Recursion(51)

“Yes. You’ve experienced the chair. You know its power. From what I can tell, Slade is just using it to send a select few back into their memories. Who knows why? But look at the fear and panic it’s causing. Won’t take much of messing with reality for humanity to go completely off the rails. We have to stop him.”

“With your chair?”

“It won’t be operational for another four months. The longer we wait, the greater the chance someone finds Slade’s lab before we get in there. You’ve already put it on Gwen’s radar. And once people know the chair exists, their memories of it will always return, no matter how many times a timeline is changed. The same way Julia and Meghan remembered Meghan dying in a hit-and-run last night.”

“Their memories only arrived when we reached the moment I had used the chair in the last timeline. Does it always work that way?”

“Yes, because that was the moment their consciousness and memories from the prior timeline merged into this one. I think of it as a timeline anniversary.”

“So what are you proposing we do?”

“You and I take control of Slade’s lab tomorrow. Destroy the chair, the software, all the infrastructure, all trace of its existence. I have a virus ready to upload to his stand-alone network once we’re inside. It’ll reformat everything.”

Barry drinks his beer, a tightness ratcheting down in his stomach.

“Did Future Me agree with this plan?”

Helena smiles. “In fact, we came up with it together.”

“Did I think you and I have a chance?”

“Honestly? No.”

“What do you think?”

Helena leans back in her chair. She looks bone weary. “I think we’re the best chance the world has.”



* * *





Barry stands at the wall of windows near Helena’s bed, looking across the ink-black river to the city. He hopes Julia is OK, but he doubts it. When he called her, she broke down crying on the phone, hung up, and refused to take his calls. He’s guessing there’s a part of her that blames him.

The Big Bend now dominates the skyline, and he wonders if he’ll ever grow used to it, or if it will always—for him and others—represent the unreliability of reality.

Helena comes up beside him.

“You OK?” she asks.

“I keep seeing Meghan dead on the sidewalk. I could almost see her face through the wet sheet they had draped over her. Going back and living those eleven years again—it ultimately fixed nothing for my family.”

“I’m so sorry, Barry.”

He looks at her.

Breathes in, breathes out.

“Have you ever handled a gun?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Recently?”

“Future You knew it would just be you and me charging into Slade’s building, so you started taking me to the range.”

“You sure you’re up for this?”

“I built the chair because my mom got Alzheimer’s. I wanted to help her and others like her. I thought if we could figure out how to capture memories, it would lead us to understanding how to stop them from erasing altogether. I didn’t mean for the chair to become what it became. It’s not only destroyed my life, now it’s destroying the lives of others. People have lost their loved ones. Have had entire lifetimes erased. Children erased.”

“You didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Yet here we are, and it was my ambition that put this device in the hands of Slade, and later, others.” She looks at Barry. “You’re here because of me. The world is losing its collective mind because of me. There’s a fucking building out there that wasn’t there yesterday because of me. So I don’t really care what happens to me tomorrow so long as we destroy every trace of the chair’s existence. I’m ready to die if that’s what it takes.”

He didn’t see it until this moment—the weight she carries. The self-hate and regret. What must it feel like to create a thing that could destroy the structure of memory and time? What must it cost her to repress the weight of all that guilt and horror and terror and anxiety?

Barry says, “No matter what, I got to see my daughter grow up because of you.”

“I don’t mean this to sound the way it will, but you shouldn’t have. If we can’t rely on memory, our species will unravel. And it’s already beginning.”

Helena stares at the city across the water, Barry thinking there’s something overwhelming about her vulnerability in this moment.

“We should probably get some sleep,” she says. “You can have my bed.”

“I’m not taking your bed from you.”

“I sleep on the couch most nights anyway, so I can fall asleep to the sound of the television.”

She turns to go.

“Helena.”

“What?”

“I know I don’t really know you, but I’m certain your life is more than that chair.”

“No. It defines me. First part of my life I spent trying to build it. I’ll spend the rest of whatever’s left trying to destroy it.”





HELENA





November 7, 2018