Page 44 of Time Stops With You

“The factory went bankrupt when the war was won and the buildings remained empty until Zuniga decided to remodel them for the cheapest dollar and rent them out to families who worked nearby.”

“Families like mine,” Nardi breathes out.

“Yes.”

“So you couldn’t possibly have bought this apartment. Since the land has been in his family for generations, there’s no way Zuniga would let it go.”

I drain the pasta into another pan and combine the pesto with it, adding in sun-dried tomatoes, cream, and more cheese.

“Actually, Mr. Zuniga walked away from decades of history for the right price.”

Nardi frowns at me. “What was the price?”

“Not the point.” I look at her as I stir. “The point is that the impossiblecanbe done. That knowledge, thatfreedom, is what I want to leave my legacy.”

Nardi gives me a wary look at the term ‘legacy’. “Freedom is one thing. What you’re talking about is power.”

“Power isn’t inherently bad. Not when it’s in the right hands.” I plate the pasta and sprinkle some lemon zest to balance out the richness.

Nardi’s eyes are on the food and she licks her lips. However, she tears her eyes away from the food to answer me. “Power ultimately corrupts even the best intentions. History is pretty much a text book example of that.”

“Nothing in this world is going to be perfect. Not even AI and algorithms, which have a ninety-nine percent error rate, are perfect. Why? Because they were made by humans who are flawed.” I slide the plate in front of her along with a fork. “But if power is so corrupting, then isn’t it better to give it to people who’ll do their best to resist that temptation? Isn’t it better if we give power to people that aregood.”

Nardi was about to dig in, but she lowers her fork. “Is that why you want to leave it all with Josiah? You believe he’s a good person?”

I inhale deeply. “Not really. It’s not that I think he’s a bad person but… he’s eleven.”

“Then… is it his ability to code?”

I run a hand over my beanie. “That’s a part of it, yeah.”

“What’s the main reason?”

“You remember we created a competition to find him.”

She nods.

I admit, “No one was able to win that competition and I expected that. It’s a problem we, the main technicians, still can’t solve.”

Nardi scrunches her nose.

“But,” I walk back to the kitchen, wipe down her counters, clean out her sink and begin to refill it with fresh water, “I bet Josiah went back to trying to solve the competition challenge.”

Nardi glances away with a guilty expression.

I take the blender apart, dunk it into the sudsy water and clean it thoroughly. “I saw that determination in him the moment he hacked into our simulation. It’s not just his ability to code that impressed me.”

I rinse away the suds from the blender and reach for the pan where I sautéed the pine nuts. “It’s the fact that he doesn’t shy away from what feels impossible. In fact, the harder it is, the more it drives him. It energizes him. He won’t stop because the wall in front of him seems too high to climb.”

Nardi listens intently, not touching her meal.

“I’m under no illusions about the project I’m working on. What I want to accomplish is something that people insist ‘can’t’ be done. It’s something I’d have given up a million times over if I were just a guy who’s good at coding. But skill isn’t what pushes someone to keep going despite the odds. It’s imagination, it’s vision, it’s character.”

Nardi blinks a couple times, her mouth pinned shut.

I stop washing the dishes. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, I just… I guess I feel a little ashamed. I didn’t see that in Josiah at all. He’s a bright kid, stubborn too. His IQ is among the top in the country. But the rest?” She shakes her head. “It makes me sad that I didn’t acknowledge those parts of him, the parts that actually matter. I knew he’d be great, but I thought he’d be great because of something hedid, not because of who heis.”

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