A History of What Comes Next

by Sylvain Neuvel

  —You should ask your mo—

  —My mother’s dead.

  Why did I lie?

  —I’m sorry. She was … She was special.

  What does he mean, special? Special to him? Special how? It doesn’t make a difference now that he knows who I am. This is a nightmare. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be here.

  —Are you okay, Mi’a? Is anything wrong? I’ll go get Bernhard. Just stay here, I’ll be right back with Bernhard. He’s an important man now. In this town, he—

  —Don’t. Not now.

  —What’s the matter, Mi’a? You remember Bernhard, don’t you?

  That face, the way he smiles without smiling. I see … pain, sorrow. Did my mother do that to him? Did she break his heart in Bad Saarow? There’s still kindness in his eyes, though. Like that’s the one thing life couldn’t take from him. He cares about people, despite everything. He still cares, about my mother, about me. I don’t think I can do this.

  —Why are you crying, Mi’a?

  —I’m fine.

  I’m not fine. Whom could he tell? He doesn’t know anyone … I wish that were true. He knows Bernhard. He knows the fucking SS. I can’t explain any of this. Our house burned down thirteen years ago and we haven’t been seen since. Don’t leave a trace. I learned that rule while I was here. I learned it while Didi and I were flying across the house. I … Please stop looking at me that way. I’m not even sure who he’s looking at. Me or my mother? What do his eyes say? Are those the eyes of a friend? A lover?… A father? Don’t think, Mia. Just get closer.

  —I’m here, Mi’a. I’m here.

  He’s hugging me. He must be twice my size. I feel … safe wrapped inside his arms. He has strong hands. He’s a worker now, not a thinker. This is a good man. It’s men like him we’re supposed to save. Only, not him. Not this man. This one’s guilty of knowing me, knowing us. Mother tried to prepare me for this. Here, let me hold your face, Didi. Let me be my mother for a minute. See her one last time. Feel her fingers running through your beard. Let her hold your head with both hands.

  You won’t feel a thing, Didi. I promise.

  7

  God Bless the Child

  I have been combing through intercepts of German radio traffic. There is no mention of von Braun, or my daughter. I did, however, stumble upon disturbing news from Berlin. There was an incident in Kreuzberg—war is a seedbed for euphemisms—at the tavern across from the house I grew up in. Nine people were killed, mutilated. Jews, or Roma, I assumed; German jingoism rearing its head with wonted cruelty. This was different. Half the victims were Brownshirts. One girl belonged to the SS-Helferinnen. Nine model Aryan citizens slaughtered. This was not the work of the SS or the Gestapo. The police have no suspect, but I do, and it makes my blood run cold.

  For three thousand years, the Tracker has hunted us. Like us, he is one and many. Like us, he has survived the passage of time. Our ancestors called him the Rādi Kibsi. My mother called him Spürhund. Whatever his name, these murders could very well mean he is getting close. Thirteen years behind us is a heartbeat away.

  It seems unlikely. We did not leave a trace. But we did not leave a trace in India, Morocco, or the Philippines. We followed the rules for three thousand years, yet the Ninety-Two lost her mother. We followed the rules, and the Tracker might be in Berlin at this very moment, just as Mia travels through Germany. I have never been one to believe in coincidences. I need to bring my daughter back. We need to disappear.

  I have no way to contact Mia. She and von Braun are heading to Bleicherode and I cannot send a telegram to a German rocket factory. I did the one thing I could, played the last card left for me to play. It will cost me my job, but our time here is ending anyway. I only hope it works.

  All I can do now is wait. That is something I am usually good at. Progress is inconspicuous, the world often perceptually still. Ours is a slow march towards something we will not see for ourselves. We plant the seeds; our daughters reap the fruit. Thus is the life of the Kibsu. My mother told me so many times, but now Mia is missing and every minute of every day feels like watching a pot that refuses to boil.

