“You’ve never even met him.”
“Yeah. But I remember first semester of freshman year.”
I scratched my ear. “That was ages ago.”
“Fine,” Natalie said, holding her hands aloft in surrender. “We’ll finish this pack job so I can mourn losing you as a roommate yet again. Then I’ll meet Caleb. We’ll be a match made in Olivia heaven, especially since you traded up for besties. We’ll talk about light subjects like free will and destiny and human connection, since that’s what Soulmail has done to us in this lifetime. Somewhere in between all that, you’ll cancel your wedding, yeah?”
I nodded, resolved. If only I had a promo code forfollow through. I grinned, surveyed my old bedroom. “Hey, Nat? No matter what lifetime we live in, I’d want you to be my soulmate.”
Her smile was light. “I am. We don’t need an email to tell us that.”
Seventeen
That night, I was early to the restaurant, Caleb on time, and Natalie, who had swung home to shower after helping me pack, late. Caleb’s hug was a pulse of familiarity. The hostess seated us at a prime sidewalk table, partially obscured by a potted green.
It was a four-top, but Caleb slid into the seat beside me. He wore a thin gray sweater and light jeans tailored to his frame. “While we’re waiting for your friend, I have to show you these pictures.”
“Oooh,” I said. “Boudoir? What are we talking?”
He poked my side, hurriedly tapping on his phone. As he settled, his leg rested against mine, his forearm sidling close to me. His smell was something familiar, yet unnamable. “New exhibit.”
I studied it. “An under-the-sea immersion experience?”
“Yeah, but not one you’d expect. It looks beautiful, doesn’t it? At first. All those blues.” He handed me the phone. “But look closer.”
Aquas and greens and that navy blue of our childhood, blending and overlapping like watercolors. But then I zeroed in on what he meant. A kelly-green bullfrog toy, a deflated soccer ball, the soda can six-pack rings I remembered cutting so fish and geese wouldn’t get stuck in them. I tapped the screen. “Side note: Did those can-holders have the best PR campaign ever?”
“They’re called yokes, and yes. The exhibit’s on plastic in the ocean,” Caleb said. “D’you know that if we actually tookall the plastic floating in the sea and set it on the surface, it would nearly blanket it?”
I winced. “That’s tragic.”
He nodded. “Our exhibit is inspired from a Japanese installation at the Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium. Are you familiar withSeascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer?”
I flipped through the memory banks. I was always good at trivia thanks to a college Western civ class. “Van Gogh?”
“You got it.” His voice sped up. “They had AI study seven famous pieces of ocean-related artwork. Then they asked it to re-create the paintings as if they were made in 2050. So in its artificial iteration,Seascape’s ocean is littered with colorful plastic.”
“AI is—wow.”
“Definitely. If you would’ve told me a few years ago that we could build a machine that would reverse-engineer human traits and capabilities and then use it to mimic our own skills, I’d ask you who was starring in the movie.”
“Right?” I scrutinized his picture. “Not to mention the shift in thought patterns and threat to jobs. The prevailing theory around the newsroom is AI must be involved with Soulmail somehow. But that’s not confirmed by intel.”
“Wow. Intel. Cool kid privilege,” Caleb teased. “The biggest intel I get is that a collection is about to go up before it does.”
“It’s not all government secrets. Most of it is early wakeup and makeup. This feels surreal.”
“Thanks.” He leaned back. “Ours isn’t as innovative, but it’s interactive. When you enter the dome, you’re surrounded. You see a slice of the ocean from a new perspective. Plus, kids are really responding to the exhibit, which is something.” He pocketed his phone. “I heard one kid absolutely reaming out a mom for her bottled water delivery.”
Perspective. I thought of Dad’swhere you place your attentiondictates your experience in the worldline. My laugh surprised me. “I’d love to see it.”
“Oh!” Caleb’s eyebrows rose. “Come. I’d like that.” His face, his frame, everything about him read bright and intense. It was obvious how much his work charged him.I can still read you, I thought. A seed of wonder.
“Can you believe it’s been almost a month since Soulmail happened?” he asked.
“This has been the weirdest almost-month of my life.” Late sun glinted off the buildings beside us, turning our arms a goldish-orange. Sherbet. The sort of light that was gone so fast you could barely capture it and rarely film it. A location too perfect to scout.
A bead of wistful energy constricted my throat. When it came to my career, my face would shout lessbright intensityand moredubious bewilderment. Plus, now that my executive producer opportunity had disintegrated, it would take me so much longer to build up the sort of cred I needed to advance the part of my career I actually cared about.
