Departure(79)

At the threshold of my office, Yul pauses. “I have to ask. I have this feeling. . . . Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so.” I would have remembered Yul Tan.

We go through the possibilities: conferences we’ve both attended, talks I’ve given, potential mutual acquaintances. Yul’s not trying to make a social connection or to become more familiar; he works at the problem, his head down, focused, like he’s solving for x in a complex equation.

But we don’t find the missing variable.

When he’s gone, I sit in my office, pondering. There is something familiar about Tan.

My admin, Julia, floats in and lays a sheet of paper on my desk. “Tickets. I know you hate the mobile app.”

“Tickets to what?”

“New York.”

“What?”

“The Shaw meeting. Did you forget?”

I rub my temples. I definitely forgot. Why would I schedule this the day after I got back from London? But that’s not the real issue, I realize suddenly.

For the first time in my life, I’m terrified of flying.

“Want me to cancel it?” Julia asks, arching her eyebrows.

“No. I’ll go.”

It would be rude to cancel. But . . . I wonder what my chances of landing alive are.





45





Expected outcome:

Zero to little progress on Alice Carter.

Decision made. I’ll write the bloody Shaw biography.

Agent informed.

Best night of sleep of my life.


Actual outcome:

Alice Carter story explosion.

No decision made. More torn than ever.

Agent annoyed.

Didn’t sleep a wink.


It poured out of me. Ideas. Characters. Storylines. Outline after outline. I wrote until my hand hurt. It was effortless, like I was possessed, as if I was writing books I’d written, or at least mapped out, before.

I’m up the creek now.

I sit on the floor of my flat, staring at my poster boards and notes.


Alice Carter and the Eternal Secrets

Alice Carter and the Dragons of Tomorrow

Alice Carter and the Fleet of Destiny

Alice Carter and the Endless Winter

Alice Carter and the Ruins of Yesteryear

Alice Carter and the Tombs of Forever

Alice Carter and the River of Time


What am I going to do?

On the kitchen counter, my phone rings.

I walk over and pick it up, holding it at a distance like a dead but venomous snake I need to toss in the rubbish heap.

When it stops ringing and the voice-mail tune chimes, I tap the play button and close my eyes.


“Harper, if you’re out, they’re moving to their second choice. They don’t want to do that. I don’t want them to do that. Call me.”


I put the phone back on the counter, drift back to the living room, and collapse into my nest of scribblings.

I lie there thinking about another story, unrelated to Alice Carter. It would be a stand-alone. A thriller. Or is it sci-fi?

I wonder if this is my brain’s desperate, last-ditch effort at keeping the kid in me alive, my subconscious’s last stand. Is this my last chance to pursue my dream of writing fiction? I turn over and scribble some notes, then draw on the poster board: a gaping dark circle, half a plane, torn open roughly, sinking in a lake under a crescent moon.

It’s not the type of story I would normally read—or write—but I like it. It’s different. It feels like a potboiler, a simple thriller, a race against time, but it’s really about the characters, and how their lives change. About decisions and how they are the keys to the future. Again, the ideas pour out of me. I don’t even recall falling asleep, sprawled out on the living room floor, the pen still in my hand.





46





Mild migraine and nausea on the flight to New York; about a fourth of the agony I experienced during the last flight. Only vomited twice. Maybe it was the shorter flight. For the first time in my life, I’m scared that I could be really sick. I barely slept last night, my mind racing, weird thoughts running through my head.

I contemplate what might be wrong with me while an acquaintance, another investor, devours his overpriced poached eggs.

After the niceties, he gets down to the matter at hand, a promising company that will preside over a new world (his words).

“Orbital colonies?”

“Not just that. We’re talking asteroid mining, vacation spots—the most expensive real estate in human history.” He leans in. “And we can create as much of it as we want.”

He rattles off another half-dozen potential business models, a buffet of enticements for capitalists, then waits, seeing which bait I go for.

The migraine returns, a low pulsing that ratchets up each second, like a building symphony inside my head, playing chords of pain.

I close my eyes and mumble, “It’s sort of outside my wheelhouse.”

“Word is, you’re looking to branch out.” He leans in. “This is pretty far out there.”

I flag the waiter and ask for a cup of coffee. Maybe that will help.

“It’s intriguing,” I say, trying to hide the pain as I speak. “But I’m looking for . . . a change in the impact my companies have. I’m looking to do something, I don’t know, with more social impact.”