Departure (23 page)

WHEN THE COUNTDOWN ON THE TABLET STOPS, I
toss it away and roll onto my side, the only part of me that isn't coated in jagged glass. Blood oozes from a thousand places on my body. At any moment I expect my guts to spill out on the white marble floor like the contents of a piñata that's finally popped.

Maybe that's what they're waiting for—the easy way out.

I stare up into the barrels of the rifles pointed at me, into the hatred on the faces of the Titans holding them. They circle me, glancing at each other, no doubt silently debating: shoot all at once, so no one knows who fired the killing shot, or conduct a more orderly execution? Or wait—after all, I'll die soon either way. One way or another, that's what's next. No words I can say will change it.

I wear the face of the Titan civil war. When they look down at me, they see Nicholas Stone, the man who destroyed this world and set the Titans against each other. They see the villain who betrayed humanity time and again, slaughtered his fellow Titans at Heathrow, and planned and executed this final assault.

As I wait for the end, I can't help contemplating what Nicholas became, how all his extraordinary achievements changed him, made him arrogant, yet his guilt at his mistakes ate away at his moral compass, drove him inward, to a selfish and ruthless place where he longed only to taste happiness again.

As much as it disgusts me, I don't blame him. Because I guess I felt some of that desperation, the fear that I would never feel whole and happy again, before Flight 305 took off. He was me. He
is
me. I'm capable of everything he did. I guess we're all capable of evil, under the right circumstances.

Movement. The Titans around me shift, form up, getting ready.

A sound track of death and destruction plays behind them. Blood-reddened water gurgles in the mangled fountain below the statue of Nicholas and Oliver that broke the fall of so many Titans, battering them, each body taking with it a small piece of the sculpture. Behind me, shards of glass fall to the store's floor like wind chimes blowing on a lazy day. I focus on the sound of each little piece falling, wondering if it's a piece of my face or that of another Titan. I imagine them settling on the floor, indistinguishable in the sea of shattered glass.

Footsteps, loud on the grand helix stairway. The Titans part.

Sabrina.

“Hello, Nick.”

I've never been so glad to hear her voice—or my own name. Just Nick. I'll never use the name Nicholas.

She bends down toward me, a syringe in her hand.

“Wait.”

“Your injuries are urgent,” Sabrina says in that mechanical tone, the sweetest sound I can imagine right now. “We must—”

“How'd you know?”

“Harper.”

“How'd she know?”

Sabrina arches her eyebrows. “That may remain a mystery.”

“She's . . .”

Sabrina nods, genuinely sad. That's new. She starts at me again with the syringe, but I hold my hand up, the movement accompanied
by a grunt of pain. “You have a plan? To send a warning to 2015 when we go back?”

“Yes. Memories.”

“Memories?”

“A detailed brain scan that maps the position of every electron in every neuron. Yul was working on the science, using the Q-net to transmit the data back, but he didn't complete his work.”

So Yul's dead as well.

Her syringe still at the ready, Sabrina goes on. “I believe, however, that the colonists can complete his work. Yul was scanned before he died, so we have his memories to transmit.”

“And Harper's?”

“No. I'm sorry, Nick.”

“Scan her.”

“We can't—”

“I saw her fall. Is her body intact?”

“We don't know. It's in the water.”

“Get her out. You have one airship left. Go get her and scan her right now.”

“Nick, we can't be sure—”

“Do it, Sabrina. You owe us. Please.”

I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG
I've been in this lab with Harper's corpse. I can't seem to leave. There's so much left unsaid between us. How do you get over someone passing too soon? Someone with so much life left to live. I thought seeing her might . . . help. But it hasn't. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow. Or maybe that will only make things worse.

I run my hand through her blond hair, kiss her cold forehead—our first and only kiss—and walk out of the lab.

FOR THE PAST HOUR SABRINA
has lectured me on the likelihood that Harper's memories won't make it to 2015, that none of ours will. That Harper was dead for almost half an hour before her brain was scanned complicates matters, apparently. The key to the whole thing is having the same neurons present in both timelines. Sabrina thinks
it would be better not to attempt to send her memories back. Sabrina was scanned during the assault on Titan City, Yul right before.

