by Scott Cramer
Petrov and Ashminov, even younger, attended a holographic concert. The musician had bushy black hair and was dressed in purple from head to foot. Purple sparkles glittered on his cheeks. Petrov exuded awe for the musician and love for his brother.
Anger coincided with the appearance of Petrov’s parents. They wore military uniforms and stern expressions.
Petrov’s childhood then descended into dark shadows; absent were the innocence and resilience of youth.
Bone-chilling cold settled into Caleb as he sensed he was nearing Petrov’s darkest secret. Age four, Petrov was in bed at night; moonlight slanted through the window. Frozen with fear, the boy struggled to breathe and gagged on the sour taste of shame. Through Petrov’s eyes, Caleb watched a heavy, hairy arm flop over his slender chest.
Caleb’s eyes snapped open at the acrid odor of burning flesh. He clutched Raissa more tightly, praying that it was Mars on fire and not Raissa. Covering her seemed futile, but it still made sense to him to do it. Her arm was blistered in a spot where he had failed to shield her, but otherwise, she seemed to have escaped the fire.
He looked at Petrov’s cylinder, fully wrapped in flame. The bloated brain tumbled in roiling bubbles. Dr. Petrov had found peace.
Caleb, with flames licking at his cylinder, could see that his own brain had drifted halfway to the top. The memories of his life flew through his mind in a chaotic montage of images and sounds, but he tried to hold on to one scene, curious to see the outcome. A boy of five, he picked up his viola bow and applied rosin, moving the bow back and forth over the sticky substance. Then he placed the viola over his collarbone and positioned his jaw in the chin rest. The instrument, light as butterfly wings, became part of him. Drawing in a slow, deep breath, he began to play.
* * *
Raissa blinked. I must have blacked out. She couldn't see Caleb or Fern or Petrov. They must be dead. The searing heat baked her tears before they rolled down her cheeks. Gasping for breath, she pressed her nose close to the floor, where the more breathable air was available. Looking left and right, she saw that the fire had leaped to the walls and ceiling and had engulfed at least half the building. Two loud booms sounded like cans of chemicals exploding.
Pain racked her body, and a part of her wanted to go limp and submit to the inferno, for only death would erase the guilt of killing loved ones, but her heart stirred her to escape the lab. She needed to get home for Jaddy.
An acrid odor of sulfur crept up her nose. It smelled like her hair was on fire. Panicking, Raissa summoned all her strength and rolled onto her side. To her shock, Caleb tumbled beside her. Was he lying on top of me all this time?
None of Caleb’s thoughts were streaming through her mind, and she could not feel his heart beating in her chest. She shifted her gaze to his cylinder. Caleb’s brain was floating near the top. All of the brains, including Petrov’s, were twice their size and mottled with patches of green and gray. A blade of grief pierced her throat, and she wavered, light-headed.
She stared at the face of the boy she loved. His skin was smooth and unblemished, untouched by the flames. His eyes were closed, but he wore an expression of wonder. She had seen that look before…when they had played the viola duet in his apartment. Caleb had heard the music in his head.
She heard a faint viola now, the blend of notes threading from his mind into hers. It was Vivaldi.
Is Caleb alive?
Rays of hope penetrated her gloom, but then she feared that she was the source of the melody. Am I dreaming?
But no dream could produce music this beautiful. Caleb imagined himself playing the viola. Love makes the impossible possible!
A chemical explosion showered them in white-hot sparks, and she had to hurry to get Caleb outside. She climbed to her feet, teetering with dizziness and exhaustion, but managed to stay upright. She grabbed Caleb by his heels. Unable to muster any strength in her left arm, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around his right ankle and started for the door. Her legs throbbed to the marrow and she cried out as a steady mist of sparks rained down on her skin.
A perfumed breeze from the garden energized her, and she dragged Caleb across the threshold and onto the hard soil. “Caleb.” Her voice was hoarse.
He mumbled.
Raissa’s pain shrank to a pinprick. “I’m right here.”
He opened his eyes a crack and whispered. “Vee.”
Raissa could now feel Caleb’s heart beating weakly, but steadily, in her chest. She clasped his hand. “Vee?” She put her ear close to his mouth.
Caleb dragged his tongue over his lips. It took forever. “Genetarium. Go.”
