The Perfect Wife

Turning back to you, he says in a quieter tone, “What do you mean, about Danny?”

“I can’t replace her. Not yet, anyway. I know some of what she knows about Danny’s therapy, but not nearly enough. She should stay. At least for the time being.” You hate saying it, but you really have no choice.

Tim nods. “All right. Sian, you’ve got two more weeks, for which you’ll also be well recompensed. And now I suggest we all go back to bed.”

27

“The point is, we can’t go on like this,” Mike Austin says tentatively. “Scott Robotics is under siege. Reporters have been harassing our employees. And John Renton’s asked for an urgent meeting.”

It’s next morning. There are five of you sitting around the beach house’s big outdoor table: Mike, Tim, a man called Elijah who’s their chief financial officer, and Katrina Gooding, their PR consultant. Tim’s insisted you join them—“Abbie has as much right to be part of this as anyone”—but the truth is, you have nothing to contribute and the debate simply goes back and forth around you.

You still haven’t had a chance to talk to Tim about Sian. You thought maybe he’d come to your room last night to explain, even apologize, but it’s almost as if he regards the matter as closed now.

Compared with that, the problems at his company seem unimportant.

“What does Renton want?” Tim asks.

“We don’t know exactly,” Mike answers. “But it’s a fair bet he’s getting anxious about the return on his thirty million. We haven’t exactly carried our investors with us on this journey.”

“Abbie should do an interview,” Katrina suggests.

Tim doesn’t hesitate. “She’s not doing an interview.”

“What’s the mortgage like on this place?” Elijah gestures at the beach house’s stunning exterior. “If Renton wobbles, you’ll be the one whose loans are called in.”

“Yes,” Tim agrees icily. “Those are my loans, my guarantees. I put my neck on the line to achieve this. And that’s why it’s my decision. When you have the balls to start your own company and do what it takes to keep it afloat, then you’ll be entitled to an opinion.”

Elijah shrugs, apparently unoffended. No doubt he’s heard similar things from Tim many times before. “I see this differently from you, that’s all. An interview could be a great opportunity—a chance to put our own, positive message out there. We’ve built something incredible. The more people become aware of that, the less our investors are going to be worried about short-term returns. We’ll sell it as a deliberate strategy—first disrupt the existing paradigm, then figure out how to monetize it later.”

Tim shakes his head. “I told you. Abbie doesn’t want to do an interview.” But you can hear from his voice that he’s taken Elijah’s point.

As one, Elijah, Mike, and Katrina all turn to look at you.

“Well,” you hear yourself say. “Of course I’ll do it. If you think it’ll help.”

“It really is your decision, Abbie,” Tim says.

“It’s fine. I want to be useful.” A really useful engine.

“Don’t worry, we’ll coach you in what to say—give you some lines to hit,” Katrina says reassuringly.

“When should we do it?” Tim asks.

She’s already pulled out her phone. “I’ll start making some calls.”

* * *

—

While Katrina speaks to the TV networks, the discussion moves on. Tim makes all the decisions—the others seem to take that as a given. He’s been away from Scott Robotics less than twenty-four hours, and already there’s a long list of matters requiring his attention.

Leaving them to it, you go to explore outside the house. It’s even more stunning in the daytime. The architects have cleverly positioned it in such a way that the other houses, the ones down by the beach, are completely hidden: Up here, all you can see is ocean. The red-cedar paneling of the walls is the same color as the decking around the pool, so that it all feels like one harmonious composition, a sculptural object dropped onto the rocky scrubland. The early-morning fog has burned off now, and the pool shimmers invitingly in the sunshine, its surface rippling as the pumps and filters do their work.

But of course, you’ll never swim in it again, you realize.

Just for a moment, as you look longingly at the pool, you have a kind of flash-memory. You, diving in, the water churning milky-gray as you arc your body up toward the surface, reaching out with a sure right arm in preparation for that first long stroke…Like your moment of insight about Charles Carter last night on the beach, it feels different from your other memories, somehow: more organic, not just retrieved from a data bank, but found.

You pause, willing more memories, but nothing comes, so you continue around the deck to the garage. There are two big double doors and a smaller one at the side. You pull open the smaller one and step inside.

Tim said this was where you worked on your art projects. If you hadn’t been told that, you’d have taken this for construction junk. Welding equipment, gas tanks, coils of tubing and compressed air pumps, power tools, tins of household paint. And, casually propped in a corner, three surfboards of differing lengths. Their names come to you smoothly: The first is a Malibu, the second a longboard, and the third, the largest, is the type surfers call an elephant gun.

You suppose there must have been a fourth, once. The one you took the night you died.

Looking around, something else strikes you. Tim said you’d been spending time out here in the run-up to that night, working on a big new project. But if so, where is it? There are bits and pieces scattered around, but they look more like abandoned fragments than a major new artwork.

You weren’t working on anything. You just wanted to get away. With your lover, probably.

Once again, the thought comes to you, unbidden but fully formed.

You have no proof of that, you tell yourself firmly. After all, you might have tried something and, dissatisfied, taken it apart again.

You spot something in the far corner and go over to look. It’s a pair of blue overalls, casually discarded on the floor. When you pick them up you see they’re streaked with paint and oil. The contrast with the stylish, expensive dresses in your closet in San Francisco couldn’t be greater. Yet they were both aspects of who you were.

Did Abbie Cullen-Scott have other identities, too, some of them kept hidden from the world? You stare at the overalls as if they’ll somehow tell you.

“You used to spend a lot of time in those.”

You turn. It’s Tim, coming in from outside. He adds, “We used to joke you’d wear them to galas and openings if you could. But you could get changed faster than anyone I’ve ever known. I’d come down here when it was time to leave and you’d still be working, caught up in whatever you were doing. ‘I’m not late. Give me five minutes,’ you’d say, and in four minutes flat you’d be showered, changed, and looking like a million dollars.” He smiles. “Speaking of which, we have to leave in a couple of minutes. Katrina’s arranged an interview on ABC-Seven. If you’re really okay with that.”

“Of course,” you say, although the truth is, you’re dreading it.

As you leave the garage together, you add, “Tim…Can I have memories that haven’t been uploaded?”

He stops dead, then turns and studies you intently. “What do you mean?” His voice is forceful, urgent. It’s the way he speaks to his employees when something important is brought to him, you recall, his whole attention suddenly focused on them like a laser.

“I’m not sure, exactly,” you say, quailing under the ferocity of his gaze. “It’s just that several times in the last few days I’ve had a kind of…”

“Intuition?” he says softly.

“Yes. Yes, intuition is exactly right. But that’s not possible, is it?”

“On the contrary.” You can hear the excitement in his voice. “Have you heard of a game called Go?”

“It’s the Chinese version of chess, isn’t it? But played on a much bigger board.”

He nods. “An artificial intelligence beating a human at Go was always going to be a milestone. Many people thought it could never be done. Then in 2016, an AI built by a company called DeepMind beat the world’s top human player. But what was really remarkable was the way it beat him. During the match it played one particular move that was so reckless, so apparently random, no human player would ever think to try it. It turned out to be the decisive moment of the game.” He pauses. “These memories you’re talking about—they may be the first sign your brain’s starting to make creative leaps. Filling the gaps in your knowledge with deductions and educated guesses.”

“But I can’t necessarily trust those guesses? They might be wrong?”