She let go of me and stared at the news display, then looked back at me. Her blue eyes shone, twinkling in the station’s lighting. She was so beautiful.
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
I looked briefly up at the news before looking back into her eyes.
“These things always blow over,” I reassured her.
“Seriously, Vince, you’re the expert. You’re sure, right?” She stood stock still, looking into my face.
“Yes, I’m sure. If we don’t take this one, they’ll probably cancel everything later.”
A huge snowstorm was descending on New York and Boston. We had to hurry if we were going to make it on time to catch the last train out.
She shrugged. “Okay.”
We began running again, hand in hand, and soon we were on the Metronorth, cuddled up together for the ride to New Haven to visit her parents, the soft ka-chunk-ka-chunk of the tracks lulling us into a peaceful slumber as the miles rolled away.
What seemed like moments later, I awoke with a start, my heart racing. Somebody was yelling. Sitting upright, I looked out the window into a swirling whiteout.
Then the screams and the terrible squeal of metal tearing and gnashing into itself as the train car pitched back and forth. I jammed my feet into the seat into front of me, bracing myself for what was to come, holding onto the girl who clutched desperately back onto me.
The world exploded.
Sucking in air, I sat bolt upright in bed, looking around, but she was gone. I hadn’t died in that reality, but then, that one was in the past, now an unchangeable part of my timeline. I didn’t die in the train crash, but she had—Sophie, the love of my young life, back when I was an engineering student at MIT. I calmed my breathing, telling myself that everything was all right, but even now, over forty years later, I knew that it wasn’t—that it never would be.
It was a perpetually recurring dream, dulled only slightly with time, of the day when I’d lost her. I’d promised her there was nothing to worry about, and it had cost her life. I’d been in the middle of my master’s degree at the MIT Media Lab, an expert in the cyber realm, with Patricia Killiam as my thesis professor. I’d been studying the use of predictive systems in social networks, a pursuit that became a passion after the accident. If I’d just been able to see the future a little more clearly, been able to know a little more, I could have saved her. That’s what I could never forgive myself for.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, rubbing my eyes. Why had she returned to my dreams now? I sighed. It must be the baby shower I was going to later in the day. Family events always made me think of her and a life I’d lost so long ago, a life I’d filled with senseless fluff but was now defending with everything I had.
Perhaps it’s not worth it. Why am I even trying?
I could save my own life, but the future of the world? I knew the future, and it wasn’t something I wished I did know. It was something I’d been doing my best to forget.
I laid down in bed, put my heart back away, and closed my eyes.
8
Wasn’t a baby shower supposed to come before a baby was born?
I’d just materialized in the entertainment metaworld that Commander Strong had created for his family’s coming out party. Well, his sort-of family. Rick waved at me and I smiled and waved back, watching him hand his new simulated baby back to his wife.
Despite being a big believer in Patricia’s synthetic reality program, I couldn’t help feeling that these “proxxid” babies were creepy, and I’d been hearing dark rumors hinting at the things that Dr. Granger had been using them for.
I would have avoided coming entirely, but this event had sprung up on my threat radar today. Convincing Rick that this proxxid, and having many more besides, was a good idea would somehow collapse a whole subset of threat vectors coming my way.
I didn’t like the idea of being so disingenuous, and I’d argued and tried to plan other contingencies all night with Hotstuff, but the alternatives were a lot more dangerous. After a little reflection, it didn’t seem like too much of a bad thing, and the happy couple looked like they were enjoying it.
“Congrats, Rick!” I exclaimed as the commander neared, extending my hand. He shook it firmly, looking a little sheepish, and motioned toward the bar.
“Thanks, Vince. Oh, and thanks for those flowers the other day, Cindy really loved them.”
“No problem at all.”
We’d reached the bar. “So what’ll it be?” he asked.
I surveyed the bottles. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
Now wasn’t the time for a drink. It would have only been a synthetic drink, so I could choose to feel intoxicated or not, but the real issue was the interpersonal engagement. Taking a drink would necessitate having a chat, and I was uncomfortable about having to lie to my friend.
I shrugged weakly.
“You sure?” he asked, giving himself a generous dose of whiskey in a tumbler.
“I’m kind of busy.… ” I struggled with what came next. Rick fidgeted in front of me, taking a gulp from his drink, smiling awkwardly.
“This thing, it’s just a little game,” he laughed, misinterpreting my discomfort. Knocking back another big swig from his drink he shook his head, looking toward his wife holding their proxxid. “I’m just doing it to keep her happy, you know how it is.”
The time had come.
“No, no, this is the best thing,” I said enthusiastically. “You need to do this. It’s the way of the future!” I slapped him on the back to emphasize the point.
He snorted and took another drink, his face brightening.
“I mean it. You should have as many proxxids as you can before going on to the real thing.”
“You really think so?”
“I do my friend.” I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. I felt terrible. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible if I wasn’t going to blow it. “I have to get going, though. Sorry. Give Cindy a kiss for me, okay?”
“I will.” He nodded, smiling.
I hesitated. I shouldn’t do this. I should just come clean, see if maybe he could help me.
“Go on,” laughed Rick. “Get going!”
Nodding good-bye, I decided to say nothing and faded away from the sensory space of his party.
I needed a break to think, so I decided on yet another walk in one of my private spaces. I materialized on a dusty path next to the Crystal Mountain in the middle of the Sahara Desert in Egypt, near the border of Libya.
This place held a mystical, almost magnetic, attraction to me, a massive single quartzite crystal that rose up hundreds of feet out of the barren limestone landscape surrounding it. I’d recently installed my own private sensor network here, in secret, as the open wikiworld version lacked the resolution to really experience it, to enjoy the nuances and stark beauty of the place. It allowed me a place to wander truly alone, to enjoy some peace for short stretches in my newly frightening personal reality.
Night was falling, spreading its inky carpet across the sky to reveal the cathedral of stars that shone only in the deepest of deserts. The perpetual Sirocco wind whistled softly, carrying with it the sand that over the eons had etched the limestone bedrock into fantastical forms that sprang up out of the desert floor like mysterious blooms, lending the lifeless place an interior life of its own.
Massive sand dunes sat hunched in the distance, slowly sailing their lonely courses across the bare bedrock, their hulks propelled by the same unrelenting wind that shaped this place. As they moved, they swallowed everything in their paths, but just as inevitably as they consumed, they would eventually surrender as they moved on. You just had to stand still long enough, exist long enough, to be released.