Chapter Text

The first time I really met Haley was the second time I saw her. The first had been a movie night arranged by mutual friends. We sat next to each other in the dark of the theater, but I got barely more than an impression of perfume and an occasional elbow in my forearm. In the lobby afterwards she was awfully cute, but so quiet I thought I’d offended her somehow. When she texted me several days later about getting a coffee, it took me completely by surprise.

We agreed on a coffee shop midway between us, and a time, and then I misjudged the drive and got there much earlier than I should have. It was a lucky move. When she came in I already had a drink, and I had a chance to observe quietly while she scanned the room for our table. It’s true that we’re never more ourselves than when we think nobody is watching. In that moment, meeting a virtual stranger in a coffee shop, she was confident, and calm, and completely in control of herself. She wasn’t any more than five feet tall but she had a piercing look in her eye that said the world was going to come to heel when she called it. She had long black hair, and a full length black skirt to match, with a white jacket thrown over her shoulders to keep off the unseasonable chill. I noticed with some alarm that she was carrying a clipboard- had I been looking at the wrong person all this time? But then she saw me smiling at her and beelined for the table.

Pulling up a seat, she sat down and took a long look at me, assessing, not indifferent but not warm. I coughed, feeling a little bit exposed, and reached out a hand. “Hi! I’m Sean, nice to meet you again, uh, if you don’t mind me asking- what’s with the clipboard?”

She jumped like she’d been shocked and blushed a little. Had she- did she forget that I was capable of speech? “Oh, uh, hello! Yes. Trevor’s told me about you. I’m Haley, niceties, etcetera-” She actually pronounced etcetera rather than ramble on, I found that oddly charming- “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions before we begin? To, you know, establish compatibility.” She waggled the clipboard with one hand, indicating, I supposed, that this was where my… compatibility… was to be assessed.

“Uh. I mean. Yes, of course, and now I feel a little silly that I don’t have a list of questions for you, but isn’t that kind of thing that one usually establishes through first date conversation? I don’t feel like I’m at my best when doing a performance evaluation, you know?”

She considered that- really considered it, in that way a person has when you can see them retreating inward mentally for a moment. “Noted. I promise not to rely on any biases established in the initial interview except those related to the values you express a preference for. I know it’s a bit odd, but it seems much better to get the big answers in advance rather than discover later on that there’s some mutual incompatibility after we’ve grown… attached, I guess.”

Damn girl, who hurt you? Was what I thought, but what I said was “Well that seems wise, and I’m a big fan of preparedness. So, what’ve you got for me. Kids? Career path?”

She held her clipboard up and produced a pen from out of nowhere, peering at me over the top. “Question 1: What is your core utility function?”

Uh. “Come again?”

“Consider a set of choices facing you, to which you may assign preference. Absent the need for food, shelter, companionship and so on, what metric would you use to assign a preference ordering?”

Okay, this was not where I thought my conversation was going to go this evening. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to seem slow but- you’re asking about, like, career goals here?”

"It’s fine, I told you I’m not going to factor the establishing conversation into my evaluation, just the answers. Not your career goals- unless those are to satisfy a higher need than an income stream. If you had every need in your life met, what would you do with yourself?” She continued to stare at me over the clipboard, as if this was the world’s most natural topic for a first date over coffee. I supposed that for her it might be- my assessment of her intellect was rapidly climbing, with a number of question marks appearing next to ‘Social skills,’ and somewhere in the back of my mind a thread was spun off just to kick myself for the extremely misogynist assumption that I was going to be the one leading this dance. But I liked it. I wanted to see where she was going with this.

"It seems like the kind of question that people should have an answer for,” I said, “But I guess it’s been so long since I even considered the possibility of having every need met that I’ve lost sight of what my answer would be. I guess… I’d like to explore, and create art, and teach others about the things I’d seen. I’d go find the secret fire and bring it back to humanity.” Suitably profound, I thought. “Can I ask you the same question?”

She nodded smartly. “It’s only fair. I would like to save the world.”

In spite of myself I barked out a laugh, and then immediately felt terrible for it as she glared at me. “I’m sorry, that just took me by surprise. That’s an intensely noble goal, but… save it from what?”

"From everything. From itself. Climate change, nuclear war, an asteroid strike- my preference would be- is- to find a way to shield the human race from these things and any others that might threaten them. The physical Earth itself is a secondary goal. I mean the only way to make humanity truly immune to extinction events is probably to spread it to the stars.”

I shook my head. “But how would you even go about doing it? You’re talking about having resources to meet your needs, not a genie on hand.”

She nodded again. “Of course, but a utility function isn’t a wish. It is the metric you use to evaluate your choices. If life is a series of options, my function is a knife I can use to pare down to those that bring me closer to my goal- even if only infinitesimally- and those that don’t.”