I'm due to be scanned in an hour. She says I won't remember anything that happens here after that; the memories transmitted back—if it works—will stop after I slide into the machine.

She's run off a list of possible physical calamities, everything from brain damage to stroke to schizophrenia. It's like the warnings during a pharma commercial, except Sabrina talks slower, and this one lasts for sixty minutes (I've been told to hold my questions until the end).

As she plods on, I try to sort through what to do. I think about what I want: the Harper I've come to know. But that's the selfish choice, the choice Nicholas made. And then I think about what Harper would choose, if she were sitting here. That's the key: ignoring my desires, focusing on what she would want. Who am I kidding? That's really impossible. Facts. What do I know? Harper risked her life time and again here in 2147 to save others. At the end, when she knew she was the only person who could stop Nicholas, she gave her life to do that. The journal she found in her flat, what she read, it changed her. She didn't like the choices the version of herself in this world made. I know she would want to do things differently. But she may never have that chance if any of Sabrina's dire warnings come to pass. It comes down to this: leave her the way she was in 2015 and guarantee she lives, or send her memories along with ours, and roll the dice with her life.

“Questions?” Sabrina finally asks.

“How sure are the colonists that they can make Yul's science work?”

“Not sure at all. Yul's mind was far ahead of his time. But time is one thing we have.”

“What does that mean?”

“Whether the colonists solve the quantum aspects of the memory transmission tomorrow or a thousand years from now, it makes no difference to us. If the memories do make it back to 2015, we'll remember nothing after the scan. The passage of time in this timeline will have no bearing.”

I rub my eyes. Still so hard to wrap my head around all this.

Sabrina's tone softens. “I have a suggestion, Nick.”

“Yeah?”

“Decide Harper's fate—whether you want to attempt transmitting her memories or not—after your scan.”

I nod. “So I won't remember my choice. No guilt.”

“Correct.”

She's right. Guilt can be a dangerous thing. Nicholas proved that to me.

And I have time to decide. Maybe years or decades, if the science here takes that long.

“All right.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

SABRINA AND I WALK TO
the lab that contains the massive machine in silence.

Inside the lab, she runs through the details of how it works, how groggy I will feel after the procedure, but I barely hear a word, my mind still consumed with the decision I have to make.

Finally I hop onto the frigid white table and wait as the machine spins up, the hum growing louder each second.

To my surprise, Sabrina takes my hand in hers and looks down at me on the table.

“See you in 2015, Nick.”

IT'S OVER. THE GREATEST SEVEN HOURS AND EIGHT
minutes of travel in my thirty-two years on Planet Earth.

Over.

Jillian's voice comes on the speaker, announcing the conclusion of this glorious flight (tear). Her tone's brisk, slightly cheery, completely professional. She welcomes each and every passenger (especially Reward Miles members) to London Heathrow Airport, and says she hopes we had a pleasant flight (understatement) and that she will see us again soon, wherever our travel plans may take us (I would go anywhere in this chair).

I'll never understand the race to get off the plane. It's like a flash strain of flesh-eating bacteria just broke out in the tail section, and it's a live-or-die mad dash to make it to the exits. Can this many people have tight connecting flights?

People swarm the aisles, jerking their carry-ons out of the overheads, hastily shoving tablets, e-readers, and snacks they squirreled away during the flight into their bags, barely bothering to zip them.

There's a cacophony of voices.
Excuse me— Sorry— Is that your bag? Do you mind?

I'll be the last off. I dread going home. That's where I'll have to make the Decision.

God, just thinking about it puts me in a bad mood.

“You all right?”

The guy from 2A. Short dark hair, chiseled face, American accent.
Like.

“Yeah,” I manage, barely audible over the game of Twister playing out in the aisles.

“Need some help?”

That's an understatement.

He squints. “With your bag?”

“I—”

“Hey, some people have places to be, Casanova.” Grayson Shaw. Drunk. Very drunk.

Two A doesn't budge. “Exactly. Why don't you stand aside?”

Grayson mutters a cornucopia of curse words as he turns back, disembarking via the business section exit.

Two A pops the overhead open and fishes out my bag, its heft seeming inconsequential in his hands.

