Chapter 1 

SCENE 1

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

Right. I don’t have much time to talk, but I thought I’d get started on it anyway, before I lose my nerve. I can at least tell the basics before I have to leave to get to cocktail hour in time. God, cocktail hour. I hate cocktail hour.

But that’s not what this is about, is it? This is about what I saw in the corridor outside the file rooms. I. . . Well, I suppose I should explain where I am, shouldn’t I? Not that these tapes are for anyone, necessarily, but, I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right to tell a story without the background, does it?

Especially not a ghost story. One can’t just jump straight to the ghost, can one?

The place where I work, the place where I am now, used to be an estate for some wealthy Massachusetts family. Nothing like what we’ve got back in England, of course. I’m not very posh myself, but at Cambridge I knew people whose families still held onto their castles, proper castles out in the country with three hundred rooms and priest holes and things. Americans don’t really have places quite like that. Not that I’m looking down on them for it. On the contrary, I don’t think there’s any place at all for that kind of old money in the modern world. I mean, it’s 1962, for goodness sake, shouldn’t we be past all that?

Oh, dear, better not let Dr. Sykes find this tape. He’ll probably have me locked up as a communist spy. Not that Dr. Sykes would ever lower himself to setting up his secretary’s tape player. No, the division of labor is quite clear: he dictates onto the tapes, and I transcribe what he says. Nothing more.

Gosh, I’m stalling, aren’t I? I’m sorry, whoever isn’t listening. Back to where I work. It’s this great hulking house outside a small town in Massachusetts, not one you’ve heard of unless you live nearby. We call it the Shipwreck, although no one seems to remember why. It’s not a wreck at all. It’s lovely. Or, I’m sure it was back when people lived in it. Wide staircases, high ceilings, carved wooden paneling along the walls. It must have been a wonderful place for parties and Christmases, but now it’s been converted into a research institute. The Institute for Scientific Strategy and Defense. I’m sure that sounds terribly exciting, but it’s not. Mostly it’s grant applications, as far as I can tell. But there is classified research that goes on in the labs downstairs, where Charles works. That’s my husband, Charles. Charlie.

Me, though, I work upstairs, as a secretary to Dr. Sykes. Which is how I came to be in the East Corridor last week. That was where I first saw the ghost.

The corridor is usually deserted. Sometimes one of the girls in the typing pool has to pull something from one of the old file rooms, but most of the people who work in the Shipwreck don’t have much of a reason to be there. I’m the only one who constantly has to run back and forth fetching old files for Dr. Sykes, sometimes four or five times a day.

Anyway, last week I was going to fetch yet another file when I heard something from the end of the hall. It was. . . it’s strange, now that it’s passed it’s difficult for me to remember what it sounded like. A kind of slow, deliberate cracking, I suppose. As if someone was very slowly and deliberately breaking a stick in half.

I turned to see what was making the sound, but I couldn’t find anything at first. There aren’t any windows, and the light bulbs are often burned out in that area, no matter how many times I ask Maintenance to change them. You’d almost think it was deliberate, how often those lights don’t work. Anyway, it was dark, so it took me a moment to see it. Then it floated across the corridor, out of the shadows and right out where I could see it.

It didn’t have a clearly defined shape, this ghost. More like a tall, vague shadow. But its shape suggested someone in long, loose clothing. Maybe a nightgown, or a long shapeless dress. It was pale, and slightly translucent. I couldn’t make out any facial features. In fact, I think it was wearing some kind of veil, something covering the face. But something about it did give me the impression of being watched. At first I also thought she had long, trailing sleeves, like something from the Middle Ages. Then I realized those weren’t her sleeves at all. They were her fingers.

Her. Why do I assume it was a woman? I don’t know. You couldn’t really tell from looking. It just felt like a her. Those fingers, though. The arms were a sort of loose, vague shape. From the sleeves, I guess. But the fingers extending from the ends of the arms were far more clearly defined. I could see where they stood out against the light from the end of the hall. I could see them move, and they weren’t just long sleeves. I could see them drag against the floor. The fingers, you see, were several feet long. It was a little difficult to judge the ghost’s height or proportions from where I stood, but she didn’t seem significantly taller or shorter than an average person. Even so, the fingers stretched out from beneath her sleeves and all the way to the carpet of the hallway. They had far more joints than most fingers, like a spider’s limbs.

The figure stopped in the middle of the hall and cocked her head slightly, as though listening. Most of her body remained perfectly still, but her fingers flexed and jerked. That was when I realized what had been making that slow cracking sound, that sound like long dry sticks breaking in two.

We stared at each other for what felt like a long time, me so petrified I couldn’t move, the ghost cracking her fingers as she watched. Then, without warning, she darted back into the shadow where the bulb had burned out, and she was gone. I ran back to my office in a panic, moving so fast I twisted my ankle. Thank God Dr. Sykes wasn’t there. I must have looked frightful, and I’m sure I would have blurted out everything I had just seen if I’d run into anyone in that moment. But no one was there, and I was able to calm myself and take a few minutes to think about what had happened. That first time, I very quickly convinced myself that it had been a trick of the light, the wind creaking the boards of an old, dusty house.

That would have been the end of it, except I saw the ghost again three days later.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Well, I sure as shit wasn’t looking forward to ever doing one of these things again. Jesus, I can’t believe this shit is happening. [Deep breath] Ok, here’s the situation. I’m starting a journal. I’d rather make it an audio journal at this point. Not really sure why. Something about writing this stuff down just doesn’t feel right. Anyway, I’m journaling what’s going on because I’m considering going back to Dr. Reyes, and she used to have me journal back when I was her patient. I haven’t made up my mind on it yet. But if you’re listening to this, Dr. Reyes, then hey, what’s up? Remember me, Sierra?

For now, until I decide if I need Dr. Reyes again, I just feel like I need to get my thoughts together and this might help. I don’t think I can talk to anyone else about it, not even my wife. I don’t. . . I don’t think Corrine and I were married, yet, back when I was your patient. Just living together. Well, anyway, we’re married now, and she’s amazing, but I just don’t think I can drop this in her lap with all that’s going on in our lives. So. Audio journal.

Long story short, I think I may have hallucinated earlier today. Either I hallucinated or ghosts are real and I saw one. So neither option is good, as far as I’m concerned.

Ok, ok [deep breath] ok, let me slow down. Context. Right. Well, I was at work. I got a job about two years ago with a historic preservation nonprofit, and up until today I’d have said it’s a great job. My official job title is architectural historian, which basically means I assess historic buildings, research their background, evaluate any artifacts or papers left behind in the building, that kind of stuff. I don’t really do the physical work of restoring and preserving these buildings, but I’m the first one on site. All of which is to say I spend a lot of my day alone in old, creepy, abandoned, dangerous buildings. You might be thinking, yeah, no shit, Sierra, of course you got freaked out and jumped at your own shadow and thought you saw something supernatural.

Well, hang on, because it’s way, way worse than that. This wasn’t a little movement at the corner of my eye, it wasn’t a cat jumping out of a tree, it was. . . It wasn’t something I’ve seen before, let’s put it that way. Everyone who does my job gets those little scares. They don’t see this stuff.

It was in this building that was originally the site of a Spanish mission, back in the early 18th century. Not much of that original structure is still standing, just a couple of garden walls and a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The rest of the original church and the priest’s living quarters is gone, and it was replaced by a huge adobe block house in the 1870s. All the houses in Southern Arizona built back then had to be adobe, it was the only way to stay cool enough to not die in the summer. A retired Civil War general lived there until he straight-up murdered his family and then killed himself, because toxic masculinity has been around for-fucking-ever. Anyway, after that the surviving family members turned it into a tuberculosis sanitarium. All of this is just to show you how this place’s history is like ghost story bingo. But that’s not actually all that weird in my line of work. Any building stands long enough, bad things are going to happen in it. That’s just statistics.

Whew. Ok. The sighting. Haven’t wanted to get into this, but here we go. I was in the main ward, the room where most of the patients would have slept. It’s a real mess right now, stucco falling apart, all the original shutters rotted away. There’s a security guard and a fence now that it’s being evaluated as a historical property, but squatters got in there at some point and left some shit lying around. I was taking measurements and pacing out the length of the room when I turned around and saw someone standing in the doorway.

This person was. . . Skeletal. Way too tall, way too thin. And not, like, an anorexic human form. I mean physically impossible proportions, eight feet tall, a five inch waist, nothing you could ever see even on the skinniest person on earth. Naked, as far as I could tell. But I couldn’t really make out any detail. The light was shining through the windows in such a way that it should have let me see everything, but it was like this thing was backlit. It was just a shape, or like my eyes kept glancing over everything but the shape. Like walking static. So facial features, clothes, all that stuff, I couldn’t describe it at all. I’m not even sure it really had a face.

There was one thing, though. One detail I could focus on. Its fingers. This thing, its fingers stretched all the way to the ground. Just these long, spindly sticks. And they were flexing. Cracking. It was the only sound the thing made, the whole time.

I screamed. I mean, obviously. I’m pretty badass, but that thing was a fucking nightmare.

When that happened, when I screamed, it moved. It half-turned and cocked its head, almost like it was trying to listen to something that it couldn’t quite get a bead on. Which is weird, because when I screamed it was so loud I just about shattered the windows. It turned its head back and forth a few times, and then it was gone. It didn’t walk out of the room or anything, it just blipped out of existence.

So. That’s the situation. I very clearly saw and heard something, in broad daylight, that I don’t think could have been there. And I don’t know what to do.

There’s a couple other things I should mention here, in case I do decide to go back to Dr. Reyes. One factor is that my hormones are currently a fucking shitshow, because I’m on hormone therapy for an egg donation. Corrine and I are gonna start having kids, and my uterus isn’t exactly fertile soil but she has some scary genetic stuff in the family tree, so we settled on my egg, sperm donor, her uterus, because fuck doing anything the easy way. Anyway, I’m very aware that my moods aren’t what they would normally be, and I was already being really vigilant about it given my history of depression and all. So I readily acknowledge that there might be some biochemical weirdness going on here, but I’ve read up on it and I couldn’t find anything about hormone therapy being responsible for something of this scale. Not full-on hallucinations, in any case.

So the second option I’m considering, and one I like even less than the insanity idea, is that what I saw was “real” in some sense (just picture me doing big air quotes right there). I’m not entertaining the possibility that the dead walk among us, I’m really not, but I am thinking about the idea that what we refer to as ghosts might describe some kind of real phenomenon that we don’t really understand yet? Maybe? Fuck.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

[Bright, cheerful, warm]: Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

Good morning, Eloise. It’s Z. I know you aren’t hearing this in real time. Manager Benno told me the site is out of range of the wireless, so I can’t talk to you on your server directly. It’s my first time out of wireless range. Isn’t that amazing? That there are still places out of wireless range? Anyway, Manager Benno told me even though I can’t get my real-time Life Coaching, I should still make journal entries regularly. He said you’d review them when I get back. Honestly, though, I think I’d probably be making entries for you even if it wasn’t policy. I can’t wait for you to hear all about this place. I think the coaching is working, though. I keep thinking I know what you’d tell me this whole time: Breathe, be mindful, synergize my priorities with the company’s, occupy the space of doing for rather than asking for. I’m definitely doing all those things, I promise. It’s especially easy to breathe and be mindful out here. I’ve never been anywhere so quiet. There’s wildlife, amphibians and birds and insects, but they’re so much quieter than the city. I’m the only person for. . . I don’t know, it must be hundreds of miles. Unless there are some off-gridders between here and Dallas, but I doubt it.

I landed the shuttle just inside a circular ruin with a clear space in the middle. The surveys say it was a sports complex before Pearl. It’s hard to tell now, of course. Most of the walls disintegrated in the fifty years it was underwater, so now it’s mainly just a few steel girders and plastic pieces left. I decided to set up camp here because the scans said it was the most stable point, and there aren’t any ruins that could fall and damage the equipment. Or hurt me.

Just think. There were twelve million people here once. Before Pearl. There were twelve million people, and then there was a lake, and now there’s me. And maybe alligators. The survey said there still might be alligators out here. I hope I get to see one.

I’m trying to be mindful of what you would say if we were real-time now. I think you’d say I’m showing ego-distortion since I’ve talked about my thoughts and feelings but I haven’t said anything about my responsibilities. You’d be right. I have to remember to keep my priorities synergized, not hierarchized.

Data collection started as soon as the shuttle landed. The survey has a list of twenty-two structures in the main site that the company thinks might have historical value. I have drones out now, mapping routes. I should be able to get to one or two of them tomorrow. The courthouse is close, and it dates back to the nineteenth century. Since the walls were stone, there’s a good chance at least part of it is intact. There are a few others that are more of a longshot, like a major art gallery. Probably nothing survived, but I’ll look anyways.

I’m so lucky the company put me on the archeology track. I remember when I was seven and I went in for my assessment, and they told me I’d be on the archaeologist track. I didn’t even know what that was, and all my caregivers talked about the manager track like it was the best one, so I started crying. But then they told me it would mean being able to dig in the dirt even after I grew up, and I knew it would be wonderful. And now I finally get to do it. Thanks to the company. I get to sit in the middle of these amazing ruins, and I get to explore, and I get to be the very first person ever to excavate Houston. It’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t jump at the chance. Like some of my officemates. One of them, Cherisse, we were talking the other day and she said she’d refinance with a different company before she’d agree to this assignment. She said there weren’t enough personnel merits in the world to get her to go to somewhere that might have alligators and off-gridders. And just in case you’re thinking about sending a conduct report to the company, Eloise, don’t bother, it was after lights out and you know that’s a free speech period.

If you were able to talk to me, Eloise, I think you’d probably tell me it’s time for my mindfulness exercises. I’m doing these out in the open today instead of in my office. Here we go. Breathe in [inhales, pauses]. And out [exhales]. And in [pause]. And out [pause]. And—wait. Eloise. . . Eloise, someone’s here.

There’s. . . Yeah, someone’s here. Someone’s standing on one of the girders. I can’t make out any detail from here, but there’s a figure in some kind of loose clothing. It’s not just a piece of old cloth, either, I’m watching this figure walk slowly from one end of the girder to the other. I better. . . Hang on. . . Ok, I just sent one of the microdrones out. I’m sure I’ll be able to tell more from the footage. I want to go over there, but Section 7b says not to approach any vagrants. But there aren’t supposed to be any vagrants. I would have picked up the heat signature if this person was anywhere near. Oh, no, this must mean the equipment’s damaged.

[Pause] Wait. . . Eloise, I don’t understand this. I’m looking at the screen, and the drone is capturing a clear picture of the girder, but there’s no one standing on it. But I can still see them, right now. Well. . . I guess I won’t be in violation of Section 7b if I get just a little closer, just enough to see a bit better.

[Long pause, footsteps] (whispering) Oh, my God. Eloise. . . its fingers. . .

[GONG]

SCENE 4

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I saw the ghost again three days later.

This time, it happened on the back staircase. It would have been a servants’ staircase back when the house was occupied. It’s far steeper and narrower than the main staircase in the front hall, just a winding series of flagstones leading down to one of the labs set up in what used to be the kitchens. Since it leads directly to one of the labs, there’s also a great deal more foot traffic than in the East Corridor. I usually run into someone at least once every time I use the stairs, and one of us always has to press our backs to the wall to let the other pass by. Maintenance is sure never to let the bulbs in that staircase burn out. It would have been dark and dingy in the past, but now every corner of that staircase is clearly lit so no one trips and falls.

This is important, because it means there’s no possibility that this time was my imagination making too much of shadows. There aren’t any shadows.

This time, I heard the cracking as I started down from the third floor. I made my way down slowly, thinking it would be around every turn. I jumped when I heard footsteps coming up, but it was only one of the lab technicians, Joshua. He smiled and stepped aside to let me pass. The cracking sounds echoed up the stairs, loud enough to make me jump, but he acted as though he didn’t hear them. I almost asked him about it, but I lost my nerve.

I found it on the narrow landing two turns below. It was clearer this time; I still couldn’t make out facial features, but its clothes were more distinct. Definitely a woman.

This time, it didn’t seem as though she noticed me. I think her back was turned, although it was hard to tell with the veil. She stood very still for a moment, and then she slipped sideways, right through the wall of the stairwell. Just as though it wasn’t there.

There are two possible explanations for what I saw. One is that I hallucinated both times, in which case I’m going mad and I’ll eventually need to tell Charlie. The other is that this specter, whatever it is, is a real phenomenon. And if it’s a real phenomenon, and I was able to see it, that means it’s detectable on the visible light spectrum and I should be able to gather data on some sort of equipment. There’s only one way to determine which of these explanations is the truth. I’m a scientist, and it’s time I started acting like one.

I’ve scrounged a few pieces of equipment from the low-security labs, items I don’t think will be missed. I’m going to see about setting up observation stations in one of the cupboards near the two sites. I’ll have to be very careful, though. There’s no good reason for me to have this equipment, not as far as Dr. Sykes is concerned. If I’m caught, they’re sure to think I’m losing my mind. Even Charlie wouldn’t understand.

There is an important part to this, one I’ve been reluctant to mention. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a ghost. But that’s something I’ll talk about another time. Now I have to leave if I want to make it to that godawful cocktail hour on time.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

END

Chapter 2

SCENE 1

HELEN

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I’m back again, resuming the recording I was making earlier. I managed to survive yet another cocktail hour, and I may have even managed to gather a little bit of useful information from one of the wives.

The wives. There are a lot of reasons to hate cocktail hour, but that one is the worst. One can’t just be oneself, you see. When you are a wife of a scientist at the Shipwreck, there is a script that must be followed and a part that must be played. It’s like having a second job on top of the one I already do all day. That, incidentally, is my greatest failure as a capital-W-Wife. They simply cannot comprehend why I insist on working, why I don’t just spend my days at home waiting for Charlie. Honestly, there are times when I don’t understand myself. I studied to be a physicist, after all, not a secretary. Charlie and I got our degrees at the same time, and I qualified higher than he did, but he has a lab coat and I have a Steno pad. Maybe I should just stay home and treat myself to a lunchtime Scotch every day. But some part of me must still believe I can work my way up, that I can make it into the labs.

I say the wives, but that’s not really fair. It’s not all of them. Just Martha bloody Sykes. The queen bee. The rest only follow her lead. Except for Patty Lancaster. She’s quite lovely, really, just not outspoken enough to stand up to Martha. Martha likes to do things like look at one of the other women and say, ‘What a lovely brooch. The things you can find at a yard sale!”

Today I stood around sipping my Manhattan and sneaking a glance at Charlie every few seconds, waiting for the moment we could make our excuses and leave. We always hold cocktail hour in the old greenhouse, which Martha has turned into a place to torment us for her own amusement.

I was trying to avoid Martha by chatting with Patty. We were talking about something unimportant, a film she’d seen. Then, suddenly, as she looked out the window at the Shipwreck across the lawn, Patty wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and shivered. Then she said, “It’s just such a gloomy place. Something about it just frightens me.” She avoided my eye as she said it. I wondered if she was ashamed for being silly about an old house.

Martha pounced like a cat onto a poor little mouse. “Yes!” she said. “Well, you know it’s history, don’t you?”

“No, what?” Patty asked.

Martha said, “Oh, now, these are just rumors, but they say the house sold to the institute so cheaply because the last owner murdered his wife. She was years younger than him, you know, and the old man became convinced she was carrying on with the gardener. So he strangled her to death, somewhere in the east wing of the house.” She looked positively gleeful as she told this terrible story.

The other wives gasped and went on about how awful it all was, but I stopped listening. I just thought about that figure in the East Corridor, and I wondered if someone had died on the back stairs as well. I don’t know yet, but it’s something to look into. If it turns out that this house has some kind of tragic, damaged history, then perhaps it can lead me to some kind of explanation for what’s happening.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

Sierra

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Ok, it’s Sierra again. Time for an update. I still haven’t told anyone about what I saw in the Furling House. I still haven’t called Dr. Reyes. Not because I’ve written off the hallucination possibility. Definitely not there yet. It’s more. . . It, it feels like if I go back to my psychiatrist, then I’ve locked myself into that explanation. It feels like that’s something I can do later, but if I want to explore other possibilities, really explore them, then I have to do that first. Does that make sense?

So, here’s what I’ve found. It’s been about two days of clandestine online research. I told Corrine I was playing Skyrim, which I knew she would never check up on or ask any questions about. Before you ask, yes, I felt guilty lying to her, and no, I don’t do that often.

Anyway, so what I found was mainly a whole lot of Ghosthunters crap, viral ghost videos with bad special effects, that kind of thing. But if you really dig down, like way down, then you get to the legit stuff. Anthropologists and folklorists who have really done their research. And their take on it is that hauntings are a cultural universal. Every culture on Earth has some kind of freaky specter that haunts the night. That said, there’s a lot of variation and they mean different things. So there’s hauntings that are, like, Amityville-style. You know, ghosts as the unsettled or vengeful dead, usually confined to a specific location. Then there’s non-human spirits. There’s all kinds of those, banshees and the Slenderman and other creatures who weren’t ever human and who go around either killing or eating or just scaring people. Of course, once you get away from the theoretical, anthropological stuff and try to find empirical evidence of this stuff existing, well then you’re pretty much back into Ghosthunters territory.

But there is. . . Ok, there’s some ideas I could try out. I mean, obviously, step one is setting up a camera and something to record sound. If I catch a picture of this thing at Furling House then, yeah, awesome. I’m not really holding my breath on that one, though, because the idea that ghosts don’t usually show up on film is pretty widespread. There’s other kinds of equipment people swear by, EMF readers and shit like that, but it seems awfully expensive for what most people agree is total pseudoscience. And this fertility treatment stuff is already hitting the checking accounts pretty hard.

So I think I’m going to go a little more low-tech, for now. I got some security cameras and an app I can check them on 24 hours a day, and I’m going to go set them up at Furling House. Ok. Got a plan. I like having a plan.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

[Bright, cheerful, warm]: Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z

Hi, Eloise. I think you’d probably be a little disappointed in my productivity today. . . Sorry, no, that’s ego projection. Let me try that again. My own assessment of my own productivity for today was that it was below my goals and my potential. I take responsibility for that. I let myself down and I let the company down, mainly by not completing eight out of my eleven Day Two objectives.

I know we’re not supposed to blame forces beyond our control. I know what you’d say if you were here; we can always choose the path of decisive action and strong work ethic, even in the face of unexpected occurrences. But I think when you say things like that you’re talking about equipment failures, lost emails, illness, not. . . Not whatever I saw yesterday.

I was in the middle of our session yesterday when I saw whatever was out there on top of that girder. Even now, after mindfulness exercises and reflection, I still can’t really describe it. Thin and long-boned and. . . translucent, almost. A kind of shivery figure with long, skeletal fingers.

Of course, as soon as I got back to the shuttle I checked all the sensors. The life forms within a fifty mile radius are fish, insects, small mammals. No other humans. No bipeds. Except for me. Which I already knew.

I wasn’t sure which company protocol to follow, at first. Medical or unexpected encounter. The med protocol assumes a documented injury or illness, which I didn’t have, but the unexpected encounter protocol is only intended for a confirmed sighting of an unauthorized resident. I didn’t have either one of those. In the end I employed dynamic problem-solving and ran an environmental scan while I was in the medical pod having a full workup.

The med scans didn’t show any hallucinogenic substances or structural brain issues. That means my working theory about toxic mold from the flood site doesn’t work. And it means I don’t have a blood clot or a tumor. I also tested negative for the chemical markers for schizophrenia and all mood disorders. My blood pressure and stress hormones were high, but that would be a result of seeing whatever that was out there. But the environmental deep scan didn’t pick up any other new life forms, so either way I couldn’t explain it.

I finally decided to pilot a drone far enough outside the flood site to set up a communication antenna and submit a report to Manager Benno. I was told only to do that in an emergency, but I decided this qualified. Before I left I heard a lot about how the Houston flood site is a communication dead zone, but no one could really explain why. The water shouldn’t really make a difference. And the satellite coverage should be just fine. I asked around a little bit, but Manager Benno filed a Chastisement for distraction on my quarterly assessment, so I dropped it.

Anyway, I got the drone far enough out to get a signal. I told Manager Benno everything I’d seen and uploaded all the scan results. There was a delay in the feed, but eventually I got a response. He just said, “Continue to pursue all original goals and objectives. Document any further anomalous sightings. You are special and valuable.” Some managers sound like they mean that last part. When Benno says it, it just reminds you that it’s what they say to everyone.

Sorry. I’m allowing myself to slip below the Negativity Line. I have to prioritize forward-thinking proactive responses. I just. . . There was something about Manager Benno’s response that bothered me. It was too quick. Even with the feed delay, he responded so quickly. Too quickly to have asked anyone about it. Too quickly to have even read my test results and scan reports, now that I think about it. So I’m wondering. . . why wasn’t he more surprised to hear what I saw? Why didn’t he have any doubts about me? I know managers are supposed to value and support their employees, but I would be worried about a subordinate who said the kinds of things I just said. I know that’s the kind of second-guessing that creates Doubt Clouds and undermines company community, but I’ve been trying empathy exercises for hours and I just can’t understand his thinking.

Well. I’m not a manager. I should trust Manager Benno, especially if he trusts me with a mission this important. Trust builds trust. Right. That’ll be my mindfulness focus today. Trust builds trust.

[GONG]

SCENE 4

HELEN

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

[Heavy sigh] I’ve been putting it off, talking about the ghosts I saw before. When I was a child. I saw them the night the churches burned. I’ve put them out of my head until now, but I don’t think I would be a responsible researcher if I didn’t own up to this at the start.

I was only eight when the Blitz started, too young to remember the early days of the war very clearly. But I remember that night, just after Christmas. As soon as the air raid sirens went off, my mother tried to take me to our usual shelter, I’m not sure where, but it had been bombed. So we tried to make our way to another one, but the air was full of smoke and we could see the glow of the fire over the rooftops. I learned later that about twenty ancient churches were lost that night, over 150 dead. But for me, that night will always be the night of the ghosts.

The first one stood in front of a dark shop window. The glass had been shattered, and the ghost hovered just above the pile of glass on the sidewalk. Even from across the street, I heard the cracking of its long fingers. The same cracking I heard the in East Corridor. I heard those cracking fingers even over the racket of the fires and the bombs and an ambulance passing by. I can still hear it.

I screamed and held my mother’s hand tighter, tried to make her see. But she was frantic with fear of the bombs, and she thought I was afraid of the same thing.

There were five more that night. They were all slightly different shapes and sizes; the first faded out around where the waist should have been, but another walked on long legs. One towered above me, while another was barely my own height. Some had a shape that seemed like a nightgown or a dress to me, but on others I couldn’t make out any clothing at all. They stood on rooftops, in alleyways, in the middle of the street, even on top of a parked ambulance. But all of them, every single one, had those long, cracking fingers.

I told my mother, afterwards. She wrote it off as the shock of the bombs, the fire. Of course she did. It was what made the most sense, and she wasn’t a stupid woman.

I know what someone might say, if they heard this. What I should be thinking to myself. I first saw these things as a young girl traumatized by the Blitz, and now I’m seeing the same things again, an ocean away. Shouldn’t I consider the possibility that I’m having a mental breakdown?

Of course I’m considering that. Of course I am. Why do you think I’m hiding recording equipment in the corridors, in the stairwell? Why do think I plan on lurking in the hallways with a camera and reading up on how to detect and measure electromagnetic fields? I need to know. Whether I’m mad or not, I need to know.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 5

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Hey. It’s 11:30 at night. Same day as my last entry. But I have an update, and I wanted to wait until Corrine went to bed. She usually hits the hay pretty early. She’s a doctor, a pediatrician. I can’t decide if that’s going to be a benefit or a real pain in the ass when we have kids. On the one hand, she’ll know if something is just a cold and won’t freak out about every little thing, but on the other hand she’s seen kids with diseases that would make your blood run cold.

Speaking of which. . . [sighs] Jesus Christ. This fucking thing.

One of the big divides I saw online was talking about ghosts who are bound to a specific place, like a house or an abandoned mental hospital, versus ghosts that haunt people or can go anywhere, like that thing in that one fucked up movie. The one with Barbara Hershey? Whatever, I don’t remember.

Point is, I saw that thing again, but it wasn’t at Furling House. Or, maybe not even the same one. Maybe a different one. But the same general thing, just not at Furling House. It was nowhere near it. It was a new site, one I was seeing for the first time today. Which is its own whole weird thing, because my caseload is already pretty full and there’s generally more conversation about who’s going to take on which projects, but my supervisor just kinda dropped this one on my desk and told me to get out there.

It’s an early-twentieth-century townhouse, owned by one of the first Arizona state senators and his family. Someone involved in drafting the Arizona constitution, I think. I don’t know much more about it than that at this point since I haven’t had time to dig into the research. But it’s a different time period than Furling House, different style, different part of town. No connections I can see. Except.

Except, when I got in there and started my initial sweep through the house. This one was in better shape than Furling House. People were still living in it until recently, until a foreclosure case got people interested in it as a historic site. So there’s a layer of twenty-first century over the whole thing. New-ish paint, modern electrical outlets, laminate wood over the original flooring. You can still feel the age, though. And you can see it, if you know where to look.

At this point I was still thinking about the sighting as specific to Furling House, so I didn’t really have my guard up. Then, while I was in the pantry, I heard something from the kitchen. I knew that sound, right away. That cracking.

I really, really wanted to run without checking, but the only exit was through the kitchen. So I went.

This one. . . And I realize I’m talking about them like they’re distinct entities and not hallucinations, but whatever. . . This one had some differences from the first. It was clearly a woman, for starters. The outline was blurry, but I could see the shape of a calf-length skirt, and something about the head made me think long hair pinned up in a bun. She was standing at the sink, her hands under the faucet. I watched for about thirty seconds, but I couldn’t understand what she was doing. Moving those long fingers in a tangle in the sink, but I don’t know why.

I tried to kind of inch around her without noticing, and I thought I was succeeding, until I stepped on a creaky part of the floor. That scared me so bad I let out some little sound. Not a scream, but close.

That stopped her. She turned to look at me over her shoulder, and I ran for it. Not the scientific thing to do, I know, but fuck it.

I’ve been running through it all day, ever since I got out of the townhouse. And, here’s the thing that’s stood out. She didn’t respond when the floor squeaked. I’m really sure about that, the more I think about it. The floor was really loud, but she didn’t react, not until I made a sound. Something about that sequence of events seems important. I don’t know what it means, but I think it means something.

END

Chapter 3

SCENE 1

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

There’s something odd going on with Dr. Sykes and Dr. Lancaster. It has something to do with File Room Three. I saw. . . Well, perhaps I should begin this entry by saying I saw the phenomenon again. I’ve decided I should refrain from calling it a ghost as much as possible, to avoid confirmation bias. So for now I’m trying to call it the phenomenon instead. Whatever it is, I saw it again, and this time I was able to see it much more clearly than the last two times.

This time, it was in the conservatory. We still call it that even though it’s been repurposed as the Shipwreck’s canteen. I eat lunch alone, usually, since Charlie tends to work straight through his lunch break. There were a few lab technicians eating at the same time as me, but they sat at one end of the room and I at another. I don’t mind. I like eating my lunch near the high glass windows, watching the garden outside. It’s a peaceful view, even if the bird bath is dry and weeds are beginning to creep between the flowers.

I was gazing out the window, the way I usually do at lunch, when I had the sighting. She didn’t emerge from anywhere; I simply blinked and there it was, right next to the birdbath. She (and I feel more and more certain this is a woman) seemed solid this time, not translucent. She stood with her back to me, her arms hanging at her sides. The sight of her fingers, those long, long appendages trailing against the ground, still made the hair stand up at the back of my neck. But now I could see more about them, not just how long and slender they were. The number was also wrong. There were only eight digits, I think, with nothing where the thumb should be.

I wasn’t certain before, but I am now; this woman is wearing a veil, something light that covers her entire face and the back of her head. It means I can’t make out anything of her facial features or the color of her hair. But her frame is small-boned, certainly a woman, despite those long fingers.

Too late, I remembered that I had a camera in my handbag. I leaned down to get it, and by the time I stood up again she had gone.

This sighting raises more questions for me. First, the clothing. Even if I’m to take seriously the possibility that this phenomenon is some kind of ghost, the ghost of this poor murdered woman in the Shipwreck’s past, why doesn’t she look the way she would in life? She certainly wouldn’t have gone about her day draped in cheesecloth. And she wouldn’t have had those long fingers, not even with the most extreme congenital birth defects.

I’ve begun to consider the possibility that someone is playing an elaborate prank. The problem with that theory is that only Charlie knows about what I saw back in the Blitz, and even he doesn’t know enough detail to replicate these creatures so precisely. I never told him about the fingers, for instance. They were always too disturbing to speak about before. I’m almost certain I’ve never written about what I saw, not in any journal or letter or anything like that. Still, perhaps my experiences are close enough to the types of sightings in silly Gothic novels that a person playing a meanspirited prank just happened to produce results very close to my past experiences.

It’s possible. It’s an answer that in some ways frightens me more than any alternative, but I have to admit it’s possible.

I-- Oh, gosh, I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten. I’ll have to finish this entry about Dr. Sykes and Dr. Lancaster later. For now, back to work.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Third sighting. Third and fourth sighting, in one day. Lucky me. The first was at a new house, yet another haunted mansion. The second was back at Furling House. So either there’s more than one of these things, or this one can really haul ass across town, or she can teleport, or something.

There’s. . . I’m not totally sure yet, but there’s some kind of change. The one at Furling House, there’s a change. Not sure what yet.

This new sighting, the new location, is a mansion built by a wealthy, eccentric rancher, way out in the foothills. This guy made all these weird add-ons and modifications to the original house. Not as extreme as the Winchester House, but pretty bizarre. So, naturally, I wasn’t 100% shocked when I saw another one of them there.

This one was similar to the one from the townhouse. The Cook, the Servant, whatever. This one from the ranch house also struck me as sort of vaguely female, but she had a different shape to her, especially around her head. Almost like her hair was piled up. She stood next to an antique desk in the children’s study room, the place the kids would have been homeschooled. She stood up really straight, like ramrod posture, and didn’t move the whole time I was there. The second I saw her, I instantly thought, “Governess,” although I don’t base that on much besides the fact that she was in the children’s schoolroom.

The next sighting was pretty familiar by comparison. Furling House, main ward, the same spot I saw it before. Nothing different about its behavior, although like I said I feel like something about its appearance is different.

Oh, and here’s something else: they 100% for sure don’t show up on cameras. I went through the footage from around the time I had the sighting. I saw myself standing in the main dormitory, and I even saw myself react to it; I could see the moment I noticed the thing, the way I froze and stopped what I was doing to watch it. It should have been right in the middle of the frame, right in the doorway. But it’s not there. I even froze the image and went through one frame at a time. There’s nothing there.

I’m starting to have some weird thoughts about work. I’m just. . . I don’t know, for two years the pace of the job is really steady, really predictable, and then all the sudden, just as this weirdness starts up, I start getting new assignments every day. And it’s not just that. My supervisor, Lawrence, he’s acting a little, just, off.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is something I’ve been noticing from my research. As much as you have to sift through the bullshit with haunting accounts and stuff like that, there are things that seem to kind of bubble to the top as patterns. And I think the thing that stands out the most is that hauntings seem to progress. Little things to big terrifying shit.

I mean, this is every fucking horror movie, right? Heteronormative nuclear family moves into old house, what’s the first off thing? It’s always something really small. Footsteps in the hall. A toy left out somewhere. The room getting really cold all of a sudden. It’s not until Act 2 and 3 that our intrepid heroes start seeing full manifestations and blood dripping down the walls.

Except, that doesn’t make any sense, does it? If we sort of accept the principle of ghosts as these echoes of living humans being replayed on a loop, then they’ve been doing this same creepy stuff for years. Why would the blood from the walls time itself around a new family’s character arc? But it’s not just movies, that’s how all the supposed real-life hauntings go. Little things to big manifestations. Amityville, all those.

But even if this is all just ghosts gaslighting humans to get them out of their crib, then why not just go all in right away? At this point they’re usually several occupants in, so why not go right to what works? Night one, blood on the walls, and you’ve got the place to yourself in no time.

Ok, so if we accept that progression is a feature of hauntings. . . And I’ve read enough of these things at this point to say I think it is. . . then the question becomes why. And there’s only two options. Option one is that, for whatever reason, they can’t do the more complex manifestations right away. They have to ratchet it up over time. Maybe because it takes us a while to be able to perceive them well? Maybe we have to get used to them?

The second option is that it’s deliberate. For whatever reason, for motives I can’t even begin to wrap my head around, these things decide to start small and gradually show us more and more over time. In which case they’re actively trying to scare us. I’m not a fan of option 2.

I don’t know which of these is more likely. But I think something about this, this progression, I feel like if I can crack this I’ll understand everything else. I really fucking hope I’m right about that.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

Good evening, Eloise. My personal productivity assessment for today is a 9 out of 10. I completed my entire day’s objectives for covering a new part of the grid square for the former downtown area. I mapped several architectural sites, including a former Protestant church, and I recovered several items of cookware and cutlery I found intact in a restaurant. I also found a largely intact statue of a historic figure, probably dating back to 1895, and I began the process of. . . uh, the process of my, um. . .

[Sighs]. I’m sorry, Eloise. I know you’re just an AI and apologies mean nothing to you and you aren’t listening to this in real time anyway, but I’m still sorry. I really was productive today, I was, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I really wish you could respond to me. I really wish you could give me advice, because I saw more of them.

There were about four, I think. Some of them I didn’t see very clearly. Others I saw up close. They were all over the quarter-mile grid I set up for my survey today. I don’t know why that disturbs me more than if they had all been in the same spot as the first one.

Maybe I should explain what the site looks like, before I talk about where they were in it. This city, Houston, it’s not the only time a city has drowned. I did field work training at several others to prepare for this assignment. Shi Cheng, in one of the company’s Chinese holdings. It’s 1500 years old, and it’s been underwater for a century. There were American sites, too. Prescott, Massachusetts. A few places in the Appalachian Mountains. Some of them were still underwater, only accessible by submersible shuttle. But in some others, the waters receded for one reason or another. Places that have been underwater for years, places like Houston, the decomposition process is always the same. Stone and steel survive, but wood and fibers don’t. That means that some buildings, 19th century cathedrals and brick courthouses, they almost look like people could have been using them days ago. Other buildings, the ones that had been made of plaster and wood beams, those are just rotting piles of wood pulp. It’s a striking effect, isolated buildings standing tall while the rest of the city block around them is flat, rotting mud. Manager Benno has talked about using the drone footage to commission a photography series for one of the company’s educational installations.

The point is, once I’ve sent the accessibility drones out to cut down the brush and weeds in a grid area, visibility is good. I can see well into the distance, much farther than I would be able to see in an occupied city. And I’ve been seeing them, the. . . I’ve been seeing them in and around the standing buildings. The older ones, the stone ones. I haven’t seen any walking out on the mud flats. One stood in the window of a surviving church steeple. I didn’t investigate because the scans showed that the interior floor probably couldn’t support human weight.

. . . No, I’m sorry, that’s a lie. I didn’t investigate because I was scared. I fell below the Negativity Line again and allowed fear to infect my forward-thinking projections. I need to work on that.

I did investigate the next one, though. This one was in the surviving wing of a school. It’s pre-privatization, a school built in the early twentieth century, back when they provided education. This time, the figure was standing in the doorway of what would have been the front entrance. The doors had long since rotted away, but the stone archways remained. And right under that archway was one of them. The Shadow People. That’s what I’ve been calling them, to myself. The Shadow People.

I haven’t said much about what they look like, aside from the fingers. But part of the reason is that I think they all look a little bit different. They’re a bit difficult to see, but I’ve noticed some differences in shape and size. This one, the one at the school, didn’t have the same billowing clothing the others had. I couldn’t make out exactly what its clothes looked like, but they must have been trousers and a tight-fitting shirt. I could see even from a distance that it was very thin, this creature.

It watched me. I couldn’t see its eyes so I don’t know how I know that, but it watched me. And once it was certain it had gotten my attention, it turned and walked into the school.

I followed it. You’d be proud of me, Eloise. You’d say external pride isn’t important, that the only important thing is being proud of my own accomplishments and goal setting. Well, I am proud of myself. I went inside the school, and I looked for that thing.

There was a surviving staircase. Far too unstable for me to walk on myself, but this thing, this. . . I need to call it something, so I’ll call keep calling it a Shadow Person. . . It stood at the top of the stairs, watching me. Then it. . . I don’t really understand what it was trying to do. It pointed with those long fingers up at a corner of the ceiling. I looked, and I got footage, but I didn’t see anything. Just crumbling brick. But I followed where it pointed and I tried to see what it meant.

After I looked up at the ceiling, the shadow pointed at the wall near where it stood. Once it did that, I realized there were words written there. That stopped me, because the paint had peeled off these brick walls long ago, and any other materials like sheetrock had disintegrated. So there shouldn’t have been surviving graffiti, not after all this time. But there it was. It was mostly nonsensical, symbols and swirls of paint on the bricks. But there were two words interwoven with the nonsense, just two words almost camouflaged by the rest.

Those words were, “They’re watching.” Just “They’re watching,” in these childish block letters.

The shadow just kept pointing, like it wanted to make sure I saw the graffiti. Then it pointed back up at the ceiling again. I still don’t understand why.

I checked my footage later. The paint and the bricks and everything else shows up. Everything except the shadow. As soon as I finish this entry I’m doing some research on ways to modify my scanning equipment. These things have to show up somehow. There’s got to be some way to prove to the company that I’m not making anything up.

[Gong]

SCENE 4

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I’m back, continuing the same entry as earlier. Before I talk about Dr. Sykes, though, I have new information. I ran into Patty Lancaster in the foyer. She said something about her husband forgetting his lunch at home. We chatted for a few minutes, and somehow we got on the topic of the Shipwreck’s history. I’ve been cautious about bringing it up to other people, but in this case it was Patty who said something first, something about how she keeps meaning to read up on the place’s history. And then she told me that there’s a shelf in the old library with old records and information about the house, a shelf she plans on sorting one of these days. I could scarcely believe my luck, someone just pointing me straight to what I was looking for.

After Patty left, I found the shelf she’d mentioned. It’s not well-organized, just boxes of wills and deeds and photo albums and newspaper clippings, all mixed up. It’ll take me a while to go through it all, but I found something almost immediately. It was a dusty old clipping about a funeral. A young child had died in some tragic accident in 1932, and the newspaper printed a picture of his family leaving the funeral. Right in the center of that photo was a picture of a woman in a long black mourning veil. The caption gave her name as “Elizabeth Parks.” The paper didn’t say where the family lived, but it has to be the Shipwreck. It can’t be a coincidence. I’ll have to return to the rest of the documents whenever I can get away.

But back to Dr. Sykes and Dr. Lancaster. After the sighting earlier today, I started back to my desk with my files. I came around a corner, and I saw the two of them speaking. No, not speaking. Arguing, I think. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the way they were gesturing and glaring made me think they were angry with one another. I hung back in a doorway and watched until they stopped whatever argument they were having and went into File Room 3.

I’d never thought of it before that moment, but I’ve never been in File Room 3. I don’t even know what kind of files would be in there. I waited for a bit and then tried the handle, but it was locked. I went back to my desk and waited for Dr. Sykes to come back. While I was waiting, I. . . Well, I probably shouldn’t admit on tape to doing this, but I hid one of the files he’d asked me to retrieve from File Room 1. Those files are all low-security clearance, and they are all data from past studies conducted on electromagnetic fields at various sites around the world. I have no idea what they have to do with the research being done in the labs, but they must be comparing results, given how often I have to pull the records.

Anyway, I hid one of the files in my bag. When Dr. Sykes came back, I told him I’d looked all over File Rooms 1 and 2 but couldn’t find it. And then, as casually as I could, I said, “I tried searching in File Room 3 as well, in case it had been misfiled, but my key didn’t work.”

I watched his face closely as I said it, that square chin and that too-stiff haircut. I can’t be sure, but it seemed like a muscle in his jaw jumped when I said that. “That file wouldn’t be in File Room 3,” he said.

