Lloyd came through the tall glass doors of the General Assembly building. The New York air stung his eyes — damn, but they were going to have to do something about that one of these days; the visions said it would be even worse by 2030. The sky overhead was gray, crisscrossed by airplane contrails. A crowd of reporters — perhaps fifty in all — rushed over to meet him, camcorders and microphones thrust out.

"Doctor Simcoe!" shouted one, a middle-aged white man. "Doctor Simcoe! What happens if consciousness doesn't drop back to the present day? What happens if we're all stuck twenty-one years in the future?"

Lloyd was tired. He hadn't been as nervous speaking in front of people since his Ph.D. oral defense. He really just wanted to go back to his hotel room, pour himself a nice Scotch, and crawl into bed.

"We have no reason to think that such a thing could happen," he said. "It seemed to be a completely temporary phenomenon that began the moment we started the particle collisions and ceased the moment we ended them."

"What about the families of any people who might die this time? Will you take personal responsibility for them?"

"How about the ones who are already dead? Don't you feel you owe them something?"

"Isn't this all just some cheap quest for glory on your part?"

Lloyd took a deep breath. He was tired, and he had a pounding headache. "Gentlemen and ladies — and I use those terms loosely — you are apparently used to interviewing politicians who can't be seen to lose their temper, and so you can get away with asking them questions in haranguing tones. Well, I am not a politician; I am, among other things, a university professor, and I am used to civilized discourse. If you can't ask polite questions, I will terminate this exchange."

"But, Dr. Simcoe — isn't it true that all the death and destruction was your fault? Didn't you in fact design the experiment that went awry?"

Lloyd kept his tone even. "I'm not kidding, people. I have had quite my fill of media exposure already; one more bullshit question like that, and I'm walking away."

There was stunned silence. Reporters looked at each other, then back at Lloyd.

"But all those deaths… " began one.

"That's it," snapped Lloyd. "I'm out of here." He began walking away.

"Wait!" cried one reporter, and "Stop!" shouted another.

Lloyd turned around. "Only if you can manage intelligent, civilized questions."

After a moment's hesitation, a melanic-American woman raised her hand, almost meekly.

"Yes?" said Lloyd, lifting his eyebrows.

"Dr. Simcoe, what decision do you think the UN will make?"

Lloyd nodded at her, acknowledging that this was an acceptable interrogative. "I'm honestly not sure. My gut feeling is that we should indeed try to replicate the results — but I'm a scientist, and replication is my stock-in-trade. I do think the people of Earth want this, but whether their leaders will be willing to do what the people desire I have no way of knowing."

Theo had come to New York, as well, and he and Lloyd that night enjoyed the extravagant seafood buffet at the Ambassador Grill in the UN Plaza-Park Hyatt.

"Michiko's birthday is coming up," said Theo, cracking a lobster's claw.

Lloyd nodded. "I know."

"Are you going to throw a surprise party for her?"

Lloyd paused. After a moment, he said, "No."

Theo gave him a "if you really loved her, you'd do it" look. Lloyd didn't feel like explaining. He'd never really thought about it before, but it came to him full blown, as if he'd always known it. Surprise parties were a cheat. You let someone you were supposed to care about think you'd forgotten their birthday. You deliberately bring them down, make them feel neglected, uncared for, unremembered, unappreciated. And then you lie — lie! — to them for weeks on end leading up to the event. All this, so that in the moment when people yell "Surprise!" the person will feel loved.

In the marriage he and Michiko were going to have, Lloyd wouldn't have to manufacture situations in order to make Michiko feel that way. She'd know of his love every day — every minute; her confidence in that would never be shaken. It would be her constant companion, his love, until the day she died.

And, of course, he'd never lie to her — not even when it was supposedly for her own good.

"You sure?" said Theo. "I'd be glad to help you organize it."

"No," said Lloyd, shaking his head a little. Theo was so young, so naive. "No, thank you."

The United Nations debates continued. While he was in New York, Theo got another reply to his ads looking for information about his own death. He was about to simply issue a short, polite response — he was going to give up the quest, really he was — but, damn it all, the message was just too enticing. "I did not contact you initially," it said, "because I had been led to believe that the future is fixed, and that what was going to happen, including my role in it, was inevitable. But now I read otherwise, and so I must elicit your help."

The message was from Toronto — just a one-hour flight from the Big Apple. Theo decided to head on up and meet face to face with the man who'd sent the letter. It was Theo's first time visiting Canada, and he wasn't quite prepared for how hot it was in the summer. Oh, it wasn't hot by Mediterranean standards — rarely did the temperature rise above thirty-five degrees Celsius. But it did surprise him.

To get a cheaper airfare, Theo had to stay overnight, rather than fly in and out on the same day. And so he found himself with an evening to kill in Toronto. His travel agent had suggested he might enjoy a hotel out along the Danforth — part of Toronto's major east-west axis; Toronto's large Greek community was centered there. Theo agreed, and, to his delight, he found the street signs in that part of town were in both the English and Greek alphabets.

His appointment, though, wasn't on the Danforth. Rather, it was up in North York, an area that apparently had once been a city in its own right but had been subsumed into Toronto, which now had a population of three million. Toronto's subway took him there the next day. He was amused to discover that the public transit system was referred to as the TTC (for Toronto Transit Commission); the same abbreviation would doubtless be applied to the Tachyon-Tardyon Collider he would supposedly someday helm.

The subway cars were spacious and clean, although he'd heard they were severely overcrowded during rush hour. One thing that had impressed him greatly was riding the subway — poorly named at this particular point — over the Don Valley Parkway; here the train ran what must be a hundred meters above the ground in a special set of tracks hanging below the Danforth. The view was spectacular — but what was most impressive was that the bridge over the Don Valley had been built decades before Toronto got its first subway line, and yet it had been constructed so as to eventually accommodate two sets of tracks. One didn't often see evidence of cities planning that far into the future.

He changed trains at Yonge Station, and rode up to North York Centre. He was surprised to find that he didn't have to go outside to enter the condominium tower he'd been told to come to; it had direct access from the station. The same complex also contained a book superstore (part of a chain called Indigo), a movie-theater complex, and a large food store called Loblaws, which seemed to specialize in a line of products called President's Choice. That surprised Theo; he would have expected it to be Prime Minister's Choice in this country.

He presented himself to the concierge, who directed him through the marble lobby to the elevators, and he rode up to the thirty-fifth floor. From there, he easily found the apartment he was looking for and knocked on the door.