The major concern, that people hadn’t been asked if they wanted to change sex. The obvious answer, that no one had known they would, somehow missed the point. A sex change without permission was as bad as sanction or derision, and those two belonged to the dark ages. The alien arrival had created a world where anything went. Other than in a few small, backward city states, you were whoever you wanted to be. The Arch’s very perfection threatened to affect this. No current human medical techniques could compete. So while you could transition to the opposite sex, here was alien tech to emphasize that you hadn’t, not really.
It was never discovered who was responsible: old-time religious fanatics; alien tech haters; people wanting to prevent unhappiness and hurt. One night the Arch was attacked with explosives and while apparently undamaged, never glowed blue again.
* * *
Anson put the box back into his pocket and tried not to think of the daughter he’d left behind. A year old, once the light of his life, but only a reminder of the woman he’d lost. Grief takes people in strange ways. For now he couldn’t even say his daughter’s name to himself. Whenever he remembered her, he saw the three of them happy together. So now the daughter was with the grandparents and if Anson came back, such a big if, maybe one day he’d delight in holding her close again.
People got on and off as the train drew closer to the city. No one spoke to the man who stared out of the window with a fury so intense it might even shatter the glass. Outside the villages grew closer together. Mount Cook loomed in the north. When the rain reached Gresham the man seemed to relax a little, looking out at the city instead of through it. The track followed the old MAX light rail route into the centre and stopped at Pioneer Square. The man got off, mingling with the sparse crowd walking towards the concourse.
* * *
The two men waiting for him took Anson efficiently. He barely felt the hypodermic and was unconscious before he hit the ground.
* * *
Anson woke up with a raging thirst in a room flooded with light from the floor-to-ceiling windows filling two of the walls. There was a large bottle of water on the floor next to the couch. He sat up, the room only spinning for a second or so, and gulped half the water. Then asked himself the obvious question: What the fuck is going on?
Whoever had drugged him wanted Anson alive. More, they weren’t exactly against him, otherwise he’d have been tied up, and no water. So unlikely to be the family of the man he wanted to kill. Then who? And why?
The room was simply but well furnished, with that sense of being just right, effortlessly, almost by accident. Nothing so common as designed. Probably part of an expensive apartment high over the city.
He heard the door open and stood up.
The man who walked in was around Anson’s age. Not always easy to tell, Asians often looked so young.
“Hi. My name’s Tse.” His tone was warm and friendly. “Sorry about the invite. We had to get you out of there quickly. You have enemies, Anson. They’re also ours.”
“You know why I came?”
“I assume it’s to avenge your wife. Which you still can. We’ll even help you.”
Anson Greenaway would never understand why he’d trusted Tse. But he did, the trust deepening into a deep and abiding friendship.
“What do you know about it?” Anson asked.
It seemed that Tse knew more about Sara’s death than did her husband. But first he led Anson onto the penthouse terrace overlooking the Williamette River. Coffee, cold meats, fruit and warm rolls. Anson ate and listened.
At first it was nothing to do with Sara’s murder.
“You know about pre-cognition?”
Anon did. The Wild was home to all the psychic beliefs. City states preferred hard science. He gave a guarded yes.
“Do you know how it works?”
“Not the details.”
Tse said, “Let me tell you.”
Pre-cognition was seeing where you were now in life, the present, and where you wanted to be, the future. Or where you would be unless you were lucky enough to avoid it. Pre-cognition showed all the main stages between what you wanted or feared. Often these stages, events made no obvious sense. But since they were part of the overall possibility/probability state of the universe, and so were related to an infinity of other events, no human could expect to understand. Be content with knowing if you do this then that happens... maybe. Oh, also forget past, present, future, because in the pre-cog world, in that which lies above and below the universe, they don’t exist. It’s all now and time is only a zip code.
“That could be annoying,” Anson said, “for a pre-cog.”
“You learn to cope. At least, some of us do. Others long for an ordered existence. No surprises. Total