“Okay, but… how could you know what was going to bring you closer? If you had to choose between a path where you learned nuclear physics and a path where you became a fabulously wealthy financial analyst, which would you pick? If I were going to apply mine, I’d pick the physics because it better suits my need for exploration and, in this scenario, my financial needs are already met. But for you, one might be a step on the path to discovering cold fusion or something, but the other would allow you to influence policy on a global scale. Without any knowledge of the future, how does your utility function help you?”

She smiled, and I realized it was the first smile she’d given me since our conversation began. She was truly enjoying this, I decided- which was good because I was too. “It’s a matter of probability. With a bit of math it should be easy to figure out what the odds are of me making a world-changing discovery in physics, versus the odds of me meaningfully altering global policy toward my preferences just through political donation. Assuming those were the only two options, of course. But, to put myself on the spot- if given a choice between knowledge and power, which is really what you’re offering here, I would choose power every time. Knowledge can be wielded by the powerful, but seldom grants power itself. You would choose knowledge, of course, which is a perfectly legitimate answer and seems like it speaks well to our compatibility.”

Did it? Well, it was nice that she thought so. “It’s nice that you think so?” I said. I was feeling like a real grade-A brain genius at this point. “So it kind of sounds like you feel there are only two real utility functions in the end and the rest is just moralizing. Knowledge, or Power? The ability to shape the world or the wisdom to know what to do with it?”

She bobbed her head to the left, accepting the point but not conceding it. “Perhaps it is more accurate to say that taking the first derivative of the utility function will result in one of the two. There can be many goals, but only so many means to shape our existence toward those ends. What matters though is, ultimately, not the means but the end.”

“I feel like you’ve just opened up an entire second front on this battlefield, but maybe I won’t sally forth into that breach just yet. Listen, I know we saw a movie last time, but there’s a theater just across the way and I was thinking of going to see that disaster movie, 2012, after we got done here. You want to come with?”

She smiled again, warming to her subject. “Yes, provided we discover mutual compatibility here I’d enjoy seeing the end of the world with you. Now- Question 2. What, in your opinion, are the universal human rights?”

That was the night I met my wife-to-be.

***

10 years later

***

I stood at the back door to our house, staring out into the evening gloom. “Honey! The goddamn cat’s run outside again!” Fat little bastard’s going to make a hefty takeout meal for some cougar one of these days, I swear to-

"Go get him please, I’m grading papers!” came the call from upstairs. I really did love the acoustics of the split-level we called home. The entire back half of the house was one enormous vertical space, with the stairs from our second floor ascending up across the first-floor kitchen and into Haley’s office, the only room on the third. She worked from home as an adjunct professor- who’s after knowledge now, huh? - remotely for a college in New England. I knew she was grading papers, but…

“ But it’s your damn cat,” I grumbled under my breath as I stomped outside. Technically the ownership was mutual, but he had made it very clear who really held the exclusive rights to tummy rubs and bedtime cuddles just as soon as we moved in together. Two years of cohabitation plus seven years of marriage hadn’t changed that- if anything it had only made him fatter and surlier. Every night now I had to share the head space of my bed with the ass side of 30 pounds of hot fur. I contemplated just letting him stay out there with my compliments to the cougars.

The rain was really coming down. It was a properly biblical thunderstorm, of the kind that seemed increasingly common lately, and was probably quite literally the product of all our carbon sins. The shared yard space of our little suburban neighborhood had become a bit of a debris field of downed branches and flooded depressions. The cat was huddled directly under the porch stairs, thankfully for me, and scooping him up was no trouble. I patted the sodden lump as I walked back to the door. “Storm’s got you all bothered, huh? You’re in a real catch-22, if we all died tomorrow the weather might get better eventually, but then who’d put food in your bowl? Sorry guy, you’ve got no choice- ride or die.”

And then the world ended.

It felt like lightning struck inches behind me. A flash of heat and the world turned white, and a sound so big it stopped being noise and just became pressure engulfed me. Blinded, I flew forward, but the wall that should have been in front of me did not stop my momentum. A feeling like wind, that wasn’t wind, that came from the wrong angle rushed by me, propelling me forward and I assumed in that moment that I must have died. A gas main, or a real honest to god lightning strike, or something and now my spirit was detached from my body, floating to my final destination- without Haley? No. No, no- I turned, in that un-space, and fought the un-wind, to get back to my body and my life.

