As I stood there looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, I tried to think things over again. Takasaki was, by all appearances, exactly my type. By far the most appealing man I’d had the pleasure of meeting thus far, and I highly doubted I’d ever meet someone so impossibly compatible with me again. He was the ideal partner, as far as I was concerned.
And yet for whatever reason, my heart was pumping the brakes.
Maybe it was the way everything felt a little too perfect that unnerved me. Perhaps my brain was refusing to accept that this guy, who felt tailor-made for me, could possibly be real. Or maybe I preferred a bit more unpredictability, and the way everything was going so smoothly felt almost artificial. Whatever it was, I couldn’t explain it. All I knew was that from a logical standpoint, this was exactly the guy for me—but something in my subconscious was telling me I shouldn’t go through with it. And I generally trusted my intuition when it came to things like this.
I walked back out into the living room and did my best to force a friendly smile.
“Hey, sorry about that,” I said. “I think I should probably head home for the night.”
8
By the time I made it back home, it was already after midnight. As soon as I walked in the door, Titan informed me that I had one new message, but it would have to wait till morning. I was much too exhausted from the long day I’d had. I stepped up onto the zoomboard waiting for me in the entryway; I knew it was healthier to walk, but I’d done enough walking today for an entire month, so I felt entitled to a moment of laziness. Once I stepped aboard with both feet, the device set off gliding down the hall and brought me straight to the bathroom. Only once I’d stretched myself out in the piping hot bathwater did I start to feel the various tensions of the day begin to seep away from my weary limbs. When I got out of the tub, I headed over to the cooldown room and laid down on one of the lounge chairs. The conditioned air inside helped to gradually cool my flushed skin.
“Contacts,” I said. Titan pulled up an aerial holofield in front of me displaying a list of all of my contact cards. At the top was the personal information card for my most recent contact: Takasaki. I thought back on what had transpired just two hours prior. While I did still wish I’d have gone through with it, there was also no need to rush these things. I could always contact him again whenever I wanted. And I had a long life ahead of me.
Technological advances had given humans much more leisure time than they once had. Not just because we no longer had to spend so much of our lives working, but also thanks to bold new medical innovations. The vast majority of diseases considered incurable even two hundred years ago were now all but eradicated in the modern era. Titan handled all medical research and treatment. Life expectancy had increased dramatically, and with the introduction of Planned Aging, people could now choose a life extension plan when young that made it possible to sustain peak physical health all the way up to the age of 150—though few chose to actually do so. As it turned out, not many people knew what to do with decades of free time and perfect health.
I put on the pajamas that had been laid out for me, then hopped back on the zoomboard, which ushered me out of the cooldown room and into the room next door. Once I was inside, the door shut behind me, and the lights turned on at the dim preset level. I was greeted by a wall covered top to bottom with developed photographs. This was my darkroom, which I used to develop pictures I’d taken using a classic film camera—my longest-standing hobby and passion, aside from psychological research, of course.
I stepped off the zoomboard and walked over to my work table. The room was filled with a variety of specialized equipment—a water station, a wastewater station, a drying station, an enlarger, a retouching space, along with various chemicals and other tools—none of which would be necessary if I would just use an ordinary digital camera. Film photography was a very labor-intensive and time-consuming hobby, but that was exactly what I liked about it. When, on occasion, I tired of the exercise, I let my automated developer handle everything for me.
Once again, I thought back to my earlier conversation with Takasaki. Back in the days of the monetary economy, when scarcity was always a concern, I would have had to exchange money for each individual roll of film and think twice before each and every shutter click, all in the interest of conserving limited resources. Now, I could have as much film as I wanted without even having to ask; even if I forgot to resupply, Titan would ensure I always had a refill handy. Once again, I found myself feeling extremely fortunate to have been born in the current era.
I took a couple steps back and looked over my wall of photos as if scrolling through a list of thumbnails. All of my recent pictures had been taken locally and were fairly mundane. I traced my finger back along the line to the most recent batch of travel photos I’d taken, and realized that more than half a year had passed since my last trip. Suddenly, that familiar urge for adventure took hold of me once again. Tomorrow, I would research potential destinations. But for tonight, I was much too tired.
I stepped back on the zoomboard and rode it over to my bedroom, pondering drowsily as to what else I might do tomorrow. Not that it really mattered—I could just do whatever I felt like doing when the time came to decide. And if I changed my mind later, I could always stop and do something else. There was no urgency, and no outside pressure that could make me do anything other than exactly what I wanted to do. I climbed into bed, closed my eyes, and let sleep whisk me away. Titan, my ever-watchful companion, dimmed the lights down low—just as it knew I liked.
9
As I ate my breakfast the next morning, I checked the unread message I’d received the night before. It was a report on the status of the developmental psychology thesis I’d published last month, which had apparently done quite well for itself. I opened up the page to take a look, and saw that it had indeed garnered a fairly impressive number of views and user ratings. My work had achieved circulation well beyond that of my usual tight-knit community of loyal followers and had expanded into the wider social sphere, the result of it having been picked up by some larger scientific news outlets.