George Bennet gazed at the picture of Ella on the mantelpiece. He wanted to ask for her forgiveness, but it was too much. His courage fled him, and he shifted his eyes to the other end of the sofa he was sprawled on, where his bare toes rubbed against the cold leather armrest. A plate on the nearby coffee table snubbed him with its dry strip of bacon, congealed yolk and slice of half-eaten burnt toast. He groaned. Just outside the window of his Boston condo, the green summer leaves of the yellowwood tree offered a more palatable view.
Then the landline rang.
Damn! Should’ve unplugged it.
It chirruped seven times before the answerphone kicked in.
‘Hi, Professor Bennet. It’s Ben from UNESCO. Just checking that you received the upgrade to business class we arranged. Your mobile went straight to voicemail, so not sure you’ll get this message. You’re probably on your way to the airport already. Have a nice flight and I look forward to seeing you in Paris.’
There was a click and the call ended.
George cringed. The voice had invaded his solitude, exposed the state of him and his condo to its prying … eyes? Ears? Whatever. It made him uncomfortable; that’s what mattered. He rose, smoothed his rumpled pyjamas and took the dirty plate to the kitchen, where it balanced on top of a foot-high pile of crusty dishes in the stainless‑steel sink. Then he lumbered upstairs to his study, slumped in his swivel chair and fired up the laptop.
A barrage of unread emails assaulted him, most acknowledging his out‑of‑office message, some enquiring about his health or passing on good wishes.
He couldn’t manage a single reply, although knew he ought to, at least to the few friends he hadn’t cut off completely. Of course, as director, he was automatically included in most committee messages and those distributed more generally to the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics, but he didn’t need to read those. They were usually boring anyway – announcements about lectures, the occasional invite to dinners and conflicts between colleagues that amounted to playground squabbles waged at the institutional level. He’d thought he’d miss the intellectual engagement, miss being the first to peer-review manuscripts with exciting new ideas and discoveries, but that’s not what had transpired. He didn’t care about any of the hundreds of messages that had accumulated over the past four months. Not a single one.
He searched for “Paris” and opened the latest message.
An electronic ticket with his name and flight details appeared on-screen. He checked the time; the gate was closing in four hours. He could still make it.
He leaned back and shut his eyes. The meeting with Ben at a Boston café a couple of weeks ago surfaced, and he ran through their conversation, trying to work out why he’d said yes.
‘You must be Professor Bennet.’ That’s how it had started.
He had looked up from the depths of his latte and into the face of a youngish man in a black suit with the bearing of either a diplomat or a Wall Street shark.
‘Ben McFarland. We spoke last week.’
He’d sat down at George’s table, uninvited, folded up a pair of sunglasses and slid them into his breast pocket while extending his free hand across the table. George had flinched at the firm handshake.
Grinning from ear to ear, Ben waved over the waitress and ordered a large pot of tea and a slice of cheesecake. George expected some small talk – Great weather for this time of year, huh? – but Ben’s opening was far more direct.
‘What do you know about DABI?’
George blinked at the question. DABI was The Definite Answers to Big Issues project. ‘I know it aims to analyse and solve some of the most complex and intriguing questions facing humanity,’ he replied, ‘and that those involved are given the best tools and conditions available.’
Ben sat up straight and rubbed his hands together. ‘Good, good. You’re up to date. Well, we established a DABI team to explore certain aspects of the human mind a while ago, and there have been some … unexpected and disturbing developments. So, we’ve decided to assemble a new, larger team of prominent experts from every relevant field to get to the bottom of it.’
George had been flattered that a UN representative had come all the way from Europe to recruit him. Shame this wasn’t his speciality. ‘The human mind? You do know that my expertise is in theoretical physics and cosmology.’
Ben had nodded and launched into his spiel. That’s what it had felt like, too – a spiel, a patter, the kind that car salesmen use with new buyers and army recruiters employ on gullible young men. George was being recruited, but by the end of an hour-long conversation, he’d still not understood for what.
