Chapter 55 — Twiness Protection
The Curve of Time, Chapter 55 —— Twiness Protection, in which Mica gives thought to how time travelers might hide.
Followed by some reflections on possessions.
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— 55 —
Twiness Protection
At the UCLA medical center everything felt wrong. Once again, they were waiting in an exam room, and, once again, Saskia had the sticky discs at the end of the EKG machine’s tentacles affixed up and down her body. There was also a blood oxygen saturation meter attached to her finger, and a blood pressure monitor on her arm.
Mica gently shook her head at Saskia. “Winning lottery isn’t worth your health.”
Saskia concurred that the pain in her chest put a dampener on the idea of multiple jaunts back in time. It was more than that, though; it made her wonder: if the universe had a will of its own, was anything in life not going to plan merely the universe asserting that will to stay on its chosen path. Everybody had experienced that sort of thing; everybody who ever wanted to be president, who had dreams of being an Olympian, but never was; everyone who ever had their heart broken when they were unceremoniously dumped.
Yet, even while she refused to accept her reflection as an excuse for any failures she’d had, Saskia couldn’t help speculating that perhaps obstacles in her life, represented——rather than some god’s test of her, instead——the universe’s attempt to guide her to another path.
But that speculation felt all too fatalistic, and, despite everything, Saskia still believed she had agency. If she tried hard enough—really wanted it badly enough—surely she could bend the universe to her will.
Whatever the case, Saskia was determined that her goal in life wasn’t to guess the universe’s natural path, but to push against it. She would always be an active participant. No matter what!
As she mused, her eyes wandered to an LED hanging in her peripheral vision. And, in a curious firing of synaptic connections, the light at the end of the call-button cord that dangled from her bed frame reminded her of the lantern in front of an anglerfish. Was she an anglerfish? Was the light luring prey to her from the dark depths? Or was it a lure that led her through the world? Was she just a fish following the dangling bait to some preordained destination?
“The way you talk about anglerfish,” Mica interjected, “it’s like they’re a memory.”
“They are.” Saskia smiled. “I saw one once.”
“I want to hear about that.” Contrary to her declaration, though, she stood abruptly. “But I’ve got to pee. Hold the thought?”
Saskia nodded and Mica left the room. She was gone but a minute when a text lit up the screen of Saskia’s phone. It was Wassily.
“Hey. Are you around? I was thinking about your new superpower. I have an idea.”
∞
Walking to the restroom, Mica’s mind took a nostalgic turn back to her first date with Saskia. But nostalgia quickly gave way to the memory of the other Saskia she’d encountered on her way back to their dinner table. She knew now that that second Saskia was no identical twin——but what if there were other duplicate time travelers living in the world? Identical twins would be the perfect cover.
She retreated to a stall and pulled out her phone.
She asked Jeff to search for identical twins with no birth documents, and to cross-reference what he found with lottery winners. Unfortunately, her AI helper misinterpreted “no documentation” and returned a slew of articles on immigrants.
Mica tried cajoling Jeff in the right direction, but her efforts bore no fruit and she switched tack. Instead, she gave Jeff a pictrue she’d taken of Saskia the other day, and tasked him with finding any news articles that featured Saskia under another name.
Jeff returned just one lead. The link was to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. It was dated last week and Mica clicked it.
The headline read: “Mystery Woman Hit By Car”.
A woman——the spitting image of Saskia——had been struck and killed by a car in downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea. Mica was surprised the police had let the paper publish the image of a dead woman, but given they had nothing to go on, it made sense; the police were looking for leads.
She texted the article to Saskia, flushed the toilet and washed her hands.
∞
A pit formed in Saskia’s stomach. Her double was a Jane Doe. And yet, as the first wave of nausea passed, she felt a curious relief. Relief that her double was gone. Before she could engage with the emotion, though, the exam room door opened and Mica was back.
“Where did you find this?” Saskia flashed Mica the screen of her phone.
“I didn’t. Jeff did. I gave him a picture of you and asked him to find any news stories in which you appeared. Rather than a haystack, he narrowed his results to one needle.”
Saskia was mildly affronted, but Mica elaborated that what she’d done was her standard protocol when writing a profile piece. “I can’t believe it took me this long to try it, honestly. It’s got nothing to do with your ability to slip in time.” Her reasoning made sense. Media——social and otherwise——was an inbuilt modern surveillance apparatus, and it took negligible effort to engage.
Still, the world was a big place, and there were plenty of people from Saskia’s past who would safely remain there for the rest of her life, without the need to resort to the fourth dimension to hide. ...“for the rest of her life,” Saskia reflected; her doppelganger’s death reminded her that even her life curve was finite. Death always seemed far off, until it didn’t.
