Dark Matter (6 page)

A quick glance over my shoulder: the building I just escaped is a five-story, nondescript, utterly forgettable piece of architectural mediocrity, and people are streaming out of the entrance like a kicked hornet's nest.

At the end of the pond, I leave the sidewalk and follow a gravel footpath.

Sweat stings my eyes, my lungs are on fire, but I keep pumping my arms and throwing one foot in front of the other.

With each stride, the lights from the office park fall farther and farther away.

Straight ahead, there's nothing but welcoming darkness, and I'm moving toward it, into it, like my life depends upon it.

A strong, reviving wind slams into my face, and I'm starting to wonder where I'm going because shouldn't there be some light in the distance? Like even a speck of it? But I'm running into an immense chasm of black.

I hear waves.

I arrive on a beach.

There's no moon, but the stars are vivid enough to suggest the roiling surface of Lake Michigan.

I look inland toward the office park, catch incoming, wind-cut voices, and glimpse several flashlight beams slashing through the dark.

Turning north, I begin to run, my shoes crunching wave-polished rocks. Miles up the shoreline, I can see the indistinct, nighttime glow of downtown, where the skyscrapers edge up against the water.

I look back, see some lights heading south, away from me, others heading north.

Gaining on me.

I veer away from the water's edge, cross a bike path, and aim for a row of bushes.

The voices are closer.

I wonder if it's dark enough for me to stay unseen.

A three-foot seawall stands in my path, and I scale the concrete, barking my shins on the way over and staying on all fours as I crawl through the hedgerow, branches grabbing my shirt and face, clawing at my eyes.

Out of the bushes, I stumble into the middle of a road that parallels the lakeshore.

From the direction of the office park, I hear an engine revving.

High beams blind me.

I cross the road, hop a chain-link fence, and suddenly I'm running through someone's yard, dodging overturned bicycles and skateboards, then darting alongside the house while a dog goes apoplectic inside, lights popping on as I hit the backyard, jump the fence again, and find myself sprinting across an empty baseball outfield, wondering how much longer I can keep this up.

The answer comes with remarkable speed.

On the edge of the infield, I collapse, sweat pouring off my body, every muscle in agony.

That dog is still barking in the distance, but looking back toward the lake, I see no flashlights, hear no voices.

I lie there I don't know how long, and it seems as if hours pass before I can take a breath without gasping.

I finally manage to sit up.

The night is cool, and the breeze coming off the lake pushes through the surrounding trees, sending a storm of autumn leaves down on the diamond.

I struggle to my feet, thirsty and tired and trying to process the last four hours of my life, but I don't have the mental bandwidth at the moment.

I trek out of the baseball field, into a working-class South Side neighborhood.

The streets are empty.

It's block after block of peaceful, quiet homes.

I walk a mile, maybe more, and then I'm standing at the empty intersection of a business district, watching the traffic lights above me cycle at an accelerated, late-night pace.

The main drag runs two blocks, and there's no sign of life except the shithole bar across the street with three mass-produced beer signs glowing in the windows. As patrons stagger out in a cloud of smoke and overloud conversations, headlights from the first car I've seen in twenty minutes appear in the distance.

A cab with the Off-Duty light illuminated.

I step out into the intersection and stand under the traffic light, waving my arms. The taxi slows down on approach and tries to swerve around me, but I sidestep, keeping its bumper on a collision course, forcing it to stop.

The driver lowers his window, angry.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I need a ride.”

The cabbie is Somali, his razor-thin face splotched with patches of a beard, and he's staring at me through a pair of giant, thick-lensed glasses.

He says, “It's two in the morning. I'm done tonight. No more work.”

“Please.”

“Can you read? Look at the sign.” He slaps the top of his car.

“I need to get home.”

The window begins to rise.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the plastic bag containing my personal effects, rip it open, show him the money clip.

“I can pay you more than—”

“Get out of the road.”

“I'll double your rate.”

The window stops six inches from the top of the door.

“Cash.”

“Cash.”

I thumb quickly through the wad of bills. It's probably a $75 fare to the North Side neighborhoods, and I've got to cover double that.

“Get in if we go!” he yells.

Some of the bar patrons have noticed the cab stopped in the intersection, and presumably needing rides, they are drifting over, shouting for me to hold the car.

I finish counting my funds—$332 and three expired credit cards.

I climb into the backseat and tell him I'm going to Logan Square.

“That's twenty-five miles!”

“And I'm paying you double.”

He glares at me in the rearview mirror.

“Where's the money?”

I peel off $100 and hand it into the front seat. “The rest when we get there.”

He snatches the money and accelerates through the intersection, past the drunks.

I examine the money clip. Under the cash and the credit cards, there's an Illinois driver's license with a headshot that's me but that I've never seen, an ID for a gym I've never been to, and a health insurance card from a carrier I've never used.

The cabbie sneaks glances at me in the rearview mirror.

“You have bad night,” he says.

“Looks that way, huh?”

“I thought you are drunk, but no. Your clothes are torn. Face bloody.”

I probably wouldn't have wanted to pick me up either, standing in the middle of an intersection at two in the morning, looking homeless and deranged.