I cringe as he lowers my battered black bag to the aisle. It tilts slightly when he releases it—it's missing one of its four wheels. I received the bag for Christmas one year at uni, and as I travel so seldom, I've never seen the need to fork out the cash to replace it. It teeters there like Her Majesty's government's Exhibit 1 of my impostorhood, my complete unworthiness to be here in the first-class section of Flight 305. The barrister would no doubt direct the jury's attention to the fuzzy white remnants of a sticker that I unsuccessfully tried to peel off, the glue seeming to have melded with the bag's canvas at the molecular level. The sticker was placed there by a drunken friend of mine almost a decade ago, in Spain. It read either “I heart guacamole” or “Viva la revolución”—I can't recall which.

“Thanks,” I squeak.

HEATHROW EXPRESS TO PADDINGTON STATION,
then the tube, all the while staring at my phone, still off, dreading what awaits.

At home, I finally hold the power button down.

Two voice mails. One from my agent, the other from Mum.

My agent's voice barks in my ear.
“Hi, Harp, hope you had a good flight. Ring me when you're home. They're pressing me to get your decision. If you're out, they're moving to their second choice. They don't want to do that. I don't want them to do that. Huge opportunity, Harp. Let's sort it out, yeah?”

Mum, just making sure her only child hasn't crashed into the Atlantic or the English countryside somewhere. It's late, but I know she's up, worrying, waiting for me to call, so I do.

The conversation is decidedly one-sided: hers. I sit on my sunken sofa with its cream slipcover, listening to updates about relatives young and old. I know what she's working up to, and I mentally prepare myself. Ethan, my cousin, is headed off to Harrow, but how will my aunt and uncle ever afford it, and speaking of uncles, Clive has bought a horse, which Mum figures is his midlife crisis, which is better than an affair, she supposes, and . . . speaking of dating—

I ring off after that, pace the flat for a while, ruminating on the Decision. I get the Alice Carter notebook out from under my mattress and lay it on the coffee table, eyeing it sympathetically, as you might a child before you break her heart.
Summer vacation will have to wait another year, honey. Mummy has to work.
And that's what I think it will come down to. But then I'll be free to finish Alice, give her the time she deserves.

That sounds like a rational, responsible, adult decision.

Who am I kidding? I'm still teetering, like my shabby three-wheeled bag. Maybe I'll use some of the money to replace it.

Only one thing to do, one thing that can help me decide.

I put my coat back on and ponder on my way down the stairs: vodka or wine?

Since I'm now making only practical, rational, adult decisions, I'll choose vodka. More bang for the buck. More pure revelation-inducing, decision-solidifying power per penny. And less calories. Less calories is good. As Mum just reminded me, I don't want to wind up a spinster with a beer gut, like Cousin Dolly.

“I KNEW YOUR FATHER, NICK.”

I hate when meetings start this way. I'm never sure what to say. Some folks get sappy (my father passed away two years ago); some recall episodes I was too young to remember (which, to be fair, I often enjoy hearing about a great deal); and some, like the man before me, Alastair Hughes, just let the statement hang in the air, awaiting my response.

I stare at the London skyline behind him for a moment, what I can see through the dreary fog. The day is as gray as I feel. Maybe I should move to London. There's a change. Probably a good investment, too. But I hear they're considering taxing homes owned by foreigners. Surprised they haven't yet.

“Were you a diplomat as well?” I finally ask.

He was, as it turns out. He runs through a few of his postings, offers a story about my father, one that took place in 1985, in Nicaragua, one I hadn't heard. It's a good story, well told. I like Alastair
Hughes. And I think that may have been the point of the story. I bet he was a pretty good diplomat.

When the last laughs settle into chuckles, then reflective silence, he gets to the matter at hand.

When he's finished, I simply say, “You want to build a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar?”

Alastair leans forward slightly. “We
will
build a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar.”

I glance at the three men, wondering what in the world this has to do with me. Before the meeting, I told them that I typically fund Internet-related companies, mostly at seed stage. The initial investments are low, relatively speaking; assuming things work out, I usually participate in subsequent funding rounds, doubling down on winners. I'm rarely more than twenty million into any one company by the time it either folds or reaches liquidity (IPO or acquisition). They're talking billions to build something like this. And even if they had the money in hand, I doubt they'd get the political buy-in.

