Part 23 (1/2)
And she kneels.
Against her hip is a bottle made of graphene, sealed by every reliable means and charged by her body's motions. n.o.body else knows what she carries. She doubts anyone in her group would understand the concepts or her devotion to what has lost any sense of symbol. This is deadweight, however slight. But she is prepared to surrender quite a lot before this treasure is left behind, and that includes every person hiding inside that miserable bas.e.m.e.nt.
Separated from her body, the confining charge begins to fail.
There is a logic in play, though mostly this is magic, contrived and deeply unreliable, and she would admit as much to anyone, if she ever mentioned it.
”Let a few runes leak free every so often,” her mother told her. ”It probably won't do any good, but it won't harm anything either.”
”But why bother?” the young woman asked. ”What am I hoping for?”
”Humans have so much trouble seeing what is strange,” Mother said. ”But we shouldn't a.s.sume that super beings built from new forms of matter would be any less blind. So let some of the bugs fall free. Every so often, just a few.”
”But why?”
The old woman set the bottle aside, grasping her daughter's hands with both of hers. ”Because maybe a Venusian will be swimming past.”
”Oh,” the girl said. ”I'm giving them something to notice.”
”And after that, maybe it will notice you, and maybe it will save you somehow. Out of kindness, or curiosity, or because saving my daughter would cost that G.o.d so very little.”
Magic.
All of this was nothing but hope and wild magic.
Yet she remained on her knees, in the ashes, waving the enchantment with all of her might while thinking how magic has always lived for darkness, and everything was dark, and really, on a day like this, what better thing could she possibly have to do...?
SHE JUST LOOKS THAT WAY.
Eric Choi
”I don't know what she sees in him.”
How many times have you wondered why a friend or acquaintance falls in love with someone you cannot stomach? We shrug and tell ourselves that love is blind. ”She Just Looks that Way” deals with a man who wants to be blind, so that he cannot see the woman he loves, because she has no interest in him.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that there is a price to be paid for everything we get. Nothing in the universe is free. There's always a price to be paid.
Thumbnail images of MRI brain scans covered the computer screen, a mosaic of Rorschach ink blots in grayscale. Each image represented a moment in time-a snapshot of a thought, a memory, a feeling.
Rick Park had given it much thought. He didn't want to change his memories, only what they meant. And that, he hoped, would change his feelings.
He turned to Dr. Barbara Ho. ”So, that's the only part that will be changed? This ... um, fusion area?”
”The fusiform face area, yes.” She selected one of the thumbnails and maximized it to fill the screen. ”Located here, in the extrastriate cortex. It's where facial recognition and physical attractiveness are processed. We've been treating people with body dysmorphic disorder by modifying some of the neural pathways in this area.” She moved the mouse pointer over the region. ”People with BDD perceive themselves as ugly and disfigured, even though there's nothing wrong with them.
”But in your case...” She looked at Rick. ”What you're asking for is ... a little different.”
”Can it be done?”
”It can be done, although we've never attempted it before.” She paused. ”Chris has warned you about the risks?”
”Yes.”
”And you still want to go ahead with this?” She tapped a file folder on her desk. ”We've got your signed consent and waiver, but I want to hear this from you myself. Do you understand the risks, and do you still wish to proceed?”
”I understand the risks,” Rick said slowly, ”and I want to go ahead with the treatment.”
”Fine.” She opened the folder and started writing on one of the papers inside. ”I'll say this much, you'll certainly be taking our research into a whole new area. Tell me, how long have you known Chris?”
”A long time, since the seventh grade,” Rick said. ”Didn't see much of him the last couple of years until he finished his masters at Wisconsin-Madison and moved here to Hopkins to work with you.”
”Well, the next time you see him...”
”He's coming to pick me up after the treatment.”
”Yeah, well, when you see him, can you do me a favor?”
”What?”
”Tell him he still owes me a thesis.” She closed the folder and put down her pen. ”All right, let's get started.”
Rick stood slowly, keeping his newfound doubts silently to himself.
The icon representing the LIDARSAT s.p.a.cecraft traced a sinusoidal groundtrack across a Mercator projection of the Earth. In the bottom right corner of the screen, a clock raced ahead at many times normal speed.
Rick watched the orbital simulation with disinterest. His mind was elsewhere.
She would be here today.
Rick had known that she would be coming for weeks. He'd heard from his line manager, not her. When he found out he tried to e-mail her, but she never responded. He called her up. Her father was home, said she was busy, couldn't come to the phone. She never called back.
The months apart without contact, or at least without any interaction initiated by her, only intensified his feelings. He told himself he was looking forward to seeing her again. He told himself things would be different.
”Rick?”
He turned-and there she was, at the entrance to his cubicle, standing beside the line manager, Harry Davidson.