“You're in trouble,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“I'm not exactly sure.”

“I take you to hospital.”

“No. I want to go home.”

We cruise north toward the city on the vacant interstate, the skyline creeping closer and closer. With each passing mile, I feel some semblance of my sanity returning, if for no other reason than I'll be home soon.

Daniela will help me make sense of whatever's happening.

The cabbie parks across from my brownstone and I pay him the rest of his fare.

I hurry across the street and up the steps, pulling keys out of my pocket that aren't my keys. As I try to find the one that fits the lock, I realize this isn't my door. Well, it is my door. It's my street. My number on the mailbox. But the handle isn't right, the wood is too elegant, and the hinges are these iron, gothic-looking things more suited to a medieval tavern.

I turn the deadbolt.

The door swings inward.

Something is wrong.

Very, very wrong.

I step across the threshold, into the dining room.

This doesn't smell like my house. Doesn't smell like anything but the faintest odor of dust. Like no one has lived here in quite some time. The lights are out, and not just some of them. Every last one.

I close the door and fumble in the darkness until my hand grazes a dimmer switch. A chandelier made of antlers warms the room above a minimalist glass table that isn't mine and chairs that aren't mine.

I call out, “Hello?”

The house is so quiet.

Revoltingly quiet.

In
my
home on the mantel behind the dining-room table there's a large, candid photograph of Daniela, Charlie, and me standing at Inspiration Point in Yellowstone National Park.

In
this
house, there's a deep-contrast black-and-white photograph of the same canyon. More artfully done, but with no one in it.

I move on to the kitchen, and at my entrance, a sensor triggers the recessed lighting.

It's gorgeous.

Expensive.

And lifeless.

In
my
house, there's a Charlie first-grade creation (macaroni art) held by magnets to our white refrigerator. It makes me smile every time I see it. In
this
kitchen, there's not even a blemish on the steel façade of the Gaggenau refrigerator.

“Daniela!”

Even the resonance of my voice is different here.

“Charlie!”

There's less stuff, more echo.

As I walk through the living room, I spot my old turntable sitting next to a state-of-the-art sound system, my library of jazz vinyl lovingly stowed and alphabetized on custom, built-in shelves.

I head up the stairs to the second floor.

The hallway is dark and the light switch isn't where it should be, but it doesn't matter. Much of the lighting system runs on motion sensors, and more recessed bulbs wink on above me.

This isn't my hardwood floor. It's nicer, the planks wider, a little rougher.

Between the hall bath and the guest room, the triptych of my family at the Wisconsin Dells has been replaced with a sketch of Navy Pier. Charcoal on butcher paper. The artist's signature in the bottom right-hand corner catches my eye—Daniela Vargas.

I step into the next room on the left.

My son's room.

Except it's not. There's none of his surrealist artwork. No bed, no manga posters, no desk with homework strewn across it, no lava lamps, no backpack, no clothes scattered all over the floor.

Instead, just a monitor sitting on an expansive desk that's covered in books and loose paper.

I walk in shock to the end of the hallway. Sliding a frosted pocket door into the wall, I enter a master bedroom that is luxurious, cold, and, like everything else in this brownstone, not mine.

The walls are adorned with more charcoal/butcher paper sketches in the style of the one in the hall, but the centerpiece of the room is a glass display case built into an acacia wood stand. Light from the base shines up dramatically to illuminate a certificate in a padded leather folder that leans against a plush velvet pillar. Hanging from a thin chain on the pillar is a gold coin with Julian Pavia's likeness imprinted in the metal.

The certificate reads:

The Pavia Prize is awarded to

JASON ASHLEY DESSEN for outstanding achievement in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the origin, evolution and properties of the universe by placing a macroscopic object into a state of

quantum superposition.

I sit on the end of the bed.

I am not well.

I am so not well.

My home should be my haven, a place of safety and comfort, where I'm surrounded by family. But it's not even mine.

My stomach lurches.

I rush into the master bath, fling open the toilet seat, and empty my guts into the pristine bowl.

I'm racked with thirst.

I turn on the faucet and dip my mouth under the stream.

Splash water in my face.

I wander back into the bedroom.

No idea where my mobile phone is, but there's a landline on the bedside table.

I never actually dial Daniela's cell-phone number, so it takes me a moment to recall, but I finally punch it in.

Four rings.

A male voice answers, deep and groggy.

“Hello?”

“Where's Daniela?”

“I think you misdialed.”

I recite Daniela's cell phone number, and he says, “Yeah, that's the number you called, but it's my number.”

“How is that possible?”

He hangs up.

I dial her number again, and this time he answers on the first ring with, “It's three in the morning. Don't call me again, asshole.”

My third attempt goes straight to the man's voicemail. I don't leave a message.

Rising from the bed, I return to the bathroom and study myself in the mirror over the sink.

My face is bruised, scraped, bloody, and mud-streaked. I need a shave, my eyes are bloodshot, but I'm still me.

A wave of exhaustion hits me like a haymaker to the jaw.

My knees give out, but I catch myself on the countertop.

And then, down on the first floor—a noise.

