Page 28 of Ideal Life

All the more reason to gather more data, she thought. Maybe changing the movie pick would not only be fun, but also a good experiment.

Besides, if there were any obvious, immediate negative effects, she could simply rewind, choose La La Land, and then have them all relive that version instead, right?

It made her a little uncomfortable that her experiment was so unbounded; this was not how it was done in normal research. But Talia could only work with what she had.

So when she turned the crown of her watch, she went back to the moment she announced the film pick. On the way, though, it was amusing to watch Jonathan perform all the song-and-dance scenes in La La Land backward. (It was less amusing to watch people un-scarf their pizza.)

At the correct point of the rewind, Talia chose a new movie, the ’90s cult classic Hackers. It was beloved among the tech crowd, and everyone in conference room A/B cheered at her choice.

Ideal Life Queen Elizabeth: Just checking in. I’ve noticed again a slight increase in your body temperature and resting heart rate, as well as theta wave fluctuations.

Interesting. Those were the same physiological responses as when Talia redid breakfast with her parents.

“Go ahead and ignore those signals until further notice,” she told Queen Elizabeth. The readings were consistent and not providing any new or useful data, so Talia decided she didn’t need them. It would also save her some bother in the future to not have her Friend popping up to tell her what she already knew.

Talia settled in for Hackers.

Just as before—and thankfully—everyone had an amazing time. Jonathan didn’t dance with this one, but Jody did lead everyone in reciting the most iconic quotes, which nearly everybody seemed to know by heart. When they got to “Never send a boy to do a woman’s job,” Talia, Jody, and all the other women in the room shouted the line in unison.

Afterward, Talia rewound and picked The Avengers. This, too, had an aspect of Jonathan- or Jody-led crowd participation, with Jonathan leading cheers for Team Good Guys and Jody egging on the audience for Team Mischievous Bad Guy (aka Loki).

Talia thought about doing movie night again with the other two unwatched films—Free Guy and Ocean’s Eleven—but she was wiped out. For everyone else, it was only 10:30 p.m., but for Talia, she’d been watching movies for six and a half hours, so it was effectively 2:30 a.m. for her, no matter what the clocks said.

As she grabbed her purse to head home, Talia sighed happily. That had been really, really fun. Sam might even have approved, since she’d used the rewinds for good, clean fun, and he was always trying to get her to take a break and enjoy life a little.

And as an additional bonus, the small alterations to the past had again seemed totally fine.

“Thanks for that,” she whispered to the watch. “We should do it again soon.”

Sam

Seventeen years ago

Full Moon on the Quad was one of Stanford’s many wacky traditions. At the first full moon of the school year, freshmen and seniors gathered at midnight in the middle of the university’s main quad to shed their inhibitions and kiss as many other people as they could.

At least, in theory they shed their inhibitions. Sam had zero intention of contracting mono or any other infection from kissing some random stranger.

“We should still go,” Talia said, leaning against the doorframe of his room. She had one foot in the hallway already, itching to leave, even though he was still sitting at his desk.

“I don’t know, Tal. I’m really into this thought experiment I’m designing. Imagine: Two students in libraries move at relativistic speeds to each other. They exchange knowledge through light signals. How would their accumulation of knowledge differ over time?”

“Huh?”

“It’s a combination of relativity concepts with epistemological questions about the nature of knowledge.”

Talia smirked. “Okay, egghead. But your physics-meets-knowledge project will still be here tomorrow morning, whereas Full Moon on the Quad will not. Come on. It’s a rite of passage.”

“I don’t understand how a student body that is so intelligent can also be so collectively idiotic about infectious disease,” Sam said. “The risk of—”

“The risk,” Talia interrupted, “is that you go through all four years here buried in the academic wonderland that is your mind but at the same time miss out on the rest of the college experience. Still, if you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me, please?” She stepped into his room and got down on her knees, begging melodramatically. “I don’t want to go alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Sam said. “Like, half the dorm is going.”

“Yeah, but I want to go with you.”

Sam’s chest sparked. It was only a small hope that Talia meant she wanted to go as more than friends, but nevertheless…

“Let me get my jacket,” he said.