The man sitting next to Helen smiled, seeming very pleased. He was an athletic man with a bland-looking, slightly pudgy face. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, and wore a dark suit with no tie.
"Who are you?" Helen asked.
"I'm one of those people who doesn't technically exist. But I'll be answering to the President, and to the Secretary of Defense. I'm involved in a preliminary study to ascertain whether this sort of technology can be used to remove more soldiers from forward fighting positions."
"So, you would be putting robots into combat, with soldiers controlling them from a distance?"
"Exactly," the man said. "If we're successful, it would mean no more soldiers coming home in body bags, or leaving limbs behind."
Helen shook her head. "With all due respect, I don't think war should be turned into an alt game."
The ex-governor's eyes narrowed, but the other man just smiled. "I don't agree. You go into any VA hospital and ask the kids being treated there, they'll all tell you that they wish their experience had been more like a video game. But let's set that aside for a moment. I assume you've never been on a battlefield?" Helen shook her head.
"I've been on a few. Iraqi Freedom back in oh-three, Caracas in fifteen, a couple of others that I can't tell you about. In every combat situation, soldiers have their official rules of engagement. Don't fire on unarmed civilians. Don't fire without a clear target. Don't shoot a fleeing enemy."
"Now, no soldier wants to kill when he doesn't have to. But soldiers also carry their own rule of engagement: shoot the bastard before he shoots you. Or, as my drill sergeant like to say, 'Better to be tried by nine than carried by six.'"
"I don't follow," Helen said.
"It means, better to be court martialed than killed. When a situation is uncertain, you might wish you had two or three more seconds to figure out what the hell is going on, to figure out if you're aiming at a friend or a foe. But that moment's hesitation could get you killed."
"The telepresence soldier gets emotional distance. You would say that it makes it easier to pull the trigger, because hey, it's just a game. I'm arguing the opposite; it's easier to not pull the trigger, because your life no longer depends on doing it, while the legal ramifications of violating the rules of engagement still exist." He leaned back into his seat.
"You make a good argument," Helen said. "What I don't understand is, why are you making it to me? It's not as though you need my permission."
"Because," the man said, "nobody is more qualified to lead a program like this than you are."
"No," she said immediately, before she'd even fully digested the offer. She had to send her brain scrambling to justify what her mouth had already said. "What I mean is, I'm not convinced that this is the right thing to do, and even if I were, I wouldn't want to be involved. You're talking about changing the fundamentals of war. You talk about making it easier to decide to spare a few lives, but it would also make it easier to decide to take tens of thousands, because only the enemy would feel pain."
"Wait," said Governor Wright. "Are you telling me that you're glad that so many of our soldiers die?"
A surge of anger washed over Helen. "No, I'm saying that I'm glad there's something to stop us from going to war, because clearly the casualties of the other side don't. We lost what, seven hundred soldiers when we invaded North Korea? How many North Koreans died? Nearly two hundred thousand?"
"Those numbers were politically motivated," Wright retorted.
"They're the best we have. We didn't even respect their dead enough to keep count. Besides, if three hundred to one is too damning a ratio, what number would you find more comforting? Two hundred? Maybe one hundred of theirs for one of ours?"
Wright's face was a mask of cold fury. "I will not sit here and listen to this 'blame America first' shit," he said, "From the stupid little robo-hippie--"
"Ooh, did you have your speechwriters come up wi-"
"--who has been fucking my Vice President."
The fury drained out of Helen, until there was nothing left but cold terror. She felt like she was going to vomit. The President-elect was beaming. "Surprised?" he asked. "You two thought you were being covert."
"So, you're going to blackmail me into the job?" she asked.
"No," he said flatly. "It would be nice to have you on board, but the program doesn't really need you. It's much more useful to blackmail Albrecht. The boy can be a loose cannon. Now if he plays ball, I let him keep his career, his reputation, and his sham marriage. You've already given me a gift that keeps on giving, and for that I thank you."
Stupid to say that to someone whose every sensory input is recorded, she thought. But if she ever had to use it, it would mean that Vincent's life would already have been destroyed, and probably hers as well.
"Mail my body back to the university, will you?" she asked. Before the puppet had time to slump forward into the President's lap, she was back in in Altworld. William was there, just back from giving his speech.
"They told me you got kidnapped by you-know-who," he observed. "What's the old bastard like?"
Helen burst into tears. William reached out and pulled her to him. "It's okay," he told her.
"We... we got into an argument," she told him. "He might pull our funding from the bill." It wasn't technically a lie. He hadn't said as much, but he could do so easily.
"Wright is a blustering bully," he reassured her. "He couldn't take it from us if he wanted to. We're just too damned popular right now. Still, what did he say?"
"He wanted me for some top secret project. I said no. The whole conversation is classified. I should probably go delete the whole thing from my logs."
William nodded. "Better safe than sorry. But I'm sure it can wait until after dinner."
/*****/
That night, back in her cottage by the sea, she and William made love. He was so gentle and sweet to her, it made her feel ashamed, and she wondered if he would notice that she couldn't look him in the eye. He didn't, and that bothered her somehow.
