Recursion(100)
The lovely moments.
The ugly ones.
The goodbyes, the deaths.
And the hellos, like this one.
Like the six times she came to him in that Portland shit-kicker bar when he was twenty-one years old, sidled up beside him, young, bright-eyed, beautiful, and fearless.
You look like you want to buy me a drink.
He smiles to himself, because she does not, in this moment, look remotely like she wants to buy a stranger a drink. She looks, well, like Helena—sunk deeply into her work and oblivious to the world.
The bartender comes over, Barry orders, and then he’s sitting with his beer, asking himself the question of the moment—What do you say to the bravest woman you’ve ever known, whom you lived a half dozen extraordinary lives with, whom you saved the world with, who saved you in every conceivable way, but who has no idea you even exist?
Barry takes a sip of beer and sets down the glass. The air feels electrically charged, like just before a storm. Questions avalanching through his mind— Will you know me?
Will you believe me?
Will you love me?
Scared, exhilarated, senses heightening, heart thrumming, he turns finally to Helena, who, feeling his attention, looks over at him through those jade-green eyes.
And he says—
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I could never have written this book without the infinite support of my partner in creativity and life (and sometimes crime) Jacque Ben-Zekry. Thank you for the thousand conversations (often sitting at our favorite bars) about this story and characters. Thank you for your patience when, at times, this book ruled our lives, and for your indispensable editorial contributions that made Recursion better in every way.
David Hale Smith, my ninja-cowboy-assassin literary agent, has been a tremendous advocate going on nine years. Brother, I’m so thankful to have you in my life.
And keeping it in the Inkwell Management family for a moment—high fives to Alexis Hurley, who is responsible for bringing my books to the wide world, to Nathaniel Jacks for your superb, fine-grain contract work, and Richard Pine for your steady hand on the Inkwell ship.
Angela Cheng Caplan and Joel VanderKloot—what can I say other than every writer should be so lucky as to have a team like you driving the battle tank through the madness of Hollywood.
I’ve been writing for a long time, and I have never had a better publishing experience than with the team at Crown. My editor, Julian Pavia, my publisher, Molly Stern, Maya Mavjee, Annsley Rosner, David Drake, Chris Brand, Angeline Rodriguez, and publicity extraordinaire, Dyana Messina, are simply the best of the best.
Double shout-out to Julian for challenging me to make this story every bit as big and surprising as it deserved to be. As the reader deserved it to be. Your commitment to beating this novel into submission matched mine, which is all a writer can ask from an editor. Recursion would be a shell of itself without your fearless editorial eye.
Wayne Brooks at Pan Macmillan in the UK—I’m over-the-moon to have you championing my work on the other side of the pond.
Rachelle Mandik did an exceptional copyediting job on the final manuscript.
Clifford Johnson, Ph.D., professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the University of Southern California, provided invaluable insight in the final stages of the manuscript. All mistakes, assumptions, and crazy theories are mine alone.
This was hands down the hardest book I’ve ever written, and I leaned more on friends than ever before when it came time to gather feedback. To say thank you to those priceless people who provided notes on Recursion, and to pay tribute to other friends and writers I greatly admire, some of their namesakes appear in the book as follows: Barry Sutton = the inimitable Barry Eisler, who went above and beyond in his notes and helped me to drill down into the book’s theme in a moment when I needed his counsel most.
Ann Voss Peters = the lovely and talented Ann Voss Peterson, who has made so many of my books better with her thoughtful insights, in particular the motivations behind my characters.
Helena Smith = the British dynamo thriller writer, Helen Smith, who incidentally has the greatest Cards Against Humanity reading voice in the world.
Jee-woon Chercover = Sean Chercover, the greatest-smelling writer I personally know, and one of my favorite humans.
Marcus Slade = Marcus Sakey, my brainstorming brother who helped immeasurably at various milestones along the path of writing this book.
Amor Towles = Amor Towles, genius writer of A Gentleman in Moscow, my favorite book of the last five years.
Dr. Paul Wilson = the great Dr. F. Paul Wilson, titan of sci-fi and horror, and abstainer of snake wine.
Reed King = Reed Farrel Coleman, Long Island’s noir poet and the benevolent Godfather of the mystery community.
Marie Iden = Matt Iden, the D.C. novelist, admirer of BoJack (my dog), and perhaps the Washington Capitals’ greatest fan.
Joseph Hart = the brilliant sci-fi novelist and Lord of the northern Minnesota wilds, Joe Hart.
John Shaw = Johnny Motherfucking Shaw, owner of the greatest eyebrow in the known universe, and one of our finest crime writers.
Sheila Redling = Sheila Redling, the wonderful West Virginia writer and one of the funniest people I know.
Timoney Rodriguez = Timoney “cool, cool” Korbar, the only non-novelist in this group, but an amazing producer/creator in her own right, and an all-around uber-human.
Heartfelt thanks also to Jeroen ten Berge, Steve Konkoly, Chad Hodge, Olivia Vigrabs, Alison Dasho, and Suzanne Blue, for taking the time to give me feedback at various stages during the writing process.