THERE ARE NO MORE SECRETS ON PLANET EARTH

Bella Chiang and her father, Reggie, are sitting on his couch. They’re in Reggie’s living room in front of his new Ectoscope™ Screen. Reggie is having trouble with the technology. A scam is going around where scammers are promising that they can erase timelines from Ectoscope™ for a fee. This fee is substantial. Reggie has paid this fee.

The problem is that nothing can be erased from Ectoscope™. That would be like trying to erase the Universe itself. You can’t erase the Universe. And ultimately that’s what Ectoscope™ is, literally, The Universe Itself.

Someone with superior technological skills or financial assets might be able to temporarily block or black out sections of the visible Ectoscope™ timeline, but these are just stopgap solutions. Even if the Ectoscope™ timeline could be altered, the technology behind Ectoscope™ has reached critical mass. Soon Ectoscope™ will be just one retailer out of many for timeline observation. Even Google and Facebook, the dinosaurs of the technology industry, have developed new and improved scopes and will enter the timeline market within the year. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop this. There are no more secrets on planet Earth. That’s just a reality that people will have to get used to.

Every secret ever lied about, covered up, buried, or repressed is now available for all to see, or is in the process of becoming available for all to see. The entire history of Earth, viewable by anyone with a $10,000/week subscription to Ectoscope™ or even a pocket full of credits to pump into a pay-by-the-minute Ectoscope™ Arcade machine.

Who would’ve thought time travel would turn out like this. No complicated machines, no wormholes, no lightning orbs, no silver DeLoreans, no spaceships slingshotting around the sun, no ancient magic awoken from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.

None of that.

Just a really powerful telescope. A telescope with unlimited resolution and computers to track the trajectory of Earth’s reflection through space from today all the way back to the Big Bang.

Reggie says, “But there are still a lot of things that we can’t see. Why can’t we just make my history a part of that?”

Bella says, “A part of what, dad?”

“A part of that timeline that we still can’t see!”

Reggie is agitated. Bella knows this tone of voice. Reggie is frustrated over not being able to communicate. He’s frustrated over not understanding how things are now or how things work. The world has become strange to him. He doesn’t like it.

Bella says, “Dad, I told you, it’s not like that. It’s not that people are erasing parts of the timeline, it’s just that the timeline isn’t fully rendered yet.”

“What do you mean? I just want my life to stay like it is. I don’t want anyone to see my life, Isabelle. I don’t want that!”

“Oh, Dad, come on.”

Bella is frustrated now.

“Look,” she says, “we’re all in the same boat. Everybody has things in their past that they’re embarrassed about. But this is how things are now. No more secrets.”

“No, Isabelle, no.”

He shakes his head and grabs hold of Bella’s shirt collar.

“Please, sweetheart. Help me.”

Bella carefully and gently loosens his grip and takes his hands off her collar. She then places his hands into his lap and pats them.

“Dad, remember how people used to be embarrassed about their bodies?”

She emphasizes the word: people.

“Remember how people didn’t want other people to see them naked? And first it was just hackers and creepy photographers, and then Periscope™ came out, and then Scan-X™, and then Mimico™?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Yes, Dad. It is. It’s exactly the same thing. People used to think they couldn’t live if everyone saw them naked. That they’d be so ashamed. And then, one day, everybody could see everybody else naked, and it was no big deal. It actually all worked out fine.”

Reggie reaches out and grabs at Bella’s shirt collar again. He is clutching too tightly now to be removed without force.

“Fine for who?”

Reggie is referring to the suicides that followed the mass marketing of Mimico™, which wasn’t even actual pictures of naked people, just a computer model of what someone most likely looks like naked. Bella puts her hands on Reggie’s wrists. She can feel the scarring on the undersides. She frowns, unable to hide her judgment.

“You can’t do this, Dad. Not again. I can’t do this again. Please, for me. Be reasonable. Do not freak out.”

She looks at Reggie. Reggie’s eyes are full of tears, but it seems like he’s trying very hard to not break down. Bella takes her hands away and starts to access the Ectoscope™. She calls up Ancient History.

“Let’s watch something,” say says, “okay? To take our minds off of this. Give us some perspective.”

Bella pulls up Jesus of Nazareth, a favorite of hers.

