Nanotech

by Gardner Dozois

  "I just watched her, to see how long she'd stand there. Then her teacher pushed a printout in front of me and I said, what's this? He looked frightened. He explained that the children could access an entire continuum via computer provided that they could do the preceding lessons. I said so? I was trying to be calm but he was very agitated, and pointed out that those were quadratic equations and that it was Claire's work. I told him that was impossible and Claire opened her umbrella and stepped out into the rain. I rushed after her."

  That day. Yes. Maybe then, he should have done something. But what? What, he thought, drinking the last of his jenever.

  He remembered that day. He had been in his study in their old townhouse in Georgetown. The ceilings were high which he loved very much. Because he loved everything about his life very much perhaps he should have known but he did not. He had put up a wall between the terrorist and now. It had been, after all, years and after their first anxious one they had decided like silly children that danger was past. Otherwise it was hard to live.

  That fall evening he was still chilled from his walk back from school with Claire, and from something deeper. They lived on a hill and the lights of the city were beginning to glow through the rain. He poured a finger of Scotch and rested in his leather chair. A tiny Van Gogh pencil sketch was dim across from him on the wall.

  The door creaked open and it was Claire.

  "It's dark in here, Daddy," she said.

  "Turn on the light," he suggested, but instead she went to the window and stared out at the lights. She had changed to some sort of warm suit. She was a very neat child now, quiet and composed, different from her earlier self. Silence was gathered into her and released, a stillness which he felt he was falling into. He had felt so alone lately, he realized.

  Annais and Claire seemed to be drawing closer together but perhaps that was inevitable, since Claire was a girl.

  "Claire," he said, and she turned. He could not see her expression in the dark.

  "Come here," he suggested, feeling troubled. "Sit on my lap."

  She did. "What's up?" he asked.

  "Oh," she said, "I've just been thinking."

  "About what?"

  "Our telecom number. It's a prime number."

  "Really," he said. He thought for a minute. He couldn't factor it easily. "Maybe," he said. "What makes you think so? How did you figure it out?"

  She looked at him and said, "I don't know," but it was not with the tone of someone bewildered, just someone who took it for granted and did not care. She slid off his lap and ran out the door. It only took a few moments on network to find a list of primes and to determine that she was right.

  The things about which Annais thought and the shore on which Claire seemed more and more firmly implanted were not things which came easily to him. Recently he had told his father that to be a teacher you had to see what your student was thinking and break things down into steps for them, referring to the long ago struggle during which his father had tried to teach him mathematics for two years—except his father called it learning to think. When Stannis told his father about the steps, his look had been identical to Claire's, just more puzzled. "Maybe I didn't know there were any steps," he had finally replied.

  It seemed that Claire didn't either. No steps—she just knew. Why should that frighten him? Perhaps he was just a bit jealous? Or maybe Annais's friend Julie had been right about gene enhancement. Greed, she had called it scornfully. He discarded both explanations. It was something else.

  It was very dark now. He did not turn on the light.

  He thought about the headaches Annais had complained of the last few months, for which the doctors could find no reason. Stress, they decided, and suggested biofeedback. With no organic basis, Annais felt free to brush them off. She was experiencing a powerful burst of creativity which had borne her along for months. "The problem is," she said, "that what I am thinking is very simple actually. It has to do with the final theory, you know, the explanation for the universe itself. String theory—can you believe it? That old warhorse. But I can visualize every step, everything I need to do. Down to the last detail. Exactly how time splits. How mind is meshed to matter. The meaning of the observer, the power of the observer. But it flashes by so swiftly that it's really hard to catch hold of, to write down . . . Stannis, it's scary sometimes."

  Indeed.

  The three of them were sitting in the kitchen one Sunday morning eating. Annais started and Claire actually ran over to the telecom then stopped. She turned around looking frightened, then ran to Annais who hugged her, with tears in her eyes.

  "What?" he asked.

  Annais just shook her head, her face white, but Claire turned and said, "I heard the telecom ring but it was Wednesday."

  "Wednesday afternoon," said Annais, looking out the window.

  But after that there were weeks of bliss. They did not speak of such things again, not in front of Stannis, anyway. Both of their faces became transparent and eager. Both of them lost weight and looked like wraiths, but wraiths angelic; beautiful. Claire sang the sunflower song endlessly, joyfully, until its first three climbing notes were enough to make his stomach churn. He felt more and more uncomfortable.

  "We are information," Annais said at one point, her eyes wild and bright. "Everything is. That's all we are. That's all there is. Don't you see?"

  "Not in quite the same way as you see, I think," he had replied, fighting back panic. "Maybe you should go back to the doctor." But Annais insisted that what was happening was a logical outcome of her work, and that Claire should be doing a bit of light algebra now, as some of her more advanced agemates were—she was just a few steps beyond them. It had been three years since the terrorist attack.

  But now, he couldn't forgive himself for not seeing the obvious connection. And what could he have done? Annais had become childlike, an equal, in some way, of Claire, though it had always been her power of abstract thought to which he was so powerfully attracted. He had always felt that she lived in a world which he, a structural engineer, could not fathom, and he respected and admired her entirely. Until this last decision.

