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She leaned back and looked at me, then kissed me on the cheek and got off my lap. Kassi pulled me out of the chair and led me along to the bedroom. The strange computer stared back at us.

“Turn it on,” she said, sitting down in the chair. It sounded like a command, but I wasn’t sure.

“Why?”

“I want to look some things up.”

“Kass… listen to me. There’s some other things we need to talk about before you go messing around on it.”

“Like what?”

“Like there are some rules you need to agree to.”

“Bullshit,” she said, angry again. “You seem to have no problem breaking rules with the computer.”

“There are some rules I don’t break,” I said softly.

Her anger seemed to deflate quickly, and she cocked her head in curiosity. “Like what?”

“Like never look up anyone’s death. Don’t look up divorces, or anything about yourself, your family, me.”

“Why not?”

“Think about it, Kassi. What would you do if you knew I was going to die on March 3, 2016? It would drive you absolutely insane. It would drive me insane as well, worrying about that day as it crept closer and closer.” Her expression changed to deep thought as her brain processed what I was saying. “Worse, what if you knew your best friend, or your grandmother was going to die? How would you tell them? How would you do it without sounding batshit-crazy?”

“Nico…”

“Exactly. What would you do if you knew he was going to get his face blown in by a sniper round during his deployment? How could you tell him without ruining his morale? Without making him an outcast within his own unit if he told anyone, even if he told anyone while implying that you most definitely were batshit-crazy? He’d be humping the dunes or leapfrogging through narrow streets and instead of his mind being alert, paying attention, watching out for his mates, all he’d be able to think about would be
is this was the moment I’m going to eat lead?
”

Kassandra began to cry, but it was a reserved, silent shedding of tears.

“Kass… don’t worry about Nico,” I said, kneeling down next to the chair. “The reason I have these rules is that I made the mistake of looking it up when he told us he was going to be in the initial invasion.”

“Oh my god,” Kass said, her silent tears turning to sobs.

“No. Listen.” I cupped her chin and forced her to look at me. “Stop. Nico comes home. He doesn’t die, he doesn’t even get shot. But I made a huge, horrible mistake just looking that up. That’s when I realized that it might be a bit dangerous to win a lottery and make a killing with stocks and such, but it was far too dangerous to look up anything that has to do with someone you know. Especially someone you care about.

“Like I said, there’s a reason the computer stays stuffed in the closet. It’s too tempting, too dangerous to just
fool around
with. I thought it would be amusing, interesting at first. Now I’m scared to death of it. Not so much because of the things it might tell me about the future, but for the fact that life suddenly becomes not worth living if you spend every second of it learning about every future second of it. I was willing to take the chance to use it as much as I have, but what
if
some terrible accident or tragedy was about to happen… could altering events have consequences worse than the events I tried to stop?”

“How are we supposed to hear on the news that ten thousand people died in a mudslide in Indonesia and not do anything about it?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

“We are supposed to accept it, and try to do something for those affected. If the Red Cross or some other agency goes in after an earthquake and provides relief, and we donate, then we are only altering time a little. Even then, there’s the chance that one person that might have otherwise died gets to live, but has a child who turns out to be the next Hitler. Or worse. But it’s better than saving all ten thousand and having that much corruption affecting the timeline.”

“Do you even know how cold you sound?”

“I’m sorry. This is all new to you, so you might not understand completely yet. You just found out. I’ve been living with this since Thanksgiving. That jumbo jet that crashed into the Sea of Japan? I could have sent an anonymous tip that might have saved everyone’s lives by having the flight grounded. There have been at least five major events that I’ve had to do nothing about, other than try to help after.

“The cyclone in India… even if I’d flown over there and walked the streets with a big neon sign and a bullhorn, none of those people would have evacuated. Where would they have gone? How would they get there? What if I had spent a million dollars busing all of them inland? It would have saved a few thousand persons, but what about the tens of thousands up and down the coast that also got wiped out?

“I’m sorry if it sounds cold, but I have to be cold. If I wasn’t, I’d be sitting on this computer every minute of every day looking for disasters, murders, rapes, coups, house fires, every bad thing I could think of and try to intervene. I’d have no time for myself, and while that might sound selfish, what it really means is I wouldn’t have time to work on keeping my plan on track so that down the road, I might be able to do something like invest a hundred million dollars into making sure Africa has clean drinking water. It sucks to think that fifty thousand humans might have to die in the next decade just to save a billion more over the course of half a century.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning her head down to rest on mine. “You’re right. You’ve had time to think about it. I’m still barely able to believe it. How did you keep yourself from freaking out and going crazy?”

“I’m not sure that I’m not still freaking out and going crazy,” I said. “It’s hard enough driving around in my mom’s old car instead of my dream car. Knowing I could make a trillion dollars a year… I just keep telling myself that by the time the decade is finished, I’ll have figured out a lot more about what I’m doing than I have to this point. I’m hoping to have gained more insight, or maybe just some maturity when it comes to making these kinds of decisions. I’m praying that by the time the decade is up, I haven’t gone completely insane, or become obsessed with the computer and start doing all of the things I just told you not to do with it.”

“Why not just smash it into bits and be done with it? Enjoy life with fifty million dollars instead of risking some future catastrophe by playing God?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I keep thinking that somehow I was specifically picked to have this computer. Plus, all I can think about is the end goal of hopefully bettering humanity somehow.”

“What if you aren’t the only one with one of these computers? Even if you are, why you?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know. I suppose if someone else that isn’t as subtle as me has one, we’ll find out soon enough if we pay attention. If some dumbass does win twelve lotteries, or wins the entire stock market in a single day, it will be the worst possible thing that could happen.”

