Rollback (10 page)

And suddenly Sarah was on her feet.

"What?" said Don, indignant. "It's a word!"

"It's not just the symbol, it's where it appears!" She was heading out of the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the living room.

"What?" he said, getting up to follow her.

"In the message! The part that doesn't make sense!" She was speaking as she moved. "The rest of the message defines an ... an
idea-space
, and the numbers are coordinates for where the symbols go within it. They're relating concepts to each other in some sort of three-dimensional array..." She was running down the stairs to the basement, where, back then, the family computer had been kept. He followed. Sixteen-year-old Carl was seated in front of the bulky CRT monitor, headphones on, playing one of those damned first-person-shooter games that Don so disapproved of. Ten-year-old Emily, meanwhile, was watching
Desperate Housewives
on TV.

"Carl, I need the computer—

"In a bit, Mom. I'm at the tenth level—"

"Now!"

It was so rare for Sarah to yell that her son actually did get up, relinquishing the swivel chair. "How do you get out of this damn thing?" Sarah snapped, sitting down. Carl reached over his mother's shoulder and did something with the mouse. Don, meanwhile, turned down the volume on the TV, earning him a petulant "Hey!" from Emily.

"It's an X-Y-Z grid," Sarah said. She opened Firefox, and accessed one of the countless sites that had the Dracon message online. "I'm sure of it. They're defining the placement of terms."

"On a map?" Don said.

"What? No, no, no. Not on a map—in space! It's like a 3-D page-description language. You know, like Postscript, but for documents that don't just have height and width but depth as well." She was pounding rapidly at the keyboard. "If I can just figure out the parameters of the defined volume, and..."

More keystrokes. Don and Carl stood by, watching in rapt attention. "Damn!" said Sarah. "It's not a cube ... that'd be too easy. A rectangular prism then. But what are the dimensions?"

The mouse pointer was darting about the screen like a rocket piloted by a mad scientist. "Well," she said, clearly just talking to herself now, "if they're not integers, they might be square roots..."

"Daddy...?"

He turned around. Emily was looking up at him with wide eyes. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"What's Mommy doing?"

He glanced back. Sarah had a graphing program running; he suspected she was now glad they'd sprung for the high-end video card that Carl had begged for so he could play his games.

"I think," Don said, turning back to his daughter, "that she's making history."
 

To be young again!
So many had wished for it over the years, but Donald Halifax had achieved it—and it felt
wonderful
. He knew his strength and stamina had ebbed these past several decades, but because it'd happened gradually he hadn't been conscious of how much he'd lost. But it had all come rushing back over the last six months, and the contrast was staggering; it was like being on a caffeine jag all the time. The term that came to mind was "vim and vigor"—and, although he'd played "vim" often enough in Scrabble, he realized he didn't actually know precisely what it meant, so he asked his datacom. "Ebullient vitality and energy," it told him.

And that was it! That was precisely it! His energy seemed almost boundless, and he was elated to have it back. "Zest," another word only ever employed on the Scrabble board, came to mind, too. The datacom's synonyms for it—keen relish, hearty enjoyment, gusto—were all applicable, but the cliche "feeling like a million bucks" seemed woefully inadequate; he felt like every one of the billions of dollars that had been spent on him; he felt totally, joyously, happily
alive
. He didn't shuffle anymore; he strode. Just walking along felt like the way he used to feel on those motorized walkways at airports—like he was bionic, moving so fast that it'd all be a blur to onlookers. He could lift heavy boxes, jump over puddles, practically fly up staircases—it wasn't quite leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but it felt damn near as good.

And there was icing on this delicious cake: the constant background of pain that had been with him for so long was
gone
; it was as though he'd been sitting next to a roaring jet engine for years on end, always trying to shut out the sound, to ignore it, and now it had been turned off; the silence was intoxicating. Youth, the old song said, was wasted on the young. So true—because they didn't know what it would feel like once it was gone. But now he had it again!

