by Sean Platt
“And spread farther,” Rachel added.
“We can’t kill him.” Noah wasn’t entirely sure of that when he’d first said it, but his mind had been rearranging blocks ever since, shuffling the inevitable timeline. Now he was certain.
“What happens when he dies fifty years from now?” Rachel asked.
“He can’t be allowed to die. We must protect him.” He looked back up at Rachel. “He’s already in with Isaac. Keep him there. Watch him.”
“How long?”
“Forever.”
“He’s not going to live forever,” Alexa said.
Noah looked over at Alexa, the blocks in his mind still alive and moving. Once you knew enough, the world was nothing but one big puzzle. Reaction followed action as surely as night chased the day. A careful man could appear to do magic if he knew where to be and what to do and what had to happen next. Truth was, Noah had planned to imprint the AI himself and had thus already noted the small problem of his own mortality. Fortunately, Noah knew he could solve that particular wrinkle before the end of his natural life.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.
“I still think we have to kill him now.” Eli shrugged. “Before things get worse. It’s the only way. We can’t purge the bots or the new AI. It’s part of the fabric. Costa’s our only leverage.”
“No,” said Noah.
The eleven others looked up at him. Panel was democratic, and a majority vote always ruled. Ties went to deliberation — one more reason they needed to get to twenty-one quickly and cap membership, so there’d always be a tiebreaker. But right now, no one would argue with Noah. He was a genius among wizards, and in this moment represented a Panel of one.
Eli sighed. “You’re making a mistake.”
“I’m not.”
“You can’t know what will happen, Noah.” Alexa shook her head in resignation rather than protest.
“No,” he said. “It’s all of you who don’t know what will happen. It’s like you can’t see into the future.”
Eli chuckled. “And you can?”
Noah turned his attention to the fat man with the dreadlocks.
“Wait and see.”
Chapter 8
Isaac found a small piece of paper on the countertop. It was blush colored and had the feel of extravagance. It was certainly nothing he’d seen in the apartment before. It looked old, almost ceremonial. Most paper these days was utilitarian — enough so that it was seldom branded and was sold in packs with labels declaring it to be PAPER as simply and starkly as if it were instead labeled ANCIENT FLATTENED TREE PULP. But this paper was different. It had a soft feel, as if infused with lotion. And when Isaac raised it to his nose and inhaled, he detected a scent. It was Natasha’s perfume, but it wasn’t strong enough for her to have sprayed the paper. The smell was slight, as if she’d rubbed it against her skin.
The feminine handwriting on the note read: Meet me in the Viazo.
Intrigued, Isaac set the paper down and made his way through the apartment’s center, through the sunken living room, and toward his office. Natasha’s door was closed, as it so often was. But somehow, even that closed door looked different now. It usually looked forbidding. Today, it looked mysterious. Almost tantalizing.
He took a moment to survey her door, wondering if he should knock. But he had immersion rigs in his own office, and whatever Natasha was up to, she’d planned it rather deliberately. The closed door, like the scented note, was part of it. She was a performer to the last. And sometimes — not often recently, but sometimes — her drama could be a good thing.
He went into his own office, closed the door out of habit, sat in one of the rigs, and took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the machine’s routine. Natasha immersed constantly, but Isaac almost never did. The last time he’d been inside, it had been for his attempted (and failed) vacation booking. That hadn’t ended well, and he found himself looking at the skull cap covered in sensors with trepidation.
Then he lay back, began the sequence, and surrendered.
When Isaac opened his virtual eyes, with the rig’s inputs now flawlessly replacing all five of his native senses, Isaac found himself standing on a tile floor, a decorative red curtain hanging beside a set of glass doors in front of him. Past the doors, he saw a dark night past a lit awning. There was a car (wheeled, not hover) under the awning, and as he watched, a valet stepped out. The uniformed valet held the door for a man wearing a necktie (a straight one — something Isaac hadn’t seen since his youth), who then stepped inside.
Isaac turned, puzzled. Something was very familiar about where he was, but it wasn’t clicking just yet.
