little.
Rye almost ran into him as they rushed into the VR room. Gretta sat underneath the headset, knuckles white, frantically punching keys with her left hand while jockeying the joystick with the right. Suddenly woozy, Rye leaned against a wall.
“The end isn’t there,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Martin checked her setting. “Of course it isn’t. You’re too early.”
Gretta entered new coordinates. “I went to see the end, and it wasn’t there. I thought I’d watch from France, where it would be dark.”
She changed the coordinates again, typing automatically.
“It’s prettier in the dark. The sky glows for a second first.”
She typed in new coordinates.
Martin stood at the console, confused. “How did this happen? It’s not there?”
“My settings were right. It was dark. I thought I was in the right place, but the fire didn’t come. I waited five minutes.”
Rye partially sat on the edge of a desk. He’d broken the closed loop by sending an e-mail to Annie. She’d not only stayed off the plane, she’d somehow stopped the flight. Is this what happened? Some kind of butterfly effect where her changed ripple in time lapped up on a future shore and prevented the end of the world?
Sweat prickled his forehead, as if a cold breeze passed him. Had he done it accidently? Had he somehow saved them all?
“”Where is it?” gasped Gretta. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
“Maybe it will never happen,” offered Rye.
Dr. Martin said, “What are you seeing? I can’t follow your changes that fast.”
“Still not there. Still not there.”
“You’re just jumping a week at a time.” Dr. Martin checked a monitor, running his finger down the screen. “Try one month jumps.”
“Jump by years,” said Rye. “Maybe there’s years of change.” He hoped there was no end, that whatever series of events that ended the world would never happen ever.
“God, I hope not,” Dr. Martin said. “We need to find it soon.”
“No,” said Rye. “The longer she takes to find it, the better, right?”
Dr. Martin didn’t say anything, watching the screen intently.
Rye didn’t get it. Where was the jubilation? The end of the world was gone, and Gretta couldn’t find it. Their job was done, and he could go home. By sheer chance, he’d done a heroic thing. He’d saved humanity. He could go see Annie.
“Whoops,” said Gretta, holding her hand poised above the keyboard. “There it is.”
Rye sagged against the desk. “Is it the end?”
Martin checked figures on the screen. “Could be worse,” he said. “Could be a whole hell of a lot worse.”
Gretta flicked the joystick, then tapped the same key several times in a row, backing herself up or moving forward in smaller increments. She sat still for a minute, then she said, “Here it comes,” and she arched back as if watching something that towered over her. “There it goes.” She tapped twice and ran it through again. “Looks the same. Nothing different.”
Rye said, “How much time did we gain? How much longer have we got?”
Martin looked up from his monitor; his face dragged down and muscleless, as if the bones behind them had gone soft.
“Not gained,” he said. “Lost.”
Rye didn’t move. Gretta didn’t move. Rye knew she must be watching the turbulence after the end: clouds of electrically charged dust flashing back and forth at each other and boiling in fury.
“What?” Rye’s voice sounded very tiny to him.
“We’ve lost three-and-a-half years,” Martin said. The words came slowly and flat. “The end is that much closer.”
Rye stood up, reached for the two of them, then the room did a deep swoop and he knew no more.
He awoke to laughter. For the longest time, he kept his eyes closed and didn’t really listen to the conversation. The floaters bothered him least before he opened his eyes for the first thing in the morning. He couldn’t see them then. In the darkness of sleep, his vision regained its clarity.
“Now we’ve got some direction,” said Dr. Martin.
“Oh, yes,” said Gretta. “I can start tracking the branches of possibility; you can go after biographies.”
They were in the room with him. Slowly, Rye guessed they were in his room. He could smell the astringents and alcohol wipes.
They would hate him, wouldn’t they? He scrunched his eyes tighter. Adolf Hitler couldn’t measure up to the crime I’ve committed, thought Rye. He didn’t kill everyone on Earth.
Dr. Martin laughed again.
