After showing her ticket at the door, she entered the theater’s crowded, high-ceilinged lobby. Walls were layered with long white overlapping panels and cut out here and there in thin vertical windows, and a starburst chandelier of optical fibers hung dead center, aglow with multifarious points of light. The roar of conversation filled her ears as she shuffled forward, feeling suddenly self-conscious at the realization she was embarrassingly underdressed in a crowd decked out as if they were attending an opera. Diamonds, gold, and silver flashed amidst black evening dresses, dark suits, and well-coiffed hairdos, many of them the silver or auburn helmets of the older generation. Indeed, most were middle-aged or over, and the women far outnumbered the men.
She took consolation in knowing the fellow employees who’d ridden down in the van with her were equally underdressed—and that the crowd’s close-quarters press would make it hard for very many to notice her too-casual apparel.
Windowed halls carpeted in deep blue ramped steeply down from either side of the lobby and were lined with a succession of open doors leading into the theater. She had to go three-quarters of the way down the ramp to find the door for her row and by then was glad she’ d ridden the van, for her rarely worn dress shoes had already rubbed a hot spot on the back of each heel.
The theater held about a thousand people, its walls, ceiling, carpet, curtains—even the ranks of seats—all done in black. Irregularly shaped baffles extended from the walls and ceiling in serried ranks, and soft blue light shone down from fixtures hidden among them.
This Friday night presentation was a fundraiser, and Director Swain had told the employees at dinner that they expected the theater to be full this evening. From the number of people who already filled the rows, it appeared his expectations would be met. Lacey had to pick and semi-stumble her way along an aisle of knees wrapped in glittering fabrics while trying not to step on five-hundred-dollar pairs of evening shoes. As she worked her way to the middle right, she glimpsed Pecos and Lauren already seated two rows ahead of her, amidst others she recognized from the back tables of the dining hall, some of whom had shared her van. Farther down, she spied Cameron Reinhardt, standing at the far right corner of the front row, where it curved around the small orchestra pit. He faced the audience as he talked with Nelson Poe and a black man dressed in brightly colored African robes and headdress. Reinhardt wore a navy polo shirt and khaki trousers, and so was even more underdressed than she was. Not that
that
was any comfort.
Just then he glanced over the shoulders of the men to whom he was talking and looked right at her. Immediately she turned her attention to finding her seat. It was just right of middle stage, roughly eye level with the top of the podium on the stage’s empty black floor. A heavyset man in full evening attire sat immediately to the right of it. He gave her a disdainful up-and-down glance and then turned away to resume his conversation with his much younger companion. With a grimace, Lacey pushed her folding seat down and sat beside him.
Immediately the older woman seated to her left touched her arm and leaned close to advise that she not let the old stiff disturb her. “Some people take themselves
entirely
too serious,” she added with a wink.
Dressed in a red tapestry jacket and black billowing skirt-slacks, her silver hair cut in a sassy bob, Estelle Lederman had also come to the presentation unescorted. And though her face was wrinkled and her bejeweled hands pale and veined, she was as full of life as anyone Lacey had ever met. Estelle was an ardent supporter—both emotionally and monetarily—of Parker Swain and the Institute, her interest in K-J spawned by her CEO husband’s death three years ago.
“You seem awfully young to be worried about death,” Estelle observed when she’d concluded her introduction. “Though I suppose it’s never too young to consider it.”
“Actually, I’m a geneticist here,” Lacey told her. “They encourage all the new hires to attend this presentation at least once.”
“You’re a geneticist here at the Institute?” Estelle exclaimed, her dark eyes widening with delight. “Oh my! What serendipity that I’d be seated next to you!”
“I suspect I am the beneficiary here,” Lacey said, chagrined to realize she’ d given Estelle the idea that she was much more than she really was. “I’m really just a research technician.”
Estelle asked her a few questions about what she did and how she’d come to be at the Institute, but in the end, Lacey was right. In terms of information sharing, Estelle—who had attended the Grand Vision presentation many times—was a fountain of gossip and industry history. She told Lacey of Swain’s early years roaming the globe with Viascola and Slattery, and how more recently he’ d hooked up with American billionaires Ian Trout, John Kendall, and Maurice Jakes, and the Kendall-Jakes Institute was born. Of the three, Trout alone remained alive, Kendall and Jakes both having taken up residence in the tanks of liquid nitrogen down in the Vault.