Looking down, he saw himself wearing a classic suit. He seemed to have a cigarette between his lips, unlit. He was wearing a watch. An actual watch. He remembered the timepiece; it had been his grandfather’s, and back in the day he’d worn it only for special occasions and purely as an ornament. He looked at the watch’s face, seeing that it was either noon or midnight. Then he saw how the second hand wasn’t moving, and remembered that he’d worn the watch well after it had broken, for sentimental reasons.
There was movement behind him.
“That suit still looks good on you,” came a voice.
Isaac turned.
When he saw Natasha standing behind him in her gown, his memory slipped into a mental groove, and recollection hit him all at once. It hit him so hard, in fact, that he almost didn’t notice the change in her appearance because this was almost the Natasha that belonged here. She hadn’t had the courage to return her bony frame to all of its old curves, but she’d bravely given her avatar a shape that was somewhere in the middle, between the truth of the day and who she was in 2097. Regardless, the woman in front of him now was the least artificial Isaac had seen his wife in over forty years.
He looked down at himself again, wondering if he looked to her like the young Isaac, the current Isaac, or a hybrid like she’d chosen for herself. She’d programmed the immersion, so he had no idea. He’d uncharacteristically trusted her, slipping into the world she’d provided as willingly as putting on a shoe.
“It’s the Layback Lounge, isn’t it?” he said, looking around with new recognition. They were in the empty foyer of a posh club, and the memories were rolling at him like boulders to the bottom of an avalanche. Behind Natasha, he could hear the sounds of a crowd watching a show, but out here, they were alone, just as they’d been on the night they’d first met.
A rare and genuine smile formed on Natasha’s lips. He’d forgotten what anything other than a scowl looked like there, and he’d forgotten — quite to his regret — what her face had looked like fuller, which was how he’d once found it most beautiful.
“You remembered,” she said.
“Of course I remembered. It just took me a moment.” A tentative smile creased his lips. “There’s a table out there where Clive Spooner and his date…Nancy?”
“Nicole.”
“Nicole. Where they’re waiting for you to join them.”
“He was my first good connection,” she said.
Isaac took a step forward. It felt strange to approach Natasha with anything but scorn, but she looked so different and he felt so different. That made it safe. He even wanted to take her hand, but it was too much. Too far. For now.
“Your second good connection,” he said, nodding down at himself.
“I can’t believe you remember Clive and Nicole.”
“I remember everything. I just watched the valet bring Telly Bedford’s car around. It was a 2034 Cadillac.” He plucked the cigarette from his lips and held it up. “This was a prop. I used to smoke, but I stopped during the Fall. I borrowed this one from Clive. It was real. I wanted to impress you when you came around, as a big man who could afford to smoke. But I never had the guts to light it. I didn’t want to burn Clive’s property and was afraid I’d cough on the smoke and look like a loser.”
Natasha’s expression cha
nged, morphing from happy to touched. Of course she was touched. Sometimes, it felt like they hadn’t traded a kind word in ten years, and it was easy to believe that none of their shared memories had ever been cherished.
“You got the watch wrong, though,” he said. “It was indeed stopped, but you were the one who set it to perpetual midnight months or years later. ‘So that every moment will be a new start,’ you said.”
Natasha sighed, vulnerable. “Sounds like something a dreamer would do. A young girl with stars in her eyes.” She didn’t have to say the rest, but Isaac could see it in her expression: a girl I used to be, but no longer am.
“I liked that about you,” he said. “Your silly optimism.”
“How things change.”
He looked around the old room then at young Natasha. He felt her looking at him, and he said, “And how they don’t.”
Natasha said, “I’m sorry for how I’ve been.”
Isaac met her green eyes, noticing them begin to water. It was easy to believe they were really back in time, in 2035, in the Layback’s lobby before the years had piled atop them. The immersion rigs holding their real bodies were the best in existence. If Natasha was tearing up now, it wasn’t programming. It was because her neurals had told the canvas that were Natasha given control of her own eyes, they’d be tearing up as well.