I don’t know how long that struggle lasted. I didn’t seem to tire, but I had no frame of reference for motion or the passage time in the infinite white expanse. But if it was my will against the universe, and the stakes were my soul and my partner, I was not about to lose. The resistance did not lessen, but eventually on the horizon I saw a… gate? A portal? A glowing presence, in the midst of the glowing white absence, at any rate. It grew closer, or larger, it was impossible to tell. Eventually it crossed some threshold and-

---

I looked up from the meal I was preparing, the first in three days of hard riding. It might have been old weather patterns collected from a barogrove I’d passed on the trail, but damn it I was hungry and I didn’t welcome the interruption. Down the ridge line, out across the valley, there was movement in the feeler grass. The vessel I was wearing had deft hands but poor eyesight- some lax breeding there, not fit for a lawman- and I didn’t want to swap to my scout when the work was half finished. I moved to the coterie and fished around in the back until I found the old spyglass, then put it up to one of the better eyes on the old carcass.

It was definitely my quarry. Three days ago they’d rustled the vessel that Aimer was wearing along with a passel of others, and I’d been tracking them ever since by the trail he was leaving for me- broken branches, tracks in the shape of an arrow. I was pretty sure they didn’t know he was in among the herd, but yesterday the signs cut off. Since then I’d been following by trail sign and dead reckoning, not stopping for sleep or to rest the vessels, scouting from above as often as I could while my hauler pulled the coterie along the trail I left. He didn’t move as fast as I’d have liked, what passed for a brain in the old nag wasn’t much good at handling elevation changes and I ended up wearing him too often to get good scouting.

Meanwhile the men I’d tracked were moving as if the devil himself were after them, which wasn’t strictly true- I was only his doorman, at best.

On the horizon it looked like they had a more permanent camp. Out here on the trail I might be able to take three rustlers, but a dozen or more, in a fortified position? If Aimer wasn’t dead yet he’d be done for certain if they made it to that town and began taking stock of the herd. I had one chance to get him out, as soon as night fell. For now I returned to the food. Needed to make something for the rest of the vessels in the carriage space of the old coterie- they were going to have to burn some real energy soon.

***

A storm was rolling over the horizon by the time night fell. I used the afternoon to get in position- wearing my scout, having it ride on my hauler so I could maintain a tenuous connection and issue orders to what passed for a mind when I wasn’t directly in control of the old nag. I parked the coterie up behind a hill overlooking the camp, and did some careful reconnaissance through the scout’s keen eyes. 15 men, too many to take, puttered around behind the fortifications as I watched. Two were on sentry duty, wearing big hulking sentinels, and the rest were eating, making camp, or trying on their new acquisitions. I saw Aimer, thankfully still alive- but tied up, in the center of camp. Bait? A hostage? Either way they weren’t going to get what they were looking for.

Under cover of rain and darkness I landed my scout on every vessel I’d brought with me, and steered each one through the outlying feeler grass and into position. As I departed each I left one command behind- on my signal, run straight toward that camp. I left my best rifle in the grip of the hauler, only carrying a six shot pistol with me.

Thunder crashed and the wind picked up as I returned to the main gate. With two quick shots I disabled the men at the gate, the cracks reverberating through the night and alerting all of my vessels. Practically as one, all half-dozen of them took off and blew through the opening, reverting to a more panicked baseline as they cleared the entrance. The men inside, assuming attack by an entire posse, quickly responded with shouts and wild rifle fire out into the darkness, but that only served to spook their herd and add to the confusion.

Not wasting any time I beat the scout’s wings and flew in, staying low and ducking behind every obstruction available. There were a lot of beasts moving around in the chaos but it was very easy to tell a worn vessel, moving with purpose, from one just acting on instinct and I didn’t want to get spotted as I closed the distance to Aimer’s position. He was only half awake, startled out of his doze by the noise of my assault, barely resisting as I cut the ropes binding him to his post. I landed on one shoulder and spoke into his ear in the scout’s rasping birdlike voice. “Aimer! It’s me! Come away now, quick like, this distraction ent gonna last but a minute or two.”

He looked up, as far as the head of the quadrupedal shepherd he was wearing could look, at any rate- “Sheriff? That you? Shit, I thought I was dead for sure. There’s a back entrance where they keep the wash basin, let’s get out through there.” As he spoke I could hear shouts- angry, startled now- as the rustlers discovered that all of the “Men” attacking their camp were just empty vessels. A crack sounded- gunfire, close overhead. Best we be off then.

The chase was furious but hindered by the thunderstorm and the near-total darkness of the night. Aimer’s low form kept him beneath the tops of the grass, and I simply skimmed it as fast as the scout could carry me. Even so, I felt a hot flash of pain that told me somebody’s bullet had found a home in my scout's torso. Without something else to swap to, that was going to become a serious issue long before we made it back to town.

