Recursion - Blake Crouch Page 0,52
Julia says.
They stare at the marvel of engineering called the Big Bend, Barry thinking that, up until this moment, FMS has flown largely under the radar—isolated cases wreaking havoc on the lives of strangers.
But this will affect everyone in the city, and many around the world.
This will change everything.
The glass and steel of the building’s west tower is catching parting rays of the setting sun, and memories of Barry’s existence with this building in the city are flooding in.
“I’ve been to the top of it,” Meghan says, tears running down her face.
It’s true.
“With you, Dad. It was the best meal of my life.”
When she finished her bachelor’s degree in social work, he took her to dinner at Curve, the restaurant at the top with spectacular views of the park. It wasn’t just the view that attracted them; Meghan had a food crush on the chef, Joseph Hart. Barry distinctly remembers riding an elevator that transitioned from a vertical ascent to a forty-five-degree climb through the initial angle of the curve to a horizontal traverse across the top of the tower.
The longer he stares at it, the more it feels like an object that is a part of this reality.
His reality.
Whatever that even means anymore.
“Dad?”
“Yes?” His heart is pounding; he feels unwell.
“Is this moment real?”
He looks down at her. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Two hours later, Barry walks into the low-rent bar near Gwen’s place in Hell’s Kitchen and climbs onto the stool beside her.
“You all right?” Gwen asks.
“Is anybody?”
“I tried to call you this morning. I woke up with this alternate history of our friendship. One where Meghan died in a hit-and-run when she was fifteen. She’s alive, right?”
“I just came from seeing her.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. She remembered her own death last night.”
“How is that possible?”
He waits for their drinks to come, and then tells her everything, including his extraordinary experience in the chair.
“You went back into a memory?” she whispers, leaning in close.
She smells like a combination of Wild Turkey, whatever shampoo she uses, and gunpowder, Barry wondering if she came straight here from the range, where she is a sight to behold. He’s never seen anyone shoot like Gwen.
“Yes, and then I started living it, but with Meghan alive this time. Right up to this moment.”
“You think that’s what FMS really is?” she asks. “Changing memories to change reality?”
“I know it is.”
On the muted television above the bar, Barry sees a photograph of a man he recognizes from somewhere. At first, he can’t tie the recognition to a memory.
Barry reads the closed captioning of the news anchor’s reporting.
[AMOR TOWLES, RENOWNED ARCHITECT OF THE BIG BEND, WAS FOUND MURDERED IN HIS APARTMENT ONE HOUR AGO WHEN—]
“Is this Big Bend building a product of the chair?” Gwen asks.
“Yes. When I was in that weird hotel, there was this guy, older gentleman. I believe he was dying. I overheard this conversation where he said that he was an architect, and when he got back into his memory, he was going to follow through on a building he always regretted not pursuing. In fact, he was scheduled to go in the chair today, which is when reality changed for all of us. I’m guessing they killed him for breaking the rules.”
“What rules?”
“They told me I was only supposed to live my life a little better. No gaming of the system. No sweeping changes.”
“Do you know why he’s letting people redo their lives? This man who built the chair?”
Barry slugs back the rest of his beer. “No idea.”
Gwen sips her whiskey. The jukebox has been turned off, and now the bartender unmutes the television and switches channels. Every network has been running nonstop coverage since the building appeared this afternoon. On CNN, an “expert” on False Memory Syndrome has been dredged up to speculate on what they’re calling the “memory malfunction” in Manhattan. She’s saying, “If memory is unreliable, if the past and the present can simply change without warning, then fact and truth will cease to exist. How do we live in a world like that? This is why we’re seeing an epidemic of suicides.”
“You know where this hotel is?” Gwen asks.
“It’s been eleven years—at least in my mind—but I could probably find it again. I know it’s in Midtown, assuming it’s still there.”
“Our minds aren’t built to handle a reality that’s constantly changing our memories and shifting our present,” Gwen says. “What if this is only the beginning?”
Barry’s phone vibrates in his pocket against his leg.
“Sorry