Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

his memory, he went to see good old Flinch. Josh had used those weeks spent watching over you day and night to push his scientific genius to its limits. Everybody knew that although he and Luke were an A-team, he was the real star of the show,” she continued. “Luke was jealous of that, and no matter how hard he tried to become Flinch’s favorite, it was never enough. Although they discovered a way to encode memory together, it was Josh who hit on how to later restore it. His discovery was still just an embryo of an idea. It took a whole thirty years to fully develop it. But it was Josh who came up with the core architecture. He was its inventor. Just him.”

“What does Flinch have to do with this?” Hope asked.

“He has everything to do with it. You’ll see why in a minute. Josh made a deal with Flinch. He would transfer ownership over to Flinch, ownership of what he had already developed, and everything he would discover throughout his lifetime. When they struck that deal, Josh sold his soul to Longview.”

“What did he want in return?”

“Two promises,” Kasuko said. “Josh believed Neurolink would be successful in the end, becoming a zero-risk solution from the one-hundredth patient it restored. From that moment on, Josh wanted Longview to promise it would reinject your consciousness into the first available, compatible body. But he knew that no one at the company would actually ever agree to do this. Josh never believed in cryotherapy. He only played along with it because he loved you. What he most definitely believed in, however, was his own program. And like any self-respecting liar, Josh trusted nobody. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow, he gained access to the beating heart of Neurolink—the programming codes at the source of the artificial intelligence. Josh was able to write an indelible line of code into Neurolink to do two things. Once it hit Patient one hundred, Neurolink was to restore your consciousness into the first compatible body whose memory couldn’t be restored. And that was Patient one hundred and two.”

“You said Josh rewired Neurolink to do two things. What was the second?”

“To make Josh be next on the list.”

“But that’s impossible.” Hope frowned. “You can’t have a single mind in two different bodies. Even if Josh is older now, you can’t have another version running around!”

“No, exactly. Neurolink would prevent that from happening.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It took Josh eleven months to make the changes to Neurolink’s source code. He had finished saving his own memory, and it was stored on the servers. He had achieved what he had always wanted from the project.”

“What did he want?”

“I thought you understood,” Kasuko said. “To die, so he could be brought back to life at the same time as you. Josh killed himself on the first anniversary of your death.”

Hope sat there in silence. There was nothing she could think to say. Kasuko stayed with her and made them dinner. They sat around the coffee table, and Hope asked the question she hadn’t dared to ask.

“How long before a compatible body . . . brings him back to life?”

“The procedure was completed this morning; he got a body whose brain was damaged and hadn’t been backed up. He opened his eyes today. I’ve known your address for a few weeks now,” Kasuko said. “But I was waiting to come and see you so I could give you an answer to that exact question.”

“Josh is here?” Hope gasped. “In Boston?”

“No. When Neurolink entered its active phase, Longview opened several centers around the country. I used my contacts to find out when and where it would happen. Josh’s memory was restored in Seattle. I took the liberty of buying you a plane ticket, and renting you a little apartment near the Center.”

“An apartment?”

“Hope, you’re both the same.” She smiled. “You underwent the same procedures at the same time. There’s a very good chance that Josh has woken up just the way you did. You’ll need to be patient with him. You’ll need to wait for his memory to return before he’s returned to you.”

Kasuko spent the night with Hope, and the next morning, she drove Hope to the airport.

As the two women said their goodbyes, she asked Hope to consider one day forgiving Luke.

“The year you died, he lost the two people he cared about most in the world—his best friend, and the woman he had loved since their eyes first met on a patch of campus lawn. Don’t say anything, by the way.” She smiled. “I want there to be at least one of the four of us who never tells a lie. You’ve always known that Luke loved you. And to make up for it, you introduced him to me. I knew it too. It was right there on his face whenever you were around. But I loved him so much, even if he did only love me second best. A little part of him was enough for me. I have no regrets. When you woke up,” she continued, “he was scared. And I get it. I was scared too. Now go. Our lives are slowly reaching their end. And yours have only just started. Make it have been worth it. Be happy.”

Kasuko gave Hope a hug and watched her run into the terminal.

26

Josh was discharged from the Center two months after he first woke up.

Hope had visited him every day without his understanding who the smiling young woman was, sitting there on the park bench where they came for some fresh air between his rehabilitation sessions.

Sometimes, he fought through his shyness and went to sit next to her, returning her smile.

Luke had arranged an internship for him at the pharmacy near the studio apartment he had rented for his friend.

Every day at lunchtime, Josh swapped his white coat for a sweater he draped over his shoulders and crossed the street