But then it started to fall apart. Fewer and fewer people left their idyllic virtualities to foray back into reality, and the society still needed people to tend the machines. The decay became visible first in the life-sustaining but tricky high-tech arenas. Jet aircraft became too dangerous to fly. Hospitals became unable to perform delicate surgical procedures. Eventually, even cars failed—and there was no one willing to repair them.
Karly and Gary had been crusaders of a sort, trying to get their communities back into the fresh, real air. And that was when tragedy struck. “I guess… I guess I should show you what happened,” she said. Reluctantly, she pulled her glasses out of her hair and handed them to me.
I held the DreamPaints half-reverently for a moment, then slipped them on.
My whole body blinked, and suddenly I was standing at the corner of Telegraph and Durant: I recognized the Durant entrance to the little indoor mall that ran parallel to Telegraph. I could feel the warmth of the sunshine on my forehead; it must have been just after noon, the Sun rode high in the sky. A gentle breeze laced through the hairs on my arms. I could just barely hear someone talking behind me, about how nice it was considering it was already July 10. The sounds and sensations almost frightened me, because I knew that in reality I was standing in a dark, cool hallway, wearing a long-sleeve shirt, a long way from July. But after a moment I learned how to switch focus: just as I could look through the glasses to see the hallway, I could feel through the sensations to know where I was. Feeling in control at last, I switched focus back to the scene in Berkeley.
A tall man striding down the hill caught my eye. His back was to me, but I knew who he had to be, because he was so tall, and his hands were so big. He reached his car—a sleek alien work of a car—and the car’s door started to open automatically. Suddenly another car squealed, its brakes failing, and twisted headlong into the man and his car. A brilliant flash of light wiped out my sight, and the sound of the explosion shook the sidewalk where 1 stood. I almost fell down, trying to steady myself on that sidewalk, when back in reality I was standing on the solid tiles of the Moscone Center.
I removed the DreamPaints and came back to reality. “Thank you,” I said quietly.
“You earned it,” she whispered. Then she continued with her story.
After Gary’s death, Karly could see only one way to fix the problem: to go to its source. Two physicists, Harold Rodin and Gary Mocineau, had figured out how to build a time machine, but until Karly had tracked them down no one had cared. She’d assembled the resources to come back in time… to plant a bomb and destroy this Virtuality Conference and everyone in it. Nothing like the DreamPaints would ever exist.
“And that’s why I’m here,” she finished quietly, neither defiant in her defense nor ashamed in her guilt. Perhaps she felt both, and they canceled one another out.
“Karly,” I replied, “there has to be a better way.” I gripped her shoulders in my hands, painfully. “You have to let me help you find another way.”
She looked up, into my eyes. “Yes,” she said. Her eyes were filled with love. My heart sank, for I knew she was not looking at me, but at her boyfriend whom I so resembled. I had more questions for her, but I couldn’t stand looking into those eyes that looked at someone else.
I continued, inspired. “I still want you to come with me to the meeting tonight at 11, where everybody’ll be. I want you to meet the people you want to kill. Do you understand me?”
She nodded, and after a brief hug, I turned and headed for Moscone North. My brain was ready to explode with new information, but I still didn’t have a good explanation of what was happening: if Karly was from the future, then what about Cory?
I found Cory as easily as Karly: she was one of kind, save her twin. It took longer to break her down—somehow she was more formidable than her twin—but even Cory could not resist the look in my eyes, her dead boyfriend’s eyes. And so I learned where she was from, and why she was so much tougher. She had grown up in the toughest future of all.
Molecular engineering had exploded onto the scene after the first Feynman Prize had been awarded. Advances came thick and fast… but not quite fast enough to prevent the Politician’s Depression, which ground every development to a halt. The people were hysterical, and as happens in such situations, they voted in a new president who reflected their fears. Buck Canion was swept into office on his promises to end all dealings with the countries that had stolen America’s jobs, and to stamp out the corruption in America’s heart that made us weak and undeserving of greatness. He promised to bring forth a resurgence of moral living, and a renewed America. Even rumors of ties with Neo-Nazis could not turn aside the tsunami of his popularity.
He started with a series of show trials for the former President and Congress. The Constitution notwithstanding, the charge was treason, and the crowds standing in lines outside soup kitchens all over the country cheered as they watched the televised carnage.
At first Canion invested in nanotechnology to restore America’s manufacturing base, but it became his passion when he realized how it could be applied to restore morality. With the power of molecular manufacturing he could produce and distribute miniature video cameras across the country virtually overnight: soon every room in every building was wired for the Eyes of Morality.
Imprisonment and executions for immoral behavior rose swiftly thereafter. When even Canion’s own security police balked at the toll, Canion swiftly found more efficient and reliable enforcement with the Hands of Morality, molecular killing machines Canion could personally control without human intervention. Most were too small for the eye to see, which only increased their power to terrorize.
It took only a small step for Canion to see that the only remaining threats came from foreigners; it took less than a month to spread his dominion across the whole of Earth. And the last development he allowed was the creation of Morality’s Immortaclass="underline" he made himself young, and promised the world his personal Guidance, for time everlasting.
In this world Cory and Gary had uncovered the time travel theories of Rodin and Mocineau, and formed a desperate two-person rebellion. They had built a time machine out of molecular components. But the paranoid Canion had somehow come to suspect Gary’s defiance, and when Gary’s car exploded, Cory’s mission had become more personal. She had come here, to destroy the future of nanotechnology, to ensure no one ever gained the kind of power Canion held.
I shuddered. “My God, what a horrible future! No wonder you’re so determined to prevent it.”
“I was hoping you’d understand,” Cory replied.
I shook my head. “I do understand, but that doesn’t mean I agree. There has to be a better way, Cory.”
Hurt flushed her face.
“Nanotech doesn’t have to be just a tool of dictatorship,” I continued.
She shrugged. “In my world no one dies of hunger or disease,” she admitted. “But neither does anyone laugh or smile.” She waved at the bustling crowd. “There is nothing like this.”
“Cory, I swear to you, I will help you save the future. But not like this.” I paused. “Come with me tonight, to our midnight meeting. Meet the people you want to kill. They are good people too. Let us all help you.”
Her shoulders were still straight, but something inside her fell. “OK, Gar—OK, Eric.”
I wandered blindly down the streets around Moscone, trying to understand what I had learned. It took hours for me to even digest a basic facet of the truth: Karly and Cory had come from two different futures! Most people would have had enough trouble accepting one time traveler—here I had a pair of them, from mutually exclusive but parallel timelines!