Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

  She doesn’t know who our son is.

  Do we even have a son?

  Does Charlie exist?

  Of course he exists. I was at his birth. I held him ten seconds after he came writhing and screaming into the world.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah. I just came through the labyrinth.”

  “What did you think?”

  “It almost made me cry.”

  “It was all you,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That conversation we had a year and a half ago? When you came to see me? You inspired me, Jason. I thought of you every day I was building it. I thought of what you said. Didn’t you see the dedication?”

  “No, where was it?”

  “At the entrance to the labyrinth. It’s for you. I dedicated it to you, and I’ve been trying to reach you. I wanted you to be my special guest for tonight, but no one could find you.” She smiles. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  My heart is going so fast, the room threatening to spin, and then Ryan Holder is standing next to Daniela with his arm around her. He’s wearing a tweed jacket, his hair is graying, and he’s paler and less fit than the last time I saw him, which was impossibly at Village Tap last night at his celebration for winning the Pavia Prize.

  “Well, well,” Ryan says, shaking my hand. “Mr. Pavia. The man himself.”

  Daniela says, “Guys, I have to go be polite and mingle, but, Jason, I’m having a secret get-together at my apartment after this. You’ll come?”

  “I’d love to.”

  As I watch Daniela vanish into the crowd, Ryan says, “Want to get a drink?”

  God yes.

  The gallery has pulled out all the stops—tuxedoed waiters carrying trays of appetizers and Champagne, and a cash bar on the far side of the room under a triptych of Daniela self-portraits.

  As the barkeep pours our whiskies—Macallan 12s—into plastic cups, Ryan says, “I know you’re doing just fine, but I got these.”

  It’s so strange—he carries none of the arrogance and swagger of the man I saw holding court last night at my local bar.

  We take our Scotches and find a quiet corner away from the mob surrounding Daniela.

  As we stand there watching the room fill with more and more people emerging from the labyrinth, I ask, “So what have you been up to? I feel like I lost track of your trajectory.”

  “I moved over to U Chicago.”

  “Congrats. So you’re teaching?”

  “Cellular and molecular neuroscience. I’ve been pursuing some pretty cool research as well, involving the prefrontal cortex.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  Ryan leans in close. “All seriousness, the rumor mill has been crazy. The whole community’s talking. People saying”—he lowers his voice—“that you cracked up and lost your mind. That you’re in a rubber room somewhere. That you’re dead.”

  “Here I am. Lucid, warm, and breathing.”

  “So that compound I built for you…it worked out, I assume?”

  I just stare at him, no idea what he’s talking about, and when I don’t provide an immediate answer, he says, “Right, I get it. They’ve got you buried under a mountain of NDAs.”

  I sip my drink. I’m still hungry, and the alcohol is traveling too fast to my head. When the next waiter passes within range, I grab three mini-quiches off the silver tray.

  Whatever is bugging him, Ryan can’t let it go.

  “Look, I don’t mean to bitch,” he says, “but I just feel like I did a lot of work for you and Velocity in the dark. You and I go way back, and I get that you’re in a different place in your career, but I don’t know…I think you got what you wanted from me and…”

  “What?”

  “Forget it.”

  “No, please.”

  “You could’ve shown your old college roommate a little more respect is all I’m saying.”

  “What compound are you talking about?”

  He looks at me with thinly veiled contempt. “Fuck you.”

  We stand silently on the outskirts as the room grows dense with people.

  “So are you two together?” I ask. “You and Daniela?”

  “Sort of,” he says.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’ve been seeing each other for a little while.”

  “You always had a thing for her, didn’t you?”

  He just smirks.

  Scanning the crowd, I find Daniela. She’s poised and in the moment, surrounded by reporters with notepads flipped open, scribbling furiously as she speaks.

  “And how’s it going?” I ask, though I’m not sure I really want the answer. “You and my…and Daniela.”

  “Amazing. She’s the woman of my dreams.”

  He smiles enigmatically, and for three seconds, I want to murder him.

  —

  At one in the morning, I’m sitting on a sofa at Daniela’s place, watching as she sees the last of her guests to the door. These past few hours have been a challenge—trying to hold semicoherent conversations with Daniela’s art friends while biding my time to get an actual moment alone with her. Apparently, that moment will continue to elude me: Ryan Holder, the man who’s sleeping with my wife, is still here, and as he collapses into a leather chair across from me, I get the sense that he’s settling in, possibly for the night.

  From a heavy rocks glass, I sip the dregs of a single malt, not drunk but good and goddamn buzzed, the alcohol serving as a nice buffer between my psyche and this rabbit hole I’ve fallen down.

  This wonderland purporting to be my life.

  I wonder if Daniela wants me to leave. If I’m that oblivious, last-remaining guest who doesn’t realize when he’s outstayed his welcome.

  She shuts the door and hooks the chain.

  Kicking off her heels, she stumbles over to the sofa and crashes down onto the cushions with, “What a night.”

