The Measure(64)

The article had interviewed two eager candidates, each at the end of their string—a scientist who dreamt of seeing the distant future and a fifty-five-year-old mother willing to leave her daughter now in the hope of returning, one day, to meet her grandchildren.

“The science has moved remarkably fast when it comes to string measurements,” said one of the candidates. “We’ve already narrowed our projections from the span of a few years all the way down to a single month. Who says the science can’t move quickly here, too?”

“People have been working in this field for a while,” Ben said. “Some companies are trying to freeze your body in a cryonic chamber; I guess these folks want to remove your body altogether.” He paused. “I don’t really think it’s for me.”

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t secretly planning to digitize your brain and leave me all alone in the group.” Maura smiled.

“Look, it’s an exciting dream,” said Ben. “But it doesn’t really help us right now.”

“It’s kind of crazy that we already have so much technology at our disposal, and even more coming down the pike. All these brilliant minds fixated on solving the strings, if that’s even possible. But then there are these huge swaths of the world population without any of it,” Maura said. “My girlfriend, Nina, was just working on this article about people living in places with no Internet. No at-home measurement websites, no way to learn what’s going on in other countries.”

“Whole communities where nobody knows what the length of their string really means?” Ben asked.

“Well, they can still do simple comparisons, see whose string is the longest,” said Maura. “And apparently some groups have been forming their own makeshift data sets, like recording the age at which someone dies and then using that person’s string as a benchmark. Humans always find a way to adapt, right? But there are lots of people who aren’t even doing that. They’re just . . . continuing on, like before.”

Ben nodded, taking a sip of his beer. “How has Nina been through all of this?”

Maura silently recalled their heated dispute over Nina’s search obsession, then their quiet acceptance of not having kids. All the times that Nina had said, “I love you,” after the strings arrived.

“We’ve had a couple rough moments, of course, but . . . she’s never once wavered when it comes to us,” Maura said. “She even planned this whole getaway for the two of us next month. To Venice.”

“Wow, that sounds great.” Ben smiled.

“I think we both just needed to go somewhere that we’ve never gone before. To get out of our apartment and have a little adventure. It’s like Wes Johnson said tonight, we can’t go back. But at least we can go anywhere else.”





Anthony




Anthony was quite pleased with the September debate, the voters responding favorably to his story about Jack and decidedly unfavorably to Johnson’s admission.

He grinned, staring at a copy of the day’s top headline: “Johnson Slumps after Short String Reveal.”

“Obviously I feel badly for Senator Johnson,” an anonymous voter was quoted, “but I don’t feel comfortable electing someone who can’t commit to a full term.”

“I really admire Johnson’s talents,” said another, “but I worry that having a short-stringer lead our country might make us look weak in front of other nations. Especially one who won’t even say the exact time he has left.”

A third phrased it most bluntly: “Sympathy doesn’t get you votes. Strength does. And we’ve seen that in Congressman Rollins.”

Even now, the shooting at the August rally remained a boon for Anthony’s campaign, his image a paragon of fortitude. After the incident, a brief flurry of rumors had attempted to offer a motive for the attack, short-stringers and their advocates desperately searching for something to explain the woman’s rage that wasn’t the string in her box. But most theories quickly evaporated, met with silence from the subject herself.

Which was why Anthony never expected the emergency meeting called by his campaign manager and head of oppo research.

“We found something,” they said. “About the shooter.”

One of the men slid a folder of papers in front of Anthony: two birth certificates, one death certificate, and a copy of a scanned article from Anthony’s college newspaper about the night that a boy died at a frat.

“But they have different last names,” Anthony said. “You’re telling me the shooter and this boy were related?”

“Her half brother, apparently.”

Fuck.

Anthony thought that night was behind him. It was three decades ago, after all.

“Give me a minute,” Anthony said, holding the scanned article closely.

Of course Anthony remembered the boy. He was one of a handful recruited by Anthony’s fraternity simply for the fun of it, dragged along in the pledging process with no real prospect of becoming a brother. And yet, the pledges always believed it was genuine, Anthony recalled. That was what made it funny.

Anthony was president of the frat at the time, but he hadn’t picked the boys. That was the pledge master’s forte. Anthony couldn’t remember exactly why that year’s crop had been chosen, though they were usually plucked from the poor kids on Pell grants or other government aid, boys who could never afford the dues, who couldn’t dream of fitting in with the sons of the captains of industry.