Sixty-Four: Epilogue
Rui leapt through the air spinning halfway around, catching the frisbee and landing with a flourish. “We want to make it interesting?” Rui asked, throwing the disc towards Ben.
“Strip frisbee?” Ben asked, catching it in one hand, then shook his head. “Somebody’s definitely ending up with a discus where they don’t want one.” He threw towards Sonya, but it was intercepted by Mahmoud.
“I’m pretty sure he was asking if you wanted to play Ultimate Frisbee, as a for old time’s sake kind of thing,” Mahmoud said.
“Yeah,” Rui agreed.
“Cause I think of most of you as family-ish,” Ben said. “I don’t think I’d want to see half of you naked if I could. I’m completely sure there are some of you I don’t want to see even half-naked.”
“Do you mean the male half?” Mahmoud asked. “The male half of the male half, if you want to get specific.”
“I guess I do. Still. I have complicated, semi-familial feelings pointed towards the others.”
“So like your cousin who you wanted so see naked but then not touch or anything.”
“No, I said she took her clothes off in front of me when we were kids, and I didn’t know any better. And I’m pretty sure I told you that in confidence.”
“Yeah,” Sonya said, receiving the frisbee, “you’ve told that story to literally all of us in confidence.”
“It does seem less confidential, the more people you tell it to,” Rox said, catching the disc on one finger. “Can I- I just want to say something.”
“Profound,” Sonya said.
“Moving,” Cris said.
“They’re just going to keep doing this, so you should just forge ahead,” Mira said, leaning her elbows on Rox’s shoulders.
“You’re right,” Rox said. “It’s really special, being back here with all of you. A part of me wasn’t sure any of us would ever make it back here- let alone all of us. And we all contributed to that, maybe none moreso than Mahmoud.”
“Thanks,” Mahmoud said. “But we can’t stay Not yet, anyway.”
“Why not?” Anita asked. “Other than the obvious, in that I’m too old to go here, and they probably aren’t going to rehire me, now that the whole mercenary/assassin cat is out of the bag.”
“I mean none of us. Because there’s something we have to do first. You found me because Linc found me, right? It’s taken me a while to piece together why, but I think I know why he tracked me down, specifically. His ability- it’s less impressive and at the same time maybe more, than appears at first blush. Winding back time sounds great- but it’s a really inefficient way to do things. It would require, well, reversing everything- including the momentum of all matter in the universe begun at the big bang- would take double the kinetic energy of the universe, triple, probably, since you first have to push things back, then you have to get them moving in the same direction they were before again. But moving information is basically free. He was sending enough of his consciousness back into his own skull to feel like he reset time, but it was really just a memory dump, which he could transmit across fourth dimensional space back into his own head.”
“But why you?”
“Because I’m a technopath. And we all work a little differently, but I’m really good with systems analysis; and I think I’ve figured out a way to help him. Because if it were just information, he’d be dead and there’s no going back from being dead. So I think he’s had a… a stalking horse. A version of himself that’s outside, looking in. It can’t go back into his physical body like it used to and reset, hence his deterioration since. But if there’s enough of the physical information there, maybe we could use that to rebuild him. It’s solving maybe 20% of the science needed for Star Trek teleportation, or maybe 60% of the science needed for medical grade human cloning.”
“There’s a but, right?” Rox said.
“The but is that it might kill him. But not doing this is also killing him, so we really don’t have anything to lose. But that’s the other reason I pushed so hard for us to get our old lives back. We couldn’t do this on the road, or remotely. We need a stable base of operations, and ideally access to some of the best technology and the most gifted minds on the planet, all of which are here. Our only shot to do this right was staging it from here. The school, and more importantly the students, represent everything we need to bring him home, too. And especially, especially today, that means more to me than anything. So I,” he stopped, sniffling, “I need to thank you guys for bringing me home, kicking and screaming though I was, at times. And I hope you know, all of you, that it wouldn’t be home without all of you. That’s why I want your help bringing Linc home, too.”
“We’re all in, obviously, in case that wasn’t assumed.”
“That’s good,” Mahmoud said. “Because to do this, and do it quick, we’re going to break a bunch of international laws. Don’t get used to not being fugitives, is what I’m saying.”
“He’d do it for us,” Sonya said.
“He got into this because he was doing the same for us,” Rui said.
“And I look damn good on a wanted poster,” Ben added.
“Yeah,” Cris said, “you didn’t need to ask. Of course we’re all in.”
“Good,” Mahmoud said, with a glint in his eye.
That’s the end of this book. I’ll have an update tomorrow on the story I’ll start posting in about a week, as well as the dedication and afterword(s). So if you, like me, can’t get the sound of my voice out of your head, by all means, come back.