“Sindhu, you did well on the test?” asked Ramachandran in their native and nearly extinct language of Tamil.
“Yes, Father,” she replied sheepishly.
“Good. That’s very good. I’m quite proud of you, Sindhu. Your mother would be proud of you. You get your intellect from her.”
Sindhu looked at her father and smiled.
“Sindhu, if all goes well—as it will—you will be asked to come here to attend high school, and eventually college somewhere even more exotic. I want you to take every opportunity that comes your way. Do not hesitate for a moment to seize an opportunity on account of me being in the village.”
“Okay, Father, I won’t,” Sindhu responded too quickly.
Ramachandran pursed his lips. “You could at least pretend that you will miss me.” He looked from the beach to her and smiled.
“Oh, Father, I will miss you terribly, and I will return every chance I get. Of course I will!” She hugged him and giggled.
“Of course you will.” He smiled and giggled, too, as he hugged her back.
One month later Sindhu would return to Chennai to begin attending high school. Shortly thereafter, her father drowned while fishing at sea when a small monsoon arrived earlier than expected. His passing had not been easy to overcome emotionally, but it served to harden her resolve to excel in school. She would not pass up the opportunities that her father had sacrificed so much for.
High school passed, and Sindhu graduated third in her class of ten thousand students. Not good enough, she scolded herself. College followed. The awe of technology held its grip on her since that first day in Chennai with her father, and so she chose to study its brains: software. For this, she moved to Delhi, also studying in the United States at Stanford as an exchange student for several quarters. She would graduate second in her class. Not good enough, she scolded herself. Lucrative offers for employment came from every major tech shop in the Silicon Valley (the Bay Area), Silicon Alley (New York), and the Silicon Sound (Seattle)—but she was not finished learning, and so she went on to gain her master’s at Stanford in two short years. Finally, she graduated first in her class. Adequate.
Her social life during this period had been nearly nonexistent, aside from studying with like-minded and like-driven people. She had quietly grown into a picturesque woman, a fact that many boys were quick to remind her about. She was tall, xthin, and dark, with long, exotic hair and skin softer than helium, such that she might float away if a boy didn’t hold on to her hand. A felinelike, deviously tempting smile centered her petite nose, and her eyes were so large they must have been stolen from a cartoon character. And while she occasionally partook in some random boy’s affections, she was quick to dismiss him a few days later, much to his dismay.
Sindhu R. had defied the odds by simply being born. She hailed from lower-class parents in a small fishing village in southern India. She battled abject poverty with only a single parent to aid her, and she did so without even being aware of it at the time. She conquered all levels of school, all types of ridicule by childhood peers, multiple language barriers, and thick cultural differences. And through it all, Sindhu became arguably the most sought-after computer science graduate in the world. Had her fellow students known this history, it may have made more sense to them when, after graduation, she chose to work for a pittance at a nonprofit company focused on solving the emergent worldwide class-striation issues, rather than accept the largesse of a glossy techno corp.
For a first job out of school, it was adequate.
Chapter Five
Meanwhile, deep within an illegal darkVirt, the representation of a burning man stood atop Kraken Mare, a pristine crystalline lake of methane found on Saturn’s moon Titan. The images around Simeon were being beamed into his ocular implants and thus his brain; down to the core of his visual senses, he was standing on Kraken Mare.
Simeon had clicked off from his text chat with Dylan not five minutes earlier, and yet he was already impatient. The next person on his agenda was running late. Normally, this wouldn’t have annoyed him quite so much, but he was waiting for his wife, Nimbus.
A curvy woman with platinum-blonde hair materialized before him sitting on a swiveling stool, which stood atop a methane lake. She wore clothing and makeup befitting her fastidious personality: In other words and as usual, she was dressed to the nines.
“Running late, Nimbus?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sim, I was busy running your entire operation while you were out in Nevada because you don’t trust people to do your dirty work for you.” She dispensed with her sarcasm and got to the point: “Do you think Dylan will come?”
“I think so, yes.”
