The Flicker Men (11 page)

“There'll be a few, I suspect.”

“Ah, but you see, now the science will be on
our
side. This will change everything. We're all possessed of the same miracle. A consciousness unique to humanity. I sense that you don't like me very much.”

“I like you fine. But there's an old saying, ‘Never trust a man with only one book.'”

“One book is all a man needs if it's the right book.”

“That's the problem though, isn't it? Everybody thinks their book's the right one. Have you considered what you'll do if you're proven wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if wavefunction collapse doesn't occur until the ninth month? Or the magic moment of birth? Will you change your mind?”

“That's not going to happen.”

“You sound sure.”

“I am.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe you're right. But I guess now we find out.”

 

PART II

All great truths begin as Blasphemies.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

 

16

When I was a boy, there were two things my father liked to do. Sail and drink. He'd met my mother in college, when they were both juniors and poor as dirt. She was still a chemistry major, he economics. The story of their meeting was family lore.

“The foundations of economics are genetic,” he told her, when she finally deigned speak to him in the park outside the university library. He'd noticed the helix on the cover of the book she carried.

Later she would talk about the day he proposed, their senior year: a walk on the beach and in the distance, heeled over in the bay, a white sailboat like a breaching whale. They watched it for an hour, and my father told her, “Someday I'll have one.” He might have been telling her that he'd be president someday. Or an astronaut.

My father graduated, and while my mother switched sciences, he went to work for the biggest corporation that would hire him. The world was a machine into which hours were invested, and out of which money flowed. He was good at his job, and soon there were cars and a house and a baby and then another—and my mother later talked about those years often. The way scholars might talk of a lost golden age. Untrue in its parts, but true as a whole. For no golden age is truly golden. But for my mother, reality was always abstract art—a pattern of color on canvas, a collection of brushstrokes.

And maybe there was this truth: it was golden enough.

I was seven years old when he first took me out on the bay. My father's boat was a thirty-six-foot Catalina. The
Regatta Marie
, a medium-sized cruiser that carried four hundred square feet of sail. His work had by then made millions for his employer, and there were bonuses paid, promotions, partnerships. I never understood any of it. I understood only that my father was good at what he did. Special somehow. Gifted.

For seven days the
Regatta Marie
was our whole world, sailing up the rocky coast, just the two of us. The wind blew from the south, and the ship heeled, sprinting into the waves, sails snapping like prayer flags. We kept the shore in sight that first trip. At night, we got out the binoculars and watched the city lights twinkle in the blackness.

The next day, my father shouted in joy at the spray, while the harness held me in place, and the chop disintegrated against the hull in a million shiny droplets. He clung to the helm, soaked to the skin—one leg steadied against the side of the cockpit as the boat heaved along on its side. We ate soup cooked on cantilevered pots—cold saltwater sluicing periodically across the starboard windows. From the safety of my harness I watched my father in his element.

He was drinking almost every day by then, but the water kept him honest. He never drank beyond the harbor if he had passengers aboard. “Too dangerous,” he'd say. Because even he understood the sea wasn't to be trifled with.

After that summer sail, school started for me, and my father started going out alone, each time venturing farther and farther out. His first blue water solo voyage, I checked over his supply list, written on a large yellow legal pad.

•
Check lines

•
Buy new halyards

•
Check through hulls for rot

•
Set sail Sept 6th

•
Don't die

Later, when I was twelve, I checked his lists again, looking for that last item, and it wasn't there. Somewhere along the line, it had fallen off the list.

Since he never drank when he drove or worked or sailed with crew, he did all these things less often as time went by. Our excursions beyond the harbor grew fewer. And then there was that last time. That last time we ventured out into deep water.

I guided the ship by pointing. “There!” I shouted. “Let's go there!” Pointing to a bit of blue no different from all the other bits of blue, the rise and fall of dark waves, and I handled the ropes while we tacked, and the great sail above us shifted as he steered into a beam reach. The canvas filled and the lines creaked, while the whole large and mysterious machine leaned over on its side, and we were off.

The ocean is vast. A tiny vessel against the expanse of a world. And he loved that point where you couldn't see land anymore. Seventeen miles on a clear day. Sometimes sixteen or fourteen or ten, depending on the weather. He'd stare out over the horizon. “There,” he'd say. And I'd look. And I'd see he was right. There was no land. Only the ocean. And no point going farther. Beyond here, everything was the same. The ocean was one thing. And the ship would rise and fall like breathing. A spaceship in the darkness as we moved across the waves.

When the wind comes from the east, the storms can sneak up on you. Catch you unaware. The way life can catch you unaware.

*   *   *

I watched the unnamed marina in the distance as the airport shuttle rounded the curve. I looked past Point Machine's shoulder while he dozed, black hair against the glass. I could see the sailboats and the masts swaying. The highway curved again as we approached the city, driving parallel to the water. Buildings loomed. I nudged him. “We're almost at the hotel.” But he did not wake.

I looked out through the glass at the small slice of ocean. Never forgetting the water was cold and the water was deep, and the things you love most can hurt you.

I could smell the salt when I climbed off the shuttle. Point Machine and I grabbed our bags as we stood beneath the front awning of the conclave hotel, a plush Ramada not far from the water. We decided to make a pass through the commons before checking in.

Already, the crowds were gathering.

“Quite a turnout,” Point Machine said.

I switched the strap of my duffle bag to my other shoulder. “Now I remember why I don't come to these.”

The trip was mandatory, a decree handed down from bosses whom even Jeremy was afraid to disappoint. I'd refused to help with Robbins, so this was the alternative. The lesser of two evils. Still, I'd dragged my feet until higher-ups were invoked. In the end, I did it for Jeremy. “They want a representative from Hansen to attend,” he told me. “Preferably someone high-profile, and right now, that's you guys. Satvik is already committed elsewhere.”

