The cake had been ruined, and he was the only one who got to enjoy any of it.
Adam recalled that incident with absolute clarity. The sense of euphoria that accompanied this brush with death was indistinguishable from the sensation that filled his body as the recalibration procedure continued. It felt like it always did when things inexplicably worked out for the best.
It took Adam a minute to realize that the electric current had disappeared. He blinked several times, and the vision of the cake faded, leaving in its wake Layla, Emmett, and a whole crowd of observers. He pushed himself out of the chair, hastily yanking free the electrodes that hindered his movements.
“Let me get those!” Emmett exclaimed. “The equipment is delicate!”
More time passed as the scanners became intimately acquainted with Adam and his altered bioelectric field. “The readings look good,” Emmett confirmed. “We’ll watch how you do the rest of the day to be sure. Still, we’ll have to move quickly. The human body has a way of resetting to its default over time. I doubt this change is permanent.”
When Adam left the science lab, Layla walked out with him. Though she had plenty to do, she wanted to see that he made it back to his room okay. “I’m telling you, I feel great,” he insisted. “You don’t need to worry about me.” And it was true. The rush of euphoria had settled into a constant feeling of well-being. He felt invincible. He only hoped this effect wasn’t psychosomatic.
“I hope you’re right,” Layla said. “I just want to be careful. You went through a major experimental procedure, after all. I don’t think I’m overreacting.”
Adam knew she wasn’t overreacting, and it felt good to know that she cared this much. Maybe things with Layla could work out the way he’d been hoping.
This thought was cut short as George came catapulting down the corridor. He flew past Adam and Layla, generating a significant breeze as he went. “Sorry, I don’t have time to stop and talk right now!” he yelled behind him.
Adam laughed. “See? Mr. Misery doesn’t have time for us. My luck is improving already!”
* * *
Adam’s day only got better from the moment he stepped out of the science lab. Once Layla was satisfied he would be all right, she returned to her work, and he went for another walk around the space station.
During this walk, he found a turquoise hat shoved behind a trashcan. The thing was made of an itch-inducing material and was covered in glitter, but he figured someone might be missing it. When he went to turn it in, he learned that The Great Orator had been searching for it for days. Tradition dictated that he had to wear this hat while using the toilet facilities. If he didn’t have it . . . well, it’s obvious why someone might have taken it upon themselves to hide it as a joke. As one would expect, The Great Orator was elated to have the hat back, and he promptly rewarded Adam with a meal of edible meat and vegetables.
It is interesting to note that the current Great Orator was the one who declared this a tradition in the first place. He wanted to add more ceremonial flare to everyday mundane tasks. As the initiator of this tradition, he could have dispensed with it when days without a visit to the toilet started to make him feel significant discomfort. This Great Orator, however, was a man of principle and would not be swayed by such devious tactics.
After this incident, Adam had no doubt the recalibration was a success. How could avoiding the nasty gray mash, even if only for a single meal, be viewed as anything but a ridiculous miracle?
When Adam returned to his room, he found it laden with sweet treats from all over the galaxy, courtesy of the grateful orator. Some were nothing short of exquisite, while others were undoubtedly an acquired taste. Either way, this was a welcome change of pace. He lay back on the bedspread, feeling content for the first time since he was yanked from his home.
A knock at the door roused him from his blissful relaxation. “Come in!” he called.
When Layla walked into the room, Adam pushed himself immediately from the bed and onto his feet. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Her eyes traversed the room, taking in the multicolored, multi-shaped landscape of culinary delights scattered about the furniture. “Part of your reward for being of service to The Great Orator, I presume.”
“You presume correctly.”
“I’m going to have a hard time leaving here with all this stuff taunting me,” Layla said lightly.
“Then don’t leave,” Adam replied, motivated by a new sense of confidence.
She rewarded him with a playful smile. “All right.”
They started speaking about the mission. “The knights have completed their knitting. The blankets are being shipped out tonight, and they’ll be flooding charities all over the sector for the next couple of days. Hopefully that will have most of Bibble’s enforcers out of the DULL office.”
If that part of the plan worked, it would make things a lot easier for them. When Adam and Layla walked into Bibble’s office, they would be alone. Yes, they’d have backup in case the primary plan failed, but the goal was to avoid shooting. Adam and Layla’s survival hinged upon avoiding the backup plan.
Though Adam had to acknowledge the possibility of a grim outcome, he didn’t believe it would come to that. He still felt unstoppable. “It’ll work.”
“George says it won’t.”
“I may not have a foreshadower, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. George’s foreshadower feels too much like a badly conceived plot device anyway.” Adam stopped for a moment and laughed. “Then again, so does my whole life.”
Layla sat on the bed, and Adam followed suit. “Either way, this is risky, and I got to thinking about what I want to do before we go. I don’t want to leave anything unsaid. You know what I mean?”