She pointed out several venture capitalists in the audience, one of whom had, twenty years ago, allowed Swain to try his cutting-edge gene therapies on his cancer-stricken only daughter. Swain’s procedures had resulted in a complete cure—the daughter remained alive to this day—and had bought the father’s undying gratitude. And consistently generous support.
The brightly robed Africans seated in the front row were a delegation from the West African nation of Ivory Coast. Swain had worked there in his early, vagabond years, cultivating connections with men who were now in significant positions of power, including in the diamond trade. Many were backers of his research, and several were even signed up to go into the Vault, “when the time comes.” Plus they had access to ancient African tribal lore that had potential application for Swain’s research objectives.
“He’s got quite a past, does Parker Swain,” said Estelle. “Especially, so they say, with the ladies. Never married, but father of many. I think it’s just jealous gossip. He’s so charming. So handsome . . . when you meet him you just cannot believe he could be that cavalier. He really cares. You can sense that in a man, you know?”
Lacey nodded. She knew
exactly
what Estelle meant.
“He has such a presence, such high-energy integrity,” the older woman went on. “He just seems to
collect
those of high intellect and spiritual attunement, as if they’re drawn to him. Well, I believe they
are
drawn. . . .” She went off on a riff regarding the metaphysical properties of synchronicity that Lacey struggled to follow, and at the first lull Lacey asked about Cameron Reinhardt, her eyes seeking him out in the front row, sitting far right now, facing forward.
The older woman’s glossed lips pursed and she gave a slight shake of her head, her shiny hair swinging like liquid silver. “Vastly overrated. I have no idea why Parker hired him.”
Hardly the response Lacey had expected.
“Well, I guess I do,” Estelle amended. “But, you know, he
was
on the verge of being fired at Stanford before Parker signed him.”
“No,” said Lacey. “I didn’t know.”
“I guess he’s got something of a temper,” Estelle went on. “Not to mention a full-blown persecution complex. And he’s not at all a team player. Don’t get me wrong, he
is
brilliant. And from what I understand, his ideas are innovative. But . . . he’s so unstable, how do you trust someone like that?”
“But Swain hired him,” Lacey pointed out, “so he must not be too concerned about him.” Although after what Reinhardt had told her last night, she thought he should be. In fact, it made her angry to think that Swain would be so beneficent in hiring him only to have Reinhardt repay him so unjustly.
“Oh, it’s not as if Reinhardt’s troubles aren’t justified,” Estelle admitted. “He married very young, and went into the military barely a month after. Those two are hard enough to weather, but then his daughter was born with a genetic defect in the mitochondria. It’s rare, but incurable. She only lived three years. They say it destroyed his marriage and lost him his position in the service. And was the reason he went into genetics in the first place. I— Oh! Here go the lights! I best shush up now.”
And she did, along with everyone else. Which was just as well, for her revelations had startled Lacey enough that she would not have heard much more had it been said. Reinhardt had been married? Had a daughter who had died at three? Hardly the usual profile for the self-absorbed, ever-single, lecherous geek she’ d assumed him to be. She had no time to think further, though, for by then, as both darkness and stillness lay upon them all, the chamber orchestra began to play a low, drawn-out note that enhanced the sense of something coming. It quickly gained volume and variation, glissading up the scale to a bright climax perfectly timed with the spotlight that exploded onstage, illuminating Parker Swain as if he had just been beamed down from heaven.
Striding toward the podium he made a tossing motion with both hands, loosing twin plumes of tiny butterflies that fluttered over the exclaiming audience, wings glowing neon blue and purple. Apparently drawn to shiny things, or white, they landed on women’s necklaces, earrings, hair, or light blouses. Estelle was delighted when one of them came to rest on her big diamond pinky ring. She held it up so Lacey could marvel with her.