Her grandfather had once made a similar point. He’d assured her that there came a point in life when you understood in your bones that you wouldn’t live forever. “I mean you’re presented with evidence that that’s going to be the case from the moment you’re born,” he’d admitted. “And intellectually you understand it. Probably most people do before they’re ten. But actually understanding it ...” he’d trailed off in thought. “You have to see someone you know die. One of your peers.”
In her grandfather’s view, witnessing a death was the basest prerequisite to understanding that your own life was finite. Even so, it didn’t always suffice.
Saskia recalled her grandfather shaking his head wistfully. “For some people——they need to get really sick. For others, they even need to lose some of the functionality they once had. That hits it home for most people, if they haven’t already understood.”
Saskia had been surprised, but he’d contended this generally happened by forty——forty wasn’t so far away now.
“You can’t delude yourself much past that point,” he’d asserted. “Sure, you can pick a new sport or hobby, but most things you’ve already done well, at least physical things——well, you’re unlikely to surpass your younger self again. That’s enough to convince most people that finite really means finite.”
“So, at forty the possibilities of the universe stop feeling unbounded?” Saskia had asked as she gave him a gentle dig in his side.
“You’ve still got a few years.” He’d winked back at her.
Saskia wondered how seeing her own double’s death fit in to her grandfather’s reasoning.
“There was something else,” Mica interrupted Saskia’s memory. “I was thinking about the other you, the one I saw, back at Cleo’s. Back then, I thought that was your twin.”
Saskia shifted uncomfortably. Was it time to admit she, too, had seen herself. Had talked with herself.
Happily, Mica continued: “What if there are hundreds of you——of time travelers more generally——hiding in plain sight. Identical twins. It’d be like witness protection, but with twins. Twiness protection,” Mica coined the phrase.
Saskia mused that the decrease in anonymity in the world would have made it more necessary. Sure, the transition from printed to digital media had removed the possibility of robbing a bank on one side of the country and living a life of luxury on the proceeds on the other, but the cheapness of new AI facial recognition technology made even low profile fugitive flight less tenable. And shifting through time only helped if you could go a long way.
“This story”——Mica held up her phone——“stayed local. Its biggest jump was to the SF Chronicle, where it warranted a couple of sentences buried in the middle.”
Saskia felt uncomfortably backed into a corner. She considered admitting that she too had seen the other version of herself outside the restroom on their first date, but what was the upside? It would only reveal that she’d kept quiet about it to this point, and with her double now dead, there was no chance of being accidentally exposed.
It was a weird to have a dead doppelganger that she didn’t know——no, that wasn’t right; Saskia knew the dead woman intimately, up to a point, a point in time. After that ...was there a way that she could be sure that the Jane Doe was the version of herself that they’d both encountered outside the restroom at Cleo’s? The same one she’d encountered at her home a day later.
A perfunctory knock on the exam room door brought her back to the present and the doctor entered the room.
That was chapter 55, Friends, I hope you enjoyed it!
For myself, I found it interesting re-reading through this chapter in the context of the recent fires in LA, which have served, for me at least, as a reminder of the ephemerality of life and our possessions. We spend so much time accumulating stuff. Stuff from important keepsakes to garden gadgets. At least I know I’m guilty of the later.
Even keepsakes, though, aren’t always for memory’s sake; sometimes they are tokens retained to validate how I’ve spent my time. It’s an odd thing when I reflect on it sincerely.
As I’ve mentioned previously, my wife and I are at the precipice of empty nesting, and relocating to a more rural setting. This has necessitated taking stock of our garage of boxes. Truthfully, my wife has been more diligently doing so than I have. In my mind, I have but one big box of cards and photos——from back in the day when photos weren’t digital——a box I have not opened in a dozen years. That that is one box and our garage is full is not lost on me. I know there must be others.
Of course, some of those other boxes are filled with belongings that I might later need. An ironic aspirational sentiment belied by the dust that covers them. Donations here we come. I do love recycling and reusing. In related news, my one new year’s resolution this year is a commitment to do my future clothes shopping exclusively from thrift stores; well, except for sox and climbing shoes. I see this as a triple win, as thrift store clothes are invariably more unique, more budget friendly, and they cut down on the glut of disposability. If you haven’t tried thrifting recently I highly recommend it, especially if you have teenage daughters; it’s a wonderful way to bond.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
PS. If you think of someone who might enjoy joining us on this experiment, please forward them this email. And if you are one of those someone’s and you’d like to read more
