Текст книги "Orbit"

Автор книги: John Nance

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Really?”

“There are estimates out there right now that over two thirds of our people are actively watching this, word by word, and probably close to a billion worldwide.”

“How is that possible?”

“Mr. President, there are live feeds coming through beepers, moving sign boards, radio, television, cable, AM, FM, Web casts… you name it. In China, too, it’s virtually everywhere, with simultaneous translation. You remember we’ve remarked how fast the world can become a global village?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now add all these other forms, including PDAs and the galaxy of so-called Wi Fi ‘hot spots’ around the nation. Cell phone screens, too. I’ve even heard that one of those advertising blimps is hovering off Malibu right now and scrolling Dawson’s words.”

“A blimp?”

“Yes, sir. If this continues, we might as well shut down any form of transportation not connected live to this thing. We have wire reports about hundreds of travelers changing their flights at the last minute to airlines that have live TV aboard. If it goes through Saturday, it may paralyze most of the civilized world.”

“Good heavens.”

“The AP is carrying a tale about an international flight on which one of the flight attendants remained on one of the audio channels for the entire thirteen hours reading the transcript aloud as the pilots downloaded it from the cockpit.”

The President is silent as he’s drawn back to his own TV screen, Dawson’s words snagging his attention.

“Wait, I want to read this.”

I have to admit I feel guilty about this, too. So much so that if I were able to survive and return, one of my first acts would be to go to the nearest U.S. Attorney and give him a copy of everything I just wrote. And the sad part is that now that I go back through it, I realize I do know where the evidence is… where the bodies are buried, so to speak. Right there in my filing cabinet in my den under the 2004 tab. The folder with the red exclamation point on it and a rubber band around it. By the time anyone reads this, I’m sure everything in that cabinet will have been long since burned or buried in some landfill. But I know in my heart that there had to be at least a few patients out there who died or had a terrible time because the good old reliable Vectra penicillin they’d bought from us wasn’t working. No one… not the doctors, nurses, or pharmacists who trusted us implicitly… would have ever suspected the reason was simple greed. Someone needs to be prosecuted for this.

“Did you see that, Ron?”

“Yes, sir. So did most of the country.”

“Vectra knowingly sold bad penicillin?”

“We should act on this, don’t you think?”

The President is nodding and pointing to the phone. “Let’s get Justice moving on this in the morning. No, wait. Those records he mentions. Let’s get those protected.”

“FBI then?”

“Yes. Quickly.” He turns back to the TV, quietly addressing the unseen writer as Porter hurries from the Oval.

“So, what other bombshells do you have for us, Kip?”

Chapter 29

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA, MAY 19, 5:57 P.M. PACIFIC/8:57 P.M. EASTERN

John Kent has lost count of how many nighttime approaches he’s made to the KSC runway in one of NASA’s T-38s, but this one is unannounced. He rolls the sleek twin jet onto a stable final approach, working the throttles forward and back to keep the supersonic trainer on speed across the threshold. Touchdown and aerobraking are followed by a rapid taxi to the ramp where an unmarked NASA car is waiting, the driver bringing the ladder over as John cuts the engines, opens the canopy, and finishes the shutdown checklist. The man is on the top of the ladder now and John reaches over to shake his hand before unstrapping.

“Griggs! Great to see you.”

“Glad you’re here, old sport. I’m beginning to feel like the French underground versus Vichy.”

“World War II-speak again, Griggs?”

“Can’t keep an amateur historian down. Need help outta that tin can?”

“Nope. Stand back please, and don’t try this at home.” He pins the ejection seat, unstraps, and stands before swinging a leg carefully over the side and climbing down.

He joins Hopewell in the front seat of the car.

“Why am I here, Griggs?”

“I need your help, John. We’ve got a presidential directive to launch and a soft sabotage operation being run by our dear administrator to prevent us from launching,” he says, gesturing toward the Pad 39 launch complex visible in the distance bathed in lights. “I don’t know why Shear is silly enough to believe he can send an operative into my space center and not be found out.”

“The woman you told me about?”

“Miss Dorothy Sheehan. I’ve had one of my guys watching her, and where Sheehan shows, nothing goes. She’s not red tagging anything herself, but throwing her HQ weight around so that anything she points to someone gets excited about. All day today it’s been one crisis after another, not a one of them legitimate. I’ve warned Curtis, because I think he’s in cahoots, but I don’t have enough evidence to go over Geoff’s head to the White House.”