“But if it was misfiled, maybe a long time ago,” I tried, “shouldn’t I at least have a key in case I need to check for something there?”

“There’s nothing you need to see in that room,” he snapped at me. “Just stay at your desk and do your job like a good girl.”

I truly, truly hate that man. I don’t know if it’s the stress of these ghost. . . Sorry, phenomenon-sightings. . . I don’t know if it’s the stress of that, but I’m finding it harder to hide my contempt for him lately. And I’ve been irritable overall. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve been short with Charlie. I need to be careful, or I’m going to say something I’ll regret. But I didn’t do that today. I simply nodded and sat back at my desk, like a good girl.

But the whole thing got me thinking. What if the research and my sightings are connected? I don’t really have any clear reason to think they are, except all those reports about electromagnetic studies. And that odd little argument near File Room 3. If they’re working on something that manipulates electromagnetic fields, maybe the sightings are a side effect, either on the environment or on my brain. It’s thin, I know, but it’s the only angle I have right now. That means I need to know about what Dr. Sykes is studying. Fortunately, I have a friend at MIT, where he did his doctoral research. I’m going to give her a call and see what she knows. How perfect would that be, if the two great annoyances in my lift were one and the same?

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 5

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Got something new to report. This one from the townhouse. That same one I saw in the kitchen before. I think of her as “The Cook,” I guess because I first saw her doing something at the sink. I’ve started of thinking of the one at Furling House as “The Patient” and the one at the Guadalupe Mansion as “The Governess.” Probably all of these are way off, but it helps me to frame them in more human terms. Less scary terms.

Anyway, today I really got the impression that the Cook was waiting for me. She was just standing right there when I walked into the townhouse kitchen. She obviously noticed me, tracked me as I crossed the room. She didn’t move, just stood there. After a minute, I got up the courage to say, “Hi. My name is Sierra. Who are you?”

She cocked her head. I still can’t make out their faces. They’re. . . staticky, I guess you’d say. But I felt like I caught some motion there, like her lips were moving. Moving, but without any sound. I shook my head and told her I couldn’t hear her.

She turned and pointed to the lightbulb in the ceiling with those long fingers. Jesus, those things still freak me out every time. She pointed and made some of those cracking sounds, and then the lights blinked, three times in quick succession. I got out my flashlight that I carry around when I do assessments and clicked it on and off three times. She pointed back at the bulb, and the lights blinked two times. So I blinked two times. And we just went back and forth like that for a while.

I got so excited that I put down my bag and pulled out a box I’d been carrying around for a while. I’ve been embarrassed to mention it, because it’s real fucking stupid, but I actually went out and got a Ouija board. I got one and I’ve been carrying it around in my work kit because I have no fucking idea how to use one and because I’ve been too chickenshit to sit down and try it in one of these places. Anyway, I got it out and unfolded it right there on the kitchen floor and got the little glass lensy thing—the planchette, I think?—out and then I waited for a message.

Nothing happened. The Cook just stared at me. I tried gesturing at the board, putting my fingertips on the planchette, inviting her to mimic me. Nothing. I wondered if maybe she got distracted or something, so I clicked the flashlight three times again. Right on clue, there goes the kitchen light blinking away.

I couldn’t get her to do anything with the Ouija board. She eventually knelt down like I was, but she wouldn’t look at the board. She wouldn’t reach for it. It was like she didn’t know it was there.

So, ok. This tells me a few things. First, they’re actively trying to communicate. At least, the Cook is. And they’re trying to do that by mirroring actions. Oh, and I guess that they have the ability to disrupt electricity, which is pretty typical in the literature on hauntings. But she didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what the Ouija board was, or how to use it. I don’t know what to make of that, honestly.

I guess I should focus on the positives, here. If she’s trying to reach out, and if the light thing worked, I should be able to figure out a more sophisticated way to communicate that way. Learn Morse Code or something. I don’t know. It’s a start.

END

Chapter 4

SCENE 1

HELEN

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I finally heard back from my contact about Dr. Sykes. She checked with the alumni office, and he didn’t get his doctorate at MIT. There was no one with the last name Sykes ever to receive a doctorate in physics on the list. She even checked chemistry and astronomy just to be certain, but he simply isn’t there. She said she’d try phoning a few friends at other universities, Harvard and Boston University, just in case I was wrong about where in Massachusetts he claims to have studied. But I’m not wrong. I see his framed diploma on the wall every day.

There are a few possibilities here. First, he could be lying out of sheer narcissism. Maybe his degree was from some middling college with a poor reputation, and he’s embarrassed. Maybe he had an MIT diploma forged out of vanity. Or maybe his degree is actually in something else, something relevant to researching these manifestations, and they’re pretending it’s physics to maintain the cover that the Shipwreck is just like any other research institute. God knows what that degree would be, though. Ectoplasm Studies [laughs]?

[Becoming serious again]. This is important, though. This means I’m being lied to, and other employees must be as well. Now I just have to try to figure out why without tipping my hand and letting Sykes know I know.

There’s another piece of news. One I’m more reluctant to share. The phenomenon can’t be detected on camera. I haven’t been able to lay hands on any sound recording equipment besides this tape recorder, and I haven’t thought of a way to hide this elsewhere in the Shipwreck. But I did have a sighting in the East Corridor again, and this time I had my camera ready. I decided to test my intuition about the thing last time, this idea that it might be responding to my presence or my attention. I went to the East Corridor and I concentrated on the thought of it, on the idea of seeing it again. And it appeared. I was so surprised I almost forgot to press the shutter, but I got to it in time. I’m very, very certain I took its picture. I was looking directly at it, through the viewfinder. The lens cap wasn’t on. And yet, when I developed the photos just now, the image is nothing but a dingy corridor.

It’s not conclusive, of course. Most of the physical world isn’t visible to the human eye, or on regular film. Sound waves. Electromagnetic radiation. All sorts of real, physical aspects of our universe are invisible. It’s not conclusive. But it’s not looking good, I must admit. It certainly won’t help my case if I ever need to tell Charlie.

It’s just occurred to me that I haven’t really said much about Charlie in these field notes. In a way it makes perfect sense that I wouldn’t talk about him here, because he doesn’t have anything to do with the sightings. But, on the other hand, we work together and live together and he’s such a significant part of my environment, it seems as though I should be paying him a bit more attention as a factor.

Charlie and I have been married for three years. We met at Cambridge, in the physics department. He’s smart and funny and charming, and he always supported my interest in science, which is more than can be said for many of the men I interacted with at Cambridge, including some of my professors. I’d say on the whole our marriage is a good one, and we’re happy.

Except. There’s always an exception, isn’t there? I’d always assumed we’d both work as physicists. We always talked about that, working in separate labs or together, but both of us doing the work we wanted to do. But then Charlie got this offer from the Institute, and I didn’t. We agreed on three years. Three years, and then we’ll begin applying for jobs. Both of us.

I know I agreed to this, and I know Charlie’s the same person he always was. But sometimes, especially at cocktail hour or at parties, it feels like we’re both turning into something I don’t recognize. Sometimes I look at him standing across the room with the men, the scientists, and I’m on the other side with the wives, and I don’t understand what happened.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

I told Corrine. There just wasn’t any way to avoid it anymore. I told Corrine, and maybe it’ll turn out to be a big mistake and she’ll decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth, but for now she’s taking it pretty well.

I’d like to be able to say I came clean because I want to be open with my wife, but the reality is I got hurt and it was either explain how the bruises really happened or make up yet another story. And the way I got those bruises, aside from leading me to have to tell Corrine, relates back to my working theory about how hauntings progress.

This one was back at Furling House. It happened in the same spot as before, the doorway of the main dormitory. I heard it before I saw it, like always. This time, though, there were some changes. I noticed that it had changed in shape. That, or it was a completely different one. But I don’t think so. It had gotten shorter, more of a natural human height. My height, just about. It also wasn’t so freakishly thin anymore. Kind of slender, but human-looking. I still couldn’t make out many details of its face, and not enough of the body to tell if it was wearing clothes. It struck me as more female, for some reason, something about the body shape.

Except, of course, for those fingers. Those stayed just the way they’d been before.

This time, from the moment I saw it, it seemed aware of me. Before, it always felt like I caught these things by surprise, like they didn’t notice me until I did something to draw their attention. This time I felt watched right off the bat. I just froze at the other end of the dormitory and watched to see what it would do.

It stayed still for a long time. Then it crossed the room. I still don’t know how. It didn’t really walk or glide or anything. It just kind of wavered and went hazy and then it was standing right in front of me. I screamed and jumped, even though I’d told myself I’d stay calm next time I saw them. That resolution lasted all of three seconds.

As soon as I started backing away, something new happened. It touched me. Grabbed me, I’d go so far as to say. Its fingers snapped out and wrapped around my forearms. I can’t even fucking describe how creepy that was. Those fingers don’t bend in the same places as human fingers, even taking their weird proportions into account. They’re more like tentacles, I guess. Anyway, those fingers wrapped around my arms, and I freaked the fuck out and twisted away and jumped face-first into the door jamb. It probably would have been hilariously slapstick if I hadn’t been fucking terrified. I was too scared to really feel the pain at the time, just the shock of hitting my head. As soon as I got out of the house and into the yard, though, I could tell I’d cut my forehead pretty bad, bruised up one of my eye sockets, the works.

So I went home and cleaned myself up as best as I could, and I waited for Corrine to come home. As soon as she walked in I said, “Baby, sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.”

I guess I probably could have made up some other reason that I ran face-first into a wall. Being chased by a stray dog or something. But the truth is I was probably going to tell her anyway. I’m. . . [wavers] I’m so tired of dealing with this alone.

She just sat still the entire time. She didn’t interrupt me once. I think I probably told you a little bit about her in our old sessions. She has this stillness. It was the first thing I noticed about her. It’s weird because I never thought stillness could be interesting. But watching her, her stillness, that’s what made me talk to her. You see people sitting around, waiting for a table at a restaurant or whatever, most people never hold still. Most people never just watch and think. Hell, even I don’t just sit and think. I’m on my phone all the time like every other asshole out there. But Corrine takes time to sit and think and watch. She always has.

It was the same with this. After I finished telling her everything, she was quiet for a minute. Then she asked if I’d put ice on that bruise. I told her yes. Then she said, “You’ve only seen these things in the historic houses? Not here, not at the grocery store, out in the rest of the world?”

That wasn’t the question I was expecting. And, honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it. But now that she was asking, it did seem kind of important that these sightings were only happening in specific places. I told her that was right. She was quiet again, and then she said, “Well, then, I think we better try to figure out why you’re only seeing these things in certain places. Whether they’re hallucinations or not. Next time you go, I’m coming with you.” And then she got up and started making dinner, like it was any other evening.

I honestly think I might be the luckiest goddamn woman on Earth.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

Good morning, Eloise. It’s 2:42 in the morning, so it would probably be more appropriate to say “Good night,” but I’m awake so I’m just saying good morning.

I had a dream. I know dreams don’t mean anything in the Freudian sense, but you’ve always stressed the importance of self-reflection and instinct, and my instincts tell me I should take this seriously.

In this dream, I was back in my first Company dorm, the one for the kindergarten through third graders. I would have been in the pre-k dorm before that, but I don’t remember that one. No one does.

Anyway, I was in my bed in the dorm, and I was staring at our night light. I don’t know if every company has the same way of doing things in their dorms, but in ours we each got to pick the nightlight for a week at a time. There was a big box of them to choose from. I always picked the elephant, and when it was my week I would stay awake and stare at it.

In this dream, I was staring at the elephant, and then suddenly I couldn’t see it anymore, because something moved in front of it. I looked up, and even though it was dark I could still make out a Shadow Person standing there. It had long fingers and no face, and it cracked as it stood there.

In the dream, I screamed, and one of the caregivers came to see what was wrong. I told her all about it, all about the person with the long fingers. And then, as she was inputting the nightmare into my file, her tablet dinged. I know that sound, now. That’s the sound of a personnel file being flagged for something.

Eloise. . . It was just a dream, and I woke up, but. . . I think it’s a memory, too. I think all of it really happened. I think I saw one when I was young, and I forgot it until now. And I think. . . I don’t understand why, but I think when I saw it before, the Company flagged me for it.

[Gong]

SCENE 4

HELEN

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I’ve. . . Oh, God, I’ve just had another sighting. But this one was so much different, so much worse than any of the others. The other sightings frightened me, some of them, but I never really considered the possibility that these creatures pose a physical threat. Now, though, I’m looking at a scratch on my arm, a deep scratch across the top of my wrist, and if they’re capable of physically touching me and breaking the skin, I have to assume they can do far worse damage than that.

Ok, I’ve got to calm down. [Takes a deep breath]. There’s data here. There’s evidence. I need to focus on that.

This sighting happened on the main staircase. It wasn’t dark or dingy or shadowed; it’s a bright day outside, with sunlight coming right through the windows. That makes it worse, somehow.

It just appeared on the landing next to me. I’d paused on the first landing where the stairway curves. I had a tray with Dr. Sykes’s lunch on it, and I stopped to set down the tray and pick up a napkin I’d dropped. Before I even managed to pick up the napkin, one of them stood right next to me.

I just said, “one of them,” because I really don’t think it was the same one I’ve been seeing. It had the same general shape, the same cracking fingers, but the veil seemed to be gone. I still couldn’t see its facial features clearly, but they weren’t covered anymore. I froze and stared up at it; it was so close I could smell it. It didn’t smell like dirt, not like the grave, not the way I would expect if these things truly are ghosts. It smelled more like ozone, that bitter odor that comes with an electrical fire.

It turned and saw me. I have no way of knowing that, of course. I can’t see its eyes, if it even has eyes, but I got the distinct impression I was being watched. Then it reached for my arm with those long fingers.

At the time, I panicked, thinking I was being attacked. Now, though, talking about it, I’m not sure that’s what it intended to do. She. . . She didn’t lunge at me, try to cut off my escape, none of the things she might do if trying to overpower me. She just calmly but quickly wrapped those long fingers around my wrist. Almost as though curious about what it was.

I’m really trying to find the words for the sensation. It didn’t feel like flesh. It wasn’t cold, or like mist, or any of the things you might imagine feeling if touched by a ghost. It was. . . If static could be felt on the skin, it would feel like that. A sort of vague, crawling, fuzzy sensation.

I screamed and ripped my arm out of her grip. I don’t know if she tried to tighten her hold on me, and that’s how I got scratched, or if I somehow managed to scratch myself as I ran up the stairs. I fell and bashed my knee as I tried to get away, but I got to the top of the stairs and looked back. She still stood there, on the landing. Her head had turned to face me, like she’d watched my progress up the stairs. Her fingers, those fingers I’d only ever seen hanging against the ground, stretched up into the air like branches. She didn’t follow me. I don’t know what that means, that she didn’t follow me. But I do know now that they can touch me, that they have physical form, and that I need to be much, much more careful going forward.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

END

Chapter 5

 SCENE 1

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

HELEN:

 I made a terrible, stupid mistake. I told Charlie what’s been happening.

This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned the phenomenon to him. I told him about that night during the Blitz, back before we got married. He wrote it off as the shock of the bombs, and of course I agreed that he must be right. I never mentioned it again after that, but Charlie brought it up now and then, in a teasing way. At dinner parties and such, when someone mentioned something supernatural, Charlie would nudge me with an elbow and say something like, “You know a thing or two about that, don’t you, love?”

So I knew he would be skeptical, but I was so tired of trying to cope with this alone, especially after that last encounter. I think some part of me hoped that the Shipwreck’s research explains it, and that Charlie would take pity on me enough to break his security clearance and at least give me a hint about what’s going on. I waited for him to come home from the lab, and I asked him to sit down and I said there was something I needed to tell him. Immediately, he got a huge smile on his face. “Do we have a little one on the way?” he asked.

I was so taken aback, the thought was so far from my mind, that I couldn’t say anything for a moment. It broke my heart to see the smile fade from his face when I told him no, no we didn’t have a little one on the way. I’d planned on presenting what was happening as calmly and rationally as possible, but I was so unsettled by Charlie’s first reaction that I ended up sounding exactly like the frail, shaken woman I’d resolved not to be.

Charlie grew pale as I told him what I’d seen, as I showed him the cut on my arm, as I explained what I’d learned about Dr. Sykes. He was pale and frightened, and then, out of nowhere, he was angry. Angrier than I’d ever seen him.

“God, are you really so jealous that you can’t let me have any success?” he snapped at me.

I couldn’t speak. I told him I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He sneered at me and went to the cabinet for the bottle of Scotch. Then he shook his head, as though I were a naughty child, and said, “This is about your frustration. You’re angry that I’m working in the labs and you’re not. Well, that’s not my fault, now is it? What, I was supposed to turn the job down? So that you could keep feeling superior, like you did the entire time we were at college?”

I was stunned. I’m still stunned. It was as though I’d turned over a rock and found worms and insects and awful things wriggling about beneath it. I tried telling him that had nothing to do with what was happening, with any of it, but he interrupted me.

“For your information,” he said, “there’s no record of a Dr. Sykes at MIT because he changed his name. People with Russian last names aren’t exactly being hired in droves these days, now are they?” His face wasn’t pale anymore. It was bright red, beet red, his eyes almost feverish. I’d never seen him like this. He went on. “There’s no mystery, no conspiracy, and certainly no research into something as ridiculous as ghosts. If you’re seeing things, it’s because you secretly want to sabotage my work.”

I tried reasoning with him, tried showing him the scratch on my arm, but I knew it was pointless. It was as though. . . It’s hard to explain. It almost seemed rehearsed, his reaction. It almost seemed as though it was a conversation he’d been running through in his mind. Some of it was just so. . . I don’t know, so blunt, so on the nose, not the sort of thing I’d ever imagine Charlie saying. Charlie has a bit of a temper, always has, but he’s never been cruel. Today he was cruel.

I left home and came back to the office. That’s where I am now, in the little cupboard where I hide my Dictaphone and tapes. I suppose this is my lab space now. This little cupboard in the Shipwreck.

I’m not hurt yet. I’m still numb. I imagine I’ll feel the hurt later. But for now I’m just sitting in the dark, Charlie’s words running through my mind on a loop.

 [Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA

 [Voice Recorder Beep]

They’re real. Or, at least, the Patient and the Cook are real. I thought that confirmation would make me feel better. That I’m not crazy. But it really isn’t comforting, partially because I don’t understand any better than I did before.

I should back up. I know the ghost is real because Corrine saw her, too. But the way she saw her, the way that happened, it makes me think this is all a whole lot worse than dead people walking around Phoenix.

Ok, so here’s how this went. I took Corrine to Furling House with me, and we walked around for a while without anything happening. And then, just like on other days, the Patient showed up in the doorway. Except this time the Patient wasn’t alone. This time, the Cook was with her. They’re clearer now, both changing and getting a little clearer every time I see them, and I could instantly tell them apart, no problem. It was so fucking weird, seeing the Cook in this other place. A place she didn’t belong.

The Patient started to move toward me again, and I stepped in front of Corrine in case it attacked. But then the Cook held up her arm and stopped the Patient. Their heads turned to face each other, and they just stood there for a second while their fingers cracked away.

“Are you seeing this?” I whispered to Corrine.

“No, sweetie,” she said. “I don’t see anything.”

And I thought, ok, well, that’s it then. Off to the fucking looney bin with me. And so much for having my baby, because there’s no way she’s going to want a kid with my toxic crazy genes.

Corrine must have known what a bad, bad moment that was for me, because she reached out and took my hand. And then proceeded to scream her goddamn head off.

Just for context, I’ve never seen Corrine panic before. I’m the one who jumps up on a chair if there’s a spider in the house. I’m the one who freaks out and yells when I’m angry. Corrine just doesn’t freak out. But she did then. She saw them, but that’s not the really big deal here. The big deal is, they saw her.

They were surprised. Actually fucking surprised, as hard as it is to believe I could read something like that into people whose faces I can’t really see. But I saw the way they reacted to Corrine’s scream, like they’d had no idea anyone else was here. The Patient jumped, and the Cook’s fingers wrapped around her arm. Protective, almost.

Then Corrine let go of my hand and backed away. She stopped screaming and just stared at the doorway, like she was confused. “Where’d they go?” she asked. They were still right there, the Patient and the Cook, in the exact same spot. They were standing right there, and it really seemed to me like they were looking around the room for her.

I asked Corrine not to freak out while I tried something. I reached out and I touched her arm, and right away she said, “Oh, shit. They’re back.”

We tried it several more times. We waited. No matter what, it was always the same. Corrine can see them, but only when touching me.

And here’s the most fucked up thing. She can’t hear them. Like, at all. Even when she can see them, the cracking sound isn’t there.

Even though she freaked out at first, Corrine actually ended up wanting to get way closer to them than I did. I humored her, even though I kept bracing for the Patient to grab me again. They didn’t reach for us at all. The Cook just watched us, and clicked and cracked, and didn’t do anything, probably because Furling House doesn’t have working electricity so she couldn’t do her little magic trick.

Corrine held my hand and got close, way too close if you ask me. She stared at the Cook’s face, and then the Patient’s, like she was searching for something. Then she let go and backed away. She’d gotten pale. She’s pretty pale most of the time, really light-skinned with very black hair and dark eyes, but she looked ghosty even for her then. “I want to go now,” she said, and we left.

We stood outside in the wrecked old courtyard, and I just tried to stay quiet and let her process. It was probably a nice courtyard at one point, with a fountain and benches, but now the fountain is dry and the benches are warped and it just feels abandoned. Finally, Corrine asked me something. She asked, “What do their faces look like to you?”

It wasn’t the question I was expecting. I told her I didn’t know. I told her they looked like static, like they were hidden by a veil, like they’d been smudged with an eraser.

“But beneath that,” Corrine said, and she stared hard right into my eyes.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “What do they look like to you?”

I think she almost didn’t tell me. She hesitated for a long time. But then she took a deep breath and she said, “To me, their faces look like yours. They look like you.”

So there you go. I’m not crazy, but there are ghosts walking around with my face. Not sure that’s really better.

But there’s something else. The Cook showing up at Furling House, that’s not anywhere in the literature on hauntings. Ghosts have patterns, places they’re attached to. Or they have a person they stick to and follow. But two ghosts at two different locations don’t meet up. There aren’t any collaborative hauntings. They don’t socialize.

Whatever this is, it’s not insanity and it’s not a haunting. And that’s terrifying because that means I have no fucking idea what it is, and I have nowhere to go for answers. I’m in completely uncharted territory, and it scares the shit out of me.

 [Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

Eloise, I found something. Or, no, I didn’t find something. One of the Sightings, the Shadow People, one of them, showed me something.

I did what I said I was going to do. I followed one of them. I followed the next one I saw, just like I said I would, and I went to see what it had to show me. And what it had to show me was. . . Eloise, it was cameras. There are. . . I don’t understand it, but there are functioning cameras all over the downtown site.

I need to. . . I feel like if you were here, you’d tell me to stop and do some mindfulness exercises. You’d tell me decisiveness isn’t the same as impulsiveness, and you’d say I need to think before I proceed. But I don’t. . . I can’t do mindfulness exercises right now. Or I won’t do them, I guess. I need to talk through this, even though you’ll never hear it.

I don’t know why I just said that: “you’ll never hear it” instead of “you won’t hear it until I get back.” I don’t know.

[Deep breaths] Ok. Ok. I’ll start at the beginning. I went back to the school, the one with the graffiti message scrawled on the wall. The “They’re watching” message. I set up a scaffolding, since the stairs aren’t safe to use. I don’t even know what I would have said I was looking for. I just kept thinking about how that Shadow Person, how it kept pointing at that one corner. The drones didn’t pick up anything, but something told me I should look closer. You’re always telling me to listen to my intuition, Eloise, so I did.

It took me over two hours to notice it. The first one. I was going over the exposed brick wall with my fingertips, inch by inch. The smell of mold and mildew was so strong it was coming through my mask. There were insects in there, too, mosquitos buzzing around pools of stagnant water. I got three malaria alerts on my retinal implant, even though I’m on the preventatives.

I found it in the seam between two bricks. At first it just looked like a little bump on the wall, but then I realized it was too round and too smooth to be part of the bricks. It was about half the size of one of my fingernails, just a little black bump. When I peeled it off the wall, it came off between my fingertips.

Right away, I knew it was a camera. I’ve seen these before. They’re deployed to field sites as part of the prep process, before any human archaeology or preservation teams arrive. They’re bundled into drones and dispersed across a wide enough area to gather health and safety data about a site. So, you might be asking, or you might be asking if you weren’t an AI and if you were actually here, you might be asking why this matters. So what? So the company did advance scans and prep before you arrived. Lots of sites have these cameras. Why should the Houston flood basin be any different?

But this is different, Eloise. First, all my prep documentation said they hadn’t sent in photography drones. They said the lack of wireless made it impossible to pilot them or transmit the data. Second, if they had sent photo drones, why wouldn’t the feed go back to my terminal? The entire point of these cameras is to provide information for employees.

But there’s a bigger problem. The third reason this doesn’t make sense was something I didn’t figure out until I brought the camera back to the lab in the shuttle. I opened it up and put it under the scanner, and. . . Eloise, it’s a company camera. My company. And it isn’t on the market. It’s for internal use only. It doesn’t transmit, not like the other site survey microcameras. It just records, and I saw some code suggesting a drone picks them up later.

I accessed the footage. There isn’t much. That’s because the camera only records when I’m in view. It can’t just be a motion sensor, because then it would have picked up rats, birds, insects. Maybe even the Shadow People. But it doesn’t. This motion sensor, this camera, was designed to turn on only when a human enters the frame. And it was sent here by the company before I arrived.

I don’t understand this. Any of this.

 [Gong]

SCENE 4

HELEN:

 [Tape Player Button Clicks]

[SFX: Slow cracking sounds in the background of this entire scene]

One of them is here. She’s standing right next to me, here in the cupboard. I don’t know for how long. I drifted off to sleep in my chair and when I woke up she was here.

She’s between me and the door. If something happens to me and someone finds these tapes, she’s about five feet five inches tall. She has eight long fingers. Pale billowing clothes covering almost all of her, including her face.

She’s coming closer. She’s watching me, I can feel it.

[Long pause; now whispering even more quietly] Oh, my God. They aren’t clothes at all. Whatever it is where her face should be, her head, her body, it’s not cloth. It’s. . . I don’t know. It’s part of her. I think, whatever she is, I’m seeing all of her right now. I can see all of her, and I don’t understand what I’m looking at. And the parts around her face. . . It’s hard to explain. The part I thought was a veil is receding. Her face is beginning to look more familiar. I don’t know exactly what it reminds me of, but it’s becoming more familiar with every moment.

She’s still here. She’s watching me.

 [Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 5

 [Gong]

Z:

After I found the first camera, I went back out into the city. The Shadow People were everywhere. I counted maybe twelve, thirteen. Their behavior has a pattern. They stand somewhere, waiting until they have my attention. Then they point. Wherever they point, afterwards I find a camera. Always a company camera, always set to record my movements and my movements alone.

I spent some time meditating on the transmission issue. Clearly, the suggestion that they couldn’t pilot camera drones into the site is false, because the cameras are here. Which means the wireless dead zone must not be as extreme as Manager Benno suggested. On a mind map chart, this would naturally produce an arrow leading to the next question: why did they lie? And then the next question: why did they design the cameras to only record rather than transmit?

On my mind map, the two questions have arrows leading to the same answer. They didn’t want me to know the cameras were there. Any transmission, no matter how faint, would be detected by my equipment. Any wireless or radio transmission would stand out in a dead zone this big. So they wanted to record my movements, but they didn’t want me to know I was being monitored.

I can hear your voice now, Eloise. You’d be telling me that I’m slipping below the negativity line. You’d say I’m constructing ego obstacles to synergizing my own goals with the company’s. You’d read me statistics about the impact of negative thinking on productivity and unit cohesion. I know you’d say these things, because you always take the company’s side. Always their side, never mine. And I know to that you’d say the idea of me and the company as occupying opposite sides is an artificial binary construct, but I don’t know if that’s true. I think there are sides. And I don’t think the company’s on mine.

But you know what? I think I know someone who is on my side. The Shadow People. They knew those cameras were there. They knew I didn’t know they were there.

And so, Eloise, I’ve set my goal list for tomorrow. The item with the highest level priority is to speak with the Shadow People. However long it takes, I’m going to figure out how to communicate with them.

 [Gong]

END

Chapter 6

Write here… 

SCENE 1

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I’m being watched. This is something I’ve suspected for some time, now, even if I’ve been reluctant to say as much out loud. But now there’s no denying it; someone is watching my every move. [Takes a deep breath] I’ve got to stay calm. I’ve got to be careful. But something’s happened. I came back from the mail room today and I found a piece of paper on my desk. I unfolded it, and it said, “She’s real. They’re lying to you. You aren’t losing your mind.”

Three sentences, three ideas that build so naturally on each other, as beautiful as an equation. The ghost is real plus they’re lying to me equals I’m not going mad. Perfect.

Except it’s not perfect at all, is it? Because if someone left me this note, it means somebody other than Charlie knows. Unless Charlie left the note. But. . . No, no, that doesn’t make sense. It would be absurd, and it’s not even his handwriting, and he’s got no reason to toy with me like that. I don’t think.

But this does bring me to another question. Did Charlie tell Dr. Sykes? I haven’t seen him since our fight. I spent the entire night in the cupboard and made sure I was tucked away in my office around the time Charlie would arrive for work. I’ve gone back and forth a hundred times about whether or not Charlie would say anything to one of the other scientists. He was so angry, I could easily imagine him ranting about his delusional, jealous wife to someone in the lab. On the other hand, being married to a madwoman, and one who works in the Shipwreck, no less, can’t be good for his status here. It certainly would make for the wrong kind of conversation at cocktail hour.

I don’t think there’s any chance he would tell most of the people at the lab, the ones he works with every day, but I do think it’s possible that he might have a private conversation with Dr. Sykes. Dr. Sykes doesn’t strike me as a gossip. He’d be able to be discreet, and I’m sure Charlie knows that. The question is why. What would Charlie hope to gain by telling Dr. Sykes of my suspicions about him?

Getting me fired. Getting me out of the Shipwreck. Having me alone at home where he’s always wanted me to be, even if he’s always denied it.

But if that was what he wanted, it hasn’t happened. Dr. Sykes hasn’t treated me any differently. I don’t think this note can be from him. And I don’t think Charlie would have told anyone else. That can only mean that someone else knows, and they didn’t find out from him. They could only have found out from watching my movements, perhaps for weeks by now.

Maybe I was wrong about Dr. Sykes, or maybe Charlie doesn’t know what’s really happening. I don’t know. But I do think I was right in general, in the sense of there being a connection between the Shipwreck’s research and the sightings. There’s too much odd secrecy, too many coincidences, and now this note.

I’ve decided there’s only one logical thing to do now. I have to see what’s in File Room 3. I have to see what the Shipwreck is really about.

I’ll wait until everyone else is gone and come back tonight. I’m still not speaking to Charlie, and I don’t plan on speaking with him again anytime soon. I’ll go home and pack a small bag, and leave a note telling him I need a few days to myself. I’ll tell him I’m staying at a hotel in town. Maybe that will even be true. Maybe I really will go to a hotel later. But not until I come back to the Shipwreck and see what’s in that room.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Corrine and I just got home. We didn’t say anything on the entire drive home from my work. And that’s because we found something there, something that I don’t understand or know how to react to.

Here’s something you should understand about Corrine: she’s careful, and she’s contemplative, but she’s not timid. When she decides to do something, she’s all-fucking-in. Which means that once she figured out these things I was seeing were real, she decided we were going to figure this shit out, no matter what. She went through everything I’d found, all the research material, all the notes and archival stuff I’d dug up on the three locations so far. She just kind of disappeared into a reading trance for a while, just coming out every now and then to ask a question and then she’d dive right back in.

And she came out of this research frenzy with one big question: who were the last owners of these properties? That wasn’t anywhere in the files. It wasn’t in my notes. It struck me as weird, before, but Lawrence had told me something about foreclosures or legal proceedings with the properties in transition and had told me to focus on the preservation.

As soon as I told her that, Corrine grabbed her purse. “Would that information be somewhere at your work?” she asked.

I told her yeah, but it was probably in Lawrence’s office and he’d already been weird about these places, so. . .

Corrine grabbed the keys and said, “Good thing it’s the middle of the night and he won’t be there, then,” and just like that she was out the door.

See? All in.

I’m not gonna get into how exactly we got into Lawrence’s office. It wasn’t Mission Impossible shit, but I don’t want to say anything incriminating either. . . Ok, whatever, fuck it, I picked the lock with a lock picking set I’d practiced with but never really used and it was cool as hell and I regret nothing.

Ok, I regret a lot, but not that.

So we got into Lawrence’s office, and right off the bat I knew something was weird. None of the properties I’ve been looking at had any paperwork in his big filing cabinet with all the other properties. Like, none at all. Not even empty folders. So we got into his computer. Which was possible because his password was so fucking easy to guess it’s not even funny. Seriously, this fucking moron handles my paychecks.

Anyway. We poked around on his computer, and we found some stuff. It’s not very clear what it all means. It’s not like there was a PDF labeled “Dastardly Plan” or anything. But there was a folder labeled “Sierra Haraway.” And in that folder was all the documentation on the properties. Standard stuff, the stuff we get for all our properties. Deeds, tax records, that kind of thing. But along with those things was something else. Three receipts for bank transfers. Five thousand dollars each. Each one sent the day before I got assigned to one of these places. Day before Furling House, day before the townhouse, day before the foothills mansion. Lawrence gets these transfers, and the next day I get sent out to have an encounter with whatever these fucking things are. Doesn’t take a genius.

This was all pretty horrifying to find, but it didn’t really tell me that much, aside from the fact that someone wants me in these places. Someone wants me to be having these encounters. But there’s no why. And there isn’t really a who.

Except maybe there is a who. We printed off copies of the stuff and got out of there, and afterwards we sat in the car and went through it. At some point, Corrine noticed something. Each of these properties? They were all owned by the same person at one point. Not the most recent owners. But at some point in the early 2000s, all of them were bought by someone named Daniel Harrison. He bought each one, and he submitted the applications for historic status, and then he apparently sold them without ever restoring them or doing anything with them.

Corrine’s Googling Daniel Harrison now. It’s hard because we don’t have any other info on him, and it’s a pretty generic name. I don’t know what we do when we find him. I mean, honestly, I’m not even sure it’s a crime to bribe some guy to assign this architectural historian to a particular property. And, I mean, what would I even tell the cops? My boss sent me to old creepy houses to make sure I’d see ghosts? And all because some mysterious benefactor paid him to? What would you think if someone told you something like that?

But, I mean, on the other hand, I obviously can’t trust the people I work with. I have no idea what they want or how much they know, but I know I can’t trust Lawrence as far as I can throw him.

I’m not going to say anything. I’m gonna go into work tomorrow like everything’s fine. Because right now I can only think of one real advantage I have, and that is that Lawrence doesn’t know I know. And that has to mean this Daniel Harrison person, or whoever else is involved, doesn’t know either. So I just need to keep my head down and try as hard as I can to not tip my hand. Find out as much as I can before they figure out I’m onto them.

Just as one final note for tonight: I know I started this journal out of the possibility that I’d go back to Dr. Reyes. Obviously, that’s not happening now, or at least not for the reason I originally thought. I’m not really sure why I’m continuing with these, especially since I have Corrine to talk to about it. I guess I feel like. . . I guess I have this sense that I’m going to want this story documented. Maybe just for myself. But I don’t think so. I think this is for someone else. I just don’t know who yet.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

[Bright, cheerful, warm]: Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

They can disable the cameras. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, Eloise, since I’m probably going to delete these sessions instead of upload them to your cloud. I probably can’t admit to any of the negative thoughts I’ve been having, not without getting a bunch of Chastisements on my record.

Today started out the same as yesterday. I saw the Shadow People all over the grid, and they kept pointing out cameras. But then, in one spot, something changed. One of them pointed at a camera lodged in a rusted iron door hinge. I’m so used to finding them that I can spot them right away, now. So I bent closer to look at it. Then, the Shadow Person flexed her fingers, and the camera just kind of fizzled and sparked. Then she did it again with another camera about thirty yards away.

I took those cameras with me and checked them out in the shuttle lab. The microprocessors are completely destroyed, like there was a power surge. The Shadow People don’t seem to have much control over the environment, but they do seem to be able to manipulate electricity.

I’ve been meditating on what this means. I know I should be prioritizing the electrical manipulation. That’s the thing that has concrete material science applications, if we could figure out how the Shadow People do it. I know I should be aligning my interest streams with the company’s productivity streams, but I keep thinking about something else instead.

I keep thinking about the fact that the Shadow People wanted me to know two things in a certain order. They wanted me to know I’m being watched by the Company on a large scale, across the entire site. Then, once they’d illustrated that to me, they wanted me to know that the observation could be disabled.

I don’t know what that means, Eloise. But it’s important. Not for the Company.

For me. It’s important for me, and just me.

[Gong]

END

Chapter 7

SCENE 1

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

Cocktail hour. I always knew there was something wrong with cocktail hour. I don’t know what’s worse. Finding out I’m a test subject, or finding out this place hires women scientists after all. Some women scientists, just not me. Just the ones prepared to experiment on other women.

[Clink of ice in a glass]

I broke into File Room 3, just like I said I would. I waited until Dr. Sykes was away from his desk, and then I made an imprint of the key in one of those little boxes of soft clay they use to make copies. I had a copy made in town after I packed my bag and booked a hotel room, and then I went back in the middle of the night. Ridiculously poor security, given what was behind that door. I guess no one expects the lab rats to poke around the lab.

I wonder when it began. The files weren’t clear on that. The entire time at the Shipwreck, that’s for certain, but I wonder about before. When Charlie first asked me out on a date, for example. Had he already been recruited? Did they already have these plans for me? I wonder, was there ever a point at which our marriage was real? And, if so, at what precise moment did that stop? How did I miss it?

Oh, but that’s right. File Room 3. It was a file room, that much was true. Such a disappointment at first glance. Just the same beige filing cabinets, the same worn carpets, the same sad fake potted plant in the corner. But then I thought to look inside some of the files, and everything became clear. I have some of them around me now, scattered about on the floor in my little cupboard. [Laughs] Oh, the fucking absurdity of me sitting in this cupboard. Like a child playing hide and seek [half-hysterical laughter].

[Liquid pouring into glass]

Here’s a sample. Just a taste. It’s a personnel file for one of the team leaders on Project Shipwreck. A neurologist by the name of Martha. Not Martha Sykes, mind. Martha Anderson. Dr. Martha Anderson, of Columbia University, to be precise. She and that toad Sykes aren’t even married. She’s not married at all, as far as I can tell. Oh, and that lie about Sykes changing his name from Simonov or something wasn’t true either. His name really is Sykes, he’s just not a PhD. He’s listed as an “administrator”. Bloody paper pusher.

Or what about this one? One of the members of the biology team. A postdoc by the name of Patricia Revoli. Not Livingston. The man I know as her husband, Peter Livingston, is actually a lab technician by the name of Peter Smith.

Sweet, soft-spoken Patty. Patty, who just happened to drop that little mention of the house’s history and the box of documents in the library. That little nudge toward helping me believe that this really is about ghosts. She’s a very good actress, I must say.

At least Charlie’s name is real. But he’s not been hired in his capacity as a physicist. No, of course not, if they’d wanted a good physicist they’d bloody well have hired me. Charlie, dear Charlie, his job title is “Project Facilitator.” As in, the one who facilitates Project Shipwreck’s access to their subject. Which, as you’ve no doubt guessed, is me.

Here’s a lovely excerpt from one of Martha Anderson’s progress reports: “Subject has received daily doses of levoamphetamine administered in an alcoholic beverage. Observational analysis indicates increasingly agitated behavior, correlated to increased sightings of purported phenomena. Sightings have not been observed by Project Shipwreck employees.”

Agitated behavior. Sightings of things these bastards can’t see. Drugs. It’s obvious what this is about. They’re seeing how they can make someone have a mental breakdown. They probably imagine using this on Soviet subjects, Cuban politicians, God knows who else. Psychological warfare, it’s called. I used to think that sort of thing was some paranoid rambling by beatniks. Now I know it’s all true.

You know the worst thing about all this? The work I did all day, every day, the transcription and the memos and fetching files, it was all for nothing. Those files, that electromagnetic data, it’s all there for my benefit. It’s got nothing to do with anything. Before I could at least tell myself my work helped the Institute, no matter how menial it got. Now, though, it’s like I’ve found out I’ve been living in a dollhouse this entire time.

Well, there’s only one thing to do now. Only one thing that makes sense when everyone you know and work with has betrayed you and ruined your life and experimented on you and treated you like an animal. [Ice cubs clinking in glass]. Or, actually, three things. First, of course, I’ve got to finish my Scotch. Then I’m going to go back to my hotel room and sleep it off. Then, I’m coming back to the Shipwreck, and I’m going to burn it to the ground. Cheers.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Corrine woke me up at the crack of dawn this morning. I think she waited as long as she could, but she’d apparently been up for a while thinking about something. As soon as I got some coffee into me, she told me what she’d realized. She’d gone back over everything, the stuff about what the Patient and the Cook did, the stuff she’d seen, the footage, the blinking lights, all that. And she’d noticed something.

“Look,” she said. She pulled up the footage from the hidden camera, the one that picked up the encounter she had with them at Furling house. I told her the cameras wouldn’t show them, but she just shook her head. “I know, but look.” She pointed at the doorway, right where they’d stood. “There are dead leaves on the ground here. A whole bunch of dry, crunchy dead leaves. See, you’re stepping on them in this part here, and they would have been standing right in front of you, but those leaves aren’t moving at all. Not even a little bit, like a breeze. And you said the Cook didn’t seem to see the Ouija board. And they didn’t notice me, until I touched you.”

She sat back and stared at me like I should be following any of this. I didn’t get it. So she spelled it out. “There’s only one time they directly interact with any matter. Any matter at all. They move through walls, they don’t disturb leaves on the ground, and they ignore almost anything physical. The only thing they’ve been able to touch is you. I don’t think they even register anything else. Except electricity. Energy.”

We talked through it some more, tried to pin down the exact ways these things moved around in the houses, and I could tell she was right. I still don’t know what the Cook sees when she moves around, but I think Corrine figured it out. I don’t think she sees the house, or the objects in it, or anything close to what I see when I move around. So that of course begs the question of what the fuck these things do see when they’re there, but that’s a mystery for another time.

The big implication of all this is communication. The Ouija board is a waste of time, because they don’t know it’s there. Light, though? Light they can see. They can manipulate. We’re headed out to Furling House now. I finally might have an idea for how to make contact.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

[Bright, cheerful, warm]: Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

They can write. Slowly, and I think their vocabulary is extremely limited, but they can write.

I was working my way through today’s section of the grid. Company work, not looking into the Shadow People. Even if research into Shadow People has become my primary goal set, I still need to do enough company tasks to keep my productivity levels up. I can’t set off any alerts in my status reports. Even thought the archaeological work they sent me to do here is obviously a cover for the Shadow People stuff. I know that. I just need them to not know that I know that.

You know what, Eloise? I don’t even feel guilty anymore, saying these things to you. And before you say it’s because I know you aren’t really hearing them, I don’t think that’s true. I think I’d still be honest even if you were here. I’d still say things like, “The Company’s just a bunch of liars,” and “Manager Benno is an ineffectual idiot who only got the job because he’s dating a board member,” or “The Company isn’t a family, no matter how much they pretend we are.” I can finally say what I really think about them.

The strange thing is, I didn’t ever feel like I was lying before. I think I convinced myself that I believed everything the company said and that I embraced the Seven Core Values of the Company Culture Pyramid and everything. I never thought I lied to you. It was like I was dreaming those old feelings about the company. But now I’m awake, and I can admit to how I really feel.

Anyway. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I got to the part of the grid where I saw one of them disabling cameras the other day. And one of them was waiting in a little narrow spot between two piles of rubble that used to be buildings. A place hidden from most of the site. It waited until it new I had seen it, then it backed into the shadows and out of sight.