“This project will take decades, Nick. It will be the largest construction project in history, a multinational collaboration that will change the face of the earth. The marvels of the ancient world—the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the statue of Zeus at Olympia—most were monuments, ceremonial shrines. This dam will
do
something. It will carve a new destiny for humanity, a future about global cooperation, dreaming big. It will show the world that we can solve big problems. It won't be built with dollars, pounds, or euros, or even man-hours. It will be built with consensus.”

He slides a series of artists' renderings over to me. In the center of the dam, a waterfall spills into a blue basin set in a rocky brown valley that turns to green farther out. A few simple low-rise buildings stand at the top.

“Building something this large requires a strong foundation. We're not talking about a foundation of concrete or steel or money. People. Every successful venture starts with the right people. I'm sure that's how it is in start-ups, right? Two companies developing the same technology; the best group of people wins the day.”

I nod.

“You chose start-ups because you like to be on the ground floor of something big, something that could have a huge impact.”

“I suppose.”

“Doesn't get bigger than this, Nick. And this is the ground floor.”

“Yeah, but the thing is, I don't see how I fit in. Don't get me wrong: it's impressive, the vision, the potential impact. But . . .”

“You're uniquely qualified, Nick. The people you grew up with, went to school with around the world—over the next few decades, they will become the senators, prime ministers, and CEOs who will decide whether this dam gets built. They're the levers of the future.”

“Perhaps, but look—I mean, I was rarely picked last at gym time, but my childhood friends don't like me enough to let me drain their coastlines.”

“These people will listen to you, Nick. That's all we need. You didn't become a diplomat like your father. You wanted to do something different. No comparisons. Your own path.”

He's done his homework. “Something like that.”

“But you're looking for a change, something big. That's why you flew to London, even knowing this wasn't about an IT start-up. We're just asking you to think it over. That's all. We're offering you the opportunity to be the point person on an international initiative that would change the course of history. Your father relished that role. It was the only time he was ever really happy. It's inside you, too.”

We spend the last minutes of the meeting talking about small details, ancillary benefits from the project. There's talk of refreezing polar ice using solar shades, technology that's still conceptual. Issues related to sea currents and salinity. The fate of the Black Sea. It's an attempt to convince me that this isn't the half-baked dream of a few aging diplomats. They're trying to close me, convince me that I won't spend the next three decades flying around Europe having the same meeting about a dam that will never get built.

That was my first instinct early in the meeting, but as I look at the artists' renderings a feeling settles over me, a sensation I haven't had in a long time: excitement. It's faint, the desperate flare of a match flickering in the wind, but to me, at this point, it's like a campfire on a cold November night.

I'm confident that this dam will be built.

I keep the drawings and promise them they'll have my answer shortly.

“WHAT IS RAILCELL?”

The gray-haired man clears his throat and peers up at me through thick curved glasses that make his eyes appear unnaturally large, nearly cartoonish. “RailCell is faster, safer travel, a network that will link the world. Faster than a train. Safer than a plane. RailCell. Get there quicker, safer, cheaper.”

The lines come off well enough, though I can tell he's pretty nervous. Poor guy.

I like scientists. They're my favorite. By far.

Like anybody, they're uncomfortable outside their element. Most don't like selling things. And he's no different.

The scientist sits next to a guy I knew in college but have seen only a few times since. I took the meeting at his request, not knowing what it was about. I was in town and my flight wasn't for a few hours, so I figured what the heck.

My acquaintance is a marketing guy. He should be giving the pitch. He's clearly coached the scientist. That's trouble: the marketing team giving the lines to the scientist, who is inevitably the person investors want to hear from.

I can imagine the primer the scientist was given. “Sell benefits. Don't describe features.
Sell the benefits.
”

There was no doubt an analogy made. “You're not selling breath mints, or fresh breath; you're selling sex appeal, attractiveness—what you become after you take the breath mint. It's not about the shampoo, it's about shiny, sexy, vibrant hair that catches the eye of the cute guy who lives across the hall, causing him to turn, pause, then ask you out. It's not about the shampoo, it's about the big house and beautiful children you'll have with that cute guy who finally notices you. And to seal the deal, said shampoo is infused with countless vitamins and minerals, all clinically proven to strengthen dry or damaged hair. Scientific proof breeds confidence. Hit 'em with the science if you have to, but hook 'em with the benefits first, let them know they want what you're selling.”

