Departure(51)

“The access log says she just exited her room.”

“Should have posted someone by the door.”

I don’t dare look. When I hear them enter the residential wing, I bound up, out of the lab, and down the corridor, pausing only for the doors, which seem to take forever to open.

The area outside is a vast concrete promenade that looks straight down into an endless canyon, a wide river flowing through the center. Why is this so familiar?

I can’t tear my eyes away from the drop-off. We must be a thousand feet up. . . .

I’ve seen this place. From another angle, from a sandy beach—in Titan Hall. This is the Gibraltar Dam, the center of it. We’re in a mini-city at the center of the dam. One side looks out on the sea, as my room did. This side towers over the valley the Titans created between Europe and Africa.

The doors open behind me.

“Harper! Stop!”

I know that voice. I turn, not believing my eyes. It can’t be.





29





For a moment, the only sound in the small room is the low hum of the incinerator to my left. Then the droning cranks louder as the plastic-wrapped body on the conveyor belt reaches the device. The buzzing is a subtle yet vivid reminder that these people are dissecting the passengers of Flight 305 as if they were lab rats and discarding their bodies unceremoniously. My mind rifles through possibilities, plans of action, how Grayson and I can escape this sprawling tent complex at Heathrow.

My clone stands there, his hands up. On the floor, Grayson and the stranger who chased us from the lab wing release each other, both staring from one Nick Stone to the other.

“It’s over, Nick,” my doppelg?nger says.

“What are you?”

“I’m you.”

“How?”

“We’ll get to that—”

“Let’s get to it now.” I raise the handgun slightly so he can see it.

He smiles, his expression reflective. “Sorry, I’d almost forgotten what I was like at thirty-six. That was over a hundred and thirty years ago for me.”

He’s almost a hundred and seventy years old? He doesn’t look a day older than I do.

“You want answers, here and now, right, Nick?” my clone says.

“I’d say we deserve some answers.”

“You certainly do.” He gestures toward the rows of body bags behind him, through the steel double doors. “This is a biological hazard zone. We can’t talk here.”

“What kind of biological hazard?”

“A plague, the likes of which you can’t imagine—an extinction-level force we’ve been fighting for seventy-six years. Unsuccessfully, until six days ago.”

“That’s why you brought us here? To fight your plague?”

“That’s only half the reason we brought you here. You’re here to help us cure the plague in our world and ensure it never occurs in yours. We can save both our worlds, Nick, but I need your help. We still have a very powerful enemy standing in our way, and the clock is ticking. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found out that you had come here. That was very smart.”

He bends over and picks up his helmet. “I’m going to leave the way you came in. If you want to help us, I’ll be in the closest ship outside. You don’t need that gun—no one here is going to harm you—but you’re more than welcome to keep it if it makes you feel safer.” He turns to Grayson. “And there’s someone who’s very eager to see you: your father.”





There wasn’t much debate about what to do. If these . . . people wanted Grayson and me dead, we wouldn’t still be alive. We need answers, and medical care, and food. This seems like the only place to start.

Inside the ship, after I’ve gotten the suit off and some dry clothes on, the future version of myself and I sit down at a small wooden table in a narrow conference room. There are no windows to the outside, but a wide interior window looks out on a sitting area where Oliver Norton Shaw and Grayson sit in navy club chairs, leaning forward, talking, smiling, both crying. The older Shaw looks the same age as he did in the simulations at Titan Hall, mid-sixties.

“Oliver hasn’t seen his son in seventy-six years. I can’t tell you how happy this makes him. It’s been a long time since any of us around here were happy. We’ve been . . . hanging on.”

“For us to arrive?”

“For any hope.”

“Let’s back up. I want to take it from the top—but first, what should I call you?”

“Nicholas,” my future self says. “I haven’t gone by Nick for some time. So, from the top. Give me a minute to collect my thoughts. No one talks about the past around here.” He grins somberly. “We all lived through it. It’s not a pleasant subject.”

“I imagine. I saw London.”

“London got the best of it. Most places were much worse. But . . . the beginning. The Titan Foundation. In some sense, you’re the only person on this planet who truly understands the origins of the foundation, how I felt back then. Lost. Confused. All the things I thought I wanted in life no longer made me happy. In fact, I didn’t feel anything, and that scared me the most. More money. Bigger exits. Better parties. A growing contact list. Yet every day life felt a little less interesting, like I was watching it happen to someone else. Every passing day felt emptier than the last. Medication didn’t help. My only hope was to make a change. A drastic one. Joining with Oliver, starting the Titan Foundation, was that change. A big, scary goal. I was willing to try anything, just to see if it revealed a clue about what might make me feel alive again.”