“He seemed coherent, not scrambled.”
“Yeah, he was coherent. Idempotent, even—he seemed to have a sense of his true self. Or maybe he’s faking it well. They have solid psychs working with him, so I’m hopeful he is recovered. But you read our chat—he was definitely shaken when I mentioned his deathTrip.”
The couple looked off in the distance. Clouds of orange-tinged nitrogen tumbled menacingly above the lake.
Simeon changed the topic. “And what of our new recruit? Where are we with Sindhu?”
“Things are good. She got a job at a nonprofit, but she’s already bored out of her mind. We’ve laid the groundwork for her interview process. Of course, she doesn’t know that yet. We’re guessing she’ll try to find a new pair of eyes before she tries to find us.”
“Good, that’s good. Okay, I’ll be heading back to Washington tonight. Tell the kids to clean up before I get home. I don’t want all their tech cluttering the hallway.”
“Sounds good, we’ll see you tonight.”
Eight hundred kilometers away from Simeon’s realWorld location, Nimbus logged out of the darkVirt, and her ocImps began to display her realWorld surroundings. She glanced out a window at the choppy waters of the Puget Sound.
The wind is picking up, she thought.
Chapter Six
The remainder of Dylan’s time with Korak Searle was rather mundane. Upon arriving at SolipstiCorp’s humble headquarters, Searle was immediately greeted by Jack Carpenter, Frank Cunningham, and two other individuals (a man and a woman from the SolipstiCorp board of directors whom Dylan had met on only a few occasions at all-hands corporate off-sites). Searle offered a dour nod in Dylan’s direction prior to joining the group, who were heading up to the top level of SolipstiCorp’s ten-story office building. Dylan was not part of the group.
Dylan rode the magLift up to the fifteenth floor. The doors opened and he walked straight into his office, nodding fewer hellos than usual to his colleagues. He fiddled on the SolipstiCorp corpNet for about twenty minutes until he saw Frank come out of the magLift. Apparently Frank didn’t get much further in conversation with Korak than I did, he thought. Without hesitation, Dylan stood and walked five paces behind Frank and, catching the door before Frank was able to close it, he plopped down on a chair in Frank’s office. Frank sighed, then sat down in his high-backed black office chair, a full window behind him and all-white walls around him. The sun glinted off his bald head. Dylan had correctly guessed that Frank was part of the welcoming committee, but nothing more. He drew a breath, intending to speak, but Frank beat him to the punch.
“Dylan, buddy, sorry to have to send you on that fucking errand,” Frank bellowed. He was focused on his BUI display, and did not look up toward Dylan.
“C’mon Franklin, what the hell was that about? Who is that guy?” Dylan asked playfully.
“Can’t tell you that, pal. You know the rules. Lawyers, NDAs, yada, yada, ob-la-di, ob-la-da.” Frank’s hands waved wildly in front of him, motioning to some apparently important items that he was working on via the private BUI display hovering in front of him.
Dylan threw his legs on top of Frank’s desk, knowing it would piss him off. “They haven’t told you anything either then, huh?“
“Not a goddam thing, buddy,” Frank stated matte
r-of-factly.
“Dammit, Frank—why the hell are we hosting an anonymous biz-dev guy who works with governments? This makes no sense. The government doesn’t govern a damn thing anymore—they don’t even have any money. They’re beyond bankrupt!” Dylan stood and removed his jacket, then slumped back into the comfortable horseshoe-shaped blue cloth chair opposite the desk. Frank remained focused on his BUI. Dylan continued his thought: “Aren’t there bigger fish to fry? Makes no sense at all.”
“No fucking sense,” Frank parroted.
“Is he actually working with the government or for it? Why would the government even have a biz-dev guy?”
“Why the fuck would they? These are great questions, Dylster. Keep ’em coming.”
“How are you ahead of me on the corporate ladder, Frank? What the hell do you even do here?” Dylan smiled.
“What do I do here? Good fucking questions, my man.”
“Frank!” Dylan became desperate. “Will you look at me for just thirty seconds?”
