Recursion(71)

“It’s like every new sentence you say is more terrifying than the one before it.”

“Well, in keeping with that trend…” He opens a laptop on the table and types in a URL. “This went live five minutes ago. No press coverage yet.”

She leans in toward the screen.

It’s the WikiLeaks homepage.

Under the “War & Military” heading, she sees a graphic of a soldier sitting in a chair that looks exactly like the one in the middle of this room, over the headline:

     US Military Memory Machine. Thousands of pages containing full schematics to an apparatus that purports to send soldiers back into their memories may explain the spate of reversed tragedies over the last six months.



Her chest becomes tight.

Black stars burning across her field of vision.

She asks, “How is WikiLeaks connecting the chair to our government?”

“Unknown.”

Albert says, “To recap, Slade’s servers were hacked. Contents probably sold to multiple buyers. From one or more of those buyers, or the hackers themselves, the plans continued to leak. There are likely multiple chairs in use in many countries throughout the world at this moment. China and Russia have the chair, and now, with WikiLeaks publishing the schematics, any corporation, dictator, or wealthy individual with twenty-five million dollars lying around can build their own private memory machine.”

Raj says, “Don’t forget—a terrorist group of some sort appears to be one of the proud new owners of a chair, and they’re using it to repeat the same attack on different landmarks in one of the most densely populated cities in the world.”

Helena looks over at the chair.

The tank.

The terminal.

The air has a faint humming quality.

On the television screen, the news is now covering a new attack in San Francisco, where the Golden Gate Bridge is sending up plumes of black smoke into the early morning sky. Her mind is trying to wrap itself around the situation, but it’s too immense, too tangled, too fucked.

“What’s the worst-case scenario, Albert?” Shaw asks.

“I believe we’re experiencing it.”

“No, I mean in terms of what could happen next.”

Albert has always been unflappable, as if his great intelligence shielded and lifted him above it all. But not today. Today he looks scared.

He says, “It’s unclear whether Russia or China only have the blueprints to the chair, or if they’ve already built one. If it’s the former, rest assured they are racing to construct a chair, along with every other country in the world.”

“Why?” Helena asks.

“Because it’s a weapon. It’s the ultimate weapon. Remember our first meeting at this table, when we talked about sending a ninety-five-year-old sniper into a memory to change the outcome of a war? Who among our enemies—hell, even our friends—would benefit from using the chair against us?”

“Who wouldn’t?” Shaw says.

“So this is analogous to a nuclear standoff?” Raj asks.

“Quite the opposite. Governments don’t use nuclear weapons, because the moment they press the button, their opponent will do the same. The threat of retaliation is too great a deterrent. But there is no threat of retaliation or assured mutual destruction with the chair. The first government, or corporation, or individual, to successfully and strategically use it—whether by changing the outcome of a war or assassinating a long-dead dictator or whatever—wins.”

Helena says, “You’re saying it’s in everyone’s best interest to use the chair.”

“Exactly. And as soon as possible. Whoever rewrites history in their own interest first, wins. It’s too big a gamble to let someone else get there first.”

Helena glances at the television again.

Now the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco’s financial district is burning.

“Could be a foreign government behind these attacks,” Helena says.

“Nope,” Albert says, studying his phone. “An anonymous group just claimed responsibility on Twitter.”

“What do they want?”

“No idea. Often, the mere creation of mayhem and terror is itself the endgame.”

Now a woman is onscreen at the news-anchor desk, looking shaken as she speaks to the camera.

“Turn it up, Albert,” Shaw says.

“Amidst conflicting reports of terrorist attacks in New York and San Francisco, a report from The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald has just been published, alleging that the US government has been in possession of a new technology called a memory chair for at least six months, which it pirated from a private corporation. Mr. Greenwald contends the memory chair allows for the consciousness of its occupant to travel into the past, and according to his confidential sources, this chair is the actual cause of False Memory Syndrome, the mysterious—”

Albert mutes the television.

“We have to do something right now,” he says. “Any moment, reality could shift us into a completely different world, or out of existence altogether.”

Shaw has been pacing, but now he slumps down in his chair and looks at Helena. “I should’ve listened to you.”

“Now isn’t the time for—”