Adam nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.” Undeterred by the memory of his disastrous attempt at kissing the last girl he had a thing for, which resulted in a trip to the hospital and an embarrassing video that millions of people ended up viewing, he leaned forward. Her hands found their way to his shoulders as she met him partway. His concerns about the mission melted away as the warmth of the kiss spread through his body. Yet, even after a full minute spent in that embrace, one stubborn concern remained.
Breathless, he pulled back. “Are you sure you want this?”
Layla, whose cheeks were flushed, furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been having a lot of good luck since I went through that procedure. How do you know this is what you want? What if you’re just being manipulated by my bioelectric field?” Even as he said it, Adam noted his statement could easily become a bad pick-up line.
Layla shook her head. “I liked you before this, so maybe you should accept the fact that you’re getting lucky tonight.” Her voice was irreverent. Uninhibited.
Adam, content with and excited by that answer, kissed her again.
* * *
The knitted blankets succeeded in their task. The rebels intercepted subspace transmissions declaring that a significant number of enforcers were being dispatched from the DULL office on Dyntaxi Prime. Knitted blankets were serious business, after all. A proliferation of lawsuits decades before had led to the Federation outlawing the donation of handmade items. What if a knitted blanket caused someone a mild case of skin irritation? Such a possibility simply could not be tolerated.
Adam, Layla, and George set out on the little ship they’d used to escape from Dyntaxi Prime. Now they were returning voluntarily. The dynamic this time was vastly different from before. Adam was no longer the outsider. Though the two of them hadn’t officially worked out the details of their relationship, Adam couldn’t deny that the night he spent with Layla was the best he’d ever had. And even with all the tension regarding their mission, he caught her giving him little smiles now and then.
/> George, who quickly grew disgusted with both of them, largely kept to himself. He’d be there with the transporter when needed, but he remained scarce the rest of the time.
* * *
Layla and Adam strolled casually into Magistrate Bibble’s office. Each of them had syringes filled with nanobots tucked into their clothing. She’d called ahead and demanded a meeting with Bibble, saying she was ready to negotiate with him. He happily granted it.
They were welcomed by Bibble’s twirling eyestalks. Adam looked slightly to the side to avoid vertigo.
“Hello, Ms. Garrison.” One of Bibble’s eyestalks regarded Adam. “Why did you bring him?”
“He’s part of the negotiation,” she replied. “I want you to give him his life back.”
Bibble twisted his thick lips into a sneer. “Even assuming such a thing were possible, why would you choose that as your demand?”
Layla held her head high, refusing to buckle under the abrasiveness. “That’s simple. In the time since I took him out of here, I’ve fallen in love with him. I didn’t plan to do it, but it’s happened, so his future naturally matters to me.”
Though Adam knew this statement was part of the plan, he still felt something stir inside him. Could her words have a ring of truth to them?
The eyestalk that had been focused on Adam whipped back around to bear on Layla, sending several items from his desk clattering to the ground in the process. A book about the history of Federation law came to rest by Adam’s feet. “If I were able to make that happen, you would give me the nanobots willingly?” Bibble inquired.
Layla nodded firmly. “Yes.”
Bibble opened a drawer in his desk and sifted through its contents. “You know that’s extortion, and extortion is highly illegal, especially when it involves a high government official.”
Layla gripped Adam’s hand, and he knew she felt as scared as he did.
“I thought of it as a simple negotiation,” Layla replied, somehow holding her voice steady.
“The law doesn’t look at it that way, Ms. Garrison.” Bibble grinned as he found what he was looking for. When he pulled his hand out of the drawer, it was wrapped around a shiny blue phaser. They watched as he cranked the dial over to an undoubtedly lethal setting. He aimed it at Adam’s chest. “Now, since you attempted to extort me, I can have you arrested. Any nanobots in your possession would go to me. As for your friend, he clearly violated the terms of his exile. Given that he no longer officially exists, I could shoot him and dispose of his body with no legal repercussions. So, Ms. Garrison, can you explain to me why I should go along with your plan when I have an option available to me that will work within the parameters of the law?”
Neither of them had an answer. Layla dropped Adam’s hand, and he sensed she was preparing herself to make a desperate move.
If there were ever a time for the Ludicrous Field to do its work, this would be it, Adam thought.
“I didn’t think you could,” Bibble said.
From the corner of his eye, Adam saw Layla reach into her pocket. She had to be going for the nanos.
Then Bibble’s finger was on the trigger. It would take the slightest of moves to end Adam’s life. He instinctively stepped backwards while Layla lunged across the desk at Bibble with the syringe in hand. A beam of energy shot out of the weapon, passing her on the way to its target.
Adam’s confused mind couldn’t make sense of anything as he hit the floor.
* * *
Everyone knows that in a time of great peril, a person’s life may flash before their eyes. What is the function of this phenomenon? Is there even a function to it at all, or is it simply a byproduct of the evolutionary process?
Federation scientist Myrtle Mump thought about these questions a lot after surviving an explosion in her laboratory. When her life flashed before her eyes, she saw all the various bowls of ice cream she’d ever eaten. She was astonished by the feeling of serenity that overcame her.
