Recursion(76)

He heads inside through the kitchen, past the dining-room table, to the sitting area by the television. Lifting the remote, he hesitates as Helena’s barefooted steps move toward him across the cool tile.

She takes the remote out of his hand and presses the Power button.

The first thing he reads is a banner across the bottom of the screen.

MASS SUICIDES REPORTED ACROSS THE WORLD.

Helena lets out a pained sigh.

Cell-phone footage from a city street shows bodies bouncing off the pavement like some kind of horrific hailstorm.

Like Barry, the world just remembered the previous timeline when the chair’s existence became public knowledge. The attacks on New York City. WikiLeaks. Widespread usage of the chair across the globe.

Barry says, “Maybe it’ll all be OK. Maybe Slade was right. Maybe humanity will adapt and evolve to accept this.”

Helena turns the channel.

A frazzled-looking anchor is trying to maintain some vestige of professionalism. “Russia and China have just released a joint statement at the UN, accusing the United States of reality theft in an effort to prevent other nations from using the memory chair. They have vowed to rebuild the technology immediately and warned that any further use of the chair will be seen as an act of war. The US has not yet responded—”

She turns the channel again.

Another shell-shocked anchor: “In addition to the mass suicides, hospitals in all major cities are reporting an influx of patients suffering catatonia—a state of unresponsive stupor brought about by—”

The co-anchor cuts him off: “I’m sorry to interrupt you, David. The FAA is reporting…Jesus…Forty commercial jet crashes in United States airspace in the last fifteen—”

Helena turns off the television, drops the remote on the sofa, and walks into the foyer. Barry follows her to the front door, which she pulls open.

The view from the porch overlooks the gravel driveway and the gentle decline of the desert as it slopes for twelve miles toward the city of Tucson, shimmering like a mirage in the distance.

“It’s still so quiet,” she says. “Hard to believe everything is falling apart out there.”

The last thirty-three years of Barry’s existence is putting down roots in his mind, feeling more real with every breath. He isn’t the man he was in Slade’s hotel. He isn’t the man who spent the last twenty-four years with Helena, trying to save the world from experiencing this day. He’s, somehow, both of them.

He says, “There was a part of me that didn’t believe it would happen.”

“Yeah.”

Helena turns and embraces him with a sudden force that drives him back several steps toward the door.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“What?”

“This! My life! Go back to 1986, find you, convince you I’m not crazy. Amass a fortune. Build the chair. Try to prevent dead memories. Fail. Watch the world remember. Rinse, repeat. Are the rest of my many lives nothing more than trying to figure a way out of this inescapable loop?”

He looks down at her, framing her jaw in his hands. “I have an idea,” he says. “Let’s forget all of this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let’s just be together today. Let’s just live.”

“We can’t. This is all happening. This is what is real.”

“I know, but we can wait until tonight for you to go back to ’86. We know what comes next. What has to happen. We don’t need to obsess over it. Let’s just be present for the time we have left together.”



* * *





They set off on their favorite hike through the desert to force themselves to stay away from the news.

The trail is one they’ve blazed over the years, right out the back of their house and up into the saguaro-covered hills.

Sweat is pouring out of Barry, but the exertion is exactly what he needed—something to burn through the surreal shock of the morning.

At midday, they top out on the rock outcropping several hundred feet above their house, which is practically invisible from this height, camouflaged against the floor of the desert.

Barry opens his backpack and takes out a liter of water. They pass it back and forth and try to catch their breath.

There is no movement anywhere.

The desert as silent as a cathedral.

Barry is thinking there’s something about the rock and the ancient cacti that suggests the frozen, timeless permanence of a dead memory.

He looks at Helena.

She pours a little water over her face and hands him the bottle.

“I could do this on my own next time,” she says.

“That’s what you’re sitting here thinking during our last hours together?”

She touches the side of his face. “For decades, you’ve shared the burden of the chair with me. You’ve known this day was coming, that it would probably mean the end of everything, and I’d have to go back to 1986 and try it all over again.”

“Helena—”

“You wanted kids, I didn’t. You sacrificed your interests to help me.”

“Those were all my choices.”

“Next time around, you could have a different life, without the knowledge of what’s coming. That’s all I’m saying. You could have the things you—”