live forever: they'll be immortal."
"Oh, come on. Someday, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll get a Nobel. But that's about as
much immortality as anyone could ever hope for."
"Not according to Tipler," said Michiko.
"And you buy this?"
"Wellll, no, not entirely. But even if you set aside Tipler's religious overtones,
couldn't you envision a far, far future in which --I don't know, in which some bored
high-school student decides to simulate every possible human and every possible
memory state?"
"I guess. Maybe."
"In fact, he doesn't have to simulate all the possible states --he could simulate
just one random one."
"Oh, I see. And you're saying that what we saw --the visions --they're not of the
actual future twenty-one years from now, but rather are from this far-future science
experiment. A simulation, one possible take. Just one of the infinite --excuse me,
almost infinite possible futures."
"Exactly!"
Lloyd shook his head. "That's pretty hard to swallow."
"Is it? Is it really? Is it any harder to swallow than the idea that we have seen the
future, and that future is immutable, and even foreknowledge of it won't be enough
to allow us to prevent that future from coming true? I mean, come on: if you have a
vision that says you'll be in Mongolia in twenty-one years, all you have to do to
defeat the vision is not go to Mongolia. Surely you're not predicting that you're going
to be forced to go there, against your will? Surely we have volition."
Lloyd tried to keep his voice soft. He was used to arguing science with other
people, but not with Michiko. Even an intellectual debate had a personal edge. "If the
vision has you in Mongolia, you'll end up being there. Oh, you may have every
intention of never going there, but it'll happen, and it'll seem quite natural at the
time. You know as well as I do that humans are lousy at realizing their desires. You
can make a promise today that you're going to go on a diet, and have every
intention of still being on it a month from now, but, somehow, without it seeming like
you have no free will at all, you might very well be off your diet by then."
Michiko looked concerned. "You think I need to go on a diet?" But then she
smiled. "Just kidding."
"But you see my point. There's no evidence even in the short term that we can
avoid things through a simple act of will; why should we think that over a span of
decades we'll have self-determination?"
"Because we have to," said Michiko, earnest again. "Because if we don't, then
there's no way out." She sought out his eyes. "Don't you see? Tipler has to be right.
Or if he's not, there has to be some other explanation. That can't be the future." She
paused. "It can't be our future."
Lloyd sighed. He did love her, but --damn it, damn it, damn it. He found his head
shaking back and forth in negation. "I don't want that to be the future anymore than
you do," he said softly.
"Then don't let it," said Michiko, taking his hand, intertwining her fingers with his.
"Don't let it."
17
"Hello?" A pleasant female voice.
"Ah, hello, is that --is that Dr. Tompkins?"
"Speaking."
"Ah, hi. This is --this is Jake Horowitz. You know, from CERN?"
Jake didn't know what he'd expected to hear over the phone. Affection? Relief that
he'd made the first contact? Surprise? But none of those emotions were conveyed by
Carly's voice. "Yes?" she said, her tone even. That was all; just "yes."
Jacob felt his heart sinking. Maybe he should just hang up, get the hell off the
phone. It wouldn't hurt anything; if Lloyd was right, they were bound to be together
eventually. But he couldn't bring himself to do that.
"I --I'm sorry to bother you," he stammered. He'd never been good at phoning
women. And, indeed, he hadn't phoned one --not like this --since high school, since
that time he'd worked up enough courage to call Julie Cohan and ask her for a date.
It had taken him days to prepare, and he still remembered how his finger was
shaking as he stabbed out her number on the phone in his parents' basement. He
could hear his older brother walking around upstairs, the wooden floor creaking with
each of his ponderous footsteps, an Ahab on deck. He'd been terrified that David
would try to come down while he was on the phone.
Julie's father had answered the phone, and then had called out to her to pick up
on an extension --he hadn't covered the mouthpiece, and he spoke to her roughly.
Nothing like the way he'd have treated Julie. And then she picked up the phone, and
her father had let the handset tumble back onto the cradle, and she said, in that
wonderful voice of hers, "Hello?"
"Ah, hello, Julie. This is Jake --you know, Jake Horowitz." Silence, nothing. "From
your American History class."
A tone of perplexity, as if he'd just asked her to calculate the last digit of pi.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering," he'd said, trying to sound nonchalant, trying to sound as if his
whole life didn't depend on this, trying to sound as though his heart weren't about to
burst, "I was wondering if you --if you'd like, you know, to go out with me, maybe
Saturday ... if you're free that is." More silence; he remembered when he was a kid
the phone lines used to crackle with faint static. He missed that now.
"Maybe a movie," he'd said, filling the void.
Heartbeats more, and then: "What makes you think I'd possibly want to go out
with you?"
He'd felt his vision blur, felt his stomach churn, felt the wind being kicked out of
him. He couldn't remember what he'd said after that, but somehow he'd gotten off
the phone, somehow he'd kept from crying, somehow he'd just sat there in the
basement, listening to his older brother pacing above.
That was the last time he'd called a woman and asked for a date. Oh, he wasn't a
virgin --of course not, of course not. Fifty dollars rectified that particular handicap
one night in New York City. He'd felt terrible after that, cheap and unclean, but
someday he would be with a woman he wanted to be with, and he owed it to her,
whomever she might be, to be --well, if not skilled, certainly not flailing about
without a clue.
And now, now it looked like he would be with a woman --with Carly Tompkins. He
remembered her as being beautiful, remembered her as having chestnut hair and
eyes that were green or gray. He'd liked looking at her, liked listening to her, when
she gave her presentation at the APS conference. But the exact details of her
appearance were elusive. He recalled freckles --yes, surely she'd had freckles,
although not as many as he himself had, but a gentle dusting along the bridge of her
small nose and her full cheeks. Surely he wasn't imagining that -
Carly's perplexed "yes?" still rang in his ears. She must know why he was calling.