“See, Dad. If Jesus can handle this, so can we. Right?”

The Jesus story (as with many of the major religions) has turned out to be surprisingly accurate to conventional religious belief. It turns out Jesus really was born in a manger. Jesus really did walk on water. Jesus really did turn water into wine. Jesus really was crucified. Jesus really did return from the dead. Jesus really did then fly up into Heaven. It turns out all of that actually happened.

But that was just a few days out of his life. People were curious about what else Jesus did. And it turns out that Jesus was a busy man. Besides the public speaking gigs, which took up just a few hours a week, Jesus mostly liked to party. He and his friends got drunk most days, like crazy stupid drunk, which was unusual in that time and place. He also had a habit of getting into fistfights (he was surprisingly bad at fighting, given that he had supernatural powers at his disposal. It’s speculated that he purposefully restrained himself so as to make the fights fair). And then there was Bella’s favorite discovery. It turns out that that Jesus was a solid gold-star sex machine with the ladies and the gents.

Traditional religious people did not like this. But something happened. Most everybody else really liked this Jesus. They liked him a lot. They liked that he was a lush, and that he got his ass kicked on a regular basis. They loved that he was a maestro in the bedroom (The Jesus I’m a Lover Not a Fighter T-shirt became the most popular fashion statement of 2037). Christianity had its biggest popularity explosion since the Nicene Council.

Bella tunes the Jesus timeline feed to the scene of Jesus washing Simon Peter’s feet.

She and Reggie watch attentively.

Jesus is smiling as he washes, like he’s really enjoying himself. His hands, which are rather large and meaty, rub and knead the feet of his disciple, Simon Peter. Simon Peter seems embarrassed.

There’s no audio, but Bella imagines Jesus telling Simon Peter: Hey, don’t be embarrassed, man. We’re just humans being humans. Whatever it is you’re feeling, whatever it is that’s bothering you, it’s gonna be okay.

And then, and this is Bella’s favorite part, Simon Peter shoves Jesus away and draws his sword. He yells something. Jesus puts his arms out, and Simon Peter takes a swing at him. The sword passes through Jesus as if he were a ghost. Simon Peter drops the sword and falls to his knees. Jesus picks him up and holds him. The two men weep.

Bella and Reggie say, in near unison, “Oh, God, that’s beautiful.”

They look at each other and laugh. Reggie pinches Bella’s cheek. Bella lets him, even though she’s annoyed by it.

Bella says, “Dad?”

Reggie says, “Yes, Isabelle?”

“What is it that you’re so afraid of people seeing?”

Bella tries to imagine what it could be. She thinks about their lives together, all the things they’ve been through. They’ve been through some bad times. Reggie and Bella’s mother fought, a lot, and bad. Could Reggie have done something awful to her mom? Beat her? Cheated on her? And then Bella’s mother died in a car accident, and then Reggie changed. He wasn’t angry anymore, but also never really happy either. Maybe there’s something there. Maybe Reggie killed Mom? No, that’s crazy. Or is it? Or maybe it was something even further back, something in Reggie’s past before Bella was even born, some crime that was long buried but never forgotten. Reggie never talked about his life from before Bella was born. Maybe it was some kind of criminal stuff. Or some sex stuff. Jesus, Bella thinks. She’s okay with sex stuff, mostly. But there are exceptions. She doesn’t really want to think about what those exceptions are.

Reggie says, “I’m sorry, Isabelle. I am.”

“What?” she says. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?”

Reggie looks away. Bella looks up. She watches as he suffers, the tension in his jaw, the discomfort in his eyes. Reggie breathes unevenly and too quickly, as if starting to hyperventilate and then panic. Bella scoots over and puts her arm around him.

Reggie says, “Oh, Isabelle. I’m so sorry.”

Bella says, “Ah shit, Dad. It’s okay. Whatever it is. It’s okay.”

Reggie scoots away from her, pulling out from under her arm. He raises his head. He is frowning.

“I don’t know how to say this.”

“Just say it, Dad.”

“Bella,” he says, and then pauses again.

“Jesus, Dad!”

“Okay, okay!” he says. “Bella, I am not your dad.”

The statement confuses Bella. She freezes for a second and then flinches visibly.

“What?”

