Dark Matter Read online

  The certificate reads:

  The Pavia Prize is awarded to

  JASON ASHLEY DESSEN for outstanding achievement in advancing our knowledge and understanding of the origin, evolution and properties of the universe by placing a macroscopic object into a state of

  quantum superposition.

  I sit on the end of the bed.

  I am not well.

  I am so not well.

  My home should be my haven, a place of safety and comfort, where I’m surrounded by family. But it’s not even mine.

  My stomach lurches.

  I rush into the master bath, fling open the toilet seat, and empty my guts into the pristine bowl.

  I’m racked with thirst.

  I turn on the faucet and dip my mouth under the stream.

  Splash water in my face.

  I wander back into the bedroom.

  No idea where my mobile phone is, but there’s a landline on the bedside table.

  I never actually dial Daniela’s cell-phone number, so it takes me a moment to recall, but I finally punch it in.

  Four rings.

  A male voice answers, deep and groggy.

  “Hello?”

  “Where’s Daniela?”

  “I think you misdialed.”

  I recite Daniela’s cell phone number, and he says, “Yeah, that’s the number you called, but it’s my number.”

  “How is that possible?”

  He hangs up.

  I dial her number again, and this time he answers on the first ring with, “It’s three in the morning. Don’t call me again, asshole.”

  My third attempt goes straight to the man’s voicemail. I don’t leave a message.

  Rising from the bed, I return to the bathroom and study myself in the mirror over the sink.

  My face is bruised, scraped, bloody, and mud-streaked. I need a shave, my eyes are bloodshot, but I’m still me.

  A wave of exhaustion hits me like a haymaker to the jaw.

  My knees give out, but I catch myself on the countertop.

  And then, down on the first floor—a noise.

  A door closing softly?

  I straighten.

  Alert again.

  Back in the bedroom, I move silently to the doorway and stare down the length of the hall.

  I hear whispered voices.

  The static of a handheld radio.

  The hollow creak of someone’s footfall on a hardwood step.

  The voices become clearer, echoing between the walls of the stairwell and spilling out the top and down the corridor.

  I can see their shadows on the walls now, preceding them up the staircase like ghosts.

  As I take a tentative step into the hallway, a man’s voice—calm, measured Leighton—slides out of the stairwell: “Jason?”

  Five steps and I reach the hall bath.

  “We’re not here to hurt you.”

  Their footfalls are in the hallway now.

  Stepping slowly, methodically.

  “I know you’re feeling confused and disoriented. I wish you’d said something back at the lab. I didn’t realize how bad it was for you. I’m sorry I missed that.”

  I carefully close the door behind me and push in the lock.

  “We just want to bring you in so you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.”

  The bathroom is twice the size of mine, with a granite-walled shower and a double vanity topped with marble.

  Across from the toilet, I see what I’m looking for: a large shelf built into the wall with a hatch that opens the laundry chute.

  “Jason.”

  Through the bathroom door, I hear the radio crackling.

  “Jason, please. Talk to me.” Out of nowhere, his voice hemorrhages frustration. “We have all given up our lives working toward tonight. Come out here! This is fucking insane!”

  One rainy Sunday when Charlie was nine or ten, we spent an afternoon pretending we were spelunkers. I would lower him down the laundry chute again and again, as if it were the entrance to a cave. He even wore a little backpack and a makeshift headlamp—a flashlight tied to the top of his head.

  I open the hatch, scramble up onto the shelf.

  Leighton says, “Take the bedroom.”

  Footsteps patter down the hall.

  The fit down the laundry chute looks tight. Maybe too tight.

  I hear the bathroom door begin to shake, the doorknob jiggling, and then a woman’s voice: “Hey, this one’s locked.”

  I peer down the chute.

  Total darkness.

  The bathroom door is thick enough that their first attempt to break through only results in a splintering crack.

  I might not even fit down this thing, but as they crash into the door a second time and it explodes off the hinges and thunders down against the tile, I realize I have no other options.

  They rush into the bathroom, and in the mirror I catch the fleeting reflection of Leighton Vance and one of those security consultants from the lab, holding what appears to be a Taser.

  Leighton and I lock eyes in the glass for a half second, and then the man with the Taser spins, raising his weapon.

  I fold my arms into my chest and commit myself to the chute.

  As the shouting in the bathroom fades away above me, I slam into an empty laundry hamper, the plastic splitting, sending me tumbling out from between the washer and the dryer.

  Their footsteps are already coming, pounding down the staircase.

  A needle of pain threads up my right leg from the fall. I scramble to my feet and bolt for the French doors that lead out the back of the brownstone.

  The brass door handles are locked.

  Footsteps are closing in, the voices louder, radios squeaking as instructions scream over static.

  I turn the lock, pull open the doors, and tear across a redwood deck, which boasts a grill that’s nicer than mine and a hot tub I have never owned.

