His mask twisted, just a hint of a smile beneath.
“You know, we had this old chest of drawers, mahogany, from your great-grandmother. One night I took it to the back yard and chopped it into pieces. It kept us warm for a night, but your grandmother never forgave me for that.”
He sighed. “She loved the northern lights, though. We saw the best ones ever, the night it happened. We were all in a panic, trying to find candles in the pitch black, and then she told me to look outside. The city was all dark, and the sky was ablaze, with every color you could think of. We took your mother and went outside, stared at it for hours. It was the most beautiful thing she had seen in her life, she said, and because of the way she looked at it, it was.
“That’s what I miss now, her way of seeing things. I see the aurora here, in the winter, sometimes, but it’s just lights in the sky.
“We can’t really know, but that was probably what killed her, us going out there. The cancer wave that came afterwards, all those particles, messing with everyone’s DNA. I got lucky, roll of the dice. Your mother was fine, the Foundation rolled out the cancer vaccines by the time she started school. But your grandmother . . . “Grandfather looked away, at the choppy sea beyond the trees. “She drowned on dry land, in the end,” he said quietly. “Her lungs filled with fluid.”
Torsti stared at Grandfather. He didn’t know much about his grandmother, but her paintings and drawings were all over the cottage, small landscapes and quirky manga-style cartoons. He felt the terror of the churn’s black water rise in him again. To get rid of his disquiet, he chopped at the last log, hard. It flew apart violently, and the axe got stuck in the block.
“So that’s why,” Grandfather said.
“That’s why what?” Torsti asked.
“That’s why I don’t want your vaccine. I don’t need to see the future. AIs and space colonies and Dyson trees and all the things your Mom spends her days thinking about for the Long Reflection Committee. Lights in the sky, nothing more. I don’t need to see it.”
He got up. “Let’s gather these and get the fire going for you, hmm? It’s going to be cold at night.”
THE SAUNA SMELLED OF DRY WOOD IN A WAY THAT SEEMED TO RETAIN ITS WARMTH. It had a small front room with a low bed where Torsti had slept during previous island visits. It had one of Grandmother’s drawings, a tiny watercolor and ink of the view out toward the sea from the sauna window, framed by the wavebreakers.
“You’ll have to stay outside while I get the fire going,” Grandfather said. The old man went into the sauna itself and kneeled painfully by the stove, assembling kindling and wood into careful layers.
Reluctantly, Torsti got out of his way. He walked to the pier and looked out to the sea. As Grandfather had predicted, the wind had picked up. The trees on the cliffs danced, and heavy waves crashed against the breakers. It looked just like Grandmother’s painting, a window into the past.
So much would be lost when Grandfather died, entire worlds Torsti had never known. I have to find a way to do it, he thought. I have to bring him to the future with me. If I leave, I might never see him again.
It is just lights in the sky, Grandfather had said.
That’s the problem, Torsti thought. He can’t see the future. But maybe I can show him.
He went to the boat and picked up a coil of sturdy rope from its storage locker. Then he gathered a few round pebbles from the beach and went back to the sauna. Grandfather came out, dusting his hands.
“All right,” he said. “If you add a few logs before you go to sleep, you should be warm and snug now, even if the north wind blows.” There was a regretful look in his eyes. “It’s too bad we can’t actually use the sauna together. Shame to waste a good löyly.” Then he frowned, seeing Torsti’s expression. “What is it, boy?”
“I want to show you something,” Torsti said. “Let’s go up to the churn.”
THE HIISI’S CHURN LOOKED EVEN DEEPER AND DARKER IN THE FADING LIGHT. Slowly, Torsti walked right to its edge. The fear moved in him now, as if the deep water was reaching out from the churn with a cold hand and squeezing his heart.
He laid the coil of rope down on the ground and tied one end carefully around a boulder. Then he drew his hand back and tossed the first stone into the churn. It bounced off a wall and vanished into the black water.
“What are you doing?” Grandfather asked.
Torsti threw another stone. This time, the angle was better, and the stone actually caught on the grooves, spun around the churn bore before falling into the water.
“I want you to travel with me,” he said quietly. “Remember? It can take us anywhere.”
Grandfather watched him, eyes unreadable, almost invisible in the dim light.
“So let’s go to the future. A thousand years from now.”
He threw another stone. He was getting better at it now, and now the stone slid along the grooves almost a whole circuit. His palms sweated. The images from the simulations flashed in his head. Squeezing them hard like the stones in his hand, he forced them into words.
“Look,” he said, motioning Grandfather to come closer. “Here we are. Not many people live on Earth. Maybe you are still here, on the island, but when we come visit you, it’s from the artificial worlds in the asteroid belt, every one of them unique and different. I—I might have wings, since I live in a low gravity world, and I have to wear an exoskeleton to walk around. Mom is no longer just thinking about the future, she is building it. Dad is a mindweaver, trying to get big group minds to get along, helping them to find the balance between the parts and the whole. We still celebrate vaccine season. But now it’s just a ritual for family, like Christmas used to be.”
He threw another stone. This one was better: the round stone bounced and followed the grooves, almost all the way down.