  Had it been a decision? That was what he had to know!

  "How happy it would make me to find out I could have done nothing," he heard himself saying. "Even if I only knew that for an instant!"

  "But why was her face inside the sunflower?" asked Lise, her voice oddly urgent, startling him back to the present.

  "What?" he asked. He realized that his eyes had filled and overflowed. Had he been talking or just thinking?

  "I don't know why her face was in the sunflower," he said, but then he did. It was Claire, singing that silly sunflower song. Staring at him, singing it, in a fashion that verged on demanding.

  And knowing made him ask. "Does the name Hans Utrecht mean anything to you?"

  He saw her eyes widen, though she was staring down at her tea. She looked up, and something—resignation?—flashed in her eyes. She still did not speak, though he was certain, by the look on her face, that she knew Hans. Finally, a tilt of the head, a brief smile to herself, not to him, as if she had made a decision. "I can get you in touch with these people, yes."

  She wanted to walk him back to his hotel, but he refused. She gave a brief, businesslike nod, hesitated a moment, then turned and vanished into the now-dark streets.

  Hans met him in an ancient java house and actually argued with him over curry. He was short and heavy with a florid face mostly covered with a reddish beard which came to a point beneath his chin. Apparently Lise had told Hans what she knew about Stannis and that worried Hans somewhat. "You're a grown man, of course, but this has proven particularly dangerous. This was developed by your own government and for very odd reasons, from what I can tell. Most people want nans which are—shall we say—a bit more recreational."

  "What reasons?" asked Stannis.

  Hans shrugged. "Who can say? I have been with three people who tried it. One of them went around talking abou
t what would happen tomorrow. Of course, none of it happened, but they were so very sure. The other—well—she kept reliving going to the circus one day when she was five. That's all. What are the strategic implications of knowing the future? Even just a bit of it? Even a predictable percentage of it? Is that truly impossible? Computers can't do it, but humans are different than computers, aren't they?"

  "Did they die?"

  "Neither died, but I can't say that they were the same again. Theirs were time-limited, of course. Both of them pretty much dropped out. Agreed there was no point. But that was a while ago. I've lost touch." Stannis was not surprised. Perhaps their genes had not been modified in the particular way of himself, Claire, and Annais. Apparently the way it bonded to a particular type of mitochondria was crucial.

  "The third?" Stannis asked.

  "It seemed to have no effect on the third," said Hans.

  "How long did it take to—take effect, with the others?"

  Hans signaled for another coffee. "About an hour."

  "The other took three years."

  "That's easy enough to program if you like."

  "No," said Stannis.

  "We can make it self-limiting," Hans said. "At least that."

  Stannis thought. Finally he said, "No."

  Stannis had only to wait until the following morning before sniffing up his nose that which had killed his wife and child.

  Lise was there, sitting across from him in his room in a rather shabby overstuffed chair reading. "You can't be alone," she insisted. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

  And fell asleep.

  When he woke, he was disoriented, then more alert. The curtains still filtered daylight into the cheap room. He sat up, alarmed, then disappointed. "What time is it?"

  "About eleven," she said, closing her bookmaster and sticking it in her pocket.

  "Hans must have given me duds," he said. How sad he felt. But—now he had done his best. He could go home.

  Lise shook her head. "No, you can count on Hans. He's the best in the business. Entirely reliable. Come on," she said. "How about a walk, and something to eat?" A walk. Yes, he knew where he wanted to go. If it was to work, which was beginning to seem doubtful to him.

  He rose. He had not bothered to shave this morning. He looked in the mirror. "You look fine," she said. "I'm hungry."

  It happened in the next block. He felt wretchedly ill, but only for about thirty seconds. Pain seared through his temples and everything went white. He heaved as if he were going to vomit, and supported himself with one hand against the rough bricks of the building next to him.

  When his vision cleared, he saw Lise standing in front of him, her face concerned and sympathetic.

  He also saw the two of them walking ahead—yes, that was Lise and himself, looking in a store window and laughing.

  The strangeness of it was overwhelming. He should not have done this. How could Annais and Claire possibly have coped? No wonder.

  Where in this world were they? Perhaps—panic hit him—perhaps he should have had Hans make it start next month, when he was back home, and then they would be everywhere, in the townhouse, out on the street, and he could choose, he could follow them—

  The pressure was unbearable. He began to run. Perhaps now the projections would do some good! He paused and let Lise catch up. "Which way is the wharf? Hurry!"

  He had to make what he was thinking visible, real. If there was a place Claire and Annais were, if somehow he knew, with some hidden part of his mind, the place where they were caught forever on the crest of a breaking wave—

  Down a narrow street, he saw blue water. Lise yanked on his arm and he turned, rushed down the hill, arrived gasping at the wide cobblestone wharf, and pushed through dancing holies into the central ring.

  He stared as all around him brightened, pixilated, then faded—the tourists sipping wine and pointing from their tables around the perimeter; the other holies with their weak, shivering images. He felt very warm.

