A cricket chirped from a hidden speaker in a bush they passed, and Ethan caught himself pretending that it was real. That all of this was real.
Theresa rubbed her arms.
“Want my jacket?” Ethan asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Nice couple,” Ethan said.
“Please don’t ever do that with me, darling.”
“Do what?”
She glanced up at Ethan in the dark. “You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Surface conversation. Filling the silence with bullshit. I do it every day of my life, and I will continue to do as I’m told. But I can’t stand it with you.”
Ethan flinched internally.
Wondered if any microphone in the vicinity was capturing their conversation. From his limited experience in the mountain and studying surveillance reports, he knew it was hit or miss whether conversations were legible outside. Even if they were being recorded, it wasn’t like Theresa was openly violating any rule. But she was straying dangerously close into gray territory. She was acknowledging the strangeness and voicing dissatisfaction with the way of things. At the very least, their last exchange would generate a report.
“Be careful.” Ethan said it at just above a whisper.
She let go of his hand and stopped in the middle of the street, stared up at him through eyes beginning to sheet over with tears.
“Around who?” she asked. “You?”
In the middle of the night, Ethan’s phone rang.
He went downstairs, answered.
“I’m sorry about the late call,” Pilcher said.
“It’s all right. Everything okay?”
“I had a word with Alan this evening. He said you two spoke in the morgue today.”
“Yeah, he was helpful.”
“This is hard,” Pilcher said, his voice turning hoarse as if he’d begun to cry. “Ethan, I need you to know something.”
7
Cahn Auditorium
Northwestern University
Chicago, 2006
The thousand-seat auditorium was at capacity and the lights shining up from the orchestra pit burned his eyes. Twenty years ago, lecturing to a full house would’ve given him a rush to last for days, but he was long over the thrill. This lecture tour, beyond generating much-needed funds, wasn’t pushing him any closer to completing his work. Lately, all he wanted was to be in his lab. With only seven years left in this world, he needed to make every second count.
As the applause died down, he forced a smile, looked up from his notes, and rested his hands on the lectern.
He could do the opening by memory. Hell, he could do it all by memory, this being his tenth and last talk on the circuit.
He began, “Suspended animation is not a concept of twentieth-century science. We didn’t invent it. It belongs, like all the great mysteries of the universe, to nature. Consider the seed of a lotus plant. It can still germinate after thirteen hundred years. Bacterial spores have been discovered in bee amber, perfectly preserved and viable after tens of millions of years. And recently, scientists from West Chester University successfully revived bacteria that had been trapped for 250 million years inside salt crystals, deep underground.
“Quantum physics seems to hint at the possibility of time travel, and while intriguing, those are theories that only apply to particles on the subatomic level. Real time travel doesn’t need wormholes or flux capacitors.”
Chuckles rippled through the auditorium. That line always sparked a laugh.
He smiled out at all those faces he couldn’t see.
Like they weren’t even there.
Nothing but the crowd energy and the lights and the heat of the lights.
He said, “Real time travel is already here, has been for eons, occurring in nature, and that’s where we, as scientists, must look.”
It was a forty-minute presentation, and for the duration, his mind was elsewhere—in the tiny town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, that was more and more feeling like home.
With his collector, Javier, who had promised to deliver ten new “recruits” by year’s end.
With the last phase of his research and the pending sale to the military that would fully fund everything to come.
When he’d finished, he took questions, people lining up behind a microphone positioned at the front of the center aisle.
The fourth question came from a biology student with long black hair. It was the inevitable question that had come at some point during every one of his lectures.
She said, “Thanks so much for coming, Dr. Pilcher. It’s been a real privilege to have you on campus these last few days.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.”
“You’ve talked a lot about medical applications for suspended animation—using it to keep trauma patients in stasis until proper care can be administered. But what about what you alluded to at the beginning of your talk?”
“You mean time travel?” David said. “The fun stuff?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I was just trying to get your attention.”
Everyone laughed.
“It worked,” the student said.
“You’re asking if I think it’s possible.”
“Yes.”
He took off his glasses, set them down on his leather notepad.
“Well, it’s certainly fun to dream about, isn’t it?” he said. “Look, there have been successful tests on mice—de-animating them by initiating hypothermia—but as you can imagine, getting human test subjects to sign up for such an experiment is a whole other matter. Especially long-term dormancy. Is it possible? Yes. I think so. But we’re still decades away. For now, I’m afraid, suspended animation as a time travel application for humanity is the stuff of bad science fiction.”
They were still clapping as he walked offstage.
The young, overachieving escort who’d been at his side during his entire stay on campus was waiting in the wings with a blinding smile.
“That was so amazing, Dr. Pilcher, oh my God, I’m so inspired.”
“Thank you, Amber. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Would you mind showing me to the nearest exit?”
“What about your book signing?”
“I need a breath of fresh air first.”
She led him through the backstage corridors, past dressing rooms, to a pair of doors in the back of the building next to a loading bay.