  She opens the drawer to the end table beside the couch and pulls out a lighter and a stained-glass pipe.

  Daniela quit weed when she became pregnant with Charlie and never took it up again. I watch her take a hit and then offer me the pipe, and because this night can’t get any stranger, why not?

  Soon we’re all stoned and sitting in the softly humming silence of the spacious loft whose walls are covered in a vast, eclectic array of art.

  Daniela has the blinds swept back from the huge, south-facing window that serves as the backdrop to the living room, the downtown a twinkling spectacle beyond the glass.

  Ryan passes the pipe to Daniela, and as she begins to repack the bowl, my old roommate slumps back in the chair and stares at the ceiling. The way he keeps licking the front of his teeth makes me smile, because it was always his weed tic, even from back in our grad-school days.

  I look through that window at all the lights and ask, “How well do you two know me?”

  That seems to catch their attention.

  Daniela sets the pipe on the table and turns on the sofa so she’s facing me, her knees drawn into her chest.

  Ryan’s eyes snap open.

  He straightens in the chair.

  “What do you mean?” Daniela asks.

  “Do you trust me?”

  She reaches over and touches my hand. Pure electricity. “Of course, honey.”

  Ryan says, “Even when you and I have been on the outs, I’ve always respected your decency and integrity.”

  Daniela looks concerned. “Everything okay?”

  I shouldn’t do this. I really shouldn’t do this.

  But I’m going to.

  “A hypothetical,” I say. “A man of science, a physics professor, is living here in Chicago. He isn’t wildly successful like he always dreamed, but he’s happy, mostly content, and married”—I look at Daniela, thinking of how Ryan described it back at the gallery—“to the woman of his dreams. They have a son. They have a good life.

  “One night, this man goes to a
bar to see an old friend, a college buddy who recently won a prestigious award. On the walk back, something happens. He never makes it home. He’s abducted. The events are murky, but when he finally regains his full presence of mind, he’s in a lab in South Chicago, and everything has changed. His house is different. He’s not a professor anymore. He’s no longer married to this woman.”

  Daniela asks, “Are you saying he thinks these things have changed, or that they’ve actually changed?”

  “I’m saying that from his perspective, this isn’t his world anymore.”

  “He has a brain tumor,” Ryan suggests.

  I look at my old friend. “MRI says no.”

  “Then maybe people are messing with him. Running an elaborate prank that infiltrates every aspect of his life. I think I saw that in a movie once.”

  “In less than eight hours, the inside of his house was completely renovated. And not just different pictures on the walls. New appliances. New furniture. Light switches were moved. No prank could possibly be this complex. And what would be the point? This is just a normal guy. Why would anyone want to mess with him at this level?”

  “Then he’s crazy,” Ryan says.

  “I’m not crazy.”

  It becomes very quiet in the loft.

  Daniela takes hold of my hand. “What are you trying to tell us, Jason?”

  I look at her. “Earlier tonight, you told me that a conversation you and I had inspired your installation.”

  “It did.”

  “Can you tell me about this conversation?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Not a single word of it.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Please, Daniela.”

  There’s a long pause while she searches my eyes, maybe to confirm that I’m serious.

  She finally says, “It was spring, I think. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and we hadn’t really spoken since we went our separate ways all those years ago. I had been following your success, of course. I was always so proud of you.

  “Anyway, you showed up at my studio one night. Out of the blue. Said you’d been thinking about me lately, and at first I thought you were just trying to hook up with an old flame, but this was something else. You seriously don’t remember any of this?”

  “It’s like I wasn’t even there.”

  “We started talking about your research, how you were involved with this project that was under wraps, and you said—I remember this very clearly—you said you probably wouldn’t see me again. And I realized that you hadn’t stopped by to catch up. You had come to say goodbye. Then you told me that our existence was all about choices and that you had blown some of them, but none so badly as with me. You said you were sorry for everything. It was very emotional. You left, and I didn’t hear from you or see you again until tonight. Now I have a question for you.”

  “Okay.” Between the booze and dope and trying to unpack what she’s telling me, I’m reeling.

  “When you saw me tonight at the reception, the first thing you asked me was if I knew where ‘Charlie’ was. Who’s that?”

  One of the things I love most about Daniela is her honesty. She has a direct link hardwired from her heart to her mouth. No filter, no self-revision. She says what she feels, without a shred of guile or cunning. She works no angles.

  So when I look into Daniela’s eyes and see that she’s utterly sincere, it nearly breaks me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say.

  “Obviously, it does. We haven’t seen each other in a year and a half and that’s the first thing you ask me?”

  I finish off my drink, crunching the last melting ice cube between my molars.

  “Charlie is our son.”

  The color leaves her face.

  “Hold on,” Ryan says, his words sharp. “I thought we were just having a stoner conversation. What is this?” He looks at Daniela, back to me. “Is this a joke?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Daniela says, “We don’t have a son, and you know it. We haven’t been together in fifteen years. You know this, Jason. You know this.”

