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.