Recursion - Blake Crouch Page 0,39
Meghan’s room and stands next to the bed, watching her sleep. Bearing witness to the formation of the universe couldn’t fill him with a more profound sense of wonder and joy and overwhelming gratitude at whatever force remade the world for Meghan and for him.
But a cold terror is also breathing down his neck at the thought that this might be a delusion.
A piece of inexplicable perfection waiting to be snatched away.
* * *
He wanders through the house like a ghost through a past life, rediscovering spaces and objects all but lost in his memory. The alcove in the living room where every Christmas they put up the tree. The small table by the front door where he stashed his personal effects. A coffee mug he favored. The roll-top desk in the guestroom where he paid the bills. The chair in the living room where every Sunday he read the Washington Post and New York Times cover to cover.
It is a museum of memories.
His heart is beating faster than normal, keeping time with a low-level headache behind his eyes. He wants a cigarette. Not psychologically—he finally quit five years ago after numerous failed attempts—but apparently his thirty-nine-year-old body physically needs a nicotine bump.
He goes into the kitchen and fills a glass with water from the tap. Stands at the sink, watching the early light brushstroke the backyard into being.
Opening the cabinet to the right of the sink, he pulls out the coffee he used to drink. He brews a pot and loads what he can of yesterday’s dishes into the dishwasher, then sets to work completing the task that was his for the duration of their marriage—washing the remaining dishes by hand in the sink.
When he finishes, the cigarettes are still calling to him. He goes to the table by the front door and grabs the carton of Camels and throws them in the garbage bin outside. Then he sits on the porch drinking his coffee in the cold, hoping his head will clear and wondering if the man responsible for sending him here is watching him right now. Perhaps from some higher plane of existence? From beyond time? The fear returns. Will he be suddenly ripped out of this moment and thrown back into his old life? Or is this permanent?
He tamps down the rising panic. Tells himself he didn’t imagine FMS and the future. This is far too elaborate, even for his detective’s mind, to have dreamed up.
This is real.
This is now.
This is.
Meghan is alive, and nothing will ever take her away from him again.
He says aloud, the closest thing to a prayer he’s ever made, “If you can hear me right now, please don’t take me away from this. I will do anything.”
There is no response in the dawn silence.
He takes another sip of coffee and watches the sunlight stream through the branches of the oak tree, striking the frosted grass, which begins to steam.
HELENA
July 5, 2009
Day 613
As she descends the stairwell toward the superstructure’s third level, her parents—Mom especially—are on her mind.
Last night, she dreamed of her mother’s voice.
The subtle Western twang.
The lilting softness.
They were sitting in a field adjacent to the old farmhouse where she grew up. A fall day. The air crisp and everything tinged with the golden light of late afternoon as the sun slipped behind the mountains. Dorothy was young, her hair still auburn and blowing in the wind. Even though her lips weren’t moving, her voice was clear and strong. Helena can’t remember a word she said, only the feeling her mother’s voice conjured inside of her—pure and unconditional love coupled with the bite of an intense nostalgia that made her heart ache.
She’s desperate to talk to them, but since the revelation two weeks ago that she and Slade built something far more powerful than a memory-immersion device, she hasn’t felt comfortable broaching the subject of communicating with her mom and dad again. She will when the time comes, but everything is still too fresh and raw.
She’s having a hard time coming to grips with what she thinks about her accidental invention, how Slade manipulated her, and what lies ahead.
But she’s working in the lab again.
Exercising.
Putting on a good face.
Trying to be useful.
As she leaves the stairwell for the lab, a bump of adrenaline plows through her system. They’re running test number nine on Reed King today, a new one. She’s going to experience reality shifting beneath her feet again, and there’s no denying the thrill.
As she approaches