The Speculist

“Yes,” Markku say enthusiastically. “That is exactly correct. That is an excellent way of putting it. Your are in competition with these other contexts.”

“So what exactly are we fighting over?”

“Above all, existence. There are many more possible contexts in which you do not exist than those in which you do. Your own existence is a scarce resource. So you must fight for it. Constantly. Constantly fight.”

I figure he’s about done with that when he looks me straight in the eye.

“You must fight constantly for your own existence,” he says. “Constantly. Fight. You must….

This goes on for a while. As he wanders down a lingering path of additional “constantlies,” “fights,” and “you musts,” I observe that the old guy has gone a bit wild-eyed on me. Some of these subjects seem to hit pretty close to him. A lot of history, there, I’m thinking. History that I could do without ever learning anything about.

“Right,” I say, in a tone that generally signals to underlings that — irrespective of whether it has satisfied any of their requirements — our meeting is now finished as far as I’m concerned.

Markku doesn’t respond. But the muttering finally fades to white. He just sits there staring at the table top.

Time for me to press my advantage. I stand up.

“Well, I certainly will keep all that in mind, Mr. Markku. It’s great that you stopped, by. I enjoyed seeing you again. But you see, the thing is, I’ve got a pretty full day here, appointment-wise and I’m going to have to get back on schedule. I’m sure you understand.”

He looks up at me.

“This is what has defined us above all,” he says. “This struggle. We are known for many things. Many beautiful things. Many terrible things. But this struggle above all. And don’t you understand? Our struggle was not with ourselves. Not like the struggle you are engaged in with all the other Hamiltons in all the other contexts. Our struggle has always been with…you.”

Great. So much for the big wind-up. I don’t want to hear this. Any of it. It goes well beyond the fact that the guy is annoying. I suddenly have this feeling that he has something to say that’s just plain wrong, if that makes any sense. Not just factually inaccurate — it might even be true. But it’s something bad.

Something Emmett Was Never Meant to Know.

He’s going to tell me something that is as wrong as his presence in this room. I try to think of a way to get this back on the Go ahead and let the door hit you on the way out track, and so I say:

“With me?”

Which is not what I wanted to say at all. But I have this strange sense that I am not completely in control of the old Emmett machinery. There’s something else here with me, helping me decide what to do, what not to do, what to say. It’s almost as though I’m being…hacked.

I sit down, willingly, on my own.

I’m afraid of what might happen if I try to remain standing up.

Birdfreakthing shakes his head.

“It is a conversation for another day. Suffice it to say that you are not alone in the struggle in which you are called to take part.”

“But I thought you said it was me against all the other versions of me.”

“That is a part of it, yes. You seem quite happy in your current circumstances. What If I told you that the happiness you know now is not a tenth, not a ten thousandth of the happiness that could be yours?”

I think about that for a moment. I have to admit that I like the sound of it.

Because, you know, the thing is…even if you cast off what seems like every last vestige of loserhood and transform yourself into the very Man Among Men that you never even thought that you’d ever become, with the wealth and the beautiful wife and the President trying to get you on his calendar…even then there’s this tiny little niggling suspicion that this whole deal could be a lot better than it is. A lot better.

I mean…is it just me?

___

I would be having some major deja-vu right now if anything like this had ever happened to me before.

Wait. That isn’t the way I meant to put that.

The point is, something very similar to this happened to me once before — about seven years ago. Similar but different. The same, but not the same. You get the idea. Let’s consider…

I’m sitting here looking at boxes being asked to choose one of them. Apparently my entire future relies on the choice I make. Markku is involved.

With me so far?

Great.

Now let’s take a look at…

Three boxes this time, not two. Much smaller than the ones I recall from the famous Two-Box Experiment of my younger days. They’re all the same color, a dark shade of gray which I’m pretty sure matches good old box number two from the first time around. El Creepo produced the boxes from somewhere inside his — I’m afraid I’m going to have go ahead and say it — fairly nasty overcoat, disinclining me to touch any of them.

This time, my pre-meeting with him in which he gives me hints about the choice I should make and the actual Moment of Truth in which I have to make a decision have been combined into one convenient crisis. Also, the cast of characters has been simplified. This time it’s just me and Dracula, what with Peggy off getting the kids musically educated and Dr. Bryce, as far as I know, still holding down the fort at WorldConneX Labs.