Frank clamped his eyes shut tightly, brought his left hand up to his left ear to click off his BUI, then reopened his eyes, swiveled his head, and locked onto Dylan’s gaze. Frank’s entire demeanor seemed to slow down by a factor of three. Finally, he slowly spoke. “What’s on that testicle-sized mind of yours, Dylan?”
“Thank you, Frank." Dylan sounded exasperated, but he continued: ”Look, I need to get out of town this weekend. I realize I need to be on call for the EGC account, and the SoCalCom account for that matter, but I need a break." Having delivered his message, he now slouched back in his seat.
Frank nodded slowly as he spoke, “Okay. Done. Take whatever time you need. I’ll cover for you if anything comes up. That it?”
“No." Dylan hesitated. “This Searle guy, you really know nothing about him?”
Frank leaned back in his minimal, black ergonomic office chair and exhaled. “Nope. I heard Jack mentioning something to Patricia about some deal the Mexican government is facilitating or mediating, or something like that, for some tertiary corp. That made no fucking sense to me. Why the fuck a corp would need—shit, want—the Mexican government helping them with anything is beyond me. I pressed Jack on it a little and he gave me some CEO jargon. Basically the jargon translated to a middle finger." Frank raised his hands in the air and shrugged, then said, “That’s it, Dyls. Didn’t really give a flying fuck after that; still got my paycheck yesterday, and that’s the only flying fuck I care about.” Hands still in the air, Frank started flapping them a little and gyrating his hips in his chair. “Get it? A flying fuck?” He then nearly busted a gut laughing at himself.
Dylan giggled reluctantly. “Seriously, how did you get out of the mail room? What dirt do you have and who do you have it on?”
“I got some dirt on your mom last night. I sprinkled it all over her.” Frank was still chuckling at himself and flapping his hands as he said this.
“That doesn’t even make sense, Franklin,” Dylan responded flatly as he stood up.
“Get the fuck outta here, man. It’s Friday, check out early. Go out with Kristi.”
Dylan winced at Kristina’s name. He knew she was going to have a problem with him going out of town for the weekend. But he’d deal with that later.
“See you next week, Frank.” He flung his jacket over his shoulder and headed back to the elevator, avoiding his own office.
Dylan hadn’t spent more than thirty minutes at his apartment, before a soothing ring echoed ubiquitously throughout his apartment. He winced.
“Miss Home, who’s outside?” he asked his home, already knowing the answer.
“Hello Dylan. Kristina Hollerith awaits outside. Shall I let her in?” The voice was effeminate, soothing, and ambient.
He’d had a passing thought on his way home that he should text her, or even vidChat, but the excitement of the day’s events had made him scatterbrained. Or so he told himself—perhaps subconsciously, he was simply avoiding her.
“Yeah, let her in.”
Dylan hustled over to an antique serving cart to serve himself up a stiff double Armagnac. His small glass tinkled as he poured the golden liquid. No sooner did he place the glass atop the decanter than the front door to his apartment popped open at Kristina’s presence.
“Hey, Dyls. How was your day? I didn’t see you in the office—did you come in? Are you ready to head out?” She peppered him with questions as she barged in. “I went ahead and made reservations to that new pub you wanted to try; you know, Ampersand & Ampersand—” She paused as her eyes trailed to the luggage on his bed. “What’s that, Dylan?”
He let out a deep breath as he wrinkled his face apologetically. “I’m sorry, Kristi, I didn’t have time to text—“
“What is that, Dylan?” More quivering. Her short hair bobbed energetically atop her thin frame.
“Shit. Kristi, I’m sorry. I have to go to Seattle. Tonight.”
A thick silence settled over them. Dylan could hear her breathing, which wavered as anger twisted around choking tears. He suddenly became numb, and goose bumps tingled his arms. This was the moment; he had been here twice before in his life—the moment a serious relationship dies. He thought morosely that this time seemed easier than the last time, and easier than the time before that.
