Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

  My eyes sheet over with tears.

  I shout through the tape, shout until my throat burns, thinking maybe he’ll shoot me or knock me unconscious, anything to stop the exquisite pain of this moment.

  But it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.

  He just sits there quietly, letting me rage and scream.

  Daniela sits in the bleachers under the scoreboard, above the ivy-covered outfield wall. It’s Saturday afternoon, the last home game of the regular season, and she’s with Jason and Charlie, watching the Cubs get their asses kicked in their sold-out ballpark.

  The warm autumn day is cloudless.

  Windless.

  Timeless.

  The air redolent of—

  Roasted peanuts.

  Popcorn.

  Plastic cups filled to the brim with beer.

  Daniela finds the roar of the crowd strangely comforting, and they’re far enough back from home plate to notice a delay between swing and bat-crack—speed of light versus speed of sound—when a player sends a pitch sailing beyond the wall.

  They used to come to games when Charlie was a boy, but it’s been eons since their last visit to Wrigley Field. When Jason suggested the idea yesterday, she didn’t think Charlie would be up for it, but it must be scratching some nostalgic itch in their son’s psyche, because he actually wanted to come, and now he seems relaxed and happy. They’re all happy, a trio of near-perfect contentment in the sun, eating Chicago-style hot dogs, watching the players run around on the bright grass.

  As Daniela sits wedged between the two most important men in her life, buzzed off her lukewarm beer, it occurs to her that the feel of this afternoon is somehow different. Unsure if it’s Charlie or Jason or her. Charlie is in the moment, not checking his phone every five seconds. And Jason looks as happy as she’s seen him in years. Weightless is the word that comes to mind. His smile seems wider, brighter, more freely given.

  And he can’t keep his hands off her.

  Then again, maybe the difference is her.

  Maybe it’s this beer and the crystalline quality of the autumn light and the communal energy of the crowd.

  Which is all to say maybe it’s just being alive at a baseball game on a fall day in the heart of her city.

  —

  Charlie has plans after the game, so they drop him at a friend’s house in Logan Square, stop at the brownstone to change clothes, and then head out into the evening, just the two of them—downtown-bound, no itinerary, no specific destination.

  A Saturday-night ramble.

  Cruising in heavy evening traffic down Lakeshore Drive, Daniela looks across the center console of the decade-old Suburban, says, “I think I know what I want to do first.”

  Thirty minutes later, they’re in a gondola car on a Ferris wheel strung with lights.

  Rising slowly above the spectacle of Navy Pier, Daniela watches the elegant skyline of their city as Jason holds her tight.

  At the apex of their single revolution—one hundred and fifty feet above the carnival—Daniela feels Jason touch her chin and turn her face toward his.

  They have the car all to themselves.

  Even up here, the night air is sweetened with the scent of funnel cakes and cotton candy.

  The laughter of children riding on the carousel.

  A woman screaming with joy at a hole-in-one on the miniature golf course far below.

  Jason’s intensity shreds through all of it.

  When he kisses her, she can feel his heart through his windbreaker, jackhammering in his chest.

  —

  They have dinner in the city at a nicer restaurant than they can afford and spend the entire time talking like they haven’t talked in years.

  Not about people or remember-whens, but ideas.

  They kill a bottle of Tempranillo.

  Order another.

  Thinking maybe they’ll spend the night in the city.

  It’s been a long time since Daniela has seen her husband this passionate, this sure of himself.

  He’s a man on fire, in love with his life again.

  Halfway through their second bottle of wine, he catches her looking out the window, asks, “What are you thinking about?”

  “That’s a dangerous question.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “I’m thinking about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “It feels like you’re trying to sleep with me.” She laughs. “What I mean is, it feels like you’re trying when you don’t have to be trying. We’re an old married couple, and I feel like you’re, um…”

  “Romancing you?”

  “Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. At all. It’s amazing. I guess I just don’t see where it’s all coming from. Are you okay? Is something wrong, and you’re not telling me?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “So this is all because you almost got hit by a cab two nights ago?”

  He says, “I don’t know if it was my life flashing before my eyes or what, but when I came home, everything felt different. More real. You especially. Even right now, it’s like I’m seeing you for the first time, and I have this nervous ache in my stomach. I think about you every second. I think about all the choices we’ve made that created this moment. Us sitting here together at this beautiful table. Then I think of all the possible events that could have stopped this moment from ever happening, and it all feels, I don’t know…”

  “What?”

  “So fragile.” Now he becomes thoughtful for a moment. He says finally, “It’s terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches into a new world. After the baseball game today, we went to Navy Pier and then came here for dinner, right? But that’s only one version of what happened. In a different reality, instead of the pier, we went to the symphony. In one, we stayed home. In another still, we got into a fatal wreck on Lakeshore Drive and never made it anywhere.”

