This is the second scene of Algorithmic Timestamp: Elliot Sterling has just turned eighteen. He wakes up in Jaxon’s apartment, the memories of last night only slowly coming back to him.
Algorithmic Timestamp #2: Due Date
Algorithmic Timestamp #7 (scheduled for 2 May)
Elliot became aware that he was asleep. He was nothing but his thoughts in an infinite room of darkness that was as much part of him as his thoughts were. Was this a lucid dream? Elliot tried to bend the room to his will and imagined he stood on a hilly field of grass. Nothing changed, but as he felt his way around the room with his mind, trying to change it, he discovered another presence. Something that both was and wasn’t part of him. It was invisible, unchangeable, an undefinable something that was watching him closely.
Elliot didn’t like it. Wherever he turned, there it was.
“Wake up,” it said and it touched his shoulder. He squirmed at the touch, then realized this was impossible. He had no physical body in his dream. “Wake up,” it said again but this time it was a woman’s voice. This wasn’t a dream anymore. He was awake and opened one eye.
Sunlight filtered through the blinds of a room he didn’t recognize. He was lying against the back cushions of a hard sofa. The girl he’d met yesterday stood in front of him, fully dressed. Rhea, he remembered. Memories of last night were still hard to get by. He reached from underneath a thin blanket and grabbed her hand. “Stay,” he said.
She smiled. “I would, but I have to work. Come visit me Saturday,” she said and she sent a location to his interface.
Elliot watched her go, through the open living room into the hallway. She was beautiful. “Bye,” he said as she closed the door. He couldn’t believe his luck. This had been the best birthday of his life. He pulled the blanket back over him, then jolted upright. It was Friday and he had to be at school. He jumped up, pulled on his clothes, and rushed out of what he now realized was Jaxon’s apartment. Such a blitz place, art on the wall and everything, while he still lived with his mom.
That reminded him. As he rode the elevator down, he removed the custom rule that had blocked his mom’s access to his interface. Immediately, she called. “That was a nice thing to do,” she said, her tone thick with irony.
“I need to go to school. I’ll see you tonight,” he said as he ran out of the building and was almost run over by a robotaxi turning a corner. Oh yes. Jaxon’s birthday present, the plugin he’d paid for. Temperdu or something, which could apparently predict how long you’d live based on your thoughts and actions. Bullcrap. He slowed down and made sure there were no cars zooming his way as he crossed the street.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay and I’m sure you had a good time,” his mom said. “A very happy birthday, my boy. You’ll be home for dinner?”
“Thanks, mom. I’ll be home,” he said. She hung up and he stepped on a levitator bus that would drop him off nearby school. Safer and cheaper than taking a taxi. He’d miss biology, but he’d find some excuse. That he’d woken up feeling poorly, almost hadn’t come to school, which was a pretty blatant lie because he felt remarkably good given how much he’d drunk yesterday. That tablet Jaxon had given him had really worked. What a great night. He looked up the location Rhea had sent him. Someplace far from the city in the middle of the sticks. A tech rehab center called Reset & Restore. Interesting.
The schoolday went by unremarkably. It was a good sign that few knew about his birthday. Jaxon had always told him to keep his digiprofile tight, and he had. There was little to find about Elliot Sterling on the Net. He wondered if that would impact the results Temperdu would come back with. His due date. Not that it mattered. There was no way a plugin could accurately guess when someone would die. It was a gimmick and he had to forget about it. And yet, when Temperdu sent him the result on his way back home, he couldn’t help but be affected by it.
Seventeen years and twelve days.
That was when the algorithm thought he would die. Just over thirty-five years old. Ridiculously early, not scientific at all, worse than pseudo. He slammed the door shut, threw his shoes off, and put on some warm slippers.
The house smelled of turkey gumbo, his favorite. His mother was in the kitchen, serving some of it in a deep plate. “Birthday boy,” she said when she saw him. He sat down at the table and she put the plate in front of him, shredded turkey meat and sausage floating in brown sauce. “Good day at school?” she asked, tentatively, already aware something was bothering him. She was a police officer and had always been a good observer.
“Mom, have you ever heard of Temperdu?” he asked
“Thank you. And no, I’ve not heard of it,” she said. “Why?”
Elliot shrugged as he dug into the gumbo. Exactly the right amount of spice. “This is delicious,” he said without looking up.
“You can tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Is it something from last night? I promise I won’t be angry.”
He knew he’d made a mistake. While he didn’t know exactly what his mother did for the police, he knew she interrogated people. She wouldn’t drop a topic if she knew it would lead somewhere. Not that he’d done anything wrong. He’d gone dancing. Drank a little. Installed a stupid plugin. That was all. He went into his settings to uninstall it, but couldn’t even find it among his other plugins. Jaxon had said it was clean. Where was it then? Had it uninstalled on its own?
“There’s this plugin,” he said. “It supposedly predicts exactly how much longer you have to live. People rave about it. I’ve got seventeen years, apparently.” He threw his mother a weak smile.
She looked at him for a few seconds. Behind her eyes, Elliot could almost see how she was calculating her response. She chose to smile. “You’re not one to do things like this.”
“I’m a pretty good son.”
“You are. What’s it called again?”
“What?”
“The plugin.”
“Temperdu. You can’t find it on the Net,” he said, certain she was going to search for it. “You get it from a dispenser at the back of this club.” She kept looking at him. “District Zero, the club’s called.”
She returned her gaze to the gumbo and nodded her head. “Seventeen years isn’t bad,” she said. “Plenty of time to get me a grandchild.”
Elliot rolled his eyes. “Not funny,” he said and he felt his cheeks warming. Surely she wouldn’t know about Rhea already. There was no way she knew.
She grabbed his hand from across the table. “Don’t worry about it, Elliot. Even if an algorithm existed to predict such a thing, it would be owned by insurance companies. You wouldn’t be able to get it from a dispenser in a club. Just promise me you won’t install plugins like that again. The real risk of such a plugin isn’t in what it says it will do, but in what it actually does.”
She was right. If Temperdu worked, it would be worth trillions of dollars. Insurance companies would have sniffed it out the second it came on the market. “I promise,” he said and he smiled, comforted. Still, later that day in the darkness of his bedroom he couldn’t help but message Rhea to ask what her results were.
Tomorrow haha, she replied. But let’s still meet.
Algorithmic Timestamp #2: Due Date
Algorithmic Timestamp #7 (scheduled for 2 May)
Loved this. Suspense, romance, futuristic. Can't wait for more