Recursion

by Blake Crouch

  When he turns back toward the bar, the bartender is facing him.

  “What is this place, Tonya?” he asks, but his mouth feels odd and his words emerge with a sluggish clumsiness.

  “Sir, you’re not looking so well.”

  He feels something loosen behind his eyes.

  An untethering.

  He looks at his drink. He looks at Tonya.

  “Vince will help you to a room,” she says.

  Barry steps down off the stool, swaying slightly on his feet, and turns to meet the dead-eyed stare of the man from the diner. Around his neck is an ornate tattoo of a woman’s hands strangling the life out of him.

  Barry reaches for his gun, but it’s like moving through syrup, and Vince’s hands are already inside his coat, deftly unsnapping the shoulder holster that secures his service weapon, and slipping the gun down the back of his jeans. He digs Barry’s phone out of his pocket, tosses it to Tonya.

  “I’m NYPD,” Barry slurs.

  “So was I.”

  “What is this place?”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  The wooziness is intensifying.

  Vince grabs Barry by the arm and leads him away from the bar toward the bank of elevators beyond the reception desk. He calls the elevator and drags Barry inside.

  Then Barry is stumbling through a hotel corridor as the world melts around him.

  He weaves down the soft red carpeting, passing sconces made of old lamps that cast an antique light on the wainscoting between the doors.

  1414 is projected onto the door by a light in the opposite wall that moves the number in the pattern of a slow figure eight around the peephole.

  Vince lets them inside and steers Barry toward the expansive four-poster, shoving him onto the bed, where Barry curls up in the fetal position.

  Fading fast and thinking, You fucked up now, didn’t you?

  The door to the room slams shut.

  He’s alone, unable to move.

  The lights of the snowbound city bleed through the sheer curtain at the wall of windows, and the last thing he sees before losing consciousness are the ornamented chevrons of the Chrysler Building, glowing like jewels in the storm.

  * * *

  His mouth is dry.

  Left arm sore.

  The surroundings crystallizing into focus.

  Barry is reclined in a leather chair—black, elegant, ultramodern—to which he’s also been strapped. His ankles, his wrists, one across his waist, another over his chest. There’s an IV port in his left forearm—hence the pain—and a metal cart beside his chair, out of which runs the plastic tube that’s plugged into his bloodstream.

  The wall facing him is lined with a computer terminal and an assortment of medical equipment, including (and to his considerable alarm) a crash cart. Tucked away in an alcove on the far side of the room, he sees a smooth, white object with tubes and wires running into it, which looks like a giant egg.

  A man Barry has never seen before is seated on a stool beside him. He has a long, wild beard, stark blue eyes that radiate intelligence, and an uncomfortable intensity.

  Barry opens his mouth, but he’s still too drowsy to form words.

  “Still feeling groggy?”

  Barry nods.

  The man touches a button on the cart beside the chair. Barry watches as a clear liquid pushes through the IV line into his arm. The room brightens. He feels instantly alert, as if he just mainlined a shot of espresso, and with the awareness comes fear.

  “Better?” the man asks.

  Barry tries to move his head, but it has been immobilized. He can’t even turn a millimeter in either direction.

  “I’m a cop,” Barry says.

  “I know. I know quite a lot about you, Detective Sutton, including the fact that you are a very lucky man.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of your past, I’ve decided not to kill you.”

  Is that a good thing? Or is this man just toying with him?

  “Who are you?” Barry asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m about to give you the greatest gift of your life. The greatest gift a person could ever hope to receive. If you don’t mind,” he says, the courtesy paradoxically alarming, “I have a few questions before we get started.”

  Barry is growing more alert by the minute, the confusion fading as his last piece of memory returns—stumbling down the hotel corridor and into Room 1414.

  The man asks, “Did you go to the home of Joe and Franny Behrman in an official capacity?”

  “How’d you know I went there?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “No. I was satisfying my own curiosity.”

  “Did any of your colleagues or superiors know about your trip to Montauk?”

  “No one did.”

  “Did you discuss with anyone your interest in Ann Voss Peters and Joe Behrman?”

  Though he spoke to Gwen about FMS on Sunday, he feels confident in his assumption that no one could possibly know about their conversation.

  So he lies. “No.”

  Barry has the tracking software activated on his phone. He has no idea how long he’s been unconscious, but assuming it’s still early Tuesday morning, his absence from work won’t be noticed until late afternoon. In theory, hours from now. He has no appointments scheduled. No drink or dinner plans. It could be several days before his absence pings on anyone’s radar.

  “People will come looking for me,” Barry says.

  “They’ll never find you.”

  Barry breathes in slowly, steeling himself against the rising panic. He needs to convince this man to release him, with nothing but words and logic.

  Barry says, “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what any of this is about. But if you release me now, you will never hear from me again. I swear to you.”