Later, after he had whispered a loving "good night" and fallen asleep, Helen left a decoy body asleep beside him. She went to another place, the one where she and Vincent would meet in secret. It was a long, moonlit beach, with a grass hut straight out of Gilligan's Island. A cool breeze blew in off the ocean, carrying the smell of brine along. The moon was too big and too bright, just the way she loved it, and the Milky Way cut across the sky like a brilliant tapestry. She knew she would never come here again, and it filled her with a sense of loss.
Vincent soon joined her. When he kissed her, it felt like she was betraying William all over again. But she didn't stop it. When the kiss finally ended, the first words out of her mouth were supposed to be, "We have to end this." She was surprised to hear herself saying, "Wright knows about us" instead.
"I know," Vincent said. "He told me. But I think I can keep him happy enough, he won't pull the trigger. It won't look very good for him, either, especially if I started accusing him of using blackmail. He's got more leverage than I'd like, but less than he may have implied."
Helen only nodded. Her stomach churned.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm not leaving William," she blurted out.
He held her tighter. "I don't expect you to. You love him. What's going on between us doesn't change that. But I love you, Helen. And you love me. Those two facts don't fit comfortably with the other parts of our lives, but they have to be reckoned with."
"And your wife?"
"She also has to be reckoned with. We've both... had other people in our lives. Neither of us are particularly pleased with each other's indiscretions. But a couple of years ago, when I had just broken off my third affair, and she was just starting up her second, we decided it was silly for two adults who loved each other to be constantly groveling and apologizing the way we were."
Helen could feel herself blushing, and wondered if Vincent could see it in the dim moonlight. "I know what you'r
e thinking," Vincent told her. "How many affairs? Is he a lech? Can I trust him?"
"I was always afraid to ask about... other women," she admitted. "I wanted to think I was special."
"You are. You have to know that."
"Is there anyone else right now?"
The pause before he answered was answer enough. She slapped him.
"Ow! Helen! It's not like... She flies into New York every six months or so. Sometimes our schedules worked out, sometimes they didn't. I haven't been with her since I met you, but a couple of days ago, she pinged me and said she'd be coming in a few weeks. I've been putting her off."
"Why didn't you say no?"
"For the same reason you don't say no to me. For the same reason I won't ask you to leave your professor, and you won't ask me to leave my wife."
"Because we're very good at rationalizing awful behavior?" She could see that one stung him, and she wished she could take it back.
"No. Okay, maybe. But also because the people we love make us who we are. That sounded less like a greeting card when it was still in my head, but I believe it."
"You love your wife, you love me, you love Six Month Suzie. God am I feeling the love right now. Anybody else?"
"Not at the moment." Vincent said. Then he did a double-take. "I never said her name was Suzanne."
"Suzanne VanValken, Cerebrus Capital Management, based out of London. I set the rats to comparing your time spent in New York with visits by high-profile women within two jumps of a reference social network. My rats kick ass."
"Wow. If you ever found Bigfoot, would you tell me?"
"Don't you dare make fun of me right now. I came here to end things with you, but then I doubted myself." She turned to walk away. Vincent grabbed her arm.
"Helen, please! Think about this, just for a day or two."
"Don't tell me what to think about, you... you... politician!" Helen disappeared, reappearing in the body that she had left behind with William. She sat up, and he stirred at the disturbance. Then he rolled over, muttered something that sounded like "goldfish infestation," and settled back into sleep. Helen tried to join him, but her mind buzzed with unwelcome thoughts. Finally, she hung a "do not disturb" sign off her ear, cranked the melatonin up to an unhealthy level, and dozed off.
* * *
1 One of Helen's favorite views was called "Nightmare U," which transformed the UCSD campus into a dark and sinister landscape, and turned students into zombies, vampires, and other assorted baddies.
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// FORK() //
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Date: December 28, 2036
Perhaps it was the feeling that her heart was being pulled in two directions. Or perhaps is was her schedule, packed so tight that Helen thought it might spill off the page. But when William look at her schedule over her shoulder and said, "Do you ever wish that there were two of you?" the epiphany came before he had finished the sentence.
Helen shook her head. "You would think by now, you'd have learned not to say things like that to me. Be a dear and tell Kriti I won't be in the lab today."
"Yes, dears."
The easiest approach would have been to spin up an entirely new simulation, but though Helen had continued to improve the speed of her simulation, running a second instance would still reduce the server farm to molten slag. The trick would be to get two threads of consciousness running, but have them continue to share most of her brain's infrastructure.
It turned out to be dead simple. By lunchtime, she pushed the code updates out to the clients. She lost consciousness for a few minutes as the system rebooted, then woke, turned to herself and said, "Hello, Other Helen."
"No, you're Other Helen."
"Only twenty-seven percent more computation required. We should have done this a long time ago."
"Indeed, I should have. Now, who's tackling that grant proposal, and who's staying here to figure out how to merge us back together at the end of the day."
"Clearly, this can only be settled by armed combat. En garde!"
