Paul Levinson: The Chronology Protection Case

I called Jack to see if there was anything new.

“Oh, just a second please,” the Newsday receptionist said. I didn’t like the tone of her voice.

“Hello, can I help you?” This was a man’s voice, but not Jack’s. He sounded familiar but I couldn’t place him.

“Yes, I’m Dr. Phil D’Amato of NYPD Forensics calling Jack Donovan.”

Silence. Then, “Hello, Phil. I’m Sam Abrahmson. You still in the hospital?”

Right. Abrahmson. That was the voice. “No. I’m out. Where’s Jack?”

Abrahmson cleared his throat. “He was killed with Dave Strauss this morning. He’d talked Strauss into going public with this, Strauss supported your story. He’d picked Strauss up at his summer cottage in Ellen-ville—Strauss had been hiding out there—and was driving him back to the city. They got blown off a small bridge. Freak accident.”

“No freakin’ accident,” I said. “You know that as well as I do.” Another particle who’d danced this sick quantum twist with me. Another particle dead. But this one was completely my fault—I’d brought Jack into this.

“I don’t know what I know,” Abrahmson said. “Except that at this point the story’s on hold. Until we find out more.”

I was glad to hear he sounded scared. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “I’ll be back to you.”

“Take care of yourself,” Abrahmson said. “God knows what that subatomic radiation can do to the body and mind. Or maybe it’s all just coincidence. God only knows. Take care of yourself.”

“Right.” Subatomic radiation. Abrahmson’s latest culprit. First it was a virus, now it was radiation. I’d said the same stupid thing to Lauren, hadn’t I? People like to latch on to something they know when faced with something they don’t know—especially something that kills some physicists here, a reporter there, who knew who else? But radiation had nothing to do with this. Stopping it would take a lot more than lead shields.

I tracked down Richard Hays. I was beginning to get a further inkling of what might be going on, and I needed to talk it out with one of the principals. One of the last remaining principals. It could save both our lives.

I used my NYPD clout to intimidate enough secretaries and assistants to get directly through to him.

“Look, I don’t care if you’re the bleeding head of the FBI,” he said. He was British. “I’m going to talk to you about this just once, now, and then never again.”

“Thank you, Doctor. So please tell me what you think is happening here. Then I’ll tell you what I know, or think I know.”

“What’s happening is this,” Hays said. “I was working on a project with my colleagues. That’s true. But I came to realize the project was a deadend—that the phenomena we were investigating weren’t real. So I ceased my involvement in that research. I have no intention of ever picking up that research again—of ever publishing about it, or even talking about it, except to indicate that it was a waste of time. I’d strongly advise you to do the same.”

I had no idea how he talked ordinarily, but his words on the phone sounded like each had been chosen with the utmost care. “Why do I feel like you’re reading from a script, Dr. Hays?”

“I assure you everything I’m saying is real. As you no doubt already have evidence of yourself,” Hays said.

“Now you look,” I raised my voice. “You can’t just sweep this under the rug. If the Universe is at work here in some way, you think you can just avoid it by pretending you don’t know about it? The Universe would know about your pretense too—it’s after all still part of the Universe. And word of this will get out anyway—someone will sooner or later publish something. If you want to live, you’ve got to face this, find out what’s really happening here, and—”

“I believe you are seriously mistaken, my friend. And that, I’m afraid, concludes our interview, now and forever.” He hung up.

I held on to the disconnected phone, which beeped like a seal, for a long time. I realized that the left side of my body hurt, from my chest up through my shoulder and down my arm. The pain had come on, I thought, at the end of my futile lecture to Hays. Right when I’d talked about publishing. Maybe publishing was the key—maybe talk about dissemination of this information, as opposed to just thinking about it, is what triggered the Universe’s backlash. But I was also sure I was right in what I’d said to Hays about the need to confront this, about not running away…

I put the phone back in its receiver and lay down. I was bone tired. Maybe I was getting a heart attack, maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was still in shock from my dip in the Sound. I couldn’t fight this all on my own much longer.

The phone rang. I fumbled with the receiver. How long had I been sleeping? “Hello?”

“Dr. D’Amato?” a female voice, maybe Lauren’s, maybe Nurse Johnson’s. No, someone else.

“Yes?”

“I’m Jennifer Fenwick.”

Fenwick, Fenwick—yes, Jennifer Fenwick, the last quantum physicist on this project. I’d wheedled her number from Abrahmson s secretary and left a message for her in Australia—the girl at the hotel wasn’t sure if she’d already left. “Dr. Fenwick, I’m glad you called. I, uhm, had some ideas I wanted to talk to you about—regarding the quantum signaling project.” I wasn’t sure how much she knew, and didn’t want to scare her off.

She laughed, oddly. “Well, I’m wide open for ideas. I’ll take help wherever I can get it. I’m the only damn person left alive from our research group.”

“Only person?” So she knew—apparently more than I.

I looked at the clock. It was tomorrow morning already—I’d slept right through the afternoon and night. Good thing I’d called my office and gotten the week off, the absurd part of me that kept track of such trivia noted.

“Richard Hays committed suicide last night,” Fenwick’s voice cracked. “He left a note saying he couldn’t pull it off any longer—couldn’t surmount the paradox of deliberately not thinking of something—couldn’t overcome his lifelong urge as a scientist to tell the world what he’d discovered. He’d prepared a paper for publication-begged his wife to have it published posthumously if he didn’t make it. I spoke to her this morning. I told her to destroy it. And the note too. Fortunately for her, she had no idea what the paper was about. She’s a simple woman—Richard didn’t marry her for her brains.”

“I see,” I said slowly. “Where are you now?”

“I’m in New York,” she said. “I wanted to come home—I didn’t want to die in Australia.”

“Look, you’re still alive,” I said. “That means you’ve still got a chance. How about meeting me for lunch”—I looked at the clock again—“in about an hour. The Trattoria II Bambino on 12th Street in the Village is good. As far as I know, no one there has died from the food as yet.” How I could bring myself to make a crack like that at a time like this, I didn’t know.

“OK,” Fenwick said.

She was waiting for me when I arrived. On the way down, I d fantasized that she’d look just like Lauren. But in fact she looked a little older and wiser. And even more frightened.

“All right,” I said after we’d ordered and gotten rid of the waiter. “Here’s what I have in mind. You tell me as a physicist where this might not add up. First, everyone who’s attempted to publish something about your work has died.”

Jennifer nodded. “I spoke to Lauren Goldring the afternoon she died. She told me she was going to the press.”

I sighed. “I didn’t know that—but it supports my point. In fact, the two times I even toyed with going public about this, I had fleeting interviews with death. The first time in the water, the second with some sort of preheart attack, I’m sure.”