“And the bottom line is?”

“We’re not going to make this window, John, if this crap continues.”

“Of course he’s been against this from the start. Anything involving DiFazio…”

“Is he wrong, John?”

“Yes, dammit!

“But we don’t want another Challenger,John. And, Bubba, since you is my bona fide partner in crime, I want to review everything they’ve fingered so far and have you take a long look at the overall plan.”

“Look over your shoulder?”

“Exactly. I’m afraid of pushing too hard, even against this rotten interference.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to my office. And before you ask, yes, I’ve got Kip Dawson’s monologue punched up on my computer. You were busy boring T-38-sized holes in the sky, but just before I came out to pick you up, he was talking about a huge scandal involving his drug company employer, and if someone doesn’t end up in the hoosegow over it, I’ll be shocked.”

“Good Lord. He writes it there and things happen here, and he doesn’t even know it. Talk about the power of the pen.”

TUCSON, ARIZONA, 7:15 P.M. PACIFIC/8:15 P.M. MOUNTAIN

It doesn’t take an FBI agent to know that a moving light in an empty house is seldom a good thing. But Tucson police officer Jimmy Gonzalez can see nothing amiss as he slides up to the curb. He reads the call details again on his dash-mounted computer screen. “Next-door neighbor reports seeing flashlight beam moving around inside. Knows resident is out of town. Window involved on east side by shrubs.”

There’s a phone number listed for the house and he punches up the number on his cell phone, waiting until it flips over to a voice-mail message.

He closes the phone and types in that he’s leaving his car and investigating. Walking carefully, he moves along the eastern side of the rambler and positions himself to peer into the window where the flashlight beam was reported to have been.

Nothing.

He shines his powerful SureFire through the pane, lighting up a den that seems intact and untouched, then continues around the back and other side of the house, checking the doors before returning to his car.

“House secure, nothing appears amiss,” he types, closing the call and deciding there’s no point to interviewing the complainant.

Special Agent Kat Bronsky of the FBI has never loved the desert, but Tucson has been an exception, especially the pristine resorts on the northern flank of the town. This time, however, a two-week Homeland Security assignment meant a forgettable Tucson motel from where she’s spent most of the afternoon watching Kip Dawson’s amazing story unfold—including the fact that his home is less than a mile away from where she’s sitting. But reading that somewhere in the Dawson home is a file with evidence of criminal activity electrified her. For the past year she’s been part of a special strike force investigating Vectra Pharmaceuticals.

A quick after-hours phone call to her superior in D.C. is unavoidable, if unanswered. She waits a fitful twenty minutes for a callback from the urgent beeper message she leaves, relieved when her cell phone finally rings with his number on the screen.

“If Ijust read about it, Glen, and youread about it, at least someone at risk from Vectra saw it. We should get a warrant and get out there now.”

“Already in motion, Kat. A big alert triggered by the White House came down moments before you called. We’re trying to roust the Tucson office right now.”

“They’re not answering beepers or phones?”

“The whole team is away in Phoenix, I think. We’re working on it.”

“Okay, there’s no time. Let me take it.”

“You don’t know the local judges.”

“I don’t need to. There’s no one covering that house while we’re talking, so let me go out and at least watch the place. When you get the local team, have them get the warrant and hook up with me there.”

“Kat, use the local police for that.”

“Glen, that’ll go out on the radio channels, and anyone interested enough to be racing in to snatch that file will be on the police scanner.”

“Okay, dammit, you’re making sense, as usual. But, Kat, this one is the highest priority for doing things right. We can’t screw up an evidentiary grab started by a presidential order without all our heads rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue. Got it? No heroics. Do notgo in or touch that file without a warrant.”

“No problem. Message understood and acknowledged.”

Finding the address and driving to 4550 East Fernhill takes less than ten minutes, and Kat parks down the street before walking back slowly, looking over the darkened residence as she approaches. Why is a local police cruiser in front of the house?She hesitates, pretending to search for an address, as the officer pulls away and passes her, accelerating around the corner as she makes a quick note of his plate number.