Ben had been quite persuasive, insisting that George’s contribution would be absolutely critical to unravelling a great, age-old mystery. But he’d been cagey about the details. All would be revealed – that was how Ben had put it – at a kick-off meeting with the entire team at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
George sighed at the memory. Ben was a good salesman. So good, in fact, that George had somehow agreed to participate, though he was damned if he recalled ever saying those words. He now concluded that it’d been nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract himself from the memory of Ella.
But it had been a mistake. He wasn’t ready to leave the safety of home, much less go abroad and face new people. Not yet.
He reached out to shut the laptop but withdrew his hand and stared at the ticket on the glowing screen.
Paris.
He pressed his eyes with his thumbs. What was this big puzzle he was supposed to help solve? Why did they choose him?
When he opened his eyes again, the ticket had gone and Ella beamed straight at him with her lovely smile, the grey skeleton of the Eiffel Tower behind her.
‘Ella, darling,’ he whispered.
If only they could go to Paris again. Since her departure a year earlier, he hadn’t been able to focus on work … hadn’t been able to focus on anything, for that matter. The world felt tasteless, meaningless, and more so these past four months. Occasionally, he’d find comfort by talking to her in his mind, but it was a poor substitute for conversations that were no longer possible. That open smile – God, he missed it so much – soothed him in the worst of times.
He could imagine what she’d say. ‘Get off your arse and go. You might even enjoy it. You love mysteries.’ He could almost swear she was mouthing the words from the screen. George touched the desk. Her image was replaced by the boarding pass. He clicked the print icon and headed to the bathroom.
Pyjama top removed, he stared at himself in the mirror. Still in good shape, though the week-long ginger beard on his haggard face needed attention. Must pack a shaver.
He ordered a taxi, threw on his usual conference attire – striped shirt and brown suede jacket – and crammed spare clothes, passport and boarding pass into a duffle bag before rushing downstairs. If he moved fast enough, he might outrun his second thoughts.
As he slammed the front door, he heard the plates in the sink crashing to the floor.
***
Logan’s Terminal E was surprisingly empty; it seemed his Paris flight was the only one leaving that afternoon. He headed for the nearest toilets and shaved thoroughly, then collapsed on a free couch in the Air France lounge. The other passengers were in expensive suits and tapping furiously on their laptops. Probably business travellers. George glanced at the generous buffet table and dismissed any thought of getting up.
Was he supposed to give a talk? He’d prepared nothing. He skimmed the emails from Ben – a non-disclosure agreement he couldn’t even remember signing and matters of logistics. Two details attracted his attention – Ben’s reassurance that the project had an entirely peaceful nature and the word “Skudder”. The name was vaguely familiar.
A smiley waitress offered him fresh coffee. He took a long sip and ran the name through Google.
The top hit was the official UNESCO website – Skudder was head of the DABI programme. George studied the image of a short balding man with thin lips, round glasses and a bright orange tie. Odd-looking chap. He clicked back and scrolled through several pages of mundane links. A newspaper article that Skudder had authored caught his eye: Ethical Eugenics for a Better World.
He slumped and stared up at the white ceiling tiles. Eugenics? Damn it.
Opening the link, he scanned the lengthy article, noting several recurrent phrases – “modern genetic technologies”, “eradication of undesired diseases”, “proliferation of positive qualities”. The article ended with a rhetorical question that George had to read several times: “Isn’t it high time that humanity freed itself from its old inhibitions and harnessed the miracles of science to build a brighter future?”
The words made him feel slightly dizzy. This was starting to feel like the Delta project all over again. Shrouded in secrecy, the apparently legitimate academic exercise in quantum theory had dealt with what’s often referred to as “spooky action at a distance”. The project had been interesting, though not at all spooky. And it had soon become clear that its true purpose was to activate some new weapon, not improve humanity. George’s pacifist ideology was well known, and the deception had been deliberate, which had both infuriated and saddened him in equal measure. He’d quit in protest.
And now this. A project with someone who advocated “ethical eugenics”. He glanced at the clock on the departure screen. There was still time to leave, go home and pretend he’d never even considered getting on the plane. He could do those dishes, the ones that hadn’t broken, at least, and then … and then what? Sit and stare at her picture until I melt?
‘Air France Flight 333 to Paris, now boarding business class. Business passengers for Air France Flight 333, please report to …’
George walked towards the gate.