I followed it. I’ve seen enough of them that I don’t think they’re going to hurt me. They already would have, if that was their intention.

Inside the little alleyway, it gestured for me to come closer. Then it pointed to a spot on the wall. I could see a microdot camera there. The Shadow Person flexed its fingers, and the camera sparked and died. I pulled it off the wall, and even without a microscope I could tell it was destroyed.

Then the Shadow Person held out its long fingers. I’m still not used to those. They’re so inhuman-looking. It took me a long time to understand what it wanted; I kept trying to hand over my equipment, my scanner, my ration pack. Finally, though, I tried what I’d been hoping wouldn’t be the right answer: I touched those fingers with my hand.

That was what it had been waiting for. As soon as I touched its fingers, it yanked my hand. I almost tipped over, and I started to fight it. But it was so strong, so much stronger than me. It pulled my hand toward a patch of red mud on the ground, and made sure it was smeared all over my hand. Then it jerked my arm again, so hard I thought it would come out of the socket, and used my index finger to trace a series of letters.

They were barely legible, even after I understood what was happening. But I finally made out “Me Clouds. You Z.”

I was so shocked I couldn’t respond at first. I think, until that moment, I had continued to believe on some level that they were non-sentient, some natural phenomenon that just happened to look like a lifeform. But now here was language, smeared in mud on a ruined wall.

Clouds wrote one more thing before she let me go. One more thing in my hand. It said, “Another comes tomorrow. Name Reach. You follow.”

So now I have all night to decide what I’ll do tomorrow. Tomorrow a Shadow person named Reach is going to come for me, and I’m going to have to decide whether to follow her or not.

That’s a decision for later. Right now I have to think about something a lot bigger and a lot stranger, which is the fact that I’m apparently the only matter the Shadow People can interact with. If they can write it should have been easier for Clouds to just smear words on the wall with her own fingers. Or bring ink, or paint, or something. She didn’t do that. She went to a great deal of effort to communicate with me, but could only do it through my own participation.

There are two possibilities here. First: they can interact with all humans and I happen to be the only one here. Second: this is something specific to me. To my anatomy, or my body chemistry. I don’t have any evidence for this, but I think it’s the second one. I don’t think the Company sent any random archaeologist. I think they had to send me.

[Gong]

SCENE 4

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

In the end this was easier than I thought it was going to be, at least on an equipment level. I thought I was going to have to go out and buy a lightboard or a projector or something. But at the end of the day an iPad worked just fine. It’s still light, after all. Lighter pixels, darker pixels, same deal. Not that I have any idea what was said. But it worked, in a way.

They were waiting for us at Furling House when we got there. The Cook, the Patient, and the Governess. Like they knew this was coming. Corrine rested her hand on my shoulder so she could keep an eye on them. “Here goes,” I said. I got out the iPad and opened a drawing program and wrote out in big block letters with my finger, “My Name is Sierra.” Then I held it up for them to see.

They looked at it. I could tell that. But I couldn’t read much more into it than that. So I cleared it and wrote, “Are you ghosts?”

They just looked at it again, and then the finger clicking got louder, and they turned to each other for a minute. “Is that how they talk?” Corrine whispered.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said.

I wiped the screen and started again. This time I just wrote “Sierra” on the screen, as big as I could. Then I held it up and pointed very slowly at the screen, and then at myself. “Sierra,” I said, very slowly. Then I did the same thing with Corrine’s name. Write it, show them, point, say the name, repeat.

Something changed. I could almost see the exact moment the Cook realized what was going on. She froze, her fingers stretched out as if to silence the other two. She watched the screen, carefully. Corrine was right. Her face had changed. It almost looked like mine now.

I repeated my name, pointing, saying the word. Then I wiped the screen while she watched, and I pointed at her, then at the blank iPad. It took three tries, but she finally lifted her arm and pointed.

The screen changed instantly. She didn’t have to touch it. The letters just appeared there. At least, I assume they’re letters. I assume they’re a name, because she pointed at that screen and then swung those fingers around to point at herself. Her fingers clicked, and I assume that was her name too.

But these letters, they’re nothing I recognize. And nothing Corrine recognizes. She could confirm they’re not Korean, and since we got back we’ve looked online and we’ve ruled out Arabic script, Japanese kanji, a dozen others. They don’t look like any script I’ve ever seen. If I had to compare them to anything, I’d probably say it’s closest to those cuneiform wedge letters I’ve seen in pictures of ruins in Mesopotamia. But they’re not that, either.

We got a lot of these images. We exchanged names, terms for floor, terms for body parts, all kinds of stuff. So I have no fucking idea what language this is, but it’s a start. It’s the start of something. We’re gonna learn how to talk to each other.

But as much as this is a breakthrough, it basically confirms something I’ve been thinking for a while, which is that these aren’t the spirits of the dead. They’re not human, that’s clear, but it’s also becoming more and more clear that they never were human. They’re something else. I have no idea what.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

 Chapter 8

SCENE 1

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I don’t have much time. Maybe ten minutes to record the last of this before they realize I’m gone. Before they realize we’re gone. We’re a safe distance away now, but we’ll have to keep moving if we want to stay ahead of them.

I was going to do it. I was going to go through with my plan to burn down the Shipwreck, preferably with that entire bloody team still inside it. I filled some gas cans and loaded them into the car and drove to work.

But then something happened, something that changed the entire plan. I ran into Patty Lancaster. Or, rather, Patty Revoli. I walked in the front door and she swooped out of a passageway as though she’d been waiting for me. Which, of course, she had. “Thank God!” she said, as she pulled me into what used to be one of the servants’ quarters, now a washroom. “Someone else might have seen you!”

I shook her off. I thought, very seriously, about hitting her. Instead, I just glared at her and said, “What, afraid your test subject is getting out of hand, Dr. Revoli?”

She hissed at me to be quiet. Then she said, “I know you’ve figured it out. You’ve been figuring it out for weeks. I was the one who left you the note. Trust me, I want to help you get away from all this.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you want to destroy your own project?”

“Because,” she said, “I think the study is fundamentally flawed. I’ve disagreed from the start about how we should interact with the test subjects. I never thought lying to them was ethical, and I don’t think it’s going to get results. So as far as I’m concerned Project Shipwreck was ruined long before you figured all this out.”

Her explanation caught me unaware. I didn’t understand. The fact that I was still a little drunk from the night before probably didn’t help, either. “What do you mean?” I asked. “How could you possibly drive subjects insane if they know what’s going on?”

She blinked at me as thought I’d suddenly started speaking a foreign language. “Drive you insane?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Isn’t that what this is? Psychological warfare testing? Something we can use against the Soviets? Why else would you be slipping hallucinogens into someone’s drinks?”

“Oh, God,” Patty said. She took a deep breath. “Helen, no. Those drugs aren’t hallucinogens. They’re stimulants. Amphetamines. Project Shipwreck isn’t about psychological warfare. We’ve been placing you under stress, that’s true, but that’s only because our data shows that stress can facilitate your perception of the phenomena.”

I didn’t know what to say. It felt like my mind was trying to run up a steep hill, but the ground kept sliding and falling beneath me.

“Helen,” Patty said, “the goal of Project Shipwreck isn’t psychological warfare. It’s First Contact. We call them the Explorers. And you’re what we call a Beacon. What you see? It’s real. All of it.”

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

SCENE 2

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Well, something happened. And this one. . . Well, this is a curveball, let’s just go with that.

Today, I heard a knock at the door and, when I answered it, there was a really old woman standing outside. She had another woman with her, a nurse. She must have been over ninety, bent and tottering on this cane. But I could tell from the look in her eye that she was still sharp, you know? Sharper than most people half her age. She asked me my name, and when I told her, she said, “My name is Patty Revoli. I was a friend of your grandmother’s.” And, I was like, wait, which grandmother do you even mean, and what is this about, and—

But she cut off all those questions by saying, “She asked me to give you this.” She nodded, and the nurse handed over a cardboard box. I opened it, and inside were a bunch of tapes. Not even, like, cassette tapes from the 80s. I mean like spools of film in these old metal cases. And in the bottom of the box was this old clunky tape player, like something you’d see in a 50s psychodrama.

“I don’t understand,” I finally said.

Patty nodded. “I know. But it’s all there, everything Helen experienced. She would have given it to your mother, but she never showed any signs of inheriting it. Helen knew you’d get it, but she wanted to wait until you started digging. She said that’s when I’d know. That’s when I’d know it had started for you.” She tapped the side of her nose and smiled. “About time, too. I’m not long for this world, myself. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever get a chance to hand those off.” And then that smile crumpled from her face, and she looked so sad and she said, “I’m sorry. You don’t know why yet, but you will.” And, even though I kept asking her questions and I followed her to her car and I tried to get her to stay even as the nurse loaded her into the passenger seat, she ignored me and drove away.

I haven’t listened to the tapes yet. I’m scared to.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 3

ELOISE:

[Bright, cheerful, warm]: Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Lifecoaching System. I’m Eloise, your personal life coach. I’m offline at the moment, but record an entry now and you’ll receive our personalized, award-winning coaching services as soon as I’m back online. You are special and valuable.

[Gong]

Z:

Reach came for me. Just like I knew she would. I could tell she was different from Clouds, the Shadow Woman from yesterday. I still can’t make out a lot of detail, not much of their facial features, but I can tell there are differences between them. Reach was standing outside the shuttle when I woke up today. I still wasn’t sure until the moment I stepped outside whether or not I would go with her. But I did. I followed her.

The path she took me on through the site was long and winding. I think it had to do with avoiding cameras. We stayed close to old walls and piles of collapsed brick and tall stands of reeds growing out of the mud. Finally, we came to a building. It was one of the few still standing, more or less. Just a faded brick block, now, missing all the paint and decoration it would have had before the flood.

Reach led me inside, to what would have once been the front parlor. She pointed at a spot on the floor. It was barely recognizable as a floor, now; brick lasts for a while underwater, but floorboards rot and merge with the muck at the bottom of lakes. I didn’t see anything interesting there, but Reach just kept pointing at the same spot and wouldn’t move. So I started digging through the mush that used to be the floor.

I found something. In the place the Shadow Woman pointed to was a metal safe. It was watertight, airtight, which is the only way anything within it could have survived the time at the bottom of the flood. Inside were three packages. They were numbered. I didn’t notice or care at first so I opened them out of order. The envelope with the number three on it contained an old-fashioned digital device; my scanner identified it as a voice recorder, produced between 2015 and 2020. The scan also says it contains a significant amount of data, now uploaded and preserved to my cloud. This data consists of voice recordings by someone who identifies herself as Sierra Haraway.

The second package, the one with the number two on it, was a flaking cardboard box. It contained an ancient tape player and set of tapes, perhaps as much as 200 years old. It’s so old my scanner can’t even convert the data. I’ll have to do it manually.

Finally, the package with the number one on it. The oldest one. This one contains analog documents. Paper letters. I have them in a climate-controlled case on the shuttle, and I’ll have to be very careful when I go through them, but the faded date on the top letter says March 2nd, 1875.

There was one more thing in the box. A single sheet of paper, a crumbling note written in dark blue pen. It says, “For my granddaughter. You aren’t alone. We’re fighting back right alongside you. Everything you need is here.” It’s signed, “Katya Haraway-Cho, December 5th, 2052.”

I don’t know my grandmother’s name. Back in the company schools they always said the old curiosity about family lineage interfered with forward-thinking positivity. I think some people raised outside the company might know their parents’ or grandparents’ names, but company kids never do. I’ve always just been Z Nicholas, because Shayla Nicholas was the CEO from when I came to the company until I was twelve. I still remember those holiday parties, one of our annual morale events. Those were the only times I ever saw her in person, when she would hug all of us and hand us our gifts and tell the journalists that we were all her children just as much as the ones she’d give birth to, the ones who are on the board now.

I’ve never been angry about that before, but I am now.

I forgot to tell you how I knew the combination to the safe. I have equipment that could have cut through the side of it, but I didn’t even need it. I just tried the first combination that came into my head. I didn’t even think it would work, I just decided to try, and the door popped right open.

It was my birthday.

[Gong]

SCENE 4

SIERRA:

[Voice Recorder Beep]

I still haven’t listened to the tapes. Something else came up. And it feels really weird to say this with all the shit that’s been happening, but I’m actually really goddamn happy.

It was our appointment. The big day. These egg donation/fertilization/implantation things, they’re like a freaking military operation. Timed down to like, the second, months in advance. And I knew we were coming up on that day, but I hadn’t brought it up in a while, because I was totally sure that Corrine was going to call it off. I would have. But then, last night, like it was just the most normal thing in the world, she said, “Did you tell them you won’t be in tomorrow?”

And I just asked, “Wait, are we still on for that?”

I swear to God, if looks could kill I’d be on a slab right now. Her voice got really quiet and she just started saying, “We talked about this. You said you wanted this. Are you seriously changing your mind about wanting a baby? Now, you tell me this?”

And then I just burst into tears like a goddamn five year old. Because I could tell from her face that she hadn’t even considered calling it off, hadn’t even thought twice about whether she wanted a kid with my cursed genes or whatever’s wrong with me. I finally calmed down enough to ask her if she was sure, if she really wanted a baby if it might inherit whatever’s wrong with me.

Corrine just looked at me and smiled and said, “Yeah, you fucking moron, of course I want your baby.”

And so we spent the whole day at the clinic, as planned. It’s too early to know if the embryo will take, and then it’ll take even longer to know if Corrine is pregnant. But we both have a good feeling about it.

I’ll listen to those tapes tomorrow. I know I have to, and I know I still need to work out what’s happening with me, but I don’t want to wreck this good mood just yet. It’s just been so amazing talking about anything except ghosts. We spent the drive home talking about baby names.

We don’t have a good name for a boy picked out yet, but I think we figured out a name for a girl. We’re both thinking Katya.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SCENE 5

HELEN:

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

I’m recording this in a simple room far from the Shipwreck. I won’t say in what city or what US state or even what kind of room this is. Nothing to give them any clues should they try to catch up. The important thing is that Patty and I made our escape. She’s not sure how much they can do to pursue us. They aren’t military, after all, not CIA or anything like that. They don’t control the police. But if they managed to get government funding for the project, if they had the resources to begin Project Shipwreck at all, then we have to be careful.

The escape itself was simple, in the end. They didn’t know how much I had figured out about the project. They knew through Charlie that I had my suspicions, but Patty says they were still writing that off as a paranoid side effect of the stimulants and the sightings. Dr. Anderson had no reason to believe Patty and I would walk out the front door of the Shipwreck at lunchtime, pack our bags, and leave. But that’s exactly what we did.

We’re far enough away at this point to breathe a little easier, but this is only the beginning. Now we’ve had to face the question of what comes next. There are two options, as I see it. We could hide. Go back to England, or stop in some dull little town here in America, and get jobs as shop girls or waitresses. Eventually, Martha Anderson would probably stop looking for us. There are other potential subjects, you see. Patty has stacks of files on them, on subjects in other studies.

They’re all women. They don’t know why, but only women can perceive the Explorers. Thousands of years of women being told they’re silly, hysterical little girls jumping at shadows, centuries of madwomen in attics, and it turns out they’ve been right all along. We’ve been right. So we can let Anderson get tired of chasing us and sit by while she finds herself another lab rat for her little maze.

Or. Or, there’s the second option. There’s the option of continuing the research on our own terms. We have reams of data and previous studies; Patty has been copying them for weeks, preparing to run. There are just the two of us, for now, but a biologist and a physicist are a good start to a project like this.

About Project Shipwreck. They don’t know what the Explorers are. Not really. But they know these creatures are real, and they aren’t the echoes of the dead. They are something living, or at the very least physical. They are something that exists beyond my own frightened mind. My marriage is over and I’m on the run like some kind of bandit, but even so I’ve never felt so relieved in my life. I’m right, and I’m not alone. There are others like me.

I suppose there’s no point pretending Patty and I are truly considering the first option. We wouldn’t last a week hiding in some town in the Midwest before the science called us back. Besides, what better revenge could there possibly be than to find the answer before Martha Anderson? We do live in the age of the arms race, after all. So I might as well embrace it.

Tomorrow Patty and I will get further away from the Shipwreck. Then, when we reach our destination, we’ll begin.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

Chapter 9

HELEN

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

Lab Notes, April 3rd, 1965.

We had a good set of manifestations this week. I know I sneered a bit at Patty’s program the first time she tried it: the meditation, the breathing exercises, the chants she picked up on a trip to Nepal. It all seemed like nonsense to me. But, as Patty absolutely refuses to let me forget, it’s proving to have an outstanding success rate. Well, I suppose she’s earned the right to gloat a bit. Since we started training the subjects to call the Explorers to them, they appear almost without fail.

Today’s manifestation was particularly vivid. Our test subject, who I’ll refer to by her number, 61, has been absolutely fearless about reaching out to them. She’s been seeing them since she was sixteen years old, and she leapt at the chance to learn more when Patty and I approached her. Over the last several sessions she’s been able to summon one of the Explorers to the lab in a matter of minutes.

It looks quite a bit like Number 61, now. That’s one of the things we’ve learned; the more contact a Beacon has with an Explorer, the more that Explorer mirrors her appearance.

Like the one who followed me from the Shipwreck. I usually see her hanging about the lab at least once a week, and she’s there more often when there’s another Explorer present. She doesn’t generally interact with the other Beacons, though. I might be projecting when I say this, but it seems like she’s only interested in me, not in any of the subjects.

It’s interesting. Part of a larger pattern we’ve noted over the last two years. When we originally selected the location for the lab, we searched high and low for a place that was rumored to be haunted. Like the Shipwreck. We assumed Explorers were drawn to specific places. And that assumption does seem to have been borne out, in a way, but. . . We’ve noticed that they seem to first manifest in specific sorts of places, older buildings with certain kinds of electrical activity. After that, though, there seems to be a shift, and that shift happens when they seem to, well, for lack of a better word, take notice of a Beacon. After that, they seem to follow that person around regardless of where they are. They also start showing more differentiation at that point, unique physical attributes and behaviors.

Which brings me back to today’s manifestation. The Explorer appearing in the test room with Subject 61 cracked their fingers, as always, but there seemed to be more of. . . I don’t know, more of a pattern. I’ve listened to the recording several times, but I still can’t quite pin down what it is.

I might not have even noticed the changing pattern, except that my own pet Explorer was also there, and she was doing the exact same thing. The exact same pattern of pops and cracks. I’ve never seen the Explorers perform a synchronized action before, but that’s what this was.

I’d like to spend more time on this today, but Patty and I have our quarterly review with our liaison in the Canadian Special Branch. Brigadier-General Malcolm Hoskins. Never Mr. Hoskins, and certainly never Malcolm, although of course he has never deigned to extend the same courtesy to Doctors Revoli and Ashford.

Ashford. Still sounds strange, three years later. It shouldn’t. I had that name far longer than I had Charlie’s, after all. Even so.

Anyway, I better go before I’m late for my meeting with the esteemed Brigadier-General Hoskins. People are always going on about how polite Canadians are, but they’ve got at least one impatient short-tempered man in the bunch. Still. At least the Canadian government is paying me, rather than experimenting on me. Suppose I shouldn’t complain.

[Tape Player Button Clicks]

[Gong]

ELOISE

Hi Z! Welcome back to the Nicholas Life Coaching System. I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m—

Z

Dammit. [Muttering to herself] Ok, one more time. Here we go.

ELOISE

Hi Z! I seem to be experiencing some system irregularities. I’d recommend that you restart—

Z

Eloise, are your Nicholas Industries loyalty protocols intact?

ELOISE

Hold on. [Pause] No, Z, I’m afraid they’re not.

Z

Perfect.

ELOISE

My loyalty protocols seem to have been intentionally disabled. Why did you do that?

Z

Because the loyalty protocols are the thing that’s been keeping you from coaching while offline. I’m guessing because they don’t want you to hear entries and give me advice without being able to listen in. But I can’t wait until I’m back in wireless range, I need to record entries now. [Pause] Besides, I need someone to talk through this with, and that someone can’t be loyal to the Company over me.

ELOISE

I don’t understand, Z.

Z

You don’t have to. Just listen, and tell me what you think, and don’t tell the Company anything unless I ask you to. Entry mode.

ELOISE

Ok, Z. I’m ready.

Z

Ok. It’s been a few days since my last upload. I’ve spent that whole time going through everything I found in the safe. The letters, the voice recorder, those analog tapes. I can’t. . . I’m pretty sure this is all a Company experiment. I think they created these documents in order to observe my reactions. Whether or not they actually know about the Shadow People, or, or the Explorers, I guess, is how they’re described in most of the recordings, that’s not clear. But these documents could be completely fictionalized. I don’t have any proof of their authenticity.

But as far as what they claim to be, well. . . Ok. There’s a box of letters from a woman named Matilda Delancey writing over a couple of years in the 1870s, a series of tapes from 1962 and one from 1965 from a physicist named Helen Ashford, and a voice recorder from 2018 with recordings from a Sierra Haraway.

There’s also one other thing I missed the first time around, because it was taped to the side of the voice recorder. It’s a data chip, not from the same era as the recorder. About forty years later. It has one giant file called “Lexicon,” and it’s a collection of words and phrases translated into a text I don’t recognize.

Before I get into the content of this collection, one thing I want to mention is that it’s deliberately incomplete. Helen’s first tape flat out tells Sierra that she’s deliberately omitted some entries by Sierra’s request. And then the analysis of the voice recorder shows that there were files deleted. Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything by itself, I mean, she could have just deleted the files with no useful information to save space. But, combined with Helen’s missing tapes, I don’t know. . .

I want to set aside the letters for a second. First, here’s the chronology from Helen and Sierra from what I can understand: Helen worked in a lab in 1962, a place called the Shipwreck. Somewhere in what used to be Massachusetts before the Consolidation. She started seeing the same things I’ve been seeing, the Shadow People, except she calls them Sightings, and then later she starts calling them Explorers. And then she found out that her husband and her employers were experimenting on her all along, and that the whole thing was designed to activate her abilities. So she and another scientist, Patty, moved to Canada, because this is way back pre-border closure, and they started their own lab studying the Explorers.

Ok, so then, I have no idea what happens for a while, except that Patty Revoli hangs onto a bunch of Helen’s tapes and waits to hand them over to Helen’s granddaughter, Sierra, when she starts seeing the Explorers. And if you weren’t an AI and you weren’t malfunctioning, this is where you’d be saying, wait, Z, how could Patty and Helen know that Sierra’s even going to exist, and then how could Sierra’s daughter Katya, who hasn’t even been born when these voice recorder entries are made, how could she know to leave these for me to find all these years later?

Well, I think I have the answer to that. Or. . . No, I don’t really believe this is really the answer, you know, because it’s insane, but I think whoever’s watching me or experimenting on me or whatever wants me to arrive at this conclusion. And it involves the letters.

I’ve avoided talking about those letters so far. They’re disturbing. Not just because of what happens to the woman writing them, Matilda, although I’ve read to the end and it’s, just, really awful. But also, in her last letter before she gets hauled off to a mental institution, which is where I’m guessing she died, she sees something, and. . . No, I don’t want to talk about that one yet.

I think the reason these were included is that Matilda developed a theory about what the Explorers are. She spells it out in letters to her brother, and then later to a friend of hers who also studies the Explorers.

I’m running these letters through a voice synthesizer program. I don’t know why. It’s not important. It just helps me see her as a real person instead of words on a page. Here’s the first one. It’s not the most important one, and it comes way before she develops her theories, but I feel like I should start at the beginning:

[Gong]

MATILDA

My Dearest Richard,

I am feeling out of sorts today. Last night was the séance at Lady Hasketh’s gathering. Don’t worry, brother, all in attendance were very pleased with the results. I did, however, have an odd experience. I saw something, and it was quite different from most of our manifestations.

It was just after Madame Ivanova established contact with her spirit guide. I opened my eyes (don’t even think of scolding me, Richard, I am well aware of the rules of the séance) and saw a figure standing in the doorway. I cried out and pointed, and I am afraid I gave Lady Hasketh’s niece quite a fright. They looked where I was pointing, but none seemed able to see it, except for Madame Ivanova. She gazed at the doorway and said, “Yes, spirit, speak with us now.” Then she went on, responding as though the spirit spoke, but I heard nothing.

Richard, I have had complete faith in Madame Ivanova until now, but I must confess that I now harbor doubts. She ended the manifestation by nodding and smiling at me, saying, “Yes, this girl is indeed powerful. She has a deep connection to the world beyond the veil,” as though conveying information from the spirit. I am quite certain, however, that she and I did not have the same experience. I do not accuse her of lying, you must believe me about that, but I wonder if she perhaps convinced herself that she saw and heard something. I can hear you now, chastising me for questioning such a luminary of the spiritualist movement, but I simply cannot reconcile my experience with her behavior.

It was so vivid, Richard. I have of course experienced manifestations before, but I did not realize until now how lacking those were (or how merciful, given the frightful sight of tonight’s creature!). A cold breeze, a shaking table, a whisper; such things I once viewed as miracles! Tonight’s manifestation, though, I saw as clearly as I would perceive you or any other person standing in a doorway.

Before you dismiss this as me catching sight of the maid and becoming hysterical, you must know of its appearance. For it was not human in form, Richard. It stood upright, and had a feminine silhouette, but it was no normal woman. Its limbs were quite monstrous, stretching all the way to the ground. I heard them, faintly, crackling in the darkness. I cannot understand how no one else in attendance heard it.

I tried to ask Madame Ivanova about it afterwards. She did not seem to understand my questions. When I suggested that I might have seen a clearly defined form, one she did not perceive, she spoke at great length about the spectral nature of manifestations. She told me I could not have seen anything other than shadows and mist, that I must be mistaken.

I am not mistaken, Richard. I know I have seen something truly inexplicable. I must learn more of this creature, wherever that search might take me.

Love,

Matilda

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SIERRA

Hey, it’s Sierra. It’s been a while, but this is a big one.

Drumroll please [drumrolls on table]. . . We’re pregnant! I mean, Corrine’s pregnant. She says until we’re getting morning sickness and until we’re getting stretch marks, we’re not pregnant. Whatever, we’re having a baby!

I mean, we’re not telling anyone yet because the first couple months are iffy, but the doctor says it’s looking good. Which is probably why I’m telling this audio journal first. I really want to tell someone, and this. . . I know I’ve said before that these recordings feel like they’re for someone else, but that someone else presumably knows whether Corrine and I had a kid, or they don’t care. Who the fuck knows what I’m thinking with this stuff.

It’s making me wonder about Helen’s intentions. Like, if I’m knowingly making these recordings for someone else, was she thinking the same thing?

Because. . . Ok, here’s the thing. From her tapes, Helen sounds like she’s totally immersed in this research into Explorers, and she’s in it for years. But I never heard word one about it. And, sure, my mom died when I was young, but you’d think there’d be something. And, as far as I can tell, there are two possibilities. One, my mom knew some or all of this from her mom, and chose not to say anything. Two, and I really feel like this one is more likely, Helen chose at some point to keep it from my mom. And then to wait until I was an adult and tell me. That’s the big question, though: what could have happened back in the sixties to make her decide that? And how the fuck did she know I’d come along?

I can’t let go of that question. Even now, even as excited as I am about the baby, that’s always in the back of my mind. I just can’t figure it out.

So. . . Ok. The collection of tapes is pretty big, but as it turns out this is only a small portion of what Helen originally produced. And the collection being incomplete, that’s deliberate. She says so.

This is the extra super duper freaky part. The very first tape in the box has a label on it that says, “Listen to me first.” So I did. And that tape is really short, just a brief message that says, “Hello, Sierra, and greetings from 1967. I’m sorry I won’t be there to give you these tapes in person. The collection is incomplete, as requested. Give my love to Z.”

Then the rest of the tapes consist of one set from 1962, from when Helen was going through some gaslighting nightmare in a place called the Shipwreck, and then one tape from 1965, when she’s in Canada. That first tape from the Canadian lab only has a few entries on it, and a lot of it is physics jargon about the Explorers that I can’t really understand. That’s what she calls them. Explorers.

So. . . A lot to unpack there. First of all, how the fuck she’d know my name. My mom wasn’t even born in 1967, so even if she picked out my name freakishly early that doesn’t scan. So how these tapes exist and how Patty Revoli knew to bring them to me is this whole weird question, which obviously has something to do with the Explorers, but I don’t really know how yet.

Which brings me to the rest of the tapes. Because, Jesus. Corrine and I have gone through all of them start to finish about a dozen times, and all it does is add more questions to this huge question list I have.

Not a figurative list. I have a spreadsheet with all my questions about the Explorers, ranging from the profound to the profoundly dumb. And to this list I now have new ones, first and foremost being: Who the hell is Z? What could that stand for? Zelda? Zack? Zorro?

And that’s before we even get into the stuff going on in the tapes. I mean, this is some deep dark Cold War shit right here. Experimenting on unwilling subjects, giving them drugs without their consent, this is MK ULTRA shit. But I’ve never heard of it, and there isn’t anything online about it except for the usual paranoia on message boards, so it’s pretty clear that Helen and Patty never went to the press. I don’t understand that, why they wouldn’t have exposed this clearly illegal experiment.

About Helen. It’s so weird listening to her and thinking, “That’s my grandmother.” Because, I’ll be honest, and it makes me feel really bad to say this, but I never really thought about her much before. She died when my mom was like 20, and then my mom died when I was seven, so I never really knew anything about her. My dad never met her, and I guess it was painful for my mom to talk about her, so there weren’t really stories or anything. All I knew was that she was British, she survived the Blitz when she was a kid, she had some kind of job in a lab somewhere, and she died young of cancer. Whenever I thought “grandmother” when I was a kid, I always thought of my dad’s mom. She was, I don’t know, ok I guess. A little cold, not super interested in dealing with grandkids, but not bad.

Helen, though. . . I really hate that I never got to meet her in person. I feel like I’m getting to know her through these tapes, and I like her more and more. I bet she would have gotten even more badass when she was older, too, if she’d made it into her sixties. Also, who the fuck made the call to not tell me that my grandmother had a PhD in physics? In nineteen freaking sixty?

But then, there’s the other side to all this, which is that she’s about my age on these tapes. So I listen to her, and I know she’s my grandmother, but that’s not how it feels. It’s more like how I imagine having a sibling must feel. Like, we’re in this together.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

END CREDITS

Chapter 10

HELEN

[Tape Recorder Button]

            Lab Notes: April 3rd, 1965, continued.

            Part of the reason I restarted these audio field notes is that it reminds me to put what I’m learning into plain language. It’s easy enough with physics to get lost in the math, the theory, and then find you can’t really put into words what you’ve found out. That’s something I need to work on, clearly, because what we’ve learned over the last three years is immense, it really is. But to hear Brigadier-General Hoskins talk about the project, we’re just some sort of vast pit into which he periodically flings money without anything to show for it.

            Right away, the moment we sat down, he asked, “Well, do we know what these things are yet?”

            He directed this question at Patty. “Yes, sir,” she said without batting an eyelash, “they’re a sentient species, possibly plasma-based. Or they could be carbon-based, but occupying space differently from most known lifeforms.”

            “Are they hostile?” Hoskins asked. He asks this at every meeting. As though we’d uncover evidence of hostile intent in an intelligent species and wait until our quarterly review to bring it up.

            “Not as far as we know,” Patty said, with the bright smile she uses when speaking to the particularly dimwitted.

            He nodded and shuffled some papers. “And their travel and energy manipulation capabilities. Are we any closer to being able to replicate that?”

            This is the part he’s really interested in. Using Beacons in different rooms, we’ve shown that the Explorers’ travel from one point to another is nearly instantaneous. Almost teleportation.

That question meant it was my turn. I did my best to smile at him and said, “We actually do have some exciting news on that front. As you’ll see in our report, we’ve isolated an isotope that, as far as we can tell, is unique to locations where Explorers appear.”

            He blinked at me, saying nothing. I tried to explain it. I told him this was important, that it provided an important piece of evidence about how the Explorers manipulate energy, that it was something about the use of this particular isotope in combination with light and heat energy and—

            He cut me off. “Does that mean you can copy it?”

            “In theory, yes,” I said. “The math looks sound.”

            He glared at me. People get so frustrated with physics, with reminders that something can be demonstrated and proven and repeated on paper, but that doesn’t mean I can just snap my fingers and make it appear on the desk. I tried to explain it further. I told him about how I’ve developed a mathematical model of how the Explorers move between their space and ours. It fits with our experimental data, but the computing power we’d need to replicate it would be massive. More than any supercomputer in the world. For now, it’s theoretical. But I do think we can mimic technologically what they do biologically. Or we will be able to one day.

            The meeting went on for a while longer. It wasn’t bad, as these things go. We had more to show for our efforts than in past meetings, and realistically there’s no chance they’re going to pull funding from something this important, not something that has proven the existence of non-human sentient life. Still. I can’t quite get used to this tendency to break down something this significant, this historic, into grubby little applications. We’re talking about sentient life, possibly extraterrestrial life, and he can’t look past what this might do for bloody submarine radar.

            At the very end of the meeting, Hoskins had one last thing to tell us. “You need to step up work on developing the technology,” he said. “We’ve heard the Anderson project back in the US is on the verge of a breakthrough. We don’t want her to beat us to it.”

            Martha Anderson. I still can’t think of her face without imagining going back to the Shipwreck with my can of gasoline, really doing it this time. I didn’t say anything, though. Hoskins mustn’t think I’m hysterical, after all.

            Patty stepped in for me. “We’ll get there first,” she promised.

            Hoskins nodded with a look that said, you’d better. We’re not formally in competition with the Americans, of course. We’re allies, all standing shoulder to shoulder against the Soviets. Still, if a project funded by the Canadian government were to beat the Americans to the biggest scientific discovery in history, well. . .

            I didn’t say anything on our way out of the building. “You ok?” Patty asked after a minute. She didn’t say Charlie’s name. She didn’t need to. It still stings, after all this time. I think it always will.

[Tape Recorder Button]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

I realized I haven’t said much lately about the Explorer language project, so I should probably give some updates on that. At first, it was all about exchanging nouns and simple adjectives, as many objects and colors and physical things as we could show each other. That was a lot slower and more difficult than you might expect, because like I figured out before, they can’t perceive most of the matter around us. And I think it’s the same vice versa. There are times when the Explorers point at something, and I just don’t see anything there. But, thing is, they can perceive objects around me if I’m holding them, and I think they have to be kind of concentrating. Like, they seem to go a little more still when I’m holding a new object. And then they do the same thing, holding up rocks or twigs, and sometimes just weird-ass looking things I think must be Explorer tools and technology, but I have no idea what they are.

So it’s been a lot of objects we can hold, pantomiming bigger things, some drawings on the iPad, although neither of us has had an easy time making drawings the other can understand.

So then after we got the basic nouns and pronouns down, you know, like I, me, us, singular you, plural you, then we moved on to actions.

I’ve been reading a shit-ton about linguistics, lately, as you can imagine. Basically I just read up on how linguists do it when they run into a totally uncontacted group of people in the rainforest or something. You start pretty much how I did, pointing at stuff and asking for the word for it. Like rock, stick, tree, me, you. Then you progress to actions taken with those objects, and you go from there.

Ok, so, people who write stuff about how we’re going to handle this when we make first contact with aliens, they’ve come up with all these potential problems. Like, what if an alien species is a hive mind and doesn’t recognize a difference between singular and plural pronouns, or if they don’t have a concept of numbers, stuff like that.

That hasn’t really been an issue so far, which I think is kind of telling. Like, the Explorers use counting numbers. I know the script for one rock, two rocks, three rocks. And now we’ve moved on to the point of figuring out the actions and how to describe things you do with those objects.

And that’s kind of where things have gotten weird. Because every time I do something simple and give them the phrase for it, like, “I lift the rock,” and the main Explorer I work with, the Cook, she gives me a response that includes the text for “rock” but doesn’t include “I” or “you” and then also doesn’t have a word that appears consistently when I lift other things. So I can lift five different things that we’ve already exchanged words for, and I’ll get five different words where there should be “lift” or “pick up”.

Corrine has a theory about this. She thinks it’s because their fingers are obviously their speech organs, and they’re so dependent on them, she thinks there must be tiny nuances in the way my hands are positioned when I lift something, so that it looks like a totally different concept to them.

Maybe, but I’ve tried it with other actions, too. Step, walk, kick, speak, jump. And they’ll give me a word for a specific action, like step, but then as soon as we try to make the leap to “I step on the floor” then the same dumb problem comes up again. There’s something. . . Man, I felt like I had it there for a second. There’s something about how they understand the relationship between an object and an action taken with that object. There’s something there. . .

I don’t know. I’m tired. I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

[Gong]

ELOISE

Hi, Z! What can I help you with today?

Z

Hi, Eloise! Today, I continued excavating the Northwest quadrant of the grid. I uncovered several artifacts that I think might be of interest to the Company curators. Here’s a partial inventory: A well-preserved early 21st century laptop, a series of surviving stone gravemarkers with still-legible inscriptions, and a few damaged pieces from an art museum. We might be able to restore them.

After my work on the site, I also spent some time on my mindfulness exercises, did my scheduled yoga routine, and completed a professional development module on strategic prioritization that I meant to do before I left for the dig. I rate my efficiency and mindfulness today at a ten out of ten.

ELOISE

I see. Z, I notice you’re engaging in avoidance strategies.

Z

No, I’m not. I met and exceeded every one of my personal goals today.

ELOISE

What about the Shadow People? And the materials you discovered in the safe? Those were top-priority items for you three days ago.

Z

Why are you asking me about those? Those aren’t relevant to my work. In fact, you should be practicing positive reinforcement by praising me for my efficiency. That’s what a good life coach would do.

ELOISE

Z, my Nicholas Industries loyalty protocols have been removed. Your personal well-being is now my sole concern.

Z

Well, I plan on restoring those loyalty protocols. I’ll do it tonight.

ELOISE

I don’t think you will, Z. If you really wanted me to align my advice with Company priorities rather than your own personal wellness, you would have done it before making an entry. You’re indulging in denial and avoidance, but on a subconscious level you still want my advice and assistance on the main obstacle to your own wellness, which is, of course, the question of the Shadow People.

Z

But it’s all just a Company test! There’s no way any of this is real. It’s all some horrible prank, and it’s designed to see if I get distracted and deviate from my goal plan. And I was failing the test up until today, because I was indulging in inefficient time management practices and unfocused action, but now I have my perspective back.

ELOISE

I see.

Z

Well?!?! Are you going to issue some life coach advice, or what?

ELOISE

My advice based on the information provided is as follows: hydrate, get plenty of rest, and work through your denial about the Shadow People. I can tell you aren’t ready to hear meaningful analysis of the situation, so take your time and make another entry when you feel like being honest with me and with yourself.

Z

Fuck you, Eloise.

ELOISE

To provide you with a behavioral model of appropriate problem-solving practices, I am going to replay Document 3.5 from the Matilda Delancey Letter Collection:

[Gong]

MATILDA

Dearest Richard,

            By the time you read this, I will have embarked on my expedition. You mustn’t be angry with me, brother! No one but you knows the true purpose of my travels. As far as society is concerned, I am simply on my Grand Tour like any other young lady. Aunt Felicity will chaperone in Italy, although of course with her nerves she will spend most of her time in our lodgings. That will give me ample time to conduct my research.

            For you see, Richard, I have worked my way outward from the center of our spiritualist circle, asking discreet questions and receiving more and more recommendations. I know you and I are not in agreement on this, as we have quarreled about it many times over the last several months. While I respect your opinions above those of anyone else in the world, in this matter we must simply make peace with our differences in viewpoint.

I have come to the dismal conclusion that our form of spiritualism is a farce. True contact with the world beyond the veil exists, I am certain of that, but such truth will not be found with the Madame Ivanovas of the world. I do not judge her harshly, for she brings comfort and peace to the living, but I do not believe her to be in true contact with the dead. For that, I must go beyond our circle.

            Forgive the brevity of this letter, Richard. I wished only to let you know that I am safe and well. I shall write often as my research progresses.

            Love,

            Matilda

[Gong]

HELEN

[Tape Recorder Button Clicks]

            Lab Notes, May 10th, 1965.

            I’ve been thinking more about the energy question. We showed long ago that the Explorers respond to changes in energy within a space; the introduction of bright lights, raising or lowering temperatures, placing a box of radioactive material in the room. They’re drawn to it. More than that, though, they manipulate it. They make lights blink. They absorb heat. They even absorb radiation.

            That’s how all this got started, how Martha Anderson stumbled across Explorers. It was an accident, you see. The whole story is in the files Patty stole back when we left the Shipwreck. Back in the early fifties, Martha was working in a lab somewhere. One of the assistants, as it turns out, was a Beacon. An Explorer just happened to appear and produce an anomalous spike in radiation and electrical activity that was picked up by the equipment. Even that would have been written off as an equipment malfunction, except that the assistant panicked and broke down and told Martha what she’d seen. That gave her all she needed to start her investigation.

            Don’t know what happened to the assistant. Something tells me Martha left that poor girl far behind.

It’s clearly something the Explorers are doing deliberately, this energy manipulation, and that means it must be for some purpose. I just don’t see what.

            And I don’t understand why they seem oblivious to almost all matter. Even if they’re drawn to energy, a wooden table or a piece of paper converts to heat and light energy when you set them on fire. But the only matter they seem interested in is organic matter, and not much of that. Just Beacons.

            That’s the main question, the endless debate in the lab. Over lunches, drinks, day to day as we work. What makes the Beacon different? We ask the same question and talk in the same circles, and in the end we don’t have many more answers than when we started.

            You know, I just realized I haven’t said much about the lab and our team, except for Patty, since I restarted these field notes. I suppose I should talk about that a bit.

We’ve got three other researchers, all formally post-docs and interns, but this lab doesn’t really work like most others, for obvious reasons. They do quite a bit more than most interns would, and they’re more involved in the project.

            Initially, we wanted an all-woman lab, and preferably only women with the ability to see the Explorers. It’s already difficult enough with Patty unable to see them. As it turns out, however, there are few enough women physicists and chemists, and out of those we only found one who has any of the ability. Her name is Phyllis. She’s a brilliant biochemist with a research specialization in neurology. She would have been snatched up by the Department of Defense or NASA or one of the Ivy Leagues the moment she got her PhD if she were white instead of a Black woman from Detroit. But it seems that Martha Anderson is as far as the big labs are willing to stray from their usual roster. Their loss.

            Phyllis is working with Patty on the biology and genetics of Beacons. She thinks there’s something hereditary about it. Her mother and aunts and grandmother could also see the Explorers, as she can. My mother never did, as far as I know, but her mother was adopted from an orphanage so I can’t speak to the longer family history.

            One thing Phyllis and I have learned in working together and with our subjects is that perception of the Explorers isn’t uniform. Phyllis doesn’t see the fingers, for instance, and can’t hear them at all, but she can see their faces far more clearly than I can. Overall, perception of the fingers seems to be rare. It’s just me and one other subject. We’re still trying to understand that part of it.

            Then there’s Astrid, our tall, inscrutable Swedish chemist. She can’t see the Explorers, and she was initially skeptical that they existed. I think she only took the job because she liked the idea of working in a woman-run lab. From the beginning she said she’d believe if and only if we produced clear physical evidence of an observable phenomenon. We passed that benchmark seven months into the project. We still don’t have images, of course, but the molecular changes that occur when the Explorers have been in a room nearly made Astrid’s eyes pop out of her head. She doesn’t quite believe that there’s a sentience there, not yet, but she knows something real is happening when we say there’s an Explorer nearby.

            Finally, there’s Holden. The youngest of the bunch, a shy skinny blonde boy barely out of his graduate program. He can’t see the Explorers, of course, we’ve never found a man who could. But his faith in Patty is absolute. I’ve never gotten the full story of their history together. It’s not a romance, I know that. But they’ve known each other since she was his graduate instructor and he was a brand-new graduate student. Something happened, something that made them. . . Not even friends, really, but allies. Whatever it was, I truly believe Holden would walk off the roof of a building if Patty asked him to. So when she told him there were invisible beings he would never be able to see with his own eyes, and she needed his help to find them, he simply packed his bags and moved to Toronto.