  The man slides off the stool and moves across the room to the computer terminal. Standing before an immense monitor, he types on a keyboard. After a moment, Barry hears whatever apparatus is attached to his head begin to make a barely discernible whirring, like the wings of a mosquito.

  “What is this?” Barry asks again, his heart rate ticking up a notch, fear occluding his better thinking. “What do you want with me?”

  “I want you to tell me about the last time you saw your daughter alive.”

  In a pure and blinding rage, Barry strains against the leather straps, struggling with everything he has to disengage his head from whatever is holding it in place. The leather creaks. His head doesn’t budge. Sweat beads on his face and runs down into his eyes with a salty burn he is powerless to wipe away.

  “I’ll kill you,” Barry says.

  The man leans forward, inches away, a blue-flame coldness in his eyes. Barry smells his expensive cologne, the toasted sourness of coffee on his breath.

  “I’m not trying to taunt you,” the man says. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You came to my hotel.”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure you told Joe Behrman exactly what to say to lure me here.”

  “Tell you what—let’s make this choice as straightforward as possible. You answer honestly when I ask a question, or you’ll die where you sit.”

  Trapped in this chair, Barry has no choice but to play along, to keep staying alive until he sees an opening, a chance, no matter how small, to get free.

  “Fine.”

  The man lifts his head to the ceiling and says, “Computer, start session.”

  An automated, feminine voice responds, New session beginning now.

  The man looks into Barry’s eyes.

  “Now, tell me about the last time you saw your daughter alive, and don’t leave out a single detail.”

>   HELENA

  March 29, 2009–June 20, 2009

  Day 515

  Standing in the vestibule of the superstructure’s western loading bay, Helena zips into her foul-weather gear, thinking the wind sounds like a deep-voiced ghost, roaring on the other side of the door. All morning, it’s been gusting to eighty—hard enough to blow someone her size off the platform.

  Dragging the door open, she stares into a grayed-out world of sideways-blowing rain and connects the carabiner on her harness to the cable that’s been strung across the platform. Despite anticipating the power of the wind, she isn’t ready for the sheer force that almost sweeps her off her feet. She leans into it, bracing herself, and moves outside.

  The platform is cloaked in gray, and all she can hear is the raving madness of the wind and the needles of rain slamming into the hood of her jacket like ball bearings.

  It takes ten minutes to cross the platform, a series of hard-fought steps against a constant loss of balance. She finally reaches her favorite spot on the rig—the northwest corner—and sits down with her legs hanging over the side, watching sixty-foot waves smash into the platform legs.

  The last two members of Infrastructure left yesterday, before the storm’s arrival. Her people didn’t just object to Slade’s new directive to “put people in a deprivation tank and stop their heart.” With the exception of her and Sergei, they resigned en masse and demanded to be returned to the mainland immediately. Whenever she feels guilty for staying, she thinks of her mom and others like her, but it’s a small consolation.

  Besides, she’s pretty sure Slade wouldn’t let her leave regardless.

  Jee-woon has flown inland to find personnel for the medical team and new engineers to build the deprivation tank, leaving Helena alone on the rig with Slade and a skeleton crew.

  Out here on the platform, it’s like the world is screaming in her ear.

  Lifting her face to the sky, she screams back.

  Day 598

  Someone is knocking at her door. Reaching out in the darkness, she turns on the lamp and climbs out of bed in pajama bottoms and a black tank top. The alarm clock on her desk shows 9:50 a.m.

  She moves into the living room and toward the door, hitting the button on the wall to raise the blackout curtains.

  Slade is standing in the corridor in jeans and a hoodie—first time she’s laid eyes on him in weeks.

  He says, “Shit, I woke you.”

  She squints at him under the glare of the light panels in the ceiling.

  “Mind if I come in?” he asks.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Please, Helena.”

  She takes a step back and lets him enter, following him down the short entryway, past the powder room, and into the main living space.

  “What do you want?” she asks.

  He takes a seat on the ottoman of an oversize chair, beside the windows that look out into a world of infinite sea.

  He says, “They tell me you aren’t eating or exercising. That you haven’t spoken to anyone or gone outside in days.”

  “Why won’t you let me talk to my parents? Why won’t you let me leave?”

  “You aren’t well, Helena. You’re in no state of mind to protect the secrecy of this place.”

  “I told you I wanted out. My mom’s in a facility. I don’t know how she’s doing. My dad hasn’t heard my voice in a month. I’m sure he’s worried—”

  “I know you can’t see it right now, but I am saving you from yourself.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “You checked out, because you disagreed with the direction I was taking this project. All I’ve been doing is giving you time to reconsider throwing everything away.”

  “It was my project.”

  “It’s my money.”

  Her hands tremble. With fear. With rage.

