Now each vaccine release was a global event, a cause for celebration. At Senate Square, this one had rained down on a cheering, dancing crowd from dispersal drones amidst a bioluminescent fireworks display. Pre-infected choirs had sung it onto onlookers from the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral. The new vaccine was a senolytic: it trained your immune system to kill the zombie cells that accumulated in your body with aging. You wouldn’t live forever, but you would stay healthy much longer—no one knew how long. There were still mice alive from the first experiments, decades ago.
Torsti had clinked glasses with Mom and Dad when their phone sequencers confirmed their infections—champagne for his parents, Pommac for him—and then hugged and kissed passersby, all in vaccine season masks—feathers, crowns, and horns, but always leaving the mouth and nose uncovered. And then, all of a sudden it was as if he was watching the revelers from behind a pane of glass, cold and distant. How could they celebrate when there were those who would be left behind?
Like Grandfather.
“Is that what this is about, Torsti? You don’t want me to die?” Grandfather asked.
Torsti stared at him. Grandfather really didn’t understand. But maybe it was unfair to expect him to. Unlike Torsti, he hadn’t grown up with Mom coming home and talking about her job at the Long Reflection Committee. Over and over, she had explained what a special time this was in the human history. Things no longer hung in balance, existential threats—pandemics, bioterror, rogue AIs—had been overcome. It was time to look toward the deep future and decide humanity’s destiny.
Torsti had loved it, and had devoured everything the Committee published that Mom let him read. He had even started contributing ideas to the Committee’s open simulations that mapped out possible futures, millions of years ahead. He had spent countless hours wandering through the virtual worlds, until his parents disabled his opto. And even then, his imagination kept going, conjuring images of things to come.
GRANDFATHER DIDN’T REALIZE THAT THE VACCINE WAS JUST THE FIRST STEP. THE Committee scenarios were clear. If you extended your life by just a decade or two, the next set of longevity technologies would come along—not just to prevent aging but to restore youth—and so on. Longevity escape velocity, it was called. If you made it just a little bit further, you could travel to the stars, live as long as the universe itself.
Grandfather was letting all that go, because he was mad at Mom, for some reason Torsti could not understand. And that made Torsti angry, angry enough to do desperate things.
He opened his mouth to explain, but there were so many words that they just sat heavy in his chest, all jumbled up and stuck together, like a pile of twisted iron nails.
“No,” he said, finally. “I want you to live.”
“Well, that’s very touching,” Grandfather said, not understanding the difference. “But as you get older, you’ll understand that there are some decisions people have to make on their own. I have made mine, and I have to live—and die with them.” His voice broke, just for a moment. Then he continued in a harsher tone. “I don’t need a silly little boy coming here to take that away from me, just because he doesn’t understand how the world works.
“Now, I’m going to send a message to your mother.” Grandfather tapped at his phone laboriously. “We have our differences, but I don’t want her worrying herself sick. I’ll take you back to the mainland in the morning. With two boats it should be safe. You can sleep in the guest bed in the sauna, I already set it up—I’ll disinfect it all afterwards. And here’s a bunch of surgical masks.” He set a small pile of flat blue objects on the rock next to him. “I want you to wear them.”
He stood and started back up the path. “Come now. Since you’re here, you can help me chop some firewood. It gets cold at night.”
“You knew I was coming,” Torsti said. “How?” He had left his phone at home, and the ubiquitous surveillance of the old days had been banned at the start of the Reflection.
Grandfather shrugged.
“You have to be prepared,” he said. “Your Mom messaged me and told me you had gone missing. We don’t talk much, but some things you always share with family. I called an old friend at the Foundation, asked for transmission data. They barcode the viruses, you know. They don’t talk about it, but you can actually trace the contacts with the phone sequencers. It is still so early in the season that you left a pretty clear trail.”
He knew, Torsti thought. He didn’t have to let me come this far, he could have told Mom much earlier. He wanted me to come.
He followed Grandfather up the path toward the main house, keeping a respectful distance. Fallen leaves whispered beneath his feet, and he breathed in their earthy smell.
There was still hope.
THEY WALKED AROUND THE MAIN HOUSE TO THE FIREWOOD SHED. GRANDFATHER hauled out an armful of logs to the chopping block, and then his phone rang. He twisted awkwardly, trying to get it out of his pocket. Torsti moved forward to help, then remembered himself. The old man let the wood clatter to the ground, swearing, and pulled the device out.
“It’s your mother,” he said, frowning. He tapped it and held it up toward Torsti. “I think she just needs to see you are all right.”
Mom and Dad peeked at Torsti from the tiny screen. Mom’s eyes were tired, and her chestnut hair clung to her head, unwashed. Dad had an arm around her shoulders, tugging at his braided beard as he always did when he was anxious.
“Torsti,” Mom said. “I know I said you should have more adventures, but this is not what I meant.” She looked so small, so far away on the screen, so different from the full-sized opto projections he was used to.
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m coming back tomorrow.” He glanced at Grandfather, who was holding the phone. The old man’s eyes were squeezed shut as he listened.
“Tell… tell your grandfather thank you for me,” Mom said.
“I will.”
“Bring back some of that islander bread,” Dad said, a fake cheer in his voice. “We’ll see you soon.”
“Can I talk to your grandfather a bit?” Mom said.
Torsti nodded and waved.
Grandfather walked away, holding the phone to his ear.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “No, it’s no trouble. Of course. You both take care now.”
Grandfather ended the call, wiped the screen surface with a small alcohol pad and pocketed it. His face shield was clouded with steam. Sniffing, he swept his shirtsleeve across it.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s chop some firewood.”
In practice, what it meant was that Torsti chopped the firewood, at Grandfather’s amused direction. The handle of the axe stung his hands with every blow, and more than once he ended up having a log stuck to the axe blade and then bashing it against the block, lifting the whole thing like a giant, clumsy hammer.
“No, no, no,” the old man said. “There’s a trick to it.”
“What is it?” Torsti asked, huffing. There was a painful blister in the middle of his left palm. The surgical mask he now wore was moist with his breath.
“You have to catch the edge,” Grandfather said. “You go with the grain of the wood. It’s pointless to fight against it. It should feel like the wood wants to split. Come on. Try again.”
Torsti carefully positioned the birch log on the block and swung the axe. This time, he hit it just right, with the tip of the axe blade, and the log flew apart in two pieces effortlessly. He looked at it, surprised.
“See?” Grandfather said. “That’s the problem with everybody, these days. They don’t know the tricks anymore.”