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Yeah, this bit will definitely want rewriting…

It took me a bit to get the hang of looking things up on the cell phone, but it wasn’t long before I was reading everything I could about theories of immortality and, as my study took me that way, about the singularity as well.

How far into the future would we have to go? The estimates came back that it probably wouldn’t be very far—not more than a hundred years, and maybe less than fifty. It was surprising but a relief—surely a conservative hundred-year jump would be a lot better than a blind million-year jump into who-knows-what kind of future.

Now at this point I was really only looking. Even though I’d just seen myself a lot older and I didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, and even though immortality was in the offing, a trip into a technological singularity was still a bit much for me. But I knew it’d have to be done—especially since Ralph had taken a break from the new movies Steve had brought and was looking over my shoulder.

“The singularity, eh? That’s what Steve was talking about, isn’t it?” he asked, reading over my screen. “A super-futuristic future—count me in!”

Previous | First

This piece was actually written a long time before the previous two. Thus the continuity doesn’t quite join with what’s already been shown. I’ll need to update the facts—which may steer the conversation differently—but till then, you can have this slightly less canonical dialogue.

I woke up the next morning with Ralph’s arm around me, his body pressed against mine. I stayed still, not wanting to wake him, and thought about what my future self had said.

…I don’t want to lose Ralph. I don’t.

…I don’t want to lose Ralph.

…I don’t.

I rolled over to face him. His eyes were open… he was watching me.

“You’ve been shaking, babe.” he said. “Is something wrong?”

I kissed him. I tried to smile, but he was right—I was shaking. I couldn’t hide it.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

“Why should you be losing me?” he said.

“Unless we die together,” I said, “One of us will have to go first. And you’re the adventurer.”

He laughed. “I’ll give you that,” he said. “But that was true before tonight, too. Why’s it on your mind tonight?”

I hesitated, but not for long. I’m not keeping anything from Ralph. “We weren’t the only ones to come back to tonight.” I told him about the visit from my future self.

“He came alone,” Ralph said. “Was he… like… old?”

“I couldn’t tell, in the dark. Middle-aged, certainly.”

“Did he ask you not to tell me?”

“What?”

“It’s important. Did he tell you not to tell me?” he sat up, excited.

“He did.”

“But you did,” he said. “Things are changing.”

“How do you know?”

“He didn’t come back to inform you, he came… you came back to change it. And if you’re telling yourself not to tell me, but you told me anyway, then we’ve already changed timelines. If you’d remembered yourself telling me, you wouldn’t have told yourself not to tell me.”

“What…” I shook my head. “What if me telling you was the thing I’m coming back to change?”

“You wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“I just did!”

“If that was the important part of the message, you’d be stressing it more,” he said, “Enough that your past self wouldn’t crack at first questioning, like you did. The game’s different now, babe. Don’t worry.” He put his arms around me and held me to him. “Trust me.”

“I’m still afraid,” I said, into his chest.

“Then let’s get that fear behind us,” he said. “We’ve got a better computer now, so how about we hunt down immortality next?”

“What?”

“It’ll be discovered eventually, right? We’ve got to find it.”

“Ralph, you’re crazy.”

He just grinned at me. “I’m gonna love ya forever, babe, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” I said. I pounced him, kissed him hard, and kept him too busy to talk till noon.