“I’m sorry too,” he said.
“I never hated you.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“Most people would have started at the other end. Something like, ‘I’ve always loved you.’” But even putting the words in her mouth felt strange. How long had it been since that word had been used between them, or even about them?
“I was hurt. I’ve gotten numb. It’s…” She sighed, seeming to realize that if she continued, she’d recapitulate their usual arguments. Poor little rich girl, who’d been given everything she wanted.
“Me too,” Isaac said. He took her hand. It was soft and smooth, so unlike her real hands. These held fat and water, and felt human. Ancient neurons began to fire, and Isaac felt himself softening further. This had been a precious time. Before success, when things were still hard for both of them. And in the difficulty, joy had been abundant.
“You shouldn’t have to bring a riot squad to save me in order to get an apology. I know how it sounds…but it made me think you cared.”
Isaac shoved down a pang of guilt. Maybe he’d caused the disturbance, but he’d also stopped it. For now, that was good enough. “I wanted you to respect me,” he said.
She squeezed his hand. “Of course I respect you.”
He wanted to retort but bit it back. They were living a memory. Their mutual wrongs were still decades away.
Instead of replying, he took her other hand.
“I saw the Prime Statement,” she said.
“What Prime Statement?”
“It was a good move, Vale surprising everyone like he did, if you were behind it.”
“Who’s Vale?”
“Carter Vale.” She looked confused.
“You mean the kid? The kid Carter, who has a roadside stand and who nobody knows anything about?” Isaac pulled her closer, suddenly playful. “What’s The Beam? What is Crossbrace?” A mellow tune was wafting from the auditorium like a welcome scent carried by the breeze, so he pulled her closer, body to body, moving into an improbable dance. “Who is Noah West? What are Enterprise and Directorate?” He shook his head in mock bafflement. “I’m just a young man here in the good old USA, under fresh, if environmentally unstable, air with a clear view of the moon and stars.”
Natasha made a noise that Isaac had all but forgotten — a noise so odd it was almost disruptive, shattering the aura of suspended disbelief. It was a bona-fide giggle.
“Should we go inside and watch the show?” she said, her high-heeled feet moving after his clumsy lead.
Isaac pulled her closer. “No.”
She paused, kicked her heels away, and resumed moving on her bare feet, now closer to Isaac’s height. She settled her head in the hollow of his neck, cheek on his shoulder. Her breath was warm against his skin. “Then what do you want to do?”
Isaac almost wanted to smile and sigh, but he couldn’t. The moment was sweet. But for some reason, it hurt. So instead he said, “I just want to keep dancing.”
Chapter 9
The room was composed and civil, for a group on the verge of a meltdown.
Leo, with the help of the village group heads, had spread word about the meeting, implying without stating that Leo had a solution to the settlement’s unspoken truth. They’d been rationing without rationing, cutting down on Lunis consumption without being expressly commanded to. No one had really discussed the shortage, but it had buzzed and hovered through every mind nonetheless. It felt like a bubble had surrounded them, and that the first person to say “shortage” would pop it for everyone.
Still, every jittery, bloodshot eye in the group knew what the meeting was about. It was why everyone had arrived on time, dropping whatever they’d been doing to calmly file into the meeting hall. There were smiles and nods all around, and murmurs and small talk permeated the air. But it was obvious to Leo, as he moved to the room’s front, that the smiles were forced and the chatter was more idle than usual. They were all holding their composure close, trying to make themselves into gentle Earth people through brute will. Leo felt what they must be feeling and couldn’t help but admire their fortitude as he watched them settle into the chairs. But his admiration was fragile, like the room’s mood. One mention would trigger an inevitable chain reaction — just one expression of pessimism or discontent. Self-delusion was either an Organa strength or failing, but Leo wasn’t sure which.
