“Is it disposable too?”

“No. They cost about a hundred dollars.” Susan wandered off to look at clothes. I watched the guards through the window. Brave New World. Brave cheap world. Here you could resurrect a whole life of memories for the same price as a good floor fan in my time. While I pondered away on that one, something bumped my foot. First I kicked it away, and then looked to see what it was. A small brown machine like a round hassock moved off without a sound. It took a while of staring to realize it was a robot vacuum cleaner. The damned thing was terrific. I wished there were some way I could bring one back to Magda, who absolutely hated cleaning the house. That thought brought back what was going to happen to her. I shuddered. Wasn’t there anything I could do to stop it? Take her to the hospital as soon as I returned and have them run every test...

But by using this mind machine, I was about to have all of my memories back. I could learn what actually happened to my wife. Maybe knowing the details would help me to figure out what to do.

I was thinking about this and watching the vacuum cleaner whiz around when the saleswoman said, “Have you ever used a Bic before, sir?”

“What? Oh, no, I haven’t.”

“It is not difficult, but you must try it on. This is a large. Perhaps it is best if you sit down?”

After I sat in a nearby chair she handed me the helmet. It was strangely light. “What do I do?”

“Put it over your head and say ‘face focus.’ The computer will create the adjustments if they are necessary.”

“It has a computer in it?”

“Yes, sir. Just put it—”

“I heard you, dear.” The moment of truth had arrived and, sure, my soul gave a small shiver. What would happen to me in the next minutes? Unlike the drowning man, the life I was going to lead was about to flash in front of my eyes. But I didn’t hesitate because too much was at stake.

Slipping the helmet over my head, I was pleased by what felt like the softest leather sliding across my cheeks. I could see nothing at all. Everything was pitch-black. It was like putting my head inside a leather glove. How could anyone see out of it? How could you walk down a street and not bump into everything? Maybe when the thing turned on—

“Now what?” I asked.

“You say ‘face focus’—” Her voice came through clear as a bell, which was reassuring.

“Oh yeah, right. Okay. Face focus!” I felt my hot breath spread back across my face when I spoke.

The helmet came on with a fast click-click. Next there was a whirring sound. It stopped. Then a pause. Then a big green flash and something inside the helmet exploded, knocking me out of the chair onto the floor. Onto the vacuum cleaner rather, which tried to drive away with me lying on top of it. But valiant little fellow that it was, I outweighed it by a hundred and fifty pounds so it could only jiggle beneath me making desperate noises. I flailed at my head trying to get the helmet off, petrified by a nasty smell of burning metal inside.

“Help!”

“Sir, sir, please wait, sir.” ‘

“Get it off me!”

Someone pushed me over, quickly undid the helmet and pulled it off with a pretty hard fucking jerk. The first thing I saw was the vacuum cleaner lying on its side nearby. One of the security guards held the helmet and looked at me with a big smile in his eyes but not on his mouth. The saleswoman stood next to him wringing her hands.

“This has never happened before! Never!”

“Lucky me. What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know. You sell a product that microwaves my head, then tell me you don’t know why? Face focus, my ass!”

“Frannie, are you all right?”

Before I had a chance to answer, Susan’s wristwatch beeped. She bit her lip. “That’s the emergency. I should answer it– something must be wrong.”

“Yeah, my head!”

She raised her wrist to her mouth and mumbled something. While she spoke, the saleswoman meekly asked if I would like to try again with another Bic. I glared at her. Later I realized the whole catastrophe was my fault. The helmet blew up because my brain shorted out the computer’s circuits. How could the Bic restore memories of a life I hadn’t lived yet?

“Frannie, it’s Gus Gould. He says Floon is wild that we left. Apparently he had a big surprise he was going to give you at breakfast but then we disappeared.”

While she spoke I warily touched my eyebrows and discovered both were badly singed. “We disappeared because he’s an asshole. I don’t want any more surprises.”

“But it’s George. Caz found George Dalemwood and brought him here. He’s at the hotel waiting for you.”

I looked at my fingertips, which were sooty-black and covered with tiny bits of eyebrow. But hey, tomorrow a motorcycle was going to kill me. Who needed eyebrows?

“How old am I, Susan?”

“Seventy-four.” Her face showed only love and concern.

“How did Magda die?”

“A brain tumor.”

“Jesus God!”

“Frannie, Floon specifically said to tell you he found Vertue. He has it with him, whatever that means.”

“I know what it means. Let’s go.”

I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel, but there were no taxis around and my fossil legs could only go so fast. Thirty years after mysteriously disappearing, my best friend turns up in Vienna with a resurrected dog hundreds of years old? Damned right I couldn’t wait to get back. And the way he phrased it: “He had found Vertue” led me to believe there was more here to be reckoned with than just man with old dog.

On seeing the hotel I felt my spirits lift. This was it. I only had to somehow brush Floon off and get George alone in a corner. He would answer my questions. I might even tell him exactly what had happened to bring me here because George would understand. Where had he been for thirty years? What had he been doing? What had made him leave Crane’s View and disappear for eleven thousand days? And had he really found the dog?

These questions and so many others took off and landed in my head as if it were a busy airport. I didn’t know what to ask first. I wanted to know everything at once. There was the hotel.

Walk faster, old man. Somewhere inside was George Dalemwood and the answers. It wouldn’t be long now!

The street was jammed with people so it was not surprising that I did not see him as he approached. Susan had already asked me twice to slow down but I paid no attention. George might even have an idea of how I could save Magda—

“I’m sorry, Mr. McCabe, but you can’t go to the hotel.”

“Astopel! Why are you here?” I looked around to see if Frannie Junior had accompanied him. He was alone, and without any warning so was I with him. Without any warning we were suddenly the only animated objects in a world that had become a still photograph. Somehow Astopel had frozen the world around us, including Susan. She was looking worriedly at me and reaching out a hand.

“You cannot meet George.”

“Why not?”

“Because you must find out the answers for yourself. I told you that before. You can’t just ask another person questions. It must be your doing, Mr. McCabe.”

“You let me burn my brain in that goddamned helmet for no reason at all, but now I can’t ask my friend a few questions?”

“No, you can’t.”

“What if I go anyway?”

“You’ll find this.” He gestured at the frozen world around us.

“Astopel, if I lose my temper at you again, I won’t be able to find it! All I’ve discovered here are dead ends. You said go find the answers in the future. Now I think I have, but you stop me. What am I supposed to do? I’ve only got a week!”

“Five days.”

“Five days, all right. I have five days. Tell me what am I supposed to do?”

“Perhaps it would be better if you went back to your own time. Maybe you could find it there.”

“I want a favor. You have to give me this one favor. I don’t know what the hell else I can do.”