Enchanted Dreams (31 page)

Georgia looked at him. "How can you say that? How can you so easily abandon this project when we've worked so hard?" She turned away, not really angry with Donald but at the world in general. She sighed miserably. "I just don't get it. It cost them millions to get to this point. We didn't even know the project's potential back then. Why were they willing to invest in the program to begin with if they were just going to abandon it halfway through?"

"That's the way it works," he told her, shrugging. "Investors get bored. They get excited about new theories and ideas, but they'll pick apart an experiment that's actually unfolding." He was much more philosophical about it than Georgia. "These guys aren't scientists. They're not really looking for any kind of achievement. We're just expensive entertainment for them."

"Well, I'm tired of entertaining them!" she exclaimed, suddenly sick to death of the subject. "Where are you taking me? It better have a full bar this time!"

But no matter how much Georgia drank, she couldn't shake off her disappointment. She felt as if she were losing a part of herself. Or worse, she was being forced to kill it.

For the first night in nearly seven years, Georgia went to bed without logging on to the program and checking in on her cyber world.

"So how long do we have?" Georgia asked when Donald told her the inevitable news the next morning.

"We've got the rest of our contract, through the end of the year," he said. "Just enough time for me to finish that addition to my house, maybe take a vacation with the wife and kids. Look into some options for our next project."

Georgia stared at him. "You're going to abandon the project early?" she asked him, incredulous.

He shrugged. "What's the point of going through the motions? It's over, Georgia."

"Uh, we're being
paid
to go through the motions," she reminded him.

Donald laughed. "Once you get used to how all this works, you'll catch on," he said. He formed a tube with his hands and placed it in front of his mouth. "Earth to Georgia," he said in his best robot voice. "The funding has stopped. Beep. Nobody cares anymore. Beep."

Normally his nerdy behavior would make her laugh, but not this time. "
I
care," she said stubbornly.

"Well, I care about getting us another gig," he told her. "Life goes on."

"Some lives won't," she muttered.

"They're not real lives, Georgia," he said, catching her drift. "I wish they were. Maybe then you could find out what our next gig is going to be."

"I've got five more months on this project and that's where
I'm
going to be," she said stubbornly.

He laughed at her. "Suit yourself."

When Donald left, Georgia approached her workstation gloomily. She logged on to the program without enthusiasm. For the first time in years, she wasn't on pins and needles to see what was happening. Since she last logged on—apart from the brief encounter at the investors' meeting—more than twenty-four hours had elapsed, which meant that nearly forty days had passed in cyber world.

What will happen to them?
Georgia wondered miserably. She paused, perplexed by the question. More to the point, what would happen to
her?
She had no life outside of the program. She had given up everything for this project. It was all she thought about anymore.

The program made a humming sound when it was updating, and hearing the familiar drone gave Georgia a tiny thrill in spite of her depression. She perked up a little, recovering her interest in what was happening in "her" world.

When the program finished updating, Georgia opened the fields that she secretly kept bookmarked. She held her breath now as she waited for her own special little corner of cyber world to be located. In a moment, life appeared on the screen like a movie in progress.

They were inside an apartment. A dark-haired woman in a bathrobe stepped into view, carefully taking sips from an overfilled coffee cup. Georgia watched as Cassie logged on to her own computer to check that day's news, just as she did every morning. Cassie took another sip from her cup just as the headlines appeared on her screen, but when she saw them she dropped it, spilling coffee all over her floor.

Georgia gasped in surprise when she saw the headline, too. It happened! It really happened! She couldn't believe it. Everything had been building up to it and the pundits had been saying it was only a matter of time for many months now, but even so, it was hard to imagine. Even the fact that people had already been more or less participating without the "incentive program" didn't make it any less shocking. To think, even with all that had happened in the past three centuries—global warming, the horrible epidemic and all the unimaginable consequences that followed—that such an incentive program could actually be ordained by the government, with tax breaks to go along with it!

Georgia wondered how Cassie would react to the news. It was hard to tell what she was thinking from her stoic expression as she read every word of the news article. Her shattered coffee cup remained on the floor where she'd dropped it.

Georgia tried to predict what Cassie would do. Would she sign up for the program? Surely she must have thought about it. As shocking as it was, it made a certain kind of sense, too, considering what the world had come to. Things were very different in the twenty-fourth century, although Cassie was like a throwback from the past. Perhaps that's why Georgia related to her so well. Cassie reminded Georgia of herself.

Georgia was suddenly excited. What would Cassie do? Why, oh, why couldn't this news have come out a week ago? Now Georgia would actually have to wait to see what would happen next. Yet even in the minutes that passed while she watched Cassie read the news article, Georgia knew that time in her virtual world was steaming ahead at a rate of an hour and a half per minute. Georgia only needed to update the program again to meet it. But she lingered for the moment, waiting for Cassie's response.

But aside from dropping her cup of coffee, Cassie appeared to have no reaction. She turned off the computer and began cleaning the coffee from the floor. Her face remained impassive. Georgia continued to watch for a bit, preferring to hold off for as long as possible before updating the program. She knew from experience how frustrating it could be to keep updating and updating in anticipation of something happening. She'd wasted entire days doing that. Particularly through the epidemic, which kept Georgia on pins and needles until she was certain that Cassie would be one of the survivors.

"I've got a surprise for you!"

Georgia jumped, nearly falling off her chair, at the unexpected voice coming from behind her. "Christ!" she exclaimed.

Donald laughed. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Working on the program," she snapped irritably. "What do you think I'm doing?" She quickly closed the window she was in.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. But I've got some exciting news."

"Well? You've got my attention."

