Caeli Widger - Mother of Invention

He took a deep breath and texted the photo and the message to Tessa Callahan.

A few minutes later, his phone lit up with a blocked call.

2021

Tessa was on the footbridge, en route to Luke’s office from the Cohort residence, trying to piece together a strategy in her mind. In the past, she would have tried to appeal to Luke’s integrity. To what she’d once believed to be his inherent goodness, lodged deep beneath his ambition and his insecurity and his little-boy desperation to please the looming ghost of his father.

Except now she wasn’t sure the goodness was there. She was no longer sure who Luke was.

Or for that matter, who she was.

But now was not the time for introspection. She had to do whatever it took, no matter how calculated, to find out the exact status of Gwen’s babies, and how they could save them. She knew that conjoined twins, if connected in certain parts of the body, could survive. She’d read a few accounts of their successful separation, even watched an interview with twins who were leading healthy, normal lives.

More commonly, though, she knew the outcomes were different.

Her anger at Luke was a curious thing, so large and solid that it had calcified inside her. It was like carrying a load of bricks. She had to step carefully, with great concentration, or she might fall into such a dark place, she might not know how to climb out.

If she wasn’t careful, she might lose all control.

But she was famous for self-control. Peter had reminded her of this more than once, when he was trying to get through to her.

I need the real Tessa right now, he would say.

Too often, she had not granted him this, claiming she was unable. That it was not in her nature to soften on demand.

But nature was malleable.

Wasn’t it?

Somehow, she would get through to Luke.

Below her, midday at the Seahorse Center, the floors teemed with life and industry. Young engineers in T-shirts and jeans, a couple of dogs, lab techs in white coats. The sun filtered down through the dome, gilded and generous. Briefly, she thought of flight. Of gliding in the elevator to the ground floor, stepping onto the Thought Floor and walking straight through security, out into the open afternoon. Of driving somewhere—a hospital in San Francisco, or the Stanford med school, where she knew the dean—and simply asking for help.

She knew many people, beyond Seahorse, who would help her.

She’d just stepped off the footbridge and into the hallway of West Lobe when the text from Wayne Bridger arrived.

She remembered him instantly: the charming, handsome man with faded acne scars who’d sat beside her on the flight to Boston. She glanced at the text midstride, but when she saw the photo he’d sent, she stopped in her tracks.

On her screen was a photo of Vivian Bourne, appearing pale and unconscious. She scanned the accompanying text, then veered down the hallway to her own office instead of Luke’s. She locked the door behind her and stared at the ocean beyond the window, a dazzling cobalt blue beneath the afternoon sun.

Then she sat down at her desk and did as Wayne Bridger had asked.

In seconds, his face filled her screen, backdropped by a blue wall.

“I wanted you to be able to see me,” he said, forgoing a greeting. “In case you had any doubts about authenticity.”

“Explain the situation,” said Tessa.

Wayne explained.

Tessa gripped her phone tighter.

“I need you to come and get her,” Wayne said. “You’ll need a helicopter.”

“Where?” said Tessa. “How?”

“I’m sending you the coordinates,” said Wayne. “Any good pilot will be able to find us.”

“Then what?” said Tessa.

“Then you take Viv with you,” he said. “We’ll meet you there. Twelve thirty a.m. Mountain time tomorrow night.”

Tessa’s heart sped.

“I want to help,” she said. “But why me? Why not her parents? Why not—”

“Too risky,” snapped Wayne. “And plus, Tessa, you owe her.”

“Owe her? Why?”

“Not just Viv. You owe any number of them.”

“Any number of who?”

“The mothers and children who suffered from AG. Your methods are sloppy, Tessa. Egregious disregard for scientific procedure. We’re well aware that Seahorse obtained the source material for your glitzy product illicitly.”

“Illicitly? What?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Wayne’s voice was hard. “Nothing gets past the ISA. We’ve known for years that your buddy Luke Zimmerman helped himself to tissue samples from Configuration Labs. You’ve been riding a loophole all these years. The ride is over now. You might as well comply and show up exactly where I tell you to show up, or I can send you and your skateboarder boyfriend to jail tomorrow.”

Tessa felt she was hurtling through space, as if she’d fallen from the footbridge and was plummeting down, down.

Wayne kept talking.

“If you want to cooperate, maybe you can save yourself and your precious company and maybe even your billions. Maybe that loophole you’ve been clinging to won’t disappear.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Tessa heard her voice shaking. “What loophole?”

“Let me put it this way. Until now, the ISA and Seahorse have had an unspoken agreement. You do your demented little experiments, tool around with human bodies, and we’ll look the other way. But it couldn’t last forever, now could it? Unless you help Vivian Bourne, forever ends tomorrow. I can have the Feds at your fucking techie Xanadu tomorrow .”

Tessa could do nothing but stare into her phone at Wayne. His face was so clear she could see his scars. They regarded each other through the screens. She recalled something she’d written in Pushing Through , in the section devoted to tips on running a successful meeting as a woman.

Do not hesitate to employ intimacy, albeit strategically and appropriately, in professional conversations.

“I’m waiting for a yes,” said Wayne.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Come again?”

“I’m curious,” she said, “how you landed in a career as a spy.” He’d never used the word spy , but she’d deduced, based on what he’d told her, that he was.

“This is not a goddamn therapy session,” said Wayne. It was striking, Tessa thought, how different he was now from the relaxed cowboy–grad student persona he’d presented to her on the plane.

“Just tell me. Was secrecy necessary in your earlier life? Did it sustain you?”

He squinted at her, incredulous.

“Of course it was fucking necessary,” he said. “I’m sending you the coordinates now. Be there at 12:30 a.m. on the nose tomorrow. As in, after midnight.”

His screen went dark.

Suddenly, Tessa knew her strategy.

Luke was exiting his office just as Tessa arrived.

“Hey.” He greeted her with a single flat word. His expression—impatient, startled—suggested she’d caught him in the middle of something. He appeared packed up and ready to go somewhere: office lights off, monitor dark, bag slung over his shoulder.

“I need to talk to you.” She’d coached herself on appearing perfectly composed. As if she were paying Luke a social visit, as if she’d simply missed him.

“Now’s not a good time,” he said.

“This is important, Luke.”

“Can we walk and talk? I have a meeting.”

“What meeting?”

She could see in his hesitation that he would not be telling her the truth.

“San Francisco,” he said.