This is the third scene of Algorithmic Timestamp: Elliot has received the results from Temperdu. He has seventeen years left to live. But the girl he has just met, Rhea Harlow, has less than a day to live. According to the plugin, at least.
Return to the first scene of the story: Temperdu in District Zero
Read the previous scene of the story: Due Date
Elliot met up with Rhea the day she was scheduled to die. The place where she worked was called Reset & Restore. A technology rehab center in the middle of a forest far away from civilization or any kind of tech. It was only a few miles out from the edge of the city, but no automated transport could get you there because signal broke down.
Elliot had to walk the last three miles on an unused road in the rain. The force field that would’ve served as his umbrella didn’t work either, probably because it relied on signal. He didn’t know; those things usually worked. Anyway, it was a relief to enter the forest, where the thick canopy provided at least some shelter. The things one does for a girl, he thought. Their first actual date and he’d look like a drowned rat. Why had he agreed to meet here?
He knew why. Because this was her day. When Temperdu had said she would die. He felt the knot in his stomach tighten. The whole thing was just a scam. It had to be. He thought of what his mom had said. There was no way such revolutionary technology could exist while also staying underground at the same time. He had to forget about it. Jaxon and his rogue gifts. Actually, he hadn’t yet asked his friend what his results were. How long he had left. And he couldn’t message him because the signal was off. Frustrating.
Reset & Restore eventually emerged between the trees. A group of squat buildings, none more than two floors high, with many windows and even more plants inside. In one building, a group of people sitting in a circle, one playing guitar, the others clapping and singing. Some other people scattered here and there, some reading physical books, some in lotus position, upright with their eyes closed. Elliot groaned. This was what everyone in the city always said about these offline centers. A bunch of hippies. He stopped and hesitated, unsure which building to enter but also considering just turning back.
“Elliot!” Rhea said and his thoughts of leaving rushed out of his mindspace when he saw her hea walking to him, holding an old-fashioned umbrella. She pecked him on the cheek and linked arms with him. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I should’ve told you to bring an actual umbrella. Force fields don’t work here.”
“It’s okay,” he said (it wasn’t). His shoes squeaked as they entered the nearest building into an open reception area without monitors or panels or even someone human. Rhea leaned over the desk and reached for what turned out to be a towel, which he gratefully accepted. “So this is where you work?” he asked.
“It is. Although it’s really more my home than anywhere else. I have a place in the city that I return to at night, but that’s because only clients can sleep in the center. Not the staff.”
“So you don’t have a room here?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Subtle.”
Elliot felt his cheeks warm and held up his hands. “That’s not what I meant. You’re the one with the dirty mind.”
She laughed, took the towel back from him, and threw it behind the reception. “Sure it wasn’t. But no, I don’t have a room here. Only clients do. I’ll show you around, but before I do that, just one more thing. You need to turn off your interface.”
He frowned. “Are you serious?” He quickly pinged her. No reach. “I’m local already. Signal turned off the moment I came close to this place,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s the rules. You get used to it pretty quickly. Over time, you even enjoy it. Mine is off most of the time, even in the city. I only turn it on when I really have to.”
“I can’t remember the last time I turned it off. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“It’s pretty good tech. It can handle a restart.”
Elliot had to remind himself that this was supposed to be a date. It didn’t feel like one so far, but perhaps that was because of him. “Sure,” he said, trying to sound casual but vaguely afraid as he navigated his settings and turned off his interface. His vision blurred, then cleared, this time without the time top right and notifications top left. He felt naked and immediately wanted to turn it back on. He looked at Rhea. “It’s off,” he said.
“Good,” she said and she smiled at him in a way he couldn’t place. As if that had been a test. She led him through a hallway into a large dimly lit room with deep chairs, bean bags, and a wall of glass on which the rain tapped and ticked. Scattered throughout the room were bookshelf towers on swivels, each with at least a hundred physical books. Half a dozen people were sitting, reading, lounging. The occasional scrape of the next page. Nobody looked up as they walked by.
Elliot took a seat on a two-seater sofa. Rhea didn’t sit down next to him as he had expected, but laid her head in his lap and threw her legs over the edge of the sofa. His heart skipped a few beats. “So these are clients? Why do they come here?” he asked quietly, trying to hide both his excitement and discomfort.
“You don’t ever think it’s too much?” she asked.
