“No, the Stade’s reflecting your own body heat back to you.”
“Oh. Yeah. I remember that from Kaem Seba’s talk.” She glanced around the room, “Is he here?”
“No. He’s got classes in the mornings.”
“He really is a student at UVA?”
Arya nodded.
“Who’s his boss? I think it’d be intimidating to have someone that smart working under you. Well,” she paused a second, “it’d be hard having him in a class you’re teaching too, wouldn’t it?”
“Um, his boss would be Mr. X, who wants to remain anonymous. None of us have ever seen X. He communicates with us using encrypted emails, texts, and voice messages sent to Kaem. Kaem’s never met him either.”
“That’s pretty bizarre,” Grace said, putting her arms around Simone’s Stade as if hugging it. The Stade skidded away and she slipped off. This time she fell all the way to her knees.
“Dammit,” Gunnar said, rushing to her side. “I should’ve warned you not to lean on it. Are you okay?”
Grace let him help her to her feet, then brushed off her knees. “I’m okay. Though I seem to be saying that a lot all of a sudden.” She pushed the Stade a little, watching it slide across the floor. “I guess it won’t be hard to move Simone from room to room when I get her back home, huh?”
Arya said, “There aren’t any handles, Gunnar. We won’t even be able to get her in your truck.”
Gunnar grunted. “Yeah. That’s because it’ll be a lot easier to weld handles on now than it would’ve been to make them part of the stazing. I’ll get started on it.”
Arya turned to Grace. “Can we talk while they’re doing that?”
“Sure,” Grace said, taking a seat on one of the chairs.
“I think you should start talking to Simone’s cancer specialist. I’m worried it might take people a while to adapt to the notion that, as soon as we destaze her, they’re immediately going to have to start taking care of someone who’s very sick.”
“Why would it be different?”
“I’m just thinking that they might want you to have her destazed and then brought to the clinic to plan out what to do, get lab work, sign consents, arrange insurance, and all those things. I think she’s too sick for that kind of stuff.”
Grace looked over a Simone’s Stade. “I think you’re right.” She glanced at Arya, “Maybe we should’ve stazed her lying down in a box like a coffin. It would’ve given a better impression of how sick she is.”
Arya said, “I think it’s too late to make that change. But we do need to talk about labels.”
“Labels?”
“Yeah. The team here at Staze has been talking about how every Stade should have a label to tell people when it’s going to expire. Um, by that I mean when it will naturally destaze itself. And to tell them what’s inside. So, for Simone, we’d want to tell people who’s inside, that she’s sick with ovarian cancer, and when she’s going to be coming out of stasis.”
“I am gonna be there when she comes out!”
Arya put a hand on Grace’s arm. “I know. But if something happens to you between now and whenever they figure this cancer out, we owe it to her to try to make sure no one throws her Stade in a landfill.”
Grace reared back, staring. “That couldn’t happen, could it?”
Arya studied her a moment, then asked, “Where’s your great grandmother buried?”
“What? I don’t know. What’s that have to do with—"
Arya touched Grace’s hand, “I’m just trying to say that people forget, and they certainly don’t pass details on to the next generation very well. Try to imagine that Arvinzamab doesn’t work out and you have to wait for another cure. Eventually, you might meet someone else and get on with your life—”
“Never!”
“Just imagine it happens. And then you die. And someone you trusted puts Simone’s Stade in the attic, still thinking they’ll keep an eye out for cures. And that person dies. And the person who inherits the house doesn’t have any idea what’s in the Stade in his attic. Someday in the future, there may be some facility that destazes old Stades and tries to recycle what’s in them because, if you think about it, indestructible Stades would be the worst kind of junk to have in a landfill. Those people will need to be able to figure out what’s inside a Stade before they destaze it and put it in a compactor—”
“Arrgh!” Grace cried out, clapping her hands over her ears. “Stop! I get it!”
“Sorry…” Arya said, embarrassed by how carried away she’d gotten with explaining her rationale. I should’ve given more consideration to how it would sound to Grace. “I’m so sorry… but I hope you can see we need to attach a record to Simone’s Stade. What I’ve been thinking is that we’d weld a Stade box to the side of it. It’d have an archival paper and a digital copy of her medical record as well as having a brief summary printed right into the indestructible Stade of the box.”
“I get it. I really do. I’ll get a copy of her medical records when I talk to her oncologist.” Grace opened her eyes looking puzzled. “Why paper? I’d think digital would be better.”
Arya shrugged. “Digital formats change. Frequently. What if, a hundred years from now, no one knows how to decode the current format we choose to put it in?”
“Oh. How do you print something in Stade?”
“The letters would have to be raised or indented. They’ll probably be hard to read on a mirrored surface, but at worst you could lay paper over it and rub it with a pencil.”
Grace gave a choked little laugh, “What if they don’t have paper or pencils anymore?”
“They’ll have to figure something out,” Arya said.
