savetheearth | Text | Private and OTA

Entry tags:

Text | Private and OTA

Private to Karl:

'There's a farm approximately 30 miles south of Locke that I believe we can use without being disturbed. Please bring a box of metal things you don't mind losing, a panel of bulletproof glass, and a large bag of sand.'

He includes an address and a time.

---

The website says the farm has been abandoned for fifteen years. When Cesar shows up on another day to see if any squatters have moved in, he finds graffiti on the side of the barn, a lot of overgrown grass, and a suitable sense of neglect that he mentally checks 'Find Location' off his to-do-list. The next time Cesar arrives is the Saturday they've agreed upon, and he's an hour early to get started setting up. He pulls his car up to a wide patch of hard-packed earth near the barn, and starts to unload.

By the time he's done he has an array of objects set up for testing use. Some of them make sense, like the metal coat hanger and with a stripped umbrella wire-tied to it. Others don't, like the set of cheap wind-chimes dangling from the back of a fold-out chair.

Unbothered by this, he moves the car further away when he's done and leans against its (somehow still immaculate) trunk to wait. He'll have his cellphone in his hand: why not find some idle way to pass the time?

---

[Phone Text, Open to All]

What's your favorite invention? If you can't think of one, name something you want to see made real.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To go back and change things that have already happened?

I suppose that's one application. Another might be to go back and properly appreciate good times we may have taken for granted until they were past.

Wouldn't a memory-reviewer be more appropriate for that? Theoretically one would allow you to return to times recorded in your memory and reexperience them with your current mind.

Memory is a faulty and flawed lens. It's easily biased and easily manipulated, and it's not the same as being there, again. An old man remembers being nine and able to run like the wind. A memory doesn't change the fact that he is an old man who can no longer run; a time machine would.

The time machine you're describing would be one that would transport the mind, and not the body, then. Is this right?

It seems kind of pointless and messy the other way around, doesn't it? Besides. The allure for some would be not knowing what's going to happen in the future. You love someone differently when you know they're going to be gone, I would assume.

I think I understand the appeal you're getting at, now.

With that in mind, I can think of more than a few times I wouldn't mind going back and reliving, myself.

Oh? What kinds of times?

Times before my brother was kidnapped.

I figured that much... anything more recent hasn't had time to become a memory. So, times with your brother? Sentimental times?

*The empty farm-yard is silent, and Cesar stands there for a long time, not answering. Questions like these are the sort that friends answer for friends. Will Caesar answer it?*

*... He's dawdling. Cesar shakes himself mentally and jabs words into the screen.*

Both, neither... Life changed when he went missing, and not all of it has been for the better.

Of course it hasn't been for the better. Your brother is missing. Are you being evasive because it's too personal and sensitive?

I'm being evasive because you have a long-standing habit of asking painful questions on public channels, and because I can't tell how this kind of information would help my brother's case.

It's not that I think that it would help your brother's case... It's just that I can't think of anything I would want to relive. I was hoping hearing some examples would make it less difficult.

*Ouch. Cesar pushes air out through his nose, mouth set in a hard, unmoving line. Long seconds tick by, stretching on towards minutes.*

*His gaze flicks down from the screen, and almost imperceptibly, the line softens.*

I would go back to one of our last family reunions in Argentina. They were a lot easier to have before we left home, and my brother hadn't gotten his acceptance letter to his team, yet.

This was the summer when some distant cousins were finally able to make it. They made a new dish to go with dinner every night, and Moisés and I each learned to make one.

By the time we went home, he still remembered his.

[A really long pause before L replies.]

That sounds nice.

It was nice.

I would also go back to when my brother was still teaching me to drive, or when I finally adjusted to having gone away to college.

That last one mostly had me being immersed in self-absorbed schoolwork, but they were days without anything life-threatening to worry about.

Edited 2014-07-16 05:04 (UTC)

It would have been less stressful to have nothing to worry about... but it also would have meant that you had no reason to really evaluate what was important to you. When you're in danger of dying, it's natural to think about what you'd die for. When I get your brother back, you'll definitely get to drive with him again, and maybe he'll still remember that recipe. If it's good... I mean, if it doesn't have pork in it... maybe you could invite me over for dinner, even.

If we get my brother back, you're going to find yourself being a sudden new member of the Sanchez-Ortis extended family, whether you want to be or not.

Dinner will be the least of your worries.

When we get your brother back.

*There is a pause.*

Of course. 'When'.

I'm sorry. I mis-wrote.

If you don't believe this will work... obviously, I wouldn't like that, but if your faith isn't in this plan's stability, I should know. It's only fair, if I know... I'm risking everything for this.

*Another pause.*

This plan has a lot more variables out of our control than I'm comfortable with. There's too many chances for things to go wrong, from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.

On the other hand, I still haven't thought of any alternatives.

*There's so much more to it than that, but Cesar's mouth presses itself to a taut line, and he doesn't type them. They have two options: do nothing and let his brother be tortured and eventually killed, or do something and risk either success or both Moises and L's deaths. The burden of this choice bears down on him, and every scrap of himself not trying to support this weight is horribly aware of how low the chances of a good outcome are.*

I don't want you to feel guilty, of course. Know that it's my choice to risk everything for your brother's case... and that this is the best plan we have, so I'm backing it 100%. Maybe that will make up for your doubt.

*Cesar grinds the heel of one hand into that side's eye. Hard.*

That helps.