She must -
"We're going to be together," he said, stupidly blurting it out, wishing the moment
the words were free that he could recant them. "In twenty years, we're going to be
together."
She was silent for a moment, then: "I guess."
Jake was relieved; he'd been afraid that she was going to deny the vision. "So I
was thinking," Jake said, "I was thinking maybe we should get to know each other.
You know, maybe go for coffee." His heart was pounding; his stomach was churning.
He was seventeen again.
"Jacob," she said. Jacob, saying his name --no one ever started good news by
saying your name. Jacob, reminding him of who he really was. Jacob, what makes
you think I'd possibly -
"Jacob," she continued, "I'm seeing someone."
Of course, he thought. Of course she's seeing someone. A dark-haired beauty with
those freckles. Of course.
"I'm sorry," he said. He meant for her to take that to mean he was sorry he'd
disturbed her, but he felt it both ways. He was sorry she was seeing someone.
"Besides," said Carly, "I'm here in Vancouver; you're in Switzerland."
"I have to be in Seattle later this week; I'm a grad student here, but my field is
computer modeling of HEP reactions, and CERN is flying me in to Microsoft for a
seminar. I could --we'll, I'd thought about, you know, coming to North America a
day or two early, maybe by way of Vancouver. I've got tons of frequent-flyer points;
it won't cost me anything."
"When?" asked Carly.
"I --I could be there as early as the day after tomorrow." He tried to make his
tone light. "My seminar starts Thursday; the world may be in crisis, but Microsoft
soldiers on." At least for the time being, he thought.
"All right," said Carly.
"All right?"
"All right. Come up to TRIUMF, if you want to. I'd be glad to meet you."
"What about your boyfriend?"
"Who said it was a boy?"
"Oh." A pause. "Oh."
But then Carly laughed. "No, just kidding. Yes, it's a guy --his name's Bob. But
it's not that serious, and ... "
"Yes?"
"And, well, I guess we should get to know each other better."
Jacob was glad that the act of grinning from ear to ear didn't make a sound. They
firmed up a time, and then they said their goodbyes.
His heart was pounding. He'd always known the right woman would come along
eventually; he'd never given up hope. He wouldn't bring her flowers --he would
never get them through customs. No, he'd bring her something decadent from
Chocolats Micheli; Switzerland, was, after all, the land of chocolate.
With his luck, though, she'd turn out to be a diabetic.
Theo's younger brother, Dimitrios, lived with three other young men in suburban
Athens, but when Theo came calling, late in the evening, Dimitrios was home alone.
Dim was studying European literature at the National Capodistrian University of
Athens; ever since childhood, Dim had wanted to be a writer. He'd mastered his
alpha-beta-gammas before he'd entered school, and was constantly typing up stories
on the family computer. Theo had promised years ago to transfer all of Dim's stories
from three-and-a-half-inch diskettes onto optical wafers; no home computers came
with diskette readers anymore, but CERN's computing facility had some legacy
systems that still used them. He thought about making the offer again, but didn't
know whether it was better that Dim think he'd simply forgotten, or that he realize
that years --years! --had gone by without his big brother having managed three
minutes to request that simple favor from someone in the computing department.
Dim had answered the door wearing blue jeans --how retro! --and a yellow Tshirt
imprinted with the logo of Anaheim, a popular American TV series; even a
European Literature major apparently couldn't help falling under the thrall of
American pop culture.
"Hello, Dim," said Theo. He had never hugged his younger brother before, but had
an urge to do so now; facing the fact of one's own mortality fostered such feelings.
But Dim would doubtless not know what to make of such an embrace; their father,
Constantin, was not an affectionate man. Even when the ouzo was flowing more than
it should have, he might pinch a waitress's behind but he'd never even tousled the
hair of his boys.
"Hey, Theo," said Dimitrios, as if he had seen him just yesterday. He stepped
aside to let his brother enter.
The house looked like you'd expect the home of four guys in their early twenties
to look --a pig sty, with items of clothing draped over furniture, take-out food boxes
piled on the dining-room table, and all sorts of gadgets, including high-end stereo
and virtual-reality decks.
It felt good to be speaking Greek again; he'd gotten sick of French and English,
the former with its excess verbiage and the latter with its harsh, unpleasant sounds.
"How are you doing?" Theo asked. "How's school?"
"How's university, you mean," said Dim.
Theo nodded. He'd always referred to his own post-secondary studies as
university, but his brother, pursuing the arts, was just in school. Perhaps the slight
had been intended; there were eight years between them, a long time, but still not
enough of a buffer to insure the absence of sibling rivalry. "Sorry. How's university?"
"It's okay." He met Theo's eyes. "One of my professors died during the
Flashforward, and one of my best friends had to leave to look after his family after
his parents were injured."
There was nothing to say. "Sorry," said Theo. "It was unforeseen."
Dim nodded and looked away. "Have you seen Mama and Poppa yet?"
"Not yet. Later."
"It's been hard on them, you know. All their neighbors know you work at CERN -
'my son the scientist,' Poppa used to say. 'My boy, the new Einstein.' " Dimitrios
paused. "He doesn't say that anymore. They've had to take a lot of heat from those
who lost people."
"Sorry," said Theo again. He looked around the messy room, trying to find
anything on to which he could shift the conversation.
"You want a drink?" asked Dimitrios. "Beer? Mineral water?"
