“Yeah?” we answered in unison. This is getting old.
It was that goddamn nurse with the eyebrows. He walked over to Joel2 from a console he was standing near. “Hurt again?” he asked him. “You seem to be a glutton for punishment. Did you fall off a cliff or—Whoa.” He almost jumped back when he saw me. “You have a twin?”24
“Something like that,” Joel2 said, likely as anxious as I was for all parties to move along and get on with their respective business.
“There was nothing in your file about being a twin,” the nurse said. “Who’s older?” Was followed by nervous laughter.
“Me, by about an hour.” I smiled back uncomfortably.
“We just met recently,” Joel2 added.
“Wow, so like a long-lost sibling scenario? That’s wild.”
“You have no idea,” I said.
Another long silence. “Excuse us, we have to go now,” Joel2 said, grabbing me by the elbow and leading me away.
He shook his head and pushed open the door to the TC. Was I always this much of a dick? Or was it just the stressful situation in which we found ourselves? I made a mental note to pay more attention to how I spoke to people when this was over, too.
“Okay,” Joel2 said, locking the door behind us. I looked at the single chair inside the foyer with a combination of anxiety and fear. Part of me wondered if we shouldn’t just have Julie clear one of us. Which one, though? Not me, that’s for sure.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe my other was right, and neither of us were really me. Or worse, what if Shila was right? What if the real soul of Joel Byram perished long ago, eaten away port by port, packet by packet?
Joel2 pulled up his comms. “Julie?”
“I’m here,” she answered. “Any news?”
“Yes. I think I have a fix on Sylvia’s location. I need you to use her access rights to teleport me and my friend from the San José Hospital TC in Costa Rica to Bellevue Hospital in New York.”
“Are you crazy, Joel? That’s pretty much a violation of every IT rule I can think of. No,” she said emphatically. “Why don’t you just take a people-mover?”
“It won’t get us there in time, and every second counts right now. Please, Julie. I need you to make this happen. I wouldn’t be asking you if it weren’t an emergency.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that.”
“I’m sure you can, Julie. Just try, I’m begging you!”25
“You’re sure Sylvia would be okay with this?”
No. She might not trust either of us ever again. Me, she might divorce. You, she might delete.
“Julie, Sylvia is in trouble. How serious, I don’t know,” he said, his tone grim. The AIDE was our only hope of getting the fuck out of this heavenly hellhole. “Here’s what I do know: if the tables were turned, if it were me, I would want her to do whatever was necessary to save me.”
Would I? Had she?
Another silent lull. “Okay,” she finally said.
“Okay, okay?” “Yes, okay.”
The foyer door opened and the chair moved into position.
Good girl.
Joel2 sat down first. I stayed behind and looked around. One console, one chair, the ominous chalcedony wall. Here we go again. Why am I doing this? Because Taraval has Sylvia, dummy. You’re going to rescue her or you’re going to die trying. Either way, this is the last time you’ll see a foyer. Suck it up.
“Joel?” Julie asked, interrupting my downward-spiraling train of thought.
“Yeah?” my double answered, gesturing for me to come join him.
“Who is this friend of yours?”
“Uh, it’s a long story, Jules. He’s going to help me find Sylvia. I—” He looked at me then, like I’d never looked at myself before. It was a look of sadness and regret and deep, lifelong warmth. “I trust him.”
“And I trust you,” she said. “You both don’t have to sit in the chair, but you’ve got to be touching it. I’m going to do you one at a time, but it’ll feel instantaneous when you get there.”
Joel2 stood to face me. That look still ruminating in our minds, we gave each other a sober nod then looked away—each clumsily holding the back of the chair rather than sitting on the armrests cheek to cheek. Awkward. The certainty of our utter determination in that moment was quickly followed by uncertainty as the room went dark.
24 Identical twins have been out of favor for quite some time. Maybe they’re back in fashion in your time—just thought I should bring it up to explain the weirdness.
25 Salting doesn’t end when inception is complete. Apps don’t just do what you want, even if you program them to do so. The principle of salting is to enrich algos, tease specific premises of sentience to both user and app. Joel2 knew Julie could do what he wanted now—he’d programmed himself into Sylvia’s boundaries. Now it was just a matter of convincing Julie to want to do it.
IT’S A HELL OF A TOWN
“JOEL? JOEL? CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
“Yeah,” Joel2 answered as the blinding white light subsided. “We’re here.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I had to do some tricky calculations there. Your friend’s telemetry—”
“You did a good job, Julie. Stay tuned. I’ll let you know as things progress. Right now we have to get moving. If you monitor a peep from Sylvia’s comms, let me know right away.”
“Will do! Good luck.”
I wondered if Julie knew as she analyzed our telemetry data what it meant that I was Joel2’s “friend.” She had access to almost everything Sylvia did and saw. Would it matter if she knew?
Joel2 nudged me. “Stop thinking and start moving.”
I felt like we were quite the sight. At least Joel2 looked somewhat like he belonged in a hospital, with his bloody patched eye and healing head wound. I just looked like a doctor who had fallen into a muddy puddle in the woods.
“I gotta hit the head,” Joel2 said, which reminded me I needed to go as well. It would also be a good opportunity for us both to clean up our faces and make ourselves slightly more presentable for a walkabout in New York.
Fortunately, the restroom was close to the vestibule. The room itself was a basic deal—a single white-tiled bathroom with rows of quartz basins beneath mirrors, leading to two faux-wood-grain toilet stalls, where one’s waste would be magically transformed to reclaimed water vapor and discarded dust.
After finishing our business, we did our best to clean up. As I washed my face, Joel2 gingerly removed his various bandages and wiped off the dried blood. There was a first aid kit hanging on the wall opposite the door. He took out a few fresh bandages and antiseptic lotion, but couldn’t quite get it over his ruined eye. I reached toward the wound, but he recoiled.
“I got it,” he said defensively. “Just no depth perception, that’s all.”
“Don’t be dumb,” I said. “It’s not like I don’t know my way around your face.” I reached for the bandage again. This time he grudgingly let me take it. Gently, I affixed it to his forehead, taking care not to brush up against his numerous gashes. It was a strangely intimate moment, made more bizarre by the fact that I was interacting with myself.