Page 83 of Middlegame

Roger stares for a moment. Then, quickly, he begins to move.

The last thing Erin does is set the house on fire.

She does it with swift precision, touching the Hand of Glory to the aged wood of the front porch and stepping back as the flames begin to leap, growing too fast and voraciously to be ordinary. When the entire front of the house is wreathed in crackling flame, she turns and walks to the sidewalk, where Roger is waiting.

“We need to stand here for a few minutes,” she says. “The Hand of Glory will keep anyone who shouldn’t see us from noticing that we exist, and we want the fire to get a good grasp on the interior before we go.”

“You burned the Life Sciences Annex,” he says.

If Erin is surprised by the non sequitur, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she just nods. “Yes. I did. With the body of your friend inside. I had to. It was an order.”

“From the people you say ‘made’ us.” His voice turns bitter at the end, twisting the single syllable in “made” until it almost breaks. “Did they also tell you to kill Smita?”

“Yes.” People are emerging from their houses, pointing at the fire, exclaiming over it, ordering one another to call 911. A few seem a little too interested. They’ll be the ones who have dreams of fire over the next days, the ones whose eyes get bright when they see a candle. The dangerous ones.

“Why?”

“Because your blood would have told her that you’re not real. You and your sister were made, not born. You’re too close to identical to be fraternal, and too different to be identical. She was a smart woman with a problem to work at. She would have figured out that something was wrong. The people who designed you don’t want anyone sniffing around their doors. She had to be removed.”

“But—”

“We’ve been over this. Believe me, we’ve been over this. I’ve even spared her a few times, when I thought we could risk it. You know what happened? Shit got bad faster. We wound up at the zero point faster. You had less time to get comfortable in the language of your own skin. Dodger had less time to figure out how to work the numbers. We died faster. So don’t argue with me on this. It sucks that she died. I hate that I killed her. But she died quick and she died clean and we got to live in peace for this long, and on the balance of things, I’ll take it. My life over hers, period.”

The roof caves in with a soft crackling sound. Someone has called 911; the sound of sirens fills the air. Slowly, Roger realizes that no one is pointing at them. No one is approaching to ask if they’re okay. They’ve lived in this neighborhood for years, and their neighbors are acting as if they don’t even exist.

“What—” he begins.

“I told you,” says Erin, and takes his hand, and leads him over to the nearest cluster of rubberneckers.

“Do you think they got out in time?” one of them is asking. He’s in his bathrobe and nothing else, barefoot on the pavement.

“I hope so,” says another. Her eyes flick past the place where Roger stands like he’s not even there. For her, he isn’t. “They were such a sweet couple.”

“We’re already past tense for these people,” says Erin. “Let them be past tense for you, too. Come on. We need to find your sister, before it’s too late.”

Roger hasn’t liked to drive since the earthquake, but that doesn’t mean that a car isn’t sometimes necessary. Theirs is parked on the street. Somehow, none of the neighbors notice when he starts it up and pulls away. A few even step to the side to avoid being hit, but no one points, no one says “hey, there’s Roger and Erin, they’re alive.” They all just keep staring at the fire, and Roger and Erin drive away, shrouded by the Hand of Glory, into an uncertain future.

GALILEO

Timeline: 14:31 PDT, June 16, 2016 (the same day).

Dodger’s keys jingle, juggling her purse and two bags of groceries as she unlocks the door. The sun gnaws at her back and shoulders, bright and hot and uncompromising. The drought means the honeysuckle she would normally have asked her gardener to encourage around the doorway has withered to a thin, clinging vine that provides no shade for moments like these. It’s inconvenient, but a few extra bottles of sunscreen are a small price to pay for a state that’s marginally less parched.

(She’s done the math: the increase in showering to rinse away all those skin care products is actually greater than the water requirements of her honeysuckle. But her neighborhood is upscale enough to be snobby, and exclusive enough to be nosy. There have been a few “anonymous” tips to the water board about people whose lawns were too green or whose gardens seemed a bit too healthy. Even Ms. Stewart down on the corner has had to endure her share of “water shaming” over her roses, and she’s eighty years old, with rosebushes that are only slightly younger. A few showers are also a small price to pay, this time for the prize of being left alone by neighbors with nothing better to do.)

The air inside the house is cool and dry. It smells clean, to her. On the rare occasions when she’s had people over, they’ve found that comforting cleanness unnervingly sterile, asking her nervously whether she’s just had a cleaning service in. More than anything, those reactions have taught her that she shouldn’t have people in her home. It’s hers, after all. She gets to keep it however she likes, as long as she’s not endangering herself or others. If she were breeding cockroaches in the pantry or conducting mold experiments in the bathroom, confusion and even disgust would be warranted. She’s never done either of those things. She’s just kept everything clean enough to live up to its full potential. Shouldn’t that be rewarded?

The door slams behind her as she makes her way to the kitchen. Some of the groceries need to be put away before they start to defrost. Others need to be put away because groceries don’t belong on the counter. Once that’s done, she can get back to work, secure in the knowledge that she’s done her errands and interacted with humanity today. Her psychologist wants her to interact with humanity every day if she possibly can; he says her tendency to self-isolate isn’t healthy and will only improve if she makes an effort.

Dodger Cheswich, self-help guru of the modern nerd, seeking help with her own self. It would be comic, if it weren’t so frustrating.

She’s expecting stillness, calm, and cleanness when she reaches the kitchen. She’s also expecting darkness: the house stays cooler if she keeps the shades drawn when she’s not home. Opening the shades would be too difficult with the groceries she’s carrying, and so she goes for the easier, more ecologically wasteful option, flicking on the kitchen lights. The energy-efficient bulbs spring to life, illuminating the kitchen and dining area. Which is clean, yes, clean enough that virtually every surface is safe to eat off of, and still, yes. But it isn’t empty.

Her psychologist, Dr. Peters, is sitting at her dining room table. He has a gun in his hand. The gun is pointed at her.

The strangeness of this tableau causes Dodger to freeze, expression shifting to one of profound puzzlement. Dr. Peters says nothing. For a long moment, neither does she. Then, in a politely baffled voice, she asks, “Is this a new therapy technique? Did I approve this when I signed the new insurance paperwork last week? Because I don’t think I like it.” She didn’t approve this, she knows that much. Dodger may not be a recreational reader, but she’s never signed anything she didn’t understand. For someone in her line of work, that would be tantamount to career suicide.

“Put the bags down, Miss Cheswich,” says Dr. Peters. “I don’t want to upset you any more than I have to.”