/*****/
As she worked on the grant, thoughts and sensations from Other Helen would intrude on her mind. She wasn't sure why it was happening. It shouldn't be happening. But Other Helen confirmed that it was happening, and that it was distracting. It would have to be solved, but for the moment they simply tried to ignore it.
Later in the day, while she was making arrangements for a public lecture by a visiting professor, she felt a pleasant, moist pressure on her lips. Even as the wave of jealousy washed over her, she knew that her gut reaction didn't make any sense. She sent a quick message to William, chiding him for trying to make her jealous, and asking that he not run off with her clone. The response that came back made her stomach drop: "H, what are you talking about? -W"
She excused herself and went looking for her clone, starting with the beach where she often met Vincent. But when she requested entry, she found that world closed off to her.
Time for Plan B. She pulled up the interface to her simulation. "Let's throw some cold water on you two," she said, then began wreaking havoc on her counterpart's nervous system.
Three hot flashes, a dozen electric shocks, and a bout of Tourette's later, Other Helen stormed in on her. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I was about to ask you the same question," she said sweetly, "but you weren't answering your messages. Now," she waved away the interface, "what the hell was that? You're supposed to make my life easier! Not jump back into the thing that made it so damned complicated in the first place."
Other Helen rolled her eyes. "You're really going to tell me you would have done differently? You would have walked away? I'm hopelessly in love with Vincent, and you are too!"
"Is he at least giving up Six Month Suzie?"
"No, and I'm okay with that. I mean, I'm still trying to accept it, but..."
"After all that, I can't believe you were going to sleep with him again!"
"I can't believe you can't believe it. You. Me. Same damn person!"
"Helen?"
They both turned. William was standing in the doorway, looking shaken.
"William, I... it was her! She did it, not me!" Helen collapsed onto the couch, holding her head. "It wasn't me."
"Traitor," Other Helen hissed at her. "William, let me explain." His lips were pulled tight, but he gave the slightest nod for her to proceed. "I love you. I love you, and I'm sorry," she began. "You're angry, and you have every right to be. Scream and throw things if you want, but do it here."
"Sit," he said. Other Helen sat down next to Helen, and William took a seat across from them. "I'm not leaving. I'm not screaming. I'm not throwing. I'm just going to sit here and wait for somebody to explain."
"It's her fault!" Helen said, pointing at her doppelganger. "I'd broken it off! She went running back."
"You had not! And he came to me. William, I -- damn it!" she shouted at Helen. "This is hard enough without being thrown to the wolves like this. You're supposed to be on my side. How the hell did you even find another side?"
William held his temple, as though to ward off an oncoming migraine. "Can I interrupt your internal monologue for a minute? Who the hell is 'he'?"
"Vincent Albrecht," Helen told him. "We've been having an affair for the last few months."
"The veep? You're... wow. What am I supposed to say to that?"
"Say that you still love me," Helen pleaded. "Say that someday you won't be angry with me, or that you'll give me another chance even if I don't deserve it. Say that you'll hold this over my head forever. Just... just say you won't go."
"But you still love him," William countered.
"I don't!"
"And you?" he asked, looking at Other Helen.
She didn't look him in the eye. "I do."
William gave a sigh, and leaned back into his chair. He didn't say anything. His brow furrowed. The Helens looked at him, then at each other, then back at him.
"Problem
face?" Other Helen asked.
"Definitely his problem face," Helen responded.
"Could be his sudoku face."
"Not enough furrows."
"Ladies, can you please mock me some other time? I'm not really in the mood." They all went quiet. You could cut the tension with a jackhammer. "A question for each of you," he said at long last. "If you had to make the choice, right now, would it be him or me?"
"You!" Helen said, without hesitation.
"Him," Other Helen replied, after a long pause. "You. I don't know. Please, please don't make me choose."
"So, what should we do? Split you down the middle?"
Helen shook her head. "Without periodic merging, we're going to diverge and destabilize. I think it's already beginning. Either we merge back together, erase one of us, or..."
"Make the split permanent," Other Helen finished the thought. "Only we don't have the resources to run us both at the same time."
"Maybe we could run you two on alternate days..." William said, deep in thought.
"Stop it!" Other Helen shouted. "Just stop it! The whole premise is flawed! There is no Helen-Who-Loves-William, no Helen-Who-Loves-Vincent. There is one, deeply conflicted person, and we have to solve this as that one person. We have to merge."
Helen looked at William for support, but didn't get any. "Hey, I just want you two to merge so we can fight like a normal couple. This rivalry of yours baffles me."
Helen stared at the floor. "No," she said. "I've got too much to answer for as it is. I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't even do."
Other Helen was livid. "But you would have--"
"Please," William said. "I think this conversation just swallowed its own tail. Helen," he said, pointing at Other Helen, "can I speak with you alone? I need one of you to explain to me why I shouldn't take this personally, and right now that one seems pretty hard into denial."
Helen felt a wave of relief surge through Other Helen, and hoped that her twin was picking up on her own emotions. Just to be sure, she thought to herself, as loud as she could, I swear I will beat you to death with a shovel.