In the visiting room in the DARPA facility, Ty sat in a cheap armchair as Nora settled across from him on a couch that had seen better days.
They were silent for a long moment, and Ty thought that it revealed something very important: how comfortable they still were with each other, even after all these years apart. There was no tension. No need to fill the void by talking. Only a quiet reflectiveness, both of them taking stock, both likely wondering where to start, where to begin climbing the mountain that was the mystery of what was happening here—and how to address the past, which was a mountain of its own. But in the valley in which they now sat, it was peaceful. A safe place they had returned to after a long time away.
For Ty, seeing Nora brought back a flood of memories and emotions. The first to surface was of an afternoon in late spring during their senior year in high school. That day, they had engaged in one of their favorite things: a picnic on the National Mall.
Under the sun, they had lain on a wide, thick quilt. A basket held sandwiches, snacks, thermoses of water, and a nice supply of paperbacks. The Washington Monument towered to their right. The US Capitol loomed to the left. The Smithsonian museums lined the streets between the two attractions. Tourists buzzed around them.
But to Ty, it felt as though the quilt in the expanse of green grass was an island all its own, insulated, a square of existence independent of the universe. He and Nora existed there. And in that space and time, nothing else mattered.
As they often did on their Sunday afternoon retreats, they read the paperback novels they had brought, lying on their stomachs, the sun on their backs, feet kicking in the wind, periodically reaching for the snacks or water.
Theirs was a sort of two-person book club. They would check out library books and read them one after the other, discussing when each had finished the latest tome. That was the other half of their Sunday afternoons— discussing books and, particularly, the ideas they contained. They shared that love as well, a passion for big ideas.
Looking back, that afternoon in spring before they graduated high school had been the calm before the storm in Nora’s life. It was perhaps one of the last happy moments before everything changed. Ty wished he had known that back then, but that was the nature of tragedy—you never truly appreciated the good times until they ended.
And you never knew when someone from your past would come crashing back into your life.
“I didn’t expect to see you,” Nora said. “But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Ty raised his eyebrows.
“I knew this was big when the police showed up at my door and put me on a plane. You’re the smartest person I ever met, Ty. I should have known you were connected somehow.”
“You need to get out more.”
“I teach at Oxford, Ty. You’re still the smartest person I’ve ever met.
That mind of yours is like a force of nature.”
“It’s been a bit cloudy lately.” Ty leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “What we’re dealing with here is indeed big, as you say. Complicated. I’m still trying to figure it out. I wanted to meet with you because you’re part of it.” He shook his head. “How exactly, I don’t know. But I do know you deserve to be in the loop.”
For the next thirty minutes, Ty described his discovery at CERN and what had happened since. He briefed Nora on the device, and the genomes, and Kato.
She was a good listener. Always had been. It was one of the things Ty had loved about her. Growing up, she had always been able to unpack his emotions, to help him process and understand what he was going through. She had said he was the smartest person she’d ever met, but to him, she was easily the most fascinating person he had ever encountered. And being here with her now, he realized that he was still fascinated by her.
And more.
She had been his next-door neighbor, his best friend, and then, starting in high school, his first love.
That spark was still there. But the bond between Ty and Nora wasn’t like with him and Penny. With Penny, the relationship had been like reaching out to touch an exposed wire—not knowing if it was live or not. When he thought about her, he still felt that surge of adrenaline as if he were touching that wire, feeling the electricity pulsing through him, the things it had awakened, long dormant—the parts of him he had first discovered with Nora.
Maybe it felt different with Nora because they had grown up together and had been friends before they were lovers.
In his mind, he associated her with warmth. With deep caring. With someone he trusted completely, someone he would do anything for—and who would do anything for him. Until then, he hadn’t realized how much he needed that, how much more confident he felt now.
He had once read a perspective on loneliness that he had never forgotten: that loneliness isn’t about the lack of contact with people. It’s about feeling like there’s no one who really cares about you. In Ty’s experience, that was true. In his academic life, he had met people who were surrounded by peers and colleagues but who were truly and utterly lonely. Some of it was likely their intellect, a feeling that no one understood them and how they saw the world. But mostly, it was that lack of caring.
Time and events beyond their control had torn him and Nora apart. But being here with her now, Ty knew this much was true: they both still cared deeply for each other. And just being around her made him feel far less alone in the world.
When he had finished bringing her up to speed, Ty added the other thing he wanted to tell her.
“My father is here. He’s part of the Origin Project. He saved me. He’s the one who got me out of Switzerland.”
“Had you been in contact with him before this?”
“No. Before two days ago, I hadn’t seen him in person for thirty years.” “That has to be overwhelming. On top of everything else.”
“It’s tough. He’s nearly impossible to read.” Ty was about to add that he thought his father knew more about what was happening than he was saying, but he held back. DARPA was likely listening to the conversation in the room.
“Did you ever find out what happened to your father?” Ty asked.
“No. I haven’t stopped looking. But I have stopped thinking about it as much. That’s helped. Some.”
“Believe me, it’s impossible to completely stop thinking about something like that. I tried. For a long time.”
It struck Ty then that the most painful thing for both of them was a similar experience: their fathers being ripped from their lives unexpectedly and with little explanation. It had happened to Ty when he was five and to Nora when she was eighteen.
When Nora’s father had disappeared, the shock of it had torn her and Ty apart. She had pulled away, retreating inward. He had always wished he could have been there for her, but they were attending different colleges then, and it wasn’t just the physical distance that had separated them. It was the walls Nora had built around herself in the aftermath of her father’s disappearance.
“I’m glad your dad is back,” she said. “It seems like things have changed between the two of you.”
Ty was amazed at how well she could still read him, even after all these years apart. “How can you tell?”
“The way you talk about him. It’s not like before, when we were young.
The bitterness is gone.”
He nodded. “I’m starting to think that maybe he had good reasons for what he did. Maybe things are more complicated than I thought.”
“They usually are,” Nora said. “So what do we do now?”
“For now, we wait. But I don’t think we’re going to be waiting very long.”
