<list:item>
<i: Miach Mihie>
<i: my dad>
<i: consciousness manipulation>
</list>
✦ ✦ ✦
I didn’t need bobbing AR arrows to find my way on this one.
✦ ✦ ✦
≡
Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg was not pleased with my failure to report my findings either to the Japanese police or to my own Helix Inspection Agency branch. She was on my HeadPhone right now, criticizing me in sentences carefully worded to avoid any offensive language.
“Don’t worry, I’m making progress,” was all I could tell her, which she followed by asking for more details. Her persistence made me feel like I had somehow unconsciously uttered the shocking words It’s private and now she had it in for me. Of course, that was just my imagination working overtime. Os Cara had no idea of my growing personal involvement in the investigation.
I walked, letting my eyes wander along the ground, grunting noncommittal replies to her questions as I made my way down the white walkway that led past the pink trees on the way to the university parking lot.
“I’m going to Baghdad.”
“What?!”
Though her voice was as smooth as ever, it was clear she was fuming just beneath the surface. Still, she managed an almost civil “Why Baghdad?” to which I replied, “Because that’s where my investigation is leading me. Neither of us has a whole lot of options when it comes to what we can say, do we?” I added. That really rubbed her the wrong way.
“Don’t think you can keep playing the Niger card over and over again.”
“Oh,” I said, “I intend to use that one till it’s worn around the edges.” I stared at the alias graphic my AR displayed in place of Os Cara’s real face. It amused me that our aliases looked so calm while we were down in the trenches, lobbing verbal grenades at each other.
Most people had the habit of looking down at their feet while they were on their HeadPhone—probably because otherwise they would get too caught up in the conversation and trip on something. It was such a common sight these days that hardly anyone paid it a second thought, but if someone from a hundred years ago slipped into our time, they would see a bunch of people walking around staring down at the ground muttering to themselves and rightly determine we were all in need of therapy.
I’m sorry, Miach.
Those words tickled the back of my mind. Something about the way Cian had been staring down at her caprese. In all the other AR archive footage of the suicides I’d seen, the act had progressed smoothly from what came before. People were just doing whatever they normally did, then they were finding a way to kill themselves.
Cian was the only one who had taken any time before the act, her head bowed, as though she were reflecting on what she was about to do.
She had been the only one to look down, just as I was looking down right now while I talked to Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg. Just Cian Reikado. Just her.
“Prime, we’re going to have to continue this from the PassengerBird. Something really important’s just come up.”
I cut the call before Prime had time to really lose her shit, and drawing on the access to local police records we Helix agents had been given as part of this investigation, I called up Cian Reikado’s phone records.
✦ ✦ ✦
<silence>
The day of Cian’s death. 13:16.
Just before she died.
As she looked down at her plate.
<fear>
My spine froze. That day, as Cian sat across from me staring at her caprese, she had been on the phone with someone else.
I didn’t have to think too hard to figure out who it was. Cian had said her name, after all.
It was just hard to accept.
It was terrifying to accept.
A dead person—or at least, someone I had believed to be dead—calling my friend just before her own death. The record of that call from 13:16 two days ago blinked in the corner of my AR, quietly yet steadily demanding that I play back this message from beyond the grave.
</fear>
With trembling fingers, I reached out and pressed the blinking entry on the list.
A voice recording opened.
</silence>
<log:phonelink:id=4ids8094bnuj8hjndf6>
Hello, Cian.
Long time no see. Thirteen years, huh?
I’m calling because I wanted to talk to you about what it means to be “good.”
I’m talking Good with a capital G.
What do you think it means?
It’s not about helping people in need or making friends or not hurting others. Those are aspects of being good, but they’re really just details. If you get right down to it, Good is the will it takes to maintain a certain set of values over time.
That’s right, maintenance. Maintaining a family, maintaining happiness, maintaining peace. It doesn’t really matter what you’re maintaining. All you have to do is keep something going that people believe in. That’s the essence of Good.
But nothing goes on forever, does it?
That’s why you have to make a constant, conscious effort to be good. You have to keep those branches spreading toward the sun. Good has to be actively maintained. Put it another way, that which you consciously believe in and maintain is Good. Even though that could be all kinds of things.
Too bad our bodies aren’t built for the task. People grow, then grow old. People get sick. People die. There’s no good or bad in nature because everything always changes. Everything goes away in the end. That’s what’s kept Good from swallowing up the world so far. That’s what’s kept people from growing arrogant with all the Good they’ve done, though only just barely. But now, thanks to WatchMe and medicules, disease and even regular aging are in the process of being eliminated. The value we call health is trampling over everything else. What do you think that means? It means that the flood is coming. We’re about to drown.
If it isn’t all Good now, it soon will be.
</log>
✦ ✦ ✦
It was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Miach Mihie’s voice. It was also, beyond question, her thinking.
<log:phonelink:id=4ids8094bnuj8hjndf6:playtime:2 m52s06ms>
There’ve never been so many people governed by Good.
There’ve never been so many people giving themselves up to Good.
There have been many versions of Good throughout the ages.
When the Bastille fell in France, when the sons of freedom threw crates of tea into the harbor in Boston—every age has had its heroes who try to do Good. That was the whole idea behind America, with its freedom and democracy for all.
But never has Good held so many people’s lives in thrall at any one time.
Back when kings ruled, the king would threaten to sentence anyone who turned against him to death, so people listened. They made people obey through violence. That’s why the French Revolution was a success. All they had to do was take out the king. Once you have enough people come out and claim a mandate, saying “This is the people’s will,” all you needed next was violence to finish the job. But with the birth of democracy, rule ceased to come from the top. Now it came from the people. Eventually it got to the point we’re at now, where everybody governs themselves.
What do we do if the enemy we’re fighting against is inside each of us?
Our lifeism is the ultimate expression of rule by all, and its final destination.
Ever hear of The Three Musketeers? It’s a story—a novel written by Alexandre Dumas—about these three soldiers living in seventeenth century France. In it, there’s a saying: “One for all, and all for one.”
That worked fine for them, seeing as how they were only saying it to a couple other people.
In the world of resource awareness, we’re making that same oath, except we’re swearing it to everyone in our admedistration—no, everyone in the world—and we are expected to surrender our lives to ensure we follow through.
You were supposed to come with me, Cian. You and Tuan.
But you didn’t.
You said you would fight with me. That we’d fight together.
You hurt me. You made me very sad.
But I think if you can show me your courage now, that will be enough. Show the world there’s nothing permanent. Show the world your body belongs to you alone. Show everyone right now, and it will be just like it was back in the day.
Back when we were us.
Please, Cian. I need you to be brave.
Show it to me. Show it to the world.
</log>
✦ ✦ ✦
My mouth moved, forming Cian’s final words along with her.
I’m sorry, Miach.
✦ ✦ ✦
</body>
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