“Not there!” she cried impatiently, and gestured toward the pantry. “It’s not going to fit in there! Put it in the freezer!”
“Sorry,” he murmured. They had never had a freezer before. Never in the world where there had been a Seth.
He took the turkey into the pantry, where a long Amana freezer sat under cold white fluorescent tubes like a cold white coffin. He put it inside along with the cryogenically preserved corpses of other birds and beasts and then went back into the kitchen. Lina had taken the jar of Reese’s peanut butter cups from the cupboard and was eating them methodically, one after the other.
“It was the Thanksgiving bingo,” she said. “We had it this week instead of next because next week Father Phillips has to go in hospital and have his gall-bladder out. I won the coverall.” She smiled. A brown mixture of chocolate and peanut butter dripped and ran from her teeth.
“Lina,” he said, “are you ever sorry we never had children?” She looked at him as if he had gone utterly crazy. “What in the name of God would I want a rug-monkey for?” she asked. She shoved the jar of peanut butter cups, now reduced by half, back into the cupboard. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming, or are you going back out there and moon over your typewriter some more?”
“I’ll go out for a little while more, I think,” he said. His voice was surprisingly steady. “I won’t be long.”
“Does that gadget work?”
“What—” Then he understood and he felt another flash of guilt. She knew about the word processor, of course she did. Seth’s DELETION had not affected Roger and the track that Roger’s family had been on. “Oh. Oh, no. It doesn’t do anything.” She nodded, satisfied. “That nephew of yours. Head always in the clouds. Just like you, Richard. If you weren’t such a mouse, I’d wonder if maybe you’d been putting it where you hadn’t ought to have been putting it about fifteen years ago.” She laughed a coarse, surprisingly powerful laugh—the laugh of an aging, cynical bawd—and for a moment he almost leaped at her. Then he felt a smile surface on his own lips—a smile as thin and white and cold as the Amana freezer that had replaced Seth on this new track.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “I just want to note down a few things.”
“Why don’t you write a Nobel Prize-winning short story, or something?” she asked indifferently. The hall floorboards creaked and muttered as she swayed her huge way toward the stairs. “We still owe the optometrist for my reading glasses and we’re a payment behind on the Betamax. Why don’t you make us some damn money?”
“Well,” Richard said, “I don’t know, Lina. But I’ve got some good ideas tonight. I really do.” She turned to look at him, seemed about to say something sarcastic—something about how none of his good ideas had put them on easy street but she had stuck with him anyway—and then didn’t. Perhaps something about his smile deterred her. She went upstairs. Richard stood below, listening to her thundering tread. He could feel sweat on his forehead. He felt simultaneously sick and exhilarated.
He turned and went back out to his study.
This time when he turned the unit on, the CPU did not hum or roar; it began to make an uneven howling noise. That hot train transformer smell came almost immediately from the housing behind the screen, and as soon as he pushed the EXECUTE button, erasing the HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNCLE RICHARD! message, the unit began to smoke.
Not much time, he thought. No... that’s not right. No time at all. Jon knew it, and now I know it, too.
The choices came down to two: Bring Seth back with the INSERT button (he was sure he could do it; it would be as easy as creating the Spanish doubloons had been) or finish the job.
The smell was getting thicker, more urgent. In a few moments, surely no more, the screen would start blinking its OVERLOAD message.
He typed: MY WIFE IS ADELINA MABEL WARREN HAGSTROM He punched the DELETE button. He typed: I AM A MAN WHO LIVES ALONE.
Now the word began to blink steadily in the upper right-hand comer of the screen: OVERLOAD OVERLOAD OVERLOAD. Please. Please let me finish. Please, please, please... The smoke coming from the vents in the video cabinet was thicker and grayer now. He looked down at the screaming CPU and saw that smoke was also coming from its vents... and down in that smoke he could see a sullen red spark of fire.
Magic Eight-Ball, will I be healthy, wealthy, or wise? Or will I live alone and perhaps kill myself in sorrow? Is there time enough?
CANNOT SEE NOW TRY AGAIN LATER Except there was no later.
He struck the INSERT button and the screen went dark, except for the constant OVERLOAD message, which was now blinking at a frantic, stuttery rate.
He typed: EXCEPT FOR MY WIFE, BELINDA, AND MY SON, JONATHAN Please. Please.
He hit the EXECUTE button.
The screen went blank. For what seemed like ages it remained blank, except for OVERLOAD, which was now blinking so fast that, except for a faint shadow, it seemed to remain constant, like a computer executing a closed loop of command. Something inside the CPU popped and sizzled, and Richard groaned.
Then green letters appeared on the screen, floating mystically on the black: I AM A MAN WHO LIVES ALONE EXCEPT FOR MY WIFE, BELINDA, AND MY SON, JONATHAN He hit the EXECUTE button twice.
Now, he thought. Now I will type: ALL THE BUGS IN THIS WORD PROCESSOR WERE FULLY WORKED OUT BEFORE MR. NORDHOFF BROUGHT IT OVER HERE. Or I’ll type: I HAVE IDEAS FOR AT LEAST TWENTY BEST-SELLING NOVELS. Or I’ll type: MY FAMILY AND I ARE GOING TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Or I’ll type—But he typed nothing. His fingers hovered stupidly over the keys as he felt—literally felt—all the circuits in his brain jam up like cars grid-locked into the worst Manhattan traffic jam in the history of internal combustion. The screen suddenly filled up with the word: LOADOVERLOADOVERLOADOVERLOADOVERLOADOVERLOADOVERLOAD There was another pop, and then an explosion from the CPU. Flames belched out of the cabinet and then died away.
Richard leaned back in his chair, shielding his face in case the screen should implode. It didn’t. It only went dark. He sat there, looking at the darkness of the screen.
CANNOT TELL FOR SURE ASK AGAIN LATER.
“Dad?” He swiveled around in his chair, heart pounding so hard he felt that it might actually tear itself out of his chest.
Jon stood there, Jon Hagstrom, and his face was the same but somehow different—the difference was subtle but noticeable. Perhaps, Richard thought, the difference was the difference in paternity between two brothers. Or perhaps it was simply that that wary, watching expression was gone from the eyes, slightly overmagnified by thick spectacles (wire-rims now, he noticed, not the ugly industrial horn-rims that Roger had always gotten the boy because they were fifteen bucks cheaper).
Maybe it was something even simpler: that look of doom was gone from the boy’s eyes.
“Jon?” he said hoarsely, wondering if he had actually wanted something more than this. Had he? It seemed ridiculous, but he supposed he had. He supposed people always did. “Jon, it’s you, isn’t it?”
“Who else would it be?” He nodded toward the word processor. “You didn’t hurt yourself when that baby went to data heaven, did you?” Richard smiled. “No. I’m fine.” Jon nodded. “I’m sorry it didn’t work. I don’t know what ever possessed me to use all those cruddy parts.” He shook his head. “Honest to God I don’t. It’s like I had to. Kid’s stuff.”
“Well,” Richard said, joining his son and putting an arm around his shoulders, “you’ll do better next time, maybe.”
“Maybe. Or I might try something else.”