She sees mature trees in the front yard casting deep shadows against an overhead streetlight and takes advantage of the black hole to disappear alongside the Dawson house, moving carefully past shrubbery until she’s at the northeast rear corner. She waits a minute to watch and listen. The house is dark and quiet, and she decides to move to the nearest window and peer in before checking the doors and finding the best vantage point from which to be sure no one enters.

The ground beneath the window is a flower bed of soft topsoil anything but native to Tucson, and she steps in it carefully and lifts her eyes above the sill, letting her vision adjust to the darkness inside.

At the same moment a startlingly bright beam of light stabs through the interior, illuminating a desk in the corner of what appears to be a den.

Kat jerks herself back to one side, but whoever is wielding the flashlight doesn’t appear to be interested in looking her way. She can see him, a male of average height, holding the flashlight and moving the beam to a four-drawer filing cabinet.

There’s no doubt in her mind what’s happening. He moves quickly toward the cabinet like he’s been there before, and she can see he’s carrying something metallic. He focuses the light on the cabinet lock on the upper left-hand corner and tries to balance the flashlight between chin and shoulder while he uses what looks like a small kitchen knife and perhaps an ice pick to spring the lock.

The man appears to be alone and she watches his ham-handed fumbling with the lock.

This is not a professional thief,she concludes, unsurprised. Whoever he is, he’s got a stake in getting rid of the evidence Dawson talked about.

The man reaches a breaking point and throws the makeshift tools to the floor in disgust, looking back and forth around the room as if the key might be hanging within reach if he could just take the time to spot it.

The desk catches his eye and he moves to it, flashlight beam on the top drawer as he rummages through it, pulling it out steadily until it suddenly falls to the floor. He’s on his hands and knees now, frantically sorting through the contents, then coming up with a key. He leaps to his feet, racing back to the file cabinet but can’t insert it.

Wrong key, boy,she thinks, calculating which way he’s likely to leave if he achieves his objective. In the reflected beam of the flashlight when it hits his face every few moments she can see he’s a Caucasian male, perhaps in his fifties, and moderately overweight.

He’s back on his knees rifling through the contents of the fallen desk drawer, and Kat can see the flashlight beam shaking in his trembling left hand.

Scared to death. Probably never had more than a traffic ticket, and probably not armed.

Another key! He’s back up and over to the file cabinet and this time the lock springs open. She can hear his small victory yelp even through the window as he yanks open the drawers successively until finding the one he’s looking for.

FBI procedures and common sense dictate calling for police backup and intercepting the suspect as he leaves, and she reaches for her cell to dial 911 the same moment a bright light snaps on from behind and an excited male voice orders her to freeze.

“POLICE! GET THOSE HANDS UP!”

Kat can see the man inside the den turn, startled, a folder in his hand as he yanks it from the drawer and snaps off his light. She can see him bolting to the rear door in the den, fumbling with the knob and the lock, and she turns quickly, raising her hands as she sidesteps toward the corner of the house.

“Turn that light out! I’m an FBI agent!”

“KEEP YOUR HANDS UP!”

She glances back through the window, aware the intruder is still struggling with security locks and frantic to get out. She has only seconds, she figures, to calm the cop down.

She looks back at the bright light in her face.

“There’s a suspect in that house and we don’t have time for this. I’m going to pull out my ID wallet! Keep your trigger finger under control!”

“KEEP THOSE HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! DID YOU HEAR ME?”

She pulls the ID wallet from her jacket pocket with two fingers, bringing it out laterally and flipping it open as she hears the back door being flung wide.

“Hold it right there!” the cop is saying to Kat, his voice more uncertain now as he gingerly approaches, surprised and unprepared for her to turn around and yell toward the back of the house while still thrusting the ID wallet at him.

“FEDERAL AGENTS! FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR! NOW!”

“What… what are you doing?” Jimmy Gonzalez asks, his gun still leveled at his suspect as he tries to read the ID at the same time he’s trying to see who she’s yelling at.

“GET THOSE HANDS IN THE AIR, MISTER! NOW! ON YOUR KNEES OR I’LL SHOOT! DROP THAT FOLDER!”

Kat looks back to Gonzalez in a lightning move.

“Satisfied?”

“I… guess.”

“Here’s my ID. Toss me your light.”

“What?”

“NOW!”

He tosses the SureFire to her, watching as she catches it and tosses him the ID wallet, covering the distance between the corner of the house and the obviously frightened man kneeling by the backdoor in a few heartbeats. She covers the suspect with a 9mm Glock Jimmy never saw her unholster.