That “elsewhere,” of course, being Robbins.

So when the date arrived, I'd packed my bags and met Point Machine at the airport.

In truth, it was the last place I wanted to be. Three days earlier, the first threatening letter had arrived at the lab. The police were called.

When I'd asked, Jeremy said only, “You don't want to read it.”

Eventually, he showed me the xeroxed copy. Ten words in black magic marker. Enough to remind me that the world was a dangerous place.

Marble gave way to thick carpet as we entered the central commons, weaving our way through the flow of bodies, and I was struck by the aural wave of a hundred simultaneous conversations. It had been a long time since I'd been to one of these, but you never really forget them. The milling crowds, both postgrad and undergrad. The never-grads and PhDs. The science bloggers rubbing shoulders with editors.

In the best cases, it brought future collaborators together. Forged new systems of understanding the world. I thought of the famous 1961 conclave where Feynman met Dirac. Just two men sitting across the table from each other.

In the worst cases, these things could be cliquish and exclusionary—but still with one silver lining. Always, for those so inclined, it was a great excuse to drink. I'd packed my prescription of nalmefene and popped two pills before I got on the plane.

We found the check-in desk. After a short wait in line behind a group of German-speaking researchers, we showed our identification to the staff and received name tags and small plastic lanyards, along with plastic bags stuffed with conference literature. We leafed briefly through our new provisions. Somewhere in the little booklet, I knew, would be a short description of our experiment, along with dozens of other studies that were being highlighted. We'd managed to avoid having to give an actual talk, but only because I'd put my foot down. Still, that didn't stop other researchers from discussing the experiment. Point Machine's name tag used his real name. I turned mine around so that it faced my chest.

After stowing our luggage in our rooms, we headed down to the main floor armed only with our booklets. I scanned the map for the most vital piece of information.

“This way,” I said.

Three minutes and two asked questions later, we found the hospitality suite, a rather elaborate affair, now crowded with all forms of attendees. A cheese spread competed for space with brownies on a narrow table along one wall. We grabbed our complimentary juices and then, able to put it off no longer, headed for the talks.

The first talk was on quantum crystal dynamics. The speaker lectured eloquently on the crystalline substructure of carbon. The talk droned on. I glanced at Point Machine.

“I pick the next one,” he said. And did. Hidden phylogenetic substructure among endangered amphibians.

This one had slides and so was far superior. We watched the researcher wave at the screen with a long pointer. She spoke quickly in that perfect, accentless Midwestern of news anchors and people from Ohio: “Molecular analysis was performed on specimens sampled from across a wide range of threatened habitat.”

At one point, a frog appeared on the slide, and Point Machine seemed to perk up beside me, while the news anchor voice droned on: “The presence of hidden, cryptic species nested within populations of tree frogs highlights the need for ex-situ conservation.”

The PowerPoint presentation continued—a series of graphs and slopes, one kind of tree frog living hidden among another. My attention wavered.

Applause indicated the end of the session, and we stood and filed out with the rest.

*   *   *

Later that night we had a dinner scheduled, arranged through the home office. An address and two names: Ken Brighton and Gershon Boaz.

Point Machine and I found them already waiting for us at the restaurant—a place called the Zoco Chophouse. Dinner so fancy the salad didn't have lettuce. That's how you knew. That's how you knew it was serious.

Both men were tall, in suits and ties. Brighton was the broader of the two, large across the shoulders in a way that promised custom tailoring. It was hard to place his age. He might have been forty, but something about his stride made me suspect he was younger. His hair was a bright, golden blond, cut short. The second man, Boaz, was just as tall but without the extra mass. His hair was a bit longer and gone silver-white, though his face was smooth and unlined. They were a striking pair, and I noticed eyes tracking them as they approached from across the room. They might have been catalog models in other lives, if models looked like lawyers, and lawyers terrified you.

The hostess placed us at a table in the back. I had assumed there was some unstated quid pro quo with the bosses back home. The dinner a professional courtesy. But now that I'd seen them, I wasn't so sure.

“There are two men you should meet” was all that Jeremy's voice mail had said, along with their names and a time for the restaurant. The rest was a mystery. I began to wish I'd asked a few more questions as I faced the two strangers.

“Gentlemen,” Brighton began the introductions. Hands were shaken. “Thank you for joining us.”

“Call me Eric,” I said.

Point Machine and I took our seats across the table from the men, and when the waitress arrived a moment later with a basket of steaming bread, Brighton spoke for the group. “What's your finest red?”

“We have a fine Château Lafite Rothschild, 1989,” the waitress said.

“A bottle for the table, if you would.”

“I'll be okay with a Coke,” I interjected.

“Nonsense, just one drink. You're not on the wagon, are you?” His smile broadened.

That took me aback for a moment, until I realized it was a joke.

“No,” I lied. “But I—”

“Well then, it's settled.”

And for him it was. He was past it already, sending the waitress off with a smile and a nod of his head—a man so used to getting his way that it came as second nature.

Brighton, it came as no surprise, was the talker of the pair, guiding the conversation with practiced ease. A golden tongue to go with his golden hair. He spoke of wines while we scanned the menus. Boaz, for his part, remained silent.

At one point, after waxing eloquent on the myriad subtle complexities harbored within the bouquet of a properly aerated 1990 Auslese, Brighton seemed to catch himself, and he leaned forward as if to engage.

“But enough about wine,” he said. “I want to thank you again for agreeing to meet on such short notice.”

“It's our pleasure,” I said. “It's nice to see a bit of the city.”