  Down the steps into the backyard, past a rose garden.

  I try the garage door, but it’s locked.

  With all the movement inside, every light in the house has been triggered. There must be four or five people running around on the first floor trying to find me, shouting at one another.

  An eight-foot privacy fence encloses the backyard, and as I flip the hasp on its door, someone barrels onto the deck, shouting my name.

  The alley is empty, and I don’t stop to think which direction to go.

  I just run.

  At the next street, I glance back, see two figures chasing me.

  In the distance, a car engine roars to life, followed by the screech of tires spinning on pavement.

  I hang a left and sprint until I reach the next alley.

  Almost every backyard is protected by tall privacy fencing, but the fifth one down is waist-high, wrought-iron construction.

  An SUV whips its back end around and accelerates into the alley.

  I break for the low fence.

  Lacking the strength to hurdle it, I clumsily haul myself over the pointed metal tines and collapse in the backyard. I crawl through the grass to a tiny shed beside the garage, with no padlock on the door.

  It creaks open, and I slip inside as someone runs across the backyard.

  I shut the door so no one will hear my panting.

  I cannot catch my breath.

  It’s pitch-black inside the shed and redolent of gasoline and old grass clippings. My chest heaves against the back of the door.

  Sweat drips off my chin.

  I claw a cobweb off my face.

  In darkness, my hands palm the plywood walls, fingers grazing various tools—pruning shears, a saw, a rake, the blade of an ax.

  I take the ax from the wall and grip the wooden handle, scraping my finger across the head. Can’t see a thing, but it feels like it hasn’t been sharpened in years—deep chinks in the blade, which no longer holds an edge.

  Blinking through the stinging sweat, I carefully open the door.

  Not a soun
d creeps in.

  I nudge it open a few more inches, until I can see into the backyard again.

  It’s empty.

  In this sliver of quiet and calm, the principle of Occam’s razor whispers to me—all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one. Does the idea that I was drugged and kidnapped by a secret, experimental group for the purposes of mind control or God-knows-what fit that bill? Hardly. They would’ve needed to either brainwash me to convince me that my house was not my house, or in the space of several hours, get rid of my family and gut the interior so I didn’t recognize anything.

  Or—is it more plausible that a tumor in my brain has turned my world upside down?

  That it’s been growing silently inside my skull for months or years and is finally wreaking havoc on my cognitive processes, skewing my perception of everything.

  The idea hits me with the force of conviction.

  What else could have crashed through me with such debilitating speed?

  What else could make me lose touch with my identity and reality in a matter of hours, calling into question everything I thought I knew?

  I wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  Finally, I step outside into the grass.

  No more voices.

  No more footsteps.

  No shadows.

  No car engines.

  The night feels sturdy and real again.

  I already know where I’m headed next.

  —

  Chicago Mercy is a ten-block trek from my house, and I limp into the harsh light of the ER at 4:05 a.m.

  I hate hospitals.

  I watched my mother die in one.

  Charlie spent the first weeks of his life in a NICU.

  The waiting room is practically empty. Aside from me, there’s a night construction worker clutching his arm in a bloody bandage, and a distressed-looking family of three, the father holding a red-faced, wailing baby.

  The woman at the front desk looks up from her paperwork, surprisingly bright-eyed considering the hour.

  Asks through the Plexiglas, “How can I help you?”

  I haven’t thought of what to say, how to even begin to explain my needs.

  When I don’t answer right away, she says, “Have you been in an accident?”

  “No.”

  “You have cuts all over your face.”

  “I’m not well,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I need to talk to someone.”

  “Are you homeless?”

  “No.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She looks me up and down—a fast, professional appraisal.

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Jason.”

  “One moment.”

  Rising from her chair, she disappears around the corner.

  Thirty seconds later, there’s a buzzing sound as the door beside her station unlocks and opens.

  The nurse smiles. “Come on back.”

  She leads me to a patient room.

  “Someone will be right with you.”

  As the door closes after her, I take a seat on the examination table and shut my eyes against the glare of the lights. I have never been so tired in my life.

  My chin dips.

  I straighten.

  I almost fell asleep sitting up.

  The door opens.

  A portly young doctor walks in carrying a clipboard. He’s trailed by a different nurse—a bottle blonde in blue scrubs who wears four-in-the-morning exhaustion like a millstone around her neck.

  “It’s Jason?” the doctor asks without offering his hand or attempting to fake his way through the graveyard-shift indifference.

  I nod.

  “Last name?”

  I’m hesitant to give him my full name, but then again, maybe that’s just the brain tumor talking, or whatever has gone wrong inside my head.

  “Dessen.”

  I spell it for him as he scribbles on what I presume to be an intake form.

  “I’m Dr. Randolph, attending physician. What brings you into the ER tonight?”

