My body grew weaker. I stopped shaving. I worked in gloves because my hands shook, and sometimes I stood in the middle of the laboratory and could not remember why I had come into the room. Then I would see my mother's handwriting and remember. She had left notes everywhere: on reports, on cupboards, on the refrigerator door. Once, on my lunch. Eat. Underneath it, smaller: This means you. I found that one in an old file and laughed, and then I cried without making any sound, sitting very still with the paper in my hands.
I recorded the message in pieces. The first version was too long. The second was too angry. The third sounded like a scientist addressing another scientist, which was not what I needed. The fourth began, Daniel, if you are hearing this, I failed, and I deleted it. I tried again. Daniel, this is you. That sounded absurd. I kept going. I told him about the pandemic, the hospitals, the cities. I told him our mother died, that the treatment failed, that the pathogen spread and half the world would die. I told him Lena died. I told him I was sick. Then I reached the part I could not say, and I tried for three hours.
I recorded, Do not save her. I listened to it, and deleted it. I recorded it again, and my voice broke, and I stopped. The next try was quieter. Let her choose. That was worse, because I knew what it meant. It meant the woman who had given me her whole life would die in front of him, and he would have to stand there and let her. It meant he would have to become the son she had spent her life teaching me to be.
The device would carry a handful of seconds. All of that, all those paragraphs, would not fit. I would have to choose, and the choice kept me awake for two nights.
On the sixth day, the machine was ready. I had checked the energy requirements three times, and a fourth calculation gave a different answer, and I checked it again with shaking hands. The room was cold. Overhead, a light flickered. On. Off. On. I thought of the hospital corridors, my mother crouched in front of a frightened child. Doctors make fear smaller. I sat down. For a few minutes I could not move.
Then I began recording again, and this time I did not try to sound intelligent. I did not explain the mathematics. I said what mattered, and it took less than seven seconds, and I used three.
"Daniel. It's me. Let her go."
I played it back. I stared at the machine.
I knew the words had more than one meaning when I chose them. Let go of her sleeve, in the instant his hand was on it. Let go of the idea that he could save her. Let her go the way you let a person go at the end, with your hand open, because holding on has become a way of hurting them. I could tell you I chose the sentence because it was all of those things at once, and that this was wisdom. I think it was cowardice. I think I could not say the other four words aloud and still be the man who had loved her.
I slept for four hours. When I woke I could not feel my left hand properly. The machine was waiting. I stood, and the room moved, and I held the wall. I thought of my mother holding me on the first morning of my life. I wondered whether she had known, then, what kind of life awaited me. Maybe not. Maybe that was the mercy of being young: you do not know what your love will cost. You only know that you love.
There would be one transmission. If it failed, the cavity would destroy itself, and there was nothing else in the building that could be made to listen. I sat down at the console. My mother's photograph was on one side and the blue mug on the other. Underneath the mug lay the crossword. I turned on the transmitter, and nothing happened, and I waited. Then the machine began to hum.
I closed my eyes. "Mom," I said, quietly.
The system activated. For a fraction of a second the room seemed to lose all its sound, and the display went white, and the message left.
I do not know what reached him, or how much. I do not know whether my voice survived. It may have arrived whole. It may have arrived in pieces, …her… or …go… or …you…. It may not have arrived at all.
The machine went dark. I sat in the quiet with my breathing getting shallow, and I looked at the photograph. I had done everything I could. That is what I told myself. But there was one thing I had not done. I had not answered the question. I had only sent it backward.