“He’s awake, I think,” said Gretta. “Rye… Rye.”
Someone prodded his arm.
“Gretta!”
Offended sounding, she said, “He’s got to wake up sometime.”
Not able to put it off any longer, Rye opened his eyes and sat up. Everything swirled, and he lay back hurriedly. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Gretta snorted, “Isn’t that rich. He doesn’t know what he’s done.”
Confused, Rye eyed them warily. Gretta leaned toward him, her elbows resting on her knees, and her chin in the cup of her hands. Dr. Martin sat beside her, one hand draped on the back of her chair.
Rye took a deep breath. His lungs felt papery thin and his skin transparent, but he didn’t feel sick to his stomach, and his sight didn’t seem any worse. But a heaviness pressed him down into the bed. Three-and-a-half years less time for all of humanity. And for what? So Annie could die with them at the end? So Annie could look up the second before the flame hit and join the mass exodus?
Rye turned his head away.
Dr. Martin said, “You’ve done us all a great favor, Rye. I checked the computer records. I know about the message to your sister.”
The metal wall beside his bed had a long scratch in it. Rye stared at that. Underneath the sheets, he dug his fingernails into his palms.
“Rye, you have to understand. For months we’ve been looking for clues about the end, but there’s never been anything. No clues at all, Rye. Nothing. And the more we looked, the more I’ve feared that there was nothing we could do. That the end wasn’t caused by human actions.”
The words didn’t make sense, but the tone did. Dr. Martin wasn’t angry. Neither was Gretta. Rye looked at them.
Gretta said, “Come on, bruise-head. Don’t you see? Your sister didn’t die, and neither did anyone on her plane. Now the end has changed. Something someone does or doesn’t do because that plane didn’t go down causes the end of the world to happen sooner.”
“Human action caused it, Rye. And if it’s human, we can find it and prevent it. And not only that, but you’ve given us a place to start, your sister’s flight.”
Rye sat up again, this time much more slowly. The room tipped only slightly.
“We can stop it?”
Gretta said, “See, even a game boy can figure this stuff out if you give him time.”
&n
bsp; Dr. Martin frowned at her, then rubbed her shoulder as he stood.
“We will, but not you. I’m sending you topside. You can get better medical treatment there I think.”
Bed sheets tangled around his feet, and it took a second to get them free and put them on the floor. “But what about the closed loop of information? I’ve seen the future. Going topside will affect it in unpredictable ways.” Rye’s voice rasped. Gretta offered him a glass of water and a handful of pills, his daily dosage.
“Oh, the loop’s busted now, and we haven’t done much investigating yet. So this is the only reasonable time to let you go. Once you’re out and can’t look at the future, you can’t change it. You won’t change your actions based on any new future you see. You’ll be out of the loop.”
Gretta said, “And you can be with your sister.”
Dr. Martin and Gretta loaded most of Rye’s baggage into the elevator for him.
“The guarantee for medical treatment is still good,” said Dr. Martin. “NSA has it arranged for you to check into a clinic in Sante Fe. They have new techniques.”
Rye shook his hand. “Thanks, but my condition is way advanced. It’ll be like painting the barn after it’s fallen. I’m going to get to go home though. I’m going to call Annie.”
Reaching past him, Dr. Martin pushed the elevator button. “You’ll need to bail her out first.”
“Excuse me?” said Rye. He braced his hand against the door to hold it open.
Dr. Martin grinned, his eyes looking less watery now and more like they glistened. “She stopped that flight by calling in a bomb threat. They’ve got her on a terrorism charge, but they don’t know what to do with her. The bomb squad didn’t find any explosives, of course, but they did find a fatal mechanical flaw. The press got the story, and no one’s sure if she’s a criminal or a saint.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Rye, “that you could get someone from the NSA to intervene.”
“Consider it done.” Dr. Martin put his arm around Gretta. “Now, you’d better get going. We have work to do here.”
Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille Page 16
