Page 34 of Ideal Life

“On your left!” someone said, before zooming by Talia on a skateboard.

“On your left again,” another person said, this one on a bicycle.

“And one more!” a man on roller skates said, spinning and waving to Talia with a grin as he passed by.

She blinked as the Omni employees disappeared from view. Then she tapped on her Omni 3Ds, and a digital map appeared, showing her where her meeting with the executive team would be.

It was all the way on the other side of campus! The walk would take fifteen minutes, according to the map, and her meeting began in ten. No wonder the people who worked here all had wheels.

Talia hated to be late, especially to an important meeting like this. She already knew several Omni people, including Raj Banerjee and Melanie Goldschmid, but today was going to be her first time in a room with the big bigwigs. Raj had told her that Jack Zimmer—the CEO!—might even stop in to say hi.

She started to compose an apology message that she was on campus but a little lost.

Queen Elizabeth buzzed into view on her glasses:

Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth: Anxiety signals are spiking, and I can see from the map and your message what the conundrum is. However, sending such a note may give off the wrong first impression of you. May I suggest an alternative? The Omni campus map shows there is a Transport Hub nearby, marked on the map with the letter T. The closest one is T-3. You can borrow a mode of transport there.

“Thanks, Queen Elizabeth. That is a better idea.”

Transport Hub 3 looked like a bus stop and an REI store had had a baby. The kiosk offered five different skateboards, a row of electric scooters, bikes, a maintenance station with tire pumps and other tools, a water bottle refill station, and a vending machine full of energy bars, all free of charge. The only problem was you needed to scan an employee badge to unlock any of them.

“Crap,” Talia muttered. The meeting was starting in five minutes, and she should have been there already. Walking in exactly on time wasn’t a great way to introduce yourself when you were the new kid on the block. Even Erin knew that as an intern; that’s why she was always the first in any conference room. And yet, Talia had not budgeted enough time for herself.

Unless…

She glanced at her watch.

It still made the scientist part of her uncomfortable that she didn’t understand how the watch worked, but she had mostly accepted that she might never know. Plus, she’d run a number of experiments by now—each using the watch in a slightly different way—and each instance had turned out fine.

So there wasn’t really anything stopping Talia from using the watch now, right? Sure, it wasn’t a movie night rewind, but why did she have to limit herself to trivial things? Preventing the Tinder murder had proven that she could effectively turn back time for substantive, beneficial purposes, too. And here, Talia could have a second shot at making a first impression, which was crucial.

“Just do it,” she whispered to herself.

After a few deep breaths, Talia turned the crown.

The world spun dizzyingly fast around her as she reversed in time to an hour and a half before.

“Oh god.” She braced her hands on her knees as the scenery around her stopped whirring. “I’ve got to remember to turn that knob slower.” She ought to know better by now, but the urgency and importance of this meeting had distracted her.

Once her stomach stopped roiling, Talia checked her surroundings. Yep, she was back in her apartment kitchen, the morning’s news opened on her phone mid-scroll, a cup of coffee half drunk.

This was where she could shave off some time. It was amazing how you could lose yourself to the infinite feed, even when you didn’t care anymore about what you were reading. Was it crucial that Talia learn about the bioluminescent moss that had been discovered in Antarctica? And that she do it right now?

No, but she recognized it for what it probably was—allowing yourself to be subsumed by the endless scroll was a way of procrastinating or avoiding something more concrete that required actual effort. Like facing your nerves about an important meeting and getting out the door to attend it.

Talia turned off the news feed, ordered a self-driving car to pick her up, and ran to the bathroom to brush the coffee breath out of her mouth before it arrived. Exactly six minutes later, she hurried downstairs and slipped into the back seat of the car. It deposited her at the entrance of Omni’s campus seventeen minutes later.

She would have plenty of time to spare to get to her meeting.

All guests had to register at Omni Security. As she filled in her information (again) on a tablet at Reception, Talia asked, “I noticed the campus here is huge. And I heard there were Transport Hubs where you could borrow scooters and stuff. Are they available to visitors, too?”

“Oh, sure,” the receptionist said. “I’ll just need you to sign an extra liability waiver and then I can get you a temporary badge to access the hubs.” Another form appeared on the tablet in front of Talia. “Basically, it says that if you get in an accident, you won’t sue Omni. And if you fail to return your transport, then you’ll be charged the full market value for it.”

“I can’t imagine I’m going to jet away on an electric scooter and try to get on the freeway with it,” she joked as she signed.

The receptionist sat there, stone-faced. “You’d be surprised what people do.”

With that taken care of, Talia put on the lanyard that labeled her as a visitor and took the temporary access badge back to T-3.