The Event

Chapter 7

"Excuse me."

Robbie keeps his head down, his feet moving. Whoever's speaking, can't mean him. He's no one--a kid not asking to be heard. Not until he can figure out where his mother is or what she's left him, until he can decide where or how to approach Aliyah. Aliyah? Or Evy? Does he need Evy too? Did he say too much to her?

"Hey, can you hear me?"

Robbie's back arches as something brushes his shoulder. He spins around, expecting Evan or his friends, though his brother's usually too serious for practical jokes. Jokes that aren't as funny now that anyone can look back in the public archive to find who made them.

"Oh, good. I thought I might be invisible," the boy behind him says. Evan's height, but not someone Robbie recognizes. He takes a photo to make sure, which automatically syncs with the rest of his collection. "Theodore Brilliant," the title of the new album reads before retreating back into the search bar. They've definitely never met, then. Not if his device has created a new folder for the guy's face.

"Can that happen?" Robbie asks, wondering if the boy scanned in his photo from afar and already read his home page. The basic stats are fine, can be seen just by looking at him. It's the milestone ages section that makes him cringe, plus the roving stream of required public memory access. Cuts out the stage between strangers and friends, the interface boasted before its permanent usage was written into the new constitution. Now the feed is hailed as a safety device, a progressive time capsule.  Know people as well as you know yourself. Remember every thought, every idea, every theory, every law, conceptualized or enforced.

Theodore wanders next to him, scampering along to match Robbie's stride.

"Maybe. Don't you think there could be tech for that?"

"Who would want to be invisible?"

"If you have to ask, there's no point in trying to explain it to you."

"The explanation should be worth its own merit, not dependent on the reaction of the recipient."

"Try me would have sufficed."

Robbie doesn't like the way Theodore is looking at him, interested and incredulous.

"How old are you anyway?" Robbie asks.

"Didn't you read my stats?"

Robbie was right about Theodore. There's an endgame in modern relationships; no chemistry, only facts, deliverables.  Expectations set by profiles, goals targeted by cross promoting memories.

Robbie sighs, slowing his pace to face Theodore.

"Pretend I'd rather ask you in person."

Theodore smiles, his teeth whiter than they appeared on Robbie's device. That must be part of the upgrade that keeps flashing on his screen--an out of date facial camera.

"Your mother's right about you. You're a funny guy."

It's another app he could've had if he'd bought the latest device, the ability to simultaneously search both your memories and your family and friends' with one photo. If he'd known the kid was connected with his mother, he would have been more careful. You should always be careful. He hears her in his head, her tone suggesting no room for foolishness. People can manipulate; trust is malleable.

"My mother and I have a lot in common," he says cautiously.

"So I've heard."

"What else have you heard?"

"It's okay to ask me, you know."

"Ask what?"

"Why I'm here."

"Are you a friend of my mother's?"

"She's never mentioned me?"

"You haven't answered my question."

"There might not be an easy answer."

Robbie stares at the ground and thinks about walking away, back to his room and the mess he left on his mother's bed. The piles of Aliyah pieces he scattered.

"Look, I know what she was working on," Theodore continues, and Robbie hears him take a deep breath, his heels brushing the pavement.

"Is. Is working on."

There's a loud sound in the distance, bells chiming but sharper, more insistent. He hears it echo off the trees, feels it reverberating inside his head. His mother's work will never be finished; her ideas float and then sink and then swim until there's oceans of them, bubbling together and overflowing her lab.  It's as much a part of her as Robbie and Evan, and she's lucky that both of them understand that.

"She didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Robbie looks at Theodore again, stopping on the odd angle of his nose. The noise in his head lowers to a hum, seeping through his brain and out his eardrums. It might just be a headache, but he hasn't had a bad one in awhile. It's been so long he almost can't remember what they used to feel like, what his mother told him they might mean.

"She was fired two days ago."