He looked at Grandfather. The old man sat on a rock now, leaning his chin on his hands, watching Torsti.
“It’s a million years from now. Everybody comes back to Earth during vaccine season, once a century. There is no disease anymore, so the vaccines are memetic: ideas, entire systems of thought, ways of being, different kinds of consciousness. Mind vaccines against despair and war and fear.”
He looked up at the pale October stars. “The wormholes open in the Lagrange Points, and they come. Some—some come in ships; tiny ones, living spores that carry minds in molecules that then grow in soil and turn into bodies and minds; large ones, ones made from dark matter or with a black hole in the heart that can cross between galaxies. Others are already here, in virtual realities inside diamond machines; but they make bodies to visit Earth and the people here, because it’s vaccine season. So they can remember where they come from.”
Now Grandfather stood close. I’m not doing it right, Torsti thought. He still can’t see.
He gritted his teeth, strained to see the deep future and hefted the final stone.
Grandfather took his hand.
“Torsti,” he said gently. “It’s all right.” There was a smile under his mask. “You are a good boy, you really are. I know you can see these things, I know you can. You will do things I never imagined. And . . . it’s enough for me just to know that.
“Now, let’s go back. It’s getting cold. I’m going to make some food, and tomorrow I’ll take you home.”
The churn’s hollow voice mocked Torsti in his mind. You can imagine all the futures you want, boy. But they are not real. Only endless dark is real. Your Grandfather knows that. Nothing will exist. Only I will remain.
“No,” Torsti said. “I am going to show you.”
He withdrew his hand from his Grandfather’s and threw the last stone. It hit the grooves of the churn perfectly, spinning around the bore, rattling like a ball in a roulette wheel.
Then he jumped in after it.
For an instant, he was suspended in mid-air, could almost touch the walls of the churn. Maybe it is really a wormhole, he thought. Then the water rose to meet him and pulled a cold hand over his he
ad.
Torsti had never learned to swim, in spite of Mom and Dad’s attempts. So he just lifted his arms and floated, disappearing beneath the surface. Water filled his mouth and lungs. It was like breathing in cold space. The dark filled him, and suddenly it was like he was hollow, a container for the universe itself.
He saw the future. Artificial worlds strung around stars like strings of pearls. Wormholes connecting galaxies like synapses between neurons. Currents of dark matter redirecting the movements of superclusters, slowing down the expansion of the universe, preventing the Big Rip that threatened to leave each photon alone in its own bubble. And then, new universes, budding off from the first one, entire new realities with their own laws and constants and life, a forest growing from a single seed. A multiverse, made from minds and wonder and surprise, no longer dead and cold, lighting up, inside him.
We are the vaccine, he thought. We are the vaccine against the dark.
And then it all blinked out.
THE COUGHING BROUGHT TORSTI BACK. IT FELT LIKE BEING CHOPPED AT WITH AN axe, right in the chest. The universe came out of him in tiny big bangs of phlegm and cold brine.
Finally it stopped, leaving him freezing and shaking all over, but alive. Torsti opened his eyes. His Grandfather’s silhouette loomed over him, against the evening sky.
“Don’t try to move,” the old man said, crouching next to Torsti on the granite. He lifted up his phone, pointing the camera at Torsti, and the screen lit up his face.
He wasn’t wearing his mask. His thick silvery hair and salt-and-pepper beard were dripping, and he had a pained look on his face. The lines were deeper than Torsti remembered, his cheeks were hollower.
“Grandfather,” Torsti wheezed. “I saw it.”
Relief spread over Grandfather’s face, smoothing the wrinkles.
“Thank goodness,” he said. “You stupid, reckless boy. What if I hadn’t been strong enough to haul you up that goddamned rope?” He held up his phone. “The Hanko Medical Center AI said you were going to be fine, but I almost didn’t believe it. You should be glad I still remembered my rescue breath training. How are you feeling?”
Torsti’s ribs hurt, but he felt better with each breath. Slowly, he sat up. He was soaked through and shivered in the wind. Grandfather wrapped his coat around Torsti, and then hugged him tight, wiry arms around the boy’s shoulders and back.
“I saw it in the churn,” Torsti whispered. “The future. I really saw it.”
Grandfather pulled away and looked at Torsti.
“I believe you,” he said. “You have it too, don’t you? That way of seeing. And I never realized. What a strange thing.”
His voice was thick. Then he held up his phone, clearing his throat. “Well, I guess I’m going to see the future too, now. This damn thing confirmed transmission.”
“I’m sorry,” Torsti said. “I took away your choice.”
Grandfather sighed.
“You did no such thing, boy,” he said. “You can’t take what wasn’t there in the first place. My choice was made long time ago. I just wasn’t ready to admit it.”
He helped Torsti up. “Let’s go to the sauna,” he said. “All these vaccines or not, you don’t want to catch your death.”
They walked down the pine needle path together, toward the sauna and the warmth.