“What is?”
She tapped her temple. “All the tech.”
Daringly, he laid his hand on her stomach. She didn’t shove it off. Life was good. “I don’t know. I’ve not given it much thought, really. It’s always been part of my life. It’s weird having the interface off.”
She laid her hand on his. “That’s good. Some people don’t take it that well. They want to lead a quieter life, but find that they can’t. Society doesn’t let them. They feel like they can’t escape. Sometimes, that manifests in destructive behavior. But there is an escape. And it’s here.”
Elliot looked around the room. “They stay here their whole lives?” The people didn’t look particularly strange. Certainly not like people with destructive behavior. They looked just like him, albeit older than he was.
“Some do, in a sense. When they regain a sense of control over their lives, some clients opt to work here. Others travel to offline centers farther away from the city. There are many. Good places. Some return to the city, although there’s not many who do.”
“And how did you end up working here?”
Her eyes glittered in the dim light. “You can’t guess?”
Elliot’s eyes widened. He leaned forward, closer to her face. “You were a client? But you’re so young,” he said.
She laughed, the joyful sound a brief tear in the fabric of silence. “Age has nothing to do with it. My parents installed my interface when I was three. It was too much data, too much tension. I wasn’t a good child growing up. Caused a lot of trouble. Some would say I still do. But maybe not for long anymore, if I’m to believe the plugin.”
Elliot was jolted back to reality. He’d almost forgotten about Temperdu. “That’s not funny. We only just met. How are you sure it’s not real?”
Rhea sat upright and crossed her legs, still with a smirk on her face. “Because, when I turned on my interface yesterday to check the results, it offered a paid subscription to extend my lifespan. If only I signed up, it’d send through tips right away. Five hundred dollars a month.”
“That’s expensive. But then, it is life we’re talking about.”
“It’s also a ton of crap. Let’s say I’m actually going to die today. What kind of health tip would immediately extend my lifespan? Go for a walk? Insert a tonic? Pshhhh. I only agreed to do it because your friend paid for it. I knew it was going to be some kind of scam. I’m not paying anything.”
Elliot felt relieved. Evidence was growing that Temperdu was nothing but a blackpill. What a way to make money though. Trick a hundred people and you’re on fifty gee a month. Still, he wasn’t entirely at ease. Jaxon had seemed very convinced that it worked. “You think it’s just malware?” he asked Rhea. “I tried uninstalling it yesterday, but couldn’t find it with the other plugins.”
She stood and pulled him up. “One thing you learn when you’re in tech rehab is how strong our bodies are. Neurons win over bits any time of day. I’m not worried. And I don’t want you to be either, okay? Get it out of your head. Here, let me show you around the center.”
The center was much bigger than Elliot had originally guessed, with many buildings hidden in the forest that he hadn’t seen when he entered. They explored the canteen that overlooked the farms where they grew food for everyone, the entertainment room with tactile games like billiards and chess, and a whole building dedicated to therapy, yoga, and other forms of what Rhea called holistic learning.
Different from the city’s sharp, angular designs, the buildings in Reset & Restore had a soft aesthetic and made no attempt to sharply distinguish themselves from their surroundings. They had a dreamy quality that was reinforced in the time Elliot spent with Rhea. He only realized hours had passed when he looked outside and saw his reflection against the darkness. “I need to go home,” Elliot said. “This has been really nice,” he said and she agreed and they kissed for the first time that day.
Rhea was going back to the city as well. They hiked through the forest and the fields to the edge of the city, this time with an umbrella because it hadn’t yet stopped raining. Elliot’s bus arrived first. He took a seat and eagerly turned on his interface, scanning through everything he had missed throughout the day, which was both a lot and not much at all given how great a day he’d had.
He was halfway home when he received the ping everyone dreaded. The ping that something had happened to one of his contacts. It could be anyone, he thought before accessing the information, but somehow he already knew who it would be. A robobike had slipped in the rain and crashed into a pedestrian. Rhea Harlow had died on the spot. Elliot leaned his head against the seat in front of him and tried to hide his tears. Temperdu had been accurate after all.
Return to the first scene of the story: Temperdu in District Zero
Read the next scene of the the story: Intradermal Insulation
Hmm. I'm suspicious. You decide not to pay the bill to "extend your life" and then you die. Sounds like temperdu works by making sure its prediction is accurate.