There are books everywhere; this makes me happy. There is dusty sunlight coming in through the window; this also makes me happy.
Kristen and Steve are here; this is another thing, or a pair of things, that make me happy.
What are things? What is happiness? We both, we all, know the answer to that, even if we can’t construct a theory that accounts perfectly for all such facts. Or all such statements.
We’ve been back for a couple of months now. Whatever that means.
“I like Doc Zane-Tucker, she pays attention.”
“And she brought her cat over.”
Tibbs is curled up dozing on Kristen’s lap. Tibbs is not, at the moment, a shimmering place in the air.
“I think, technically, we’re cat-sitting.”
I think about cat-sitting, and cats sitting. I think about a large rough-skinned being, with a large but normal number of eyes, relaxing on the ground and letting my antennae investigate an interesting rock.
“Do you have any… memories, of having extra legs, or eyes? Or antennae?”
“I’m sure there was some of that.”
“But… remember Alissa and Sonorandelan and Glomorominith?”
“You remember S and G’s entire names? I’m impressed.”
I enjoy impressing Kristen. I’m showing off, and I’m okay with that. And maybe someday I’ll write monographs on what “showing off” and “being okay with a thing” mean.
“But do you remember being them?”
“Do you remember being Kristen or Steve or Colin? We could have sort of swapped around while we were out there; all six or eight of us.”
“Or being together in a virtuality that long could have mushed our souls all together.”
“Ewww, soul-mush.”
Does merging my mind with someone else’s and then separating them again, count as communication? Are there states or properties or thoughts in my mind, sort of copied over from Steve’s, or Kristen’s, or Tibbs’s, that wouldn’t have been there if we hadn’t experienced what we may or may not have experienced?
Counterfactuals are just forms of words. What would have happened if…?
And yet we think that way all the time.
“It’s nice here and all,” Steve says, “but it’s kind of… quiet.”
Kristen hugs him and agrees. “Bored already, babe?” she smiles.
“Not bored, exactly, I just–“
“It’s simpler here,” I venture. Because it is simple here. Simpler than many, many things I remember.
“Simple, is it?” she smiles, and reaches over and touches my arm with a fingertip, and I am pleasantly helpless.
“The cops shut down the desert rig meets,” Steve grumbles.
“So what do you want to do?” I ask, feeling somehow unwilling to settle down with my books just now.
“Well…” Kristen says, taking something out of a pocket. It’s brass and gold, with various dials and wheels. “It looks like there’ll be an Interstice Hawk within hailing distance in about an hour…”
[Crisp efficient sounds, clicks, rustles. The beeping stops.]
“There you go, there you go, it’s all right honey.”
“What happened?”
“They’re awake?”
“Can you talk to Bed One? Is Casey coming?”
“I’m okay, I think.”
“Can you tell me your name, dear?”
“Uhh, Kristen. Kristen Lewis.”
“That’s good!”
“Kristen? We’re back?”
“Hold on honey, can you tell me your name?”
“Steven Romero Diaz, are the others okay?”
“Bed three?”
“Hey honey, are you back with us?”
“Napping. Nice and warm.”
[Light laughter]
“Can you just tell me your name, hon? Then you can nap more.”
“Colin, you nut!”
“Hm, Colin something, Colin Pembly-Bartholemew Colson.”
“Pembly-Bartholemew?”
“He just made that up.”
“Oh, Doctor, here you are! They’re all awake!”
“I see! Have–“
“Whoa, yipes! How long were we, that is—“
“We’ll get to that. Give me your wrist now.”
Time passes. Eventually the three have been weighed, measured, poked at. IVs and catheters and other insults have been removed as gently as possible within the hospital context. Steve’s head has been imaged yet one more time.
“Still nothing in there, eh?” Kristen remarks, and he kisses her. The nurses tutt happily.
After a time, Doctor Zane-Tucker gently clears the room, and sits on a chair among the beds to which the patients have been returned. With their permission, she has her phone recording audio.
“We want to know everything,” Kristen says.
“So do I,” Doctor Zane-Tucker smiles, “but to start with: you have all been unconscious for just about ten weeks–“
“Less than three months?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“So much happened! We spent at least–“
“In the Alpha alone–“
“It was years!”