A door closing softly?

I straighten.

Alert again.

Back in the bedroom, I move silently to the doorway and stare down the length of the hall.

I hear whispered voices.

The static of a handheld radio.

The hollow
creak
of someone's footfall on a hardwood step.

The voices become clearer, echoing between the walls of the stairwell and spilling out the top and down the corridor.

I can see their shadows on the walls now, preceding them up the staircase like ghosts.

As I take a tentative step into the hallway, a man's voice—calm, measured Leighton—slides out of the stairwell: “Jason?”

Five steps and I reach the hall bath.

“We're not here to hurt you.”

Their footfalls are in the hallway now.

Stepping slowly, methodically.

“I know you're feeling confused and disoriented. I wish you'd said something back at the lab. I didn't realize how bad it was for you. I'm sorry I missed that.”

I carefully close the door behind me and push in the lock.

“We just want to bring you in so you don't hurt yourself or anyone else.”

The bathroom is twice the size of mine, with a granite-walled shower and a double vanity topped with marble.

Across from the toilet, I see what I'm looking for: a large shelf built into the wall with a hatch that opens the laundry chute.

“Jason.”

Through the bathroom door, I hear the radio crackling.

“Jason, please. Talk to me.” Out of nowhere, his voice hemorrhages frustration. “We have all given up our lives working toward tonight. Come out here! This is fucking insane!”

One rainy Sunday when Charlie was nine or ten, we spent an afternoon pretending we were spelunkers. I would lower him down the laundry chute again and again, as if it were the entrance to a cave. He even wore a little backpack and a makeshift headlamp—a flashlight tied to the top of his head.

I open the hatch, scramble up onto the shelf.

Leighton says, “Take the bedroom.”

Footsteps patter down the hall.

The fit down the laundry chute looks tight. Maybe too tight.

I hear the bathroom door begin to shake, the doorknob jiggling, and then a woman's voice: “Hey, this one's locked.”

I peer down the chute.

Total darkness.

The bathroom door is thick enough that their first attempt to break through only results in a splintering crack.

I might not even fit down this thing, but as they crash into the door a second time and it explodes off the hinges and thunders down against the tile, I realize I have no other options.

They rush into the bathroom, and in the mirror I catch the fleeting reflection of Leighton Vance and one of those security consultants from the lab, holding what appears to be a Taser.

Leighton and I lock eyes in the glass for a half second, and then the man with the Taser spins, raising his weapon.

I fold my arms into my chest and commit myself to the chute.

As the shouting in the bathroom fades away above me, I slam into an empty laundry hamper, the plastic splitting, sending me tumbling out from between the washer and the dryer.

Their footsteps are already coming, pounding down the staircase.

A needle of pain threads up my right leg from the fall. I scramble to my feet and bolt for the French doors that lead out the back of the brownstone.

The brass door handles are locked.

Footsteps are closing in, the voices louder, radios squeaking as instructions scream over static.

I turn the lock, pull open the doors, and tear across a redwood deck, which boasts a grill that's nicer than mine and a hot tub I have never owned.

Down the steps into the backyard, past a rose garden.

I try the garage door, but it's locked.

With all the movement inside, every light in the house has been triggered. There must be four or five people running around on the first floor trying to find me, shouting at one another.

An eight-foot privacy fence encloses the backyard, and as I flip the hasp on its door, someone barrels onto the deck, shouting my name.

The alley is empty, and I don't stop to think which direction to go.

I just run.

At the next street, I glance back, see two figures chasing me.

In the distance, a car engine roars to life, followed by the screech of tires spinning on pavement.

I hang a left and sprint until I reach the next alley.

Almost every backyard is protected by tall privacy fencing, but the fifth one down is waist-high, wrought-iron construction.

An SUV whips its back end around and accelerates into the alley.

I break for the low fence.

Lacking the strength to hurdle it, I clumsily haul myself over the pointed metal tines and collapse in the backyard. I crawl through the grass to a tiny shed beside the garage, with no padlock on the door.

It creaks open, and I slip inside as someone runs across the backyard.

I shut the door so no one will hear my panting.

I cannot catch my breath.

It's pitch-black inside the shed and redolent of gasoline and old grass clippings. My chest heaves against the back of the door.

Sweat drips off my chin.

I claw a cobweb off my face.

In darkness, my hands palm the plywood walls, fingers grazing various tools—pruning shears, a saw, a rake, the blade of an ax.

I take the ax from the wall and grip the wooden handle, scraping my finger across the head. Can't see a thing, but it feels like it hasn't been sharpened in years—deep chinks in the blade, which no longer holds an edge.

Blinking through the stinging sweat, I carefully open the door.

Not a sound creeps in.

I nudge it open a few more inches, until I can see into the backyard again.

It's empty.

In this sliver of quiet and calm, the principle of Occam's razor whispers to me—all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one. Does the idea that I was drugged and kidnapped by a secret, experimental group for the purposes of mind control or God-knows-what fit that bill? Hardly. They would've needed to either brainwash me to convince me that my house was not my house, or in the space of several hours, get rid of my family and gut the interior so I didn't recognize anything.