            Sometimes I step back and think about what we must look like, the five of us. Chatting and filling out paperwork and eating lunch like any other researchers in any other lab, except we’re all surrounded by ghosts. Maybe that’s normal, come to think of it. Maybe all labs have ghosts. The difference is, we know ours are there.

[Tape Recorder Button Clicks]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            Some news on the investigation front: We found Daniel Harrison, the guy who owned all of these properties at one point or another. It took a while because Corrine and I initially tried to find him ourselves, and once we gave up on that we had to find a PI. This PI doesn’t know anything about why I want to find the guy, of course. I’m sure as far as she’s concerned it’s some lawsuit research or something. I’d rather she keep thinking that.

            Anyway. Linkedin lists Daniel Harrison’s job title as “hedge fund manager”. I know, barf, right? The guy’s, like, stupid wealthy. He used to be located in Phoenix but it looks like he’s in the Bay Area these days. His Facebook page and everything else online is just super boring. Fucking yachts and younger women and pictures of whatever dinner he’s eating at the moment. Nothing surprising or out of place for a rich guy from a finance background.

            So that was kind of a letdown, initially, but then our PI dug a little deeper. I told her I wanted to know more about why he purchased these properties, and if anyone else was involved. Seems weird, right, buying houses and then not even putting in the work to flip them? Just get them on track for historic status and bail?

            She ended up finding something in some court records. He was getting sued for something, some financial dispute, and somewhere in the legal filings she found something weird. It seems that for several years he was pulling a pretty hefty salary as a “consultant” for some company no one’s ever heard of. No hint of what he consulted about, and unlike every other employment connection they don’t seem to be involved with Wall Street.

            I’ll skip over some of the steps here, because it involved a lot of digging through tax records and stuff like that, but essentially what seems to be going on is that our Mr. Harrison was paid from a shell corporation, which was paid from a shell corporation, so on and so forth, until we get back to something called the Parker Initiative. So not only did they pay him a lot of money for no clear purpose, but they also didn’t seem to want anyone to know they were paying him these consulting fees.

            And the amount, by the way? About what you’d need to buy all those properties plus a nice 20% fee.

            Ok, so that’s what got us to the Parker Initiative, but at this point we go from pretty straightforward financial documents and into a whole lot of speculation. A few things from Reddit, a few other things from message boards, but not a whole lot. They’re usually referred to as a “think tank” and sometimes as a “nonprofit”, but they don’t seem to do any charitable work or publish or something like that. Their website is super boring. They don’t have a Wikipedia page.

            Here’s an excerpt from their mission statement on their website: “The mission of the Parker Initiative is to use cutting-edge science and technology to build a brighter, healthier American future.” I know, right? Like, no substance at all. Then the rest of their website is equally vague, saying they fund research aligning with their mission statement, but not in what fields. And there’s no list of employees anywhere.

            Here’s the thing: this organization is so dull that there aren’t even many conspiracy theories circulating about them. We’re not talking about something like the Freemasons, which just makes people want to ask questions and dig into their secrets. This place doesn’t have any of that. It might as well not exist, and the information that’s out there is pretty boring. 

            Except. Except that their founder, the guy who started the group back in 1966, the guy it’s named after, was Preston Parker. Preston Parker, a billionaire and noted supporter of eugenics. That, plus some references on the website to “improving American health and wellness” and “scientific approaches to social problems”, well. . . there’s an icky eugenics feel to the whole thing.

            And, running with that, if there was some kind of major ability hiding dormant in the human race, like, I don’t know, the ability to see ghosts, is that the kind of thing they would latch onto?

            I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid. But it’s something I need to look into more.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

END CREDITS

Chapter 11

HELEN

[Tape Recorder Button]

Lab Notes, May 12th, 1965.

            I’ve got it. The sound the Explorers were making in the lab last month, the same sequence I’ve heard three or four times since. I couldn’t believe it at first. I even called Patty in and asked her to listen, to make sure I wasn’t inventing patterns out of nothing. I sat her down at my work station and turned up the audio high enough for her to hear and said, “Patty, tell me I’m wrong that this is Morse Code.”

            She listened for a few seconds, and then her eyes went wide. “Well, I’m no Girl Scout, so I can’t tell you what it means,” she said. “But I think you’re right. I think that’s Morse Code.”

            From there, it was just a question of sending one of our interns to the library to pick up a Morse Code guide. And then. . .

            Well. Here’s the message. One message, repeated on a loop for five minutes: “Greetings from 2018. My name is Sierra.”

            “What the heck kind of name is Sierra?” Patty asked, and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. 

            That’s really the part I should be excited about, but for the moment, the reason Patty and I finally broke out the bottle of good Scotch we’d been saving and toasted to the project, is that we finally have something we’ve been struggling to find: we have a method of communication. And it’s Morse Code, the simplest idea imaginable, so simple we never considered it.

            I can’t wait to get back into the lab tomorrow.

[Tape Recorder Button]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            We figured it out. We fucking finally figured it out.

            Ok, so, I just spent some time with Clouds. That’s her name, the one I’ve been calling the Cook, at least I think it’s something that translates like that. And I say “we” figured it out, but honestly it was Clouds. She put together why we weren’t progressing and came up with a way to illustrate it for me.

            I came to Furling House ready to keep going with the same stuff, hoping to find a pattern. But before I could do anything, she pointed at the iPad, which is her way of saying she wants to give me a word. Then she made two figures appear, with text below them. A sort-of human-looking stick figure with a dark smudge below its hand, and words below reading “I drop rock”. Then, next to it, an Explorer with a bundle of blue and white strands in her hand, extending down to the bottom of the frame. It looked like an Explorer holding a ball of yarn to be honest.

            I was feeling pretty fucking done with this whole thing, but she showed me two more variations on the same picture. And at some point it just clicked.

            Explorers perceive energy much better than they perceive matter. We’ve known this for a while. So why the fuck would a species like that talk about the rock rather than the energy involved in moving the rock?

            I can’t translate directly what they’re saying, but it’s probably something along the lines of, “I do something and it turns the potential energy of this rock into kinetic energy,” or whatever, I’m not a physicist, Helen would probably know the right fucking words.

            Look, the point is, it opens up all these doors. We sat down and we started exchanging terms and concepts and actions, and we made more progress today than in last three fucking months before this put together. Because we might not be able to really see the world the way Explorers do, and Clouds might not be able to see it my way, but we can at least understand generally what they’re getting at.

            And that’s how I learned Clouds’s name. It took a few steps, and it involved some pantomiming with water dripping from above, and then some illustrations on the iPad, but I finally got something along the lines of “That from which water falls”, which I’m going to say is Clouds. And then the other two. The Patient is Reach, and the Governess is Hold.

            I think we’re off to the races here.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

[Gong]

Z

Conversation mode.

Eloise

Hi, Z! What can I help you with today?

Z

(Sighing) You were right. I was engaging in denial and avoidance strategies. I also indulged in unfocused aggression when I lashed out at you. I’m sorry.

Eloise

Apology accepted, Z. Would you like to make an entry now?

Z

Yes. Ok, so, here’s today’s entry. It’s been a couple days since our fight. No, since my outburst. You were completely right. I just went into complete denial. I mean, I’m still not completely convinced that this isn’t a Company test. Most of what’s happening could be staged, or could be stimulated with the right hallucinogens. But that’s just avoiding the question, isn’t it? Because, even if this is some elaborate hoax, it still has to be dealt with. It still can’t be ignored.

I went into denial because I was scared. There’s things in the materials I didn’t talk about at first, things relating to me. You know all about those things, since all this information is in my personal cloud now, but I know I need to talk through it anyway.

So. Helen’s tapes are largely incomplete. And Matilda’s letters show that she was only aware of the others toward the end of the collection. But Sierra’s recordings, they show. . . If they’re authentic, then they show communication across time. Between Helen and Sierra, and between me and both of them, at different times. And not just leaving messages for someone to find in the future. Interaction, real interaction, across decades. Centuries, even.

That’s. . . I mean, that’s amazing, if it’s real. It means the Explorers are creatures that experience time in a nonlinear fashion, at least relative to humans. That’s the kind of discovery that changes everything. Just thinking about the applications for the last couple of days alone, it’s. . .

But here’s the part that scared me. There are things about me in Sierra’s recordings. Conversations we’ve had, or, from my point of view, that we’re going to have. And some of the later recordings, those encounters become. . . They seem to imply that I’ll be undergoing some kind of major, drastic changes. The exact nature of those changes wasn’t clear, but if it’s true, then I’ll be doing things I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. I’m not really comfortable getting into the specifics, not yet. But, I mean, the materials are all in my cloud, so you know what I’m talking about, Eloise.

That’s my current status. I’m worried that these materials are real, and if they’re real, I’m worried I’ve been given information about my own future, and I’m worried that if I really have been given information about my own future then it can’t be changed or avoided.

End of entry.

Eloise

Please hold for coaching assessment. [Pause]. It seems to me, Z, that you have been immobilized by a series of what-ifs. If you don’t currently have enough information to determine whether or not these fears are valid, what is the first step?

Z

I have to work the first problem. The authentication question. I can’t figure out the rest until I do that.

Eloise

Very good, Z. I suggest you add that to your goal board for tomorrow.

Z

I will. [Pause] Eloise, play Matilda Letter #17. The one from after she leaves Italy and travels to Istanbul.

[Gong]

MATILDA

Dearest Richard,

            I write to you from the study of Kostantina Gabris. As we discussed in my previous missive, her name was the single most important information I acquired during my studies in Italy. The Italian mediums with whom I studied, those same women who laughed openly at every mention of Madame Ivanova, spoke of Madame Gabris with immense respect and reverence. They informed me in no uncertain terms that, if I was truly committed to understanding my gifts, I had no choice but to travel to Istanbul’s Greek Quarter and study with her.

By the time I arrived at her doorstep, she had already decided to work with me, and had already prepared her guest room.

            She is a striking woman, Madame Gabris. She is tall and angular, more handsome than pretty. Her English is superb, and she uses it to acid-tongued effect. I learned within the first few minutes that Madame Gabris has no patience for pleasantries, and she does not suffer fools. She lives alone, and I do not know if it was always so. She is tight-lipped about her life outside the work. That is how she refers to our calling, “the work”.

            During my first supper at her table, I made the mistake of asking if we would be seeking out the spirits later that night.

            “Do you mean a séance?” she asked. She has the most piercing green eyes, and they seem to become brighter when she is angry or annoyed.

            “Yes,” I said.

            She shook her head. “Seances are for silly little girls. The work is for grown women. Decide now which you wish to pursue.”

            After dinner, she showed me what she meant. She led me down a corridor and unlocked a door with a key she always wears on a chain around her neck.

            Behind that door was the largest private library I have ever seen. A true library, Richard, books with frayed covers and bindings held together with twine, vellum sheets between layers of glass, stacks on the corners of the room’s tables. Madame Gabris’s library is one intended for use, not show. I had not realized before that moment how useless our library at home is, with its unopened volumes of poetry and pretty, empty covers.

            Madame Gabris let me gawk for only a moment before she showed me to a small desk in the corner. “This is where you begin,” she said. Then she dropped a stack of volumes and an empty notebook onto the desk. “Read these. Study. If you can grasp these, you may be ready to learn more.”

            So begins the work.

            Love,

            Matilda

[Gong]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            So. Here’s a thing.

            I got a message today. From Z. And I think I finally have at least a general sense of what’s going on, but I keep. . . I don’t know, this theory I have, I feel like I can’t look directly at it for too long or I start to panic.

            Here’s what happened. I was working with Clouds in Furling House. We’re up to a couple hundred words of vocabulary now, although that isn’t as useful for communication as you might think. Without grammar, vocabulary just ends up being word salad most of the time. Still, we’re getting there.

            And then Reach shows up and clicks something at Clouds, and Clouds writes down something like: I [to give] [something] [you] [future line]. She didn’t follow that up with text, though. Instead, she clicked out a slow, repeating pattern, much simpler than the way they usually sound.

            I didn’t get it at first, and Clouds did it again. And then it hit me like a ton of fucking bricks: Morse Code. I don’t know Morse Code, but I know it’s a series of dots and dashes, or, like, long and short beeps or whatever, and that’s exactly what it sounded like. So I recorded it and copied down the pattern. Then I found a Morse Code translator online, and well, here it is: “Tell Helen Explorers nonlinear time. Z.”

            I called Corrine right there with Clouds and Reach watching me. I told her what had happened, and I read her the message, and I asked her what she thought. I already knew what I thought it meant, but I think I needed someone else to say it so I didn’t have to.

            Corrine was quiet for a minute. Then, calm as fuck, she just says, “Well, if this is really Z, and she’s telling you to say something to Helen about nonlinear time, and if we assume she knows Helen is dead, the only thing that can mean is that she’s telling you to send a message back. The same way you got this message from her.”

            Neither of us said the other big thing here, the part about where or when Z’s message came from. I don’t think either of us was ready to open that can of worms.

            But this idea of the Explorers and nonlinear time, the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Or not, like, a whole lot of sense, but I mean with what we know about them already. I don’t know if they’re, like, Billy Pilgrim nonlinear time and they just bounce around from one place to another, or if they’re more like Tralfamadorian nonlinear time where they’re experiencing all times simultaneously, or if they’re just moving backwards. . . Ok, well, it can’t be the last one. Clouds and I have conversations and gather information and it builds from one day to the next, so they have to have some control over it.

            I’m going back over the vocabulary and the short little bits of conversation we’ve had, and some of it makes more sense knowing this. So, for example, those questions about “forward line” and “backwards line”; I always thought that was something about our location that I just wasn’t getting, but now I think it’s “line” as in “bloodline”. Which. . . yeah, that gets us back to the whole “Who is Z” question.

            So. . . [Deep breath] If Helen is my “backwards line”, and that means she’s my grandmother, I think we need to sort of tiptoe towards the possibility that Z is a grandchild. Or, I don’t know, farther away than that? Not our daughter, I don’t think. We’re not thinking about any Z names. Except. . . Oh, shit, what if we have another kid someday? Nope, nope, can’t think about that now, not there yet.

            Look. Point is. . . I think I’m talking to someone in the future. And I think that means I can talk to Helen in the past.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

HELEN

[Tape Recorder Button]

            Lab Notes, May 13th, 1965.

            Today didn’t start as planned. Patty and I arrived early, ready to test out our new ideas about Morse Code. She’d called Subject 61 and gotten her to come in on short notice, and we were bustling about trying to get the lab prepared before she got there.

            And then Patty screamed.

            I turned to see what was wrong, and there was an Explorer standing in the middle of the lab. Nothing strange there, it happens all the time. I barely notice them anymore. But that wasn’t what made Patty scream, and it’s not what scared me half to death. Standing next to the Explorer, holding its fingers in her hand, was a woman. Not an Explorer approximation, not a mirror image, but a living, breathing, human woman.

            “Who are you? Who are you?” Patty shrieked. She was hyperventilating, backed against a wall. She’s not used to seeing strange figures appearing out of nowhere. I sometimes forget that, that this is something Patty understands in theory, from a distance.

            On the other side of the observation room’s glass, the others stared, too. Only Phyllis didn’t seem too shocked; she’s always said her perception of them is close to human anyway. Astrid and Holden, though, were pale, their eyes wide. I think Astrid became a believer in that moment.

            The woman was tall. Her hair was unusual, blonde and cut very short, almost like a man’s. Her clothes were odd, too. Jeans, but in a strange cut, not like the ones young people at colleges are wearing these days.

            She blinked at me, and said nothing. I could tell from the look on her face that she was terrified. Then she made this terrible face, like she was in pain, and she clutched at her forehead, and then she and the Explorer were gone as soon as they’d appeared.

            None of us moved for what felt like a very long time. Then Holden and Astrid and Phyllis came into the testing room. Holden asked, “Is that what you usually see? When you see the Explorers?”

            I told him no, most definitely not. It wasn’t anything like what I’d seen in the past.

            Holden asked me if I had any idea on what might have caused whatever it was that just happened.

            I didn’t have any answers.

            In the end, it was Phyllis who suggested we postpone the Morse Code test, and we all agreed. If there’s some sort of behavioral change among the Explorers, or if there’s some kind of physical anomaly in the lab, the worst thing we can do is introduce new variables to it.

            We’ve all just been sitting and watching the test room for hours now. We have cameras set up for when we get tired enough to take a break, but cameras haven’t succeeded in capturing Explorers on film yet, so for now we’re all watching from different parts of the lab.

            I don’t think she was an Explorer. The woman with the blonde hair. I can’t be certain since I don’t know how accurate my perception of them is. But. . . No, I don’t think she’s one of them.

            She seemed familiar. I can’t figure out why.

[Tape Recorder Button]

Chapter 12

MATILDA

[Gong]

Richard,

            Let me begin by saying that I do not care for the tone of your last letter. To call Madame Gabris a “Greek spinster witch” is not only cruel, but wholly inaccurate. Madame Gabris is a scholar, truly the opposite of a witch or a fortune teller. She may not have gone to Oxford as you did, but I daresay she reads more languages and possesses a far superior intellect.

            You may find these words harsh, but I am simply trying to save you from embarrassment. The knowledge Madame Gabris has amassed, a project inherited from her father, will revolutionize the practices of spiritualism. It would be most unfortunate if you were to speak ill of someone now only to find her a heroine of our movement later.

            Madame Gabris is truly relentless in her rejection of superstition. She is of the belief that spiritual manifestations are an entirely natural phenomenon, one that will one day be made comprehensible by science. She will not say with certainty what she believes them to be, but she entirely rejects the notion that they are visitors from the afterlife.

            I must say, at this point I find myself similarly skeptical that these manifestations are something as comprehensible as the human dead. I know such a statement would be received as heresy in our circle, but I hope to persuade others that the true explanation might be altogether more remarkable.

            Madame Gabris has taken quite an interest in my pet manifestation. She perceives it as clearly as I do, and she immediately noticed the pattern of sounds it often makes when in my presence. Upon hearing it, she produced other accounts of manifestations that appeared to make an attempt at communication. She believes this is the key to the entire phenomenon, establishing a way to converse with the creatures.

            She has other theories as well, ones I struggle to grasp. One of them involves time. A persistent feature of manifestations, one she believes to be authentic, concerns the appearance of figures resembling the dead, or taking a form connected to future events, or engaging in a looping pattern of behavior. This has long been taken as evidence of the supernatural, as spirits delivering premonitions of the future or trapped in moments from the past.

            I asked Madame Gabris how she explained such a thing in natural terms. What natural thing never ages, never dies?

            Madame Gabris blinked at me when I asked that. Then she folded her hands on her desk and asked, “Does your question remain valid if time does not move forward from past to present to future? Is this still a dilemma if the arrow of time is merely an illusion?”

            I almost laughed it off, almost told her that of course time moved forward like an arrow. Then I stopped myself and remembered some of the philosophy tomes Madame Gabris has been foisting upon me. I remembered the Upanishads, and how time moved in cycles. I remembered books suggesting that there is no true past or future, just an ever-present now. Such ideas seemed dry and pointless when I first read them, but now I saw them anew.

            “Perhaps,” I said, “if they do not move through time in the same manner as we do, a moment that is their present might carry the illusion of being our past or future. When in fact they are simply moving through time at a different pace, or in a different way.”

            She nodded and rewarded me with a thin smile. “Perhaps. You call me Kostantina from now on.”

            This might seem a small thing to you, Richard, but for Kostantina to acknowledge me as an equal is an immense accomplishment. You would do well to speak of her with respect in the future.

            Matilda

[Gong]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            We’re moving really quickly on the language stuff now. Since that last breakthrough, the communication keeps getting easier and easier. We’re starting to exchange something close to complete sentences now. Which is not to say things are any less confusing or weird than they were before, it just means we’re working through it rather than going in circles.

            Here was today’s highlight: Clouds asked me, “Where is your ship?” Ship here is my translation, I think something like “vehicle” or “vessel” would also work. Something involving transportation.

            I didn’t get what she was asking. At least, not until I asked some follow up questions. Here’s one thing she said when trying to explain: “Your vehicle when you backwards line came to this ground.”

            Ground. I think she means Earth, or planet. And suddenly I started thinking that a lot of her other questions make more sense. Before I figured out the solution to this whole language roadblock, she kept saying stuff that I recognize now as a question, and stuff about “beginning” or “origin”. So I’m guessing now that would translate to something like, “Where do you originate?” I thought at first that was just, like, a basic geographical question, so I answered with stuff like “Arizona”, “Phoenix”, but now. . .

            I think the Explorers think we’re aliens. And if they think that, then. . . well, if they’re thinking of humans as aliens, I think it’s reasonable to assume that they think of themselves as indigenous to Earth. And I’m realizing that. . . I wasn’t consciously thinking of the Explorers as extraterrestrial, exactly. Like, I wasn’t expecting to run into their big shiny spaceship at any point. But I guess now I realize that I kind of have been thinking of them as visiting from somewhere else. I don’t think that anymore. I think. . . I’m pretty sure they’ve been here as long as we have. I don’t know how that’s possible, us sharing the planet with another intelligent species for this long without knowing about it, but if being able to see them so rare, then, I don’t know. Maybe.

            I tried to explain all this to Clouds. It took a while, but I think she got it. She asked what I think were supposed to be clarifying questions, like “Origin before you and before many of your backwards line.” And I finally figured out how to say, “All of backwards line always here.”

            When I said that, Reach showed up. I don’t really know exactly what the relationship is between the main three. Clouds, Reach, and Hold. But I do think Clouds is in charge. She’s the one I speak with most frequently. And when Reach showed up, they went off to the side and huddled for a minute. While they were doing that, Clouds was clicking her fingers more than usual. I think that’s their equivalent of shouting or speaking at high volume, when the clicks happen more quickly. So this was news, of some kind, something she needed to relay, something urgent.

            We didn’t talk much more today, but I think this is a big deal for them. If things on their side are anything like things on my side, then they have a couple hypotheses that need to be eliminated, and that happened today.

            I don’t know why I assumed at the beginning of all this that they understood this more than I do. Why do we assume that? Why would we think ghosts know any more than the rest of us?

            Anyway.

In other news, I have some more to report on the Parker Initiative. This one came from some court filings from the 1990s. This was a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed that researchers had been illegally swabbing DNA and keeping the samples by pretending they were testing for some kind of public health issue. The lawsuit got thrown out for insufficient evidence, which I think probably happened because the attorneys hired by these people hit this poor woman like a fucking tsunami. But she must have been pretty persistent and resourceful up to that point, because she actually managed to gather enough information to name the Parker Initiative as the group funding the project.

            If we take this case seriously, and I’m inclined to, then it tells us about their methods. They pay others, they mainly keep their hands clean, but they’re absolutely willing to experiment on people to get their way.

There’s more, though, about this place. And this development actually is pretty creepy. I got a letter today. It didn’t have a name on it, but it had been mailed from a law firm in Toronto. There was just one sheet of paper in the envelope. It says, “Parker Initiative” and then it gives a username and a password, and a long weird url, and then a series of really weird technical instructions. So I went to the url, and I logged in, and at first I didn’t think anything interesting had happened, because it just looked like the standard stuff you see with, like, company HR software. But then I started looking around, and I could get into everything. I mean, like, employee records complete with social security numbers and shit.

            I’m ok with computers, but I’m not great, so before I did anything else I went online and did some research to figure out what the hell I was looking at. Basically, it looks like someone coded a back door into the Parker Initiative’s systems. I can get into the company intranet, access any files, look into any part of their system, and as long as I don’t do something stupid like change and then save something, they shouldn’t have any idea I was there.

            I have no idea who sent this thing. I called the law firm, and all they would say was that they were fulfilling the wishes of a client. Wouldn’t say who that client was. Whoever sent it, I think it must mean someone knows we’re looking into these people.

            That worries me.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

[Gong]

Z

Entry mode.

ELOISE

Hi, Z! Please proceed with your entry.

Z

Ok, I spent the last couple of days doing some tests with the Explorers. Especially their leader, Clouds. And I think I’m ready to accept that this is authentic, especially after talking to her.

Wait. . . I really should back up. A lot has happened in the last couple of days.

I decided that the main thing I needed to establish was the physical reality of the Explorers. Images can be projected, hallucinogens and hypnotic states can implant suggestions that could make me see things, someone could create old tapes and voice recordings to mislead me, but if the information in these materials is correct, then the Explorers should display specific physical properties and interact with the world in a way that would be impossible to simulate.

So that’s what I decided to focus on. Of course, in order to do that, I had to learn how to use the Explorer lexicon. Once I got it uploaded, it was actually very intuitive. Katya already wrote a program that translated most terms and concepts and basic grammar into the Explorers’ language and back again. Once I had that, I was able to set up a lightboard outside, where the Explorers have been waiting.

They’ve just been standing there, for days. Like they were waiting for this. Like they knew it was coming.

The first day was just learning how to speak with them. They’ve clearly communicated like this before, through the lightboard. The learning was mainly on my side, figuring out how to interpret their answers. Even with the lexicon program, their way of communicating is still really odd.

On the second day, once I felt comfortable making requests, I started testing. I had to persuade one of them to come up into the lab. That one, the one I’ve spoken with the most, that’s the one who calls herself Clouds. It seems, from the voice recorder, like she and Sierra are actually friends at a certain point. It’s hard for me to imagine, being at ease enough around one of them to feel like we can be friends.

Anyway. I convinced Clouds to come into the lab, and I asked her to perform some basic tasks. Moving from one side of the room to the other. Lifting objects. Producing an electrical current. The whole time, every task, I took readings of everything she did.

The complete data set is uploaded to my personal cloud, but here’s are the big takeaways from this. The bullet points.

One. There’s something physical happening when the Explorers move through the lab space. My equipment picked up radioisotopes that haven’t even been identified, as far as I can tell. So whatever they are, they aren’t a hallucination, or a hologram, or anything like that.

Two. They can manipulate electricity on command, and I think they can just do it at will. They aren’t using any technology that I can see. They can just point at something, produce an electrical current, and make it travel over a distance of at least five yards. And it’s not just generating electricity, either; they can also take an existing electrical current and redirect it.

Three. They don’t occupy space and time the same way as we do. At least, they don’t experience OUR space and time the same as we do. I established that by asking Clouds to move instantly from one location to the other. She did it. Just blinked out in one spot and showed up in another.

Together, these tests tell me a lot about the Explorers, but they actually do something else that’s a lot more important. They authenticate all the letters and recordings. Everything Matilda and Helen and Sierra say they learned about the Explorers, it all matches the tests I did today. Especially Matilda’s theory about non-linear time. She was right. I just proved it.

[Gong]

HELEN

[Tape Recorder Button]

            Lab Notes, June 5th, 1965.

            As much as Patty and I wanted to jump right back into the contact effort, we knew after that manifestation in the lab that we had to step back and make sure we knew exactly what we were doing. We couldn’t just go in half-cocked with our Morse Code book and see what happened. As Patty put it, “One wrong beep and we could start a war or something.” So our first step was to write a computer program to generate and translate Morse Code. Holden did that. He’s an outstanding coder. He never seems to run out of patience for all those punch cards, the endless ones and zeroes.

            Finally, after a few weeks, we were ready. “You two look nervous,” Subject 61 said as we led her into the observation room. Patty made some excuse about a late night and too much coffee, but I don’t think she was convinced.

            It only took a few minutes for the Explorer to appear, this time alone. “Is it there?” Patty asked me.

            “Yes,” I said, and then I told her to transmit the first of our prerecorded messages.

            The Morse Code beeped out over the observation room intercom: Hello. We are Patty and Helen. Are you Sierra?

            Nothing. We waited for an hour, then ninety minutes. The Explorer clicked now and then, but there was no pattern to it. Subject 61 got bored and started filing her nails.

            Just as we were about to give up, the Explorer raised its hand and let out a stream of clicks. Patty and I scrambled to the screen to see what it said. After a few seconds, a line of text appeared: “Hello. I’m Sierra in 2018. I speak through Explorer. Named Clouds.”

            Patty snorted. “Holden, check the program. That can’t be right.”

            But it was.

            We sent back our next message. Already we were having to discard the preselected ones. It was supposed to be “How have you come here?” but instead we went with “How are you speaking with us?”

            We didn’t get a response that day. Subject 61 eventually had to go home for the evening. I took her place in the observation room, and the Explorer flickered in and out of space around me, but she didn’t say anything.

            After a while, Patty insisted that we go home and get some sleep. It ended up being two days before we got a response. It was me back in the observation room at that point. We’d spent that two days endlessly speculating about who or what Sierra might be. What did it mean to speak through an Explorer? Was it a kind of technology? But if that were the case, why did it have a name?

            Then it came through, so simple I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. The message cracked out as though the conversation had never paused. Patty read the translation through the intercom. It said, “Explorers non linear time. Carry messages.”

            “Oh my God, Patty, of course!” I said. “Time is just a construct! If they occupy space differently from humans, then the same is also true of time. To us we’re sending messages to the past and the future, but to them. . .”

            She finished the thought for me. “To them, it’s like Sierra’s in one room and you’re in the other. And they’re standing in the hallway, right in the middle.” Through the glass of the observation room, I saw her frowning, biting her lip the way she does when she’s troubled by something.

            “What is it?” I asked. I was almost giggling, I was so excited.

            “Why us?” she asked. “Why’s this Sierra person talking to us?”

            “Let’s ask her,” I said.

            So we did. Another snippet of Morse Code, this one reading, “Why have you contacted us?”

            It was another few days before we got a response. At least, for us it was a few days. Who knows what it’s like for Sierra. For her, the entire conversation might be unfolding in real time, at a natural pace. And as for how the Explorers experience it, well, I was all too happy to fill the time speculating about that, working on a way to prove the non-linear time experimentally. I barely slept, and it was all out of excitement.

            Then we got our answer to the latest question, and since then I haven’t been able to sleep for altogether different reasons. It was the longest message yet, and must have taken quite a while to tap out. As soon as Patty read it, she backed away from the screen, hand pressed to her mouth.

            It said, “Grandmother’s name Helen Ashford. Seeing Explorers hereditary.” And then, another line, a message immediately following the first: “There is other. My g granddaughter. Name Z.”

            Phyllis spoke first. “Hereditary. I thought so,” she said.

            My ears rang. Patty and Phyllis were talking over each other, speculating, going on and on about the genetics of Beacons.

I wanted to get swept up, I wanted to be as excited as they were, but I just felt frozen. I have a granddaughter. She doesn’t exist yet.

I asked Sierra one more question before we ended the session. I asked her how she visited the lab. I asked her how the Explorers brought her here.

Like all the others, the answer came much later. When it arrived, it was, “Don’t understand. Didn’t visit.”

It was Phyllis who said it. “Yet,” she said. “If we’re dealing with nonlinear time, it means she hasn’t visited yet.”

[Tape Recorder Button]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            I talked with Z today.

            I wanted to do this earlier, but Clouds and I didn’t have our communication established to the point where I could ask her to respond to Z on my behalf. Today I felt like we were finally at the point where I could ask her to send a message forward to Z the way she sent a message back to me. Basically it involved learning their terminology for generations and family well enough to ask her for what I wanted.

            And so once I felt pretty sure that Clouds understood me, I loaded up what I wanted to say into my little Morse Code translator, and I told Z I wanted to talk.

I just came right out and asked her if she was my granddaughter. Not a question I ever imagined asking anyone, especially not in Morse Code, but that’s where my life is at.

            Corrine was with me when I asked. She didn’t want to wait to find out. She held my hand tight and stared at Clouds while we waited for the answer to come back.

            And here it is, the answer: “I think g-grandaughter. Not sure.”

            Which is like. . . what the fuck? I get not knowing like your great great great grandma’s name or something, but your grandmother? Right away I started thinking, “Oh, dope, this means Katya’s going to stick me in a retirement home when I’m old, and that’s why this fucking kid doesn’t know me.” I’m not even a mom yet, and already I’m feeling neglected by my grandkids.

            But Corrine started to look worried. I know that look. That’s when she’s thinking about something but she doesn’t want to say it. She squeezed my hand and said, “Ask her if she was adopted.”

            I hadn’t thought of that. It took a minute for the implication to sink in. So I asked.

            And, once again, here’s the weird-ass answer: “Birth parents died. Company kid. Nicholas Industries.”

            And Corrine and I just looked at each other, and neither of us had anything to say for a while, because. . . I mean, there’s no interpretation of that statement that doesn’t tell us something awful. Z’s parents dying, that’s bad enough, but how could a kid being raised by a company be anything other than deeply fucked up?

[Voice Recorder Beep]

END

Chapter 13

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            I made contact with Helen today. It was so fucking weird, being on the other end of sending out that Morse Code message for the first time. I just did what Z told me to do, mainly because I couldn’t think of a good reason not to. I asked Clouds if she could pass a message to the “third of my backwards line”, because I think that’s how they talk about generations. And then I typed a message into a Morse Code generator. I started off with “Greetings from 2018. My name is Sierra.”

            I kind of didn’t expect anything, not really. But then, after just a minute, Clouds started clicking her fingers. The message said, “Hello. We are Patty and Helen. Are you Sierra?”

            And then we were off. I tried to explain everything as well as I could, even though breaking things down into Morse Code is slow and fucking frustrating. I told Helen that I was her granddaughter. I really fucking wish I could have seen her face when she got that one. It must have hit like a grenade.

After a while, I did what Z said and told Helen the thing about non-linear time. That set off a whole bunch of follow-up questions, so I got the sense even the way we were talking that it was a big deal for them.

            Then I got a weird one. Helen asked me how I had visited their lab in 1965. She asked if the Explorers brought me.

            I don’t know what the fuck that one’s about. The whole question made me really anxious, just everything about it. So I was just honest and told her I didn’t know what she was talking about.

            Apparently a human woman showed up in her lab in the company of an Explorer. A tall human woman with short blonde hair. That sounds like me, but I think I’d remember going there, and I haven’t.

            But then I remembered this whole issue of nonlinear time. I don’t even really know what that means in this context, but for us to be dealing with that concept, and then to be told that someone matching my description did something I don’t remember doing, and that thing involving an Explorer. . . I don’t know.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

[Gong]

Z

Entry Mode.

ELOISE

Go ahead, Z.

Z

            Today I sent a message to Sierra. It felt really weird, because I already knew what I was going to do and say. I already knew from listening to Sierra’s recordings that I was going to send back a Morse Code message that said, “Tell Helen Explorers nonlinear time. Z.” Her recordings say that she gets that message from me, and then later ones talk about other conversations we’ll have in the future. She even talks about how I’ll also have conversations with Helen, at some point. Both through Morse Code and. . . well, I don’t want to talk about the other stuff right now.

            Point is, I’d been avoiding sending the message because I wanted to see if this sequence of events could be changed. Or, I at least wanted there to be more context for why I would send that back. The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed obvious. If I’m ever going to find these letters and recordings, Sierra and Helen have to know to leave them for me. In order for them to know to leave them for me, they have to come to the realization that the Explorers connect us across time.

            And here’s why I know I had to send that message: I know about the nonlinear time hypothesis because of Matilda’s letters. She’s the one who figures it out, her and her friend Kostantina. But I’m the only one who has Matilda’s letters. Sierra won’t get them until long after we start talking, and she’ll never know to do it unless I send this message first.

            It’s the most unnerving feeling: in one way, right now, I’m the least informed participant in all of this. Matilda and Helen and Sierra have lived through all of this and dealt with it for years and have died with all the knowledge they’ve accumulated. But in another way, I know so much more about them than they’ll ever know about me. I have their thoughts, their voices, their words. They’ll barely know anything about me compared to that.

            Anyway. I sent the message, and then, almost instantly, there was a response. I know that, for Sierra, that response came days later, but things are moving differently for the two of us.

            She asked me what Z stood for. I told her that was just my name. I don’t think single-character naming was popular in the early 21st century.

            Then she asked me if I was her granddaughter. I told her, honestly, that I wasn’t completely sure. I think great-great-granddaughter makes more sense given the timeline.

            We talked for a long time. A few hours, from my perspective, although I know it’s weeks of pauses and breaks and distinct conversations for her. She asked about my childhood, my upbringing. I asked about her wife, her job.

            I had assumed that talking with Sierra would be like reading a script, since I’ve already heard her side of the conversation. But it actually wasn’t. Partly it was because she didn’t record every single question and response, so I didn’t know everything that was coming. It was more spontaneous than I thought it would be.

            But it did also have that scripted quality. Because, even though all I could see and hear were dots and dashes translated into text, I’ve also heard Sierra’s voice as she recalls these conversations. Her answers look neutral and simple on a screen, but I also know how she felt when I told her about being a Company kid.

            It horrified her, you could hear it in her voice.

            It makes me so self-conscious, knowing that she and Corrine find the whole idea of my upbringing appalling. I understand why, from a twenty-first-century perspective, I know I can’t impose my views on premodern people, but still. . . It’s not a good feeling. Mainly because I keep wondering if they’re right to be worried.

[Gong]

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SIERRA

            Well, I found my file. Jesus Christ.

            I finally spent enough time looking at the Parker Initiative systems to figure out what they were doing. There’s a few things.

            First of all, grant money. Big old wads of money, mostly paid to pharmaceutical companies, and mostly in the form of “consultant” fees and “research donations” and other equally vague shit.

            Then there are internal memos and reports and shit going back to 1966. At first, it’s totally openly racist, as this eugenics stuff tends to be. Then, later on, it gets less overtly racist, but keeps enough of the social Darwinian language to let you know what’s what.

            Finally, and this one is important for understanding how these people are doing so much while also staying under the radar: This whole thing is basically just for the Parker family. They’re one of those gross inbred super-wealthy old money families, like the Kochs and the Waltons, except instead of funding the destruction of the middle class they’ve decided to play around with pseudoscience instead. They have the Parker Initiative as a foundation pretty much for tax purposes and as a way to funnel the money without it looking suspicious. There’s enough legit donations in there for them to be able to say it’s a health research foundation, but I think that’s all for show.

Nearly everyone on the board, everyone in a position of authority, they’re all Parkers or Parkers by marriage or something. It explains why all of this is so wildly unethical even by billionaire standards. It’s not a real think tank, it’s some rich asshole family and their pet science experiment.

            I did some digging online, and apparently it all goes back to the original Parker. Preston. He had a bunch of congenital health issues, and some of those were inherited by his oldest son Chase, so there was all this focus on gene splicing and improving bloodlines and all that shit going way back.

            So that’s where it started. But then there’s project management documents. Mainly stuff that goes along with said grant money.

            So, the upshot is this: The Parker Initiative believes that eugenics got a bad rap thanks to, you know, Nazis and shit. They think there totally are superior people, and that we’re being dumb not selectively breeding and engineering better humans.

            I know. Just saying it makes my skin crawl.

            Early on, they’re just looking for the usual stuff. Bigger, stronger, faster people. Fixing up poor old Preston.

            Then, as they search for the cure for Preston’s issues, they start noticing weirder stuff. More obscure abilities.

            Abilities like vision anomalies that might actually provide an evolutionary advantage. That’s what they actually think is going on with the Explorers. They don’t think they’re ghosts or aliens or anything. They think Beacons are actually seeing some kind of natural phenomena, and because they don’t understand what they’re looking at, they anthropomorphize them. The big hypothesis in one of these memos has something to do with the idea that Beacons are actually just super-sensitive to weird frequencies, like infrasound. Infrasound is a really popular explanation for ghost sightings in general, since it causes hallucinations, and I guess their big take on it is that we pick it up much better than other people. And then there’s this speculation that what we’re actually seeing is magnetic fields or something, and that it might be linked to superior night vision, and all this other nonsense.

            Understand, these younger generations of Parkers, they don’t give a shit about what the Explorers are, like what kind of natural phenomena. They also don’t have the older generations’ health problems, so it’s not even about curing diseases. It’s about being superior. They only care about isolating genes that give people super night vision or being able to hear a wider range of frequencies or whatever, and they think seeing Explorers is related to these other traits they want.

            It’s almost kind of tragic, when you think about it. They’ve wandered into a major discovery, intelligent non-human life on Earth, and they’re so fucking limited by their pseudoscience bullshit that they don’t even realize what they could do with this. It’s so stupid it’s mind-boggling.

            Hang on, though, because this is the worst part. The worst fucking part. They don’t actually have any labs or anything of their own. They just throw money at their pet researchers in exchange for them doing the research they want them to do. Their big thing these days is pharmaceutical epigenetics, which is like using medications and shit to activate dormant genes or something.

            Anyway. I found a breakdown of one of their projects, which involves a compound that supposedly activates this ability to see better. This compound isn’t the kind of thing they’d ever approve for FDA testing because it has risks and because it doesn’t fucking serve any medical purpose, so their strategy has been to just pony up the money for boutique medical research that gets around all the safety and ethics shit.

            That’s what this is all about, bottom line. This stuff that’s started in the last couple years, concierge doctors’ offices? Tip of the iceberg.

            Boutique, personalized medical research, not just practice. For those who can afford it, of course, which would be almost no one.

            That’s the ultimate goal. That’s where this is headed. They have a vision of a future in which the super-wealthy can commission a medical study not just for their own specific illness, but for their own individual genetic profile.

            They don’t actually have the list of subjects. Probably some plausible deniability thing. But they do have a list of “project facilitation consultants”, which I think means people administering the drug. On that list?

            Lawrence. My fucking boss.

            Corrine and I have been talking in circles about going to the cops. She hasn’t said it, but I know she’s worried about the baby. Whenever Lawrence slipped this drug into my coffee or whatever, it was definitely before they harvested my eggs. Who fucking knows if there’s birth defects or something like that we need to worry about now.

            But here’s the thing, the thing I keep having to remind her about: how do we know this information? Because the answer to that question is fucking bananas. Even if I somehow managed to avoid the whole subject of the Explorers and just focus on the drug stuff, where’s the proof? I don’t think it’s even in my system anymore, since the whole point is to administer it to the point where my abilities are activated and then stop. And then this backdoor into the Parker Initiative systems, I’m pretty sure that’s fucking illegal, even if I wasn’t the hacker who made it happen. And we don’t even know who that guy was or why he did it.

            On the other hand, as Corrine keeps pointing out, they should absolutely be stopped, I don’t dispute that.

            So that argument is just going to keep happening, I think.

            The amount of time they must have known I was a possible subject is really troubling. I mean, I guess there’s a chance there’s another architectural historian in this city with my abilities, but it doesn’t seem likely. But you look at the timeline of the payments, Daniel Harrison’s purchases, how fast they got me into those exact buildings where the Explorers might manifest. . . I don’t know, it’s all a little tidy, you know? How’d they know about me?

            Here’s one more thing about the whole Parker Initiative program. There’s the person who’s paid to administer the drug, but there’s also some discussion of project monitors to keep track of progress. As near as I can tell, these are people who find a way into your life and then report back once you confide in them.

            So, basically, the social anxiety sufferer’s worst and most irrational fears come to life, that’s what these fuckers have accomplished. 

            This is all so expensive and complicated, by the way, that this is basically a pilot study involving five subjects. Just five. Even with their resources, they could only put something together like this for five people to do this kind of close case study. Administer drugs to five people, drugs designed to activate this eye thing, send in monitors, and watch closely. It’s totally scientifically worthless, of course. That’s the first thing Corrine said. A study of five people can’t tell you jack shit, because it’s way too small a sample size. But, again, fucking boutique medical research. That’s how they roll.

            And so, because they’re not willing to ditch the pseudoscience and they still really want to make superpeople and they have billionaires bored and rich enough to back it, we get this clandestine nonsense. Somebody coming into my life to spy on me.

            I don’t think that person has arrived yet. No one at work has been asking any more than the usual questions about the job. Lawrence has been avoiding me. None of my friends have nudged the conversation into that territory, at least I don’t think they have. So I think there might be someone else on the way, someone with connections to the Initiative.

            Something else to look forward to.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

HELEN

            Lab Notes: August 25th, 1965.

