If I were to stick it out in the history academy, I would never find myself in the past. I would find images and characters who meant something to the present. I might even enjoy the rigor required to make an argument of those elements. But I couldn’t call what I felt for the study of history love, for the study of history had come to feel separate from the spiritual reality that Ramesh Uncle had once promised me to be true, that every timeline was unfolding simultaneously, over and over.

“I just don’t know what to do with all we took,” I said. “I don’t know how to make it all mean something.”

“Me, either,” she said.

I paused as I reached the flattening of the trail, to get one more look at California’s many geographies—the hills and rivers and coastline that once stood for nothing except themselves. It took gold-lust to make it into the place it was today, a palimpsest of errors and triumphs.

“I should get back to my apartment,” I said. “I’m supposed to meet my roommate, Chidi. We haven’t seen each other in—” I’d reached the neighborhood at the base of the peak, with its wide, child-friendly sidewalks. “Wait. Chidi. Chidi. Chidi can do replacements!” I shouted. “Chidi can do them!”

With just under three weeks left till the expo, Anita and I had still been wondering if there was a way to buy ourselves more time—true forgeries seemed too onerous and traceable to invest in. But I’d just remembered Chidi’s first start-up, the one that had earned the grant from the billionaire—the 3D printing company. He had made jewelry before. Cubic zirconia bearing a discomfiting resemblance to real diamonds. I’d once watched him trick female shoppers at a Berkeley tech fair. He’d even done gold-colored products; holding one, I’d been briefly reminded of the rush that came from grasping a piece of newly acquired gold; it was that convincing.

“WHERE THE FUCK have you been?” Chidi asked when I got back to the apartment.

He folded his arms; his muscles were veiny and casual. His cheeks were still sweetly chubby, boyish, augmenting his hacker-wunderkind identity. Together we got a little stoned and a little drunk—a rarity, as Chidi’s longevity company, with its youngblood transfusions and telomere-lengthening studies, had caused him to drop alcohol in his effort to live a thousand years. Perhaps it was the months that had passed since he and I had truly talked, or perhaps it was the particular melding of the substances that night that created the right alchemy, but I wanted—was surprised to find myself longing for—a chance to speak some truths aloud at last. Or maybe it was just that I needed his help, and knew first I would have to spill.