Charlie Anders - All the Birds in the Sky

The building where Laurence worked (and lived, in a converted office with bunk beds) was the former headquarters of a start-up company called HappyFruit, Inc., which had marketed fruit that was genetically modified to include a tiny amount of antidepressants. “SQUEEZE THE JOY OUT OF LIFE” read one poster with a cartoon papaya that Laurence saw from his top-bunk perch every night. The first day or so, the idea of camping out at a start-up had seemed thrillingly surreal. Now, he was over it. At least HappyFruit had encouraged its employees to jog, so there were three showers. For a hundred people. The whole place smelled like dead otters.

Laurence took his time walking along the tar path, past the leafless cedar tree and the Dumpster where the smokers smoked. He was rehashing what he would say to Patricia if she were here. And drawing out the afterglow of seeing the completed Pathway to Infinity, before he had to go back to his little office and the crushing disappointment of failing to balance the gravity equations.

Back at the office that Laurence shared with Anya and Sougata, though, Laurence’s chair was occupied. Isobel sat and gazed at Laurence’s computer, but not as if she was reading anything.

“Hey,” Laurence said. “I saw the machine. It’s the most beautiful thing.”

“Yeah.” Isobel smiled, but she had her usual wreath of sadness.

Laurence said, “Listen, can you help me get a phone?” At the same time that Isobel said, “Milton is back.” Then they were both like, “You first.” Laurence won — so Isobel went first.

“Milton is back. He wants me to bring you and the others up to his office right away. I think things are about to get interesting around here.” She stood, to lead Laurence away, and then remembered. “What were you trying to say, before?”

“Uh, nothing. Actually, no, wait. It is something. I need a phone. My frien — my girlfriend, I guess. Patricia. You met her a few times. I haven’t talked to her since the flood. Her parents died. It’s been the hardest time, and I should have been there for her. I need to make sure she’s okay and let her know I’m thinking about her. It’s really important.”

“I’m sorry.” Isobel had already gotten halfway to the door, and she turned back. “I’m sorry, there’s just no way.” This had turned out to be a bad time to ask, given that Isobel was in a hurry to get to this meeting, but Laurence was committed.

“Please, Isobel. I just want, need, to talk to her a moment. Really.”

“We’re on total lockdown here. This whole campus is full of people who want to talk to their loved ones. I don’t know if you’ve been following the state of the world out there, but it’s total chaos. We can’t trust anybody.”

“Isobel. I’ve never asked you for anything before.” Laurence let a little of his desperation and dislocation show in his voice, and then had to struggle to keep it from overwhelming him. Keep calm, make your case. “I’ve been your friend my whole life, and now I’m asking you for something that’s massively important to me. Like, this could make the difference between me having a life and not having a life.”

“So she’s the one, huh?” Isobel shut the door and smiled. “I thought Serafina was the one.”

“So did I. But you know, the heart is not a lie detector. Or something. Falsely identifying the One is part of how you find the One.” He squelched a Matrix joke.

“I guess so.” Isobel gave another tragic smile. “I wouldn’t know. I married my college boyfriend.”

Laurence didn’t point out that Isobel and Percival had stayed together nearly fifteen years, which was a pretty respectable run. Instead, Laurence just waited, with arms folded and what he hoped was a decently pathetic look on his face.

Isobel held out a second longer, then handed him a phone. “But I have to stay and listen in. For security reasons. I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine.” Laurence seized the phone with both hands and dialed Patricia’s last known number.

It rang, while Isobel watched him, and rang some more, and went to voicemail. He dialed again, same result. This time, Laurence let it beep.

He breathed, trying not to look at Isobel. “Hey. It’s Laurence. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And also, just to say that I’m really sorry about your loss. Your parents, I mean. They were … I can’t even begin to say. There’s nothing I can say. I wish I could be there for you, in person.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, on her voice mail, without being able to hear her response. Anything he could think of seemed inadequate, or maybe insensitive.

He almost just hung up and handed the phone back to Isobel, but then he realized: He’d just been looking at a freaking wormhole generator, a working model. He had no way of knowing what might happen next . They were, all of them, standing on terra incognita, and this felt like a moment that was radically discontinuous with everything that had come before. There was a nontrivial chance these were the last words he would ever speak to Patricia.

So Laurence pretended Isobel wasn’t there, staring, and he said, “Listen, I meant it when I said I loved you, it just sort of came out but it was the truth coming out. There’s a huge, vital part of me that reaches out to you in some kind of emotional phototropism. I have so many things I want to say to you, and I wish our lives could wrap around each other forever. I’m kind of … I can’t go anywhere right now. I have to see something through. But I promise you, as soon as I’m free I will track you down and we will be together, and I will try my fuckedest to make up for all the comfort I’m not giving you right now. That’s a promise. I love you. Goodbye.” He hung up with the flat of his thumb and handed the phone back to Isobel. She seemed pretty overcome, by a grab bag of emotions.

Isobel put her hand on Laurence’s upper arm as she slipped the phone back into a hiding place in her purse. But all she said was, “Tell nobody about this phone.” Laurence nodded.

Milton surveyed a roomful of geeks from his Herman Miller throne, ankle crossed over thigh and lips pursed as if he’d just finished a slice of the tartest Meyer lemon pie. Laurence stumbled over the limbs of a dozen of his colleagues, seeking a corner of a beanbag to occupy. Someone gave up his folding chair for Isobel. They were in an old server room, with no windows and only one thick door, so it would be hard to eavesdrop. Nobody was talking, and Laurence realized they were in the middle of one of Milton’s dramatic pauses. As soon as Laurence got settled, Milton restarted in the middle of an unfinished sentence, about the crisis in the U.S. government, the possibility of a new civil war, martial law, the deterioriating international situation in the absence of American military resolve, all the ways this could soon turn to hellshit. Something in Milton was pessimistic to the point of brokenness, and yet he was usually right. Listening to Milton’s dark litany, Laurence felt a surge of affection for the nearly bald man with his moth-wing eyebrows. Part of Laurence still wanted to be Milton Dirth when he grew up.

“All of our unpaid bills are coming due at once,” Milton was saying.

Laurence and Sougata kept looking at each other and half-grinning, because as soon as Milton got done talking about the collapse of civilization, he would move on to the fact that they had actually built it, the machine, and it seemed like it might work. Milton wanted to remind them all of the reasons why this could be humanity’s last hope, and then they would get on to the good part.

“All of this just makes this project even more urgent than we already thought,” said Milton. “Isobel, where are we with that?”