  I suppose I could try to convince her right now. I know so much about this woman—secrets from her childhood that she only revealed in the last five years of our marriage. But I worry these “revelations” would backfire. That she wouldn’t see them as proofs, but sleights of hand. Parlor tricks. I’m betting the best approach to persuade her I’m telling the truth is clear-eyed sincerity.

  I say, “Here’s what I know, Daniela. You and I live in my brownstone in Logan Square. We have a fourteen-year-old son named Charlie. I’m a middling professor at Lakemont. You’re an amazing wife and mother who sacrificed her art career to stay at home. And you, Ryan. You’re a famous neuroscientist. You won the Pavia Prize. You’ve lectured all over the world. And I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but I don’t have a brain tumor, no one is messing with me, and I haven’t lost my mind.”

  Ryan laughs, but there’s an unmistakable twinge of discomfort in it. “Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that everything you just said is true. Or at least that you believe it. The unknown variable in this story is what you’ve been working on these last few years. This secret project. What can you tell us about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ryan struggles onto his feet.

  “You’re going?” Daniela asks.

  “It’s late. I’ve had enough.”

  I say, “Ryan, it’s not that I won’t tell you. I can’t tell you. I have no memory of it. I’m a physics professor. I woke up in this lab and everyone thought I belonged there, but I don’t.”

  Ryan takes his hat and heads for the door.

  Halfway across the threshold, he turns and faces me, says, “You’re not well. Let me take you to the hospital.”

  “I’ve already been. I’m not going back.”

  He looks at Daniela. “Do you want him to leave?”

  She turns to me, considering—I’m guessing—whether she wants to be left alone with a madman. What if she decides not to trust me?

  She finally shakes her head, says, “It’s fine.”

  “Ryan,” I say. “What compound did you make for me?”

  He just glares at me, and for a moment I think he’s going to answer, the tension draining out of his face, as if he’s trying to decide whether I’m crazy or just being a stoned asshole.

  And all at once, he arrives at his conclusion.

  Hardness returns.

  He says with zero warmth in his voice, “Good night, Daniela.”

  Then turns.

  Goes.

  Slams the door behind him.

  —

  Daniela walks into the guest room wearing yoga pants and a tank top and carrying a cup of tea.

  I’ve had a shower.

  I don’t feel any better, but at least I’m clean, the hospital stench of sickness and Clorox gone.

  Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she hands me the mug.

  “Chamomile.”

  I cup my hands around the hot ceramic, say, “You didn’t have to do this. I have a place I can go.”

  “You’re staying here with me. End of story.”

  She crawls across my legs and sits beside me, her back against the headboard.

  I sip the tea.

  It’s warm, soothing, faintly sweet.

  Daniela looks over.

  “When you went to the hospital, what did they think was wrong with you?”

  “They didn’t know. They wanted to commit me.”

  “To a psych ward?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you wouldn’t consent?”

  “No, I left.”

  “So it would have been an involuntary thing.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you sure that’s not what’s best at this point, Jason? I mean, what would you think if someone were saying to you the things you’re saying to me?”

  “I’d think he was out of
his mind. But I’d be wrong.”

  “Then tell me,” she says. “What do you think is happening to you?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “But you’re a scientist. You have a theory.”

  “I don’t have enough data.”

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  I sip the chamomile tea, savoring the hit of warmth as it slides down my throat.

  “We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.”

  She takes my hand in hers, and even though she isn’t Daniela as I know her, I cannot hide from how madly I love this woman, even here and now, sitting in this bed, in this wrong world.

  I look over at her, those Spanish eyes glassy and intense. It takes all my willpower to keep my hands off her.

  “Are you afraid?” she asks.

  I think back to the man who took me at gunpoint. To that lab. To the team that followed me back to my brownstone and tried to apprehend me. I think of the man smoking a cigarette under my hotel room window. On top of all the elements of my identity and this reality that don’t align, there are very real people out there, beyond these walls, who want to find me.

  Who have hurt me before and possibly want to hurt me again.

  A sobering thought crashes over me—could they track me here? Have I put Daniela in danger?

  No.

  If she isn’t my wife, if she’s only a girlfriend from fifteen years ago, why would she be on anyone’s radar?

  “Jason?” And she asks again, “Are you afraid?”

  “Very.”

  She reaches up, gently touches my face, says, “Bruises.”

  “I don’t know how I got them.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Who?”

  “Charlie.”

  “This must be so weird for you.”

  “I can’t pretend it’s not.”

  “Well, I told you, he’s fourteen. Almost fifteen. His birthday is October twenty-first, and he was born premature at Chicago Mercy. A whopping one pound, fifteen ounces. He needed a lot of help his first year, but he was a fighter. Now he’s healthy and as tall as I am.”

  Tears well up in her eyes.

  “He has dark hair like you and a wonderful sense of humor. Solid B student. Very right-brained, like his mama. He’s into Japanese comics and skateboards. Loves to draw these crazy landscapes. I don’t think it’s too early to say that he has your eye for it.”