“Oh, damn it, Isabelle. I’m sorry. It’s all a mess. But I’m not your dad. I’m not your father. I don’t know who your father is. But it isn’t me. I couldn’t have kids. Your mother didn’t know. But I knew. I couldn’t. And when she got pregnant with you, I confronted her. She swore you were mine. But then the tests came back, and they said there was no chance you were mine. I was so mad, honey. I went crazy. I tracked down every guy your mother was close to. Her ex-boyfriends. Her coworkers. Even her church pastor. I got a gun. I wanted to find the guy who got her pregnant, and I wanted to hurt him, kill him.”

“Oh Dad, no.”

Reggie takes Bella’s hands and shakes his head.

“No, no, no,” he says. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything like that. I never found the guy, not for certain. But I was going to leave you, the both of you. I was going to, but I didn’t. I tried to make it work with your mother. And we sort of did. We made it work sort of, and then she died. But all the while, I loved you. I always loved you. And I still love you. And I’m old now. And you’re all I have.”

“So,” she says, “the thing with the Ectoscope™?”

“It’ll show you everything. What happened between me and your mother. What happened between your mother and your real father, your real dad. Who he is. Where he is.”

Bella thinks she should say something comforting to Reggie. She thinks she should tell him that it’s really okay. That he won’t lose her. That she doesn’t care about some hypothetical real father. That he’s her real father, the only father she’s ever known. She thinks about Jesus and Simon Peter. She thinks she should say what she thinks Jesus would say, that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. That the truth will set them free. That everything coming to light is all for the better. She should say something generous and forgiving. But Bella doesn’t feel generous or forgiving. She feels mostly blank and then confused. And then underneath that, probably angry, though she isn’t sure.

Reggie looks at her. She knows him. She can tell he really needs her to say something. His eyes are getting desperate. He needs her to say something nice. But even something mean would be better than this silence. She breathes audibly. She rolls her eyes upward in an effort to keep from crying. She’s not sure why she feels like crying. She’s not sad.

On the Ectoscope™ Screen, Bella scrolls quickly through the history stuff, then switches to her saved programs, family stuff. She scrolls through that quickly as well, sort of looking for new renderings, sort of looking for what Reggie had talked about: his fights with her mother, and also the other thing. She looks for those scenes, but not really, not intently. And either way, nothing new turns up. Instead, it’s the scenes she’s already seen and saved, birthday parties, awkward first dates, church services in the park, beach days. So many beach days. All personal stuff from her own life, curated for her off the timeline by the Ectoscope™ algorithm.

Bella slows the feed scroll, letting the previews start for some of them, before clicking through. Then she stops at one, not playing it, but not skipping it right away. The rendering is of her mother’s one-year deathday. Bella is leaving her apartment. Reggie is outside. He has a box with him with mementos from her mother’s life. The two of them stand and talk for a long time. Bella periodically looks through the box. The two of them go for a walk. Reggie carries the box the whole time. Then finally, they go to a pizza shop, and Reggie puts the box down on the patio table as they eat.

Bella then clicks over a couple scenes. She sort of has an idea what she’s looking for. She stops at a rendering of Lake Tahoe. Again, Reggie is there too. They’re on a fishing boat. They fish for a long time. They don’t catch anything. They get off the boat. They go hiking. It’s a long hike. All the while, they don’t talk.

Bella leaves it on this for a while. She just sits and watches it, her and Reggie walking through the woods. She turns to Reggie. Reggie is watching too.

The context is not part of the rendering, but Bella remembers the day of this scene. It is her summer after graduate school. She’s trying to decide if she really wants to marry her boyfriend at the time, this guy named Guy, a rich guy she met at church. And she can’t understand why she’s so sad even though he seems so great. Reggie takes her on this trip to Tahoe, and he just hangs out with her, not pushing her either way, until she’s ready to talk about it, and she decides that Guy really isn’t the guy for her, and Reggie says that he’d known all along, but also knew that Bella needed to come to that conclusion on her own, and anyway, he trusted her to figure it out. That all she needed was some space.

It’s not in the rendering, not this stuff, not what they talked about or how she felt about it. Those parts are just in her head.

She turns again to Reggie, who’s quiet still.

She asks, “Do you remember this, Dad? Do you remember?”