Rollback

Of course, thought Don, Sarah understood all this. She’d grown up watching Lost in Space, too, although what she’d loved most about it were the photos of real nebulas and galaxies used in space scenes ("Astronomical Photographs Copyrighted 1959 by the California Institute of Technology," the card on the ending credits said). But, he realized sadly, none of this would mean anything to Lenore or anyone else who was as young as he felt.

They continued responding to Gunter’s questions for about half an hour, outlining the sorts of duties he was to perform, whether he should answer the phone or door, advising him not to enter the bathrooms when they were occupied unless he heard a call for help, and so on.

But Gunter’s principal job was making sure Sarah was safe and well. And so Don said, "Do you know CPR?"

"Yes."

"What about the Heimlich maneuver?" asked Sarah.

"That, too. I’m fully trained in first aid. I can even perform an emergency tracheotomy, if need be, and my palms have built-in defibrillator pads."

"See!" said Don. "He is like Gunter. The real Gunter could shoot lightning out of his claws."

Sarah looked at Don with an affectionate grin. "The real Gunter?"

Don laughed. "You know what I mean." He looked at the blue machine. "What do we do with you when we go to bed?" he asked. "Do we turn you off?"

"You may if you wish," said Gunter, and he smiled reassuringly. "But I suggest you leave me on so that I can respond instantly to any emergency. You can also set me tasks to perform while you’re sleeping: I can dust and do other chores, and have a hot breakfast ready for you when you get up."

Don looked around the living room, and his eyes landed on the fireplace. "Do you know how to make a fire?"

The robot tilted his head a little to one side, and, if glass lenses could be said to have a faraway look, Gunter’s did for a second. "I do now," he said.

"Great," said Don. "We’ll have to get some wood, come winter."

"Do you get bored if you have nothing to do?" asked Sarah.

"No," said the robot, and he smiled that reassuring smile again. "I’m content just to relax."

"An admirable trait," said Sarah, glancing at Don. "I wonder how we ever got along without one."

Chapter 30

Don found himself feeling more and more confused with each passing day. He’d had a handle on life, damn it all. He’d understood its rhythms, its stages, and he’d moved through them all, in the proper sequence, surviving each one.

Youth, he knew, had been for education, for the first phase of professional development, for exploring sexual relationships.

Mature adulthood had meant a committed marriage, raising children, and consolidating whatever material prosperity he had been entitled to.

After that had come middle age, a time for reevaluation. He’d managed to avoid the affair and sports car then; his midlife crisis, precipitated by a minor heart attack, had finally spurred him to lose weight, and hearing so many women — and some men — tell him how good he looked, how he was hotter at forty-five than he’d been at thirty, had been tonic enough to help him weather those years without needing to do anything more to prove he was still attractive.

And, finally — or so it should have been — there had been the so-called golden years: retirement, becoming a grandparent, taking it easy, an epoch for acceptance and reflection, for companionship and peace, for winding things up as the end approached.

The stages of life; he knew them and understood them: collectively, an arc, a storyline, with a predicable, cliched beginning, middle, and end.

But now there was suddenly more; not just an epilogue tacked on, but a whole new volume, and a totally unplanned one, at that. Rollback: Book Two of the Donald Halifax Story. And although Don understood he was its author, he had no idea what was supposed to happen, where it was all supposed to lead. There was no standard plot skeleton to follow, and he didn’t have a clue how it was going to end. He couldn’t begin to visualize what he should be doing decades down the road; he wasn’t even sure what he should be doing in the present day.

But there was one thing he knew he had to do soon, although he was dreading it.

"I have something to tell you," Don said to Lenore the next time he saw her.

Lenore was lying naked in bed next to him, in her basement apartment on Euclid Avenue. She propped her head up with a crooked arm and looked at him. "What?"

He hesitated. This was more difficult than he’d thought it would be, and he’d thought it would be very difficult. How’d he ever get into a situation in which telling his… his… his whatever Lenore was… that he was married would be the easy part?

He let the air out of his lungs through a small opening between his lips, puffing his cheeks out as he did so. "I — um, I’m older than you probably think I am," he said at last.

Her eyes narrowed a bit. "Aren’t you the same age as me?"

He shook his head.