But Anja never walked through that door. Her dad called just before midnight, and after that it was an unspooling nightmare of police lights and questions. They found nothing: no witnesses; no other missing persons; no trace of Anja’s backpack, thought to contain all her electronics; and no body.
Most believed Anja had been taken, but by whom was anyone’s guess. Others believed she’d been recruited, maybe by Bakteria, which was all over the news then for attempting to replace governmental archives with fake historical documents. This time, though, it also leaked a trove of undeclassified material related to a Japanese bacteriological warfare unit from the Second World War, whose crimes the U.S. government had notoriously helped cover up in exchange for their data harvested from human experimentation—a revelation that gave fresh ammo to those historians who’d been trying for decades to substantiate the rumor that the U.S. military had used the data to conduct its own bacteriological experiments during the war in Korea. The timing led some to believe Anja was Bakteria, especially after the local news screened in popular pundits to parse in rapid sound bites the impact of the leak (it’ll be months before we’ll know), as well as the manner in which it happened (an accident of a juvenile prank), and the broader meaning of it all in an era of bots and fake news (folks, this is cyberwarfare, and it’s waged by people as young as high schoolers). Behind Erin’s back, classmates debated whether Anja had planned the whole thing and ultimately used Erin to this end.
Erin heard the whispers, which rustled around him like a paper dome every time he moved, but his brain registered nothing, just snips of conversation that flicked and looped like old film reels that had reached their end. Would he hear from her? This was the question that kept him going, the pulse of hope prodding his days, one revolution, two revolutions, around the pivot of those final hours, that final minute in view of her door.
But he didn’t hear from her, and the semester ended as if on mute. He raked The Garden for hidden messages, jumped at every ping, delivered his mother’s food to Anja’s dad. Gradually the world drifted away, and in the new vacuum he began picturing her against a white backdrop that he fought to keep blank, swiping away his skulking fears before they rendered a sound, a scene, another human figure. Did he believe she was gone? His mother, a low-tech human, was the only one who asked him this question. No answers came, only an echo from the static of his heart—was she gone?—and a single image: a girl with beetle-shaped headphones in a permanently interfaced world, the termini of her body fused with the electronic circuitry that connected her brain to the larger network, her neural tendrils curled around every system, penetrating every brain, to switch them on, wake them up, evolve the species for survival. In that world, there were no gods to curse the girl who deigned to intervene; they were all asleep, some dreaming of a girl named Anja and a boy named Erin who’d plant a garden that would save many, while others tossed and turned, trapped in the silence that would ensue when all the squabbling was over and the earth, scorched and fallow, lay waiting for a spring that would come devoid of humanity but full of new life.
Erin slid his headset back on. In The Garden, the office was quiet. Gale was online; the team had momentarily shelved their distrust. On the map, the space suits had not moved. Outside, wind was sweeping the virtual streets, clearing the city for the rain that would soon close the curtains on the sun, triggering all the sensor-operated lights before setting off a network of weather sirens, their blares faithfully carrying the sound of war that had rent the physical world in the previous century. According to The Garden, it would still be several decades before Earth truly began to unburden itself of humankind, but even in the physical realm the signs were proliferating as the somnambulant world—reassured by the stable of businesses that still opened their doors in the morning, the gleaming high-rises that still glittered at night—blundered on, banking on the miracle of science to prolong the dream that something so concrete as a cup of coffee couldn’t one day vanish like a hologram. So, what, in the grand scheme, was human survival worth?
Erin lifted the headset. On his laptop screen, the message was still flashing, the backpack still punctuating it like a signature. Was this or was this not Anja? The backpack definitely felt intimate, like a message with a return address. He clicked it. Sure enough, a command prompt appeared, the cursor blinking like a beacon in the empty box. If this wasn’t Anja, what did it matter? He unlocked his phone, searched for an old app buried in the app drawer. He spread his hands across his laptop. He typed, deleted, typed again. He sat for a long moment, the distant wail of the city outside like a voice from long ago. Then he pressed Enter.
ECHOLOCATION
Vision and hearing are close cousins in that they both process reflected waves of energy. Vision processes light waves as they travel from their source, bounce off surfaces and enter the eyes. Similarly, the auditory system processes sound waves as they travel from their source, bounce off surfaces and enter the ears. Both systems extract a great deal of information about the environment by interpreting the complex patterns of reflected energy they receive. In the case of sound, these waves of reflected energy are called “echoes.”
—Wikipedia
We—Erin, Mother, and I—are visiting (Aunt) Katy, Aunt in parentheses because she won’t stand for it, the stupid title, she told us (though she doesn’t mind Doctor, we observed), her pointy glare shriveling our tongues so they learned to disobey us before disobeying her again. We’re here in Boston because it’s summer, and Mother is giving a lecture at a university (2024: [Re-]visioning the Refugee Crisis), and Dad’s going to a pharmaceutical rep conference despite the global travel alert. Dad’s plane is a 787 Dreamliner. It has a cruising altitude of 43,000 feet. Erin says Dad’s at least at 30,000 feet by now, but I’m not supposed to think about that.
Erin is three point two five years older than me, which makes him Responsible, but he’s plugged into his laptop, unlikely to notice where I am or what I’m getting into, which at the moment is Katy’s bedroom closet. Katy’s jumble is magnificent. All soft silver like liquid pearls, but I don’t touch anything. Not even her gorgeous clutter of shoes, which are stampeding her milky button-downs puddled on the floor. In back, something glitters. When I reach for it, the closet blurs. I rub my eyes; the button-downs float and multiply. I shut my eyes and step back, step all the way back into Katy’s room. Breathe. Centeredness is the only way to clarity. Even here, 2,691 miles from Studio Oneness, I hear Kirsten’s voice guiding Mother and me and the neighborhood ladies through her breathing meditation. What do you see? Kirsten says. I see a blue smudge and a beige rectangle that morphs into a plastic fold-down table, a packet of peanuts rattling on a napkin. Intention is the gateway to manifestation, Kirsten says. I intend Dad’s 787 to fly steady.
* * *
*
OKAY, I lined up the shoes. Katy will notice, but Katy’s a busy person; she might appreciate the organization. Erin’s busy too. He’s busy going through Puberty. Puberty makes him irritable in a way he can’t explain. I’m supposed to stay three point eight feet minimum away from him. But that can’t stop my eyes from traveling.