  “But those other realities don’t really exist.”

  “Actually, they’re just as real as the one you and I are experiencing at this moment.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It’s a mystery. But there are clues. Most astrophysicists believe that the force holding stars and galaxies together—the thing that makes our whole universe work—comes from a theoretical substance we can’t measure or observe directly. Something they call dark matter. And this dark matter makes up most of the known universe.”

  “But what is it exactly?”

  “No one’s really sure. Physicists have been trying to construct new theories to explain its origin and what it is. We know it has gravity, like ordinary matter, but it must be made of something completely new.”

  “A new form of matter.”

  “Exactly. Some string theorists think it might be a clue to the existence of the multiverse.”

  She looks thoughtful for a moment, then asks, “So all these other realities…where are they?”

  “Imagine you’re a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you’d have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you’re a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of.”

  Daniela leans back in her chair and takes a sip of wine. “So all these other thousands of ponds are all around us, right at this moment—but we just can’t see them?”

  “Exactly.”

  Jason used to talk like this all the time. Would keep her up late into the night positing wild theories, sometimes trying things out, most of the time just trying to impress her.

  It worked then.

  It’s working now.

  She looks away for a moment, staring thr
ough the window beside their table, watching the water glide past as the light from the surrounding buildings swirls in a kind of perpetual shimmer across the blown-glass surface of the river.

  She finally looks back at him over the rim of her wineglass, their eyes connecting, the candlelight quivering between them.

  She says, “In one of those ponds out there, do you think there’s another version of you that stuck with the research? Who made good on all the plans you had in your twenties, before life got in the way?”

  He smiles. “It’s crossed my mind.”

  “And there’s maybe a version of me that’s a famous artist? That traded all this for that?”

  Jason leans forward, pushing their plates out of the way so he can hold both of her hands across the table.

  “If there are a million ponds out there, with versions of you and me living similar and different lives, there’s none better than right here, right now. I’m more sure of that than anything in the world.”

  The bare lightbulb in the ceiling rains down a naked and flickering illumination on the tiny cell. I’m strapped to a steel-frame bed, ankles and wrists chained together with restraints and connected, via locking carabiners, to eyebolts in the concrete wall.

  Three locks retract in the door, but I’m too sedated to even startle.

  It swings open.

  Leighton wears a tux.

  Wire-rim glasses.

  As he approaches, I catch a whiff of cologne, and then alcohol on his breath. Champagne? I wonder where he’s just come from. A party? A benefit? There’s a pink ribbon still pinned to the satin breast of his jacket.

  Leighton eases down onto the edge of the paper-thin mattress.

  He looks grave.

  And unbelievably sad.

  “I’m sure you have some things you want to say, Jason, but I hope you’ll let me go first. I take a lot of blame for what happened. You came back, and we weren’t prepared for you to be as…unwell as you were. As you are. We failed you, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I just…I hate everything that’s happened. Your return should have been a celebration.”

  Even through the heavy sedation, I’m shaking with grief.

  With rage.

  “The man who came to Daniela’s apartment—did you send him after me?” I ask.

  “You left me no choice. Even the possibility you had told her about this place—”

  “Did you tell him to kill her?”

  “Jason—”

  “Did you?”

  He doesn’t answer, but it is an answer.

  I stare into Leighton’s eyes, and all I can think about is ripping his face off down to his skull.

  “You fucking…”

  I break down.

  Sobbing.

  I cannot exile from my brain the image of blood running down Daniela’s bare foot.

  “I’m so sorry, brother.” Leighton reaches out, puts his hand on my arm, and I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to pull away.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “You’ve been in this cell almost twenty-four hours. It gives me no pleasure to keep you restrained and sedated, but as long as you’re a danger to yourself or others, this situation can’t change. You need to eat and drink something. Are you willing to do that?”

  I focus on a crack in the wall.

  I imagine using Leighton’s head to open another one.

  Driving it into the concrete again and again and again until there’s nothing left but red paste.

  “Jason, it’s either you let them feed you, or I run a G-tube into your stomach.”

  I want to tell him that I’m going to kill him. Him and everyone in this lab. I can feel the words coming up my throat, but better judgment prevails—I’m completely at this man’s mercy.

  “I know what you saw in that apartment was horrible, and I’m sorry for that. I wish it had never happened, but sometimes, a situation is so far gone…Look, please know that I am so, so sorry you had to see that.”

  Leighton rises, moves toward the door, pulls it open.

  Standing in the threshold, he looks back at me, his face half in light, half in shadow.

