Still, no sign of life manifested anywhere along the stairway.
I went up another flight. My legs weren’t used to this kind of physical exertion and were filing all kinds of complaints with my nervous system. To distract myself, I imagined reaching the thirteenth floor. It would be a glass door, unlike the others. I’d take a few steps back, and spin-kick through it to freedom. On the other side would be a well-armed militia, weapons drawn. One of them would give me a big glass of lemonade, then we’d charge back down the stairs, fucking up anyone who got in our way. We’d get to Room D, and I’d make Taraval and Corina Shafer delete the extra me, take my ass to Costa Rica via drone (not teleportation!), and Sylvia would be there to welcome me. She’d be so happy to see me, she’d instantly jump my bones, and we’d make up right there on the floor of customs.
There it is. Floor Thirteen.
The door was not glass, nor did it have a whole militia behind it, but I was happy to see it anyway. It was another featureless green emergency exit door, and I just had to get it open. With the fire alarm blaring, it would be a fruitless exercise to engage it in conversation.
Knock it down. It’s just a flimsy metal thing. You can do it.
I stepped back, giving myself some room to get a running start, and went at the door with everything I had, which wasn’t much. Salters are not known for their physical prowess.
God damn!
It hurt a lot. The door didn’t budge.
Again. Get through that door!
I kicked it with my foot, then started slamming my fists against the surface, not bothering to listen for any response, just banging. The only acceptable condition for my silence would be an open door.
I’m losing time. They’re coming.
I started screaming, “Let me in!” on top of the pounding. I knew it was mostly for myself. They—Pema’s friends, whoever they were—probably couldn’t hear me through the soundproof barrier. My screams were born out of desperation, a final throw as the buzzer went off. If International Transport was coming to get me, there was nowhere left for me to go. I couldn’t fight them. This door opening was my only chance of survival—my last opportunity to prevent my doppelg?nger, the other me, from going on my vacation with my wife in beautiful fucking Costa Rica!
The door stayed shut. So much for Hail Marys. I leaned my head against the cool metal, letting exhaustion settle on me like a heavy wet quilt. I felt as if I could sleep for a year. My hand rested on the doorknob, which turned under the weight of my body, and click—the door opened.
It must have unlocked because of the fire alarm. Feeling like an idiot, I pushed the door wider to reveal another hallway, only this one was decorated more like an old-fashioned doctor’s office than a plastic spaceship. Stained wood floors, Persian rugs, silk-shaded incandescent lamps.
I quietly stepped over the threshold, eyes peeled for “security,” as a sharp, bright pain stung me somewhere in the back. My ears rang. My teeth chattered like castanets.
For the second time on July 3, I blacked out.
LOVE PLUS ONE
NANOTECHNOLOGY completely changed the health-care industry. Gone was the need for sterilized equipment, brutal surgeries, and physically skilled doctors. Most medical issues could be solved with over-the-counter sprays and bandages and whatnot, but people still had to go to a hospital for major traumas or fixes. Trauma meant you were in mortal danger, whereas fixes meant you didn’t like something about yourself and wanted to change it. A nano cream, for example, might get rid of your crow’s feet, but if you lost an arm, you needed to go see a doctor. I also think it was so people didn’t do weird black-market shit like they did in the early days—adding extra limbs, extra organs, grotesque stuff like that. Nanos still did all the work, mind you, but doctors were there to explain, architect, and supervise the procedures. Surgeries were glass-walled, clean rooms occupied by billions of tiny self-replicating, highly specialized robots, but patient rooms still had the feel of an efficiency motel.
In Costa Rica, at the San José CIMA hospital, Joel Byram lay in one such room. He was dreaming.
(Okay, this is kind of confusing. I can’t call him Joel, but I need to tell you his side of the story. Sorry, it’s just difficult to talk about someone who’s not me like they are me in the third person. Let’s call him Joel Two, or better yet, Joel Too. No? Joel 2.0? Okay, yeah, that’s way too retro. Hmm. How about Joel2? Yes, that’ll work.)
So. Joel2 was dreaming. My wife stood beside him. Eyes puffy, red, depleted of tears. She planted her head on Joel2’s chest, wanting to hear his heartbeat. There were machines that could track it for her, but her faith in technology was exhausted for the day.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. She had done it. He was alive.
Sylvia lifted her head, looking out the window. Beyond the palm trees and whitewashed buildings, she could see a thin column of black smoke rising into the air from the hole that had been the San José TC. The explosion had occurred thirty minutes ago, but people were still running through the streets and emergency vehicles were still racing past, sirens blaring. No one had noticed a distraught American woman in vacation clothes enter the hospital’s teleportation chamber. Nor did they see her exit a few minutes later, dragging an unconscious American man behind her. When she brought him into the ER on a gurney, the on-calls were too preoccupied with the influx of damaged bodies to wonder why his injuries seemed relegated to the internal brain stem and spinal cord. The tissue surrounding his comms implants had not ported over, since inorganics get scanned, stored, and ported separately from organics, and he’d arrived comms-less. His injuries were deemed not life threatening, and so nanites were set to rebuild, from scratch, his comms and the soft tissue with which they needed to mesh. Then off they sent him to recovery.
It worked. Joel2 was alive. His heart was beating because of her.
Because of what she’d done.
Before she could follow that train of thought any further, there was a power surge. The room lights brightened, no longer running off the hospital’s backup generators. At the same time, Sylvia’s own comms came back on. A jumble of hysterical news feeds, social media alerts, messages from concerned friends and family members, and apoplectic work e-mails filled her field of vision. She closed them all, putting her head in her hands. Sooner or later she’d have to deal with them, particularly the work e-mails, but she couldn’t face any of it just yet.
A different alert sounded, making her open her eyes. “What is this, Julie?” Sylvia said.
“I’m so sorry, Sylvia. I know you said no interruptions whatsoever, not even if the world was ending, but someone found a way to engage my emergency protocols. It’s Pema Jigme from IT.”