The late morning rush hour was easing off. All those people who paid good money to live in the supposedly clean air of the country were helping to make each breath Eva took just that little bit more unpleasant as they drove past to their city center jobs.
Eva continued down the road, as the reason for her contract took shape in her head. What price her part in the concealment of a murder? Four hundred credits. The world was slipping down into Hell, and everyone was helping it on its way. Everyone accepted a little bit of money, and a little bit of blame, and that way they could all walk around with a conscience that was just a little bit off-color. Just a little bit, but add all those bits together…
“If this diagram is a map, as I think it is, I would suggest that escalator over there. If it’s not a map, then you’ll be an extremely privileged young man.” “Why?” Herb asked, mystified. “Because you will have been present on the occasion when, for the first time in my life, I was wrong about something.”
The AI naturally thinks it’s omnipotent. All children do when they’re born. It’s the limitations and disappointments of life that are imposed upon us that force us to grow up.
Constantine often suspected that the truth was that the real world in fact consisted of hotel rooms just like this one, and that everything else was just a 24-bit imitation of its former self.
The battles of the twenty-third century aren’t fought by AIs. They’re fought inside AIs.”
“I’m doing that even as we speak. They’re transmitting a code using a public key system. Obviously they inherit the key from each other when they replicate. If I can figure out the key and send back a message encoded using the private key, they should trust us.” He closed his eyes. “Come on,” said Herb, squirming nervously on the sofa. “They’ll be through any minute now.” Robert opened his eyes in puzzlement. “Oh, sorry. I solved that problem while I was explaining it to you.” He tapped his head and rolled his eyes. “I must remember to keep you informed.
Herb’s world was so slow…Robert knew what Herb was about to say before Herb did, and yet Robert still had to sit and listen to the end of each sentence. It was important. Not to do so would be unsettling for the young man.
“Swallow this,” Robert murmured. “It’s an MTPH variant. It will help you to separate the pain into different parts, make it easier to deal with.” Herb took the pill and swallowed it. “Couldn’t I just have a painkiller?” he asked. “You’d learn nothing that way, Herb. Pain and adversity help us to grow.”
Hers is a spacious corner apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows
I stepped in when your vision flagged. That’s what partners do.
“You want to change the world?” Slade asks. “This is what it takes. This is what it feels like. Moments of steel, unflinching resolve.”
It isn’t quite perfect between them. She doesn’t carry the trauma of Meghan’s death and the destruction of their marriage, but for him there is no escaping how those events corroded their bond. In his previous life, it took him a long time to stop being in love with Julia, and even though he’s back to before everything imploded, it’s not just a light switch he can flip back on.
“Is this Big Bend building a product of the chair?” Gwen asks.
She doesn't know about the chair
“At the terminal, I log in with some backdoor credentials
Not in this timeline
Albert has taken to calling their group the Department of Undoing Particularly Awful Shit, and like many names that start as a bad joke without a quick replacement, the name sticks.
She rushes into the kitchen and answers the phone with, “Who’s using the chair?” “It’s not us,” John says. “Bullshit. I just shifted from dying in the Midtown Tunnel to standing in my apartment, watching this bridge burn.”
She realizes that children are always too young and self-absorbed to really see their parents in the prime of their lives. But she sees her father in this moment like she never has before.
They had been together several months, and he was already in love with her when she told him she could tell the future. He said, “Bullshit.” She said, “I’ll prove it one day.”
He wonders—what if this is all that’s left of his life? Of everyone’s life? A half hour of the same endless, repeating horror. Some kind of hell.
“How do we stop the dead memories?” she asks. “You got me killed in one life. Abducted in another. So let me ask you—why would I help you?” “Because maybe you still have a shred of decency?” “Humanity deserves a chance to evolve beyond our prison of time. It deserves a chance at true progress. Your life’s work was the chair. Giving it to humanity was mine.”
“I would say it was worth it to accidentally build a world-destroying chair because it brought you into my life, but that’s probably bad form.
He suspects he could slip his consciousness into this memory like an old man into a warm, soft bed. Live this perfect moment forever. There could be worse fates. And perhaps no better. Is this what you want? To drop yourself into a still-life painting of a memory because life has broken your heart?
“I think that if you and I could go back to before she died, even if we could somehow prevent it, you still would have gone your way, and I would’ve gone mine. I think we were meant to be together for a time. Perhaps losing Meghan shortened the life-span of us, but even if she had lived, we’d still be apart in this moment.” “You really believe that?” “I do, and I’m sorry I held on to the anger. I’m sorry I only see this now. We had so many perfect moments, and for a long time, I couldn’t appreciate them. I could only look back in regret. This is what I wanted to tell you: I wouldn’t change anything. I’m glad you came into my life when you did. I’m glad for the time we had. I’m glad for Meghan, and that she came from the two of us. That she couldn’t have come from any
“I think that if you and I could go back to before she died, even if we could somehow prevent it, you still would have gone your way, and I would’ve gone mine. I think we were meant to be together for a time. Perhaps losing Meghan shortened the life-span of us, but even if she had lived, we’d still be apart in this moment.” “You really believe that?” “I do, and I’m sorry I held on to the anger. I’m sorry I only see this now. We had so many perfect moments, and for a long time, I couldn’t appreciate them. I could only look back in regret. This is what I wanted to tell you: I wouldn’t change anything. I’m glad you came into my life when you did. I’m glad for the time we had. I’m glad for Meghan, and that she came from the two of us. That she couldn’t have come from any other two people. I wouldn’t take back a second of any of it.”