“One at a time, please! I expect you are all eager to know–“
“I don’t feel any bedsores; have our muscles atrophied?”
“You have been very well cared-for, of course, but also your muscles have maintained an… unusual degree of tone on their own. Every body is different. I would still caution you not to try any sudden movements. No standing until you’ve sat up, and so on. Someone from Physical Therapy will be seeing you later today or tomorrow.”
“What about Steve’s head thing?”
“We were successful in removing the foreign object, and the healing has–“
“Hey, Glomorominith took that out.”
“Oh, darn, I think we left it in the basement–“‘
“Of the old falling-apart house, right!”
“We didn’t really know we were leaving.”
“Do you three have some kind of common–“
Glances are exchanged among the young people.
“Common memories, I’m afraid so. Due to the virtuality? Or whatever?”
“I should probably be separating you, then.”
“Really? So we don’t have a chance to coordinate our stories? Like on cop shows?”
“It’s what I’d do, certainly.”
“But I’m injured, I need my emotional support friends.”
“Your head looks fine from here.” Kristen air-kisses in the direction of the bandaged head. Steve blushes.
But they let themselves be separated, for the moment. Beds are wheeled away.
“It doesn’t feel like a dream. Or at least it didn’t. Now my memory of it all is starting to sort of slide away, like dreams do, y’know.”
“How does your head feel?”
“Not bad, a little muzzy. The… wound has been healing okay?”
“Quite well. The soft matter was all stabilized, and we’re really good at rebuilding bone these days. There’s been no sign of infection, which is a worry in this kind of injury. The tests that were done, um, early on showed normal brain function. You’ll be having more tests tomorrow, but I think the odds are against anything concerning turning up at this point.”
“How long was the, um, artificial coma?”
“The medication was ramped down weeks ago, and you were entirely on your own that way. You just didn’t wake up!”
“Like Kris and Col.”
“Yes.”
“Was it, like, a malfunction in the virtuality caps?”
Doctor Zane-Tucker smiles.
“That’s not exactly my field.”
“Okay,” Steve says, “Oh, hey, do you have some paper and a pen? There’s some stuff I need to write down…”
Colin insisted on getting up and walking before his interview. Now he is sitting in Doctor Zane-Tucker’s private reception area. Comfortable but firm sofa, he notes to himself. Muted colors, soothing. The Doctor’s cellphone still recording.
“And you did attempt to come out of the virtuality, with the ‘ducking-out’ gesture?”
“Periodically, especially in the first few days and months. After a few subjective years, I think we all stopped trying.”
“I see,” she makes a note on her pad. “Can you estimate how much time seemed to have passed?”
“It’s not easy,” he says, “it’s all just memory. Like everything– I don’t know.”
“Things are becoming a bit uncertain?”
“Yeah, I don’t remember how we got to the Alpha. I don’t remember where Kristen got the magic pocketwatch or alethiometer or portable orrery or whatever that–“
“Mrreow?”
“Oh, hello, cat! How is the cat business?”
“Ah, sorry,” the Doctor says, “get down, Tibbs!”
“Tibbs?”
“Yes, that’s his name. Is that… especially funny?”
“It’s rather a long story. But I guess that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
Later, Kristen is still lying comfortably in the bed, feeling the present and remembering how everything felt in her memories. Had it all been a virtuality in some way? Are there effects there that she can use in her own worlds? She imagines making a world that feels as vast as the rainbow stripe across the universe of Alpha and Omega.
“I understand your public virtualities have been getting a lot of visitors over these weeks,” the Doctor says when they have been talking for a while.
“Oh, no, are we celebrities? I don’t want to be a celebrity. Not this way, anyway.”
“It will be somewhat unavoidable, I’m afraid; your names and situation did leak to the media despite our best efforts. But the celebrity cycle is short.”
“Small comforts,” Kristen smiles.
“You may find yourselves to be objects of medical interest, longer than public interest. Virtuality researchers will be bidding on your time.”
Kristen laughs. “I Spent Months In The Universal Virtual, by Kristen Lewis, soon to be a major motion picture.”
“Something like that.”
“Do you think that’s what it was, Doctor? That we somehow ended up in some huge AI hallucination?”
“I don’t know, Miss Lewis. That may be a question for the philosophers. I’m concerned only that you three are awake again, and healthy.”
ceoln 