“Why?”

“Imagine what would happen if a guy did make a trillion dollars in a day or a week. Someone from the government would investigate. They’d find the computer easily. Do you think they’d have the kind of restraint I’ve been able to show so far?”

She shook her head. “No, they’d abuse it.”

“We can’t know for sure,” I said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood a little. “But I’d rather not find out. I don’t think it would be productive trying to use my quantum computer to counter all of the things the government or another person would do. I’d rather be Bill Gates and stand in an African village explaining how a new water well and purifier was just the beginning, that soon the entire country would have running water and proper sewage systems. That sounds a lot less dangerous.”

“True. But why do you think
you
were sent the parts to put it together?”

“That question is one that has haunted me every single night since I put it together and turned it on. That and
where did this stuff come from?
and
how the hell did it get into an order at TechTerritory of all places, and in my shopping cart out of millions of daily orders?
”

“You didn’t try to find out with the computer?”

“I tried looking up all of the brand names, part names, everything. Nothing comes up, the same as nothing comes up when I look for some kind of instruction manual. Some guide, something.”

Kass kissed me on the cheek then stood up. “At least Nico will make it home.”

She left the bedroom and a few seconds later I heard the bathroom door close. I spent a few minutes at war with myself over whether I should tell her the rest of the story concerning her cousin Nico.

CHAPTER 12 - A War On Two Fronts

October 31, 2015

“Hi, Mom,” Kass said to my mother when we walked into the kitchen. She gave my mom a quick hug then went to hang her jacket up in our bedroom.

“Everything okay?” Mom asked me, her eyes shifting toward my room.

“Yeah, why?” I asked.

“She just seems more friendly than normal.”

“You’re the most suspicious mother in the world,” I said, getting a quick guffaw from my father, who was seated at the dining room table, browsing the net on his laptop.

“I am not,” my mother argued. Dad let out an exaggerated cough from behind her. She turned and gave him a look that she’d mastered over twenty years, one that still made me nervous even when it was directed at my father. “Well, I’m not,” she said in a huff, turning away from me to warm the oven up.

“Every time I hug you, you ask me what’s wrong,” I said. “Every time I kiss you on the cheek you ask me what I want. That sounds pretty suspicious to me.”

“What’s suspicious?” Kassandra asked, coming back into the kitchen. “Hi, Dad.”

My father grunted, still uncomfortable with Kass calling him and my mother “Mom” and “Dad.” I think he was more uncomfortable with the fact that it made him feel old for some reason.

“She thinks you’re up to something because you gave her a hug,” I said.

“Awww, Mrs. G. I’m just glad you’re my mother-in-law. I could have done a lot worse.”

Mom gave her a fake scowl then a smile-hug combo before opening the fridge to grab whatever she needed to make dinner. The crash and bang of every item on the lower door shelf landing on the linoleum and rolling around elicited multiple curses from her.

“Peter, goddammit. We’re millionaires and you still haven’t bought me a new refrigerator!”

“Yes, dear,” he said, not looking away from whatever website he was reading. Kass and I laughed.

“I mean it, Peter Gallagher. I want a new refrigerator. It doesn’t have to be gold-plated or have a fancy computer. It does have to have a door without a broken shelf.”

“Yes, dear,” my father said again, raising one hand in acknowledgment.

“How’s the house?” Mom asked while we picked up the contents of the shelf and carefully put them back after she’d inserted the shelf again.

“They say it should be done by February,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

Mom gave me a dark look, then smiled at my wife again. “You can stay as long as you want,” she said to Kass. “You should probably find a motel room tonight,” she said to me.

“Har har,” I said, closing the fridge door.

“What’s taking them so long?” my father asked from the table.

Kass and I walked into the dining room and sat down across from each other.

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Making sure they do it right. They’ve already tried to claim I specified two-by-sixes when it says in the contract two-by-eights. That cost them a few walls.”

“Hmph,” was my father’s reply. “You sure you aren’t being annoying and crawling up their asses all day long, making sure they do everything exactly as you want it done?”

My father knew I was terribly anal about some things, and an overachiever in a lot of others. “No, I just check every day. What I’m the most concerned with is wiring up the house for networking. They’re doing it instead of subbing out to someone who knows what the hell they are doing.”

“How’s your cousin doing?” Mom asked Kassandra from the edge of the kitchen.

“Nico? He seems okay,” Kass replied. “I think he’s scared, but he’s a Marine, and would die before letting anyone know.”

“I hope he never has to get off the boat,” Mom said with a sad expression before turning and heading back to the oven.

“Let’s hope it’s over quickly and we learned our lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan,” my father said, finally looking up from his laptop. He gave Kassi a long look, and seemed like he was going to say something else about it, but changed his mind. “Did you see Hillary dropped out?” he called to my mom.

“It’s too bad,” Mom said from the kitchen.

“And this guy, Gregory. The one from South Carolina. This guy comes out of nowhere like Obama and is suddenly burning up the polls.” My father shook his head in disgust.

He’d never been a fan of politics, nor had my mother. I knew that neither would consider themselves Republican or Democrat, nor even Independent. They weren’t liberal or conservative, or more accurately, they were liberal about some things and conservative about others. They’d done their best to try and not color my views growing up, but I’d never bothered to pay attention to politics other than when homework demanded it. I’d listened to the rare conversations about politics from my parents, and their disgust at the hypocrisy turned me completely off.