GoKawiilThere stood Fred in the doorway of apartment 27B, with a pallor that said he hadn’t seen the Sun since November, reeking of recycled air and ozone. The stairs had not been kind to Fred today.
“The rent was due last week,” Ben said, filling his mouth from a bowl of soggy shredded wheat. “So, three months you owe me.”
Fred stepped inside and locked the deadbolt. He latched the chain, then jammed a chair under the handle. He turned but did not check the window. He sat instead on the floor with his back against the wall and exhaled a long and careful breath as though the room might break around him.
“So. You went to the storage unit again? Yeah?” Ben asked, chomping on the wet wheat. “I told you about how people are going to complain about the smell. They’re gonna cut the lock.”
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“No. I didn’t go to the unit,” Fred said flatly. “MIT went to the unit. Then a private contractor I’ve never heard of with Department of Energy clearance collected the contents of the unit. Then they collected me.”
Ben lowered his spoon. “Oh, shit. They arrested you?”
“They recruited me. They had already confirmed the maths, Ben. What did I tell you? About the axioms? The Universe-Quine is real. They ran the simulation on the discrete lattice, and, uh,” Fred rubbed his face with both hands. “And we finished it.”
Ben stared at him. The refrigerator compressor turned on. A 60-Hz hum filled the room, more than mundane.
“You and MIT built a time machine?”
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