  “I think something is wrong with my mind. Like a tumor or something.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Things aren’t like they should be.”

  “Okay. Could you elaborate?”

  “I…all right, this is going to sound crazy. Just know that I realize that.”

  He glances up from the clipboard.

  “My house isn’t my house.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “It’s just what I said. My house isn’t my house. My family isn’t there. Everything’s much…nicer. It’s all been renovated and—”

  “But it’s still your address?”

  “Right.”

  “So you’re saying the inside is different, but the outside is the same?” He says it like he’s speaking to a child.

  “Yeah.”

  “Jason, how did you get the cuts on your face? The mud on your clothes?”

  “People were chasing me.”

  I shouldn’t have told him that, but I’m too tired to filter. I must sound absolutely insane.

  “Chasing you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was chasing you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know why they were chasing you?”

  “Because…it’s complicated.”

  His appraising, skeptical look is far more subtle and trained than the front-desk nurse’s. I almost miss it.

  “Have you taken any drugs or alcohol tonight?” he asks.

  “Some wine earlier, then whisky, but that was hours ago.”

  “Again, I’m sorry—it’s been a very long shift—but what makes you think something is wrong with your mind?”

  “Because the last eight hours of my life don’t make sense. It all feels real, but it can’t possibly be.”

  “Have you suffered a recent head injury?”

  “No. Well. I mean, I think someone hit me in the back of the head. It’s painful to the touch.”

  “Who hit you?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not really sure of anything right now.”

  “Okay. Do you use drugs? Now or in the past?”

  “I smoke weed a couple times a year. But not lately.”

  The doctor turns to the nurse. “I’m going to have Barbara draw some blood.”

  He drops the clipboard on a table and plucks a penlight from the front pocket of his lab coat.

  “Mind if I examine you?”

  “No.”

  Randolph moves in until our faces are inches apart, close enough for me to smell the stale coffee on his breath, to see the recent razor nick across his chin. He shines the light straight into my right eye. For a moment, there’s nothing but a point of brilliance in the center of my field of vision, which momentarily burns away the rest of the world.

  “Jason, are you having any thoughts of hurting yourself?”

  “I’m not suicidal.”

  The light hits my left eye.

  “Have you had any prior psychiatric hospitalizations?”

  “No.”

  He gently takes my wrist in his soft, cool hands, measures my pulse rate.

  “What do you do for a living?” he asks.

  “I teach at Lakemont College.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes.” I instinctively reach down to touch my wedding band.

  Gone.

  Jesus.

  The nurse begins to roll up the left sleeve of my shirt.

  “What’s your wife’s name?” the doctor asks.

  “Daniela.”

  “You two on good terms?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you think she’s wondering where you are? I feel like we should call her.”

  “I tried.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago, at my house. Someone e
lse answered. It was a wrong number.”

  “Maybe you misdialed.”

  “I know my wife’s phone number.”

  The nurse asks, “We okay with needles, Mr. Dessen?”

  “Yes.”

  As she sterilizes the underside of my arm, she says, “Dr. Randolph, look.” She touches the needle mark from several hours ago when Leighton drew my blood.

  “When did this happen?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.” Probably best not to mention the lab I think I just escaped from.

  “You don’t remember someone sticking a needle in your arm?”

  “No.”

  Randolph nods to the nurse, and she warns me, “Little pinch coming.”

  He asks, “Do you have your cell phone with you?”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  He grabs the clipboard. “Give me your wife’s name again. And phone number. We’ll try to reach her for you.”

  I spell Daniela’s name and rattle off her cell number and our home number as my blood rushes into a plastic vial.

  “You’re going to scan my head?” I ask. “See what’s going on?”

  “Absolutely.”

  —

  They give me a private room on the eighth floor.

  I tidy up my face in the bathroom, kick off my shoes, and climb into bed.

  Sleep tugs, but the scientist in my brain won’t power down.

  I can’t stop thinking.

  Formulating hypotheses and dismantling them.

  Struggling to wrap logic around everything that’s happened.

  In this moment, I have no way of knowing what’s real and what isn’t. I can’t even be sure that I was ever married.

  No. Wait.

  I raise my left hand and study my ring finger.

  The ring is gone, but the proof of its existence lingers as a faint indentation around the base of my finger. It was there. It left a mark. That means someone took it.

  I touch the indentation, acknowledging both the horror and the comfort of what it represents—the last vestige of my reality.

  I wonder—

  What will happen when this last physical trace of my marriage is gone?

  When there’s no anchor?

  As the skies above Chicago inch toward dawn—a hopeless, cloud-ridden purple—I lose myself to sleep.

  Daniela’s hands are deep in the warm, soapy water when she hears the front door slam shut. She stops scrubbing the saucepan she’s been attacking for the last half minute and looks up from the sink, glancing back over her shoulder as footsteps approach.