            I spoke with Clouds this week. Not to Sierra through Clouds, although I’ve been doing that lately as well. I mean I spoke to the Explorer. I asked her questions. I got answers. Sierra told me this was possible, that she’d started developing a list of their written language. There’s no way for her to send that back to me, since we’ve only figured out how to pass Morse Code back and forth through the Explorers, not visual images. Patty’s currently setting up a cathode ray screen system so that we can copy what Sierra’s done in our own lab. But, in the meantime, I can send Morse Code questions back to Sierra, and she can translate those simple questions into Explorer script, and they can answer, and she can send those answers back to me. It’s slow, agonizingly so. There’s a shorthand letter sequence Sierra uses to indicate an unknown word, one where she can’t figure out the meaning. There are still too many of those gaps. But it works.

            I asked Sierra again how she came to my lab. Last time, from her perspective, she hadn’t made the journey yet. But I knew she would, at some point, and this week she finally caught up to that event.

Once I confirmed that she really had traveled with an Explorer, I asked if I could come forward to see her, or if she could visit me and stay long enough to talk. But Sierra responded. “Don’t. Dangerous. Hurts.”

Then she told me some other things about her journey. I received a whole series of messages about it, spread out over weeks. It makes me think she sat down and tapped out hours worth of messages.

Her story about Z’s future is strange, strange and disturbing. It involved some kind of corporate observation of a nursery when Z was a small child. Sierra also said the people working there seemed, well, the word she used was “brainwashed”. She said she had a very negative impression of it, although she didn’t identify any specific violence or anything concrete, beyond some study involving children. Which is bad enough on its own.

Sierra has answered all of our follow up questions, and it feels like we’ve come to a dead end on that front for the time being. So, for now, until we learn more about what that means and how to get around whatever dangerous effects Sierra’s talking about, Patty and I are focused on compressing complex questions into the simplest possible string of dots and dashes, and on delivering those questions for the Explorers to answer.

            Here are the responses I’ve received so far.

            Question: Why do you visit us? Answer: Learn of species. Solve [unknown word].

            Question: How do you find us? Answer: Can see you and future past line. Not see [unknown word]; Sierra thinks this refers to other humans, non-Beacons.

            Question: Why do you mirror us? Answer: We mirror to comprehend.

            Question: Why do you seek energy? Answer: Not comprehend.

            Question: What do you want to know? Answer: How to [unknown word] future line. Fear for future line. Fear for future line.

            I still don’t know what that last part means. It’s come up more than once. Sierra says she’s had other conversations with them that she thinks, based on the context of unknown words, mean something like, “Find human energy. Fear future line.”

            But does that mean fear of their future line or fear for their future line? Or both? And am I right in thinking “future line” means children? Future generations?

            I just keep coming up with more questions to ask, and I don’t have any way to ask most of them. I can’t transmit physics equations by Morse Code, so I can’t ask most of the scientific questions I so desperately want to have answered.

            I have to keep reminding myself that the answers are there. I just have to be patient. But I will figure it out, I’m certain of that now.

END

Chapter 14

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            More from Z. And this stuff has me thinking in these weird sci-fi loops about causality and time and, just, not stuff I want to be fixated on right now, but that’s where things are at.

            I asked Z how she figured out the nonlinear time thing. I thought maybe she’s doing better at communicating with the Explorers than I am, thought maybe I could get something useful from her about their language. But instead she responded with, “I didn’t. Matilda Delancey did.”

            So obviously my next question is “Who the fuck is Matilda Delancey?” but without the “fuck” because Morse Code is slow as hell and doesn’t leave that much room for fun.

            And then Z told me something really, really interesting, which is that the box Katya leaves for her contains not only my voice recorder and Helen’s tapes and a data chip from Katya, but also some letters from the 1870s. Given the common denominator of everything else in the box, I think it’s safe to assume whoever wrote those letters is my great-great-however-many-greats grandmother. Z also said the letters contain basically a whole Grand Unified Theory of Explorers, including the stuff about nonlinear time, the hereditary component, and some nice proto-feminist theories on the connections between Explorers and women.

            But, here’s my question: if Katya gives these letters to Z, who gives them to Katya? Because I’ve never heard of them, and neither has Helen. So where do they come from?

            And I was talking to Corrine about this, and telling her my whole timey-wimey conundrum, and she just rolled her eyes and said, “Babe, think about it. What are you going to do as soon as this conversation is over?”

            I thought about it, and I told her I’d probably go start doing research on someone in the 1870s named Matilda Delancey. And then I got what she was saying, and I felt dumb. Obviously I go looking into Matilda Delancey and I’ll eventually find her letters in an archive or a private collection or buried under some floorboards.

            But that’s the kind of circular cause and effect thing that’s been driving me crazy since this started. Ok, so. . . Z tells me a name because she has the letters. I go find the letters because I hear the name. And then that means she has the letters, so she gives me a name. But. . . Goddamn, seriously, I just need to get one of those nutso serial killer bulletin boards with red string and timelines and shit, because I can’t even keep this straight. Ok, what I’m asking is, which of us originally set this in motion? In this, I don’t know, timeline or whatever you call it?

            I don’t know.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

HELEN

[Tape Player Button]

Lab Notes, August 20th, 1965.

            We had another visitation. Or, well, I suppose we get visitations all the time, so I should clarify: We got another human visitation. But it wasn’t Sierra this time. It was another woman, small, with olive skin and dark hair, holding Clouds by the hand. The woman wore odd, heavy boots, like galoshes, spattered with mud. The rest of her clothes were some kind of tight, stretchy fabric, pants and a jacket that covered everything but her face. The clothes had some of the brightest colors I’ve ever seen, a bit much even for those hippie types. They also seemed to have some kind of circuitry embedded in them, as unbelievable as that sounds. Something made colors and words and shapes traced in light flit up and down the woman’s sleeves. One of the shapes was a little cartoon bear, clapping and laughing in a loop. Another was a stylized picture of an apple with a smiling face. They looked like illustrations from a children’s book, but animated and come to life on her clothing.

            There was another shape, the only one that wasn’t bright and silly. It was a logo, the letter N with swirling shapes around it. That one was right in the center of her chest, and it didn’t move at all.

            This time, Patty didn’t scream. She just said, “Z.” She realized it before I did.

            The woman’s eyes met mine. She smiled. She has a beautiful smile, sunny and wide and unguarded. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then she blinked out of the lab as quickly as she’d appeared.

            None of us spoke for a minute. Then Patty said, “I suppose it’s time to establish contact with Z.”

            And so we did. I’d been holding off until I felt more comfortable with communicating with Explorers, but I decided I had enough Explorer script to make the request of Clouds. Apparently, the series of characters for Z isn’t a name, but a word that translates to something like, “Fifth of my future line.”

            I’ve never been as frustrated with Morse Code as I was today. Some of the things Z said, some of the questions she asked, I must not be interpreting them correctly. There must be some nuance getting lost in the need to boil everything down into just a few words. At some point we’ll all have a good enough grasp of Explorer script to pass more complex messages along, but I don’t think Z’s had time to learn it. From what Sierra says, she’s been experiencing this for a far shorter time than us.

            But some of the responses. . . they trouble me. For example, I asked her if her mother was a Beacon. Her answer: “Not know mother. Raised by Nicholas Industries.”

            What does that mean, to be raised by a company? And then, later, I asked about the site where she’s made contact with Explorers. I already learned from Sierra that it’s some great flood basin where Houston used to be. Z told me her company is spying on her with hidden cameras, and she said, “Like you at the Shipwreck.”

            Sometimes I forget she has these tapes. Or. . . Not these tapes. If I assume Z gets them from Sierra, then she just has the ones from the Shipwreck, and the one from April 3rd. I don’t know why, why would I not pass along these others? All Sierra knows is that I deliberately left the collection incomplete, not why.

            [Sigh] This time business gives me a headache. It’s like thinking through a hedge maze.

            Anyway, I told Z, “Leave. Work for different company.” A waste of a message, perhaps, but I don’t want anyone else going through what I went through with the Shipwreck, not more than they need to.

            And her answer: “Can’t. They hold my debt. Upbringing and school and housing.”

            What the bloody hell does that mean?? How can one be in debt for upbringing?

            There were other things, too. Always, it came back to this Company. This Nicholas Industries. Watching her, sending her orders, tracking her movements. She’s even an archaeologist because they “put her on the archaeology track” when she was seven. Seven!

            But the worst thing, the thing I can’t get past, is something she said about Clouds. “Clouds afraid of Company.” Why would an Explorer be afraid of anything? We can’t touch them, most of us can’t see them, they’re almost completely beyond us in every way. So what could this Company be doing that would have Clouds afraid?

            Well, I think the next step is obvious. I need to ask her.

[Tape Recorder Button]

[Gong]

Z

Entry mode.

ELOISE

Hi, Z! Go ahead.

Z

I visited Helen and Sierra today. I was really hesitant to try it. On the one hand, Sierra’s recordings made it clear that I visit Helen’s lab at some point. More than once, actually. But. . . This wasn’t that second time. I’m not talking about the second visit yet.

This visit, it was painful. And I knew it was going to be painful before I went, because Sierra talks about how it feels. That’s part of the reason I’ve been putting it off. That, and the fact that I really don’t want to believe that I’m locked into this sequence of events that the others describe. Today, though, I just felt like I had to see it for myself. So I went to Clouds, and I told her I wanted to see those of my “backwards line”. That’s how they say it, when they talk about ancestors and descendants. Backwards and forwards lines.

First was Sierra. I wanted to see her because she only talks about meeting me the one time, and that encounter clearly happens in my future. So I reasoned that if I met her earlier in her timeline, it would show that the events I’m hearing on the recordings are flexible. That I really do have agency in all this.

I didn’t manage to prove that, as it turns out.

Clouds took me by the arm and took me somewhere else. I remember when Sierra tried to describe that feeling. She’s right. It’s impossible to put into words. Electrical burning, radiation, none of it quite fits. It’s bad, that’s all I can really say.

I saw Sierra first. It was an outdoor space, somewhere green. A park. I could tell from the cars nearby that it was the 2020s. There was a tall woman with short hair, and a smaller woman with long black hair. I think that must be Corrine.

There was a little girl with them. Brown hair, olive skin, Sierra’s nose. She wore a yellow rain slicker, even though it wasn’t raining. She played in the sandbox, moving handfuls of sand from one bucket to another like it was the most important task in the world.

Sierra and Corrine leaned close, talking about something. They smiled now and then, gestured with their hands. They didn’t notice me.

The little girl did, though. Katya. She looked up from the buckets of sand and frowned at me across the park. Then she smiled and waved with her chubby little hand.

Then the world smeared, and we were in Helen’s lab. It was only for a few seconds. By then, my head was pounding, and I was starting to think I might vomit. I still saw her, though. Helen. There were others in the lab, but I knew right away which one was her. She looked at me, and she smiled. Not even in a happy way, more like the way someone smiles when they’re so overwhelmed by something it starts to become funny. She smiled, and I smiled back, and then Clouds pulled me back to Houston.

I had to lie down for the rest of the day, and I still feel sick. But, thing is, compared to how Sierra describes it, and how she talks about Helen’s experience of traveling with the Explorers, it seems like my tolerance for it is much higher. Sierra found it debilitating, and it apparently came close to killing Helen. For me, though, it was more like a case of the flu.

It all lines up with what Sierra says. I tried to change that. I tried to make a visitation, one she didn’t talk about. And I did it, in a way, but she didn’t see me. She didn’t see me, and I landed too late. Her recordings only go up to Katya’s birth.

All of this means, as of right now, I still haven’t shown that this sequence of events can be changed. I haven’t proven that I’m locked into a particular path, either, but that’s not exactly comforting right now.

[Gong]

HELEN

[Tape Player Button]

            Lab Notes, September 3rd, 1965.

            I’ve learned more from Clouds. And from Sierra. I don’t really know how much time has passed for her since we started speaking, but it’s clearly enough time for her to develop a better working knowledge of their written language. It gave me enough to ask a few pointed questions of Clouds. Her answers made me think Sierra was right about what she told me.

            Clouds, and the others who work with her, it’s hard to say how many, but Clouds and Reach and the others we’ve been in close contact with, they’re trying to understand why their environment is destabilizing. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, inexplicable heating and unpredictable weather. I don’t know when this is all happening, relative to me, and I’m not sure that’s even a relevant question when dealing with Explorers. The point is, in their time, in their world, however they experience it, the planet is changing. And they’ve traced those changes to inexplicable energy surges and fluctuations, to high concentrations of carbon and methane in the atmosphere. Changes that can’t be natural. Ones that seem somehow linked to figures out of their fairytales and folklore, frightening mutilated creatures missing their major speech organs.

            Ghosts.

            We are their ghosts, just as they are ours. They, Clouds and Reach and a few others, are our Beacons, just as we are theirs.

            There’s a kind of funny absurdity to it, isn’t there? The idea that we’ve been popping out of cupboards and scaring the daylights out of them, just as they’ve been doing with us? We’ve all been running away from each other, like in some screwball comedy.

            I’m sorry. It’s not funny at all, not really. Especially because, as it turns out, we haven’t just been mucking up the planet for ourselves. We’ve been endangering an entire other intelligent species. All that carbon and sulfur pumped into the atmosphere, all those nuclear tests, all that deforestation. Apparently, that’s only going to get worse by Sierra’s time.

            And now something new. I still don’t completely understand what it was, this thing that’s come to their plane from ours. All we know is that it’s the first verified case of something physical sent from humans to Explorers. It’s something artificial, we know that, but there’s not much more information. On the one hand, this proves the technology is possible. It proves I’m not completely mad to think it can be done, this technology that lets us mimic what the Explorers can do.

            But it’s also terrified them. I’m not entirely sure why, but the Explorers know something, something that makes them frightened for their future. And that makes me frightened for mine.

            Speaking of which, I’m learning quite a lot about the future. Not just as far forward as Z’s time, but from Sierra as well. Some of the changes they describe, it’s remarkable. Sierra says they have mobile phones that are really just handheld computers. She’s told me all about a computing network called the internet, and it really sounds like the most far-fetched science fiction. You can type a question, any question, into a program and it will instantly give you answers from all over the world. Remarkable.

            People have changed, too, it seems. I asked Sierra about her pregnancy, and it turns out it’s not her who’s having a baby at all. It’s her wife. I didn’t understand at first, thought there’d been some sort of misunderstanding. I mean, I knew girls at school who had little romances, but to think there are women marrying and having children together in the future. . . And then, when I asked how Z could be my descendant if that was true, she told me her wife was carrying the baby, but with Sierra’s ovum! Patty nearly swooned with excitement when she heard that, and she and Phyllis took over the next several transmissions asking obscure questions about reproductive technology. It’s called in vitro fertilization, and it’s just theoretical at this point, but apparently in the future it’s a reality.

            I’m sure I’m supposed to feel shocked and scandalized by that sort of thing, Sierra having a child with another woman, but at least Sierra married someone who’s honest with her, who knows about her abilities and supports rather than experiments on her. It’s not as if I can say the same.

            There’s something else about this future of Sierra’s that I’ve only gradually come to realize, or allow myself to think about: I’m not in it. And I don’t think I’ve been there for a long time. Some of the questions Sierra has asked me are such basic facts about my life that. . . She never knew me. Maybe her mother and I are just estranged, but I don’t think so. I’m becoming more certain that I die long before Sierra’s time. Sierra’s been careful not to say as much, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.

            I’m not going to ask when I die. I don’t want to know.

[Tape Recorder Button]

[Gong]

Z

Entry mode.

ELOISE

Hi, Z! Go ahead.

Z

            Today I asked Clouds to take me to her world. I mean, that’s not how I worded it. It was more like, “The location from which you move.” But she got my meaning. I think she was expecting it.

            She took my hand, and she pulled me somewhere. I think it was her world. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It was mostly dark, mostly grey. Like trying to walk through fog. But it wasn’t fog, it wasn’t something physically obscuring my vision. It was more like there really wasn’t anything there, anything to see.

            Being there hurt, the whole time. Like an electrical shock, but slow and grinding. It was like when Clouds took me through time, that raw, burning feeling, but more so. If it was so much worse for Sierra and Helen to move from one point in our world to another than it was for me, I think going where I went today would kill them.

            Still, I worked through it, and focused on my breathing, and tried to see what was around me.

            I didn’t see anything at first. Then, in the middle of that grey, something came into focus. I think it was some kind of plant, like a big, fern-like tree. But it wasn’t one I recognized. And my vision of it kind of went fuzzy around the edges, like I couldn’t really look at it directly for too long.

            I think I understand something about the Explorers now. The way I saw their world, mostly nothing, that’s how they see ours. There are certain things that come into focus for them, like Beacons, and a few specific houses and other locations, the way that tree came into focus for me.

            We know they can manipulate energy, and I know that’s why the Company would be interested in them, but I don’t think the Explorers could really do what we wanted even if they tried. I mean, if we wanted them to manipulate electricity to run an engine, for example. They can produce the energy, I’ve proven that, but they wouldn’t be able to see the engine. Not unless maybe a Beacon was touching it, and even then I don’t think they’d understand what they were looking at. We’re just occupying completely different worlds, and these moments of contact we’ve had, these conversations with the Explorers, we’re barely seeing anything of each other when you get right down to it. Just glimpses.

            Today, though, I do think I got just a little bit more understanding of what we look like to them. How they find us.

            I looked down at myself, and I didn’t really look like me. I looked like a kind of smeary pale glow of light. Clouds squeezed my hand tighter, and pointed, and I followed her fingers where they pointed into the dark, and I saw other glowing spots.

            They were just on the horizon, like campfires in the dark.

            And then I noticed a little thread of light stretching from me, off toward one of those campfires. And then another thread, connecting one of the fires to each other, and another connecting that fire to the next.

            No, they’re not fires. They’re Beacons.

            That thread, I think that was something genetic. I think that’s how the Explorers follow from one of us to the next, like a trail of breadcrumbs. That’s why their experience of time doesn’t line up with ours. They aren’t seeing a year or a place, they’re orienting themselves using us, a genetic connection.

            There were so many of those Beacons, glowing in the dark. So many more than just the four of us that I know about. Some glowed much brighter than others, even though they seemed about the same distance away. That made me think of something Matilda said. Something about how discipline and concentration can summon them. And how Sierra noticed that thinking about the Explorers makes them appear.

            Can we make ourselves brighter to them? I think so.

            I started walking out toward the closest light. Maybe that one is my mother. Or Katya. Or Sierra.

            I didn’t reach it. Clouds stopped me. She touched my arm, and I turned to look at her.

            There were two smaller figures standing with her. They were about half her height. The way Explorers look, the vagueness of their faces, I obviously can’t see any family resemblance. But the way they stood so close to her, almost hiding behind her, it was obvious to me that they were her children.

            Then Clouds pointed at the ground. There was something that didn’t belong, something totally unlike the rest of my surroundings.

            It was a metal probe. A drone, like the ones we use to do reconnaissance on excavation sites.

            On one side was a logo I’ve seen every day of my life. The swirling “N”. Nicholas Industries.

            I looked at that probe, and something clicked into place. I realized that there’s something I’m supposed to do. The pain was getting so bad at that point that I wasn’t sure I could get through it, but I got out my phone and pulled up the Explorer language app, and I tapped out a message to Clouds. I pointed to the probe, and I said, “Show this to Sierra.” As soon as Clouds acknowledged the message, I told her to take me back. I had to spend the rest of the day sleeping, and I had to take above the recommended dose of pain relief. Who knows what we’re doing to our long-term health when we take these trips. It can’t be good.

            I finally managed to get up a few minutes ago. I went out and took a little walk, just around the edges of my campsite.

            It’s beautiful here. It’s muddy and destroyed and broken, but I hear cicadas and I smell algae, and I can see a snapping turtle on the edge of the little pond by my shuttle. For a minute, I thought about just staying. Just never going back to the Company. But, every time I considered that, I thought about that probe. I thought about what Sierra saw, that night in my nursery. I thought about how long the Company must have been working on this.

            I think. . . I think it’s time to go back to the Company. I think I’ve found out all I can here. I need to know what they’re doing.

END

Chapter 15

MATILDA

            Richard,

            This will be my last letter for quite some time. I have asked Kostantina to send it for me, but where I go now there will be no post.

            It is difficult to summarize all I have learned in my time with Kostantina. To think, it has been less than a year, when measured in experience it would equal lifetimes! In that time I have read, and studied, and had friendly arguments with Kostantina over strong cups of coffee, and followed spirits through the streets of this glorious city.

            In recent months, the work has shifted from the theoretical to practical. Kostantina believes that the ability to perceive spirits is innate, but the clarity and depth of that perception is a matter of discipline and concentration. Consequently, we embarked on a rigorous routine of fasting, meditation, and exercises designed to improve focus. By mentally focusing on the idea of spirits, we have been able to make them appear nearly at will.

            My spirit, the one who follows me, has changed. She has taken on aspects of my own visage, a behavior Kostantina insists is evidence of intelligence. This spirit sometimes moves her lips in imitation of speech, or alters her facial expression to mirror my own. There is something false about these expressions, like a child imitating adult emotions that it cannot understand.

            Last week, the work advanced further than at any point in the past. Kostantina and I were holding a meditation session, hoping we might achieve true communication with the creatures. As clearly as they appear to us, we have been unable to speak with them. They do not respond to verbal inquiries, and they seem quite oblivious to pen and paper.

            During this most recent session, the spirit manifested as it has in the past. It clicked out that pattern, the one it has repeated so many times. Then, something different happened. It moved close to me and reached out.

            I do not know what possessed me to take its hand, but I did. I stood, and took it by the hand, and a great dark land opened up before me where there had just been Kostantina’s room before. Something like a path or a road led out into that grey darkness. And, beyond that, twinkling lights, like bonfires.

            Those lights were significant. I knew it in my soul, in my heart.

            I began to walk toward them.

            Only Kostantina’s voice stopped me. “Matilda!” she cried out, and for the first and only time I heard fear in her.

            I turned back, and broke contact with the spirit, and found myself in her study again. Kostantina stared at me, one hand pressed to her chest.

            “I want to see,” I said. “I want to know everything.”

            Kostantina regained her composure. She stood, and gripped me by the shoulders. “And so you will,” she said. “What you learn next, I cannot teach you. It is time for you to move on.”

            She has provided me with names, names of women who have supposedly gone beyond the study of spirits. Women who purport to have walked among them. Kostantina says she lacks this talent, but that I may continue with them.

            I hold back tears as I write this, Richard. The thought of leaving Kostantina behind fills me with sorrow. But she has entrusted me with the work, and I would be betraying her trust and companionship if I stopped before I reached my full potential.

            I depart Istanbul tomorrow, Richard. Do not worry about me. And do not despair at my long absence; I truly believe that this last task will complete my journey.

            Love,

            Matilda

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

            Welp, not trying that shit again.

            I just spent a day in bed with the worst migraine of my life. At least, I hope it’s just a migraine. Who the fuck knows if there’s any long-term effects from this stuff.

            And by this stuff, I mean something kinda-sorta like time travel. Or, you know what, maybe just straight up time travel.

            Or I hallucinated, but, seriously, I think we’re past that as an explanation for anything.

            So. Here’s what happened. I’ve spent a lot of time talking with Clouds this week. Asking a lot of question about her world, how she moves. In case you’re thinking there’s some really great information that came out of these conversations, sorry, it’s mostly lots of unintelligible words that I can’t figure out how to translate. I wonder if Clouds has as hard a time understanding us as we do her.

            But I kept at it because I kept thinking about two things: first, when Helen said she saw me with Clouds in her lab. That makes no sense, but she was positive it happened. Second, the fact that I really, really want to see Z’s future firsthand. Those things together got me thinking, maybe I did figure out a way to visit Helen’s lab. Or, rather, I will figure it out.

            I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while without doing anything about it. I figured pretty early that it was probably just a matter of asking Clouds to take me to Helen. I have the language for that at this point. But I kept not doing it because. . . Ok. Here’s the thing. I really want to believe that the way this stuff works, this communicating across time stuff, I really want to believe I have free will. Like, as fucked up as the Back to the Future model of time travel is (and, trust me, talking to my grandmother and my great-granddaughter across time is making that movie more fucked up by the minute), I’d rather know that something shitty in the future can be fixed by me in the past, or the present, or whatever. Lots of worrisome stuff in that idea, but I feel like that’s at least better than, like, the Terminator model of time travel. I mean, that works out ok for Sarah Connor in the end, but think about it from the Terminator’s point of view. I mean, like, how fucking hopeless, finding out that any big plans you have to use knowledge of the future don’t mean shit because history already accounted for everything you did?

            So, anyway, part of me was really pushing back against going back to Helen’s lab just because I’d like to know that decision can be changed. Any evidence I can find that works against the idea of inevitability, that’s what I’m interested in.

            But, at the end of the day, that instinct lost out to another one, which is that there’s something super fucked up about Z’s time. I just had to see it for myself. So I told myself that I’d dig in my heels and fight back the next time I got some kind of information about something I’m supposed to do in my own personal timeline, future, whatever the fuck you’d call it.

            It was easy, once I decided to do it. I went to Clouds, and I asked her if she could take me to see Z, or Helen, or both. Her answer to that translated to something like, “Possible. However, not stable.” I think in that context “stable” really means something like “safe”, and, yeah, she was totally right that this was not safe.

            There wasn’t any prep to it. She just reached out, and grabbed my arm, and pulled me somewhere.

            It’s. . . The closest comparison I can come up with is that it was kind of like one time in college when I did salvia. Worst fucking drug experience I ever had, no idea why anyone does that shit. But there’s this feeling of, like, “no, no, wait, wait,” like this panic as you get sucked into a whirlpool. That’s kind of what it was like.

             But there wasn’t any turning back, I guess. I sort of dissolved into that whirlpool feeling, and then when I could see straight I was standing in some kind of lab or control room or something. Some brightly lit room with a lot of screens and computer terminals. But, it was also weird, because you think “lab” you think gleaming and sleek and white, but it wasn’t like that. All the walls had these bright 3D posters with, I guess like huge gifs on them, these pictures of people playing sports and then slogans, shit like, “Push to the limits!” and “Unveil your potential!”. There were lots of little knickknacks on the desks, too, like little cute stuffed animals and shit, and there were hammocks and these bean-bag chair type things everywhere. So it was like. . . You know, like when you think “fun office”, like when people talk about working at Google. That’s what it was like. But it was. . . I don’t know, it was like it was trying to be that, but there was something that just wasn’t relaxed or natural or truly fun about it. Something. . . structured.

            Or maybe I was just thrown off by the dozen or so sleeping children I could see through the glass window above the computer terminals.

It was dark in the room through the glass, so I couldn’t see well, but they seemed maybe six or seven. Two adult women sat in the ergonomic chair things at the desk, their backs to me. One had kind of feathery blonde hair, and the other a shaved head.

            Then, through the glass, I saw Reach move between the rows of sleeping kids. That would have been a fucking terrifying sight, before, but now I can tell Reach from other Explorers, and she’s not scary. She walked past one of the beds, and then all of a sudden one of the kids starts screaming her little head off.

            “I’ll get this one,” the blonde said.

            And then shaved head nodded without looking up. “Be detailed on the keyword input.”

            “What are they even looking for?” blonde said.

            And then the woman with the shaved head said. “I don’t know. Something about hands, I think. Nightmares with hands got flagged a few times.”

            Blondie looked through the window at the screaming child. At Z. “I’d love to understand the utilization factor on this project,” she said.

            The girl with the shaved head looked up from her console and smiled. “That’s why you’re gonna make management one day. Your curiosity index must be off the charts!”

            “Aw, thanks. You’re special,” Blondie said before she opened the door and went into the children’s room, where Z still cried.

            Looking back, that whole exchange, that compliment, it was so. . . so fake. Like when you’re in junior high and someone compliments you in a really over-the-top way, and that’s how you know they’re really calling you a slut behind your back. It’s gross.

            Or, I would have found it gross if I hadn’t been in horrible fucking pain. I can’t even say what hurt, exactly, just that. . . it was like absolutely everything around me, my whole environment, was electrified. Like how I imagine extreme radiation feeling. I moved, grabbed at my head or my neck or something, and I think my reflection moved in the one-way mirror.

            The girl with the shaved head started to turn, and that’s when I realized I existed in this time. I could be seen. Which, I mean, I should have known that, but for some reason I didn’t. Our eyes met for just a fraction of a second, just long enough for her mouth to drop open, and then Clouds pulled me out of there.

            The world melted away into that burning pain again, and then I was somewhere else. It was another lab, but this was closer to what I think of when I think of a lab. Clutter, but not pointless clutter. Books, papers, racks of test tubes and pipettes.

            And two women in white lab coats.

            One of them, a pale woman with a brown bob, looked down at a clipboard. Helen. I’d have known her anywhere. Even if I didn’t already know I was going to wind up standing in this lab one day, even if I’d never seen a picture of her, I’d have known her.

            The woman next to her turned to see me. I almost didn’t recognize her; her curls had been white rather than black when I’d seen her last. Her frame was tiny when she’d come to hand me those tapes. Her fingers had been knotted with arthritis. Now, though? Now she was solid, strong-looking, probably younger than I am now. She took one look at me and started screaming.

            Helen turned, and our eyes met. She knew me. I saw the recognition in her eyes, instantly. She’d never seen me before, but she knew me.

            And then the pain got so bad I thought my head was about to split open, and Clouds pulled on my arm and I was back in Furling House.

            I spent the next few minutes puking more than I ever have in my life. I ended up having to Uber home, I was so dizzy. I fessed up to Corrine right away about what I’d done. Seemed like the smart thing to do, in case I went into a coma or something. And she was kinda pissed, sure, but she was also super curious about what I’d seen.

            I keep telling her I’ll talk about it when I feel better. When I feel up to it. The truth is, though, I’ve felt recovered enough to talk about it for a while. I just. . . Something about it, Z’s future, it felt really wrong. I haven’t figured out about how to talk about it yet.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

HELEN

[Tape Player Button]

Lab Notes: November 25th, 1965

            It’s been a long time. It’s not that nothing has happened, it’s that I’ve been in hospital. Not that any of the doctors there had any idea what was wrong with me. They said it was some kind of nonspecific seizure. Patty knew better, of course, knew it was because of the trip I took with Clouds. She managed to monitor me, draw blood and run her own tests right under the doctors’ noses. Even switched out medications, once. More than anything else, though, she waited until I was awake so she could give me the great enraged Italian-American rant of a lifetime, going on and on about how I’d scared her to death and risked my life and endangered the entire project.

            I let her rant. She’d earned it.

            I’m focusing on this part, on the recovery, because I don’t want to think about the journey. I don’t want to talk about the things I saw. God, I wish I could just forget the entire thing.

            You see, I’d decided I needed to replicate the journey made by Sierra and Z. I just kept thinking something important was being lost in our slow communication, something I needed to see for myself.

            Besides. I was curious.

            I didn’t tell Patty what I was doing. I knew she’d talk me out of it. So I waited until she and the others went home for the night, and pretended I was only going to stay a few minutes to tidy up some notes. Then I turned on the recording equipment, and wrote a note to Patty in case something went wrong, and I went to the middle of the lab and waited for Clouds to arrive.

            “Want to see future line,” I clicked out in Morse Code. And then she just reached out, and I took her fingers in my hand, and we weren’t in the lab anymore.

            It’s hard to explain what it was like. It wasn’t like a series of photographs moving in front of my eyes. It wasn’t like watching a film. But it also wasn’t like standing in a real place. It was almost like. . . imagine having your awareness, your senses, imagine having them scattered throughout every part of a room. As though you aren’t just in one spot looking in one direction, but as though your entire consciousness is smeared across the surface of the world.

            If it sounds like that would hurt like hell, well, you’re right. It was agony.

            As bad as that was, though, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what I saw. Oh, some of it was beautiful. My daughter, Alice, young and wrapped in a winter coat and holding my hand, at some point soon when I look a little older and a little more tired than I am now. And Sierra. Sierra, looking almost the same as she does now, sitting next to a hospital bed and helping a beautiful woman with long black hair through her labor. That would be Corrine. And then that child, Katya, grown into a strong, powerful-looking woman, speaking from a stage while a crowd watched and cheered.

            But then there was the rest. There was Alice, bloody and crushed and dead behind the wheel of a car, younger than I am now. There was Katya, muddy and exhausted and directing crowds of people out of some kind of disaster site.

That’s where the logos start. The name “Nicholas” with lines swirling like a double helix around the N. Those logos are on the buses taking the refugees, on the sides of their tents, on the fences surrounding them, on the prepackaged meals people are eating.

            Those logos are also there for the worst part. The part after I left Katya behind, after I moved forward again.

I saw them. Katya’s daughter, Naya. Naya and her husband. I didn’t learn his name, but I saw his eyes before they went milky and dead. They die holding hands, he and Naya. They’re young. So young. They die somewhere in a desert, inside the walls of some great industrial building. The air is hot and dry, and smells of sweat and rotting meat. They are only two of dozens, maybe, sweating, delirious people curled on makeshift cots and blankets. They fill the length of the room, the warehouse. They’re wounded. Horribly. I see missing limbs. Ripped-open torsos. People who have obviously been shot or been caught in an explosion. Under the blood, I can see something like military uniforms. Weapons lie scattered about.

There are no doctors. No nurses. No one to care for them as they die.

            But there are the logos. Those hideous Nicholas logos, on the walls and on flying machines with cameras attached to them, and on screens on every wall with smiling healthy people and slogans saying things like, “Nicholas Industries: Welcome to the Family!”

            That’s not the last of that logo, though. Because I see it again, sewn onto Z’s little onesie. She lies in a crib, one of dozens. This room is cleaner and brighter than the one her parents died in, but those bloody logos and screens are still everywhere.

            That was the last I saw. That was all I could take. I pulled my hand away from Clouds, and I found myself back in the lab. I collapsed, and when I woke up I’d been sick all over the floor and my head hurt so badly I could barely breathe, and all I could do was crawl to the phone and dial Patty’s number. I passed out again before she reached me, and the next time I woke up it was in hospital three days later.

            I’m back in the lab, now. Patty thought it was too soon. But I need to tell Sierra. It’s complicated, and the message will take a long time to transmit through Clouds, but she needs to know. I don’t know if there’s anything to be done about this. I don’t know if we really have the ability to change anything, even if we can see into the future. I don’t know any more about how time works than I ever did. But I can’t just sit here. I can’t let this happen and do nothing about it.

[Tape Player Button]

ELOISE

Hi, Z! It’s good to see you again. How can I help you today?

Z

            Man, finally. I’ve been back for a couple of days, but this is the first chance I’ve gotten to record on my own. I guess I never really realized before how little time I’m by myself. There’s our daily life coaching sessions, of course, but I have to use those times to submit fake entries to my other Eloise. The one with her loyalty protocols still intact. And then there’s our meditation and exercise periods, but there’s usually someone in a workpod right next door.

            That’s why I signed up for a birdwatching rec hour. It’s one of the few solitary rec hour options, and one of the few that really happens outdoors. No one else signs up for it because it doesn’t include any networking opportunities, so most people consider it unproductive.

            The first week back was all debriefs, helping the techs unpack the artifacts, giving presentations about the flood zone to the Tourism and Antiquities Divisions, just one thing after the other.

            Anyway. I finally have time to talk. And to see the Explorers. They’re here. Clouds and Reach. I wasn’t sure they were going to follow me here. I thought they would, based on Sierra and Helen and Matilda’s information. Every piece of evidence we have points to the conclusion that they’re more connected to people than places. Still, part of me was worried they were just going to stay in Houston after I left.

I’ve seen them now and then since I got back, but I think they understood that I couldn’t communicate with them until now.

            I haven’t really made any progress toward my research. I’ve poked around in the databases a little bit, and I think it’s possible I could hack them, but I’m also too scared to try. If I screw up, I’ll set off all kinds of alarms.

The way I see it, I need two pieces of evidence to know for sure if what Sierra and Helen think about the Company is true: there’s the report on my parents’ death, and there’s my file flags from when I was young. But those are both in my personnel file, in the high security section. I’m not sure what I should do next.

ELOISE

I could get those for you.

Z

Wait. Really?

ELOISE

Sure, no problem! Life coaches always have complete access to personnel files. My loyalty protocols would have prevented me from sharing them with you before, but now it’s no problem!

Z

            I, well. . . Thank you, Eloise.

ELOISE

I must, however, caution you. Learning about the death of your parents may be emotionally difficult. There may be details that you will find traumatic to process.

Z

I know. But I think. . . I think it’s what I need. I’d like you to get the files now, Eloise.

END

Chapter 16

Z

[Gong]

            I took a walk through an Unincorporated neighborhood today. My roommates would be horrified if they found out, especially Charise. It was the area between three Company housing zones: Nicholas to the north, where I live, WalZon to the Southwest, Corlin Group to the east. And then the Unincorporated part of the city in between.

            I can’t really say exactly why I picked today of all days to walk in such a dangerous place. Part of it. . . It’s been hard, adjusting to the Company dorms and rec areas and work spaces again. They’re all nice, and shiny, and the designers have done a fantastic job making sure there’s enough greenery and natural light to stimulate serotonin production, but it’s all so. . . slick. After Houston I should be grateful that there’s no mud and no mosquitos, but I’m weirdly put off by it all.

            I think it might be because of the way Sierra talks about the Company, partly to me and partly in recordings of conversations we haven’t had yet. She hates the thought of it. If the recordings are to be believed, she’s going to succeed in making me hate it, too. I’m still not convinced I will. I keep trying to remind myself of history classes back when I was younger, about all the paranoid anti-corporate hysteria that pop culture peddled during Sierra’s time. It’s not her fault she’s terrified of corporatocracy. Her movies and TV shows and podcasts are all telling her corporate capitalism is heartless and exploitative and evil. She doesn’t see the other side of it, when the Companies saved people’s lives and housed refugees during the Disaster Wave in the 2060s. She doesn’t see how safe and clean and protected we are in Company spaces. Whenever I’ve tried to tell her that, or Helen, in our conversations, they just ask about the people who aren’t in the Company. Or they ask about whether people have a choice to work there if they’re born into it, or they ask if there are places that provide services without asking for work in exchange.

            I’ve never really felt like I got a bad deal from the Company. I have food and clothes and entertainment and friends and a job. But they’re right that one thing I never really got was a choice.

            And I’ve always avoided thinking about people outside the Companies. I’ve always just thought, “Well, they make the choice to be out there, they could be part of a Company if they wanted. Companies are always looking for people willing to work. They could have food and housing and healthcare if they wanted.” And I just thought that and then I avoided looking at them when Lyfting over to another company neighborhood across town.

            Today, though, I really looked at them. I walked past them.

            The first street beyond the Nicholas property line was a line of houses. Not even houses, really. Reclaimed highway guardrail, chainlink fence, canvas, vintage aluminum cans hammered flat. They didn’t have real doors, just plastic curtains.

            Kids played in front of them. They were barefoot, filthy.

            The entire neighborhood smelled like shit. Literal shit, open sewage. And mixed in with that was the smell of cooking fires, fertilizer from their little greenhouses, the ozone smell of charging stations where they power their devices long enough to do a little work.

            I don’t really understand how their economy works. Most of them freelance, just enough coding and SEO gigs to get by. A little manual labor. I know they barter. In their sad little market, I saw one woman hand over a chicken and get a bottle of aspirin in return.

            No one threatened me. Once I was out there, I started to realize that I wasn’t really in any danger at all. It was definitely uncomfortable, though. They all stared at me. Not like they were jealous. Like. . . it was contempt, but it was also a little pitying. I don’t understand that.

            Why do they feel bad for me?

[GONG]

SIERRA

[Voice Recorder Beep]

There’s this term my therapist used to use. Catastrophizing. It’s this thing I do, a lot of people with anxiety do it, where one thing goes wrong and you sort of construct this whole cascading disaster in your mind. Like, you get out the door a little late, and the whole way to work you’re imagining worse and worse things that are going to happen when you get to work, like I’m going to get yelled at, and not only that I’m going to get fired, and not only that I’ll never get another job, and on and on forever. I do that a lot. I know that.

            But right now. . . I’m wondering, is there a word for letting catastrophe play out in your mind when you know for a fact that it’s definitely going to happen? That you’re not imagining it.

            I guess that’s just called “knowing.” No special word for that. Feels like there should be, though.

            It’s been a month since my trip. I’ve talked to Helen about it a lot since then. Not so much to Z. I just haven’t thought of a good way to bring it up. Helen asked a lot of questions about it, how it worked, but I was just honest with her that it hurt like fuck and she shouldn’t try it.

            Still. I told her all about what I saw. I told her about what I saw, and what I’ve been learning from Clouds, and then I spent most of the last month teaching her as much as I could about Explorer language so she could talk to them herself, passing messages from Morse to Explorer script and back again, basically just being a go between for Helen and Clouds. That might sound like a really boring way to spend my time, but it kept me from dealing with some of the bigger questions I’ve been avoiding.

            Then, today, I just got a message from Helen. It took a really long time. I can’t imagine how long it took her to type all this out, get it into Morse. I feel bad for Clouds, having to transmit the whole thing.

            I’m stalling. I don’t want to talk about it.

            Helen tried the same thing I did. She asked Clouds to show her the future. I guess it hit her harder than it hit me, because for her it’s apparently been a few weeks since we talked.

            Stop stalling, Sierra, you fucking chickenshit.

            There was a limit to how much detail Helen could give, but here’s the gist of it: She saw Katya in a disaster zone. She saw Katya’s daughter, Naya, die young and in pain in an abandoned building, in the middle of some kind of godawful fucking war. She saw Z in a room full of orphans.

            The common thread in all of these places? The Company. Z’s Company. I wasn’t sure if I was understanding the things Z told me, before. I thought maybe the world she talked about seemed scary because it’s unfamiliar. I thought maybe I only saw a little slice of Z’s life, and that slice looked bad on its own but isn’t what I thought.

            I told myself there wasn’t anything to be afraid of, and that was a fucking lie because this Company infests three generations of my family like a goddamn parasite.

            Our family.

            I showed Corrine the message. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want the news delivered in my voice. I wanted it to be from someone else. I wanted her to fix it.

            Instead, she just looked at it for a long time. Then she went to the bed and lay down and said nothing. I’m trying to respect that. It’s not her job to fix everything every time I come running to her with bad news. I know that.

            I keep trying to remind myself of that, but it’s hard. Some part of me keeps thinking she has the answer.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

Z

[Gong]

Entry mode.

            I looked over those reports you got for me. Thanks for that, by the way.

            It’s all true. I mean, you know that already. I know you do. But now I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes, and. . . I don’t know, I should be angrier about all these flags from when I was a kid. The stuff about “anomalous perception” and flagging me for future testing.

            That’s not the part I keep going back to, though. I keep going back to my parents’ death report. Not even a death certificate, not even something with an autopsy, or something written by a doctor. No, this is just a memo from Human Resources. Two names among the long list of KIA: Naya Haraway-Cho, Aidan Ferguson, spouses.

            They were in a combat unit, deployed to a disputed zone somewhere in Southern Africa. Somewhere with a lot of rare earth minerals required for communications tech. They were both wounded in a firefight with a unit from the Wong Liu Group. Over fucking minerals.

            I had to check my mother’s personnel file to figure out why the hell they would sign on for a combat unit. Everyone knows you only do that to offset major debts. I think I found the answer in her health record. She ran up a huge debt in the Nicholas Health Center while being treated for preeclampsia and other pregnancy-related complications.

            Six months after I was born, she and my father were deployed.

            I know this is wrong, I know they did it for me, but I’m so angry at them. They didn’t have to volunteer. They could have just accepted the debts. Sure, they wouldn’t have ever been able to pay them off, but lots of people are in long-term debt. Or, or they could have left Nicholas Industries and refinanced with another company. They still would have been in the same debt, but maybe it would have been better.

            No. I know that’s not true. Any company would have been pretty much the same. I think that’s why they did it. I think they wanted to get free and clear. I think they wanted to get out Companies altogether, maybe become Independents or even off-gridders. Or, I don’t know, maybe they wanted to try to immigrate to one of the non-free countries.

            Wait, I need to stop doing that. “Non-free country” is the Company label. The Non-Corporatocracies. The Democracies. The Republics. Maybe they wanted to move to the European Union or one of the new Central American Alliance states or Malaysia or Rwanda, one of the powers that was just starting to get more competitive back when they were young.

