The Return Page 2

  “Hey, dickwads!” the campus cop called out to them.

  Classy.

  They stood still. Shawn turned to Ricardo. It was Shawn who had really gotten them into this, so he was going to let Ricardo decide their next move. If they surrendered now, they probably faced trouble, but who knew how much? If they ran and got away, they were probably golden—even if they’d been caught on camera, the odds that it could pick up their faces in this light were slim. If they ran and got caught, they were absolutely, positively, 100 percent screwed.

  Ricardo took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

  With that, they spun around and shot off running in the direction from which they’d come.

  “Right!” Ricardo called as they neared a corner, operating on instinct alone, and they turned right.

  “Left!” he called as they neared another turn, and they moved left.

  Soon enough, flashlights beaming forward like headlights, they could see in the distance the stairwell leading back up to the first floor of Havemeyer. It was getting closer and closer. But if there was any feeling of relief, it evaporated instantly with the sound of footsteps coming up behind them. The campus cop was hot on their heels. He must have darted out from an intersecting tunnel, and he was getting much too close. Their legs aching like all hell, they raced up the stairs and into Havemeyer and right out the door.

  Once outside, they sprinted across the shadowy, moonlit campus, the cop chasing and cursing from behind all the while. As they ran, flying past the Mathematics building and Earl Hall, barreling down the great stone steps of Low Library, Shawn thought of the many nightmares he’d had over the years where he was being chased. Always in those dreams, there had been intense feelings of panic and dread, of black death encroaching from behind. Now, all he felt was pure exhilaration. He couldn’t explain it, and there wasn’t time for reflection, anyway.

  Reaching College Walk, Shawn and Ricardo made a hard right onto its redbrick path and bolted toward the campus’s tall iron gate. As the opening got closer and closer, revealing Broadway and the downhill slope toward Riverside Park in the distance, they could hear the cop slowing down behind them, finally giving up.

  Minutes later, they were out on the street, several blocks away, leaning against the side of a closed Starbucks, panting, wheezing, coughing their lungs out.

  Sometime later that night, settling in at his desk in his cramped 110th Street apartment, Shawn plugged his camera into his laptop and began uploading the pictures of the cyclotron to his hard drive. When he was finished, he logged on to Schrödinger’s Rat, the underground physics forum where he was known only as “OrpheusJack,” and started to post them. “Eat your heart out, Buggers81,” he typed as the caption for the first, addressing the user whose half-serious dare had been the impetus for tonight’s adventure.

  The high that he’d felt from the chase at Columbia had worn off after he’d noticed, a little while after coming back, that his student ID was missing. He normally kept it in his back pocket. While he had no real reason to assume that he had lost it during his and Ricardo’s escapade, he was left unsettled just the same. Still, there being nothing he could do about it, and he did his best to put it out of his mind. C’est la vie.

  To kill time while he waited for responses to the photos, he headed over to the open Q&A boards, where users traditionally asked each other questions or solicited advice, typically related to academic research they were involved in.

  Someone had just posted: “If you’re working with a diverging lens whose focal length is 20 cm, where should you place the object to get a virtual image that’s one-third the object’s size?”

  Shawn had already started typing the answer before he’d finished reading the question. This was typical. On any given night, he could spend hours like this, breezily fielding curveballs on subjects ranging from as general as Einstein’s theory of relativity to as obscure as topological geometrodynamics.

  After twenty minutes or so, Shawn was ready to check to see whether anyone had commented on his photos. The images were bound to make a strong impression, and Shawn was excited to see what people had to say. But just as he was about to hit the Back key, something suddenly caught his eye: a new private message was awaiting him in his on-site in-box.

  Shawn clicked on the message. It was from AmberQ, which both surprised and intrigued him. Nobody knew exactly who AmberQ was, but most of the users assumed she (if she was a she) worked for the news media or possibly, though far less likely, the government. AmberQ posted almost exclusively in the Leland section, and nearly all her posts were fairly impressive scoops relating to alleged sightings or new biographical information that wouldn’t hit mainstream news sites until hours—sometimes days—later. AmberQ and Shawn had corresponded several times before, but always in the forum, never via private message, and AmberQ hadn’t posted anything in so long, Shawn had assumed she’d retired from the site.

  The subject line read, “A to your Q.” Shawn had no recollection of having asked AmberQ a question, certainly not recently. He opened up the message and squinted at the screen and tried to make sense of what he saw.

  The message contained one line only:

  “123 Bay Berry Drive, Emington, MN 56464.”

  Shawn ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair. When had he asked AmberQ for an address? Had he asked someone else? An address for what? He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his desk and his chin in his palms, staring intently at the screen, racking his brain for any clue as to what this might pertain to.

  When it finally hit him, much later than it should have, he felt a chill rush up his spine, and all thoughts of his missing student ID card, the photos of the cyclotron, and the cyclotron itself drifted off into the ether like forgotten dreams.

  CHAPTER 3

  When Shawn Ferris was in high school, he wanted to be an archeologist. Like the rest of the world, that changed after Andrew Leland.

