intuition,” she said. “And every once in a while one of them forks and makes two.”
“Fork in the road.”
“Yeah. And then, you know, when something bad happens in one of them, it might not happen in all the others.”
“Hmm. A very pleasant thought.”
“Come on.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s possible.”
“Never mind. Heck.”
“Maybe it’s going to be alien probes,” she said. “Running around the universe blowing up life-sustaining planets out of sheer pity.”
“Humanitaliens.”
“Yeah. Damn, damn, damn, damn,” she said, five times in total. “Damn. We really nearly all died. Sorry, my mind’s—I’m very free-associating.”
“Do you mean with the Madison thing or just the Hippogriff thing?”
“Oh . . . I was thinking about Madison, but yeah, I also feel bad about those pilots sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Those guys dream about seeing action like that. They’d rather do one minute of real fighting than live to be a thousand.”
“Yeah, I guess you—you’re such a
guy,
” she said. “You get stuff like that.”
“One crowded hour of glorious life.”
“Yeah, whatevs.”
I guess I mentioned the Hippogriff Incident in the press release, but just to clarify, we, or Warren Labs, were allegedly responsible for the incineration, on March 21, of two Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca pilots, by, allegedly, an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. It was an almost-major international incident that had exacerbated tensions between Guatemala and Belize, and even between Guatemala and the U.S. As of today, thanks to nearly sixteen million dollars of lawyering, Marena and the team and I seemed to have gotten away pretty clean, and even Executive Solutions still hadn’t been charged with anything. But the whole thing had made it harder for the Warren Group to rock the boat anywhere in Latin America.
“Look,” I said, “dying isn’t—I mean, they probably didn’t even notice.”
“Why, you know what it’s like?”
“Dying?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s like, nothing.”
“But apart from that.”
“No, I mean, all I was saying was—look, the deal is, despite one’s ingrained denial of it, the fact is that every time you fall asleep, you die. In fact you basically die every time you even just lose your train of thought. And when you die for the last time, for you it won’t be any different, you’ll just forget what you were thinking about and not start up again. I mean, you won’t notice. The illusion of continuance is just pure nonsense.”
“So maybe the world did end and we just didn’t notice.”
“Well, that’s not exactly—”
“Or else the Bush administration covered it up.”
“Well, then we wouldn’t be making that speculation, though.” She didn’t answer, but she did look at me as though she was interested. “Actually, there are a lot of ways the world could end and nobody’d notice.”
“You mean like if it happened too fast?”
“Yeah.”
“How would that work?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, strangelets, earth-core perturbations, remote atom, atomic events from like naked singularities or whatever, um . . .”
“Well, that’d suck.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think most people wouldn’t even mind.”
“You mean if they didn’t understand what was happening?”
“No, I mean, even in advance, people wouldn’t—I mean, look, half of them are at least wannabe suicidal anyway. They just don’t want to deal with a lot of nooses and razor blades and guns and wreckage and starvation and fire and plague and stuff.” I half noticed that we’d gotten into dangerous conversational territory, but, as so often, I didn’t shut up. “They just don’t want to see that shot of the top of the Empire State Building poking out of the water.”
“Well, maybe. Still, that’s only half of them.”
“And the other half are just too dumb to be suicidal.”
“Okay,
“Fork in the road.”
“Yeah. And then, you know, when something bad happens in one of them, it might not happen in all the others.”
“Hmm. A very pleasant thought.”
“Come on.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s possible.”
“Never mind. Heck.”
“Maybe it’s going to be alien probes,” she said. “Running around the universe blowing up life-sustaining planets out of sheer pity.”
“Humanitaliens.”
“Yeah. Damn, damn, damn, damn,” she said, five times in total. “Damn. We really nearly all died. Sorry, my mind’s—I’m very free-associating.”
“Do you mean with the Madison thing or just the Hippogriff thing?”
“Oh . . . I was thinking about Madison, but yeah, I also feel bad about those pilots sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Those guys dream about seeing action like that. They’d rather do one minute of real fighting than live to be a thousand.”
“Yeah, I guess you—you’re such a
guy,
” she said. “You get stuff like that.”
“One crowded hour of glorious life.”
“Yeah, whatevs.”
I guess I mentioned the Hippogriff Incident in the press release, but just to clarify, we, or Warren Labs, were allegedly responsible for the incineration, on March 21, of two Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca pilots, by, allegedly, an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. It was an almost-major international incident that had exacerbated tensions between Guatemala and Belize, and even between Guatemala and the U.S. As of today, thanks to nearly sixteen million dollars of lawyering, Marena and the team and I seemed to have gotten away pretty clean, and even Executive Solutions still hadn’t been charged with anything. But the whole thing had made it harder for the Warren Group to rock the boat anywhere in Latin America.
“Look,” I said, “dying isn’t—I mean, they probably didn’t even notice.”
“Why, you know what it’s like?”
“Dying?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s like, nothing.”
“But apart from that.”
“No, I mean, all I was saying was—look, the deal is, despite one’s ingrained denial of it, the fact is that every time you fall asleep, you die. In fact you basically die every time you even just lose your train of thought. And when you die for the last time, for you it won’t be any different, you’ll just forget what you were thinking about and not start up again. I mean, you won’t notice. The illusion of continuance is just pure nonsense.”
“So maybe the world did end and we just didn’t notice.”
“Well, that’s not exactly—”
“Or else the Bush administration covered it up.”
“Well, then we wouldn’t be making that speculation, though.” She didn’t answer, but she did look at me as though she was interested. “Actually, there are a lot of ways the world could end and nobody’d notice.”
“You mean like if it happened too fast?”
“Yeah.”
“How would that work?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, strangelets, earth-core perturbations, remote atom, atomic events from like naked singularities or whatever, um . . .”
“Well, that’d suck.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think most people wouldn’t even mind.”
“You mean if they didn’t understand what was happening?”
“No, I mean, even in advance, people wouldn’t—I mean, look, half of them are at least wannabe suicidal anyway. They just don’t want to deal with a lot of nooses and razor blades and guns and wreckage and starvation and fire and plague and stuff.” I half noticed that we’d gotten into dangerous conversational territory, but, as so often, I didn’t shut up. “They just don’t want to see that shot of the top of the Empire State Building poking out of the water.”
“Well, maybe. Still, that’s only half of them.”
“And the other half are just too dumb to be suicidal.”
“Okay,
Similar Books
