Michiko looked concerned. "You think I need to go on a diet?" But then she smiled. "Just kidding."

"But you see my point. There's no evidence even in the short term that we can avoid things through a simple act of will; why should we think that over a span of decades we'll have self-determination?"

"Because we have to," said Michiko, earnest again. "Because if we don't, then there's no way out." She sought out his eyes. "Don't you see? Tipler has to be right. Or if he's not, there has to be some other explanation. That can't be the future." She paused. "It can't be our future."

Lloyd sighed. He did love her, but — damn it, damn it, damn it. He found his head shaking back and forth in negation. "I don't want that to be the future anymore than you do," he said softly.

"Then don't let it," said Michiko, taking his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. "Don't let it."

"Hello?" A pleasant female voice.

"Ah, hello, is that — is that Dr. Tompkins?"

"Speaking."

"Ah, hi. This is — this is Jake Horowitz. You know, from CERN?"

Jake didn't know what he'd expected to hear over the phone. Affection? Relief that he'd made the first contact? Surprise? But none of those emotions were conveyed by Carly's voice. "Yes?" she said, her tone even. That was all; just "yes."

Jacob felt his heart sinking. Maybe he should just hang up, get the hell off the phone. It wouldn't hurt anything; if Lloyd was right, they were bound to be together eventually. But he couldn't bring himself to do that.

"I — I'm sorry to bother you," he stammered. He'd never been good at phoning women. And, indeed, he hadn't phoned one — not like this — since high school, since that time he'd worked up enough courage to call Julie Cohan and ask her for a date. It had taken him days to prepare, and he still remembered how his finger was shaking as he stabbed out her number on the phone in his parents' basement. He could hear his older brother walking around upstairs, the wooden floor creaking with each of his ponderous footsteps, an Ahab on deck. He'd been terrified that David would try to come down while he was on the phone.

Julie's father had answered the phone, and then had called out to her to pick up on an extension — he hadn't covered the mouthpiece, and he spoke to her roughly. Nothing like the way he'd have treated Julie. And then she picked up the phone, and her father had let the handset tumble back onto the cradle, and she said, in that wonderful voice of hers, "Hello?"

"Ah, hello, Julie. This is Jake — you know, Jake Horowitz." Silence, nothing. "From your American History class."

A tone of perplexity, as if he'd just asked her to calculate the last digit of pi. "Yes?"

"I was wondering," he'd said, trying to sound nonchalant, trying to sound as if his whole life didn't depend on this, trying to sound as though his heart weren't about to burst, "I was wondering if you — if you'd like, you know, to go out with me, maybe Saturday… if you're free that is." More silence; he remembered when he was a kid the phone lines used to crackle with faint static. He missed that now.

"Maybe a movie," he'd said, filling the void.

Heartbeats more, and then: "What makes you think I'd possibly want to go out with you?"

He'd felt his vision blur, felt his stomach churn, felt the wind being kicked out of him. He couldn't remember what he'd said after that, but somehow he'd gotten off the phone, somehow he'd kept from crying, somehow he'd just sat there in the basement, listening to his older brother pacing above.

That was the last time he'd called a woman and asked for a date. Oh, he wasn't a virgin — of course not, of course not. Fifty dollars rectified that particular handicap one night in New York City. He'd felt terrible after that, cheap and unclean, but someday he would be with a woman he wanted to be with, and he owed it to her, whomever she might be, to be — well, if not skilled, certainly not flailing about without a clue.

And now, now it looked like he would be with a woman — with Carly Tompkins. He remembered her as being beautiful, remembered her as having chestnut hair and eyes that were green or gray. He'd liked looking at her, liked listening to her, when she gave her presentation at the APS conference. But the exact details of her appearance were elusive. He recalled freckles — yes, surely she'd had freckles, although not as many as he himself had, but a gentle dusting along the bridge of her small nose and her full cheeks. Surely he wasn't imagining that—

Carly's perplexed "yes?" still rang in his ears. She must know why he was calling. She must—

"We're going to be together," he said, stupidly blurting it out, wishing the moment the words were free that he could recant them. "In twenty years, we're going to be togethe r."

She was silent for a moment, then: "I guess."

Jake was relieved; he'd been afraid that she was going to deny the vision. "So I was thinking," Jake said, "I was thinking maybe we should get to know each other. You know, maybe go for coffee." His heart was pounding; his stomach was churning. He was seventeen again.

"Jacob," she said. Jacob, saying his name — no one ever started good news by saying your name. Jacob, reminding him of who he really was. Jacob, what makes you think I'd possibly—

"Jacob," she continued, "I'm seeing someone."

Of course, he thought. Of course she's seeing someone. A dark-haired beauty with those freckles. Of course.

"I'm sorry," he said. He meant for her to take that to mean he was sorry he'd disturbed her, but he felt it both ways. He was sorry she was seeing someone.

"Besides," said Carly, "I'm here in Vancouver; you're in Switzerland."

"I have to be in Seattle later this week; I'm a grad student here, but my field is computer modeling of HEP reactions, and CERN is flying me in to Microsoft for a seminar. I could — we'll, I'd thought about, you know, coming to North America a day or two early, maybe by way of Vancouver. I've got tons of frequent-flyer points; it won't cost me anything."

"When?" asked Carly.

"I — I could be there as early as the day after tomorrow." He tried to make his tone light. "My seminar starts Thursday; the world may be in crisis, but Microsoft soldiers on." At least for the time being, he thought.

"All right," said Carly.

"All right?"

"All right. Come up to TRIUMF, if you want to. I'd be glad to meet you."

"What about your boyfriend?"

"Who said it was a boy?"

"Oh." A pause. "Oh."

But then Carly laughed. "No, just kidding. Yes, it's a guy — his name's Bob. But it's not that serious, and… "

"Yes?"

"And, well, I guess we should get to know each other better."

Jacob was glad that the act of grinning from ear to ear didn't make a sound. They firmed up a time, and then they said their goodbyes.

His heart was pounding. He'd always known the right woman would come along eventually; he'd never given up hope. He wouldn't bring her flowers — he would never get them through customs. No, he'd bring her something decadent from Chocolats Micheli; Switzerland, was, after all, the land of chocolate.

With his luck, though, she'd turn out to be a diabetic.

Theo's younger brother, Dimitrios, lived with three other young men in suburban Athens, but when Theo came calling, late in the evening, Dimitrios was home alone.

Dim was studying European literature at the National Capodistrian University of Athens; ever since childhood, Dim had wanted to be a writer. He'd mastered his alpha-beta-gammas before he'd entered school, and was constantly typing up stories on the family computer. Theo had promised years ago to transfer all of Dim's stories from three-and-a-half-inch diskettes onto optical wafers; no home computers came with diskette readers anymore, but CERN's computing facility had some legacy systems that still used them. He thought about making the offer again, but didn't know whether it was better that Dim think he'd simply forgotten, or that he realize that years — years! — had gone by without his big brother having managed three minutes to request that simple favor from someone in the computing department.