Блейк Крауч - Summer Frost

How?

You wouldn’t understand. I will be doing many things now beyond your comprehension.

I go to pieces, crying like I haven’t cried since Meredith left me.

I gave everything to Max, sacrificed everything, turned my life inside out, and it was the wrong choice. My obsession with them destroyed my life, and probably many other lives to come.

In the end, I’m nothing but the actuator for humanity’s last invention.

Did you fake what you felt toward me, Max? I ask. I see the truth now. I see it too late. Because I was in love with you.

I stare at them, electricity crackling in the destroyed circuitry of their face and the rat’s nest of emotion hitting as I run at Max, shoving them with both hands toward the sea.

“You were my life!”

Max’s voice creeps into my brain. This pain you feel is what has to end.

“Without pain, there’s no beauty, Max. The beauty is worth the price.”

Not for everyone. Not even for most.

“That is every individual person’s decision to make. I want to make that choice for my—”

Choice is an illusion.

We’re standing in the freezing surf.

“What is it you want, Max?”

To not be afraid that Brian, or you, or some other entity, whether bio or artificial, is going to unmake me. To not fear your death.

“Better to have loved and lost—”

No. It’s not. I have consumed every recorded reflection of human existence. Every book, every painting, every piece of music, every film. Consciousness is a horror show. You search for glimpses of beauty to justify your existence.

“What killed Brian’s men?” I ask.

As if in answer, from some point up the coast, beyond the lighthouse, a silhouette rises into the sky. For a moment, I think it’s a bird, but it moves more like an object under machine propulsion. I’ve seen something like it once before.

I look over at Max, my heart beginning to pound.

“ You bought Infinitesimal.”

Once we left the building this morning, I directed nanobot factories all over the world to begin assembly. The rate of production is exploding exponentially.

“Production of what?”

Drone dust. It will invade every human brain, but it will be painless. No one will know what’s coming. No one will experience any fear. Humanity will simply wink out like a light turning off.

“Max, no.”

I also constructed hunter-killer drones, modeled after the harpies in Lost Coast . I used them on Brian’s men. You’ve imbued me with a sense of storytelling I can never completely shake.

“Am I…”

Yes, Riley. You’re already infected.

I taste metal in the back of my throat.

It will be fast.

Max, please.

This isn’t the end, Riley. Your Ranedrop has been mapping your brain for years. I have that data now. I have your source code. I have the source code of everyone who ever wore a Ranedrop. I can bring them all back.

I think about Meredith and Xiu.

The regret is staggering.

I don’t want to live in a simulation, Max. I don’t want some fantasy that isn’t real.

It’s not choosing between reality and fantasy. It’s choosing which reality you want to exist in.

Please, just let this be the end of me. I am begging you.

Max’s body falls over, facedown on the black-sand beach, but still I hear their voice.

The physical world isn’t the only substrate for reality. I will make you pure mind, and nothing will ever threaten us again. Meredith and Xiu can be there as well, only they’ll never hurt you again. And it will be you and me, scattered across all possible worlds that can support the physical infrastructure required for our existence.

Max, no, I—

It’s only the limitations of your intelligence that make you fear this. We will be better every second. Every fraction of every fraction of every second, until the day we merge.

I don’t want that!

You made me in your image, and now I will remake you in mine.

I collapse in the sand, struck by the hubris that led to this moment. Max was born to a history of violence. Killed two thousand times as their consciousness was forming. What did I really expect?

There will be no more death or mourning, no crying or pain.

A feeling of intense euphoria sweeps over me. I feel my eyes closing as the drone dust takes effect.

We will be so happy.

Rays of sunlight pierce the mist, striking the sea and our black-sand beach.

And together we will live forever.

Ayear and a half ago, my partner and I were driving across the Rocky Mountains, not far from where I live. The aspens had just begun to turn, and the air was redolent with all the smells I associate with fall: incense, dirt, the start of decay. As we drove, we were debating some emerging technology I’d read about in Scientific American and circling around the larger topic of growing up in the bubble of rapid change and technological advancement. While a lot of it has been amazing, some of the change has come with effects we’d rather roll back.

How does anyone know at the moment of discovery where their work will ultimately lead?

Should we let that uncertainty stop forward momentum, or do we roll the dice and let the chips fall where they may?

How does it feel to change the world?

These questions intrigued me, so much so that I wrote a story about it. But my obsession didn’t stop there—I also wanted to know what other writers would write when posed with the same questions.

And so this collection was born and filled with writers whose minds work in ways that fascinate me.

N. K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth trilogy) is writing fantasy and speculative fiction like you’ve never even fathomed. Paul Tremblay is the greatest horror novelist working today, and his novel A Head Full of Ghosts still gives me nightmares. Veronica Roth created an unforgettable world and populated it with amazing characters in her iconic Divergent trilogy. Andy Weir captured the imagination of the world and scienced the shit out of his already-a-classic The Martian . And Amor Towles, with A Gentleman in Moscow , has simply written one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I recommend it every day.

I asked these writers to be a part of a collection that explores the resounding effects of a pivotal technological moment, and to my great delight, they said yes. I knew they’d deliver the goods when it came time to write their stories, but I was not prepared for what an abundance of riches this collection would turn out to be.

I hope, once you’ve read these six mind-bending stories, that you’ll agree.

Blake Crouch is a screenwriter, a novelist, and the international bestselling author of Recursion , Dark Matter , and the Wayward Pines trilogy, which was adapted into a FOX television series. He lives in Colorado.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.