Dr. Petra Jones confirmed that his rollback was complete. His cell-division rate, she said, had slowed to normal and his telomeres had gone back to shortening with each division, a new set of growth rings was starting to appear in his bones, and so on. And the follow-up work had been completed, too. He had new lenses, a new kidney, and a new prostate, all grown from his own cells; his nose was restored to the merely honkeresque proportions it'd had in his youth; his ears had been reduced; his teeth had been whitened and his two remaining amalgam fillings replaced; and a few nips and tucks had tidied up other things. For all intents and purposes, he was physically twenty-five once more, and aging forward normally from that point.

Don was still getting used to all the wonderful improvements. His hearing was top-notch again, as was his vision. But he'd had to buy a whole new wardrobe. After the recalcification treatments and gene therapies, he'd regained the two inches he'd lost over the years, and his limbs, which had been reduced to not much more than skin and bones, had beefed up nicely. Ah, well; his collection of cardigans and shirts with buttons would have looked silly on a guy apparently in his twenties.

He'd had to stop wearing his wedding ring, too. A decade ago, he'd had it reduced in size, since his fingers had gotten thinner with age; now, it pinched painfully. He'd been waiting until the rollback was over to get it sized back up, and he'd get it done as soon as he found a good jeweler; he didn't want to trust it to just anyone.

Ontario had mandatory driver retesting every two years starting at one's eightieth birthday. Don had failed the last time. He hadn't missed it, and, besides, Sarah was still able to drive when they really needed to go somewhere. Now, though, he probably should take the test again; he had no doubt he'd pass this time.

At some point, he'd also have to get a new passport, with his new face, and new credit cards, also with his new face. Technically, he'd still be entitled to seniors' discounts in restaurants and at movies, but there'd be no way to claim them without convincing incredulous waiters and clerks. Too bad, really. Unlike, he was sure, every other person who had undergone a rollback, he really could use the break.

Despite all the good things, there
were
a few downsides to being young again. Sarah and Don were spending double on groceries now. And Don slept more. For at least ten years, he and Sarah had been doing just fine with six hours' sleep each night, but he found he needed a full eight again. It was a small price to pay: losing two hours a day, but gaining an extra sixty years. And, besides, presumably as he aged the second time, his sleep and food requirements would lessen again.

It was now a little after 11:00 p.m., and Don was getting ready for bed. Usually, he was quick in the bathroom, but he'd gone out today, and it had been hot and muggy. Toronto in August had been unpleasant when he'd been a kid; these days, the heat and humidity were brutal. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep well if he didn't first have a quick shower. Carl had installed one of those diagonal support bars for them several years ago. Sarah still needed it, but Don now found it got in the way.

He shampooed, quite enjoying the sensation. He now had a full head of inch-long sandy-brown hair, and he just loved the feel of it. His chest hair was no longer white, either, and his other body hair had lost its grayness.

The shower was sensuous, and he luxuriated in it. And, as he cleaned himself down there, he felt his penis growing a little stiff. As the water ran over him, he idly stroked himself. He was thinking of finishing himself off—that seemed the most expedient course—when Sarah entered the bathroom. He could see her through the translucent shower curtain; she was doing something over by the sink. He rinsed the soap off, his erection fading as he did so. Then he turned off the water, pulled back the shower curtain, and stepped out of the tub. By now, he was used to being able to swing his legs one after the other over the side without it being painful, and without—as he'd been doing in the preceding few years—sitting on the edge of the tub while doing so.

Her back was to him. She was already dressed for bed, wearing, as she always did in summers, a long, loose red T-shirt. He grabbed a towel from the rack and vigorously dried himself off, then headed down the short corridor to the bedroom. He'd always been a pajama man, but he lay naked on top of the green sheets, looking up at the ceiling. After a moment, though, he felt cold—their house had central air conditioning, and an outlet vent was directly above the bed—and so he scurried under the sheets.

A moment later, Sarah entered. She turned off the light as she did so, but there was enough illumination seeping in from outside that he could see her moving slowly to her side of the bed, and he felt the mattress compressing as she climbed in. "Good night, sweetheart," she said.