“Officer? Bring your cuffs, please.”

Jimmy responds as quickly as he can, cuffing the man as he notes the business suit and the balding head.

“Don’t shoot! I’m a friend of Kip’s! I have a key!”

“But not to his filing cabinet, it appears,” Kat says. “What’s in the folder?”

“Ah, private company information.”

“Right. Half the world read exactly what you read about a particular folder with a rubber band and a red exclamation point in the file cabinet you just broke into.”

“Kip asked me to protect this if anything ever happened to him.”

“Sure he did. What’s your name?”

No answer.

“NAME! NOW!”

“Ah… Robert Wilson.”

“How did you get in the house?”

“I have a key. I’m authorized.”

“All right, Mr. Wilson, you’re also under arrest on suspicion of obstruction of justice in a federal case, for starters. Officer?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please Mirandize this gentleman after you finish cuffing him, and then get us some backup while the rest of my team gets here.”

“Okay.”

She turns to Jimmy Gonzalez now, asking his name, and he responds as he hands her back the ID wallet.

“Good job, Officer Gonzalez. All the way around.”

Chapter 30

COLEMAN TV STUDIOS, WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 19, 8:00 P.M. PACIFIC/11:00 P.M. EASTERN

Matt Coleman is aware tonight’s broadcast could be the definitive performance of his career. He checks his appearance, wondering why anyone would think he looks like the late Johnny Carson, although he considers it one hell of a compliment. At age forty-seven, with a full head of prematurely silver hair, a neutral Midwest accent, and a natural smile, there are a few similarities. But he understands that the comparison is the wishful thinking of a vast audience hungry for the more serious approach and occasionally sharp-witted humor he’s made a trademark since he took over from Larry King, building his now-syndicated evening news, comment, and interview show far beyond the confines of CNN to span American broadcast and worldwide broadcast networks, as well as cable and Internet outlets.

And tonight—broadcasting in high definition to an estimated combined world audience of at least a hundred million people with simultaneous translation in sixteen languages, he can either own the story of Kip Dawson by walking a razor-sharp line between commentary and reportage, or end up as just another conduit for what’s happening.

And Matt Coleman intends to own the story.

Tonight the computerized reassembly of his image will have him appearing for all the world as if he’s actually standing in three different world capitals, complete with a shadow where the sun is shining. He takes his place for the opening against a live shot of Intrepidbeing downlinked from a high-powered NASA camera in orbit.

Good evening, and right to the point. Seldom has the story of one person dominated our worldwide attention for more than a few moments in this frenetic modern life. When that rare event does happen, however, usually it’s after an event is over. Not so in the case of Kip Dawson. Tonight, I’ll guide you through the significance of what’s been occurring, not only some three hundred and ten miles above us on orbit, but on Earth, too, as an ordinary man—an ordinary husband and father named Kip Dawson—unknowingly communicates to an amazing number of his fellow humans in real time in ways simultaneously complex, simple, and profound.

Not even when the President of the United States or the Pope speaks do so many pay such rapt, all-consuming attention. Yes, this has developed into a shared human experience, reading the words of a man who knows he’s going to die in two more days. But what makes this so profound is that Kip Dawson is saying things that ring true in the hearts and minds and unspoken memories of so many… his angst, his remorse over things left undone, his grief and joy over relationships that form the basic sinew of life, and even one amazing instance this afternoon in which his recounting of misconduct by the company that employs him has already sparked law enforcement action that may end in indictments and prison sentences. In many things he’s written, Kip Dawson is giving voice to feelings we’ve dared not reveal, and touching us uncomfortably in the process. Worldwide, he’s sparking debates and focusing attention on ideas, some fairly far out—such as the religious debate Kip’s words ignited when he recommended that marriage be limited to eighteen years past the birth of the last child. If you’ve been glued to your TV or computer reading every word… if you’ve called in sick or been inattentive to your duties because you’re wrapped up in this, that’s okay, because you’re witnessing and living as it happens something we’ve never seen or heard before—a single voice, speaking to mankind, guileless, with no agenda, and with a blinding honesty we all need to understand. Space tends to do that to us. Our fathers and mothers stood transfixed in 1969, knowing what adults know, and watching Neil Armstrong step on the moon. Later the drama of Apollo Thirteengalvanized the planet, to the extent that communications were able to bring the globe together. And today? A planetary audience is reading or listening in dozens of languages to every word Kip Dawson writes. An audience of perhaps two billion—that’s with a “B"—two billion members of the human family. Perhaps it takes something like this to truly remind us how connected we really are.

