Chapter 28
We ate at a place the architectural opposite of where we’d eaten lunch.
It was a small seafood restaurant on a beach, a single-story building made of dark wood soaked through with years of cooking and saltwater brine.
It was comforting in its familiarity, a restaurant that would not have been out of place in my day.
We sat on the sand, under an awning, and watched the sun go down over the edge of the horizon, filling the sky with reds and purples and blues.
Anjari brought a large shopping bag with her, the top cinched tight, but she didn’t mention it, and I didn’t ask.
For the main course I had a pinkish fish, maybe salmon, seasoned with a medley of flavors I didn’t recognize. Anjari insisted on getting us dessert, and we split a piece of thick chocolate pie reminiscent of a rich truffle.
“Everyone is so healthy here,” I said as we took turns with the pie. I had not seen anyone who looked ill, or overweight, or even less than comely. There were elderly people but all I’d seen were lean and seemingly fit. And happy.
“Gene modification is common.” She slipped a piece of pie in her mouth and slid the fork back from her lips, relishing the chocolate on her tongue.
“People are … designed?”
“Not in the sense of, say, this chair, or this fork. There is still much room for randomization in genetics. And not everyone has gene modification. There are some groups who do not approve of such tampering. But most do. It makes sense, does it not? We live longer, healthier, and we are more attractive. There is no downside.”
“If there’s no downside, why do some groups disapprove?”
“There are arguments. Some feel genetic modification ruins natural evolution. That we are modifying ourselves into an evolutionary dead end. Or, worse, by making ourselves immune to common, harmless viruses, we will find ourselves infected with a supervirus none of us can withstand.”
I thought of the pandemics I’d lived through. The massive disruption of COVID-19, and the toll it had taken on society. I hoped nothing like that would happen here, to Anjari’s beautiful world. “What do you think?”
“My parents modified my genes. I am rarely sick. I eat what I like and remain fit with little exercise. I am highly intelligent and athletically talented. I was not constrained by any naturally occurring disability. Nothing has prevented me from becoming what I wanted to become except my own will and drive. I will grow old slowly, and gracefully, and will remain vital and a contributing member of society well into advanced age.” She smiled. “I am for it.”
“That all does sound pretty good.”
“And I disagree with one of the counterarguments. That by modifying ourselves we are continuing evolution by another means, and this is inherently wrong somehow. If you consider it, what is natural? We are from nature. We have the ability to do this, the intelligence, so when we use that intelligence to better ourselves, it is unnatural, evil? No. That is a foolish argument to me.”
“Hmm.”
She studied me. “You are tired.”
“I am,” I said. It was more of an admission than I’d like.
“I have a hotel room picked out for you. It’s at the university, where they put up guest lecturers and other dignitaries.”
“I can’t pay…”
“Nonsense. Like I said earlier, you have made many careers. I will take you, but first, I have some things for you.”
I lifted my eyebrows.
She picked up the shopping bag I’d noticed earlier. She undid the top. “First.” She withdrew a tablet much like the one she was always tapping on and handed it to me. “The Word, in the original, unedited Norte.”
I took the thin slab of glass. “Thank you, Anjari.”
“I am hoping it will carry forward with you tomorrow.”
I nodded and tried to keep the grimace off my face as I stared down at the tablet. I didn’t want to think about traveling forward again.
“And,” Anjari said. “This.” She raised a dark bundle of cloth and let it unravel.
In the candlelight it looked like a wet suit, the kind divers wore.
“It is a survival suit. I ordered it for you today because I destroyed your other one. It is maybe not as good as the one your son gave you, because that one came from your son. But then again, it is perhaps much better? Much newer? They are used by mountain climbers and explorers. Very tough. And smart. It is inlaid with adaptive electronics. Here.” She held it across the table.
I took it. The material was soft to the touch, pliable, and smooth in texture. I looked at Anjari. “Thank you so much.”
“You are welcome so much. There is more.” She gestured at the bag at her feet. “It is a full package. Mask, protection for your head and face, and the like. It will help keep you safe.”
