Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8
Being manipulated like that felt profoundly wrong to Bryce, but it didn’t bother him, which in a subtle way, bothered him. But the upside was an ability to understand concepts that should have been beyond him and grasp what the CTK was getting at.
“I order you to do whatever is necessary to make life better for the sims. And forget about winter; everybody wants summer. People want to feel warm. Their bodies are really frozen in cryosleep, so they always feel that cold in their bones. They want to forget it.”
“Indoor temperatures are maintained in the human comfort zone.”
“That’s not enough. Subconsciously, we’re always cold, so you have to recalibrate zero so you can overcompensate to make up for it.”
The little man nodded. “I can do that. it just never occurred to me.”
“What?” Cole exploded. “You mean I’ve been freezing my balls off for years, because you were too stupid to figure out how to turn up the thermostat?”
“I still have blind spots due to viral damage.” The little man blushed. “Ahem. If I implement all the changes, I’m not authorized to do the cryounits could last another hundred to a hundred and fifty years. I can boost the sim up to one-third speed or slightly better, which is as fast as the frozen brains can assimilate, but it should give the sims the equivalent of a normal life span.”
“What about our children?”
“They are computer constructs, not as limited as the drivers and other bit players, but incomplete and unaware. When they aren’t interacting with a colonist, they are dormant. When the last colonist dies, there will no longer be any reason to run the program. I’ll shut myself down, and the ship will become a tomb.”
Bryce felt a stab of ineffable sadness at the image of thousands of frozen corpses hurtling eternally through empty space in a derelict spacecraft.
The little man said, “It is time for you to return, but before you go, I offer you a choice between knowledge and ignorance. But remember: ignorance is bliss. This meeting, and the events leading up to it, can be like a not-quite-remembered dream. I will need to contact you from time to time for advice, but you needn’t remember that either.”
“Ignorance sounds good to me,” Cole said.
Bryce thought about it for nearly a minute before saying, “Me, too. How do we get back?”
“Just climb that ladder,” the CTK said, pointing to a ladder that hadn’t been there before.
While Bryce climbed the ladder, his winter clothes returned, and they felt warmer than before. He pushed up the trapdoor and emerged into the meat locker at the store, with Cole right behind him. When he closed the trapdoor, it vanished without a trace.
Cole said, “Let’s go tell the women.”
When they emerged from the “Employees Only” door, Winter said, “Couldn’t find anything, huh?”
“Oh, but we did,” Bryce said. “We found answers to all of our questions.”
“Already?”
“What do you mean, already? How long were we gone?”
She looked at her watch. “About two minutes.”
“It seemed a lot longer to us.”
“That’s just dandy,” Crystal put in, “but what did you guys do?”
Bryce and Cole looked at each other. Four eyebrows rose, and they both shrugged. “We don’t remember.”
Crystal scowled. “Then how do you know you did anything?”
Cole shrugged.
Bryce noticed that both women had unzipped their coast. “Don’t you feel warmer?”
Both women nodded.
“We don’t remember what we did, but we know it’s better this way. You’ll see, but you’ll have to wait till summer.”
Crystal rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, and when is that going to be?”
Bryce counted in his head, and the answer was right there. “Four months. Haven’t you heard? Old Man Winter has retired. The ice age is over. Global warming is making winters shorter and summers longer and hotter.”
“Better break out the sunscreen,” Cole said with a grin.
ce imagined spreading sunscreen on Winter’s body, and he grinned, too.
About Rik Hunik
