Andrew rubbed at his face with one unsteady hand. It took him a minute before he looked back at the camera.
“So here, in my own words, are my wishes. I believe the technology will exist one day, maybe one day soon, to revive me and cure me of the cancer that’s invaded my bones. I wish to live to see that day. I want to be around to buy my grandchild a balloon in the park, even if he never knows it was his grandpa, and maybe ride in a car that floats above the ground. I want to see my daughter grow into an old woman, see her happy and healthy and loved as much as I loved my Rosie. And if that’s not enough of a last will and testament, I don’t know what is.”
The camera held on Andrew’s face for a moment, and then the screen went black.
Jodi put her head in her hands and cried.
The new apartment was twice the size of Jodi’s old place. She missed Harry’s techno music and his dirty dishes in the sink. He still came over at least once a week, and they ordered half-and-half pizza for old time’s sake. Tonight Harry brought it with him, along with a six-pack of imported beer.
“We’re celebrating,” he said, hugging Jodi after he put the pizza on her new dining room table.
“It was just an A,” she said.
“An A in psychology,” Harry said. “When did you ever get an A in any ‘ology’ class?”
Never. Science had never been her strong suit, but she’d been unusually motivated the last six months. She had the rest of the year to go before she had to declare a major, but she was seriously leaning toward some sort of bachelor of science degree. She might even go to law school. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
“Picked up your mail,” Harry said, dropping it next to the pizza box. The latest issue of Popular Science landed on top.
These days Jodi read everything she could about life sciences, particularly any advances in nanotechnology. The people at the Institute for Cryonics told her the best chance for revival of cryonically preserved people was in the area of nanotechnology. Science fiction meets science fact. Given what she knew about her parents, that was about the best way to describe her life.
She’d taken Willomina’s advice. She’d left Cryonomics and made an appointment with a lawyer specializing in trusts, shown him the document Willomina had given her, and let him earn his $300 an hour figuring out a way to keep her father in his tank and let her have something of a life for herself.
Jodi’s lawyer had earned every bit of his hourly fee. Andrew Sommersby had been transferred to The Institute for Cryonic Research and Studies in southern California, a non-profit foundation, where he was still happily frozen as he wished. Jodi had enrolled in college and kissed Hot Dog on a Stick goodbye.
Harry opened two beers and handed one to Jodi. “What shall we toast to?” he asked.
Clinking bottles to an A seemed kind of lame. Even if it was an A in psychology.
“I’ve got it,” Jodi said.
She touched her bottle to Harry’s, the clink of glass loud in her new apartment.
“Here’s to giving a little boy a balloon,” she said. “And the look on my father’s face when he does it.”
DESTINY by Julie Hyzy
‘I am not building a shuttle,” Gran said, irritated.
“No?” I asked with a tiny bit of hope.
“I’m modifying one I have.”
She must have seen the look on my face then, because she laid her warm, freckled hand on my arm and winked.
As Gran refilled my iced tea, a breeze kicked up and rushed through my hair. A little bit cool on this otherwise warm afternoon, it made me glance over to Emily, who sat on the whitewashed planking of the porch. Gran had given Emily plenty of cookies to share with the doll perched on one dimpled leg. To give myself opportunity to process Gran’s comment, I moved over to Emily to feel her arms. She was warm enough for now.
Back at the table, I took a deep breath. “Tell me more about this modification.”
“Now… you ask that like you’ve got a pain somewhere,” Gran said, grinning. “Look at you, trying so hard to smile, kinda gritting your teeth, your eyes all worried.”
I wanted to argue. But she was right.
Gran grabbed me by both arms and made me look at her. I could feel the strength in those skinny little hands, see it in her bright blue eyes.
“I have a project I’m working on,” she began, slowly, the same way she used to explain things when I was five. “And it’s something I don’t want just anybody to know about.”
“But the doctors said…”
“Those doctors,” she said with a sniff, “think they’re so smart. One of them came nosing around here. Can you believe that? Don’t they have anything better to do with their time than spy on old ladies?” Gran sat back, shaking her head. “They caught me, too,” she said, looking more bemused than angry, “out in the workroom. Had to come up with something, so I told them I was studying sculpture. Ha! Thought I fooled them. Guess not.”
“No… I guess not…”
“Come on then. You’re the only one I wanted to show, anyway.”
The workroom was a long walk from the house through a dandelion-strewn field. It was slow going, with Emily stopping every few feet to pick up the dried weeds and blow them to the wind. I grabbed her hand to pull her along but Gran bent down and plucked one of her own.
“Make a wish, Emily!” she said. Together, lips pursed, she and Emily scattered their wishes to the wind, and then turned to each other with twin grins of uncomplicated joy. I watched the seeds take wing on the breeze and tried to remember wishes I’d made when I was Emily’s age. How many of them hadn’t come true?
As we got nearer, Emily noticed humming and pulled me along, eager to see what was making the noise behind the door.
Gran’s eyes glittered as she stood before the keypad.
“Are you ready?”
I bit my lip. “Sure.”
She tapped in a code on the entry keypad. In answer the door whooshed open. Dust danced, fairy-like, swirling through sun rays that fell in from the skylights above. I watched the motes hover, then land gently on the silver contraption that stood before us.
“Yay!” Emily said, clapping.
Gran hadn’t been too far off when she picked sculpture as her cover story. Shiny metal flanges almost obscured my old playhouse. Gramps used to tell me it was a shuttle, and as a child, I’d spent endless hours inside, hoping it could fly me backwards in time so I could meet my parents. Now, graceful curves shaped like twisted flames engulfed the cab and reached skyward. I released the breath I’d been holding as I walked around it, unsure of what it was, now. And yet, something about it…
I pointed at the back end. Completely redone, and fitted with jets, wires, conduit. “What’s this?” I asked.
“A multiphase conversion catalyst.”
“Speak English.”
“Your grandfather and I invented this catalyst, years ago.” She grinned, rocking back and forth on her heels. “This little dohicky makes it possible to propel the shuttle and its occupants into another dimension.” She gave a little half shrug. “Theoretically.”
I almost couldn’t speak. “This isn’t a real shuttle, Gran. This is my playhouse… I hoped someday it would be Emily’s.”
Her eyes were clear, her expression bemused. Not at all what I’d expect from someone clearly losing touch with reality. “I believe this creation has the power to take us exactly where we want to go.”
“Us?”
She shrugged. “I’m hoping you’ll come with me.”
I didn’t know what to say for a long time. Finally, all I could do was ask, “Why?”
Gran pointed.
I ran my hand over the hull. Carefully lettered on its side-Destiny.
My eyes asked the question; Gran tut-tutted. “Now don’t you go thinking that I’ve gone out of my head. Think about it some, honey. Gramps and I decided long ago that people who really care about each other should be together. But then he died. Too soon.” She shook her fist at the sky, “Too soon, you hear me?” She made a funny face then, and I thought she might cry. Instead, she turned with a smile as big as the object before us. “I know he’s waiting for me, but he’ll have to wait just a little longer because it’s a bit more difficult with only one person working.”