Page 73 of Exit Party

Were there any anomalies in the experiments? Any reason to believe something might go wrong?

None.

Did you consider seeking official permission?

Something of this nature, the university would’ve had to get permission from the State, and you know what the State bureaucracy’s like, Ibari, no disrespect. Even though teleportation is of obvious benefit to the State, getting official permission to teleport ourselves would have taken a decade or longer, just endless paperwork, so we decided to short-circuit that.

Let’s pause for a moment. You saw the technology as being beneficial to the State?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a powerful tool.

Describe a potential application.

Imagine if officials could instantaneously be transported to far-flung corners of the State. It’s a big country. Imagine if a problem arose in, say, Montana, and an official from Washington, DC, could arrive there within seconds.

Could you imagine an application that could work against the State?

I could imagine it, I suppose, but any tool can be used as a weapon. A hammer is a weapon in the wrong hands, isn’t it? If you look at me, Nico, Saraya, Len, none of us have the slightest history of subversion. None. We have never criticized or undermined the State in any way. We love the State. Our intent in creating this technology was to serve the State.

Please continue.

Our calculus was that if we could teleport ourselves, and we had it on video, we’d be disciplined but probably only lightly, in a symbolic way, because we’d have made history. And helped the State. We’d discussed it in secret, in person, mostly while walking outdoors on city streets, where the sound quality on Service recording devices is lowest. We knew that our being seen together in public would raise no suspicions. We’d all worked together for years by then.

You were subverting the State, in order to serve the State.

I know what that sounds like, but yes, we actually were. Our calculus was that we could either wait through a decade of bureaucracy, or we could bring our innovation to the State now.

We’ll return to that later. So you worked together for years, you developed the technology, and then you set a date for the experiment.

Yes. We told Nico’s parents it was a date night, and asked them to take the kids for an overnight. We figured the experiment would be a success and then we’d want to stay out late celebrating. So we said good night to Samir and Marlowe, and then that evening, we went to the lab. I kissed my wife and we hugged Saraya, and the three of us stepped up onto the platforms.

Describe your state of mind?

Jubilant. We were making history. I remember just thinking, I’ve worked so hard to get here.

Is that what you were thinking about, in those last minutes? How hard you’d worked to get there?

I was thinking about fame, Ibari, if we’re being honest here. No, not exactly fame. I was thinking about immortality. I remember thinking that starting tomorrow, my life was going to be different. I was going to be really, really famous. But then I looked at Nico’s face during the last few seconds, and saw something I didn’t understand. She looked . . . she looked faraway. Like I couldn’t even guess her thoughts. You were married once, Ibari, weren’t you?

No. I lived with someone briefly. You met her once.

How briefly?

Two years.

Do you regret it?

Not at all. I’m not sorry I met her, and not sorry it’s over. But what is it about partnership, or about Nico, that you’re thinking about here?

I’m thinking about the way the person you’re closest to can feel like a stranger. In a marriage, or I guess any long relationship, you know the other person so well that you develop a kind of . . . I don’t want to say you don’t see them anymore. Of course you do. Or if you don’t, you know you’re supposed to. But there are rare instances when you look at them and you see something so totally unfamiliar in that face that it’s like looking at a stranger, and if we can be honest here, there’s fear in that.

In realizing that you live with a stranger.

In feeling like you might not know her at all. I looked at Nico, and I almost didn’t recognize her for a second. It was the strangest thing. I realized I didn’t know what she was thinking, or what she wanted. She was absolutely foreign to me.

Okay. So you’re there, you’re ready to commence the experiment. Did you have any fears?

Of course. I was afraid the experiment might fail. But I was thinking in terms of, well, of humiliation. I was afraid the experiment would fail and I’d be personally humiliated, and I thought that was the worst-case scenario. I never would have imagined what happened.