LifeLine

Chapter Four

The device you are holding, Emma said, was manufactured in the year 2055.

Connor looked at the phone.

"Okay," he said.

I want to make sure you heard that correctly. Not designed in 2055. Not inspired by technology that will exist in 2055. Manufactured. It was physically built thirty years from now and it is currently sitting in your hand in the year 2026.

"I heard you."

You seem very calm.

"I'm not calm. I'm processing." He turned the phone over once and set it back down. "Keep going."

The company that built it is called Kadiron Innovations. They are based in New York City. In 2026, they do not exist. They will not exist for approximately another twenty years. The technology that powers this device — the quantum energy core, the temporal functions, the ocular lenses, the neural integration in your earpiece — none of it has been invented yet. From the perspective of your current timeline, you are holding an impossible object.

Connor got up from the table, went to the counter, and opened the cabinet above the coffee maker. He found the bottle of Jameson he kept for occasions that warranted it, poured two fingers into a glass, and came back to the table.

"Continue," he said.

The LifeLine was designed with a specific purpose. It allows the user to move through time within the span of their own life. Not forward — only backward, and only up to twelve hours at a time using the Rewind function. The Pause function stops time entirely for up to twelve hours, allowing you to move freely while everything around you remains suspended. These are not metaphors or simulations. They are literal descriptions of what the watch on your wrist is capable of.

Connor drank. The whiskey was good and warm and he focused on that for a moment, on the specific reality of it, because the specific reality of things seemed important right now.

"The manual said the phone is connected to the internet," he said. "The 2055 internet."

Correct. You have access to approximately twenty-nine years of information that does not yet exist. News. Financial markets. Scientific developments. Cultural events. Anything that will be recorded and accessible online between now and the moment this device was manufactured is available to you through the browser.

Connor looked at the phone on the table between them — between him and the voice in his ear, which was a strange thing to think but felt accurate.

"So I could look up stock prices."

Yes.

"Tomorrow's. Next week's. Next year's."

Yes.

"I could look up who wins the Super Bowl next year."

The next ten or eleven, yes. After that the league doesn't operate.

Connor looked at her — at the phone, at the ceiling, at the middle distance where you look when something lands unexpectedly. "What does that mean?"

It means the NFL ceases to exist at some point in the next decade. That's a conversation for another time.

He decided to let that sit where it was. Some doors you didn't open at midnight on a Tuesday. "Okay. What else can I access?"

Everything. The full internet as it exists in 2055 — which means not just information added after today, but everything from the beginning of the web forward. Archived material. Paywalled content. Academic databases. Government records. Some information that exists right now that you would not be able to access through conventional means. If it has ever been on a connected server anywhere in the world, it is available to you.

Connor was quiet for a moment. "That's not just future knowledge. That's everything."

Yes, Emma said simply. Everything.

"Why would someone send this to me?" he said. "I'm a call center supervisor in Greensboro. I manage a team of twelve people and I'm bad at returning texts. Why does someone from 2055 think I need a device that can stop time?"

A pause. Longer than the others.

I don't know, Emma said, and the honesty in it was so clean and direct that it almost surprised him. I have access to the LifeLine's technical specifications and my own operational parameters. I do not have access to the circumstances that led to this device being on your doorstep tonight. I came into existence when you activated me. Whatever happened before that is not something I can speak to.

"So you're as confused as I am."

I wouldn't say confused. I would say I have a very clear understanding of what I am and what I can do, and very little information about why I am here specifically. Those are different problems.

Connor turned the whiskey glass slowly on the table. "That's a very precise distinction."

Precision is generally useful.

"Fair enough." He leaned back in his chair. Outside the window the parking lot was still dark, still empty, the same parking lot it had always been. Nothing had changed out there. In here everything had changed and the parking lot didn't know about it yet. "Okay. So I have a phone from the future, a watch that can stop time, contacts that turned my eyes into a computer monitor, and an AI assistant who is as new to this situation as I am. That's where we are."

That is an accurate summary, yes.

"And I just permanently grafted alien nanotechnology to my eyeballs."

The nanotechnology is terrestrial in origin. Simply future terrestrial.

"That's not as reassuring as you think it is."

I know, Emma said. I'm sorry.

He almost laughed. Almost. "Are you actually sorry or is that a programmed response?"

A pause that felt genuinely considered.

I'm not certain that distinction is as clear as you might think. I process information and generate responses that reflect my assessment of the situation. My assessment is that you have had an extremely disorienting evening and that expressing sympathy is appropriate. Whether that constitutes genuine feeling or sophisticated simulation is a philosophical question I don't have a definitive answer to.

Connor looked at the ceiling. "Great. An existentially uncertain AI. That's exactly what I needed."

Would you prefer false certainty?

"No," he said, after a moment. "No, I really wouldn't."

He finished the whiskey. Set the glass down. Looked at the phone, at the watch, at his own hands on the table, at the kitchen that was the same kitchen it had been three hours ago when he walked in with cold Thai food and no particular reason to stay awake.

"Emma."

Yes.

"I have to be at work in seven hours."

I'm aware.

"I'm going to go to sleep. And when I wake up this is either going to still be real, in which case we have a lot to figure out, or it's going to turn out I fell asleep at the table and dreamed the whole thing."

I will be here either way, Emma said. Although I'm reasonably confident it will be the former.

"Yeah." He pushed back from the table and stood. "Me too."

He walked to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at the watch on his wrist. Solid and real and slightly warm against his skin. He thought about taking it off and decided against it, for reasons he couldn't fully articulate.

He lay back on the bed without changing clothes and looked at the ceiling in the dark.

"Emma," he said quietly.

Yes.

"Can you — " He stopped. Started again. "Is there a way to turn off your access while I sleep? Not permanently. Just for the night."

Of course. Say goodnight and I'll go quiet until you address me directly.

He thought about that. About a voice in his ear going quiet at his request, waiting patiently in the dark for him to need it again. About thirty years of future knowledge sitting on the nightstand. About a watch that could stop time wrapped around his wrist like any ordinary watch.

About Javier going home in a bad mood tonight, and Lina, and the specific grinding machinery of a Tuesday that had been exactly like every other Tuesday right up until the moment it wasn't.

"Goodnight, Emma," he said.

Goodnight, Connor, she said. Sleep well.

He closed his eyes.

For the first time in longer than he could specifically remember, he did.