Okay. First, let’s get to the basics of what’s happened.

HYATT-REGENCY, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 8:30 P.M. Pacific

With a pedestrian mini-bar scotch in her hand, in a plush Los Angeles hotel room, Diana Ross settles into an easy chair, thinking over the day’s events. The TV is on, the story doing just what she’d predicted now and turning to phase three, the story about what he’s saying and how he’s saying it.

She shakes her head at the coincidence of Kip going silent just before Coleman’s show hit the air. Intellectually she knows his producer had nothing to do with it. But it gave Matt Coleman an invaluable window of opportunity to feed the void in Kip’s transmission with his own spin, and given the deep public hunger for more, the size of tonight’s audience has to be a record.

Kip’s last-typed words still hang along the bottom of the screen, the end of a surprisingly introspective tale of his second marriage and how the progressive withdrawal of sexual interest by Sharon Summers Dawson affected him slowly, insidiously, exacerbated by her refusal to admit there was anything wrong between them. He wrote about his frustration and his attempts to ignore it. He talked about trying to tell himself it was okay, that he could survive semi-celibacy as Sharon became sexually colder.

But she’s been wholly unprepared to read that Kip fantasized about her while in training in Mojave—a revelation written with her name clearly attached that’s led to an instant phone explosion and morning show bookings for tomorrow. She’s gone through a series of rapid responses from shock to embarrassment to anger to a growing, deep sense of connection.

So I affected him that much!

For several hours she’s been worried that he’ll say more, take his fantasy into the literary bedroom or something equally tawdry. After all, he could say anything at all with the secure “knowledge” that no one in his time would read it. And when he began describing the feelings their one dinner together had sparked in his love-starved head—thoughts that maybe he should consider ending his marriage and looking for someone like her to love—it was not a welcome accolade. Half the planet has now been invited to think of her as a virtual pinup girl, if not a potential homewrecker.

How on earth am I going to deal with this tomorrow or even live this down?she wonders. Even Playboyis now trying to reach her. At the same time she feels guilty that she’s irritated over his words when the man has less than forty-eight hours of air left and has absolutely no intention of embarrassing her. And in the end, she decides to deal with the morning show questions by laughing it off. After all, she’s done nothing to encourage him, and these are only the private musings of a dying man.

Nevertheless, the same questions keep echoing in her head. Why now? Why me?

She knows the answer, but she’s been avoiding the conclusion: She’s in his head.

And now, somehow, he’s in hers.

ABOARD INTREPID, 8:40 P.M. PACIFIC

Waking from each nap is becoming more and more confusing.

Somehow Kip has developed the ability to fall almost immediately into REM sleep, something he could never do on Earth. But coming out of REM is a slightly wrenching experience, the dreams left behind so real and visceral that each time he has to think carefully about what is and isn’t real.

But then the full reality of his situation returns.

This time the dream was all about sex and lovemaking and he hates to leave it. He wonders if there’s sex in whatever dimension he’ll find himself occupying in two days. If not, he thinks, maybe he’d rather not go—as if he had a choice. It was sex and the lack of making love (or even the lack of opportunity to have raw sex with Sharon), that has all but destroyed his marriage.

And of everything in this life, he thinks he’ll miss sex the most.

If that’s how I measure my existence, in terms of how much I’ve been getting,he thinks, I was already near death.

The thought makes him chuckle and he considers writing something really steamy in the computer, just to show his future reader who he really is, the lusty Kip Dawson, a lover devoted to the female of the species who didn’t get much practice.

He poises his fingers over the keyboard, visualizing Diana Ross, wondering how tastefully yet graphically he could describe how he’d like a night with her to unfold, a menu of delights with her pleasure at the center while Conway Twitty sings “Slow Hand” in the background. “Bolero,” he thinks, was never his style.

Of course he could substitute any pretty female in such a narrative, but then it would be no more than mental masturbation. No, if he’s going to fantasize in writing, it should be Diana, whom he can see so clearly.