What felt like hours of hard pursuit later, Aimer carried me slung over his shoulders into a small cavern, muttering all the while. “Damn fool thing, coming in like that, Sherriff. What you gotta do that for? They’da kept me a few more days, like as not. You coulda traded for me or just come back with a crew to make short work of em. Now you’re shot and I’m all abroad. Is there even enough headspace in here for two of us? Damn that storm’s getting rowdy, we’re gonna have to stay here for the night…” as he spoke and the tension of the chase drained away, my vision began to dim. I made peace with it- it had been a damn fool thing, but I’d saved one of mine, and that was as good a send off as any self respecting lawman could hope for. I lay my head back and let the darkness claim me.

---

I found myself in a space between worlds. Half of what I saw around me was my kitchen- complete with granite top island and track lighting- and the other half was a cave on a moonless, stormy night. The edges where the two realities overlapped were impossible to look at- I could not say where one world began and the other ended, only that they were never supposed to meet.

I was a computer programmer, 35 years old, standing in my home, soaked to the bone. I was a sherriff out of Angelica’s Ditch, 150 season cycles conscious, bleeding out my last vessel in the dark of a cave. I was both. I stared at myself, both of me suddenly awake and present, and nobody else. The cat and Aimer were both notable for their absence. Neither of me spoke, for a while- we knew each other completely, what need was there? Viewed from outside, the sherriff’s scout was an insectoid creature, like a dragonfly but larger than a mid-sized dog, streamlined and wiry, with beady blue eyes and a small tapered wedge of carapace where a mouth would be on any creature from this Earth. Its forelimbs held wonderfully dextrous manipulators, almost like a monkey’s. It would have been terrifyingly alien if it weren’t simply my vessel to my mind, in that moment.

Eventually I spoke. I don’t know which of me- surely the languages wouldn’t even line up- but I understood perfectly. “Well, I’m guessing this wasn’t supposed to happen.” It wasn’t a vocalization to communicate; It was more like, a conscious action to cross whatever threshold this was before me. Us. I divorced us then, briefly, for the sake of the discussion. The me-that-was-Sean said “I, you, uh, look like you’re in trouble over there. I’m not sure I can… come to you, but- you need anything?”

Me-that-was-Sherriff coughed weakly and chuckled. “Son, and I do recognize the humor in patronizing my own damn self with that title- I think the only thing I need right now is a holy man, and fast. No offense.” Sure enough, the room-that-was-my-cave seemed to be shrinking. Crumbling, it felt as though that reality was fraying at the edges and the reality of the kitchen was recovering itself. It began to dominate our shared space, and I found myself able to walk toward… me. (Look, you try to describe a scene when the first person singular refers to more than one being!)

Me-that-was-Sean held out a hand and said “I’m not about to let myself bleed out on the floor. There’s a hospital ten minutes from here- also, a vet- and whatever’s happening here, it doesn’t look like we’ve got much time. Come on.”

Me-that-was-Sherriff considered, and sighed. “I’d say we’re both gonna regret this, but there ain’t no ‘Both’ here, and I made a habit long ago a’not regretting my damn stupid ideas.” One manipulator reached out, and I took my own hand. I held on as the last edges of the cave reality collapsed in, and with a snap-

---

I flew forward and hit the back door, hard, soaked and nearly deafened in the aftermath of the explosion. It felt like all of reality was wavering around me, fragmenting, knitting itself back together, spinning out. The cat, incensed at his mistreatment, jumped out of my arms and pelted through the now-cracked-open door. I lay on the porch in a daze, staring up into the sky, blinking back the rain. It took a moment to piece together what felt so wrong about the scene- a bolt of lightning that close behind me should have devastated the tree, or the neighborhood power lines, or something conductive- but there was no fire, no debris, no cracked glass- not even any power outages. I began to wonder if anything had happened at all, or if I’d had some kind of stroke, even as I picked myself up off the porch and continued inside.

“Haley?” I called up to the third floor in a shaky voice, trying to pull it together. If she hadn’t heard that catastrophe, I’d have to assume it was a brain thing. I heard the creak of her armchair and movement as she came to the door of her office. It sounded… wrong somehow. That seems odd now, in hindsight, to fixate on such a thing after all that had just happened. But a decade living with my wife had us growing accustomed to each other in little ways- the sound of footfalls on wooden floorboards, the familiar groan of chair and couch and mattress as we moved about, living our lives in proximity to one another.

There were two impacts as someone got out of the chair upstairs. Two distinct noises- first one thump, then another. The creaking was wrong . Too heavy. Somehow in mere seconds all thought of my present circumstances left me, flushed away by sheer adrenaline, before I ever caught sight of the thing poking its head out of that door, and over the railing to peer at me below.

The face of a monster. It opened its mouth, and without moving lips or tongue her voice came from it- “Sean, what’s wrong? I just came over all dizzy for a second and-”

< Well, don’t that beat all. You sayin’ she don’t normally look like that?>

Alright, something was definitely wrong with my brain.