  Shawn could still remember the strange, exhilarating feeling, huddled with fellow students around his English teacher’s laptop, as they watched the video for the first time. It was the feeling of endless possibility, and it was a feeling that was shared simultaneously by billions across the globe.

  Of course, there was dissent in some circles in the beginning, allegations of a massive government hoax. But for the first time anyone could remember, it was the skeptics who sounded like lunatics and who were being laughed off the talk shows. Even popular debunker websites like MythKill and Decoder could find no obvious flaws with the footage, no evidence of CGI or composite imagery or that the video had not actually been broadcast live.

  Besides, the event had been witnessed at the scene by multiple and unrelated individuals, not to mention the several hundred people from surrounding areas who had reported a strange object in the night sky and the dozens of cell phone videos that emerged in the following days, most taken by teenagers from Fontana and Rialto, which corroborated the footage from the Astral HDR-8K.

  Yes, the crazies had far-fetched explanations for all of this, but for everyone else, the verdict was in.

  Meanwhile, the world went on, but it was a different place. Changes in the scientific community were among the most palpable, as one of its biggest questions had now been seemingly answered or, at the very least, modified from a question of if to one of who or what. Closely related to this, many First World governments immediately shifted their priorities. For instance, both the U.S. and British governments infused billions in capital into scientific research institutes that had scarcely a clue as to what to do with so much money. Defense spending also skyrocketed around the world, as many analysts had predicted it would.

  Pop culture was of course transformed, as well. Among the more obvious changes was a sudden influx of alien invasion films, notwithstanding outcries from some that the topic was now tasteless. Actually, the effect on pop culture echoed in many ways the era that had coincided with the first manned spaceflights, a period that had produced such television
series as Doctor Who and Star Trek and films like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  Overall, the mood in society was one of excitement and hope, though there was apprehension, as well. After all, kidnapping wasn’t exactly anyone’s idea of coming in peace, and nobody knew whether Leland had been eaten on the spot or crowned king in some faraway land (the latter possibility inspired at least one comic book series).

  As far as religion went, many people abandoned their faiths, while many others found new reason to reembrace theirs.

  One area where changes were subtler, but no less significant, was academia. According to a study conducted by the Quinnipiac University Poll, within a year of the events at Bernasconi Hills, physics majors had outnumbered those of all other subjects by three to one. Astronomy and astrophysics majors came in second and third.

  When he had enrolled at Brown, Shawn Ferris initially wanted to study astronomy. Later on, though, on the insistence of one of his professors, he switched to physics during his junior year.

  He was hard at work on an experiment in one of the university’s newly renovated labs when his lab partner, Carl, burst into the room one day, looking ghostly white and out of breath.

  “What’s going on?” Shawn asked, looking up from an electroscope.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  Carl took a second to take in some more air. “Leland. He’s back.”

  At first, the news reports were tentative. A thin, bearded American had been picked up wandering in the southern portion of the Sonoran Desert, dazed and dehydrated. While several Mexican officials had noticed a striking resemblance to Andrew Leland, nothing could be certain until the man was properly identified. After he was brought back to the States and the correct tests were administered, his identity was confirmed, via a live press conference by Los Angeles County Sheriff Randy Phillips: exactly six years, seven months, and twenty-two days from the date of his disappearance, Andrew Leland had returned from the sky.

  The twenty-four-hour news cycle went into overdrive. TV screens the world over were flooded with images of the emaciated-looking Leland, his long beard scraggly and unkempt, his eyes eerily vacant. However, if people had been expecting answers, they were in for a rude awakening. In a move that shocked and outraged the world, Leland refused to grant even a single interview request. More alarming, several media outlets reported that he was not cooperating with government agencies or scientists, either, instead insisting that he had been living in Mexico for the past six years, retired from scientific research, and working as a farmhand, and had no idea what all the fuss was about.

  When he finally agreed to meet with his old colleague Dr. Kazuo Murata, the latter, after spending nearly two hours with Leland, told the press that it seemed to him that Leland genuinely had no recollection of the event that had made him world famous. Leland’s ex-wife, Nancy Scott, who met with him briefly to discuss some financial matters, concurred.

  These claims, however, did little to quell the rising anger, and there were even calls to have Leland imprisoned for “treason against the human race,” as several pundits and politicians put it. But at the end of the day, there was no one who could force Leland to talk, and eventually, some three months after his reemergence, he disappeared once again. Not into the sky this time, but into the deep woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains or the dark hills of West Virginia or the swampy marshlands of Florida’s Everglades, depending on who your sources were.

  But if Andrew Leland thought becoming an old-fashioned hermit would make people forget about him, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Not since J. D. Salinger had picked up and moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, had any recluse inspired so much worldwide fascination. All across the globe, Andrew Leland “societies” sprang up, formal groups devoted to the study of the man and the mystery. There were even one or two cults, which built elaborate mythologies around Leland and worshiped him as a kind of religious figure. And of course, there were the endless alleged sightings, many of them reported early by AmberQ on Schrödinger’s Rat and feasted upon by the likes of Shawn Ferris, whose fascination with Leland had grown, over the course of four years in college, into a full-blown obsession.