He laughed again. "I might have something here to cheer you up. Don't get your hopes up too much," he warned. "It's still under scrutiny, but there's a team of scientists who are conducting a number of studies that are similar to the one we've been doing here. They contacted me because they were impressed with our work. I'll be meeting with them next week. And two other organizations left messages but I've yet to get back to them." He smiled at her smugly. "It seems we made an impression on the science community, at least. At this rate we'll have our new jobs lined up before this contract is even up!"

Georgia just stared at him. This was supposed to cheer her up? It was good that people were interested, she supposed, but the thought of terminating the program was still too difficult for her to accept. She was not ready to even contemplate it.

"Well!" Donald said. "I expected a little more excitement than that." He dropped the papers onto her desk. "I went to a lot of trouble to get this information because I thought you would at least be curious."

"I am," she murmured unenthusiastically. "I'll look at it. Thanks, Donald."

"Still mooning over your little program?"

Georgia glanced at her computer, wishing he would leave. She was dying to know what Cassie was doing at that moment. "I guess. I feel like I have to keep working on it for now, you know?"

"Yeah, I suppose," he conceded, although she could tell that he was lying. She wondered that he never became more involved in the project. "You don't mind if I don't hang around, though, do you?"

"Of course not," she told him truthfully.

"Well, be sure and look over that stuff I left, will you?" he reminded her as he headed for the door. "I know there's a few things in there that will appeal to you."

"Thank you, Donald," she said more sincerely this time.

"Hey, I wouldn't have half these opportunities if you weren't around," he said with a laugh. "I need you to make me look good."

"See you later," she called as he walked out the door.

Georgia brushed aside the documents Donald left her so she could run another update on the program. Normally she would have hours of data entry to squeeze in between her obsession with watching the ongoing saga of the world she had helped create, but now it seemed there was no immediate necessity to keep up with that. It gave her a little pang to realize she was already adopting Donald's careless work ethic about the program, but on the other hand, it would give her more time to watch Cassie.

She sat back in her chair and waited.

In the short time that had passed since she had first updated, perhaps twenty minutes or so, Cassie had put half the day behind her. Georgia found her sitting in her office, working on her computer. Something in the way she sat there, with her back unnaturally straight and nervously glancing toward the door intrigued Georgia. She zoomed in closer so that she could read Cassie's computer screen. The words
Incentive Program
immediately caught Georgia's eye. Upon further inspection Georgia saw that Cassie had, in fact, already registered her profile. She was now perusing other profiles in the program. Georgia cursed. She had not wanted to miss a moment of this. She promised herself she'd go back and catch what she missed while Cassie was asleep.

Georgia's heart began to beat a little faster as she looked over the profiles with Cassie. She sat on the edge of her seat, her whole body alive with excitement. She shook her head in amazement when she saw how many profiles matched. There were more than three hundred of them!

Georgia had to admit it made sense. The men far outnumbered the women since the epidemic, and she supposed that the changes in behavior, given the circumstances, were to be expected. And yet, it seemed that mankind had, in many ways, moved backward, not forward. The violence, the kidnappings, the aggression—if not for their advanced technology and sophisticated appearance, she might have thought she was watching Neanderthal man. Many of the events of more recent years had left her aghast and wondering. Most of the women who survived the epidemic didn't dare leave their houses for fear of what might happen to them. This left them as isolated as the men. Participating in the government-funded incentive program would give these women a chance to choose their own fate, while offering them protection and even saving them thousands of dollars in tax deductions. All of the men in the incentive program had to submit to scrutiny and approval by the government, not to mention that they would be held accountable if any harm came to the women they met through the program. And the men, too, had more options with the program. They could either join individually and be paired with other men by the program, or they could join as a group. Cassie was presently perusing profiles of men who had signed up in the program together. Silently Georgia approved of this. Surely the men would cope with the situation better if they already knew one another, especially if they were friends.

Georgia was mildly surprised to see that many of the men were joined up with relatives. It seemed that it was more tolerable for a man to share a woman with a man he was related to.

As Georgia watched, she was becoming more and more frustrated with the way Cassie was rushing through the profiles. She merely glanced over them quickly and bookmarked the ones she liked. At times, Georgia wondered at her selections. Some of the better choices, in Georgia's opinion, were carelessly being passed over. Georgia would have put more thought into it, if it were her. But then again, there were so many. It was pretty overwhelming.

"Shit!" Georgia murmured as Cassie passed over yet another profile that she had been favoring. "Your taste in men sucks," she murmured. Cassie just kept heedlessly bookmarking the profiles that appealed to her. Every now and then Cassie would glance nervously at the door to her office, to ensure that no one was coming.

The next profile to come up featured an especially attractive threesome. You could see at a glance that two of the men were brothers. Their eyes, which were startlingly blue and intense, had a sad quality to them that brought about an instant response in Georgia. The brother who stood in between the other two men—Craig, the profile said his name was—was the one who held Georgia's interest. In his eyes, she perceived an innate kindness, and in his smile a cheerful manner that shielded a deeper sorrow. It was as if he was calling out to her.

"There!" Georgia cried out to her computer screen. "That one!" At that very moment, Cassie clicked on their profile to get a closer look. But just as she did with all the profiles, Cassie gave this one no more than a cursory glance before clicking back to the main page. Georgia had had only enough time to read the first line of their greeting, but that was enough to intrigue her even more.
Three good friends looking for a fourth.

However, Cassie was already forging ahead, arrowing down to the next profile on the page.

"What?"
Georgia cried in outrage.

As if she had heard Georgia, Cassie suddenly paused, and then arrowed back up. Georgia held her breath as she watched Cassie bookmark Craig's profile.