He rolled over on his side, and touched her shoulder. Sarah seemed surprised by the contact—for the last decade or so, they'd had to plan sex in advance, since Don had needed to take a pill beforehand to kick-start his lower regions—but soon he felt her hand gently on his hip. He moved closer to her and brought his head down to kiss her. She responded after a moment, and they kissed for about ten seconds. When he pulled away, she was lying on her back, and he was looking down at her while leaning on one elbow.

"Hey," she said, her voice soft.

"Hey, yourself," he said, smiling.

He wanted to bounce off the walls, to have wild, athletic sex—but she wouldn't be able to stand that, and so he touched her gently, softly, and—

"Ouch!" she said.

He wasn't sure what he'd done, but he said, "Sorry." He made his touch even lighter, more feathery. He heard her make a sharp intake of breath, but he couldn't tell if it was in pain or pleasure. He shifted positions again, and she moved slightly, and he actually heard her bones creak.

The activity was so slow, and her touch so weak, that he felt himself going soft. While looking into her eyes he vigorously stroked himself, trying to get his erection back. She looked so vulnerable; he didn't want her to think he was rejecting her.

"Tell me if this hurts," he said as he climbed on top of her, making sure that his own arms and legs were bearing almost all his weight; he wasn't the least bit fat, but he was still much heavier than he'd been before the rollback. He maneuvered carefully, gently, looking for a sweet compromise between what his body was now capable of and what hers could endure. But after only a single thrust, one that seemed oh-so-gentle to him, he could see the pain on her face, and he quickly withdrew, rolling onto his back on her side of the bed.

''I'm so sorry," she said, softly.

"No, no," he said. "It's fine." He turned onto his side, facing her, and very gently held her in his arms.
 

Sarah had leapt from her chair in the basement on that fateful night all those years ago, and Don had hugged her, and lifted her up so that her feet weren't touching the ground, and he'd swung her around, and he kissed her hard, right there, in front of the kids.

"My wife the genius!" Don declared, grinning from ear to ear.

"More like your wife the plodding researcher," replied Sarah, but she was laughing as she said it.

"No, no, no," he said. "You figured it out—before anyone else did, you figured out the meat of the message."

"I've got to post something about this," she said. "I mean, it's no damn good if I keep it a secret. Whoever announces this publicly first is the one who..."

"Whose name will be in the history books," he said. "I am
so
proud of you."

"Thanks, darling."

"But you're right," he said. "You
should
post something, right now." He let her go, and she started to move back to the computer.

"No, Mom," said Carl. "Let me." Sarah was a hunt-and-peck typist, and not a very fast one. Her father, back in Edmonton, had never understood her wanting to be a scientist, and had encouraged her to take all the typing she could so she'd be ready for a secretarial career. A single typing course had been mandatory. It was the one class in her whole life that Sarah had failed.

She looked at her teenage son, who clearly, in his own way, wanted to share in this moment. "Dictate what you want to say," Carl said. "I'll type it in."

She smiled at him, and began pacing the length of the rec room. "All right, here goes. The meat of the message is..."

As she was talking, Don ran upstairs and called an overnight news producer at the CBC. By the time he returned to the basement, Sarah was just finishing dictating her report. He watched as Carl posted it to the SETI Institute newsgroup, then Don said, "Okay, hon, I've got you booked for a TV interview in one hour, and you'll be on both
The Current
and
Sounds Like Canada
in the morning."

She looked at her watch. "God, it's almost midnight. Emily, Carl, you should be in bed. And, Don, I don't want to go downtown this late—"

"You don't have to. A camera crew is on its way here."

"Really? My God!"

"It pays to know the right people," he said with a grin.

"I—um, well, I look a mess..."

"You look
gorgeous
."

"Besides, who the hell is watching TV at this hour?"

"Shut-ins, insomniacs, people channel-flipping looking for nudity—"