Another major simplification: this time there are no hints. Markku doesn’t seem to care which box I pick. And nobody is outlining the consequences.

Fortunately.

I mean, wasn’t this complicated enough with just two boxes? Imagine three:

All right, if you pick just the first box alone you get a ham sandwich. If you pick boxes one and two you get a ham sandwich and a check for fifty dollars. If you pick boxes two and three you get the sandwich on rye but no check. If you pick boxes one and three, you get the check on rye, but no ham. However, if you pick boxes one, two, and three you get the check on whole wheat with Swiss, a can of ham, and the ability to walk through walls. Unless, of course, the QC predicted that you were going to pick all three, in which case you get your own TV show only now you have really big ears.

Never mind. The point is that none of these options have been spelled out.

“So,” Markku says, his features set in a rigid stillness that can only be described as unnatural, “have you made a selection?”

“Um…” I start.

Just then, there is a delicate little tap-tap at the door.

Markku whips around towards the door, machine-like, his face glowing with a homicidal fury that can only be described as unnatural.

“Uh, come in,” I say as confidently as I can.

It’s Vanessa. Again. Of course.

“We were not to be disturbed,” Markku says with a grim tone of authority that can only be described as…oh, to hell with it. You get the idea.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Vanessa says, never looking once at me. Of course not. Why should she? She’s addressing the Man in Charge.

This sucks.

“It seems that there is someone here. Someone has an appointment to see you. I mean, to see him.”

She nods halfheartedly in my direction as she lets loose the pronoun that tells me everything I need to know about how devastating my sudden fall has been.

This really, really sucks. Big time.

“Tell him to wait,” says Markku. “No. Tell him to leave.”

And now here’s a replay of something I saw just a while ago. Just as when she had to tell me, as tactfully as she could, that she will not be calling me Emmett any time soon, Vanessa now has to break it to Lord Vader that she can’t comply with his wishes seeing as she has to answer to a higher authority.

I don’t waste even one heartbeat thinking that the higher authority might be me. Must be the New Guy.

?

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says and does a robot-like about face that our boy Markku himself would be proud to pull off.

She is gone only for 30 seconds or so, leaving Markku to do some serious fuming and me to forget all about what might be inside the boxes. She reappears at the end of the 30 seconds with the New Guy, who it turns out is actually two people. A man and a woman.

“ ’Ello, Monsieur ’Amilton,” the (obviously French) guys says, restoring some semblance of reason to the world by talking to me and completely ignoring the Birdman.

“It is a great pleasure to meet you,” he continues. “My name is Michel LeClaire. And may I present to you my friend and colleague, Miss Daphne Wong Yoke Yee.”

“Well, hello,” I find myself able to say.

I discover that I’m also able to stand up and offer my hand to the stranger, LeClaire. So either I was imagining that whole business about being hacked, or these two emit some kind of Markku firewall. I wonder whether Norton has considered offering anything like that. While LeClaire and I are shaking hands, Miss Yee — or is that Miss Wong? I always get confused with that — plops down in a chair next to Markku.

“Don’t know if we’ve had the pleasure,” she says, extending her hand in his general direction, apparently with no real expectation that he’ll take it. She speaks perfect English, with no annoying French accent. In fact, she sounds like a Brit.

Markku makes a sound not unlike the growl of a dangerous caged beast. In fact, not nearly enough unlike that growl, if you see what I’m saying.

The she turns and looks at me. What a knockout.

I’m not much afflicted with the roving eye syndrome, seeing as I’m happily married to the most beautiful woman I ever met. But were my eyes inclined to do any roving, I can’t help but think that this is the kind of direction they might be inclined to take. Hair down to her waist. Legs up to her eye sockets. Little short leather skirt with matching jacket, plunging neckline and, um, eyes. Magnificent eyes. Jet black with just a hint of violet thrown in somehow.

LeClaire, by contrast is your typical, overly thin, gray-at-the-temples Eurodweeb, what with his silk suit almost managing to outshine his shoes.

“You’re keeping strange company these days, Emmett,” says Miss Yee.

“I’m sorry,” I reply. “Have we met?”

She smiles just a little.

“No,” she says. “Not really.”