  I thought I could keep my mind occupied with my mother’s research. I have been collecting samples, logging data from a dozen locations. It is tedious enough not to require my undivided attention—that is something I cannot give at the moment. The data we collected shows a rise in carbon dioxide, but I have no way to know if this is an exceptional phenomenon, nor can I isolate man’s contribution to this increase from that of the planet’s natural mechanisms. I find myself at an impasse in all matters.

  I am restless. Mia has gone astray and there is no one to turn to. Without her, I am completely alone. I realize how deft I have become at avoiding relationships. The only one I keep is with a man I have met only once. I know our correspondence is not paramount to him—though he still makes it a point to write every month—but Hsue-Shen Tsien is the only person I would label as friend.

  He came from China in 1935 on a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. We met at MIT during a lecture on fluid dynamics. He was a brilliant student, but struggled mightily adapting to his new culture. Both of us stood out like sore thumbs. It was only fitting that we would share a table for lunch. I introduced myself as Sarah Moussa from Cairo. It is somewhat ironic that my truest connection began with a lie.

  Through time, and a fair amount of serendipity, we ended up sharing a lot more than lunch. After his master’s, he moved to California to study with Theodore von Kármán. It was there that he struck up a friendship with a handful of bright budding rocket scientists. Von Kármán and this tight-knit group of students founded what they call the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They attach rockets to planes to accelerate their takeoff.

  After graduating, Hsue-Shen Tsien chose to stay. He found himself directing research on a small ballistic missile for the army. His rockets are light-years behind von Braun’s, but few people understand mathematics the way Hsue-Shen does. We have been bouncing ideas off each other for almost a decade, and I just wrote to him about my CO2 conundrum. I told myself he could shed new light on the problem, but what I really need is someone to share with, someone intelligent enough to comprehend. There are so many things I cannot tell him, but I can at least be candid about the science.

  As for the rest, I confide to him in half-truths, overtones. “My dear Hsue-Shen, Please forgive my belated reply. My daughter is traveling abroad and the void she left behind gets louder every day.” Hsue-Shen is just as fluent in the unsaid. In the end I think he and I understand each other perfectly.

  8

  Hot Time in the Town of Berlin

  —Eyes on the road!

  Whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving. I haven’t slept in two days. I can’t. We’re traveling at night now, trying to cover as much ground as we can while it’s dark. We’ve had some close calls. Allied planes are bombing everything that resembles the German army. Our VzBV convoy sure looks the part; we’ve gone out of our way to make it look important. I’m driving in the dark with the lights off. Von Braun and I are alone in the truck, and I’m helping him with his homework. The idiots at German command want to ramp up production of the V-2 rockets by September. The war will be over long before that, but they want the V-2 to be more accurate, and to stop blowing up in midair. Those aren’t entirely unreasonable demands, if we weren’t relocating a whole town while doing it.

  —I’m sorry. You know, sir, I was thinking …

  —About something other than the road, obviously.

  —I … Yes. I know a good quarter of your V-2s blow up at launch, or you just throw them out because they’re unusable.

  He won’t like that. He’ll say it’s not his fault.

  —It’s not my fault if—

  —No, I know. I know. But I was thinking, and … Why not build them in sections?

  —Here we go again. And tell me, Lili, why would I do that?

  —Well, you could assemble them at the last minute on the la
unch site. Transport would be a lot easier, for one thing, and that way you’d throw away one-third of a missile instead of the whole thing if it doesn’t pass QA.

  —Someday, Lili, you and I will need to have a serious talk about who you are and what you do.

  —I’m sorry, I just … You could also make the warhead detachable while you’re at it. You need that big rocket to go up, you don’t need it going down. There’s no point in keeping it along for the ride.

  —Just watch the road, will you?

  I will, I am. But helping him keeps my mind busy. Not busy enough, though. I keep thinking of Didi. The look on his face, his brown eyes disappearing into squints when he smiled. I now have this crystal-clear image of him in my mind. He’s holding me in midair. One hand on my chest, one on my back. I’m laughing, screaming, flying to the sound of lip trills. I can’t be more than two or three years old, so I know these memories aren’t real. But I see it. And I ask myself who that man was. Mother and I rarely talk about Berlin. If ever one of us brings up the past, the other reminds her of the rules. Don’t leave a trace. The Ninety-Eight is dead. We say it often and we believe it, even, but that doesn’t make it true. I knew that man. Mother knew him for over a decade. Who was he to her, to me, before I put him in a dumpster?