Why shouldn’t I try my hand at erotic narrative? No one in her time will see it, and I’ve already said I was thinking about her that way.

But then he feels a twinge of Puritanical alarm, as if even his demons will be straight-laced enough to be embarrassed at his prurient thoughts. But he needs a more practical reason to stay his hand, and he finds it in chivalrous concern for Diana. Even if his words weren’t found until she was a much older woman, such self-indulgent X-rated musings could embarrass her, and he would never want that.

He laughs again at how different the mental wiring is between male and female, and how abysmally unaware most women are of the simplicity of the male mind on the subject of sex.

Think driving force of life! Think the most beautiful element of life. Think I’d rather die without it.

He’s had no hope of getting that through to Sharon, or getting her to understand how destructive her disinterest in making love has been, and how it’s essentially doomed them.

So many things he should have changed. So many times he played it safe.

Oh, great!he chuckles. I find the true meaning of life with less than two days of it left. Impeccable timing!

He can see a lot of things more clearly now, having chronicled his entire life and come to the conclusion that at best he would give it a C minus.

No. Not even that good,Kip thinks. As an adult, I give myself an F.

Then again, what sense does it make to spend the remaining hours whining and crying and carrying on? Nothing will change as a result, except that he’ll lose the chance to add to his narrative. Besides, death will be a new beginning. He believes that, doesn’t he?

Kip feels a shudder ripple through him, a primal fear of what’s on the other side of that one-way door he’s facing. He remembers the adage that there are no atheists in a foxhole, and there are certainly none in Intrepid,but somehow all his philosophical thoughts about this existence and what happens next and why are being spread out on a table for some future universe to look at, and perhaps judge.

Or not.

In any event, he’ll know in two days how right or wrong he was, but suddenly all those musings seem infantile and untrustworthy.

Kip closes his eyes and forces his mind back to his narrative. It’s safer there, like a warm and familiar room with four walls and window shades he can pull against reality. Intrepiditself has begun to feel a little like that, and for two days he’s been able to stay uniquely focused, living his life over again.

Amazing, that focus, he thinks. Like Samuel Johnson said, “The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight most wonderously concentrates the mind."

He shakes his head. Johnson was talking about two weeks. He has two days.

But he also has the keyboard in front of him and a hard drive that doesn’t know the difference between the real life he’s been writing about and the life he wishes he’d had and all the things he should have done.

Virtual reality, virtual life. What is it they say in Hollywood? Do a rewrite? Good. I’ll rewrite my life the way it should have been.

The idea begins to take hold, bringing a faint smile. It would be like taking control, having the power to determine his own destiny, rather than just being along for the ride. He can get just as crazy about it as he wants. He can replace his parents with a keystroke, have the brother he always wanted—maybe even an identical twin—and when it comes to girls, the possibilities are unlimited. The cutest gals in school will be his. The homecoming queen, the sexiest siren in town. Forget Lucy, he’ll marry a drop-dead gorgeous Ph.D. with a stand-up comedienne’s sense of humor and a Julia Child’s skill at cooking. Superwoman! Chef in the kitchen, lady in the parlor, and wild woman in the bedroom.

Maybe I’ll earn a Ph.D. Maybe two. Perhaps a Nobel Prize for some discovery in one of the hard sciences, after a short but stellar career as an Air Force ace. No, not the Air Force. The Navy. I’ll become a Navy carrier pilot. Top Gun.

He lets the thoughts swirl, thinking about all he’s ever heard about someone creating his own reality by doing little more than what he’s contemplating. Just… creatingit.

If it’s all in my mind, then what’s the difference?

Suddenly he’s paging back through what has become a massive document, looking for the place where he first began to regret the way things were going.

That would be age fourteen.

No, he decides. Earlier. Age nine, before he noticed girls.

No,he corrects himself, I was noticing girls by age eight, I just didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

He finds the spot he was looking for around page forty and begins highlighting everything afterward, page after page of his life the way it was.

He opens the main hard drive and locates the file and deletes it, leaving the hundred twenty page document on the screen as the only remaining record.

It is as I make it. And maybe it all was a dream, both good and bad.

His finger is over the delete button now as he thinks about all he’s written, two days of electronic scribbling for forty plus years of an unfinished, imperfect life. How many fellow humans have wished for a rewrite, he wonders. How many have wished for a chance to go back and do it all over again?