“Go to the genetarium?”
His nod was barely perceptible.
Raissa was certain Petrov had carried through on his threat to delete Fern. The wound was too fresh for her to go to the genetarium, only to confirm their daughter’s death. A tear splashed on his face. “I’ll go. I promise.”
“Eight…” he said.
“Eight?”
“Eight…eight…eight.”
Raissa suddenly remembered the data stick that Zoe had given her. She dug her hand into her pocket and pulled it out. “888.V2” was stamped on the side. Stunned, she held it above his face.
“Fern,” he said with a small smile.
Caleb’s eyes were closed, but Raissa realized he was seeing the data stick through her eyes. It held the code for their daughter.
Raissa’s hopes soared and then imploded from the fear that Caleb was confused or wrong, then rose again on fluttering, fragile butterfly wings of possibility. He will live, and they’ll have a family. She knew better and lied, “Caleb, you’re going to make it.”
The melody lifted and fell as he clung to life.
A steady stream of her tears cascaded from her cheeks and landed on his brow. “We’ll raise Fern together,” she swore, meaning every word. Through memories and stories, she would bring Caleb to life for their daughter. “Fern will know and love you as much as she loves me.”
Caleb tried to speak but stopped. He was too weak.
“Rest,” she whispered.
“Together,” he said hoarsely.
No tears. Not now. She had a lifetime ahead of her to cry. “Yes, together.”
Caleb’s lips kept moving, but she couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, so she put her ear close to his mouth.
“Happy ending,” he breathed. “Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.”
Raissa brought her lips to his and closed her eyes. Tasting the sweetness of their first kiss, she hoped their happy ending would last forever. “I love you, Caleb,” she said in her mind over and over, as echoes of “I love you, Raissa,” returned from his.
A montage of their shared experiences engulfed them. Destined to love one another since the age of four, they had lived a lifetime together in the past forty-eight hours.
The images began to fade and break apart as they neared the moment of their first meeting. Caleb turned to her in his seat at Symphony Hall, gazed into her green eyes, and his heart took off in a gallop.
Now his heart slowed, and Vivaldi grew faint. The tempo of her beating heart matched that of his in their duet, and Raissa clung to every note as if it were his last, knowing a curtain of silence soon would descend.
She pressed her lips against his until Caleb put down the bow.
PLANNING – THE YEAR 0001
PLANNING: PHASE 01
The savory odors of minty tabbouleh and roasted eggplant hung in the air, luring Jerusalem’s hungry lunch crowd. Raissa stepped along the busy sidewalk, careful to avoid bumping into anyone and triggering an outburst. Without nanochips to defuse tensions, some people snapped in anger at the slightest provocation. In time, she hoped they would remember how to control their emotions.
A crowd was chanting up ahead. “V6, V6, V6.” She grumbled in frustration. The march might delay her; she had to be home in fifteen minutes. Protesters blocked the gate that led to the old part of the city where she
lived. She stood among the growing number of pedestrians on the sidewalk, all waiting for a chance to cross the street.
The marchers were Techies who demanded the restoration of the chip, Version 6. She saw the desperation in their eyes. Raw emotions were new and frightening to them. They were wary of others. Petty crime was on the rise, and they feared violence would follow. Techies longed for the calming, stabilizing influence of the chip, for the sake of society and themselves.
More bad news. A group of Zealots was holding a prayer vigil at a darkened enlightenment wall not far away, and the Techies were heading straight for them. A clash was unavoidable. The day before, a riot had broken out between the two groups in downtown Jerusalem. Ironically, they had much in common. The Zealots also demanded nanochip technology, but they wanted V2, the version before the God-killer release. They wanted to practice their faith while avoiding painful human emotions. They prayed at enlightenment walls for the return of Dr. Petrov and the Collective. Raissa didn’t know what had happened to the twelve-member Collective, but since nobody had heard from them in over a year, a sudden miraculous appearance was unlikely. She was sure that Petrov wouldn’t turn up.
She sighed in relief as two paladins approached. Paladins were returning to the city after completing their task of transporting the world’s dead to solartaria. The lethal malware had claimed victims as close as four hundred kilometers away. It had taken the collective effort of every paladin close to a year to forge four billion carbon tabs. These paladins would be able to keep the two groups in line.