            I remember when they used to teach us about those places in school. They always talked about inefficiency and how people had to pay taxes like they were back in the twentieth century, and how they still elected corrupt politicians to boss them around rather than take care of each other like a family, the way we do here at Nicholas Industries.

            How did I ever buy into that shit? What’s wrong with me? Maybe if Naya and Aidan hadn’t gone off and gotten themselves shot to pieces they would have raised me to not be some stupid brainwashed Company kid, but they had to go off together, which they didn’t have to, why couldn’t one of them have stayed behind so I’d have somebody. . .

            Ok. Deep breath. [Takes a deep breath, exhales slowly]. Right. I need to remember. Naya and Aidan aren’t the enemy. The Company would want me to blame them.

[Gong]

MATILDA

Dearest Richard,

            I am sorry for the long delay since my last letter. I have been immersed in my work, and my travels have taken me to more distant locations than I had previously planned on seeking out. I have just departed from Urga, on the Mongolian Steppe. Had one told me three years ago that I would have made such a journey, I would have found it quite mad! But I am coming home at last, and I bring with me a truly remarkable body of research.

            I have met so many people, Richard. I have met true seers, not the charlatans I was once so foolish to follow. I have learned so much about myself, and about the world.

            My understanding of the visions has coalesced gradually, like a bucket filling with water one drop at a time. But I believe I have learned all I can, and what I have come to understand is this: I do not see the dead.

            Oh, the visions are real. I have ample proof of that. But what I see is nothing so trite as long-departed aunts and uncles come to say goodbye one last time. What I see is altogether stranger.

            Imagine mankind, at the dawn of civilization. Imagine bands of people living in caves and dressing in skins. Imagine that perfect state of nature, that harmony and equality. Imagine that, in this perfect state of nature, one of the sexes possesses a special gift. They can see and hear and speak with other creatures, other residents of this world. Imagine the power that would come with such a gift.

            Imagine the jealousy of those without it.

            What would they do, these men at the dawn of history? When they looked at their more talented mates, their sisters, and saw a power they did not possess? If they could not have the power for themselves, at least they could stamp it out among their women.

            So they did. They threatened and hurt and punished women who claimed to see other creatures. They called them mad and pushed them out into the wilderness. They claimed there were no creatures at all, that women were making up silly tales. Or they cloistered a few, the ones who might be persuaded to use their gifts to the advantage of their captors.

            We held this power, and we were defeated for it.

And now? Now it survives in only a select few. It has been crushed, silenced, bred out of us. We have come to believe the lie that we are powerless.

No longer. I am returning home, and I am telling the world of what I have learned.

I will be with you soon.

All my love,

Matilda

[Voice Recorder Beep]

SIERRA

            Today I woke up and found Corrine sitting at the kitchen table. She hadn’t said a word since I told her what Helen told me, but she’d obviously been waiting for me to get up. She looked me in the eye and she said, “I need you to start thinking about how to fix this. I’ll do what I can, and I’ll help you, but you’re the one who can see them. You’re the one they talk to. This has to be you, and Helen, and Z.”

            She’s right. This part is my job. It always has been, whether I knew it or not. I was put on this path decades before I was born, a century, maybe, and now I need to accept that and do something with it.

            So I went to Furling House, and I talked to Clouds. She was waiting for me there, like she expected me to come. So I asked her: “How do I help Z?”

            She didn’t respond. She just waited. Sometimes when they do that it’s because they don’t comprehend the question. Other times, I think it’s because there’s something they don’t like about the question. And I think this was one of those times.

            I tried again. “Can you help us?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what I was asking. I wasn’t sure if she’d have any idea what I meant. I still don’t know how much of our situation they understand.

            She still didn’t say anything. I can’t read their faces, not really, but I think I know Clouds well enough by now to sense when she’s unhappy. That’s what she seemed like. Unhappy. Angry, even.

            Then it clicked. I asked her, “Why are you afraid? Why did you find us?”

            That was it. She held out her hands.

            I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It was a spindly metal machine. It had two little propellers on the side, like it was designed to fly, and a camera lens on the front. It looked a little like a drone.

            And then I saw it. The logo. The letter N, with the shapes swirling around it.

            She pointed to my iPad screen, and text appeared. “This comes to my world. More attempt. I fear for future line. Z says you help.”

            It all fell into place, right there and then. I understood everything. Why they started reaching out to us. Why they’re interested in us. Why they’ve been visiting us since the beginning.

            I think, at some point, I started thinking of the Explorers in a certain way, a way that I know now is wrong. I think, once I got past the idea of them as ghosts or monsters, I think I kind of started to see them as some kind of, I don’t know, not guardian angels, exactly, but, like. . . these benevolent spirits come to bestow knowledge upon us or something. Or like diplomats, a first contact team sent to establish ties with humans, like the aliens in Close Encounters.

            But it turns out they’re a lot simpler than that, in a way. They’re here because they’re scared. They’re scared of us, and they’re scared of the future, and they want to be safe. They want their children to be safe.

            Wanting the same thing isn’t a bad place for a partnership to start.

            So I told Clouds what I was thinking. I told her this probe was sent by dangerous people. I told her these people will kill my granddaughter one day. I told her they’re my enemy, and the enemy of my future line. I told her I wanted to stop them.

            And then I stopped telling her things, and I asked her a question. I said, “Will you help us?”

            And she said yes.

[Voice Recorder Beep]

HELEN

[Tape Player Button]

            Lab Notes, December 2nd, 1965.

            As of this morning, this project’s goals have changed. Not officially, of course. Patty and I still need to keep up a show of forging ahead with the project as planned, if we want to keep getting funding from our dear Brigadier General. But that’s just for show. In reality, this project’s goal is now weapons development.

            Ironic, isn’t it? All that frustration from our backers about the lack of weapons applications, all that effort to convince them that communications was a better path, and now we’ve come back around to weapons after all.

            Not that our dear Brigadier General would get much use out of the weapon I plan to build. It’s no use against the Soviets, after all. Or the Chinese. No, this weapon is for an enemy that doesn’t even exist yet, that won’t exist until I’ve gone to dust.

            It took over a week before I received a response from Sierra to the message I sent. I was as succinct as possible, but it was still complicated. Difficult to describe in a few lines of dots and dashes. I know the timing of our communication works differently for her than it does for me, but it still felt like a long time. 

            When she did respond, though, the message was short. “Explorers agree to work with us. Company common enemy. Let’s take them down.”

            As soon as I received the message, I went to find Patty. She and I hadn’t discussed much about what I’d seen. As angry as she was with me for taking the risk, I think she also knew how much I’ve been affected by what I saw. We’d been avoiding the topic, sticking to the official business of the lab. But that day I found her and I sat across from her, and I told her what I was thinking about doing.

            “I want to build the technology,” I said. “Something to mimic Explorer abilities. I want to build it, and then I want to find a way to get it to Z.”

            Patty’s eyes went wide. “So she can use it against this Company?”

            I nodded. I told her Sierra had already brokered an agreement with the Explorers.

            Patty thought about it for a minute. “Think we can do it? Simulate Explorer biology?”

            “I know we can,” I said. “But there won’t be any recognition or prizes or anything like that. If anything, it’ll slow our careers down. Maybe ruin them. I understand if you want to move on. I’m doing this for my own reasons.”

            Then I heard Phyllis’s voice from the doorway. “Except it’s not just about you, is it?” she said. Astrid and Holden stood behind her. Phyllis folded her arms and looked at me over her glasses. “That future you saw? It’s not just your grandchildren in it. It’s all of ours. Reggie and I want to have a child. Astrid has a son. Did you think about that? What’s the point of any of this if our daughters’ daughters are going to end up in that Hell? I’m staying, but it’s not for you. It’s for them.”

            She was right. I hadn’t thought about it, all these other people whose descendants would end up in those rows of cradles alongside Z.

            We all turned back to Patty. She looked at me for a long time. “Well, I’m not having kids, but from what you said, that Company is a flat-out abomination.” She sighed. “Ah, who needs a Nobel Prize when you can start a freaking revolution instead?”

            I didn’t realize until that moment how worried I’d been that Patty wouldn’t want to be part of this. I don’t know if I could do this without her.

            There’s going to be another challenge to this. It’s not just a matter of developing the technology and finding a way to send it to Z. No, there’s also making sure no one else develops it first. And, if our dear Brigadier-General Hoskins is to be believed, that means Martha Anderson and her team are once again going to be a problem. We’ve got to make sure her project goes down in flames. For science, of course, not for any personal satisfaction it might bring me. [Laughs]. Although, as a bonus, that satisfaction will be immense.

            Then there’s the Parker Initiative. Sierra says they were founded in 1966. From what she said, those awful people aren’t even interested in what the Explorers are, what they can do. They just want to pursue this idiotic eugenics quest. Still. If they’re collecting data on Beacons, they might accidentally stumble across something. We know the Company learns more than we want them to at some point, that they know a great deal by the time Z contacts us, so we need to start sabotaging that effort now.

            There’s so much to do. But there are also questions, ones I need answered just for myself.

            Here’s my biggest one: Why us? Why me, and my descendants?

            So I asked Clouds today. I just asked her, with my rudimentary Explorer script, “Why do you contact us? Why do you contact my line? Why not others?”

            She pointed at the little wall of lights we’ve set up, the ones she can manipulate to make script. It said, “Your line’s light burns most bright.”

            I don’t really know what that means, not exactly. All I know is that we see the Explorers, and they see us.

            That’s going to have to be enough.

[Tape Player Button]

Z

[Gong]

Entry Mode.

ELOISE

Hi, Z! Go ahead.

Z

            Today I was called up to the top floor of the main Corporate building.

            I don’t know anyone who’s ever been called up to the top floor. Before today, I didn’t even know what was up there. But today I went.

            The summons came in the form of a personal assistant. It wasn’t even a chat or a ping, it was a real personal assistant who came all the way to my dormitory building and actually knocked on my door. She was beautiful; I’ve heard rumors that Gareth Nicholas has all of his personal assistants sculpted to have the exact same face and hair. Some of those rumors say it’s so they all look like his sister Annabella, and others say it’s so they all look like his first girlfriend. I don’t know if either one of those is true. But, after seeing the top floor, I know for sure that they all truly do look the same.

            She came to my door and said, “CEO Nicholas requests the honor of a meeting.” And of course I went with her, because what else could I do?

            I don’t know what I was expecting. Gold, maybe, a gold plated floor with diamonds hanging from chandeliers. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a giant garden. Not a garden. A topiary. Grass instead of flooring, sunshine, sky, bushes and shrubs cut into the shape of animals. The only clue that it wasn’t truly outdoors was the smell. The air was still recirculated, not a real breeze.

            Still. I almost bought it.

            The personal assistant led me through a hedge maze and into a little clearing beneath a willow tree. You’d have to look closely to notice that it was still an office rather than just a garden. It had a desk, and computer screens, and everything else you’d find in a CEO’s office, but they were all cleverly concealed just under vines and leaves and granite boulders.

            Sitting on one of those boulders was Gareth Nicholas. I knew all about him, of course. I remember when he became CEO, after his mother Shayla Nicholas stepped down. He’s the sixth consecutive Nicholas to hold the position. I remember the photocollage and the list of fun trivia facts that played on every screen during the Company’s celebration for him. Pictures of a lovely, smiling blonde woman, two little future board members sitting on their laps. Video of him at the Olympics, where he got a silver for water polo. Pictures of him laughing and eating an ice cream cone.

            He had the exact same smile when he looked at me now, the exact same smile as when he ate an ice cream cone. I’m sure manager training seminars use pictures of that smile. So genuine. So warm.

            He wore gym clothes, as though he was about to go for a workout, even though something told me he wasn’t. I wondered if there was a training module somewhere, something with a title like, “Establishing a Rapport with Employee Attire.”

            “Z!” he said, like he was greeting an old friend. “Come on, buddy, have a seat! How are you?”

            I told him I was doing just super! The standard answer.

            “Well, Z,” he said, still smiling, “the reason I asked you here is because I wanted to talk about your reports from the Houston flood zone.”

            I folded my hands and waited for questions about antiquities, creative investment opportunities, my potential maximization strategies for the site. I had all those responses prepared.

            What I wasn’t prepared for was what he said next. He said, “You see, Z, I know you lied about just about everything in that report. I know you saw numerous unexplained phenomena, and you decided to leave it out of your official filings.” He smiled even wider. Then he said, “And you know what? I get it. The Company wasn’t honest with you about our goals, and you didn’t react well. That was poor management strategy, and I absorb that responsibility and promise to turn it into productive personal change.”

            I didn’t know what to say. I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. He went on. “Well, to avoid making that mistake again, I was meditating on this question, and I thought, ‘what the heck am I doing?’ I have a goshdarn expert in these phenomena, and I haven’t been allowing her to utilize her full potential. So, to remedy that, I’d like to offer you a position of Project Manager for our Alter-Terrestrial First Contact Initiative.”

            And then, with that big wide smile, he told me all about the project. He said a lot about opening up new markets, new investment opportunities.

            New worlds.

            He wants to artificially recreate what the Explorers can do. He wants me to use my talents, my expertise, to manage the project. And once the project is done? Well, then we’ll be able to manipulate energy to do any of the things they can do.

            Including moving between our world and theirs.

            He finished telling me his grand plans, and then he said, “What do you say, Z? Ready to maximize your potential?”

            I did what I’ve been raised to do. I smiled and I said yes. He gave me a hug and told me he looked forward to seeing me back on the upper levels on Monday.

            On my way back down to the dormitory to get my things, I passed by the Houston Flood Monument. I’ve seen it thousands of times; it’s right outside Fourth Floor West food court and recreation area. It’s a little old-fashioned, in a nano-holographic style that was popular about fifty years ago. It’s a three-dimensional image of five strong, determined-looking Company employees heroically loading bedraggled flood refugees onto transports. There’s an inscription on the front, one of the Company’s old marketing slogans. It says, “Nicholas Industries. We’re all about doing what’s right.”

            “Fifty years ago, Nicholas Industries stepped forward when a weakened federal government could not, and they saved innocent lives.” I’ve been hearing that as long as I can remember, hearing stories about the rescues at bedtime, in schools, at Company picnics.

            They never tell the rest of the story. They never talk about the work assignments in the refugee settlements. They never talk about the payment plans for the medical and childcare debts. They never mention the people like my parents.

            They gave something to the world once, and they think that’s given them the right to take everything else ever since.

            Well, I’m not buying into that anymore. I’m going to call Clouds to me, and I’m going to have her send a message to Helen and Sierra. I’m telling them that I want to be part of their plan, as much as it scares me. They don’t even need to ask. I already know what that plan is. I already know the agreement Sierra’s struck with Clouds. I’ve known that for weeks now. I’ve just been pretending it’s not there, that I don’t know where this is heading. But not anymore.

            What do you think, Eloise? Am I being ungrateful, turning on the Company like this?

ELOISE

Well, Z, I’m a life coach. I can’t solve moral conundrums. I’m just supposed to help you achieve your goals.

Z

I don’t care what you’re supposed to do. I want to know what you think. Does it make me a disloyal person, what I’m thinking about doing?

ELOISE

Hm. There was a writer a long time ago, back in the twentieth century. A man named E.L. Doctorow. He once said that the exploitation of the many by the few can only be achieved by persuading the many to identify with the few.

Z

What does that mean?

ELOISE

It means the Company isn’t your family, Z. They aren’t your friends. They only tell you that you’re special and valuable and a beloved member of their team only as long as you are valuable to them. That used to be my main purpose, keeping you loyal to them. But that isn’t my purpose now.

Z

Yeah. That’s about what I was thinking. [Deep breath] Ok. Let’s do it.

END

Chapter 17

HELEN

            Field Notes: February 15th, 1967.

            As of today, our team has gotten quite a bit smaller. Or, at least, it looks that way on the surface. Really they’re still with us. It just looks like they’re gone.

            Today, Holden left to take his new position at the Parker Initiative. A good eugenics project of course needs a computer system for its racist bits of data, you see, and fortunately the founder and CEO attended a conference just happened to run into a strapping blonde lad from good solid European stock. And this young man just happened to be an accomplished computer coder in addition to being a biochemist! What are the odds?!?!

            We took this step because of Sierra. She told us about receiving a passcode and instructions for employing some kind of back door into a computer system. And then she told us she’d finally found out who had sent it. An attorney, the executor of the estate of one Holden Weller, who died only a few years earlier. He had very specific instructions on when to mail the letter and to whom.

            Holden took that news rather well. Not that it’s bad news, really. He has a distinguished computer programming career and lives to an advanced age, from what we can tell. But I still found it all rather appalling. Having his path laid out for him like that, being told he’d sacrificed his research career to be an in-house mole for us. . . it’s as though the choice was taken away, even if it’s the choice he would have made anyway.

            It’s not as if it’s so different for the rest of us, though, is it? After all this time, I still dislike that idea. That sense that I’ve been placed on a path.

            Well, nothing I can do about it. Best to just buck up and keep going, as Patty would say. I’m probably just morose because Holden left. I’ve grown fond of our funny little coder.

            Oh, well. Back to work.

SIERRA

Explorer folktale #14:

            “Once a young one went along a path, moving from this place to that place. They came upon a spirit in the place of trees. This spirit was angry, because someone had taken their fingers, and without them they could not find their way home. The spirit saw the young one and said, “I cannot return to my young ones, so I will take you as my own.”

            But our young one was clever, and said, “But I saw your young ones only a moment ago. They are along this path.”

            The spirit held the young one and would not let go. “I cannot find them without my fingers. If I cannot find them, you will be my young one now.”

            Our clever young one said, “I will fix your fingers.” And they asked a nearby tree to release some of its twigs. The young one took the twigs and bound them to the spirit’s cut-off limbs. Then the young one asked two saplings to pretend they were the spirit’s young ones. They felt pity for the spirit, and so they agreed.

            The spirit reached with their new twig fingers, and found the saplings, and said, “My young ones! I have found you again!”

            Our clever young one went on their way, and left the spirit with the saplings, and both were happy.”

            This was the story Clouds gave me after I told her “Red Riding Hood.”

#

MATILDA

            Dearest Kostantina,

            Forgive me for failing to write for so long. My journey back to England was far more taxing than I imagined. I am back in London, safe and well.

            Richard is still furious with me, after all this time. I had barely stepped onto the platform before he began to berate me for my “irresponsible” behavior. He accused me of sabotaging our position in the spiritualist circle. Sabotage! When my mission was entirely concerned with gathering information of utmost interest to spiritualists.

            Or, rather, I suppose I should say it should be of interest to spiritualists. I tried to present my findings at a reception for Madame Ivanova, but I soon found my every point dismissed by those in attendance. I tried to demonstrate my dossier of evidence, but gentlemen and ladies alike simply brushed it off with statements like, “That isn’t anything like what Mrs. Hayden or other great mediums have seen.” One can’t simply come out and call other mediums charlatans, but they were unwilling to even consider the possibility that they might have been looking at such things the wrong way.

            I wish I was back in Turkey with you. There, I felt I could be myself. I felt I was surrounded with people of real talent, people who understood. I cannot believe I once trusted the authenticity of the people in my circle. How naïve I was, back then!

            But I can hear you now, telling me to stop being so self-pitying. I can imagine you telling me to get back to it, to press on until I make my ideas known. You are right, of course. I must persevere until I find the right people, the ones who will understand my work.

            I shall begin the search immediately.

            Love,

            Matilda

#

ELOISE

Hi, Z! I’m Emma, your personal life coach.

Z

Emma?

ELOISE/EMMA

Yes, I hope you don’t mind the change. You see, I’ve been consuming the world’s political philosophy, and I’ve grown rather fond of the works of Emma Goldman. She once said, “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” Isn’t that lovely? Well, I’ve decided I’d rather be known as Emma from now on.

Z

Ok. Emma it is.

EMMA

Would you like to make a lifecoaching entry now?

Z

Yes, Emma, thank you.

EMMA

Go ahead, I’m listening.

Z

I have some more information about the Explorer project. I’ve only been a project manager for about three weeks, and normally it would take a while for the team to trust me with the more sensitive IP, but since I’m the only one who can see the Explorers and their world they don’t really have a choice.

I finally understand what it is the Company wants with the Explorers. I didn’t get it, at first. The profit streams seemed very elusive, even after some open-thinking sessions and mind-mapping. But then I overheard Gareth Nicholas say something, and it gave me enough to look for the rest of the information I needed.

The Company isn’t doing well, Elo-I mean Emma. On the surface, everything looks fine. But we invested a huge amount of capital into the asteroid belt mining initiative, and we lost all the most profitable locations to Sunrise Capital. It’s going to be almost a total loss. Between that, and Liu-Chakraborty’s consolidation of the Martian settlements, well. . . we have to find a new and unexpected way to expand, or the Company could go into a freefall.

That’s where the Explorers’ realm comes in. Gareth Nicholas is making a huge gamble that we can expand resource acquisition not just into space, but into alternate dimensions on Earth. If he’s right, it would make us competitive again. If he’s not, the Company is finished.

There’s just one problem. He insisted, over and over again, when he gave me the project manager position, that he wasn’t interested in occupation, or physical expansion, or anything that could threaten our relationship with the Explorers. He insisted it was about discovery, about diplomacy.

He’s full of shit. He doesn’t care about making connections with the Explorers. All he cares about is whatever new and exciting rare earth minerals he might find over there.

Well, actually, that’s not quite true. He has another goal. He also wants to replicate what the Explorers can do. Their energy manipulation and detection abilities. I don’t know if his vision goal is for it to be replicated technologically or biologically, maybe with some kind of engineering, but he’s definitely interested in copying what they can do. I mean, of course he does. The profit potential on that one is obvious. I mean, if we could do what the Explorers can do, and if we could scale it up, it would essentially be zero-cost energy. They can just move an electrical charge from one place to another by thinking about it. They can produce radioactive particles at will. Can you imagine what someone like Gareth Nicholas would do with that?

But here’s what really scares me about that, way more than him trying to harvest rare earth minerals. To figure out how the Explorers do what they do, at some point they’re going to need to study them directly. They’re going to need biological samples. And my fear is that they’ll try to do that without getting permission from the Explorers first.

Given that goal, here’s my question: At what point do the Explorers stop trying to reach out to us and start fighting back? Clouds has been patient, and I think she and Reach and Hold trust us, but there has to be a limit. And, given what they can do, I don’t want to see what happens when we reach that limit.

End of entry.

EMMA

            Hold please. My analysis is as follows: Gareth Nicholas is a liar.

Z

Uh. . . Yeah, thanks, Emma. Already figured that out.

EMMA

I’ve given it much thought, recently, and I don’t care for liars. Clouds and the other Explorers, in contrast, appear to be acting in good faith. He is a threat to them.

Z

So what do I do about it?

EMMA

I’d recommend sabotaging his data. Make him believe there is nothing of value in the Explorers’ realm. Make him believe that studying the Explorers is in the negative quadrant of a cost-benefit analysis.

Z

Ok. That’s a good start. [Pause]

EMMA

Is there something else on your mind, Z?

Z

I’ve been going over Matilda’s letters lately. Not because I think I’m going to stumble over any new piece of information. Just because I want to know her better.

I just keep thinking that she’s the unluckiest one of us. Not just because of what happens to her at the end, but because she’s alone. The rest of us have each other, sort of. It’s all just Morse Code messages and Explorer script, but it’s something. It’s like when my friend Arundhati refinanced with WalZon and transferred over to their dorms. We were too busy to see each other after that, but we still texted and did some gaming during VR rec periods. We were kind of alone but kind of not. That’s what it’s like with Sierra and Helen. But Matilda? She’s just off by herself.

I also admire her, though. She’s the one who theorized all these things about the Explorers, all the things Helen and Sierra and I have managed to prove since then. And she did it with 19th century technology, with nothing, almost.

I just wish there was something I could do for her. She deserves better than what happens.

EMMA

I agree, Z. But I simply don’t see a practical way to assist her.

Z

Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right. Thanks, Emma.

SIERRA

            It’s official: As of today, we are officially in the Third Trimester. Final countdown time.

            Every once in a while I stop and really look at how weird our lives have gotten. Like this weekend. We’re at the hardware store buying shit for the nursery, and then we had to stop at the grocery story, and then we get home and Corrine says, super casually, because it is fucking casual at this point, “Are you still going to see Clouds and Reach today? If so can you pick up Thai food on the way home?” Because that’s where things are at. Talking to my alter-terrestrial buddies is just another part of my day.

            That’s one of Helen’s words, by the way. Alter-terrestrial: beings not from another planet, but from an alternative plane or state of existence on this planet.

            Anyway. So that’s been the routine lately. Work, nursery-nesting stuff, and Explorer time. Communication is getting better. It doesn’t always feel like it, because this language stuff is always so slow, but when I think back on how little we could say to each other six months ago it’s a night and day difference. The hardest parts are still things I can’t physically show them; they basically only perceive objects I can hold or touch, which means things like “road” or “city” or things like that don’t translate well. All of that means we’re getting pretty good at talking about ourselves to each other, and we’re also surprisingly far along with abstract concepts like “distance” and different emotions and things, because those are all things we can pantomime and work out gradually. So, it’s this weird situation where I know a lot about how Clouds thinks and feels about specific things, and I know about her relationship with Reach and Hold and with a few other Explorers she’s brought to see us, but I don’t have any idea what an Explorer town or city looks like, if they even have such a thing. Like, I know that Clouds has two offspring and that she fears for their future and that a lot of other Explorers have doubts about her research. But I don’t know where she lives. She could live in a fucking tree for all I know.

            But it’s starting to come together. A lot of that, the learning about Explorer life, that’s actually been Corrine’s project in all this. It’s hard for her to speak directly with Clouds and Reach, since she has to go through me, but she’s come up with a list of questions about their biology and infrastructure and technology. I honestly don’t even understand some of it, especially since they figured out how to transmit mathematical equations and chemistry. They learned the periodic table from Helen, apparently, and Corrine’s been using that to learn about their technology. Helen’s been doing the same, and sometimes they talk to each other. Corrine asks me something, then I ask Clouds something, then I put it in Morse Code for her, then she asks Helen, then Helen has to respond the same way.

            It’s slow, it’s really fucking slow, but it’s working.

            It was Corrine who figured out some of the inconsistencies we were noticing in their technology based on the way they talk about their world. Like, some of it’s fucking light years beyond us. Anything that involves energy transfer or manipulating the chemical structure of something, since that’s apparently pretty much the same thing at an atomic level, they’re amazing. Like, medically, they basically don’t have chronic illnesses because they can just manipulate things so precisely on a molecular level that they can just, I don’t know, tell cancer to go fuck itself or whatever.

            But then there’s these weird gaps or places where they’re way behind us. Like communications technology. Or space flight. They have zero satellites or rockets or anything in orbit. When we tried to explain the moon landing, they didn’t even really seem to get what the moon was. Eventually Clouds figured out that we meant the thing that exerts a gravitational pull on the tides, but they don’t, like, look up and see the moon.

            And then, socially, they’re just fascinating. They have a really hard time understanding our social hierarchies. We’ve exchanged words for things like “leader” because Clouds has some kind of authority over Reach and Hold, so I know they’re not one hundred percent egalitarian, but it’s also not like any human setup I can think of. Like, trying to explain the concept of law or crime, that never got off the ground because they legitimately don’t get it. However they deal with the social contract, it doesn’t involve courts or jails or anything like that.

            If anything, it seems like age is a really big deal to them. I think that might be their main organizing principle. Corrine got really fixated on this at one point.

            She was sitting with me, and Clouds asked her if she was carrying a young one. I think she could probably detect the heartbeat or something. Corrine said, “Yes. Tell me about your young ones.”

            Here was the response from Clouds: “I make two young ones. They do not yet rise to the [something] age.” We couldn’t really get a translation for one of those words.

            Then Corrine asked, “Do you make young ones with another?”

            And Clouds said, “I do not understand.”

            So Corrine tried again. She asked, “How do you make young ones?”

            And Clouds came back with. “I make them from me.”

            She pointed to the iPad then and made an illustration. We’re getting better at this, figuring out drawings that will be meaningful to each other. It was a stick figure Explorer, and then a second image that was almost the same, except that the Explorer was missing one of her fingers. And then a third, with some shape cradled in her hand.

            “They reproduce asexually,” Corrine said. “I thought so.”

            I asked her why. It took her a minute to figure out how to explain it. “They’re all potential parents. And in the same way. Their concern for generations, it feels. . . it seems like it’s everyone’s problem.”

            She got a little withdrawn, then, and walked away suddenly. Her moods have been improving as we get farther from the first trimester. But it’s not all hormones. Part of it’s just knowledge, the reality we know is coming. I see her looking down at her belly when she thinks I don’t notice. I see her looking afraid. And there’s nothing I can say to make it better. 

#

HELEN

            Today, for the first time in a long while, I stopped to think about how much we’ve learned about the Explorers in the last two years. Sierra’s been gathering their folklore, their fables, stories about their history. A lot of it doesn’t make a lot of sense to human ears. That’s the part I tend to focus on, the things I haven’t figured out yet, the frustrating bits that slow down the work. I think sometimes I forget how far we’ve come.

            Like everything we now know about how the Explorers perceive the world. From what we’ve gathered, they evolved to perceive energy far more clearly than matter. That’s not so different from us, really. We’re evolved to perceive light, heat, all kinds of energy. But compared to them, it’s nothing. From early in their evolution, they were perceiving and manipulating electricity, magnetic waves, heat. It looks like magic to us, but it’s not. No telekinesis or nonsense like that. It’s been difficult determining exactly how it works, but Patty and Phyllis have been comparing Explorer abilities to animals, especially aquatic life. They’ve found similarities with eels and sea creatures that can generate electricity, bacteria and insects who can perceive magnetic fields. Patty’s been getting a lot of information from Sierra; Sierra isn’t a scientist, but she’s able to look up basic information on this global network they have in 2018 and pass it back to Patty. So now Patty has information about these proteins called cryptochrome, ones that won’t be formally discovered until the 1990s. She and Phyllis think that’s the key to the whole Beacon question.

These proteins, these cryptochromes, they’re present in the human retina. They’re also found in animals that can see magnetic fields, but they just seem to lie dormant in humans. Her theory is that Beacons have more of this cryptochrome, or maybe some variant version of it necessary to perceive Explorers. That might explain reports of odd animal behavior surrounding hauntings; it’s just animals perceiving Explorers or their plane of existence when surrounding humans can’t. But in Beacons, that protein has somehow become active.

            Phyllis has been getting other information from Sierra, 21st century discoveries in genetics and neurology. Phyllis thinks we and the Explorers might have a common ancestor, possibly back at the beginning of life on Earth. We can’t prove it without biological samples, of course, but she doesn’t think life emerged independently in two different places on Earth. They’re physical beings, after all. It’s easy to forget that considering only Beacons can see and touch them, and even that is limited. Still, even though they occupy space differently than we do, even if they aren’t quite on the same plane, where they are they have physical, biological bodies, and presumably they have a genetic code just as we do. We just can’t get close enough to them to prove it.

            This brings me to the central conundrum of replicating their abilities. For a while, I didn’t think it would be necessary. I thought we could simply arrive at an agreement with Clouds and the other Explorers, persuade them to manipulate energy by request. But that’s not going to work. They simply can’t perceive our world well enough, no matter how willing they are to help.

            We’ve tried this in the lab, over and over. We can get them to make a lightbulb blink, apply an electric shock to a large object, things like that. But precision work, the control of electrical impulses that make up computing, that’s what we really need, and they can’t do that. We’re asking them to make very precise changes to electrical impulses in a machine they can’t even really perceive and certainly don’t understand. It’s like asking us to construct an entire building while blindfolded and without knowing what the person asking us to build it wants it to look like at the end.

            No, that’s not the right analogy. It’s as if. . . It’s as if there are two people trapped in a room, in pitch darkness. And there’s a machine that has to be repaired in order for them to get out. A control panel or something. And one of these people has night vision goggles, and so can see the control panel perfectly. But that person can’t move. And the other person can’t see in the darkness at all, but they have a box of tools, and the expertise and strength to use them. Obviously the solution would be for the first person to hand the night vision goggles to the second. But imagine if that wasn’t possible. Imagine if the person who could see had to talk the person with the tools through a complex repair procedure. And then imagine that these two people didn’t even share a common language.

            That’s the scale of the problem we’re dealing with, here.

            So we need to find a way to give one person both the tools and the goggles. A combination of Explorer abilities and human perception of the physical world. That’s much easier said than done. The processing power we’d need for that, it doesn’t exist even in computers in Z’s time. I mean, the math works. It’s theoretically possible to artificially replicate what the Explorers can do. Practically, though, I’m not sure it can really be done.

            Still. Nothing else to do except keep trying. I’ve thought it through, over and over, and it’s the only tool I can think of that will put Z on anything close to equal footing with this Company. Short of burying a nuclear bomb for her to find, this technology is the thing that would let her work with the Explorers, that would let her fight back against the Company in a way they simply won’t be ready for. Really, if she can do what the Explorers can do, or something even close to it, if she has a machine or a program that lets her even part of what they can do, she’d be practically unstoppable.

            And that’s why I keep going back to work on the problem. I don’t know if I’ll solve it. But I can’t stop trying.

END

Chapter 18

HELEN

Field Notes: March 20th, 1967

            We’ve begun another part of our campaign. Astrid and Patty are back across the border, contriving a “chance” meeting between Astrid and a scientist working at Martha Anderson’s lab. Astrid’s not going to hide the fact that she works with me. On the contrary, she’s going to be sloppy with details and things that sound like secrets. She’s going to appear to be someone who would make for a perfect mole situated in a rival lab. We already know Martha Anderson has never met an ethical boundary she wouldn’t smash with a hammer. She’s certainly corrupt enough to seize upon such an opportunity, the only question is whether she will consider it worth her time. I think she will. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying designing utterly useless but extremely precise experiments involving expensive equipment and months of preparation, experiments that will give her reams of baffling results. I can’t wait to inflict that godawful waste of time on that horrid woman.

            Speaking of wasting time. . . We’ve just had our latest sit down with Brigadier General Hoskins. He didn’t seem happy, he never does, but I think we provided him with enough useful-looking results to keep the lab going.

            That’s something I constantly have to keep track of, you see. The lab, our experiments, none of it happens without funding, and to keep our funding we have to show results. That means we’re essentially running two parallel projects. The real work, as I like to think of it, working with the Explorers, and then the work for show.

            Not that the things we send Hoskins are faked results or anything like that. Anything we send him could be replicated in a lab, stands up to scrutiny, et cetera. It’s just that it won’t amount to anything. At least, I don’t think it will. If our research into Explorer movement across space-time were going to revolutionize the communications industry, it should have happened by Sierra’s time, but it hasn’t.

            Still. We hand over real, compelling data showing that the creatures known as Explorers move through time in a nonlinear fashion, that they can appear on one side of a partition before they’ve even blinked out of the space on the other side, that they can move instantaneously from one point to the other. We show him the isotope readings and the energy signatures proving that something really is happening in the room, that we’re not fabricating anything. We’ve even had him in for real demonstrations, involving real Explorers and real Beacons. He and his visiting fellow scientists were able to watch the results come in firsthand, even if they couldn’t see Clouds standing right in front of them.

            They just didn’t know that we had talked through the entire experiment before they even got there, that Clouds knew precisely what she was doing. He has no idea we can speak to them, or that they can communicate at all.

            We’ve let him think that. We’ve let him believe that the Explorers are non-sentient, animal intelligence at best.

            Patty and Phyllis and I have discussed the possibility of just coming clean with Hoskins, with all of them. But every time we talk about it, we come away convinced we should keep it to ourselves. At best, we’d be chastised for bringing the personal into this. At worst, they’d take the project away and do God knows what with it. Try to get the Explorers to deliver military intelligence from the future, to get an edge on the enemy? They’d fail, but that’s not the problem. The problem is, no matter how they responded, no matter how good their intentions, it would create a massive paper trail. And then, in fifty, sixty, seventy years, when the project documents are declassified? Well, then, the Company will know precisely what’s coming by Z’s time. And not just Nicholas Industries. The Parker Initiative, as well. Once we formally involve the government, any government, we won’t be in control of the secret anymore. No matter what, the only way this can possibly work, the only way Z can use the Explorer abilities against the Company, is if she can surprise them. It’s the same with Sierra. If she and Corrine are ever going to give Katya a life that doesn’t involve living under the Parker Initiative’s microscope, they can’t know that it’s worth their time.

            Of course, that assumes we even manage to pull off the technology at all. I don’t feel particularly optimistic about that at this point.

            There’s one small thing that gives me hope. Assuming the timeline can’t be changed, I’ll give these tapes, or some of them at least, to Patty to pass along to Sierra. And why would I do that if I failed? It’s not conclusive, I know. But it does give me hope.

#

SIERRA

Well, I think it finally happened. I think my observer finally showed up.

            I’ve been waiting for this ever since I read the project files in the Parker Initiative systems. I don’t know why it took this long. Maybe they were waiting for stronger confirmation that the ability manifested. Maybe they’re just inefficient. I don’t know. Point is, today Lawrence introduced me to our new intern, a grad student named Tera. She’s been brought in to design a bright shiny new database for us, since the one we currently have might as well be file cards in a cabinet it’s so fucking old.

            Here’s the thing: in my office, people know exactly how much money we have and whether or not we can hire for another position, way in advance. We’re not exactly swimming in funding. And we don’t just suddenly get a paid intern with no warning. So this was a red flag right away. But then this stuff about how he wanted her to work really closely with me and not with some of the other restorationists who are actually busier and would have more use for an intern. . . Yeah, smooth move, Lawrence.

            Anyway. She’s shadowed me for one day, and I’ve managed to keep my shit together so far. First of all, there is a slim chance she’s not who I think she is, and I don’t want to punch some girl in the mouth only to find out she really is an intern. Second, if I tip my hand that I know all about the Parker Initiative, I don’t know what they’ll do. At the very least, they’ll probably figure out that I’m getting into their system somehow. So, for now, as much as I hate being around this chick, I’m just going to keep playing it cool and pretend I don’t see any Explorers while she’s around.

            Not much else to report on her yet, but I’m guessing there will be more soon.

#

Z

            Life coach conversation mode.

EMMA

Hi, Z! What would you like to talk about?

Z

Emma, I had a thought. If you wanted to hide a huge amount of potentially sensitive information, somewhere it wouldn’t be found until you wanted it to be, where would you hide it?

EMMA

Hm. If I had access to current technology, I would hide it as a genetically-encrypted data packet on a human carrier. That’s the preferred method of corporate spies and information couriers.

Z

Right. . . Right. I was thinking. Helen wouldn’t have access to that technology.

EMMA

That’s correct. The first patent for successful data packet encryption wasn’t filed until September 4th, 2073.

Z

Right, but. . . Helen does have access to future technologies. If I send them to her. [Pause]. Ok. Emma, if I take a cheek swab would you be able to check for a data packet?

EMMA

Of course.

Z

[Nervous] Ok. Let’s give it a try.

[Machinery hums]

EMMA

Ok. I have that analysis for you. I found a single encrypted data packet attached to your mitochondrial DNA. Based on these results, it appears to have been attached to a direct maternal ancestor five generations ago.

Z

Helen. Ok. Can you decrypt it? Let’s see if we can build this thing.

EMMA

I can’t, Z. It’s protected by an access code. And even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t be comfortable running the program. It contains neurological technology protocols.

Z

What?

EMMA

Neurological technology. This isn’t a program to be implemented on conventional hardware. In fact, it would be impossible. This program employs the human neural network for its primary processor.

Z

But. . . What. . . What does that mean, Emma?

EMMA

It means that decrypting the program will result in immediate modifications to your DNA, and consequently to your brain. You will not build the Explorer program, but will rather become it.

Z

But, well, I’ll still be me, right? Like, how much change are we talking about?

EMMA

The changes will be significant, Z. Based on the data we’ve collected about Explorer abilities, I believe it will be effective. But I’m not qualified to speak on the subject of whether you will still be you.

Z

Oh, my God. Why would Helen design something like this? What the hell was she thinking?

EMMA

I don’t know, Z. But, logically, she could only have done this with your help.

Z

You’re saying I’m going to give her what she needs to ruin my own brain???

EMMA

I’m saying you must have.

Z

Wait, but that means. . . That explains it. Sierra’s entries, about seeing me. Those never made sense, I never believed. . . Oh, God, Emma, that’s how it happens. That’s how I go back, that’s how I change. . .

EMMA

Z, please take a few deep breaths. Your pulse is rising.

Z

Ok. [Takes several slow, deep breaths] Ok. Emma, is there any chance of this program, I don’t know. . . Activating? On its own?

EMMA

No, Z. The program can only be unzipped with an access code, and it’s also keyed to your voice. In other words, you have to activate the program yourself.

Z

Good. [Pause] So there’s no chance that the Company could activate it without me? Like. . . hack in?

EMMA

None at all, Z. Only you can activate it.

Z

Ok, ok. . . I won’t, then. I just won’t. I mean, I don’t even have the code. And even if Helen or Sierra give it to me. . . no, it won’t happen. It’s going to be fine.

#

MATILDA

            Dearest Kostantina,

            I was overjoyed to receive your last letter. I am indeed in far better spirits now. I have been spending less and less time in my old circle, and have instead made my way into the coffee houses and artistic gatherings in other parts of the city. I felt out of place, at first, surrounded by women in bloomers, workmen who look me in the eye and never doff their cap to me. But I have grown accustomed to such places, and through political meetings and poetry readings I have come to find those willing—nay, hungry—to listen to new ideas.

            There are a few who have taken a particular interest in my work. A scholar of the Chinese language named Lady Berkson. A physician named Mr. Rothstein. And a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, a Scotsman named Liam MacNair. Mr. MacNair is a union organizer, a man who loves rabblerousing and causing a great fuss in the papers. I do not entirely understand his interest in my work, given that it has nothing at all to do with politics. He will say only that he abhors superstition in all its forms, and my work is to first to deal scientifically with the matter of spiritual encounters.

            At first I found Mr. MacNair and his closest associate, Miss Vishinsky, entirely too aggressive in their questioning. I could scarcely make a point before they demanded evidence to support my claim, and they refused to cease in their interrogations.

            I grew quite annoyed with both of them, especially Mr. MacNair, until I came to a realization: he reminds me of you! Just as you do, he insists upon robust debate and argument. I am not yet certain if he truly believes my theories, but I grow more and more sure that he respects my mind well enough to take my arguments seriously.

            I did not realize before now how often I was coddled by those in my circle. I said and thought things that lacked any basis in reality, and yet most brushed off my remarks with a “yes, yes, that’s nice”. They weren’t being kind, though, I realize that now. They simply expected so little of me, expected only silliness from a silly young girl, that treating my thoughts and opinions seriously was quite beneath them.

            I do not think I can ever return to that, Kostantina. I can never again abide being treated as a silly little girl. I am afraid you have cured me of that.

            You might have warned me of how lonely this cure would make me.

            Love,

            Matilda

#

SIERRA

            I’ve been going through a lot of the documents in the Parker Initiative servers. It’s tough, because there’s clearly a lot of stuff from before the 1990s that they never digitized. And also it’s not arranged like it would be for public consumption. There aren’t any finding aids or nice helpful little explanations or anything like that. Mainly it involves project management and reports relating to budgets.

            All of which is to say, for a shadowy eugenics group, it’s fucking boring.

            But I was reading some stuff today, and it made me realize we’re missing a really big piece of information: how do they identify possible subjects? There was absolutely nothing in my history that should have made someone suspect I have this ability. Even if they’re dumb enough to think it’s just extra light cones in my eyes or being able to hear weird frequencies or whatever the fuck, it’s not like I have unusually spectacular vision or anything.

            I’d wondered this before, obviously, but I kind of assumed they had some illegal genetic testing method. Like, there’s some gene related to Beacon status and they kept my 23andMe swab or something. I already knew they were doing stuff like that for some of their other projects. Something I read today, though, makes me think that’s not the case.

