“At least add a salad and an apple or something,” Javier said. “You’ll need the energy.”
“What’s that mean? You have some big plan to celebrate my doctorate?”
“I need you to do something for me. Take a trip.”
“A trip? To where?” Marcus stood and walked to the single window on the far wall. Years ago Phoenix would have been a sea of shining lights this time of night; now the darkness was broken only by the streetlights and a scattering of lit windows. The sky should have blazed with tens of thousands of air cars. Instead he could see only a few dozen. On Bell Road, six stories below, not a soul could be seen.
“Moscow.”
Marcus jerked his hands up from the window ledge. “What the hell? What’s going on?” Sedona was the farthest Marcus had ever gone from Phoenix, and he had rarely even left his apartment in the eight years since finishing high school.
“I found something. Something I’ve been searching for ever since I died.”
Was it Marcus’s imagination or did his father’s flat voice actually have a hint of excitement in it? “Go on.”
“Someone plugged a data card into the Web from an address in Moscow. It’s clearly something that was never meant to touch the Web. Research that must have been going on for decades, at least.”
Marcus smirked and walked back to the stool at the small table. “The cloning thing again?”
The wall speaker emitted a sigh. “You know better than that. Everyone does cloning. This is the digital copying of a full human mind. Like I did, only much different. Better.”
“So? You already exist digitally. How does this change anything?”
“I want…no, I need to be real again. A few years work, with me to help them…”
Marcus shook his head. “You won’t convince me. I call you ‘Papa’ because it makes things easier and because you know enough to fake it really well, but you’re just a great simulation, a bunch of computer code.”
“Give me a chance. Please. The worst that can happen is you end up being right and they can’t do it.”
“Moscow’s a scary place. Heck, everywhere’s pretty scary these days. Are we even allowed to travel there?”
“Not normally. I’ve hacked into our Foreign Affairs net and arranged a passport for you on the next suborbital out of Salt Lake City. You’ll be a diplomat.”
“You crazy? You’re gonna get me thrown in prison!”
“The credentials are genuine. No one can touch you.”
“I’m no diplomat. What job am I supposed to be doing there?”
“It’s a special position. No one will question you. I’ll fill you in with everything you need to know.”
A ping from the wall speaker told Marcus his late supper would arrive in a minute.
Marcus shook his head again. “I don’t like it. I should be setting up interviews to get my career started, not getting myself into trouble halfway around the world.”
“What career? You and I both know this country — hell, this whole world — is all but dead. When’s the last time you saw a person on the street out there? You haven’t set foot out of this apartment in months. What is there left for anyone here? I mean, unless you happen to be Mormon, and even they are trying their damnedest to hotfoot it off this planet.”
“If there’s nothing left, then why have you let me waste all these years getting my degree?”
“Learning is never a bad thing.”
“I dunno. What about Mom? I can’t just leave her here.”
“She’ll be fine. I can keep tabs on her here and still be with you in Moscow. Look, please don’t argue with me. I need this. I’m begging you for this one favor.”
The wall pinged again. The polished steel door of the smartwaiter hissed open, and a tray slid out holding a neatly sliced pizza on a white plastic plate and a cup of Pepsi with ice. The aroma of sizzling pepperoni filled the room.
Marcus picked up the plate. “If I do this, and I mean if, when would I go?”
“The suborbital leaves Salt Lake City as soon as you arrive. I’ve arranged for a shuttle to pick you up here at ten forty-five.”
Marcus dropped the hot plate onto the table with a clatter. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I can’t leave—”
“Sure you can! Why not? Pack a few things, kiss your mother, and go. There’s nothing to it.”
“Why’s it have to be so fast?”
“Marcus, the longer we wait the colder the trail may get. I have no idea why someone accessed the Web with that card. Something is wrong there. All I have to go on is a location. Please, just get on that shuttle. Don’t worry about your mother.”
Marcus stared at the pizza, no longer hungry. He glanced over at the doorway to the bedroom.
“She’ll be thrilled to hear you graduated,” Javier said.
“Yeah,” Marcus muttered. He got up, walked to the bedroom, and leaned on the door frame. As always, his mother looked like a corpse, lying in bed with the autodrip in her emaciated arm and a catheter in place to remove the tiny amount of waste her pale husk of a body still produced. Marcus moved close and sat on the chair at the head of the bed. He placed a hand lightly on his mother’s hot brow. “What’s she up to now, Papa?”
“With her friends, gossiping away as usual. They’re on a nice beach. She’s going to have a candlelight dinner with me later.”
“If you really think Meshing is killing the world, why don’t you force everyone out like you did me?”
“Marcus, you know how hard it was to get you clean. It only succeeded because of the bond we share, and even then it took me constantly being in your head to keep you from plugging back in. I can’t manage it with the rest of the world.”
“Why not Mom?”
“She…she’s happier where she is. My stroke hit her nearly as hard as it did me. She wants to be where she is. The only regret she has is you.”
“Right. She’d rather be gossiping with her friends than be with me.”
“She knows it’s not fair. Mesh addiction is hard enough to overcome when someone wants to, as you well know. It’s impossible to overcome when one doesn’t care to.”
Marcus rubbed his thumb along the ridge of his mother’s eyebrow. It was ironic that she had succumbed. She had always scoffed at Meshing, never had any interest in it, at least until Father died seven years ago. Then she dove in and never looked back. Could Father be right? If he is, maybe Mom would come back to us.
“All right,” he whispered. “I’ll go.”
“Thank you.”
Marcus leaned in and kissed the papery skin of his mother’s cheek. “Love you, Mom.”
Moscow
Sunday, June 8, 2138
10:07 a.m. MSK
Poplar seeds floated like snowflakes on the summer breeze, as they did each summer in Moscow, a reminder that winter would come again before too long. Zoya loved strolling through the flurries, watching the white drifts pile up along the curbs and in the gutters, her thrill dampened only by having to visit this abandoned part of the city.
She stepped carefully over broken sections of concrete. Trash and glass littered the yellowed grass and weeds that lined the sidewalk. A sound from the building to her right brought her to a halt. A crash of metal followed by a yelp. A wild dog, she thought. Perhaps a pack. Why did I let Georgy get me into this?
Ancient dormitories that had housed university students a century ago now towered forlornly in staggered rows along the decaying street. A twisted sculpture of rusty metal—a fire escape? — lay across the sidewalk, and Zoya was forced into the street to skirt around it. She peered out of the corners of her eyes at each dark doorway or window, imagining drunks or crazies lurking in the shadows, watching, waiting to pounce.