CARTAFILO
Impossible. An emergency notification.
AIr-N is never wrong, I told myself. Never.
In that moment I didn't know which was worse: having to meet with that woman, or accepting that AIr-N had actually flagged an anomaly.
It was the first time we looked directly into each other's eyes — far longer than was customary. Neither of us received a notification for it; the situation warranted it.
"What is the anomaly?" Ji asked AIr-N, in Spanish, with an authority that struck me as outright disrespectful.
"Jiguang has detected a 'singularity,'" AIr-N replied.
"I don't understand," Ji said, looking at me strangely.
"A singularity?" I exclaimed, trying not to be left out of the conversation.
"Jiguang," AIr-N continued, "has detected the simultaneous appearance of fifteen reference points in different parts of the planet. Every one of them displays exactly the same locomotion pattern."
"That's absurd," Ji said, furrowing her brow. Her eyes nearly disappeared behind the thin line between her eyelids.
"What has GNP XI recorded?" we both asked at the same time.
"That is restricted information," AIr-N answered.
Ji said something unintelligible — perhaps a command in an interaction language I had no access to.
"GNP XI shows that all fifteen emerging points share the same face."
"A mask?" Ji asked.
"No." AIr-N's response was categorical. "The same face. The same locomotion pattern. The same person. Different locations."
We fell silent. A dense, endless silence.
"Project the face," Ji ordered. For the first time I heard her voice crack.
It took only a second before we both looked away.
Those eyes. Those eyes.
"What is it?" we managed to ask, barely above a murmur, almost through clenched teeth.
"There are no current records. It literally appeared from nowhere," AIr-N said. "However, the facial features scanned by GNP XI correlate, with remarkable precision, to those found in certain medieval pictorial records and in a great many photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
"What are you talking about?" I asked AIr-N.
"History," Ji answered.
"What?" I said, completely lost.
"Forget it," Ji suggested. "You wouldn't understand."
I felt dizzy. I tried to ask something, but my throat closed.
"Any other data?" Ji asked.
AIr-N took a moment to respond, as though hesitating.
"Why the delay?" I demanded — though it came out less as a demand than a plea.
My hands were sweating. A notification from AIr-N suggested I inhale, hold, and exhale in six-second cycles.
"I find it necessary to access archives predating the Global Normalization Program," AIr-N explained.
I had no idea what was happening. None whatsoever.
"Go ahead," Ji said, composing herself.
"The subject is Cartaphilus."
"Who?"
"Give me something relevant," Ji insisted, trying to diminish the significance of the name.
"Many records agree," AIr-N continued, "that he appeared on the eve of wars."
"It's strange that you use that kind of language," Ji noted.
"I find no other way to convey what I interpret from those archives," AIr-N replied.
"Give me something pragmatically useful," Ji pressed, "and don't elaborate."
"The probability of war breaking out in the coming days is zero."
"Understood," Ji concluded, ordering AIr-N to adopt a permanent hermeneutic function. "When you have something concrete, notify the authorized centers immediately."
We left without saying goodbye, as usual. The corporate car dropped me at the residential unit. I went into the apartment, undressed, and showered. Later I drank a little hot water at the edge of an armchair in the living room.
I don't remember falling asleep. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and saw his eyes in the mirror.
"It's you."
"Yes," Cartaphilus answered. "Don't be afraid, José," he said. "Life has always extended beyond this world."
That afternoon we walked without direction until well into the night.
When I woke, AIr-N reported no sleep disturbances, no apnea, no abnormal dream alterations.
"Good morning," I said to the service employee, seeing her face for the first time in twenty years.
"Good morning," she smiled back, shyly.
"Good morning," I said again, walking into the corporation, and no one answered, and AIr-N sent not a single notification.
I didn't mind. My feet still ached.
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