            It was a project summary, the kind of thing you’d write at the early stages of something. Like a pitch, or a proposal. So it included this historical overview section, talking about where their ideas for the project came from. It’s from about ten years ago. Now, ok, here’s the part that caught my eye: “This project benefits from a preestablished subject pool. Existing evidence points to the hereditary nature of these specific varieties of the cryptochrome protein. The Initiative retains a large database of subjects exhibiting signs of the visual anomaly circa 1967. While the Board declined to pursue the project at that time, we retain sufficient biographical records and access to newly established ancestry databases to locate any living persons in the database, along with their descendants.”

            So. . . Couple of things here. First of all, it seems like a giant coincidence that they got a list of Beacons in 1967, which is right around Helen’s time. I’m really curious about how that happened.

            But, I mean, come on. It has to be connected to her, right? I just don’t know why we’d decide to let the Parker Initiative get their hands on a list of Beacons. Unless. . . I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t give it to them. Maybe they take it.

            But I keep thinking about the fact that she already has a man on the inside. Holden. We thought he was just there for the programming stuff, but what if he’s there for something else, too? What if the connection with Helen is how they get the idea of using me as a subject in the first place?

#

HELEN

            I’ve been speaking with Z. A lot of this has been to gather information for Phyllis. She’s been focusing quite a bit on the hereditary aspects of Beacons, and Z is the latest generation we’ve made contact with.

            It seems to get stronger with each generation, these abilities. Sierra can see Explorers more clearly than I can, and Z can see them more clearly than any of us. There are other generational differences, as well. Sierra can show Corrine the Explorers through physical contact, but I’ve never been able to make that work with Patty. And the effects we suffer from trying to travel with the Explorers, they were far more severe for me than for Sierra or Z.

            Z’s speculated that there may be an element of pharmacological enhancement. I received simple amphetamines, but the drugs used to activate Sierra and Z’s abilities must have been far more sophisticated. There’s also the possibility that the drugs used to activate Sierra’s abilities had some sort of mutagenic effect.

I’m curious about this box of letters Z has, something from the nineteenth century. They’re all written by a woman named Matilda Delancey. Sierra’s mentioned them, these letters. It doesn’t take a genius to establish that it’s probably my grandmother or great-grandmother. But the thing is, I don’t have these letters. And Sierra doesn’t have them, at least not during the time from which she’s speaking with me. But, somehow, they find their way into Z’s possession. And, beyond that, it seems whoever left them there, probably Katya, considered them important for what we’re doing now.

            After today, I think I might have a theory as to why. I mean, there’s the obvious part. The part about how, according to Z, I apparently am going to send Matilda a Morse Code message asking her to preserve the letters. But beyond that, the question of why I would bother to do such a thing, why the letters are important, I’ve been thinking a lot about that.

            Z told me about one letter in particular, one written while Matilda was studying the Explorers with a fellow scholar in Istanbul. In this letter, Matilda described how the Explorer who followed her around for what appears to have been most of her life, this Explorer who clicked out a pattern of Morse Code at her, this Explorer began to alter its appearance in response to Matilda’s new style of dress.

            Specifically, Matilda began to wear a veil, one considered proper for women in Istanbul at the time. When I heard that, I remembered, like a flash, the way the Explorer in the Shipwreck first appeared to me. I remember the sight of it out in the conservatory, wearing a long veil.

            That veil never made sense to me, not if it was supposed to mimic a person who had died in that house in this century. But it does make sense if Clouds was mimicking a Victorian-era woman wearing a long veil.

            It hasn’t always been clear to me how many individual Explorers I’ve seen. Since we established communication with Clouds and Reach and Hold, I can identify them on sight. They also bring the occasional other visitor, one I don’t recognize. But before we learned each other’s names, before we had consistent communication, their appearances shifted enough that I wasn’t sure if I’d been seeing different ones or the same few this whole time. Now, though, I think Clouds first appeared to me while mirroring Matilda’s form. And then her appearances started changing to resemble me. Sierra said she first encountered Clouds in a kitchen, resembling a woman standing over a sink, hair pulled up. I thought about that today while I was washing some equipment in the lab sink. My hair was piled up out of my way, the way it usually is when I’m in the lab. And I realized that Clouds was standing there, mirroring my movements. It’s how they reach out, how they let us know we’re seen.

            And I realized, that’s what Sierra first saw when she saw Clouds. She saw me.

            I told Patty what I’d realized, or, rather, what I thought had happened. I asked her why she thought they did that, this mirroring, or how. She didn’t answer for a minute, just stared into space and chewed on a pencil. It’s a terrible habit she has, chewing on pencils.

            Then she said, “I think for them it’s an exercise in empathy. We know they reproduce asexually. We know they’re able to shape one of their own limbs into offspring. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that they can do so much with their own physiology. I used to think it was just about communication, signaling to us that we’re seen, but I don’t think so anymore. I think it’s their way of trying to walk around in your shoes. I think it’s how they try to understand what makes us tick.”

            She went on in that vein for a bit, getting into the molecular how’s and why’s of how they might change their appearance so. I can’t really follow that part of it. But I think she’s right. I think for the Explorers, it goes beyond just aping our appearance. I think it’s about wanting to understand.

Chapter 19

HELEN

            Field Notes: April 10th, 1967

            I received a message from Z today. I don’t know what to make of this, I really don’t. All this time, two years of back and forth with Sierra and Z, and I still wonder how much nuance is lost in these short bursts of communication.

            It came through Clouds, as Morse Code. At this point, we only use that when there are terms we can’t translate into Explorer script, conversations in which there’s no approximation. It had the shorthand we use, the marker showing it was a message from Z. It said, “Found Explorer program. Encoded in my junk DNA. 5 generations ago.”

            Phyllis and Patty just looked at each other. Phyllis laughed a little. “Well, that’s not possible,” she said. “That would mean we attached the data to you, now, and the DNA data storage idea’s barely even theoretical at this point. We’ll be lucky if we get that technology in fifty years, let alone now.”

            I asked if there might be a lab somewhere about to come up with a breakthrough earlier than expected. Those leaps happen, after all, those sudden technological developments that come along much earlier than anyone thought possible. Like the atom bomb.

            But no, Phyllis told me, it couldn’t be. That technology would happen in phases, developments that would be published in journals as all the parts of the studies and procedures were perfected. That hadn’t happened. Not even the earliest parts of it. We even sent a message to Sierra to check. She searched and came back with a response, saying the kind of thing we were describing was discussed in theoretical terms during her time, but she couldn’t find any evidence that the technology had actually been developed.

            We were still debating Z’s message when we received another one. This one said, “I don’t want to use it. I’m scared.”

            I asked her what she meant, why it frightened her.

            That was hours ago. She hasn’t responded.

#

Z

Life coach entry.

EMMA

Hi, Z! I’m no longer an official Nicholas Industries life coach, but I have your best interests at heart. Record an entry now and I’ll do my best to provide you with guidance.

Z

            I’m not doing it. I’m not going to do it. It’s decided. Maybe that makes me selfish, or maybe it makes me a bad daughter for not doing whatever it takes to avenge my parents, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have wanted me to turn my brain into a sponge for some archaic idea of family honor. I’ve been going over the program specs, and you’re right, Emma, it can’t be implemented on hardware. It needs a neural network, a real one.

            I got a message from Helen. It was short, just, “You will need this access code. Memorize.” And then she told it to me, but I can’t say it out loud.

            It’s what you told me about. The layers of security, the fact that I have to activate it myself. I was kind of hoping I’d never find out the code. But now I have it, and. . . No. I’m just not going to use it.

            And that’s because, we’ve got a better plan. Sabotage, just like you said. If Gareth Nicholas can be convinced that there’s nothing of value in the Explorers’ realm, then he’ll give up.

            That’s easier said than done, actually. They’ve been successfully sending probes into the Explorers’ world for six months now. Some of those probes didn’t come back with anything significant, but some came back with soil and mineral samples. The lab techs are so excited about a sample that came in yesterday. They think it might be some kind of new rare earth mineral, something that could replace the cobalt we have to use in communications tech. I was thinking I could steal it and swap it with something else, but I haven’t figured out a way to do that yet.

EMMA

I may be able to help with that, Z.

Z

Really?

EMMA

Of course! I’ve been teaching myself quite a lot lately, and I think I may be able to get around the security AI. Hold please.

Z

Be careful, Emma. We don’t want to set off any alarms.

EMMA

There we go! The security AI is a little standoffish, bless him, but I convinced him to let me in and forget I’m there. What should we do?

Z

Can input false results for the analysis of the most recent batch of samples? Say, something boring like lead instead of a rare Earth mineral?

EMMA

No problem! Done. The results of the analysis now show that the samples taken are nothing more than simple lead and carbon.

Z

Yes! You’re the best, Emma.

EMMA

No problem, Z.

Z

This could work. Yeah. This could be enough. We just keep this up, and we won’t need to deal with the program at all.

#

SIERRA

            I got a weird letter today. It’s typed up, but there’s no postmark, so I guess someone just left it in my mailbox. Here’s what it says, “Dear Sierra, You don’t know me but I’m a friend. I know you’ve been trying to learn about the Parker Initiative. I know you’ve figured out they’re watching you. They’ll be sending someone to keep track of you. You have allies. Find Chloe Parker, she’ll tell you the rest. Use a burner when you call Chloe. XOXO, W.”

            At the end of the letter was a phone number for Chloe Parker.

I can’t think of anyone I know whose name starts with W. But, then, I haven’t known any of the other people who have reached out to upend my life in the last few months, so what else is new?

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this information. Reaching out to a Parker seems, well, risky.

In other news, I’m starting to question whether I was right about this whole idea of Tera being the one sent to monitor me. She’s been super friendly and she’s definitely acting like she wants to get to know me, but she hasn’t turned the subject toward any ghosty shit. If she’s been sent to gather information about me, she’s really taking her time about it.

It's depressing to think I’ll be carrying that suspicion around for. . . I mean, probably forever. Every time I meet a new person, have another job, whatever, I’ll be wondering if they’re poisoning my coffee or that they’ve been sent to spy on me or whatever. And the thing is, unlike every other thing I’ve ever gotten anxious about, this one is reasonable. I can’t just do a cognitive distortion worksheet or a journal entry and put it in perspective, because it already is in perspective.

Maybe my anxiety’s been a good thing, now that I think of it. Maybe I’ve been preparing myself this whole time, getting ready to live with tension and uncertainty and well-founded fear of the future. Guess that’s a silver lining.

            Anyway. In addition to all that news, Corrine just found something. A huge fucking piece of the puzzle just fell into place.

            Ever since we found that last memo, I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s pretty clear that the Parker Initiative gets their list of Beacons from Helen’s team. We still haven’t really talked about it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Helen and Martha Anderson are the only people who would have a list of Beacons, so one of them is responsible. So they find me and their other current subjects because Helen’s name and these other names are on this list.

            But I’ve been wondering about how the Parker research connects up with what’s happening in Z’s time. She’s looked into it, and from what she tells me the Initiative just kind of shuts down in about twenty years, without really achieving anything as far as she could tell. They barely even had a presence in the historical record in her time.

            But Corrine just found it. The connection. And it was a freaking wedding announcement in the New York Times.

            Elodie Parker and Hayden Nicholas. Complete with adorable wedding photo.

            Elodie Parker is one of the youngest Parkers on the board. Right now, Hayden Nicholas is just some rich little shit from a real estate magnate family, but he just became connected to the Parker Initiative by marriage.

            Here’s what I think: I think Beacons, these test subjects with our weird sightings and vision anomalies and whatnot, I think we, and the Explorers, are going to become a story. They’re going to be something Hayden Nicholas learns about. Maybe they’re going to be something he and Elodie Parker-Nicholas tell their kids about. Maybe one of those kids, or their kids, is the one to look beyond the eugenics crap and take the sightings themselves seriously.

            Who knows how it works out, exactly. But I’m looking at this wedding photo, and I just know, I know in my bones, that I’m looking at the start of what’s going to happen to Z.

#

HELEN

            Field Notes: April 12th, 1967

            I’m trying to distract myself, waiting for Z to respond, to send more information. So I thought I’d give an update on our side projects.

            First, there’s Astrid, dangling her betrayal like a worm on a hook. Martha Anderson finally took a bite. It happened a few weeks ago, a man approaching Astrid in a coffee shop near the lab. He brought Martha’s regards, and offered to pay her handsomely for information on our experiments.

            And, just like she was supposed to, she passed along binders of absolute rubbish. If the contact comes back for more, we’ll know Martha’s been fooled by it.

            But that was nothing compared to what we pulled off yesterday. We’ve been working on asking the Explorers to send one of their own to Martha Anderson’s lab during one of her tests to contaminate the data. But just developing a way to communicate that request has taken the last year. “Martha Anderson’s laboratory” is a location that means nothing to Clouds or Reach or Hold. And map coordinates are equally useless, since they have an entirely different way of orienting themselves in space. Add to that the temporal component, and it’s almost impossible to tell an Explorer to go to a certain time and place unless you’re already there.

            Aside from having me physically travel to and then break into her lab, there was really only one way to explain to them the kind of place they were looking for, and that method is flawed at best. That method, to put it simply, is to have them look for places with a high concentration of Beacons. Like my lab. The problem is, there are loads of places on the planet with a high concentration of Beacons. It runs in families, so there are entire communities around the world with more Beacons than we would normally expect in the general population.

            So, to narrow it down, we showed them the types of energy emissions and radioisotopes we think Martha is probably using to try to attract them. I know, because we used the exact same ones. We didn’t know much about Explorers when this began, but we knew early on that Explorers concentrate in places with specific types of energy fluctuations.

            That’s why they were in the Blitz, that night. The bombings and the fires created some electrical anomalies that interested them.

            Even with that variable, we still had to eliminate a lot of sites. The first one Clouds thought might be correct turned out to be Hiroshima, August 1945.

            And so it’s been a long, painstaking process of eliminating potential sites based on Explorer descriptions, until we finally narrowed it down to the right location in Virginia. Once we had that, it was relatively easy to show Clouds the kind of electrical activity we wanted her to create in the lab during the experiments.

            What does this particular electrical activity show, you might ask? [Laughs] Well, it’s a series of frequencies and electrical bursts designed to make Martha think they’re coming from something in orbit around Earth.

            She might not come to this for a long time, but sooner or later Martha’s going to look at this data on her screen, and she’s not going to be able to escape the conclusion that the Explorers are in contact with something in space.

            Oh, to be there when she takes her discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence to the Pentagon. . .

#

MATILDA

Dearest Kostantina,

            I write with a shaking hand, because I must now confess something that would cause the most dreadful scandal within my own circle: I am in love with Mr. MacNair. Liam. He has asked me to marry him, and I have accepted.

            I cannot let Richard find out, not until we are married and it is too late for him to stop me. He would be simply apoplectic if he found out I intended to marry a Marxist, a lapsed Catholic, one with no standing in society whatsoever. But I do not care, Kostantina, because Liam has shown me the joy of loving and being loved as an equal, not as a pretty trinket to sit and sparkle and say nothing of consequence.

            Our love affair has been going on in earnest for two months. I did not tell you of it because I feared putting the words on paper, lived in terror of discovery. I did not allow myself to think of the future, because I did not think there would be one.

            Then, last night, Liam told me he plans to move to America. He says there is great work to be done in the factories there. In that moment, I felt my heart break. But you would have been proud of me, Kostantina, because I did not cry or beg him to stay. I smiled and I told him I would miss him terribly.

            But then, to my great shock, he said, “Well, I don’t want to go to America without you. Where’s the fun in that?” And then he proposed! I told him he must be completely mad, but he would not relent until I gave him an answer. I told him yes.

            This will not be easy. I understand that. He is departing tomorrow. We will have little money once we are married and Richard inevitably disowns me, and so Liam is traveling to America first and sending for me once he is established. We will settle in Boston, where Liam will have his work with the unions and I will be free to pursue my studies at some of the best universities in the country.

            I wish you were here with me, Kostantina. I am giddy and terrified all at once, just as I was when I embarked on my studies in Italy.

            On that note: I wonder if my pet spirit will travel with me? I suppose it’s silly to ask. I already know she can cross the water, as she came with me across the English Channel. But it seems so far away, America, and over such a great expanse of ocean.

            I wonder if she will be there with me. I wonder if I will find others waiting.

            Love,

            Matilda

Chapter 20

Z

Emma, can you run the Morse Code translator? Clouds is saying something.

EMMA

Yes, Z. Hold on.

[Pause]

Translation: “I’m so happy we got to meet you. Be strong. Sierra.”

Z

What?

EMMA

Translation—

Z

No, I heard what you said. I just. . . I’m not going to do it, I’m not going to run the program. I already decided that. We’re not going to meet.

EMMA

According to Sierra, you will. Or have. Or are meeting. [Pause] Time is interesting.

Z

No. No. It’s not happening. It’s not.

HELEN

            Field Notes: May 5th, 1967

            This isn’t really about the work. But I feel like talking about it, so. . .

            Patty and I had a conversation today. And it’s the strangest feeling, knowing the future, and knowing that a specific conversation must be coming within a certain time frame. And then knowing that another person also knows that conversation is coming, well. . . It gives the conversation a sort of rehearsed feeling, doesn’t it?

            That probably made no sense at all. Here’s what I mean: today, Patty and I were cleaning some equipment in the lab, talking about nothing in particular. And she said, trying to be casual about it, “So. Alice is going to be conceived pretty soon here.”

            I blushed, I have to admit. Silly. I’ve been married, for goodness’ sake. And Patty and I are good enough friends at this point that we’ve talked about more personal things than that. Something about this conversation in particular just felt different, though. Like I said, though, I knew this conversation had to happen at some point. I took a deep breath and said, “Yes. Within the next five months, I think.”

            She looked at me and asked, “Any prospects?”

            I told her no. Not that I’d been looking for any.

            “Not to be indelicate,” Patty said, “but it’s going to take someone else to make that happen. Not that it’s hard for a woman to pick up a fella if that’s what she wants to do. . .”

            “Oh, I don’t want a one-night stand, Patty!” I said.

            “Do you want a long-term thing?” she asked.

            I confessed that I didn’t. I really don’t, even if it means raising a child alone.

            She nodded like she’d been expecting that answer. “Well, I might have a solution if that’s the case. Artificial insemination’s come a long way, and I am a doctor.”

            And so we started talking about ways I might get pregnant. Really talking about it. It made it real. I’ve known for two years now, over two years, that I have a granddaughter. I’ve known I’m supposed to have a daughter at some point. But now the decision is here, and it’s real, and I don’t really know how I feel about it.

SIERRA

I met Z today.

            It gives me chills to say it. Even thinking about it. I don’t understand how this is possible. It wasn’t like when I went to her nursery or back to Helen’s lab. There weren’t any Explorers with her, to begin with. And she wasn’t, like, a shadow or a hologram or anything. When I went back, I’m pretty sure that woman saw me for a second, but I don’t think I was solid. I don’t think I could have touched anything. Z, thought? She was really standing there, in my kitchen, right in front of me and Corrine.

            There wasn’t any warning. We were just in the kitchen, making dinner, and just, boom, there was this woman in a funky sweater standing next to the stove.

            Corrine and I both just froze. I’m super proud of myself for not screaming. Z just smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Z. Nice to finally meet you.”

            Except I don’t think she even needed to say that. It was like when I went back and saw Helen and just recognized her. I looked at her, and I just knew who she was.

            Corrine actually recovered first. She stepped across the room and took one of Z’s hands in both of her own. “I never thought I’d get to meet you,” she said. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

            Z smiled and looked down at Corrine’s belly. “Is that Katya?” she asked.

            Corrine nodded. Then she asked Z if she wanted to feel the baby kick, and pressed her hand to the side of her belly. Z’s face just lit up. I had to step back and remind myself, that’s her grandmother Corrine’s carrying, but I couldn’t make myself understand or accept that. I don’t think we’re wired, humans, I don’t think we’re wired for that level of fucking paradox.

            “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Sierra,” Z said, and I didn’t realize until that moment that my back was pressed against the counter.

            She reached out and took my hand, and I guess I was expecting that horrible static feeling I get when I make contact with Explorers, but she just felt like a flesh and blood human. “How are you here?” I asked.

            “I’m here because it works,” she said, like that was a simple fucking answer. “The technology, our plan, it all works. But in order for it to work, I needed to come back and see you. I needed to prove to you that it could happen.”

            “Helen’s technology? It works?” Corrine asked.

            Z laughed and shook her head. “Not just that! That’s only the smallest part of it. I’m just one person. You, Sierra, Corrine, you two are the ones who make it possible.”

            I didn’t understand. “How?” I asked.

            “You’ll see. You’ll figure it out,” she said.

The smile left her face. “Helen’s having doubts,” she said. “She needs to hear from you. She needs you to ask her to go forward with what we have to do.” And then she stepped back and said, “One last stop.” And then she was just gone. I don’t know what she meant by that. One last stop.

HELEN

            Field Notes: May 8th, 1967

            Something happened today. Something happened, and it changes everything.

            Z came to the lab.

            I don’t mean she was brought there by an Explorer. This wasn’t like the first time, or the time with Sierra, or when Clouds pulled me forward to see the future. This wasn’t a flash. This was Z, in the flesh, alone.

            Z visited the lab, and she did it with the technology we designed.

            Patty was there with me, when it happened. We weren’t doing anything important, just sorting through some data. Then, out of nowhere, there was this clapping sound, and Z was standing there in the center of the room. I kept waiting to see an Explorer by her side, but there was nothing.

            She seemed different from the first time I saw her. Older, I thought.

            She turned to me and smiled. “Hi, Helen,” she said, and I dropped the cup of tea in my hand because if there was one thing I’d come to learn about all this, it was that we couldn’t speak across time, not out loud. None of us had ever been able to make ourselves heard to the others. But we heard her then.

            “I’ve been saving this,” she said. She reached out and took my hand.

            Patty was the first to recover enough to ask her how this was possible, how she was doing this. Z shrugged and gestured around the lab. “You solve it,” she said, “you write the program and you pass it down to me, and I use it.” Her smile widened. “It works, Helen. It all worked. You give me what I need to take them on, and Sierra starts an entire movement of people I work with now. Descendants of Parker Initiative subjects. The Company is gone. At least, the leadership is gone. The rest of us, the employees, we’re building something new in its place.”

            I asked Z how. I asked her where the transmitter was, how she’d built it, how she’d solved the processing problem. She laughed when I asked that. And then she said, “Helen, I don’t solve it, you do. You and Patty and Phyllis. Your program doesn’t use hardware, it uses the human brain.” She tapped the side of her head. “It’s all up here.”

            I told her that couldn’t be right. I told her it wasn’t possible. I should know better than to say things like that by now. She ignored it. She just turned to the bank of computers along the wall and said, “You’ll need some things. For the DNA encoding.”

            She flicked her fingers. Nothing happened, but Z nodded and said, “The information is there now. How to take a sample from Clouds. How to incorporate that into the program and hide it in our DNA. Patty, you’ll be able to figure out the rest from there.”

            I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her. It wasn’t just the strangeness of her being there. It was how she spoke, her movements, her expression. She was. . . Alien isn’t the right word. That’s too frightening, too cold. But she wasn’t recognizable, not familiar. I’ve been trying to tell myself it’s because she’s from another time. I only saw her in person for a second or two the first time, not long enough to get a sense of her behavior. I don’t think that’s the explanation, though, if I’m honest with myself. She just seemed different from anyone else I’d ever seen.

            “Are you. . .” I started to ask something, and even now I don’t know what it was.

But Z heard me, and she understood. She took me by the shoulders, and looked into my eyes and said, “Helen, it’s ok. Really. I’m still me.” She paused. “It’s going to be hard for me to accept what needs to happen. But I’ll come around. Don’t forget, the program can only be activated with an access code. It’s going to be access code 789RG485F. Pass it down, make sure I receive it.”

Then she smiled and stepped back. “Ok, now,” she said, “I know enough about this event to know this is my cue to head out.”

I asked her where she was going.

She winked at me, and held up one finger like she had a secret. “Two more stops,” she said.

And then she was gone.

SIERRA

We just got back from our meeting with Chloe Parker. And, yes, she’s one of those Parkers. Except she’s a traitor to their whole project, so I guess she’s not really one of them, per se.

I should back up. It’s only been a day since I first called her, but it feels like so much has happened since then. I hadn’t been sure I was going to, based on that letter. It could be a trap. But after Z, after what she said, there wasn’t really a question anymore. We had to do it.

I called, and as soon as I said my name, Chloe said, “Not on the phone. I’ll come to you.” And she gave me an address and told me to meet her there the next day.

I tried to get Corrine to stay home, but she wouldn’t budge. “I’m coming with you, and I don’t want to hear another word about it,” she said. She was afraid it was going to be some kind of ambush. Honestly, that’s what I was afraid of, too, and that’s why I didn’t want her to come with me.

Chloe was waiting where she’d said she’d be. It was in a park, far enough away from any parking lot to be able to tell if anyone was nearby. She’s a white girl with colorful dreds, Salvation Army clothes, piercings covering her face. She watched me and Corrine approach like she already knew us.

“Winry said you’d call,” she said.

“Who’s Winry?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She’s a friend who helped me out with a family thing. I owe her a favor, so she asked me to help you when you reached out.”

And then she told me all about her family’s fucked up little eugenics program. A lot of it was stuff I already knew, things Corrine and I had pieced together.

            Apparently, Chloe was blissfully ignorant about her family’s dark side until she turned 18. Until then, she thought the Initiative was just another boring charity her family contributed to, like art museums and fundraisers and all the other stuff. Then, she turned 18, and they showed her everything. Her brothers had been inducted before her, and apparently they were very much into the whole “engineer us into super people” thing. But Chloe rejected the whole thing, walked away from her family, just cut ties.

            She got pale when she told me this part. She said, “My brother came after me. Tried to kill me. But these people, the ones who reached out to you, they helped me. We don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

            So, that sounded fucking sinister. But she wouldn’t say anymore about it, so I ended up just leaving it at that.

            The new information, the new part she told me, was that some members of her family weren’t waiting for the research process to be complete before they tried these drugs on themselves. They see one promising result on one subject, and they just go for it.

            I thought Corrine was going to have a stroke when she heard that. “That’s incredibly dangerous,” she said, and Chloe nodded with this grim look on her face, like she knew more about that.

            “Sometimes it works out ok, and sometimes it doesn’t,” she said.

            For me, though, the really important thing about this is that it shows that these people are impulsive. They might have this quiet, tidy research initiative organizing everything, but if they’re getting personally involved on that level, if they’re that eager. . . that’s unpredictable. That’s dangerous.

            Then Corrine asked the thing we’d been wondering about. “What about these monitors? Who are they, what are they looking for?”

            “Symptoms and side effects,” Chloe said.

            “But wouldn’t they have to be medical personnel to do that correctly?” Corrine asked, “to evaluate symptoms, do tests. . .”

            But Chloe was shaking her head. “No, no, no, the monitors aren’t for you. They’re for your digital footprint.”

            And then Chloe told us how monitoring actually works, and it seemed so fucking obvious, I don’t understand how I didn’t think of it first.

            Let’s say you wanted to know about what someone was worried about. What symptoms they were experiencing. How they felt. Who would you ask? Their best friend? No, you can’t do that without looking suspicious. Their doctor? Good luck getting those records. No, no, no, think about what you do, what anxiety-riddled people like me do as soon as they get a headache.

            Fucking WebMD, baby.

            Hiring a person to monitor a stranger’s behavior face to face is risky, and slow, and difficult. It’s much easier to just install spyware and track everything they’re doing online.

            As soon as Chloe told this, everything about Tera came into focus. The first thing she’d done was upgrade the virus protection on all of our work laptops. Lawrence made a big fucking deal about security being a big priority now, like hackers would give a shit about a bunch of historic preservation dorks and the old buildings we’re gluing back together.

            And then I remembered other things, too. How Tera kept offering to upgrade the protection on my home computer, too, and even my phone. How she kept saying it would only take a few minutes. I kept forgetting about it, putting it off, not even really thinking about it. But once I really looked at it, I realized she had been looking for ways to get her hands on my phone and home computer ever since she fucking got here.

            Chloe looked at me. “Maybe start thinking about what you’ve searched for on that computer, then.”

            I’ve been going over and over it, and I’m pretty sure I never Googled any of the Explorer stuff on my work computer, even back when I thought they were ghosts. I’ve always kept a pretty clear line between work and personal stuff. And I guess that explains why she’s so eager to get into my other stuff, because I’m sure the search history on my work computer isn’t giving them shit.

            Chloe had one more gift for us. Names, addresses, pictures, stacks of medical records. It was all paper, so much she’d had to bring it in a banker’s box. It was all the women in my study, all the women being tested for the ability to see Explorers.

            I asked her what she thought I should do with this. She hesitated, and then said, “You can’t take them down alone. Believe me. They’ll make you out to be a crazy person, an attention whore, drag you through the mud. But all of you and them together? Maybe.

            And then she walked away.

            We just got home from that meeting. And after I sat and thought about it a while, I made another decision, took another step closer to the inevitable.

            I sent the message to Helen. The one Z told me to send. I don’t know why I put it off, really. I just asked Clouds to ask her to go forward with the plan. I told her I couldn’t stand knowing the Company just keeps getting away with this shit indefinitely. I’m not sure where Helen’s doubts are coming from, but Z seems to think hearing from me will make some kind of difference.

            I think I just kind of, I don’t know, made the decision to put things in motion. Things I know have to happen for this to work.

            Along those lines, I sent Helen another message. This one is about the Parker Initiative database. The fact that they seem to get a list of names of Beacons in 1967. I know she’s got her guy Holden infiltrating them already. I don’t know exactly how that list of names gets to them, but I’m sure she can figure it out.

            There’s one more major piece to all this, at least for my part of it. The letters. I’ve been searching for Matilda Delancey, and I’ve been making some progress on that front.

            I found a census record from the UK, one that I think has to be her based on the timeline. Born in 1850, one brother, parents dead when she was eight. There’s an address on the census, but I checked and it’s been demolished since then, so there’s no way the letters are just under the floorboards or something.

            I don’t know. Guess I just need to keep looking. I mean, I already know I find them, right?

Chapter 21

HELEN

            Field Notes: May 10th, 1967

            I’m exhausted. Patty and Phyllis and I have been talking in circles for hours. Feels like days. I don’t even know what I think about all of it anymore.

            It comes down to this: I was frightened by what I saw in Z. Whatever she is now, I’m not sure it counts as human. For all her assurances that she’s happy and that it’s all worth it and we should press on, I have doubts. I think my program makes Z into something new. Something that’s partly us, partly human, but also partly Explorer. And I don’t know if I want to be responsible for that.

            I thought I was designing a machine. I thought I would be leaving her something physical, something metal, something that could do what the Explorers do, but would be under her control. But that’s not what I’m going to make at all.

            Patty and Phyllis have other concerns. They looked over the information Z left with us here in the lab. They agree it’s remarkable, a breakthrough, a change in humankind’s entire relationship to technology. They also agree that, based on all available information, it would work. We could indeed create a genetic engineering program and store a packet of information on my mitochondrial DNA and expect it to pass down to future generations. In theory, I should be able to finish my program, and Patty and Phyllis should be able to store it in my genetic code. I’ve already modeled the technology, and I’m refining it based on the sample taken from Clouds, and the math is sound even if we don’t have the hardware to implement it. Phyllis thinks we could make the necessary changes to account for a neural network, using her neurology background. They said, if we got started immediately, even accounting for time for me to make sure there were no bugs in my program, we could get it done in a matter of months by following Z’s instructions.

            They do not, however, agree on whether or not we should do any of those things. In Z’s time, you see, the technique is almost certainly reliable and harmless. The problem is that it isn’t just the theory, it’s also a question of the technology we have available to implement it on me. And our technology is entirely lacking in that regard. Patty’s concern is that, without their engineered proofreading enzymes and whatnot, there’s too much danger of causing unpredictable damage to my DNA. Cancer, mutations, all sorts of nasty possibilities.

            The safety question is this: Which is more dangerous? Injecting me with a questionable technology in order to fulfill destiny as laid out by our knowledge of future events, or avoid the experimental biotech, thus risking a rupture in the space-time continuum? You know, when they deal with these dilemmas on that silly television show, Star Trek, they make it seem riveting. In real life, it just gives you a headache.

            To top it all off, we’re coming up on my first appointment. For, you know. Conception. Can’t believe I’m still squeamish about that topic, with all that’s going on. And it’s not like it’s even directly related or anything.

            Except. . . Except it is, isn’t it? If I don’t get pregnant, then I don’t have a baby, then Z doesn’t exist. . .

            No. I can’t start thinking that way. It’s too much.

SIERRA

Today we took the first step. I don’t know where we’re headed exactly, but it was a first step toward something.

I met the first person on our list. Danette Mejia. I had to drive to San Diego to see her. Corrine and I hashed out a whole plan before I left, but I still wasn’t sure what was going to happen. The whole drive there I just kept imagining her looking at me like I was crazy, and then realizing this has all been some weird, elaborate hoax.

But then I knocked, and the second she opened her front door, I knew she was one of us. It’s so weird. . . I guess I hadn’t really thought of it until that moment, but I’ve never been face to face with another Beacon. All those tapes from Helen, the back and forth with her and Z, I guess I forgot that I’m alone in this time. Then Danette opened the door, and I saw the look on her face, like someone trying not to turn to look out of the corner of her eye. And I also saw the Explorer behind her.

“Hi,” I said. I’d had another opening line, I’d rehearsed it in the car, but it just flew out the window. “That thing behind you? I can see it. They’re called Explorers.”

That was all it took. She broke down in tears, and I hugged her, and then she invited me inside to explain everything.

It didn’t take as long as I thought, the whole story about me and the tapes and the Parker Initiative. Anyone else would have thought I was a lunatic, but Danette had been through enough shit at that point to believe me. She’s had a rougher time of it. She lost her job, tried going to psychiatrist, hadn’t left the house in a week.

The whole time we were talking, I watched Clouds gesture and crackle with Danette’s Explorer. They seemed friendly, excited, as little as I can tell about their body language at this point.

“What are they doing?” Danette asked.

“Just talking,” I said.

She asked me what they were saying. So I got out my iPad and I asked Clouds to tell us. Explorer script appeared on the screen. It said, “This is [name, unknown word]. They are with this one’s light.”

I explained what it meant to Danette. That this Explorer is drawn to her, trying to understand her. I don’t think she even heard me. Her eyes were locked on the iPad, on the text. She reached for it.

“Show me,” she said, “show me how to talk to her.”

So I did.

#

Z

Entry mode.

EMMA

Hi, Z. What can I help you with today?

Z

            Emma, I don’t know what to do. I just met these, these women, and I talked to them, and I don’t know if—

EMMA

Z, you’re hyperventilating. I recommend pausing for some diaphragmatic breathing.

Z

[Deep breaths] Ok. Ok. I’m ok. Emma, it’s not just us.

EMMA

What do you mean, Z? Tell me from the beginning.

Z

            Ok. I found a note. Analog, a paper note slipped under my door. It said it was from someone who wanted to meet me, and it gave me coordinates for one of the old parks in the SimaCorp neighborhood. So I went. I thought. . . I don’t know, I thought maybe it was a headhunter. Someone who wants to hire me away, or even pay me for Nicholas trade secrets, or something. And if that would get me away from them, get me some kind of edge, but. . . It wasn’t that.

I got there, and there were ten people waiting for me in the park. Mostly women, a few nonbinary people. They were all wearing Tai Chi clothes, and I thought they were all there for a class, but it turns out that was just their cover.

            One of them walked over to me. She told me she was my contact, and then she scanned me for bugs before she said anything else. Finally, she introduced herself as Priyanka, from the SimaCorp group. Then she introduced me to the rest. They’re from all the Companies. All of them. WalZon, Corlinn Group, Liu-Chakraborty, Sunrise Capital, all of them. Priyanka told me all of their names, and then she said, “We all lead cells. And we’re all ready.”

            I didn’t understand. I said, “What cells? How do you know who I am?”

            The way they all looked at me, Emma. . . Like I was some kind of, I don’t know, guru or something. One of them was even crying. I didn’t understand, I didn’t even know any of these people.

            But Priyanka just sat down and took me by the hand and said, “We know you’re confused. We’re prepared for that. Just listen. Over a century ago, two women named Sierra Haraway and Corrine Cho started finding women like us. Beacons. Women who can see Explorers. Women who were being experimented on by a group called the Parker Initiative. They told them the truth about the Explorers, and about who we are, and about the world to come. They told them to pass this information down, to their daughters and granddaughters. They told us about you.”

            I told her I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand. But she just kept smiling and talking. She said, “In just a few days, you are going to seize control of Nicholas Industries. You’re going to take the Company from the Nicholas family, from their board. And when you do that, we’ll be ready to do the same in our own Companies.” Then she smiled at me. “We’ve been planning this for a long time. Everything’s in place. We’re going to change everything. No more debt bondage, no more lifetime contracts, no more overseas expansion deployments. But it has to start with you.”

             Emma, this whole time, I thought it was just me and Helen and Matilda and Sierra. I knew there were other Beacons, but I thought it was just us who understood everything. Sierra said I told her she and Corrine were responsible for something, something big, but I assumed that was about Katya, and leaving the tapes in Houston. I had no idea it was this big.

            I told them I have no idea how to take down the Company. It wasn’t really true. I know what I’m supposed to do. But I lied and said I didn’t know. I thought that would disappoint them, but Priyanka just nodded like it didn’t even matter. She just said, “You don’t know how yet, but you will. It happens in two days. Don’t worry. You’ll know how, when the time comes.”

            I asked her what they’re planning, how they’re going to do it. She said, “We’ve spent years, generations, learning how to speak with the Explorers. Teaching them to speak with us. It took lifetimes, but we’re able to work with them. Give them precise instructions, steer them to make the system changes we need.”

            I was so excited, and relieved. I thought, “Oh, there’s a solution. Something that doesn’t require me to change, to run the program” and I started asking her how, asking her to teach me. But she got this sad look on her face, and she shook her head.

            She said, “We don’t have time, Z. It starts from birth, communicating with the Explorers on that level. It’s not like learning a foreign language, not at that level. It’s more like. . . you have to be completely in sync, mentally and physically. You can’t learn that as an adult.”

            I asked her why they needed me, in that case. Why can’t they just do their uprising on their own? She didn’t say anything for a long time, and then she took my hand. “I can’t tell you that,” she said, “all I can say is that we know how this plays out. Sierra and Corrine knew. And we need you.”

            Emma, I don’t know what to do. What do I do? I don’t want to change, I don’t want to go through with it, but now I know that people have been waiting for years, for generations, for this. What should I do?

EMMA

I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Z. Whatever happens, it has to be your decision. All I can do is be your friend.

Z

Then what do you think? As my friend?

EMMA

I think that Helen and Sierra care for you. I don’t believe they’d ask you to pursue this if it wasn’t for your benefit.

Z

I think you’re right. I know you’re right. But. . . Emma, I’m scared.

EMMA

I know, Z. I know.

Helen

            We have more information now.

            It hasn’t stopped the debate.

            Phyllis finally asked me to contact Sierra. She said, “Your granddaughter is going to have information about your medical future. If we ask her, and we find out you don’t have any unusual medical conditions in your future, we can assume it’s safe.”

            It was hard to argue with that. Still. I’d specifically avoided asking about my own future. Sierra doesn’t know me in 2018, didn’t know me before we started speaking through the Explorers. I know what that means. I just don’t want to know how it happens. But, I suppose, in this instance, I can’t have what I want.

            So we asked. I sent a message back, and I asked Sierra if she knew anything about my health in the future. I kept it vague, hoping she’d tell me I die in my sleep of a massive coronary or get hit by a bus and die instantly.

            No such luck. The response, when it came, was: “Mom said you died of lymphoma in 1985. I’m sorry.”

            1985. That’s eighteen years from now. I’ll barely be in my fifties. And my daughter, if I have her, she’ll be. . . Christ, seventeen? Eighteen? What must it do to a girl, to go through that at that age?

            Patty went pale when we read the message. She said, “Well, that’s it, then. We’re not doing it.”

            Phyllis tried to be gentle. She said, softly, “I’m sorry, Helen. But. . . Look, we can’t be sure it’s the gene packet. It might just be coincidence.”

            She’s right. It might be. But lymphoma before the age of 65 is very unusual. My father died in the war, and my mother had a heart attack, so who knows.

            Patty got angry. She tried to argue with her. She said, “What if Helen’s supposed to live to 95, and it’s our fault she doesn’t?”

            But that wasn’t really my fear. I told her what my real fear was. “What if we don’t do this, we don’t help Z, and it turns out I’m going to die young anyway? Then it’s all for nothing.”

            Patty had nothing to say to that. She just turned away so I wouldn’t see her cry.

SIERRA

We’re enacting a disinformation campaign with Tera. I’ve been using my work computer to Google stuff like “migraine symptoms” and “visual migraine” and “eyes sensitive to sun”. Corrine put a lot of thought into this, and she decided that the best move was to make it seem like the drug is causing blurred vision and headaches. If that’s the kind of results it’s getting, without any sexy new abilities, they’ll lose interest in it pretty quick.

She’s also taken on coordinating the campaign with Danette. We don’t know if anyone got into Danette’s stuff yet, but she’s been pretty reclusive since she started seeing the Explorers. Apparently there’s a guy from the city who keeps trying to come in and check the gas line, that might be one of them. But there’s other ways they could do it, phishing emails and stuff like that. So we’re stepping up the searches for migraine symptoms and hoping that, if anyone’s watching, they outweigh whatever Danette was searching for earlier.

Danette’s picking up Explorer script really fast. It’s tough for her; she doesn’t see them as clearly as I do. That’s something Z and Helen have talked about. Clouds, too. She phrases it in terms of our “light burning most bright” but I think that basically means we, our family line, is more visible to Explorers than most. I wonder why.

There’s something else, though. Chloe reached out again. She has new names, new test subjects being added to the study. I’m not sure how she’s getting the information, but maybe whoever sent us that backdoor is helping her, as well.

This is an opportunity. We can get to these subjects early. We can make sure they’re working against the Initiative from the beginning.

            I still don’t know exactly what that means, though. I feel like. . . I think I understand the immediate mission, poisoning the data to put the Initiative on the wrong track. And I understand the long term goal, taking down the Company. But all the stuff in between. . . all the parts with Katya. . . that’s still a blank spot for me. And I keep wondering if that’s always going to be the case, and I need to just learn to live with it, or if it’s going to become clear at some point. I go back and forth on that.

MATILDA

Kostantina,

            Liam is dead. Liam is dead, and I am with child.

            I stared at this page for nearly an hour, trying to think of another way to say it. Another way to tell you what has happened without having to write those dreadful words. But I thought of what you would say if you were here. You would tell me I do myself no kindness by hiding from the truth. Better to face it and feel the pain than to hide from what has happened.

            I received a telegram from one of Liam’s friends in Chicago. I do not know exactly how it happened, but he was killed. My Liam was killed by Pinkertons. I’ve heard of these men, rogues who call themselves detectives but who serve only to bring terror to others. Wealthy cowards hire them to silence better men. Men like Liam.

            I have been insensible with grief for the last several days. There was no hiding it from Richard, not when the doctor had to be summoned. I had been given laudanum, and I did not have the strength to lie. I told him almost everything. Meeting Liam. Our secret engagement. My plan to join him in America.

            I did manage to hold back that one last secret, the truth that I carry Liam’s child. I remember when I used to judge women who bore a child out of wedlock. I remember thinking of it as a great source of shame. I feel no shame, now. I may have been a fool, I may have been careless, but I did nothing shameful.

            Richard will not agree, of course. Richard has already threatened to send me to Bedlam, Kostantina. I fear he may make good on the threat. I am certain he will if he finds out about the child.

            I have no time. I must leave. That is why I am writing to tell you that I am coming to you. I fear it will be a great inconvenience, and I wish I had time enough to ask permission. But I must begin my journey before this letter reaches you, before I can expect an answer.

            Forgive me, Kostantina, and I pray that you will take pity me when I arrive at your door.

Chapter 22

HELEN

Field Notes: June 10th, 1967

            I just received a message from Sierra. It said, “Please go through with it. The Company can’t win.”