Scooter climbed the small wooden podium ahead of Leo, his massive frame making the boards squeal. In a more official, District Zero-style meeting, Scooter’s position might have been called “emcee” or even “sergeant at arms,” but among Organa he was simply the meeting head. He set the tone, established what was about to happen (without blowing the punch line, of course) and introduced the one person in the village who, more than anyone, needed no introduction. It was all empty ritual, like so much about humanity, Leo realized. No matter how different people tried to be, they couldn’t help what they were.
Leo was glad for Scooter’s presence. Next to Leah (who was still in the city, lucky girl) he was Leo’s closest village confidant and right hand. He’d informally kept the peace so far in various Lunis spats, and his size had already quelled the crowd’s mood in the meeting hall tonight. Scooter was friendly and gentle, and everyone knew it, but thanks to his dominant bearing, he had no trouble settling every debate he stepped into. Scooter knew the moondust supply was about to run dry, and to his credit trusted Leo to solve it. Whether that showed Scooter’s faith or his naive, mooselike stupidity, Leo couldn’t decide.
“Okay, listen up,” said Scooter, walking up behind a wooden lectern. “Leo wants to talk to us, and without saying too much to bust his nuts ahead of time, I’ll just say it’s important stuff. You’ve probably already figured out what it’s about, but you’d do well to not decide anything in advance. Leo has been our granddad forever. He started this group. We’re here because we believe in him and because once upon a time, he gave us all the answers we were looking for. He knows better than most of us about things that concern us all. I got into Organa in part because I don’t like doing what other people tell me to do and because I like making my own rules, but this place still has a few statutes, laid down not to control us but to help us hold the peace. So keep your hands in your laps and your minds open for a bit so you can really hear what Leo has to say. You’ll get your chance to speak later, same as always, but Leo says his bit first, no interruptions.”
It would have been natural for Scooter to ask the crowd for their agreement after his remarks, but he didn’t. Scooter wasn’t a bully and never tried forcing his will on others — except when warranted, fair, or neces
sary. Right now it was all three, and everyone in attendance seemed to see it without the unnecessary beating of dead horses.
Scooter flicked his left hand toward Leo, suggesting he take the stage. It was almost an introductory gesture, but the Organa didn’t stand much on ceremony. Leo watched Scooter leave the podium and sit in the front row as he moved forward. A moment later, he found himself staring out at a sea of wide eyes and desperate blooming need.
“Let’s get this out of the way.” Leo cleared his throat, trying to summon a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “The village’s supply of Lunis is running low.”
Chatter cracked the crowd’s veneer.
Scooter stood, turned, and raised his huge arms. “Quiet down!”
They did, at length, and Scooter sat.
Again, Leo cleared his throat. “You knew that already. There’s not one among you who hadn’t figured that out, so hold your indignation. Yes, officially, we’re low. We have to…”
A thin man stood in the back. He was wearing a blue shirt that draped his frame more than hugged it, like a blanket. “Including the reserves?” he said.
Scooter looked back. The man sat.
“Yes,” said Leo.
Chatter resumed, lower this time.
“I have an idea about how to solve our problem,” said Leo, raising his voice above the others, causing them to still, “but before I go into it, I want you to stop and consider something. Really think about it, too; don’t just humor me. Okay? Ask yourself why you came to Organa in the first place.”
A few dozen of the crowd’s tired eyes blinked, surprised. A woman pressed her palm to her forehead and squinted hard, as if pushing through a migraine’s spell.
“Why are you here? Is it because of the drugs? Stop, and really think! None of us are here because we wanted to do dust all day, did we? If so, I’m sorely disappointed. I settled this village to make a difference in the world. None of you have been around as long as I have, as a reformed rejuvenation addict, so let me tell you something that most of you only know from history: This world cannot survive humanity unchecked. We evolved too fast. Our abilities and intelligence as a species outstripped our capacity to ask why — or if. We just did. And for a long time, it was merely troubling, but the balance seesawed back and forth, with human advancement alternately causing damage and then repairing what it had done. We polluted then created solutions to handle the pollution. We changed the climate then thought — thought! — we’d reversed that change.
