Resolutions

I place my favorite mask on my disheveled face, limp to the address that Lorenzo gave me, and am immediately buzzed in. The robot behind the plexiglass gives me an inhuman smile that turns my stomach. I’ve never liked robots. They remind me of toasters.

“How can I help you?” It asks.

“Graphic imposition slayed,” is my response. I hold my breath hoping Lorenzo got the password correct. He’s not the most trustworthy person, but I’m desperate, and he’s the closest thing I have to a friend.

“This way,” says the robot, and I let out a sigh of relief.

The robot leads me to a door at the end of the hall. It walks in and I follow. The room is dimly lit and furnished with a small table and two chairs. The robot sits in one chair and gestures for me to sit in the other. “State your name, and you’ll have to remove your mask for face recognition.”

“Cosmo Void,” I say as I remove my mask. When humans see my face, they either look disgusted and try to hide it, or, more often, quickly jerk their head away. The robot shows no reaction as it raises a hand-held instrument and points it at my face. Nice change. Maybe I could learn to like this stupid robot. The device dings.

The robot nods. “Now, the matter of payment. What is your preference?”

“Bitcoin.” I scroll for a moment, then hand it my phone, which it scans.

A few seconds later, “You’re short three credits.”

Why do I ever trust Lorenzo? He told me not an hour ago that the value of Bitcoin was on the rise, and my balance was more than sufficient.

“Check again,” I say.

It does. “Now you’re 3.5 credits short.”

“Just a minute.” I dig a ten credit note from my pocket that I keep there for emergencies such as this, and hand it to the robot.

“I don’t give change for currency,” it says.

I just handed over my entire life savings, so why should I care about another ten credits, even if it means I am now totally broke? I admit that it vexes me that Lorenzo will be getting a hefty percentage as a finder’s fee. He’s not the type to do a favor without getting something for himself, but I just want to get the thing done, so I have to let it go.

“What’s next?” I ask the robot.

“You must sign a consent, and a release of liability.” It hands me a tablet.

I scroll through it. Legalese. I am about to sign it, when the robot grabs my hand. “Make sure you read it all.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I scan it some more, and press my thumb on the signature pad.

Now the robot is all business, punching numbers into the same device it used to scan my face, and an image appears on the wall in front of us, with a date, time, and location. “These are the parameters you sent me when you made this appointment. You must check it carefully, because once you go through the time portal, nothing can be changed.”

“It’s fine,” I say. If all goes well, I will go back in time twenty years, and appear to my earlier self just 12 hours before the accident. All I have to do is convince him to stay at home that night. The last twenty years of pain and suffering will be erased. This version of me will be forever changed, and my memory of what happened that night after the party will be wiped, because it wouldn’t have happened.

The robot presses another button on its device and the center of the wall opens up. “You have one hour to do whatever it is you want to do. One minute more and the portal will close and you will be stuck there.”

I nod and step through. I feel a slight tingling in my legs and chest, and find myself in a small apartment staring into the smooth face of young Cosmo, wondering if I ever looked that good. There is a revolver sitting on the table in front of him. “Who the hell are you?” He grabs the gun, and points it at me.

“I’m from the future,” I say. I’m calm because I happen to know the revolver isn’t loaded. I was there after all. I figure, given the time constraints, I better start with the most important thing, in case everything goes south. “I’m who you will become if you go to that stupid party tonight.”

“Why should I believe you?” This is of course the question I anticipated, and I run down a list of things I know about him, things he never told anyone.

 Apparently convinced, he lowers the gun, sets it back on the table, and points to my face. “How did you get that?”

“You’ll be shot, stabbed and run over if you go out tonight. Then you’ll suffer like I did for twenty years, but we can change it right now.”

My younger self starts laughing, and it takes me aback. I didn’t expect to be surprised. He pulls off a rubber mask, revealing Lorenzo’s face. Before I have a chance to react, the robot steps through the portal behind me, or what I thought was a portal, and jabs me in the neck with a hypodermic needle. I stumble to the floor, and watch as it pushes a button on the hand-held device it still carries. The apartment blinks out, revealing a surgery table.

“Lorenzo! What’s going on?”

“Really?” he says. “You’re willing to believe that some joker secretly invented time travel, but you’re surprised by a little holographic display?” I’m starting to feel the effects of the drug the robot gave me, and try my best to concentrate as lorenzo continues his rant.

“I was so tired of you going on and on about your accident, your disfigured face, your chronic pain, but most of all the memories. If only you could get rid of the memories. If only you could go back in time and make better choices. Yada. Yada. You re-lived the scene over and over. You told me about the apartment, the gun on the table, the whole thing, and I listened. Finally, I got tired of listening, so I told you what you wanted to hear, that I knew about a special time machine.”

Lorenzo finally stops talking and the robot picks me up and carries me to the surgery table. “Why this?” I ask.

“I told you the only way to get rid of all those memories was a lobotomy,” says Lorenzo.

“No way.” I’m mumbling now. “I told you no ethical human surgeon would do it.’

The robot lays me on the table, looks me in my one good eye, and speaks in its methodical, grating, voice. “I told you to read the entire consent form. I am an ethical surgeon.” I don’t know if robots are capable of feeling offended, but it sure sounds like it is.

“I would never perform a lobotomy without the proper consent form signed,” it continues without a pause. “And, as you know, I’m not a human.”

Not a human. The last words I hear before I pass out.

When I wake up, I have a terrific headache. The first thing I see is the robot’s face. Not a human.

“Your name is Cosmo Void,” it says. It hands me my phone and my mask. It seems like a nice robot.

A familiar-looking man approaches me, but I can’t remember his name. ‘My name is Lorenzo,” he says, “and I’m a friend of yours. I will walk you home.”

“Thanks so much, Lorenzo,” I say. He seems nice too. “Do you have anything for a headache?” I ask.

“No problem, Cosmo. I’ll get you some pain reliever medicine on the way home.”

Cosmo. That’s a nice-sounding name.