People in my particular line of work, however, can sort out the benefits themselves. We want to know if it works—whether it's the real deal. Great marketing can sell an inferior product for a short time. Only a strong product can sell itself over the long term.

“
How
does RailCell link the world?”

After some hemming and hawing and verification that I have signed the NDA (so much for my old friend's trust), they come clean: they've bought the patents of a Brazilian mining company for a song. Pretty revolutionary stuff. There's a complicated business model: they'll sell the minerals they get from the underground tunnels, everything from iron ore to gold, silver, and copper, splitting the proceeds with national and local governments in return for a monopoly on the lines. The operation of the passageways will be opened to local operators, ensuring that most of the money paid for tickets goes back into the local economy. It's smart. Maybe a few problems with it, but it could be a global gold mine, both literally and figuratively.

It's also well outside my wheelhouse. I'm usually sitting in meetings about an app that could be worth nothing or billions in two years, depending on whether it catches on with a certain niche audience before going mainstream. So this isn't that.

They want to start in England, which—given the population density and housing issues, especially in London—they feel will be more receptive.

It's very interesting—and I tell them that. But I also let them know it's outside my area of expertise—“Not the sort of thing I typically invest in” are my exact words. Yet I'm intrigued, so I add that I'll help in any way I can.

“What we're looking for at the moment, Nick, is introductions.” A pause, and my acquaintance from college quickly adds, “And of course any advice you might have.”

Mentally, I start rifling through my Rolodex. “I'll think about who I know, who might be interested.”

“We'd cut you in for a finder's fee, of course, on any investment dollars you bring in.”

“That's okay. I only do intros for free.”

“Best counteroffer I've ever heard!” My old friend slaps the table
and cuts his eyes over toward the scientist, a look that says,
See, I told you about this guy. This is why you need me.

And there it is: the probable history of RailCell to date. The scientist worked for the undercapitalized Brazilian company. When they folded, he got on the phone, desperate to continue his work, to find anyone who could help him buy the patents. He's probably got his house mortgaged and his retirement savings—and maybe some family members' savings, too—in this. My acquaintance likely has very little skin in the game. He just wants to see if some heavy hitters will throw in and make it a reality. Pretty common.

“One thought.”

Both men wait, eyebrows raised.

“You can't call it RailCell.”

Crickets.

“To me, rail implies slow, old. A train.”

“It will replace the trains,” my college friend says.

Yep, the name was definitely his idea. The scientist's eyes shift back and forth slowly, giant fish in a bowl behind those glasses.

“True. It will replace trains, but it's a faster, newer technology. And I wouldn't use the word
cell
either. Feels confined. I hear ‘cell,' I think prison, cramped, inescapable. Last thing you want for a transportation brand.”

“What would you name it, then?” There's an edge to his voice now.

“I don't know. I would come up with two dozen names and test them with diverse groups. It's cheap to do these days with social media. If this thing's going to be as big as you think, a global brand that could reach everyone on earth, the name is crucial. Maybe Pod something. The cars in the tunnels are like pods, right? Pods feel safe. Impregnable. Comfortable. And it sounds like new technology—nobody is going anywhere in a pod right now.”

“PodJet? JetPod? Jets are fast.” He nods at the scientist, who doesn't react.

“Jets crash,” I say.

“Not anymore. I mean, they crash so rarely.”

“People think rarely could happen to them. Subways don't crash.”

“PodTube?”

“Sounds like TV.”

“TubePod.”

I shake my head. “Sounds like part of a plant.”

“Podway?”

“That could work. Keep playing with that.”

THE WORST PLACE TO BE
sick is on an airplane. Well, maybe not the worst place, but it's bad, and I'm bad sick, in and out of the first-class lavatory, puking, leaning against the wall, waiting for the pain and nausea to pass or to puke some more. I never know which is next.

I slump back in my seat, pale and drained.

“Get some bad food, partner?” the guy across the aisle asks.

“Must have,” I mumble.

It's not bad food. I've never had a migraine in my life. Never felt this sick. Something is wrong with me. Something bad. Heathrow to SFO. Halfway over the Atlantic. Eight hours to go.

I wonder if I'll make it.