Arlington.

Tuesday, February 18, 2234.

HAROLD TEWKSBURY WOKE from one of those curious disjointed dreams in which he was wandering down endless corridors while his heart fluttered and he had trouble breathing. Damned thing wouldn’t go away anymore.

The doctors wanted to give him a synthetic heart. But he was over a hundred years old, and even if they could fix things so his body wouldn’t be tired, he was. His wife was long dead, his kids had grown up sixty years ago. Somehow he’d been too busy for his family, and he’d allowed himself to get separated from his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Now none of them knew him.

The commlink was chiming, and he heard Rhonda’s soft voice. “Harold,” she was saying. “The lab.” Rhonda was the house AI. “I don’t like waking you for these calls, and I think you should let me deal with them.”

“Can’t, Rhonda. Just patch it through.”

“At the very least, you should take your medication first. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said, pushing up to a sitting position. “I’m fine. Just a little short of breath.” He dumped a pill into his hand and swallowed it. And felt better almost immediately.

It was 3:17 A.M.

“Put them on,” he said. And he knew, of course, why they were calling. The only reason they ever called at this hour except the time that Josephine had tripped over a rumpled carpet, broken an arm, and had to be taken off to the hospital.