Then the lights darkened further, the orchestra quieted, and a low hum emitted from above, drawing the butterflies upward in a fluttering cloud until the darkness swallowed them and the audience burst into excited applause.
Onstage, Swain grinned, arms still outstretched from when he’ d tossed the butterflies. He wore a white suit and tie, his blond hair styled in loose waves around his boyish, clean-shaven face, and he radiated youth, energy, and enthusiasm.
“Wonder,” he said, his amplified voice echoing in the darkness. “It is the power of life. Our world is full of it, and much of it we are only beginning to discover.”
Lacey was close enough she could see his eyes and face as he surveyed them paternally and grinned, flashing perfect white teeth.
At that moment his gaze caught upon her and the slight widening of his smile sent a zing up her spine. “I’m glad you came,” he said, and she had the distinct impression his words were specifically for her. “Because tonight we shall explore the path to wonder, together.”
Warmth suffused Lacey’s body, stoking the glow of optimism that had come upon her this morning until it burned as a joyous inner flame.
The podium, which had disappeared in the darkness, now came gliding back across the stage, Swain stepping to meet it. Blue light illumined the background as a huge smoky-glass cube descended behind him, turning slowly on invisible wires. From the podium Swain picked up a tiny replica, similar to the black cubes Dr. Viascola had given out at the unity meeting.
“It is a path,” he continued, “that begins with a black box—the icon we use here to represent all the mysteries we have yet to unravel. In fact, once our entire world was a black box.” A hologram of the Earth appeared in the center of the giant box behind him, turning slowly on its axis. “So were our own bodies”—the globe vanished as on each plane of the box, stunning video illustrated his words—“the plants and animals that share this planet with us, the weather, the stars, the rocks, the ocean . . .
“History is filled with marvels we have yet to explain.” At his back, the flowers and ground squirrels were replaced by a giant boxcar of stone emerging from the ground. “In Baalbek, three perfectly dressed and fitted limestone blocks serve as part of the foundation for a later Roman-built temple, blocks weighing more than a thousand tons, quarried some three miles from the site. How were they quarried at all? And more, how did the ancients move what we would struggle with today using modern technology? We have no idea.
“Or consider the Nazca lines in Peru.” The stone boxcar gave way to images of a barren plain into which a gargantuan, stylized monkey had been inscribed. “Inscribed a thousand years ago, and we still don’t know why they were made, since one can only see the designs from the air, and the primitives we believe responsible could not fly. . . .
“The Judeo-Christian Bible, revered for millennia as the Word of God, lists generations of men whose lives spanned centuries rather than decades, and speaks of a race of giants spawned by gods. Nor is it alone. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, Persian, Nordic—each has their version of gods come down to unite with humans. But were they, indeed, gods? Or were they merely enlightened men?”
Swain stepped back from the podium, which glided stage right into the shadows.
“Clearly humanity once had knowledge it has lost. And if we found it once, we can find it again. In the last hundred years alone, we’ve put men on the moon, examined the very soil of Mars, and found a way to kill millions of people with a single explosion.” In the box, appropriate video illustrated his words. “We’ve developed technology to the point we can watch what is happening on the other side of the world in real time—and travel there in less than a day.”
Like a lion he prowled across the stage, tall, regal, fluid . . . mesmerizing. Periodically his blue eyes skewered hers, sending tingles down her legs.
“Yet nothing compares to the advances we’ve made in genetics. The single most radical event was when Watson and Crick figured out the structure of the DNA molecule.” In the box behind him a double helix unwound, the two strands in turn winding into daughter strands as it replicated. “That, combined with the advance in computing systems, has led to the unraveling of the human genome and brought us to the beginning of a revolution in knowledge and abilities unmatched in all of history. A revolution that will lead to a radical change in life as we know it: the metamorphosis of man himself.”
The orchestra’s rendition of Strauss’s
Also sprach Zarathustra
swelled through the auditorium as behind him a giant golden chrysalis floated in the darkness at the cube’s center. Inside its transparent golden case, the pupa convulsed, forcing a split in the side of its prison. Before their eyes, the creature pushed itself through the breach, then spread its golden brown spotted wings, a worm no longer, but a newly born butterfly.