“Dylan, why Seattle? Are you just trying to avoid me? You don’t have to fly a thousand miles to do that.”
“I’m not trying to avoid you, Kris—“
“Please, don’t patronize me, you owe me that much. You’ve been so distant these past few months. What’s so important in Seattle?”
“It’s—it—” he stammered, then recovered. “You’re just going to say I’m crazy.”
“Try me.”
“It’s . . . I was contacted by someone . . .”
“Yes?”
“Someone claiming to have information on why—on my—”
“What? Spit it out.”
“My deathTrip. Someone contacted me claiming to have information about what happened. They had details about it, Kristi, that only I would know. They claimed it was . . . nefarious in nature.”
“Seriously?” Kristi dropped her small purse to the ground. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Dylan. No one can possibly know about your deathTrip. Less than two dozen people have access to that data.”
“Kristi, this person knew about—this person knew about my . . . wife.”
“Oh my God, Dylan. Your wife? Do you hear yourself right now? You still believe it, don’t you? You still believe it was real?” She took a small, unconscious step backwards as she spoke.
“Kristina, you don’t get it—to me it was real.”
“Dylan, the hours, the weeks, the months you’ve spent in psych rehab, trying to get back your sense of self, trying to recover your idempotency . . . have you been faking all this time? Do you still not know who you really are?”
A tear slowly ran down Kristina’s cheek as Dylan responded. “Kristi, you don’t get it. To me, that life seemed as real as this life. I mean . . .” Just say it, he thought. “I mean, how do I know this isn’t the fake life, and Dalton was my real life?”
“Why haven’t you talked to me about this?”
“I’ve tried to talk to you a thousand times, Kristi!” Dylan pointed at her. “You hear only what you want to hear.”
“That’s not true. I’ve tried to help you through this, every step of the way. I’ve gone with you to dozens of appointments. I’ve practiced recitations with you. I’ve watched countless old vids and pics with you. I’ve done everything I can think of!” More tears began to well in her swollen eyes.
“But you don’t listen. I keep trying to tell you—I understand who I am, but my deathTrip is still a part of me. I can’t just delete it. You just want me better—idempotent—for your own needs; you don’t care about mine.”
An expression crossed her face that he had rarely witnessed: pure enmity.
“That’s ridiculous—I love you, Dylan. Why are you p
ushing me away?”
“I love you too, Kristi, I do . . . but . . .” Say it, he thought, don’t chicken out this time. Just say it. “I can’t stop thinking of my wife when we’re together.”
Kristina exploded into a fit of crying. She had backed herself against the front door and began to pound on it with her open palms. She screamed, “She is not real, Dylan. That woman was not real. I’m real! I am real!”
“Kristi, I’m sorry. I can’t stop how I feel.” He reached out for her shoulder, but she shied away from his hand.
“I’m real!” she screamed.
He reached out for her again and she awkwardly shoved him away. Then she flipped around and pounded on the door, which soon clicked open. He reached again and she threw her hand toward him wildly, scraping the underside of his wrist with her fingernails. She flung herself out of the door and ran down the hallway crying.
Dylan banged his head hard enough against the door, causing it to slam shut.
Chapter Seven
Dylan believed that no matter how lifelike holoConferencing became—and it was pretty impressive nowadays—a firm handshake wasn’t likely to be mimicked any time soon. As such, he traveled far more than his colleagues, and always had a spare bag packed and ready to go. His argument with Kristina had made him late, but his prepacked bag would help him make up the time.
Miss Home said in hushed tones, “Dylan, a taxi transport is waiting for you outside.”
“Thanks, tell them I’ll be right down.”
The cab was not unlike his own transport. It was slightly longer in length, allowing for two separate cabins, a small front cabin for the driver—of which there usually was none—and a larger passenger cabin. Two plush faux-leather recliners and one love seat resided in the passenger cabin, along with a Plexiglas amenities bar. The wall at the front was black, occluding any view of the mysterious and perhaps nonexistent driver. The other walls and ceiling were transparent with no shading.
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