BY JOEL TAGERT | ART BY JASON WHITE For decades now we have been overcome with nostalgia. Our stories take place in a romanticized past, or a simplified present, or a future that looks curiously ancient, swords and spaceships side by side. We seem unable to conjure a plausible vision of what is to come, and maunder listlessly through dystopias and armageddons. We shrink from the future, sensing in technological development the likely inevitability of two possible outcomes: the destruction of humanity, or the rending of reality into an incomprehensible fluid. — Dr. Zara Deniz Maya leaned into the reflection, face and forehead swelling, body shrinking away to nothing. There was something disturbing to her about it, a too-apt visual metaphor. She had read the Bean was actually named Cloud Gate, which also could serve to describe the before-andafter of neuroport installation, romantically regarded. But really it was just a big funhouse mirror. Which was also fitting. No sooner had this thought passed than another figure loomed behind her, a long white face painted with a big red smile, a bright green derby hat three sizes too small perched on a bald pointy head. She spun around so fast she nearly fell into the Bean. “What was that?” her cousin Lauren said, looking incredulous. Because there was no one there, just the usual crowd of tourists. A middle-aged guy in bulky flannel and sunglasses lowered his camera. “I, I — I don’t know. I thought someone was there.” “I guess someone is. Lots of someones.” “No, I thought — never mind.” Lauren raised her eyebrows. “Girl, you are wound up tight, you know that? Need to get you a drink or a joint or something.” “Sure. Yeah, why not.” They walked to Miller’s Pub and sat in a dark booth. She ordered a beer and a reuben and then said she had to go to the bathroom. Once in the stall she put in her earbuds and said, “Ava?” No answer. “Ava? I need to talk to you. I need help. Come on, please.” A toilet paper roll squeaked in the next stall over and Maya paused her plea until its occupant had left. “Ava, I don’t know what I’m doing. I think something strange is happening.” She waited, but no answer came. In fact Ava hadn’t spoken to her since the operation, which was upsetting because her guardian AI had been a major factor in Maya agreeing to it in the first place. Since then she’d gone about her life, more or less, waiting, following a meager trail of clues that might conceivably lead to her daughter, gone these many years. She sighed, feeling tired and confused, rubbing at the back of her head where the implant was. But the procedure had left no scar and she might as well have imagined it. She went pee because she was sitting there already then got up to wash her hands. Maybe she should just go home. Back to Boise. Back to waiting tables and wondering what the hell had happened to her life. As she looked up at the mirror she noticed a spiderweb strung between the two hanging lights above the sink. WAIT, the threads read. Her jaw dropped. She was not imagining it. There was a word in the web, a sign in the spidersilk. As she watched, a largish black spider delicately highstepped from behind one lamp and began deconstructing the text, line by line, until it was just an ordinary web again. But it was a message — the first she’d had in over eight weeks. How had Ava done it? A robotic spider? No, of course not — it was the neuroport, the manipulation of her own optic nerve. “Feel better?” Lauren asked when she got back. “Yes, actually.” “Good, because you were gone about a year. Listen, we should go out dancing. Celebrate, you know? It’s been, like, years since we went out together. I bet if I call Raph and Pia they’ll come out too. Do they even know you’re here?” “No, I kept meaning to call them, but— ” “I’m calling them right now. We’re doing it.” “I really don’t want to.” They went back and forth on it, but it was still early in any case and they took an autocab back to the brownstone in Wicker Park that Lauren shared with her friends Nat and Amara. They smoked pot, they drank, and all the while Lauren’s thumbs were flying on her phone until the doorbell rang and Raph and Pia were there squealing Maya’s name. Shit, she hadn’t seen those two in a minute. Then Marisol showed up, and Lenny, and Serena and Xan, and suddenly it was like half their old crew was there, and it was a party after all and Maya was wondering why she’d been so damn tense. You know why. Her baby girl, gone in a whirl of lights. But Maya deserved her own life. They danced in the kitchen, and Xan was giving her appreciative looks, asking her where she lived, joking and flirting. She turned, liking the feeling of his height behind her, and opened her eyes to the reflection in the kitchen window. The clown was behind her, holding a balloon. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, it said. His eyes were the same yellow as his teeth. She lurched for the door. Outside night had fallen. A bat flitted across the light above the door. She peered into the corners of the little backyard, stood on her tiptoes to peer over the fence. Xan had followed her. “Hey, you okay? You just like, ran out of there.” “I’m fine. Sorry. I just suddenly felt sick. Thought I might throw up.” 7
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