Recursion(72)

“I thought we could use it for good. I was ready to dedicate the rest of my—”

“It doesn’t matter. If you’d done what I said and destroyed the chair, we’d be helpless right now.”

Shaw glances at his phone. “My superiors are on their way.”

“How long do we have?” Helena asks.

“They’re on a jet up from DC, so about thirty minutes. They’ll take over everything.”

“We’ll never be allowed back in here,” Albert says.

“Let’s send Timoney back,” Shaw says.

“To when?” Albert asks.

“To before Slade’s lab was hacked. Now that we know the location of his building, we can raid it earlier. There will be no cyber theft, and we’ll be the sole custodians of the chair.”

“Until we arrive back at this moment,” Albert says. “And then the world will remember all the mayhem that happened this morning.”

Helena says, “And the people who currently have the chair will just rebuild it from a false memory. Like Slade did. It’ll be harder without blueprints, but not impossible. What we need is more time.”

Helena rises and heads over to the terminal, where she takes down a skullcap and climbs into the chair.

“What are you doing?” Shaw asks.

“What does it look like? Raj? Come give me a hand? I need to map a memory.”

Raj, Shaw, and Albert exchange glances across the table.

“What are you doing, Helena?” Shaw asks again.

“Getting us out of this jam.”

“How?”

“Will you just fucking trust me, John?” she shouts. “We are out of time. I have stood by, offered counsel, played by your rules. Now it’s your turn to play by mine.”

Shaw sighs, deflated. She knows the pain of letting go of the promise of the chair. It isn’t just the disappointment of all the unrealized scientific and humanitarian uses to which it might be put under ideal conditions. It’s the realization that, as a deeply flawed species, we will never be ready to wield such power.

“OK,” he says finally. “Raj, fire up the chair.”



* * *





It is the first real taste of freedom the girl has ever known.

In the early evening, she walks out of the two-story farmhouse and climbs into the blue-and-white ’78 Chevy Silverado that is her family’s only vehicle.

She never expected her parents to give her one when she turned sixteen two days ago. Her plan is to work next summer lifeguarding and babysitting, and hopefully earn enough money to buy her own car.

Her parents are standing on the ever-so-slightly sagging front porch, watching proudly as she slides the key into the ignition.

Her mother takes a Polaroid.

As the engine roars to life, what strikes her most is the emptiness in the truck.

No Dad sitting in the passenger seat.

No Mom between them.

It’s just her.

She can listen to any music she wants, as loud as she wants. She can go anywhere she wants, drive as fast as she wants.

Of course, she won’t.

On her maiden voyage, her plan is to venture into the dangerous and distant wilds of the convenience store, a mile and a half down the road.

Buzzing with energy, she shifts the truck into drive and accelerates slowly down the long driveway, hanging her left arm out the window to wave at her parents.

The country road that runs in front of her home is empty.

She pulls out into the road and turns on the radio. The new song, “Faith,” by George Michael is playing on the college radio station out of Boulder, and she sings at the top of her voice as the open fields race past, the future feeling closer than ever. Like it might have actually arrived.

The lights of the gas station glow in the distance, and as she takes her foot off the brake pedal, she registers a piercing pain behind her eyes.

Her vision blurs, her head pounds, and she just avoids crashing the truck into the pumps.

In a parking space beside the store, she kills the engine and pushes her thumbs into her temples against the searing pain, but it keeps building and building—so intense she’s afraid she’s going to be sick.

And then the strangest thing happens.

Her right arm moves toward the steering column and grasps the keys.

She says, “What the hell?”

Because she didn’t move her arm.

Next, she watches as her wrist turns the key and restarts the engine, and now her hand is moving over to the gear shift and sliding the lever into reverse.

Against her own will, she looks over her shoulder, out the rear window, backing the truck through the parking lot, and then shifting into drive.

She keeps thinking, I’m not driving, I’m not doing any of this, as the truck speeds down the highway, back toward home.

A darkness is creeping in at the edges of her vision, the Front Range and the lights of Boulder dimming away and getting smaller, as if she’s falling slowly into a deep well. She wants to scream, to stop this from happening, but she’s just a passenger in her own body now, unable to speak or smell or feel a thing.

The sound of the radio is little more than a dying whisper, and all at once, the pinprick of light that was her awareness of the world winks out.





HELENA