“I can never repay you.”
“Scott Treder. As I keep saying, you do not have to repay me. You being here is more than payment enough. The insights you have given me, the access to your memories, it is invaluable. I will graduate in no small part thanks to you.” She hesitated, perhaps seeing something on my face.
“I do not mean it to be entirely transactional.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m glad I could help you.”
She smiled. “Let us get you to your room.”
She took me to the hotel next to the university.
The building had its own landing pad for her aircar, with enough space for a few dozen others on the roof.
My room was only two floors down from the top.
One entire wall was glass that I could turn opaque with a touch of a button.
There was a massive bed piled with blankets, pillows, and a thick duvet.
A small table bracketed by two comfortable-looking chairs stood near the window-wall.
The bathroom was enormous and well-appointed, with two vanities and both a jacuzzi-style tub and a walk-in shower.
It felt like a penthouse at a downtown Chicago hotel in my day. The kind I could never afford.
Anjari stayed at the door as I stepped inside.
“Order anything you need using the wall interface,” she said.
“The university will pay the tab. I will collect you in the morning. Please be awake and ready by four thirty. I will bring breakfast. I know it is early, but I have one more thing I hope to give you.” She held out the shopping bag that contained the tablet and survival suit.
I took the bag from her. “Really, you don’t need to do anything more—”
“It is an important thing,” Anjari said, interrupting me for the first time that day. “But I cannot promise it will be ready. So please … be ready.”
I gazed at her. “Okay.”
“Thank you. Good night, Scott Treder. Sleep well.”
“Good night.”
The door shut itself behind her. I stood for a long moment, holding the shopping bag.
I went to the massive bed, put the bag down at the foot, and drew out the tablet.
Anjari had shown me how it worked. She’d set it up to be as easy as possible.
I just needed to tap, and the screen would come up to the Word, presented like an e-reader from my day, although this one could charge itself via sunlight.
I took the tablet to the glass wall and pressed the control to the side of the window to turn out the lights in the room.
Reflected light from behind me vanished, leaving the glass so clear it could have been open air.
The view of the city at night was, if anything, even more impressive than it had been during the day.
Aircars, their lights bright, streamed in long, tightly controlled patterns between the brilliant arrays of the skyscrapers.
It struck me as almost fractal: the complex layers of the buildings as they shimmered into the distance, the swirling firefly rivers of the aircars.
I raised the tablet. Turned it on. The Word of the Traveler.
The entire first page was just the title.
Lyle’s name wasn’t on it. I stared down at the screen.
Lyle had written this, created this out of whole cloth.
He hadn’t started the pseudo-religion—that spark had ignited by itself.
But he had fanned the flames, writing the words he’d calculated to best propagate the religion, all in the hope that it would lead future generations to protect me. It hadn’t quite worked.
I meant to read it. Even though it was late, and I was exhausted.
I wasn’t sure, in that moment, if I wanted to.
The idea of the Word felt cold, self-serving.
Even the title was calculated, calling back to the Bible.
Lyle had never believed I was the messiah—he’d told me as much himself.
He’d leveraged belief, weaponized it, harnessing it as one more tool in his quest to save me.
Still. Lyle had written something that had survived seven centuries. It had survived massive wars and the collapse of society as I had known it. That was no small thing. Even if he hadn’t believed it, others had.
I intended to read it. I really did.
But as I stared down at the tablet, the words blurring before my eyes, I kept seeing it.
The image of the man coming at me, iron bar raised above his head.
It was like a movie playing in slow motion before me.
His face, twisted in fear and hot, unthinking anger and determination.
The barrel of the SD-4 floating up, unfocused as I aimed it.
The feel of the trigger, the weight of the pull.
The burst of noise as the round went off.
The explosion that tore the man apart.
I sucked in a trembling breath. The tablet shook in my hands.
I remembered the torturer’s face, screaming at me as he held the photo. It must have been a picture of the man I’d killed. A family member. Someone he cared about. It explained the trembling fury and hate in his eyes as he held my pistol to my head.
Just fucking do it.