Raissa retrieved her messenger, ready to communicate that she might be late, when a gap opened in the line of protesters. She and several other bystanders made their move all at once. She jogged through the dusty maze of alleys to her home. “I made it,” she called out as she stepped inside.
Exhausted, Jaddy and Goldstein slumped in chairs in the living room. Goldstein reached over and took Jaddy’s hand. “We’re off duty, good friend.”
“We took her for a walk,” Jaddy whispered.
“I read to her,” Goldstein said in a low voice.
Goldstein had an ideal storytelling voice, soft and soothing—when not teaching the ways of international espionage. “Charlotte’s Web?'” Raissa asked.
He raised his eyebrows. “What else?”
“She never stops smiling,” Jaddy said. The cry of a baby filled the house. “Well, rarely,” he added with a shrug.
Raissa thanked them and trotted upstairs and into her bedroom. She looked into the crib. “You have quite a set of lungs. I know what you want.” She carried the baby, three months old to the day, downstairs and out to the courtyard. After getting comfortable under the shade of the fig tree, Raissa nursed her.
Rocking in the chair, Raissa reflected on the past year. After Petrov and the others had died in the fire, she had slipped into the Citadel’s garden and found the location where Ashminov had detonated the explosives. The building was rubble.
As she was looking for survivors, the rocket had lifted off the launch pad in a thunderous roar. Birds took flight, and orchid petals fluttered to the ground. Was Petrov onboard? Had he cloned brain cells? He seemed like the type who always had a Plan B. She hoped she’d never find out.
She had remained inside the Citadel for several days. To prevent infection, she had washed her wounds in the stream, and she’d eaten mangoes to stave off hunger. Nothing could minimize the guilt she had felt. She had repeatedly told herself that the mission was a success and that she and Ashminov and Caleb had saved billions of lives, but that hadn’t stopped her from reliving the horrible scene inside the lab. Her only solace was the data stick with the precious lines of code, kept in her pocket, her hand resting on it at all times.
After she had ventured outside the Citadel's walls, she discovered life in Boston was following many of its regular rhythms, with one notable exception: NanoArtisans had shut down. The global slaughter had soured scientist and citizen alike on technology. Before she had flown home to Jerusalem, Raissa made an emotional trip to Caleb’s apartment and collected several of his cherished possessions to remember him by.
Once she got home, Raissa’s anxiety that Petrov had scrubbed Jaddy’s memory had vanished at once when her grandfather threw his arms around her, and they both cried hard tears of relief. “Are you ready to be a great-grandfather?” she’d asked.
They had gone straight to the Jerusalem Genetarium where the staff had implanted the code egg into her womb. Before giving birth, Raissa visited Goldstein. Her former trainer had not been at all surprised that she had succeeded in the mission. He had sat still as she reported back to him everything that had happened. A single tear had rolled down his cheek.
A cry brought Raissa back to the courtyard. Sunshine through the fig leaves was lighting her baby’s face. She smiled. “Her nose clearly comes from you.” Raissa switched sides, and the crying stopped.
She lifted her eyes to the sky. “Our daughter slept through the night last night.”
“You must feel rested.”
She laughed. “I never knew what tired was until motherhood. Do you know what her favorite food is? Squash. The gooier, the better. What a mess she made at breakfast!”
“I liked pureed spinach.” Caleb listed all the foods he liked as a baby. Raissa pictured him waving his hand excitedly with the same passion he had once reserved for technology and music—a mushy vegetable nerd.
Raissa spoke to him often, but she did not know if he liked spinach. She still had an Eden Chip, but she was sure that his voice and theatrics came from her imagination. She was the sole source of their conversations. Her eyes blurred with tears. “I miss you so much, but with help from our beautiful daughter, I’m healing a little every day.”
A tiny hand grabbed her finger. Green eyes, brimming with wonder, looked up at her. Raissa knew Caleb was alive in the bundle of warmth in her arms, and he was alive in her heart; they would be together forever. Love makes the impossible possible. She rocked and sang until Fern-Elizabeth drifted into a blissful sleep.
“Mommy is coming,
She is almost here,
She is bringing toys and gifts.
She's also got a box,
Inside there's a duck
That goes:
Quack quack quack
Quack quack.”
*
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