  There! There they were! Claire! Annais! But—lying on the bed, their final resting place. Smiling, holding hands. He gasped, reached, shouted—

  Then they were gone and how odd: numbers swirled around him, tiny, like black insects, delicate, meshing and linking, building into fleeting, concrete realities which dissolved as rapidly as they formed.

  Thought—or something like it, some sort of pressure which he realized came from him—caught the edges of planes—the planes of tables, of decks of boats, of the buildings—vertical planes, horizontal planes, then planes which faced in a billion directions—and pulled. The planes curved toward him as if they were putty, expanding and arching, then blending with another, higher velocity, and the velocity had weight which pressed against him—he heard all about him a roaring, and screams—saw two bright silhouettes—Them!—multiply into uncountable replications as if he were at the swirling apex of a brilliant, spinning, multi-armed galaxy—

  He felt himself shoved roughly, amid the confusion, as if his body were someone else's. Staggering, he fell. Hands grasped his wrists, dragged him across the rough cobblestones, and dropped him.

  He opened his eyes and touched his temple. It hurt. His hand came away sticky. "Get him out of here, man," he heard someone say to Lise, who was bending over him. "He's dangerous."

  Lise helped him stand. She was stronger than she looked. He leaned against her, took a deep breath, said, "I can walk. What happened?"

  She tilted her head, and a brief smile crossed her face. "You blew them out of the water, that's what. They'll never top that. It was like a neutron bomb hit. Pure light. For a moment, no one could see." She put her arm around him and helped him walk, made him sit on a bench next to a canal.

  She dipped a tissue in the water and wiped the abrasion on his forehead.

  "Rest," she said.

  "They didn't act this way," he said, in despair. "They were so cool, so calm. And they seemed to know so much more."

  "People are different," she said.

  Easy enough for you to be so philosophical, he thought.

  And then his vision splintered once more.

  He felt the hard bench beneath him, Lise's hand on his arm, yet he stared down the empty street and saw—

  Claire.

  She looked as if she were five or six. She pounded towards him, running very fast, wearing blue pants and a yellow shirt, not pausing to look in any of the inviting windows of the storefronts she passed.

  As she approached she grew older, past the age when she had left him, on through womanhood. Children flickered at her side and vanished, as if she ran through their strata and left them.

  Ten feet from him an old woman stopped and stared at him, as if immensely puzzled. Her hair was pure white; she stood straight and dignified. She tilted her head and said, "Who . . . ?"

  Stannis jumped up and reached for her and then she was gone.

  "No," he whispered.

  He bowed his head. This was real, for them. They could catch hold of this, could travel through it. Couldn't they? Or was that just a misconception he had? He still did not know.

  He stood, and Lise stood with him.

  He walked the curving streets of Amsterdam, leaving his grief behind.

  Vision quieted. He saw but one reality, but it was sharp-edged with oddly muted colors, almost as if the colors were low, whirring sounds filled with some imperative quality, some demand which surfaced among the possibilities and drew him here, then there, down Damrak street, over to Voortburgwal. Every cell in his body felt alive, every atom, every tachyon, every possible vector and direction of time flowering from him, headed toward him, came alive in the streets of Amsterdam, as if the city itself lived, and as if it were in tune with something deep within him. All possibilities came to just this. Just these streets, this time. Life and death, the great divide, the great dichotomy, did not really exist. Annais and Claire were a part of Amsterdam. They were with him always. They were within Lise, here at his side. Selves m
ight die yet one self would continue to live. That was the truth of the matter. And why choose one or the other, or pretend to choose? Will, intent, and desire sublimed from him, leaving something his being manifested as truth, as reality. And—there was the Van Gogh Museum.

  He stood on a corner across from it, jostled by a crowd crossing the street. He smelled sauerkraut and mustard, heard sausages sizzle in a cart next to him.

  He must have been heading here all along, just as he had been heading toward Amsterdam without acknowledging it.

  Yes, he remembered now, he was to meet Claire here. She had made some sort of appointment with him for today, for this exact hour. No wonder he had dilly-dallied. He was not supposed to arrive too soon. How wonderful! Would she be old? Young? No matter! He stepped up to the booth and confidently bought his ticket.

  Then he panicked, remembering.

  Claire is dead. Annais is dead. You can never reach them again. Not ever. They are not here, not really. They are gone forever. You are imagining this. As they did. Nothing is happening in the outer world, in the real world. It is all just something happening to your own brain, nothing more.

  Darkness washed through him.

  Then: I will go where they went.

  Yes. Into that bright place, though it would be bright only for an instant. To suppress his breathing mechanism would be easy as a thought. Lovely, it would be, to poise forever on the verge of all possibilities.

  So beautiful Sorry—can't stop.

  He was aware that sweat was running down his face, and that his body was once more in turmoil. The calm of the last few hours vanished. Anger flushed through him for a moment, then was washed away because he was sliding down a sleek funnel of inferences each of which expanded like lit crystals but he could not really stop to see any of them. There were always more, each one leading to the next and he could not stop himself but must slide on and on and on, with greater and greater speed until he would incinerate and glow, infinitely. It might seem to others that he had died, of course, but he would keep thinking on and on and being on and on, like Claire, like Annais, o Annais . . .