She went on to write a famous paper on the subject, and in it she described the experience of a hypothetical man named Cliff. Cliff had a decent job as an advertising executive. He had a spouse and two kids. He occasionally traveled. He led an average, but overall good, life. One day an angry ex-employee came in with a knife and threatened to slash Cliff’s throat. Confronted with the possibility of death, Cliff saw his family and so many of the wonderful moments they’d shared together.
Myrtle Mump hypothesized that this retrospective on Cliff’s life, or life flash, was nature’s way of giving him the impetus to fight that much harder to save himself. It reminded him that he had a lot to live for. Even if it wasn’t enough and he ultimately died, Cliff would have found a little solace in those final moments.
The hypothesis sounded good, but that didn’t make it right.
Mump tracked down thousands of people who’d had near death encounters and reported having life flashes. An alarming number of them claimed to have had negative life flash experiences.
Ten percent reported deep depression following the incident. Many of them said they’d never realized how unsatisfying their life was until they saw it as a danger-induced slideshow.
Another seven percent were finally able to admit that they didn’t much care for their family.
A full two percent not only realized that they were dissatisfied with their current career, but decided that the appropriate response was to threaten the life of their boss. Poor hypothetical Cliff might well have been a victim of one of these people.
Business gurus Jessica Blythe and Horace Glimple looked at the data and saw an opportunity inside those bleak statistics. People who feared the possibility of such outcomes might pay to change that. They started their business and began peddling fake lives for a hefty price.
Customers got to choose the kinds of things they’d like to see during their life flashes. Did you intend to vacation at a tropical paradise but never got around to it? Did you ever wish you’d splurged on that space liner cruise or gone sky diving over an erupting volcano? No problem! Experts would specially create any life flash a customer could afford to pay for. They were guaranteed to be triggered by any hazardous situation.
Of course, people wanted to experience their custom-made life flashes. Anything that expensive shouldn’t go unused. It’s interesting that so many customers engaged in reckless activities to induce them. Some tried bungee jumping. Others started wrestling dangerous animals. One man jumped off a tall building and landed in a wading pool filled with pudding. One can only hope he enjoyed his life flash, because the pudding didn’t do a good job of breaking his fall.
People routinely went out of their way to do the exciting things they’d once avoided. Sure, a certain percentage of them were maimed or killed, but those who weren’t ended up living the sort of life their life flashes had been designed to depict. No scientists have ever decided to investigate what percentage of these people understand the irony of that.
* * *
Adam’s life didn’t flash before his eyes, but that was probably for the best. A person facing death really doesn’t need to relive past humiliations on top of everything else. What he got instead was a single thought.
I shouldn’t have worried about being attractive to women.
It may seem a strange time to be thinking such things, but it’s possible to connect the dots and see what brought this thought to the surface.
On the day Adam bought the apple that led to this whole fiasco, he hadn’t even wanted it. He’d actually wanted a greasy pizza, but he’d been trying to get healthier. Why? He wanted a date, and he figured being lean and in shape would help with that. Except he didn’t eat the apple right away, because he ended up caving and getting the pizza an hour later.
His neighbor, Philisandra Newt, had come over to chat for a few minutes, and on her way out, she’d spied the infamous apple on the counter and swiped it. The temptation w
as too great, and she ultimately died as a result.
If he hadn’t been vain and wanting a girl to notice him, he wouldn’t have ended up looking down the barrel of Bibble’s phaser.
As far as final thoughts went, Adam could have done worse.
Pain and disorientation replaced that thought when he smacked into the hard, unforgiving floor. Am I dead now? he wondered.
No. He couldn’t be dead. The pain wouldn’t make sense then. The shot mustn’t have been instantly fatal, so he’d have to suffer a bit before the end.
That figured.
A few stunned moments later, Layla entered Adam’s field of view. She seized his shoulders and shook him, a distinct edge of panic revealing itself in the action. “Hey! Are you all right?”
Adam pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked down, and it became clear from his physical appearance, in addition to the rather pleasant fact he was still alive, that he hadn’t been shot. The book that had fallen from Bibble’s desk now lay open on the floor, and several pages were torn. It didn’t take a genius to realize that, in his futile attempt to escape the blast of the phaser, he’d tripped over the book. A new charred crater adorned the wall behind him, and the smell of burnt paint wafted across the room. The fall, which should have been embarrassing, actually saved his life. “Yeah, I am.”
Layla wrapped her arms around him, squeezing so tight he couldn’t move. “You scared me. Don’t do that again!” She sounded as though she was on the verge of tears, but she held it together.
“I’ll try not to,” Adam promised. Then his synapses kicked into gear, the initial shock dissipating in light of a far larger concern. “Bibble! What happened to him?”
“Come see,” Layla said, offering Adam a hand.
She led him to the other side of Bibble’s desk, where the wild-eyed magistrate sat on the floor, drool running down his chin. His eyestalks had twirled into a braid from which they couldn’t seem to untangle. The syringe was still buried in his neck.