Recursion(66)

Day 58


Day by day, it’s becoming clearer the types of tragedies they are most suited to fix, and if there’s any hesitation, any doubt whatsoever, to Helena’s relief, they err on the side of noninterference.

She continues to be held captive in the apartment building near Sutton Place. Alonzo and Jessica have allowed her to begin taking walks at night. One of them trails a half block behind; the other stays half a block ahead.

It’s the first week of January, and the air whipping between the buildings is a polar blast in her face. But she basks in the faux-freedom of walking in New York at night, imagining she is truly on her own.

She becomes contemplative, thinking of her parents, of Barry. She keeps returning to the last image she holds of him—standing in Slade’s lab just before the lights went down. And then a minute later, the sound of his voice, screaming at her to go.

Tears run cold across her face.

The three most important people in her life are gone, and she will never see them again. The stark loneliness of that knowledge cuts her to the bone.

She is forty-nine, and she wonders if this is what feeling old really means—not just a physical deterioration, but an interpersonal. A growing silence caused by the people you most love, who have shaped you and defined your world, going on ahead into whatever comes after.

With no way out, no endgame in sight, and everyone she loves gone, she is unsure how much longer she will keep doing this.





Day 61


Timoney returns to a memory to stop a deranged fifty-two-year-old insurance salesman from walking into a political demonstration at Berkeley and massacring twenty-eight students with an assault rifle.





Day 70


Steve breaks into an apartment in Leeds while the man is assembling his vest, slides the blade of a combat knife through the base of his skull, and scrambles his medulla oblongata, leaving him facedown on the table atop a pile of nails, screws, and bolts that would’ve torn twelve people to shreds in the London Underground the following morning.





Day 90


On the program’s three-month anniversary, a report in the New York Times profiles their eight missions, speculating that the deaths of would-be murderers, school shooters, and one suicide bomber suggest the work of an enigmatic organization in possession of a technology beyond all understanding.





Day 115


Helena is in bed, right on the cusp of sleep, when a hard knocking on the front door sets her heart racing. If this were her apartment, she could pretend to be out and wait for the latecomer to go away, but alas, she lives under surveillance, and the dead bolt is already turning.

She climbs out of bed, dons her terrycloth robe, and emerges into the living room as John Shaw is opening the front door.

“Come right in,” she says. “By all means.”

“Sorry, and sorry about the late visit.” He moves down the hall into the living room. “Nice apartment.”

She can smell the cinnamon-spiced fire of bourbon on his breath—a fair amount of it. “Yeah, it’s rent-controlled and everything.”

She could offer him a beer or something; she doesn’t.

Shaw climbs onto one of the cushioned stools at the kitchen island, and she stands across from him, thinking he looks more pensive and troubled than she’s ever seen him.

“What can I do for you, John?”

“I know you have never believed in what we’re doing.”

“That’s true.”

“But I’m glad you’re in the conversation. You make us better. You don’t know me that well, but I haven’t always…hey, do you have anything to drink?”

She goes to the Sub-Zero, pulls out a couple of bottles from Brooklyn Brewery, and pops the caps.

Shaw takes a long swig and says, “I build shit for the military to help them kill people as efficiently as possible. I’ve been behind some truly horrific technology. But these last few months have been the best of my life. Every night, while I fall asleep, I think about the grief we’re erasing. I see the faces of the people whose lives or loved ones we’re saving. I think about Daisy Robinson. I think about all of them.”

“I know you’re trying to do what’s right.”

“I am. First time in my life, maybe.” He drinks his beer. “I haven’t said anything to the team, but I’m getting pressure from people in high places.”

“What kind of pressure?”

“Because of my history, I’m afforded a long leash and minimal oversight. But I still have my masters. I don’t know if they suspect something, but they want to know what I’m working on.”

“What can you do?” she asks.

“There’s a few ways to play it. We could create a false-front program, give them something shiny to look at, which bears no actual resemblance to what we’re doing. It’d probably buy us a little time. The better play is just telling them.”

“You can’t do that.”

“DARPA’s primary objective is to make breakthroughs in technologies that will strengthen our national security, with a focus on military applications. It’s only a matter of time, Helena. I can’t hide it from them forever.”

“How would the military use the chair?”