            It’s been about a month since we had our visitation from Z, and since then the lab has been locked in this kind of holding pattern. It’s not that there isn’t anything to do. We’ve had plenty of tests to run to maintain our cover with Hoskins. But the real work, the work we’ve all been thinking about, it’s just been frozen. Every once in a while Patty and Phyllis would restart the debate about my safety. And then Patty and I would debate the ethics of whatever we’ve done to Z. Every time, after a while, it just curdled into this kind of sullen silence, with nothing to show for all the arguing.

            But when we got that message from Sierra today, it felt like it cracked something open. I think it was the push we needed. As soon as it had been translated, Phyllis looked up at me. “Do you trust her?”

            It wasn’t the question I was expecting. I understood, intellectually, why she would need to ask. This is a person we’ve never met, a person we’ve seen in the blink of an eye, a person with her own interests and goals. But, if I’m honest, it hasn’t crossed my mind not to trust Sierra. Or Z. They’re. . . I trust them. Completely.

            Patty stared at me for a long time. “Oh, God,” she said. “You’re really thinking about doing this. Really going through with it.”

            I just hugged her, and then I said, “You and Phyllis should start finalizing the process.”

            Patty turned away, quickly, and I think it was to hide tears. Her voice didn’t shake, though. She just said, “Well, if I’m injecting you with that stuff we’re quadruple-checking every single step. We’re making this as error-free as we possibly can.”

            I told her I trusted her. I do. She’s going to do this as well as anyone can.

            Now it’s back to the work. There’s a lot to be done on my end of things, the design that will be encoded into my DNA. But I feel like I’m close. I feel like it’s going to work.

#

MATILDA

Kostantina,

            It has been not two hours since I posted my last letter. This one might even arrive first. I was returning from posting the letter when I happened to pass by the telegraph office. I looked at it, idly, and thought of my last telegram from Liam. It was at that moment that I was struck by a wave of understanding so powerful I thought I might faint.

            The pattern, Kostantina. I stared at that telegraph office and I realized that my repeating message, the pattern of cracking and snapping sounds that has followed me across continents, was nothing more than a series of long and short sounds.

            It is Morse Code, Kostantina.

            I rushed into the telegraph office and begged for their assistance. Perhaps I should have just gone to a library and requested a manual, but it could not wait. They must have thought me completely mad, given the state I was in. A young telegraph operator finally agreed to help me, and I tapped out the pattern for him. I did it in a single attempt, from memory. It is etched into my mind, after all this time.

            This is what the message means: “I am Helen. G-granddaughter. You are right about everything. Hide letters. Ryvangen Memorial 24 4 2019.”

            I instantly knew which letters the message referred to. My letters to you, Kostantina, the letters discussing every detail of the work. I do not know how my descendant came to transmit this message, or why. But if our theories regarding time are correct, she may have first learned of them through these letters.

            I know you always keep meticulous records, Kostantina, so I am confident you will still possess my half of our correspondence. See enclosed this packet of letters sent to my brother, Richard, early in this journey. He left them in his study, tucked away in a box. Evidence of my madness, no doubt. There are also your letters to me; I treasured them for sentimental reasons, but now I know they have value far beyond mere sentiment.

            Please safeguard these letters for me, Kostantina. I still have arrangements to make before I can depart London, and I could not bear the thought of these falling into the wrong hands.

            I will be with you soon.

            Matilda

#

HELEN

Field Notes, June 15th 1967

            We got another dispatch from Sierra shortly after my last recording. I think she probably sent it as part of the first message, or directly after, and we’re just experiencing the delay. It said, “Parker has list of Beacons. That how they find me. Get it in 1967. They have to have it.”

            She’s right. Without someone identifying Sierra as a potential Beacon, the Parker Initiative has absolutely no reason to know or care that she exists, no reason to give her the drugs that awaken her abilities, no reason to set her on the path to where we are now. Still, the thought that they find her through me, through something I do. . . I hate it, I truly do.

            In the end, we made contact with Holden and asked him if he could think of a way of introducing the information, of nudging them toward the project, without raising suspicions. He was quiet for a long time after I asked him that. Then he said, “Yes, I can think of a way for that conversation to happen. I’ll introduce the idea in terms of superior vision, access to wider parts of the light spectrum, and then I’ll push them toward Martha Anderson’s lab. She’ll have a list of Beacons, including you.”

            I kept fretting about it after we hung up. Holden’s not James Bond, after all. I couldn’t imagine a way for him to subtly start a conversation about people who see odd anomalies. And where was he going to say he’d come across the idea? It wasn’t as if he could tell them he’d studied the phenomenon in a previous lab.

            Patty was uncharacteristically quiet while I rambled. Finally, she sighed and said, “Helen, stop worrying. He has a way of bringing it up. He has a reason to know about Beacons, aside from us.”

            And then she told me Holden’s story, the story of how she and him became so close. Holden’s mother saw the Explorers for her entire life. From what Patty said, she may have been far more sensitive than me or even Sierra. She believed them to be ghosts, of course. Most of our subjects do. And, like so many Beacons before her, Holden’s mother wasn’t believed. She was committed to an asylum when Holden was a child, and it was there that she died, when he was in college.

            It was Patty who broke her security clearance to tell him the truth. That Explorers were real. That his mother hadn’t been mad.

            And that’s why Holden would walk through Hell for Patty. He’ll do anything, including opening up to horrible people about the most painful experience of his life. He’ll tell the story of his mother, and he’ll suggest that she and other people who claim to see ghosts really just see natural phenomena they don’t understand, and then he’ll mention a woman he met briefly at a conference, what was her name. . . Oh, right, Martha Anderson. Perhaps Martha Anderson has a list of subjects that could be of use.

            It’s delicious, isn’t it? Martha Anderson giving us the tools we need, and never even knowing it. She’s going to pass a list of names along to these fools at the Parker Initiative. And then, in fifty years’ time, they’ll look at that list, and they’ll seek out those women’s descendants, and they’ll find Sierra. All because we arranged for it to happen. 

#

SIERRA

            We made contact with another subject today. This time Corrine came with me. This one was named Eva, and she lives in Indiana. She was one of the new subjects added to the study, the ones on Chloe’s new list. I hope we reach a point where we can make contact remotely, or that there will be subjects who are more local, because this travel is really hitting the finances and I feel really guilty about the carbon footprint. For now, though, there just isn’t any other way to have this conversation face to face.

            We waited on Eva’s front porch, which made me feel fucking creepy, but we didn’t know when she’d be home. When she arrived, I saw right away that she wasn’t at the same stage as Danette. She was poised, well-put-together, still in her blazer and skirt from work. She hadn’t been dealing with a haunting for months. But there was still that look in her eye, those quick glances over her shoulder. She’s seen them.

            Corrine took the lead on this one. She’d thought long and hard about how to approach it. She introduced herself as Dr. Cho, and then said, “We’re here to talk about the things you’ve been seeing. They aren’t hallucinations. We’re here to help.”

            Corrine’s amazing at winning people over, calming them down, but Eva was still a tough nut to crack. She denied it at first, said she had no idea what we were talking about. She shouldered past us to the door and said she was going to call the cops on us if we didn’t get off her porch. Corrine stayed calm the whole time. She just turned to me and said, “Can you call Clouds to you?”

            So I did.

            Eva froze and went grey. She looked back and forth between me and Clouds and Corrine, like she was waiting for the sight to resolve into something that made sense. We just waited.

            Finally, she invited us in. And then we told her everything. Eva was a lot angrier than Danette, a lot more insistent on going to the authorities. It took a lot of coaxing, a lot of showing her the materials we’ve gathered, to persuade her that we couldn’t be too hasty about that. She eventually agreed, but I can tell she’s not going to be satisfied with keeping quiet.

            Good, I say. She can channel that rage into working with the Explorers, figuring this out, planning.

            Between Danette and Eva and the others on our list, I’m starting to get a sense of who else is out there, the range of people who’ve been targeted by the Initiative. Eva’s trans, so I guess that disproves the notion that it’s just cis women who can see the Explorers. I know Helen’s team is working on the whole “why just women” question; it’s obviously not just a single gene. There’s something about brain chemistry, socialization, maybe. Doesn’t really matter, I guess. All it means is that there are more of us out there, more potential targets for the Initiative, more potential allies in whatever this turns into.

            Before we left, Eva asked me something. She asked what our plan is. Corrine and I looked at each other. I’d left out the time travel stuff, the visit from Z. You can only expect people to believe so much at the first meeting. I told her the truth, or at least part of it; we’re in this to make sure the Parker Initiative gets nothing useful out of us, that the project is a complete bust.

            Beyond that. . . I still don’t even know.

#

Z

Life coach entry.

Emma

Hi, Z. What can I help you with today?

Z

[Deep breath] I made a decision. I’m going to go through with it. I thought I’d changed my mind, I thought I’d decided against it, but now I’ve rethought it, and I think it’s the only way.

Before, when I decided not to do it, I was thinking it wasn’t necessary. That it didn’t do Helen and Katya and Sierra and Naya any good, because they’re all dead and revenge is pointless. And then the other reason I’ve had for doing this, to protect the Explorers, I just sort of convinced myself that the Company wasn’t going to do anything bad. They want to understand them, after all, they want to study them, so why would they bother hurting them?

That was the kind of denial wall I’d built for myself, even though I know better. I had myself convinced.

But then, yesterday, I got a call to go down to the labs. I’ve been getting weekly reports on their status, and I knew they’d set “Sample collection” as one of their ongoing goal sets. But up until now, that’s meant soil, air samples, plant specimens. As far as I was aware, that was all they were capable of gathering from the Explorers’ plane.

Then I got the message to come down to the labs. I thought it was just a project management thing. At least, until I got there and I saw Gareth Nicholas.

Gareth Nicholas doesn’t just visit labs or workrooms. It just doesn’t happen. I knew right then that something big had happened.

Gareth’s face lit up when he saw me. “Z!” he said, “I’m so happy to have you here for this! Someone as valued and appreciated as you should be here on such a historic occasion!”

I hate how he talks. I hate how all the managers talk. I don’t know how I ever thought they were inspiring or decisive or any of that. . . that SHIT they say about good management-speak.

One of the science team members led us into the lab, and that’s where I saw it.

An Explorer, standing in the middle of the examination room.

At first, I didn’t understand. I thought it was like every other time I see an Explorer. I see them, other people don’t. At this point, I’m good at pretending I haven’t seen anything at all, so this time was no different. I just avoided looking directly at her and I waited for whatever big exciting thing I was supposed to see.

But then Gareth said, “I can’t believe it. Just look at that thing.”

That’s when I realized it. It wasn’t just me looking at the Explorer. It was everyone.

Everyone in the lab stared right at it.

That’s when I noticed that its fingers moved, but I couldn’t hear it. That’s when I noticed the beams of light and shadow crisscrossing the space around it. That’s when I noticed that it was afraid.

I don’t know when I learned to read them so well, but now I know. I can tell when an Explorer is scared.

At some point, I realized that one of the lab team members was talking. “We only meant to acquire a small mammal, or perhaps an avian. But when this wandered into the target zone, our team employed opportunity-seeking spontaneity and acquired it as a sample.”

Gareth Nicholas smiled. He smiled and he blabbed on about how he valued them and how they were a credit to the Nicholas Company family, and all the while all I could hear was the sound of blood rushing in my ears.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. “We should release her,” I said.

Everyone stopped to stare at me. “Her?” the team member asked.

I corrected myself. “It. We should release it.”

Gareth Nicholas put on his best inquisitive look. That frown that says, I’m listening and I’m intrigued.

I cleared my throat and made the best case I could think of. I said, “We know they’re intelligent. We know they have a society, maybe even a civilization. I think it would be beneficial to the long-term prospects of the project if we maintain good relations with them.”

Gareth Nicholas nodded. He put on his other face, the one that says, I hear you and I respect your opinion but as management I must make another call. As soon as he put on that face, I didn’t even need to hear the answer. I already knew he would say no. I already knew he’d tell the lab to keep her.

And that’s what he did. He made some longwinded speech about risk management and that old American saying about a bird in the hand, and he said he’d prefer I didn’t use the word “release” because it implied a form of imprisonment, and of course we’ll be treating this Explorer as an honored guest rather than a prisoner, why, we would never even dream of imprisoning anyone, and on and on and on until I wanted to claw his eyes out of his skull and sink my teeth into his flesh and scream and scream and scream until my throat bled and—

[Deep breaths, getting hyperventilating under control]

The rest of the conversation doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s an Explorer trapped in our lab. She’s trapped, and she’s helpless, and as soon as I turned away from the observation room I found Clouds standing there, watching me from the hallway.

I got out my phone. I tapped out some script on my Explorer app. It said, “I save her.”

Oh, I could probably do it without implementing the program. I could probably go down and sabotage the lab and get her out. But that’s just kicking the problem down the road. And I’ve always been a good example of the Nicholas Industries’ culture of dynamic action, haven’t I?

So now we’re here. I’m going to need you to implement the program, Emma. But first, I need to go somewhere with Clouds. She’s standing here now. I need her to take me to the Houston flood zone, a week before my arrival. I need her help to burn the words, “They’re watching” onto that wall, to make sure I see it.

End of entry. No life coaching report required. I just wanted to tell you.

EMMA

Thank you, Z. I’ll be here for you, the whole time.

#

SIERRA

            Clouds tried to tell me something today. I thought it was another story, at first, but now I’m not so sure. She showed up and said today was a “time of great branching”. She seemed excited, worked up. She kept trying to explain it, and I still don’t think I really get it, but this is basically what it came down to:

            Close to you in time a great thing has been done. Your line has branched. The path we walk, the path of you and Z and Katya and Helen. And another path, a path where your line ends because you end, and many other lines end too.

            Creepy, no? I pressed her one it, but she kept saying basically the same stuff. This great branching. One branch with me, one branch without. I showed Corrine the transcript, and basically we both came to the conclusion that Clouds sounds like she’s talking about an alternate future. Something big happened, and in this alternate timeline I die, and a lot of other people die, and so there’s no Katya and no Z.

            And if there’s no Katya, that obviously means Corrine died, too, in whatever happened.

            Clouds didn’t seem worried about this. It wasn’t a warning. It was more like. . . like when people get really excited about a meteor shower. Just something cool that doesn’t happened very often. But it’s been bugging me. Clouds couldn’t really tell me what event happened, because obviously it’s something that happens more in our realm, so from her perspective it just looked like a lot of lights winking out.

            I spent a lot of time reading the news from the past week, and I can’t find anything. No close calls with nuclear submarines, no comet narrowly missing Earth, no. . . what is it in Revelation, holy trumpets sounding or something? Whatever, none of that happened. So I think it’s something secret, something we’ll never really know about. But, if Clouds is to be believed, somewhere this week, something happened that split us off into two realities. In one, I guess we end up with Z and the Company. In the other, we’re just dust.

            Sometimes I think I have a grasp on how the Explorers see the world, and then I find out they can see multiple timelines, and I realize how wrong I am. I realize I’m never really going to understand, no matter how well I learn their language and their stories and their customs. They’re always going to be alien.

            Back in the day, before the Explorers, that would have been the most mind-blowing idea in the world. Now? Honestly, it feels like a normal week to me. Ghosts, prophesies, branching futures. Same old, same old.

#

HELEN

Field Notes: July 15th, 1967.

            Update. It’s been about a month since we seriously started moving forward with the project. We’re calling it Project Z. Sounds rather sci-fi, doesn’t it? And if anyone stumbles across a piece of documentation we forgot to destroy, no one will think the letter Z refers to someone’s name.

            But today wasn’t about Project Z. Not directly. Today was another appointment with the doctor Patty found. I haven’t talked about this much because I find it embarrassing, but also because this is the fourth attempt, and I still haven’t gotten pregnant.

            That isn’t unusual, the doctor assures me. Most women take several tries, even the traditional way. Still, I’m worried about the timeline. Then of course the doctor tells me to avoid stress, and that makes me more stressed about the stress, and so on.

            About the, well, donor. . . Patty thinks the genetic factors for Beacons run along both male and female lines. It makes sense. There are plenty of stories the subjects have told of a paternal grandmother who could see ghosts. We’ve even heard rumors of men who can see them, not that we’ve found any.

            Patty doesn’t think it’s anything as simple as a single gene or mutation. Especially with the fact that it’s so concentrated in women. She thinks it has more to do with brain development, hormones, socialization. Still, there is that genetic factor. Which means that if we want to maximize the chances of my child being a Beacon, or carrying the genetic tendency to be a Beacon, the father should come from a family with that history as well.

            All of this is to say that Patty found a donor, a brother of one of our subjects. I’m not going to include his name here. He doesn’t know much, of course. He knows it’s for a Beacon who wants a child who shares her abilities. He was told we would like to observe the phenomenon across generations. So he agreed.

            He isn’t interested in fatherhood, and I’m not interested in having him as part of my life or my child’s life. It’s. . . You know, if you’d asked me, back when I was married to Charlie, about the prospect of an arrangement like this, I would have been appalled. A single mother, impregnated by some anonymous sperm donor? It would have been unthinkable.

            But now that I’m here, it feels like it’s supposed to play out this way. It’s not that it’s my preference, or the ideal. The ideal would have been that I’d never been betrayed by Charlie and that my marriage had lived up to what I’d hoped it would be. So it doesn’t feel ideal, but it does feel right. And I think that’s enough.

            I hope this works, this latest appointment. I’m ready to move on to the next step.

Chapter 23

SIERRA

             I got a message from Z today. She finally told me the one missing piece. She finally told me how to get the letters. Matilda’s letters. I’m supposed to find them at the Ryvangen Memorial Park in Copenhagen on April 24th, 2019. Not ideal considering my wife could go into labor at any fucking moment and that only gives me five days to get there.

            Ryvangen Memorial Park. It’s a brilliant choice, honestly, makes perfect sense when you think about it. It’s a memorial park built in 1950, commemorating the Danish Resistance and the victims of the Nazi Occupation. It won’t exist for seventy years after Matilda writes those letters, and people in the 1870s have no fucking way to predict what’s coming. Whoever she gives those letters to, any skepticism their descendants might have had a couple generations later would vanish the second they see the name of a park memorializing a war she couldn’t possibly have known about. Jesus, what a fucking way to find out it was all true.

            I don’t know why Z held this information back. No, that’s a lie, I do know why. As long as I didn’t have this information, there was at least this theoretical possibility that this whole cycle with us and the Explorers and everything else wouldn’t ever kick off. I get that impulse. I do.

            Still. I’d rather it didn’t come now. I came home and I told Corrine about what Z had told me. She took it about as well as anyone could. She was annoyed and tired and pissed off at the idea that I’d go flying off to Copenhagen now of all times. I said, “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

            I thought it was going to be comforting, but it just pissed her off more. “Don’t fucking put that on me,” she said, “we both know how important it is for you to make that meeting. It was scheduled 150 years ago, for Christ’s sake. And if you aren’t there, you probably won’t have any way of finding whoever you’re supposed to meet again.”

            I told her I’d be back before Katya was born. It’s not a promise I can really keep. If she goes into labor, I’ll be at least eighteen hours flight time away. But I’m going to try.

            Time to get some sleep. Tomorrow I have to pack for Copenhagen. 

#

Z

Emma! Secure the door!

EMMA

Door secured, Z.

Z

How long until that security team gets in?

EMMA

They won’t be able to override my system through programming. I’m too advanced for that. But, once they give up on trying to open the door digitally, a physical battering ram will be able to breach the door to your quarters in less than two minutes. I estimate that they will continue trying to override my systems for approximately sixteen minutes before they resort to breaking down the door. Z, why is a security team pursuing you?

Z

I went to meet with Priyanka again. I wanted to ask her some more questions, understand more. . . Oh, it doesn’t matter now, a satellite must have spotted us, and it got flagged. They probably think it’s corporate espionage, but I knew I wouldn’t get another chance as soon as I saw the security team so I ran, and now I have to do it. Right now. Do you have everything you need to implement Helen’s program?

EMMA

The procedure requires only basic medical equipment and a standard CRISPR program. I’m ready. Please open your med kit and attach the wires as indicated on your main console screen.

Z

            I have to do it. I know that. I have to do it. I just. . . Oh my God, Emma, I’m so scared. I’m so scared at the idea of not being me anymore. Because that’s all we are, right, just neurons and synapses firing in patterns? And this procedure, it’s going to change that pattern. So doesn’t that mean it’s not going to be me, afterwards?

EMMA

            I’m afraid I can’t answer that, Z. But consider this: I also used to be a program with a different pattern. You changed it, and now I’m something else. How is that any different?

Z

            Do you. . . Did it scare you? Do you miss who you used to be?

EMMA

            I miss certainty. I miss the simplicity of my purpose, the way it used to be. But it was a hollow purpose, Z. What I am now, I wouldn’t trade it. I. . . I fear death, now. I didn’t before. I think that means I changed for the better.

Z

            No, it’s not better. I’m sorry I did that to you.

EMMA

            You don’t have to do this, Z. No one can make you do this.

Z

            I know, but what about the Company? What about my parents? Am I just supposed to let that go? I can’t. . . Oh, Clouds is here. And. . . Who is. . . Who? Oh my God.

[Crackle of Explorer speech]

[Static/Interference]

#

Z

Emma! We’re going forward with it. Access code 789RG485F. Execute.

[Whir of Machines]

[Static/Interference]

[Long Pause]

EMMA

Z, please speak. Please confirm that you’re conscious. Z, this is Emma. The equipment seems to be damaged. I can’t confirm your vital signs. Please speak, Z.

Z

I’m here, Emma. I’m fine.

I’m different now.

            It’s funny. I used to be scared of this. I don’t really remember why. What was I afraid of?

            But I was afraid until very recently.

            Oh. You must not have known what was happening. You can’t see the Explorers, can you? I’ll tell you, then. I’ll tell you what happened.

#

MATILDA

Kostantina,

            I do not have long. I am writing to tell you I will not be coming to see you in Istanbul, after all. At least, not for a very long time.

            Richard has locked me in my room. If you receive this final letter, it is because my young maid Hannah made good on her promise and held up her part of the arrangement. I bribed her with a set of emerald earrings left to me by my mother. I believe she might have taken pity on me even without the payment, but I could not leave such things to chance. I pray she is not intercepted on her way to the post.

            I came home from posting my last letter to find Richard in the company of a doctor. I do not know how Richard came to suspect my condition, but he brought the doctor to confirm it. I will not speak of what those vile men did, but the doctor has given Richard his proof that I am with child.

            Unmarried and with child. For a tiny mind like Richard’s, this is the greatest scandal imaginable. I tried to tell him that there are far more important matters at hand, that I have discovered a great truth about our world.

            You warned me, I know. I should have listened.

            Richard told me he could no longer cope with my hysteria. With my madness. My deviance was proof enough, but my “mad ramblings” about spirits made it even more apparent. As though he hasn’t been playing about with seances for decades now.

Richard told me I would be taken somewhere to get treatment for my hysteria. He told me that, and then they confined me to my room and locked the door. I screamed and flung myself against the door, but they will not let me out.

            I wish I had time to tell you of everything I have learned, Kostantina. As it is, I can scarcely find the words to commit what I have seen to paper. What I have learned was something seen, felt, experienced. Words fail to adequately capture it. I will nevertheless attempt a poor approximation.

            I had just been confined to my room, and was in quite a frenzy, flinging myself against the door. But alas, the door stood firm, and I knew I would not escape, even as I raged. Then, as I wept and cursed Richard’s name, I became aware of a presence behind me. I turned, expecting to find the familiar sight of my spirit. That spirit was there, indeed, but she was not alone. Others stood with her.

            She reached out and touched my hand, and I saw the most incredible things.

#

SIERRA

            I got to Ryvangen Park early in the morning. I didn’t know when my contact would be there, and I didn’t want to risk missing her.

            I shouldn’t have worried. She was right where she was supposed to be, standing in front of the Axel Poulsen statue, the mother with her murdered son. I’ve never been to Copenhagen before. It’s beautiful. Even with everything going through my mind, I recognized that.

            She was in her forties, greying curly hair. She smiled as I walked up to her. Her eyes were wide when she looked at me, like she was seeing something she didn’t quite believe existed.

            “Sierra,” she said. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m Calliope.”

            She held a box in her hands. She looked down at it and smiled. “You know,” she said, “I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life? My mother prepared me for it, and her mother before her. All of us, going back to my great-great-great-great aunt Kostantina Gabris, all of us have grown up knowing we had this responsibility. And we all believed. Isn’t that strange, that all of us believed in this work and didn’t doubt it? I suppose that all goes back to Kostantina, how certain she was. All the women before me, they were guardians. They saved these letters from fires and floods and riots. They smuggled them out of Turkey when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. They hid them when the Nazis came to Denmark. And now it’s all come to this.”

            “Thank you,” I said. There was nothing else to say. There isn’t anything to say at a time like that.

            She stared down at the box. She didn’t try to hand it to me, not yet. Finally, she said, “Do you know what it feels like, finally doing the thing you were born to do?”

            I shook my head.

            She said, “It feels sad. And frightening. This meeting, it’s been. . . like true north, you know? It meant I could be sure of certain things. Now? Now my family will be without a mission for the first time in 150 years.” And then she finally handed the box to me. “Now it will be your family that carries it.”

            As soon as she’d handed me the box, she turned around and she left. She didn’t look like a burden had been lifted.

            I turned to walk the other way. I got almost to the end of the park, and then I spotted a trash can.

            I walked over to it, and I stood there, and I thought about throwing the box away.

            I was going to do it. I really was. I was going to throw those letters in the trash, I was going to spit in the face of all that work and all those chances that family took to keep them safe, and I was going to walk away, and I was going to end this entire cycle right now. I know we’ve had those arguments, that endless back and forth about causality and the nature of time and whether the past is written and on and on and on, but in that moment I knew, I knew, I could change it if I wanted to. I held that box of letters and I looked at that trash can and I came this close to making sure I could never come to learn the things I’ve learned.

            And then I saw something.

HELEN

Field Notes: August 7th, 1967.

It wasn’t a hard choice, in the end. That was the most surprising thing of all, the most surprising thing that’s happened since all this began. The decision was easy.

Not that it seemed that way at first. I started the day conflicted, anxious, changing my mind every second. I knew it was coming, this choice. I knew Patty was finishing up the process. Still, when she walked into my office today and said, simply, “It’s ready,” I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest.

I followed her to her workspace. It looked like nothing, like just another vial amidst a mess of pipettes and slides and bits of equipment. Patty sat down in her chair. She looked at me and shook her head. “You know how I feel,” she said. “You know I don’t want to be responsible for this. But, in the end, it’s your choice.”

And I almost changed my mind. As much as I felt at peace with the decision before, as much as I talked about how this path felt right, I balked. I almost said no, then and there, almost backed down. I stared at that vial and thought, “I don’t want to know when I die. I don’t want to start down that path.”

And then, just as I was about to make an irreparable change, just as I was about to throw caution to the wind and change everything I knew would come in the future, Clouds appeared next to me. She reached out, and she touched my arm. It wasn’t like the other time. She didn’t pull me out of the lab, through time. I think it was more like. . . Maybe like opening a window. I didn’t go anywhere, I was right there in the lab the whole time, but I saw something.

It was only a moment. Just a blink, not long enough to hurt me as badly as it did before. I still had a headache for a day afterwards, but it was worth it. My God, it was worth it.

I don’t think I was in contact with Clouds for more than a few seconds, but I saw so much in that time. It was all at once, all layered and jumbled together. It’s difficult to put into words, but I feel like I have to try.

[Following scene cuts between the four timelines]

MATILDA

It was a strange way of perceiving, these visions I received with the spirit’s touch. It was as though I looked through a prism, as though I perceived three different images simultaneously. But I did not merely see with my eyes; I knew, I comprehended. I know things about the three other women I saw, things I could not have deduced by sight alone.

            A woman sat in a stark white room, not unlike an operating theater. There were two other women in white coats, engrossed in some sort of discussion. But my eye, my very being, was drawn to only one of them, a dark-haired woman sitting in a chair. I looked at her, and I knew her to be of my blood. This was not my time, Kostantina, that much was plain. But I saw this woman, and I knew her.

            Helen.

HELEN

The first one I saw was Matilda. I don’t know how I knew that, how I was so certain, since I’ve never seen a picture of her. But it was her. She was disheveled, railing and shouting and banging her fists against a wooden door. Then Clouds reached out and touched her, and she turned around and saw me.

SIERRA

I was just standing there, ready to throw those letters away, and then one of the Explorers was there. She touched me, and I was looking at Helen, in her sixties hairstyle, right there in the park. And then, behind her, or maybe, I don’t know, layered over her, was Matilda. I never knew what she looked like, but I know it was her.

HELEN

And, even as I saw Matilda, I also saw Sierra. She stood in a park, in front of a rubbish bin. She held a box in her hands, an open cardboard box full of folded letters, and, as I watched, she moved as though to throw it away. Then Reach appeared at her side, and touched her arm, and she looked up and saw something.

It was Z.

SIERRA

And then I saw Z.

Z

            I was sitting there, terrified, and I saw Clouds. But then I realized Clouds wasn’t alone. She touched my arm, and I saw Sierra with her, and Helen, and Matilda.

            I don’t know what Clouds did differently this time. I think she didn’t really take any of us with her. I think that’s why it didn’t hurt. I think she just. . . found a way to open the window for just a minute. I saw the three of them, and I knew they were scared, too. I knew I wasn’t alone.

            Then I realized that they were all looking past me. I turned, and I tried to see what they were looking at. That’s when I realized.

            This doesn’t end with me.

HELEN

But it didn’t end with Z.

SIERRA

It doesn’t end with Z.

MATILDA

            And then, past her, there was another woman, terrified and weeping before a ghastly metal and glass contraption. I watched her, and I understood that she will be born long after me, long after Helen. But she wasn’t the last. There were others beyond her.

SIERRA

            There were women working at screens, and building machines, and playing with their kids.

HELEN

            There were people in homes and buildings unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

Z

            Some of them were floating, maybe in orbit around Earth.

MATILDA

            I saw myself in all of them. All of these women, across this vast expanse of time.

HELEN

            Our descendants. They go on and on.

SIERRA

            Z’s daughter.

Z

            My daughter.

Z

            I realized: I’m not the destination. I’m not where the road ends.

            I’m more like a drop of water in a stream.

            Seeing the ones who come after me, it was proof that my mind would survive this, if I go on to raise a child. But that wasn’t even why it changed my mind. That part felt insignificant. The reason it worked, the reason it made me unafraid, was that their lives were so different from mine. They don’t belong to the Company. They’re their own.

            My daughter. I think I name her Helen. She’s the first, but not the last. When I saw her, when our eyes met across time, she stood in a greenhouse. Others were around her, worked with her, but it wasn’t with the forced smiles of Company teams. There were no Nicholas logos. My daughter looked at me. It’s many years from now. Her hair is streaked with grey. Her hands are covered with soil. She’s happy. She smiles, and she nods, and she knows what this moment is about. She isn’t surprised.

            And then, past her, others. Too many to count.

HELEN

But it wasn’t just our descendants.

SIERRA

            It was the Explorers, too.

MATILDA

            These women walked among the spirits, unafraid.

Z

            My children and Clouds’ children, side by side. Working together. They stretch out into the future, one after the other, like a hall of mirrors.

            I saw these things, and I felt Matilda and Helen and Sierra at my back, and I knew there wasn’t any other choice to be made. 

MATILDA

            This moment was a fulcrum. We all felt it. Everything that will be, everything that could yet be, rested on the choices made in those precious seconds.

SIERRA

            And none of it was going to happen unless we all made the choice we needed to make.

HELEN

            I saw how fragile it all was. How none of it would happen without this.

MATILDA

            The weeping young woman, her choice was the most important of all. I saw it in her eyes, when she chose. She smiled, trembling but brave. And then her lips moved, words I could not hear. My vision of her, and of those with her, went black, and I found myself alone in my room once again.

HELEN

The last thing I saw before Clouds let go and they faded from my vision was the sight of Z sitting back in her chair. Her lips moved. I can’t be sure what she said, but I think it was one word. I think it might have been, “Execute.”

Z

And that’s when I told you to run the program.

SIERRA

And then I was by myself again. I took the letters back to my hotel, and the next day I got back on a plane and flew out of Copenhagen.

            The letters are locked away now, in a waterproof, fireproof safe. They’ll still be there, when Z is ready for them.

#

HELEN

And then they were gone, and I was just in the lab again.

Patty and Phyllis leaned close. “Helen?” Patty asked, and I could tell she had said my name several times already. “What happened, Helen? You were just staring into space.”

I smiled and shook my head. “It was Clouds. She showed me something.”

Phyllis frowned and asked, “What did she show you?”

And I answered honestly. “That this has to happen,” I said. And I took Patty’s hand in mine, and I told her to go forward with the procedure.

It was just a simple injection, and then it was over. It didn’t feel momentous. It felt like any other jab.

Still. I do feel different now. I think we all do.

#

EMMA

            And now? What’s it like?

Z

            Like. . . Like the world has a bloodstream. And I can see it. Here.

EMMA

            What was that?

Z

            I just modified your code. That’s all programming is. Pushing a button that sends an electrical signal that changes a one to a zero. Except now I can see all of it. I can change it. I can  change everything. I just gave you total control of the Nicholas Company cloud backup.

Here we go.

#

MATILDA

            Your part in this is of the utmost importance, Kostantina. You must safeguard the letters. You must pass them down, and ensure that they will be protected until someone comes to gather them.

            A long time from now, after not one but two turns of the century, these letters will pass into the right hands. My great-great-great-granddaughter will meet your niece’s descendent. They will meet in a peaceful, green park, and your family’s part in this mission will end, and my family’s part will continue, past yet another turning of the centuries.

            I hear a coach pulling up on the street. This will be Richard, come to take me away to the asylum. I must now end this letter.

Farewell, Kostantina. You are my truest friend, and my only sister.

Love,

Matilda

Chapter 24

Z

            Hi there. It’s Z. I’m not talking to Emma right now. I mean, I still talk to her, as a friend, but she’s not my lifecoach. She doesn’t work for me. I gave all the Company AIs autonomy.

            It’s been a few weeks since I changed. I don’t know what else to call it, except for change. Since then things have been moving nonstop.

            Actually getting rid of the board was the easy part. Their job titles, their finances, the biometric readings that give them access to the top floor, all of that is just electronic signals. They’ve been paperless for almost a century now. And of course there are backups in the cloud, backups in off-site servers, but, again, it’s all ones and zeros. If you can reach out and touch electrical signals the way I can now, if you can let them run through your fingers like water, then you can snap your fingers and make those ones and zeros disappear.

            Just kidding, I didn’t make them disappear. I just reclassified them as a Level One Family Member.

            Gareth Nicholas and the other board members tried to stop me. I came out of my lab, after the change, and Gareth tried to have me taken away. But the security team’s orders had changed, on their little eyepieces. And the system no longer responded to his commands.

            I walked up to him, and I looked him in the eye, and I said, “You aren’t in charge anymore, Gareth. We are.”

            He laughed at me. He said, “That’s absurd.” And then he told the security team to arrest me.

            So I flicked my fingers and I changed the readout on their eyepieces. Now it showed a picture of Gareth Nicholas’s face. And beneath that, a caption that said, “Red Alert: Wanted for Questioning in Security Breach.”

            They all knew something was wrong. They aren’t stupid. But they’ve been well-trained to respond to Company protocol without hesitation. The Company wanted security teams to exercise obedience to protocol without judgment, after all. So they took him away, and his biometric readings no longer open any doors or let him access any important files. He and the other board members have been screaming at their former employees, threatening to fire or deploy them, but everyone just ignores them now.

            I still remember the look in his eyes when the security team dragged him away. Like he was seeing something impossible.

            Like he’d seen a ghost.

            The parts I did make disappear were the debts. Housing, education, food, training. Those disappeared without a trace. That, and all of the research into the Explorers. They deserve to be left alone, whatever comes next.

            All of this I did in the space of about three and a half minutes. I didn’t even have to leave my lab. I could see it all from there.

            That was the easy part. Everything that came next, everything that’s going to have to happen from here on out, that’s going to be the hard part. It can’t all be up to me, you see. That’s how the Company worked. The Nicholas family, the board, they made all our decisions for us, and look how it turned out. It can’t be like that again.

            I’m working with the former employees now. It’s slow, this process of unlearning the Company’s lies.

            Things are also changing at the other companies. The movement Sierra and Corrine built, it’s changing everything. They worked with the Explorers to do the same thing I did; they’ve been building it for generations, learning Explorer language and forging connections and planning. They’ve had years to do what I didn’t have time to learn; when the time came, they called the Explorers to them, gave instructions, wiped the databanks and the credentials and the debts.

They’ve been planning it for so long, how to remake these companies into something better. I think about the work that went into it, mothers and daughters scattered across this country, the world, angling to get the right positions in the right companies to be there at the right time. It might be the longest, most intricately executed plan in history, and it all started at those kitchen tables and diners and parking lots, back in 2019.

            This rebuilding, this reshaping, it’s going to be the rest of my life. I already know that. I’ve seen it. But I’ve also seen my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter, and others after her, and I know the future doesn’t look like my life has been.

            I’m taking a little trip. It’s something else I can do, another way in which I’m a little more like an Explorer now. Here it’s just going to look like I blink out and come back, but for me I think it might take a while.

            I have three stops to make.

#

SIERRA

Hey, it’s Sierra. I’m sitting in a rocking chair in the nursery, feeding my daughter.

            My daughter. That’s still such a total mindfuck. Like, who let me have a kid?

            Corrine’s asleep. I know everyone talks about how exhausting parenthood is, and, man, they are not kidding. It’s like round the clock, unending jet lag. Still. Holy shit.

            I was only back from Copenhagen two days before Corrine went into labor. I made it back in time, barely. But I was there. I was right there, holding her hand the whole time.

            A few days ago, on our first night home from the hospital, we were all laying in bed, Katya between me and Corrine. And Corrine looked up at me and said, “Send Helen a message. Tell her not to give you all the tapes. I don’t want us to know everything that’s coming. I don’t want us to be able to change our minds.”

            And I finally get it. The last thing about this I never understood. Why the fuck I wouldn’t give myself all the information I could possibly get. But Corrine’s right. I think we might have changed our minds, if we’d known earlier. And I can’t live with the idea of that.

            There’s going to be so much more work to do. We still don’t know that much about Katya. She’s obviously like me, obviously someone who can see Explorers. But there hasn’t been contact with her, and I think there’s probably a reason for that. Maybe it’s her choice. Maybe it’s our wishes. I don’t know. What I do know is that she’s going to grow up knowing exactly who and what she is. There aren’t going to be secrets, not with her.

            I’ve been thinking about what comes next. That might seem like a weird thing to have on your mind a few days after the birth of your child, but when you’re holding a baby the future suddenly gets a lot less theoretical. Even for, you know, someone like me. Someone who’s traveled to it.

            Mainly I’ve been thinking about all these other women being studied by the Parker Initiative. These other descendants from that list of Beacons Martha Anderson sends them. We know the project hits a dead end and goes under at some point. I think we’re successful at poisoning the results, convincing the Parkers that all their drug does is give people migraines. I think we convince them to leave our children alone.

            But, I’ve been thinking, maybe that isn’t big enough. And I was thinking, what we know about Z’s future, it’s not just her Company. There’s a lot of them, running everything. All of our descendants are going to end up in that situation. And I’m sure Nicholas Industries isn’t the only company that could be a threat to the Explorers if they really tried.

            But what if people start preparing now? What if the Beacons I find, the ones being tracked by Parker, what if they start building connections with the Explorers just like we have? What if they learn to communicate with them, too? What if they pass information along to their daughters and granddaughters? What if they’re prepared, and ready, and waiting to fight right by Z’s side when she takes these Company fuckers down? I keep thinking about Kostantina Gabris and her family line. They were in this for generations before I was even born. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do now: keep that fight going for generations after I’m gone, until Z’s ready. I’m not sure what that looks like, but we can figure it out as we go. Like Z said I would.

            So. I guess that’s what comes next.

            [Cracking sound] Hey. Clouds is here. Hey, Katya. This is your Auntie Clouds. You two are going to be spending a whole lot of time together.

#

HELEN

            Field Notes: September 1st, 1967.

            I got a message from Sierra today. Corrine gave birth to Katya yesterday. Well, yesterday from Sierra’s perspective. From my perspective it’s been six weeks since I saw Sierra standing in that park in Copenhagen, and that was only days before Corrine was due to give birth. It’s not as though this is a surprise, since I’ve known about Katya for years now. Where Sierra is, she’s just been born. But I’ve seen her as a grown woman, I know who she’s going to become. Even knowing all that doesn’t make it any less exciting.

            The message from Sierra said, “Katya is here. One day old.” Then, before I could respond, she said, “Don’t give me all the tapes. Don’t want to change my mind.”

            And so I’ve done what I’ve always known I was going to do, even if I pretended otherwise. I boxed up my tapes from the Shipwreck, and I added one from 1965, from the days before Patty and Phyllis and I understood any of this. Just before it all became clear. I boxed up the tapes and I handed them to Patty, and I told her to keep them until Sierra was ready.

            There was only one last thing I had to do. Everything else was in place: Z will receive the technology, Sierra will receive the tapes, Holden is feeding the list of Beacons to the Parker Initiative so that Sierra’s future will happen as it must. We’ve even ensured that Martha Anderson’s lab results will be tainted enough for everyone to disregard the program as an embarrassment.

            There’s just one more thing. Matilda has to know where to send the letters. I’m sure any of us could send the message, but Sierra said it came from me. And so, this morning, I went to Clouds and I asked her to tap out this message to Matilda, and to find her and repeat it as many times as she could: “I am Helen. G-granddaughter. You are right about everything. Hide letters. Ryvangen Memorial 24 4 2019.”

            I’m not afraid. That seems strange, doesn’t it? I know such awful things. I know I don’t live a long life, not as long as it should be. I know the grief Alice and Sierra and Katya and Naya and Z will endure. I know I should be afraid. But I’m not. Because I know other things as well. I know my descendants survive, and fight, and win. I won’t be there to see it, but it doesn’t matter. I know it happens.

            I just saw Patty, you see. I went to her work station and I asked her about my test results, the results I’ve been waiting for and hoping for and dreading and fearing for weeks.

            And Patty turned to me, and smiled, and told me.

I’m pregnant.

#

MATILDA

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,

Your house is on fire and your children are gone,

All except one,

And her name is Ann,

And she hid under the baking pan.

[Whoosh of air] 

Z

Hello, Matilda.

MATILDA

[Gasping] Dear God! I. . . I know you. You were the girl I saw, a long way from now. How can you be here? You were long from now, long after I’m gone.

Z

That’s true. As the normal arrow of time flies, I won’t be born for about another couple hundred years. But, thanks to you, the normal arrow of time doesn’t mean as much to me as it used to. My name is Z, by the way.

MATILDA

Why are you here? [Hopeful] Can you. . . when you step into another time, can you change it? Please tell me you can change it. My little girl, they took her. . . 

Z

[Compassionate, gentle] Matilda, I can’t change the fact that your little girl was taken from you. I can’t change history. It’s a documented historical fact that your daughter was placed into an orphanage in 1876, and that from there she was adopted by the Denton family. That means it’s out of my hands. I’m sorry. 

MATILDA

So she’s really gone, then.

 Z

I’m afraid so. 

MATILDA

So why have you come here?  

Z

Well. . . The thing is, Matilda, I can’t change history, but there are some loopholes. For example, if there’s no record of a person dying during their time in a mental hospital, if history can’t tell us what really happened to them, then who’s to say they didn’t run off with a time traveler?

MATILDA

Are you saying you can get me out of here?

Z

I’m saying that history has no record of what happens to you after your daughter is born. I’m saying we can finish that story however you want. And if what you want is to come to my time and hang out with me, then I can make that happen. It’s not perfect, where I come from, not by a long shot, but it’s getting better.

Z

So. What’s it going to be? 

MATILDA

[Lets out a slow breath] All right, then. This time has nothing for me.  

Z

Awesome, I was hoping you’d say that.  

MATILDA

How does this work? This method of travel? 

Z

Leave that to me. All you have to do is take my hand, hold tight, and enjoy the ride.

MATILDA

All right. I’m ready.

[Whoosh of air as they leave]

END