  He says, “Maybe you can’t hear this right now, but this place wouldn’t exist without you. None of us would be here, but for your work, your brilliance. I’m not going to let anyone forget that, most of all you.”

  —

  I calm down.

  I pretend to calm down.

  Because staying chained up in this tiny cell isn’t accomplishing a goddamn thing.

  From the bed, I stare up into the surveillance camera mounted over the door and ask for Leighton.

  Five minutes later, he’s unlocking my restraints and saying, “I think I’m probably as happy as you are to get you out of these things.”

  He gives me a hand up.

  My wrists have been rubbed raw from the leather bindings.

  My mouth is dry.

  I’m delirious with thirst.

  He asks, “You feeling any better?”

  It occurs to me that my first inclination when I woke up in this place was the right one. Be the man they think I am. The only way to pull that off is to pretend my memories and my identity have abandoned me. Let them fill in the blanks. Because if I’m not the man they think I am, then they have no use for me.

  Then I never leave this lab alive.

  I tell him, “I was scared. That’s why I ran.”

  “I totally get it.”

  “I’m sorry I put you all through this, but you have to understand—I’m lost here. There’s just this gaping hole where the last ten years should be.”

  “And we’re going to do everything in our power to help you recover those memories. To get you better. We’re firing up the MRI. We’re going to screen you for PTSD. Our psychiatrist, Amanda Lucas, will be speaking with you shortly. You have my word—no stone will be left unturned until we fix this. Until we have you fully back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’d do the same for me. Look, I have no idea what you’ve been through these last fourteen months, but the man I’ve known for eleven years, my colleague and friend who built this place with me? He’s locked away somewhere in that head of yours, and there is nothing I won’t do to find him.”

  A terrifying thought—what if he’s right?

  I think I know who I am.

  But there’s a part of me that wonders…What if the recollection I have of my real life—husband, father, professor—isn’t real?

  What if it’s a by-product of brain damage I received while working in this lab?

  What if I’m actually the man who everyone in this world believes I am?

  No.

  I know who I am.

  Leighton has been sitting on the edge of the mattress.

  Now he props his feet up and leans back against the footboard.

  “I have to ask,” he says. “What were you doing at that woman’s apartment?”

  Lie.

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “How did you know her?”

  I fight to hide the tears and rage.

  “I dated her a long time ago.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning. After you escaped through the bathroom window three nights ago, how did you get to your home in Logan Square?”

  “A cab.”

  “Did you tell the driver anything about where you’d just come from?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Okay, and after you managed to elude us at your house, then where’d you go?”

  Lie.

  “I wandered around all night. I was disoriented, afraid. The next day I saw this poster for Daniela’s art show. That’s how I found her.”

  “Did you talk to anyone else besides Daniela?”

  Ryan.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes. I went back to her apartment, and it was just the two of us until…”

  “You have to under
stand—we’ve dedicated everything to this place. To your work. We’re all in. Any one of us would lay down our lives to protect it. Including you.”

  The gunshot.

  The black hole between her eyes.

  “It breaks my heart to see you like this, Jason.”

  He says this with genuine bitterness and regret.

  I can see it in his eyes.

  “We were friends?” I ask.

  He nods, his jaw tight, as if he’s holding back a wave of emotion.

  I say, “I’m just having a hard time understanding how murdering someone to protect this lab would be acceptable to you or any of these people.”

  “The Jason Dessen I knew wouldn’t have given a second thought to what happened to Daniela Vargas. I’m not saying he would’ve been happy about it. None of us are. It makes me sick. But he would’ve been willing.”

  I shake my head.

  He says, “You’ve forgotten what we built together.”

  “So show me.”

  —

  They clean me up, give me new clothes, and feed me.

  After lunch, Leighton and I ride a service elevator down to sublevel four.

  Last time I walked this corridor, it was lined with plastic, and I had no idea where I was.

  I haven’t been threatened.

  Haven’t been told specifically that I can’t leave.

  But I’ve already noticed that Leighton and I are rarely alone. Two men who carry themselves like cops are always on the periphery. I remember these guards from my first night here.

  “It’s basically four levels,” Leighton says. “Gym, rec room, mess hall, and a few dormitories on one. Labs, cleanrooms, conference rooms on two. Sublevel three is dedicated to fabrication. Four is the infirmary and mission control.”

  We’re moving toward a pair of vaultlike doors that look formidable enough to secure national secrets.

  Leighton stops at a touchscreen mounted to the wall beside them.

  He pulls a keycard from his pocket and holds it under the scanner.

  A computerized female voice says, Name, please.

  He leans in close. “Leighton Vance.”

  Passcode.

  “One-one-eight-seven.”

  Voice recognition confirmed. Welcome, Dr. Vance.