“Will there be a next time, Ellie?” Ahdi walks around and sits on the other side of Ellie. “You look like you have questions. Ask away.”
Ahdi’s smile is gentle and patient. Ellie sifts through the past two days. She expected to go to a funeral, spend the next day or so arguing with Chris over inconsequential things because that’s what they always did, then she’d go back to Boston. And that’s what happened. Sort of.
“Mom didn’t want me involved in, as the Head Archivist of the isolationists called it, the vendettas of my elders?”
“In her defense, Vera couldn’t have predicted how the latest outburst would start.” He shows her his palms. “And ‘vendetta’ is not the word I would use.”
“What word would you use?”
“It’s complicated.” Ahdi leans in to hold her gaze. “At heart, it’s a philosophical dispute or, less pretentiously, a disagreement over a norm that holds until it doesn’t. Nothing prevents maintainers from refashioning a universe in their own image except other maintainers. We need the norm, though, because we can’t be trusted, and the thin end of the wedge is so easy to argue.”
“Really?” Ellie chews on this for a moment. “Either you’re reworking the skunkworks to give yourself an edge or you aren’t, right?”
“Oh, Ellie.” Ahdi’s voice drips with exaggerated sincerity. “Thesechanges aren’t for you. They aren’t for me. They’re for your mother. Isn’t she worth changing the universe to save? These changes will be limited, tiny—”
“OK, OK.” Ellie throws her hands up in defeat. “I get it. If you’re fine with that, the next thing is just a tiny step further.”
“Exactly. I should have realized what was really happening and looked into that abomination when they started building it.” Ahdi’s expression grows somber. “I’m sorry, Ellie. I could have kept you out of it. You didn’t need to be exposed to any of this.”
“I don’t see how I could have avoided it.” Ellie shrugs. “I mean, Neeson tried to recruit me yesterday. He might have done that even if I hadn’t gone to him first. I was going to end up on one side of this or the other.”
“So which side are you on?”
“Seriously?” Her eyes want to pop out of her skull.
“Seriously.” He nods earnestly.
“Self-serving changes to the physics of a universe can’t possibly go well. At best, it makes the universe unfair at such a fundamental level, we can’t possibly create and maintain a fair and just society. We impose guardrails on ourselves for a reason.”
Ahdi holds up his hand for a high five and Ellie obliges. She wishes she could take the approval as the consolation he undoubtedly means it to be. Some part of her will always wonder about the world where her mom is here and she is not.
He stares at his hand for a moment. It’s not quite the same “you dumbass” glare that she’s seen Daniel deploy. It’s more of a disappointment. Apparently, he’s decided going for the high five was a mistake.
“That puts you and your sister on opposite sides.” Ahdi mindlessly rubs his hand against his pants. “Is this something you want to talk about?”
“No, not yet.” She shakes her head. “Besides, what is she going to do? Stop trying to kill me?”
Ellie laughs at her own bitter joke. It’s been a rough weekend. Ahdi looks profoundly uncomfortable, unsure what anyone can say in response. Who knows when she’ll be ready for that conversation. Whenever she gets to the point where she can talk about it, though, it will probably be with Ahdi and Daniel. They’ve earned at least that much, and she can’t imagine who else she could talk to about this. For now, she lets him stew for thirty seconds too long before speaking again.
“Have we really accomplished anything? The Chief Architect believes the various side channels are bugs. This, technically speaking, is true in that maintainers a century ago probably didn’t intend them. To the extent that anyone noticed any recent funny business in the skunkworks, they probably think it’s just Neeson’s audit or believe Neeson’s story about putting in a fix for a side channel. Anyone who recognizes that it’s really something else probably thinks you’re behind it. That’s assuming anyone even cares.” Ellie can’t side-eye anyone looking at her so gently. “Neeson is the Chief Verifier. His job is literally to make sure no one builds harmful changes into the skunkworks. He tried to do exactly that and there will be no repercussions because he’s the guy who metes them out, and he’s all for it. What’s to stop any group of maintainers, much less Neeson’s group of maintainers, from rewriting the rules of the universe whenever they want?”
“Well, that we are riddled with side channels will become common knowledge, at least among maintainers. All the excess hardware Neeson’s maintainers put in is being taken out. But that’s not what you’re really asking.” Weariness takes over Ahdi’s face for a moment before he fights it back with a smile. “My first instinct is always to go in and fix things myself. This time, what’s broken is the system that maintains the universe. The entire system is broken. I can’t fix that by myself.”
“So will there be a next time, Ellie?” Daniel literally sticks his head into the conversation.
Ellie involuntarily jerks her face away from him. He’s been so quiet that she forgot he was there.
“Daniel.” Ellie eases herself upright. “Can you please take a walk around the concourse or something?”
Daniel looks confused and a little hurt. His gaze shifts to Ahdi, who nods ever so slightly. He shrugs and leaves. Ellie will apologize later.
“You want to know why he has been so… prepared for this weekend.” Ahdi’s gaze follows Daniel across the waiting room. “The man has a reputation. He finds that distressing. You sent him away so he doesn’t hear you bring it up.”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Nothing changes in the skunkworks without the change being verified first. No one wants to cause a cascade of failures that destroy all the universes one after another in turn. Verification is Daniel’s clear strong suit, and he’s always been too guileless for his own good.” Ahdi’s gaze shifts back to Ellie. “He had to become someone who could refuse changes, make that decision stick, and survive the repercussions. I may have gone overboard in preparing him.”
“That’s it?” Ellie is openly skeptical.