Contributors
Madeline Ashby is a futurist and science fiction writer based in Toronto. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty series from Angry Robot Books and also Company Town from Tor Books. She is a contributor to How to Future: Leading and Sensemaking in an Age of Hyper Change, available soon from Kogan Page Inspire. She has also developed multiple science fiction prototypes and scenarios for Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Data & Society, Nesta, the WorldBank, WHO, and others. You can find her at madelineashby.com or on Twitter @MadelineAshby.
Indrapramit Das (aka Indra Das) is a writer and editor from Kolkata, India. He is a Lambda Literary Award winner for his debut novel The Devourers (Penguin India/Del Rey), and a Shirley Jackson Award winner for his short fiction, which has appeared in a variety of anthologies and publications including Tor.com, Slate, Clarkesworld, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. He has lived in India, the United States, and Canada, where he received his MFA from the University of British Columbia.
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently Radicalized and Walkaway, science fiction for adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, a book about earning a living in the Internet age; and Homeland, a young adult sequel to Little Brother. His latest book is Poesy the Monster Slayer, a picture book for young readers. His next book is Attach Surface, an adult sequel to Little Brother.
Adrian Hon is CEO and founder of Six to Start, co-creator of the most successful smartphone fitness game in the world, Zombies, Run! He is the author of A New History of the Future in 100 Objects (MIT Press, 2020) and has worked with the British Museum, Disney Imagineering, and the Long Now. Before becoming a game designer, Adrian was a neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at Cambridge, UCSD, and Oxford.
Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Canada, the United States, and Spain, and is now based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of the novel Annex and the collection Tomorrow Factory, which contains some of the best of his 150+ published stories. His work has been translated into Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Portuguese, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese. Find free fiction and support his work at patreon.com/richlarson.
Gideon Lichfield is from London, where he began his career on the science desk at The Economist, then spent stints as a foreign correspondent in Mexico City, Moscow, and Jerusalem before winding up in New York City. He was one of the founding editors at the business publication Quartz and worked there until 2017, when he became editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review. He has taught journalism at New York University and has written (not very good) short science fiction as a fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute.
Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he wrote The Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (starting with The Grace of Kings), as well as The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. He also authored the Star Wars novel The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Ken worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Ken frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, and the mathematics of origami.
Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. She is the creator of the serial Ninth Step Station, currently running on Serial Box, and her short story collection And Other Disasters came out in November 2019. Her opinions can be found in the New York Times, Nation, Foreign Policy, and NBC THINK, among other outlets.
Hannu Rajaniemi is a cofounder and CEO of HelixNano, a venture- and Y Combinator-backed biotech startup developing a COVID-19 vaccine. Hannu was born in Finland. At the age of eight he approached the European Space Agency with a fusion-powered spaceship design, which was received with a polite “thank you” note. Hannu studied mathematics and theoretical physics at University of Oulu and Cambridge and holds a PhD in string theory from the University of Edinburgh. He cofounded a mathematics consultancy whose clients included the UK Ministry of Defence and the European Space Agency. Hannu is the author of four novels including The Quantum Thief (winner of the 2012 Tähtivaeltaja Award for the best science fiction novel published in Finland and translated into more than twenty languages). His most recent book is Summerland (June 2018), an alternate-history spy thriller in a world where the afterlife is real. His short fiction ha
s been featured in Nature, Slate, MIT Technology Review, and the New York Times. Hannu lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, neuroscientist Zuzana Krejciova-Rajaniemi, and their vizsla puppy Neo.
Wade Roush is a technology journalist and audio producer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of Extraterrestrials (MIT Press, 2020) and editor of the 2018 edition of Twelve Tomorrows. He hosts and produces Soonish, a nonfiction podcast about the future, and cofounded Hub & Spoke, a collective of independent podcasts. He has been a staff writer, editor, and/or columnist for Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, Xconomy, and Science, and was the founding producer of Technology Review’s Deep Tech podcast. In 2014–2015 he was acting director of MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program. He has a B.A. in history and science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT.
Karl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian author and professional futurist. Of his twelve published novels, two have won Canada’s Aurora Award for best sci-fi novel of the year. Karl came to prominence as one of the vanguard writers of the “new space opera,” but after obtaining a master’s degree in Strategic Foresight he shifted his attention to near-future fiction. Now he writes about positive solutions to issues such as global warming, using his foresight skills to inform his science fiction—and vice versa. Karl lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter.
D. A. Xiaolin Spires steps into portals and reappears in sites such as Hawaii, New York, various parts of Asia, and elsewhere, with her keyboard appendage attached. Her work appears in publications such as Clarkesworld, Analog, Strange Horizons, Nature, Terraform, Uncanny, Fireside, Galaxy’s Edge, Andromeda Spaceways (Year’s Best Issue), Diabolical Plots, Star*Line, Factor Four, and anthologies of the strange and beautiful: Ride the Star Wind, Sharp and Sugar Tooth, Future Visions, Deep Signal, Battling in All Her Finery, and Broad Knowledge. Select stories can be read in German, Spanish, Vietnamese, Estonian, and French translation. She can be found on Twitter @spireswriter and on her website daxiaolinspires.wordpress.com.
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