She didn’t take it. “What is it?” she said.
“Open it,” Dahl suggested.
“I’m sorry, Mister Dahl, but I am a little suspicious of strange men coming to my door on a Saturday morning, asking my name and bearing mysterious packages,” Martinez said.
Dahl smiled at this. “Fair enough,” he said. He opened the package, revealing a small black hemisphere that Dahl recognized as a holographic image projector. He activated it; the image of someone who looked like Samantha Martinez appeared and hovered in the air over the projector. She was in a wedding dress, smiling, standing next to a man who looked like a clean-shaven version of Jenkins. Dahl held it out for her to see.
Martinez looked at the image quietly for a minute. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s complicated,” Dahl admitted.
“Did you Photoshop my face into this picture?” she asked. “And how are you doing this?” She motioned to the floating projection. “Is this some new Apple thing?”
“If you’re asking if I’ve altered the image, the answer is no,” Dahl said. “And as for the projector, it’s probably best to say it’s something like a prototype.” He touched the surface of the projector and the image shifted, to another picture of Jenkins and Martinez’s double, looking happily at each other. After a few seconds the picture changed to another.
“I don’t understand,” Martinez said again.
“You’re an actress,” Dahl said.
“Was an actress,” Martinez said. “I did it for a couple of years and didn’t get anywhere. I’m a teacher now.”
“When you were an actress, you had a small role on
“Yes,” Martinez said. “My character got shot. I was in the episode for about a minute.”
“This is that character,” Dahl said. “Her name was Margaret. The man in the picture is her husband.” He held the projector out to Martinez. She took it, looked at it again and then set it down on a small table on the other side of the door. She turned back to Dahl.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” she said.
“No joke,” Dahl said. “I’m not trying to trick you or sell you anything. After today, you won’t see me again. All I’m doing is delivering this to you.”
“I don’t understand,” Martinez said again. “I don’t understand how you have all these pictures of me, with someone I don’t even know.”
“They’re not my pictures, they’re his,” Dahl said, and held out the box the projector came in to Martinez. “Here. There’s a note in the box from him. It’ll explain things better than I can, I think.”
Martinez took the box and took out a folded sheet, dense with writing. “This is from him,” she said.
“Yes,” Dahl said.
“Why isn’t he here?” Martinez asked. “Why didn’t he deliver it himself?”
“It’s complicated,” Dahl repeated. “But even if he could have been, I think he would have been afraid to. And I think seeing you might have broken his heart.”
“Because of her,” Martinez said.
“Yes,” Dahl said.
“Does he want to meet me?” Martinez asked. “Is this his way of introducing himself?”
“I think it’s his way of introducing himself, yes,” Dahl said. “But I’m afraid he can’t meet you.”
“Why?” Martinez asked.
“He has to be somewhere else,” Dahl said. “That’s the easiest way to put it. Maybe his letter will explain it better.”
“I’m sorry I keep saying this, but I still don’t understand,” Martinez said. “You show up at my door with pictures of someone who looks just like me, who you say is the person I played for a minute in a television show, who is dead and who has a husband who sends me gifts. You know how crazy that sounds?”
“I do,” Dahl said.
“Why would he do this?” Martinez said. “What’s the point of it?”
“Are you asking my opinion?” Dahl asked.
“I am,” Martinez said.
“Because he misses his wife,” Dahl said. “He misses his wife so much that it’s turned his life inside out. In a way that’s hard to explain, you being here and being alive means that in some way his wife’s life continues. So he’s sending her to you. He wants to give you the part of her life he had with her.”
“But why?” Martinez said.
“Because it’s his way of letting her go,” Dahl said. “He’s giving her to you so he can get on with the rest of his life.”
“He said this to you,” Martinez said.
“No,” Dahl said. “But I think that’s why he did it.”
Martinez stepped away from the door, quickly. When she came back a minute later, she had a tissue in her hand, with which she had dried her eyes. She looked up at Dahl and smiled weakly.
“This is definitely the strangest Saturday morning I’ve had in a while,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” Dahl said.
“No, it’s fine,” Martinez said. “I still don’t understand. But I guess I’m helping your friend, aren’t I?”
“I think you are,” Dahl said. “Thank you for that.”
“I’m sorry,” Martinez said, and stepped aside slightly. “Would you like to come in for a minute?”
“I would love to, but I can’t,” Dahl said. “I have a taxi running its meter, and I have people waiting for me.”
“Going back to your mysterious, complicated place,” Martinez said.
“Yes,” Dahl said. “Which reminds me. That projector and that letter will probably disappear in a couple of days.”
“Like, vaporize?” Martinez said. “As in ‘this letter will self-destruct in five seconds’?”
“Pretty much,” Dahl said.
“Are you a spy or something?” Martinez said, smiling.
“It’s complicated,” Dahl said once more. “In any event, I suggest making copies of everything. You can probably just project the pictures against a white wall and take pictures of them, and scan the letter.”
“I’ll do that,” Martinez said. “Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” Dahl said, and turned to go.
“Wait a second,” Martinez said. “Your friend. Are you going to see him when you get back?”
“Yes,” Dahl said.
Martinez stepped out of the doorway to Dahl and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. “Give him that for me,” she said. “And tell him that I said thank you. And that I’ll take good care of Margaret for him.”
“I will,” Dahl said. “I promise.”
“Thank you.” She leaned up and gave him a peck on the other cheek. “That’s for you.”
Dahl smiled. “Thanks.”
Martinez grinned and went back into the bungalow.
“So, you’re ready for this,” Dahl asked Hester, in the shuttle.
“Of course not,” Hester said. “If everything goes according to plan, then the moment you guys go back to our universe, I’ll be transported from this perfectly functioning body to one that has severe physical and brain damage, at which point all I can hope for is that we’re not wrong about twenty-fifth-century medicine being able to cure me. If everything
“Good point,” Dahl said.
“I want to know how you talked me into this,” Hester said.
“I’m apparently very persuasive,” Dahl said.
“Then again, I’m the guy who got talked into holding Finn’s drugs for him because he convinced me they were candy,” Hester said.