  It was in response to one of AmberQ’s posts that Shawn, already at Columbia, had responded one night, “Up to here with this torture already—stop trolling and just tell us where the hell he is!” Shawn had of course meant it entirely as a joke. He had posted it on the board and not given it a second thought. Now, a month and a half later, she had apparently complied with his request.

  The next day, Shawn couldn’t focus in any of his classes. Ricardo, meanwhile, wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

  “’Cause unlike you, I actually give a shit about my future,” he quietly explained during their quantum mechanics seminar as their professor droned on in front of a whiteboard.

  While Shawn was less than happy to hear this, he didn’t have room in his brain to worry too much about it right now. He was utterly consumed by AmberQ’s message. Could she possibly be telling the truth? he asked himself. If she really did have access to that kind of information, why would she ever provide it to a random stranger online? That part definitely didn’t add up. At the same time, she’d been posting ostensibly secretive information for years. Also, what motive would she have to lie? He couldn’t think of any, but the whole thing seemed ridiculously far-fetched just the same. Still, whether the address was authentic or not, it was all he had right now and more than he’d ever had before.

  The last class of the day couldn’t end soon enough. When he finally got out, Shawn rushed back to his apartment, switched on his computer, opened up his word processor, and stared at the blank screen.

  The challenge that lay before him was enormous. He was going to try to enter into direct correspondence with a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with anyone. Even more problematic, the questions Shawn so desperately wanted answered concerned a topic that this man claimed to know absolutely nothing about, an event that he insisted never took place.

  Shawn would not be deterred. He would have to be creative, he decided. He would have to think entirely outside of the box.

  He would have to lie through his teeth.

  After several moments of deep thought, Shawn got to work and typed out the following letter:

  Dear Dr. Leland,

  My name is Shawn Ferris, and I am a William Godfrey Fellow in Columbia University’s physics program. I am writing to you today because, though I understand the chances for a response are slim, I feel that I have no other choice. Certain information has recently been entrusted to me and, while said information has little bearing on me, it affects you greatly. In fact, it is little exaggeration to say that you must be made aware of it at once.

  I understand that you may very well be telling the truth when you state that you have no recollection of the fantastical event that reportedly took place in Bernasconi Hills, California, and that it is certainly possible that all the time you were believed to be missing, you were actually living on a farm in Mexico. However, there is also a chance you have chosen to feign ignorance about what happened to you for reasons only you know. Either way, it is imperative that we meet and that I share with you the information I have. After all this time, you must finally know the truth!

  I will be traveling to Rochester, Minnesota, in two weeks to visit my ailing uncle. Please let me know whether you will have time to meet for an hour or so. I promise you that afterward, I will not bother you again. Furthermore, if you do not have time to meet, but can only talk by phone, please call me at (636) 555-0113. Alternatively, you can e-mail me at SFerris15@columbia.edu. I look forward to hearing from you.

  Best regards,

  Shawn Ferris

  After reading the letter back to himself, Shawn wondered whether he should delete his phone number. What if Leland called him and wanted to be told the information right away? Would he be able to make up some excuse on the spot? Then again, he could just respo
nd that he wasn’t able to speak about the matter over the phone. In the end, he opted to include it.

  Shawn had misgivings about the approach he had chosen. It was risky and obviously unethical. But he reminded himself that Leland was being no less honest himself with all his bullshit about having amnesia and living in Mexico. Leland had no right to hide the truth about his experiences from the rest of the world. And given its importance, any means for extracting that truth had to be necessarily just.

  Shawn mailed off the letter the next day. When two weeks went by and he hadn’t received any response, he began to get antsy. After six weeks had gone by, his impatience had reached its limit. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he wrote another letter. This time, he abandoned his earlier tact and left out the part about having special information for Leland, supposing Leland may have seen through it the first time around and been turned off. In the new letter, Shawn instead opted for honesty and explained just how much he felt Leland owed it to civilization at large to share what he had experienced and owed it to people like Shawn in particular. He mailed this out, and again, his letter was met with no reply. Some four weeks later, Shawn mailed another one. Two weeks after that, he mailed another.

  It would be a full ten months and fourteen letters later, long after he had been expelled from his program (his student ID card had been found at the foot of the cyclotron) that Shawn would finally receive some form of response.

  CHAPTER 4

  Downtown Alicante’s sights and sounds—the vendors hawking trinkets and their rowdy, haggling customers, the children playing after-breakfast poison tag in the street, the throngs of tourists and the overall hustle and bustle of the San Blas district—seemed to stream in through Rafael’s bedroom window all at once as his radio alarm blasted “Demente,” the pop song that had been hijacking Valencian airwaves since May. Rafael turned to his left, but Maria, his young wife, wasn’t there. He was surprised she would be up so early on a Sunday morning, but then again, he had no idea when she normally rose on weekends since he usually got up first or else slept until noon.