  She says, “I don’t want to do this anymore. You have ruined my dream. You have blocked me from trying to help my mom and others. I want to go home. Are you going to continue keeping me here against my will?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So I can leave?”

  “Do you remember what I asked you the first day you got here?”

  She shakes her head, tears coming.

  “I asked if you wanted to change the world with me. We are standing on the shoulders of all the brilliant work you’ve done, and I came here this morning to tell you that we’re almost there. Forget everything that’s happened in the past. Let’s cross the finish line together.”

  She stares at him across the coffee table, tears gliding down her face.

  “What are you feeling?” he asks. “Talk to me.”

  “Like you stole this thing away from me.”

  “Nothing could be further from the truth. I stepped in when your vision flagged. That’s what partners do. Today is the biggest day of my life and yours. It’s everything we’ve been working toward. That’s why I came up here. The deprivation tank is ready. The reactivation apparatus has been retrofitted to work inside. We’re running a new test in ten minutes, and this is the big one.”

  “Who’s the test subject?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  “Just a guy getting paid twenty grand a week to make the ultimate sacrifice for science.”

  “And you told him how dangerous this research is?”

  “He’s fully aware of the risks. Look, if you want to go home, pack your bags and be at the helipad at noon.”

  “What about my contract?”

  “You promised me three years. You’ll be in breach. You’ll forfeit your compensation, profit participation, everything. You knew the ground rules going in. But if you want to finish what we started, come down to the lab with me right now. It’s going to be a day for the record books.”

  BARRY

  November 6, 2018

  Strapped into a chair in a waking nightmare, Barry says, “It was October twenty-fifth. Eleven years ago.”

  “What’s the first thing you remember when you think of it?” the man asks. “The most potent image or feeling?”

  Barry is caught in the strangest juxtaposition of emotion. He wants to break this man in half, but the thought of Meghan that night is on the verge of breaking him.

  He answers in monotone, “Finding her body.”

  “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. Not after she was gone. Before.”

  “The last time I spoke to her.”

  “That’s what I want you to talk about.”

  Barry stares across the room, gritting his teeth.

  “Please continue, Detective Sutton.”

  “I’m sitting in my chair in my living room, watching the World Series.”

  “Do you remember who was playing?”

  “Red Sox and Rockies. Game two. The Sox had won the first game. They would take the series in four straight.”

  “Who were you rooting for?”

  “I didn’t really care. I guess I wanted to see the Rockies tie it up, keep the series interesting. Why are you doing this to me? What purpose does—”

  “So you’re sitting in your chair…”

  “I’m probably drinking a beer.”

  “Would Julia have been watching with you?”

  Jesus. He knows her name.

  “No. I think she was watching TV in our bedroom. We’d already eaten dinner.”

  “As a family?”

  “I don’t remember. Probably.” Barry is suddenly aware of a pressure in his chest, the intensity of which is nearly crushing. He says, “I haven’t talked about that night in years.”

  The man just sits there on his stool, running his fingers through his beard and coolly studying him, waiting for Barry to push on.


  “I see Meghan coming out of the hallway. I don’t remember for sure what she was wearing, but for some reason, I see her in this pair of jeans and a turquoise sweater she always wore.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Ten days shy of sixteen. And she stops in front of the coffee table—I know this happened for sure—and she’s standing between me and the television with her hands on her hips and this quasi-severe look on her face.”

  Tears fill in at the edges of his eyes.

  “It’s still incredibly emotional for you,” the man says. “This is good.”

  “Please,” Barry says. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Continue.”

  Barry takes a breath, blindly groping for some handhold of emotional balance.

  He says finally, “It was the last time I would look into my daughter’s eyes. And I didn’t know it. I kept trying to look around her to see the television.”

  He doesn’t want to cry in front of this man. Jesus, anything but that.

  “Continue.”

  “She asked if she could go to DQ. She usually went there a couple of nights a week to do her homework, hang out with friends. I went through the standard questioning. Did your mother say it was OK? No, she had come to me instead. Is your homework finished? No, but part of the reason she wanted to go was to meet up with Mindy, her lab partner in biology, to discuss a project they were working on. Who else was going to be there? A list of names, most of which I knew. I remember checking my watch—it was eight thirty and still in the early innings of the game—and I told her she could go, but that I wanted her home no later than ten. She made her arguments for eleven. I said, ‘No, it’s a school night, you know your curfew,’ and then she let it go and headed for the door.

  “I remember calling out to her just before she left, telling her I loved her.”

  Tears release, his body shaking with emotion, but the straps hold him tight against the chair.

  Barry says, “The truth is, I don’t know if I called out to her. I think probably I didn’t, that I simply went back to watching the game and didn’t think of her again until ten p.m. had come and gone, and I wondered why she wasn’t home yet.”