She stared at me again, then grabbed the glasses off her forehead and jammed them into her pocket—but not before I caught a glimpse of the inner side of the lens. I stood in shock as she muttered, “I knew I shouldn’t have brought them.” She bounced away, unable to conceal her inner buoyancy despite her obvious irritation.
I just stood there a moment, savoring her passage… and savoring, of all strange things, the glimpse I’d had of her glasses. The resolution, just from what I’d seen in that moment, was beyond anything I’d ever seen or heard of. And I’d never heard of the manufacturer, either—the label on the inner edge of the left earpiece said, “DreamPaint 2020EHR.” Either she was wandering around the con with the most remarkable innovation of the decade, or… or I didn’t know what.
I checked out the events and seminar schedule for Virtuality. It was going to be a great gathering, with all the glitterati of the field: Will Jaeger, Lisa Strang, and Paul Greenfield were all scheduled to attend.
Next I trotted across the street to try to catch up with Chris. There was a rumor that Dr. Drexler would show up at this year’s convention, and I really wanted to meet the founder of the field, though I had nothing particularly clever to say to him. The president of NTools was going to be there as well, and the fourteen-year-old genius from MIT, Austin Zerr, was on the schedule for the third day. Rumor had it that Austin had met half the requirements to win the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, an awesome development if it were true.
I was scanning the crowd for Chris when I saw her for the second time—Karly!
She was turned partly away from me, scanning the crowd much as I was.
Truth be told, I almost didn’t recognize her, she had changed so much. Minutes ago she had been the living incarnation of a fireworks display; now she was subdued, in a dark gray jumpsuit with sky blue stripes that enhanced her athletic build. And her hair—I would have sworn it had been longer. She must have pulled it up in some fiendishly clever female way… and all in a matter of seconds!
A more thoughtful person would have asked himself if this might be Karly’s sister, but I did not. I cat-stepped up behind her. As I was about to shout “Surprise!” in her ear, however, she spun on me in some kind of combat stance. In a cool voice she asked, “Who on Earth are you?”
“Eric,” I replied with foolish surprise. At last my brain caught up with reality: “You’re not Karly, are you?”
A smile touched her lips. “I’m Cory.” She shrugged. “At least, I think that’s how it would translate.”
I just stared at her, unable to believe my eyes. “I don’t suppose you have a sister named Karly?”
She shook her head; so much for the simple explanation. She returned my stare. She broke the silence first. “You… look remarkably like my boyfriend,” she admitted at last. She reached out, took my hand in hers; her touch was as cool as her expression, though she seemed to be warming up.
“Your hands are large and strong, just like his.”
I took a deep breath; this was going to be a very strange bit of déjà vu. “But Gary just died, didn’t he?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “He was getting into his car at the intersection of Telegraph and Durant, and…” The tears cleared away; she stared at me in amazement. “How did you know?” she demanded.
Was this a bad dream, or the beginning of an adolescent fantasy, with two stunning women—twins, they had to be twins—coming into my life at the same time? For the moment, I decided to play along with whatever the Fates had concocted for me.
“Cory. Meet me here, tonight, at 11 P.M. I will then tell you all about yourself.” Ha! I was now able to treat Her as mysteriously as They had treated me. I gave Cory my brightest smile.
Impishly, she smiled right back, and suddenly her inner radiance broke through, and she owned me, just as surely as Karly had owned me just minutes before.
So where do you take a hot first date in San Francisco? There are many answers, of course, lots of places you could go, all depending on your hot date and your intentions. My intentions were all a bit outside the usual motivations. One goal was to determine if Karly knew more about her twin Cory than Cory knew about her. Another was to test my own best theory about the twins, both of whom had lost boyfriends named Gary recently. My theory was simple: one girl with two personalities equaled a beautiful woman who needed great psychotherapy more than she needed any kind of boyfriend.
Last but not least, whereas other guys on other dates might care about other articles of clothing, one of my goals was to get into Karly’s glasses. I couldn’t get my mind off those DreamPaint 2020s.
In the end, I took her to the dining room atop the Marriott. It was close to Moscone, and there was no better view in the city—at least to the south. It was also fun to tell her I was taking her to the Wurlitzer Building—so nicknamed because it looked like a giant pipe organ, dozens of stories tall.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when she didn’t have a clue when I described the Wurlitzer—she muttered about how she didn’t get across the Bay Bridge very often. I confess it was fun taking her there for the first time. I was not surprised that she stepped right up to the window and looked straight down: most people don’t, the window is full-length, with nothing between your toes and a long spiraling plunge except an inch or two of pure transparency. It’s sort of like a glass bottom boat twenty stories in the sky. I’d always loved it myself, an E-ticket ride, even if I did feel just a bit dizzy when I stepped back with my palms ever so slightly cold and damp.
She laughed at me. “You’ve got a compensatory personality,” she accused me, “If you’re not good at something, or you’re afraid, you have to prove yourself by being better at it than anybody.”
“And what are you?” I asked, laughing in turn.
She quirked the corner of her lip. “I’ve got a crusading personality,” she said.
I had a rush of inspiration. “You’re here to avenge Gary’s death,” I guessed.
Her eyes widened, a cat caught in headlights. She replied haltingly, “More like an effort to prevent deaths like his from happening again.” A spirited light came into her smile, “And, of course, it would be better still if I could bring Gary back to life.”
I wanted off the subject of Gary, but couldn’t help one last show of compassion. “If I could bring him back, I would,” I said with conviction. Before she could respond, I reached behind her ear and pulled out a red rose. This time her eyes widened with childish delight. My smile was a little bit forced; I had not only pulled out the flower, but also tapped the back of her ear with a dot of indelible black ink, completing Phase I of my plan to tell if Karly were crazy: Phase II would occur when I met Cory later. If Cory had the same dot, I would know who she was.
Of course, if Cory did not have that dot, I would be really stumped.
The magic flower set the stage for a truly wonderful dinner; we didn’t even get to dessert before I’d invited her to accompany me to the private soiree of the great minds of VR, the following night at 11 P.M. As I listed the people who’d be there, her eyes grew wide. “All in one place at one time!” she exclaimed like a little girl.
“In the flesh!” Technically it wasn’t my place to invite anyone to this shindig, but, hey, my mouth was following where my heart led. Right now, there was nothing in the world I’d deny to my heartbreaking mystery girl.
Dinner ended too swiftly, and the lights of the city beckoned. By the time we reached Moscone Park we were walking hand in hand, laughing.
Karly pointed at the white structure we were passing. “What’s that?” she asked.