  I’ve never met my father.…

  Mother always said she didn’t want a man around. She told me my father was a sailor, that he’d done his part and went on with his life. I never questioned that. Men aren’t exactly our strong suit. What if she lied to protect me? What if he was there all along? A friend. There were many of those. Dieter, Bernhard. Maybe one of them was a really good friend, a special friend. Just one time, and we’ll never talk about it again. Maybe she lied to him and he didn’t know. Maybe … Maybe my father was a sailor, had done his part and went on with his life. I suppose I’ll never know what happened in Bad Saarow. I do know I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come.

  There’s this dream I keep having. I’m wearing a pink dress, and a boy is picking me up for prom. My father walks me to the door. The boy looks nice in his tuxedo. He pins a corsage to my dress and we walk away, my arm under his. We walk into the dance and all my friends smile at me because he’s so handsome. We dance, and my heart jumps when he kisses me on the lips. It’s a fantasy. Prom was two years ago and I went alone. I don’t have any real friends, and all the boys I’ve met wouldn’t be content with a kiss on the lips. I’m nineteen years old and I dream of being seventeen. I would trade places with a child right now if it meant I could be normal. I can’t be with anyone. I can’t get close. I’m alone.

  Maybe I could live in that fantasy. Forget the rules, forget everything. I didn’t choose this life. Someone chose it for me, even if that someone was me.… Maybe I’m losing my mind.

  I think I was twelve when Mother and I had the talk for the first time: “When the time comes, Mia, you’ll know what to do. We cannot let a single life get in the way.” I didn’t want it to be true. I still don’t. All I want is to close my eyes and wake up in my bed, eat some eggs and tell Mother about the crazy dream I just had. I want to close my eyes so bad, but I’m afraid of the things I see. A woman in a red dress, floating into forgottenness. A man I knew facedown in the garbage.

  I felt my muscles tense, first in my hands, then my forearms. I heard his collarbone snap. His head became heavier and heavier, until I let his face slip through my hands and watched his limp body collapse on itself as if someone had cut the strings off him. I could see it happening, and I try to convince myself I thought it through, but I didn’t. It was all instinct. I didn’t think. I just … happened.

  Mother said I would understand when I grew older. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be like her. I do what she tells me to do. It usually means learning new things, and I’m happy to do it. This. I don’t have what it takes for this. We’re supposed to protect people.

  Dieter wanted to help. “Why are you crying, Mi’a?” I could have told him the truth, that I’m—

  —LILI, WATCH OUT!

  —OH SHIT!

  I’ve lost control. We’re gonna crash.

  —AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

  …

  I can’t … feel my …

  ENTR’ACTE

  Rule #4: Don’t Draw Attention to Yourself

  AD 1608

  The front axle on their carriage broke as they hit a hole. The rain and hail had left the road to Amsterdam in the worst shape they had seen it. There would be no one to fix it in the nearby villages, and as much as Sura dreaded the long walk home, she hoped it would help her shake the feeling of disappointment.

  The sawmill they had just seen was a remarkable feat of engineering. Powered by the wind, it was the first of its kind, and she knew others like it would soon fill the landscape. It was fast enough to make the men toiling in sawpits look like they were standing still. It would allow the Dutch to build ships faster and cheaper than anyone else, to control shipping routes and claim more colonies. Sura knew this was more than a piece of technology: that machine would change the map of the world.

  And yet, she felt let down by the experience. Perhaps it was because she had spent too much time building it up in her head. The ride there was long and uneventful, and her daughter Ariani slept for most of it. Sura let her imagination run wild. Magnificent castles stretching their long arms into the sky to catch the breath of the gods. Timber conveyed from the hills by endless loops of moving link chain.

  What she saw was clunky and noisy, completely devoid of aesthetic consideration. The sails, she thought, were poorly angled and the cap couldn’t be turned in to the wind like that of the tower mills she had seen in England. She tried to find awe in seeing the contraption move on its own, powered by an invisible force. For a moment she considered building one herself. She quickly gave up on the idea but left open the possibility of an afternoon spent putting what she imagined to paper.

  —Mother, look! A traveling show!

  Street artists were a staple of Amsterdam life, especially in the fall. Surrounded by a perimeter canal, the city couldn’t grow with the population. It was bursting at the seams with factory workers, traders, and migrants arriving every day from the four corners of the world. What Amsterdam lacked in space, it more than made up for in entertainment. Despite her mother’s warnings, Ariani, who was now a very precocious ten, often ran outside to chase the sound of crowds gathering for jugglers or fire breathers.

  There were, indeed, people up ahead—thirty or forty, probably the entire village. All were facing the river, arms raised, cheering and screaming. As they drew closer, Sura made out the words. The hair on her arms stood on end and she squeezed her daughter’s hand harder and harder as her heartbeat quickened. This, alas, was no traveling show.

  —Ariani, put your hood up and don’t say a word.

  Sura took off her necklace and hid it inside her boot. She had seen mobs like this one before. She had seen women hanged or burned alive. No one knew why, but the temperature had cooled in recent years. Weather patterns were chaotic, thunderstorms appearing out of nowhere and laying waste to fields and farmland. Entire crops were lost. People were hungry, angry. Unable to explain the phenomenon with the knowledge at hand, they found their answers in superstition.

  —Mother! There’s someone in the water.

  —Ariani! Not a word. Keep your head down.

  In the river, a young woman was screaming for help, struggling to keep her head above water. Her hands and feet were bound together, and a rope was tied around her waist so she could be brought to shore.

  —She needs help, Mother!

  Ariani had a good heart, always had. In the city, she fed birds and dogs and starving men, brought soup and blankets to the homeless. Her mother disapproved—the streets were not safe for a child her age—but she could not bring herself to forbid it. This was different.

  —There is nothing we can do for her, Ariani. Remember the rules. Do not draw attention to yourself.

  Ari
ani was not a rebellious child—far from it—but it was difficult for someone so young to weigh something concrete, like the screams of a young woman drowning, against something as abstract as a rule. She let go of her mother’s hand.

  —Ariani!

  The child ran through the crowd, to the bald man holding the end of the rope.

  —Bring her back, mister! She’s drowning!

  —We’ll bring her back if she sinks, but she won’t. She’s a witch! Have you ever seen a witch, little girl?

  This was a “swimming.” If the accused was innocent, she would sink and hopefully be brought back before dying. A devil worshiper, on the other hand, would float. Having renounced her baptism, she would be rejected by water.

  —She doesn’t float because she’s a witch, mister. She floats because she has little muscle and she’s a little fat. Fat has a lower density than water.

  —Density?

  —Yes, mister. Density is how much matter is in an object divided by how much space it occupies.

  Ariani said it with a smile. She had repeated that formula many times but had never found a practical use for it until now.

  —That is utter nonsense!

  —No, it is not. You would most certainly float if they threw you in, mister.

  The man did not take kindly to the accusation, but Ariani ignored the screaming and cursing. She was still proud of her scientific explanation. She had turned vague knowledge into something tangible. She remembered that air is also not as dense and turned to the woman in the river.

  —Exhale, madam! Exhale! Get the air out of your lungs and you will sink!

  The woman did as instructed and, as Ariani predicted, her body disappeared underwater.

  —The heiden speaks the devil’s tongue. She spoke of density and put a spell on the witch!

  Heidens, often called Egyptians by the locals, were societal pariahs throughout Europe. The skin tone of the Eighty-Seven was a common enough sight in Amsterdam, but there were few immigrants in rural areas and heidens were persecuted for their mere presence. Fearing for her child, Sura did what she could to defuse the situation.