I’ve been back at work for three weeks, getting back in the groove. A one-month chip from AA sits on my desk. A month without drinking. Point Machine and I shoot baskets at lunch some days.
He’s returned to his frogs and seems happier now. The events of the past few months have fallen into the background. The fire gave management a new perspective on security; armed guards now serve at the gate. And many a research lab has questioned the wisdom of pursuing a line of inquiry likely to inspire people to burn down your buildings. A chilling effect is the term sometimes used when discussing the future of research in quantum consciousness. But the work will go on.
I’d wanted to see what Feynman saw.
I’d seen that and more.
On some days I walk into Point Machine’s lab, and I help him with his aquariums. I talk to my sister twice a week on the phone, and one afternoon a thought occurred to me.
If we fashion our own worlds, what would mine look like? It might look like this.
In the hospital, Jeremy had explained how Satvik was found. Dead in a car accident. I’d missed the funeral.
Joy’s room is vacant. Her work space empty.
The first day back at the lab, I’d stood in her room and looked for pieces of her personality. I found a book in braille. A music chart.
When I asked Jeremy where she’d gone, he said, “She didn’t leave a two-week notice.”
“Did she give a reason?”
“Nothing. I’d hoped you might know more than me. I know you two were close.”
“Not as close as you’d think.”
The unspoken possibility: She was one of the syndrome. One of those who died. Though her apartment had been searched and turned up nothing. No body had ever surfaced.
Jeremy didn’t ask what I was working on right away. He took a few days. Showed remarkable restraint. Or maybe he was half-afraid of what the answer might be. When he finally did ask, cup of coffee in his hand as he stood in the doorway to my office, I said only, “Quantum mechanics.”
“Meaning what?”
“I’m continuing the research I was doing before I came here.”
He did his best not to let it show. He hid his smile behind the coffee mug. It was the thing he’d hired me for, all those months ago. The thing I’d been afraid to do.
Point Machine showed more surprise when I told him over lunch.
“Why would you do that?”
I thought of the frog in the well. The more you study quantum mechanics, the less you believe.
You are laughing. Why are you laughing?
And that was the key. That’s why it was different now.
I believed in the world. But I knew it wasn’t the only one.
* * *
After lunch, I went up to my office. I stared at the marker board.
I began to write out the formula. The same formula as before. The one I couldn’t finish. The one that had driven me away, back to Boston, to this cold place by the water.
From my left hand, the symbols unspooled across the white expanse. Their inescapable logic, assembling a structure like a tower. Higher and higher. There was a beauty in the foundations I laid.
My marker slowed. I was coming to the point where I’d stopped before. Where the known ends and a wilderness begins.
I stared at the board, and this time was different.
A subtle change, and I saw a way forward.
Narrow at first. Like a light under a door.
There was a moment then when I could almost imagine myself in the hospital, in pajamas, scrawling on walls with a black magic marker.
But I pushed the thought away and stared at the board.
And then I knew just what to do. I saw it so clearly, the way it would go, the shining trail that would lead me out from the darkness.
I began to write.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aczel, Amir. The Jesuit and the Skull. 2007.
Bohm, David. Quantum Theory. 1951.
Bohr, Niels. Niel’s Bohr’s Philosophy of Physics. 1987.
Bostrom, Nick. “The Simulation Argument.” Philisophical Quarterly 53 (2003).
Feynman, Richard. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. YouTube.
Heisenburg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution of Modern Science. 2007.
Hughs, R. I. G. The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. 1992.
Kirmani, A., T. Hutchison, J. Davis, and R. Raskar. “Looking Around the Corner Using Transient Imaging.” Computer Vision, 2009, IEEE 12th International Conference.
Meadows, Kenneth. Shamanic Experience. 1991.
Ottaviani, Jim, and Leland Myrick. Feynman. 2011.
Peitgen, Heinz-Otto, Hartmut Jürgens, and Dietmar Saupe. Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science. 1992.
Plato. B. Jowett, trans. The Complete Works of Plato. 2012.
Pribram, Karl H. Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing. 1991.
Raskar, Ramesh. “Ramesh Raskar: Imaging at a Trillion Frames per Second.” TED Talks. 2012.
Talbot, Michael. The Holographic Universe. 1991.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to acknowledge all the scientists, mathematicians, cosmologists, and philosophers who have worked hard to push forward the limits of human understanding. If at any point in this story the science is right, the credit is theirs. If at any point in this story the science is wrong, the fault is my own.
I’d also like to thank my family, who put up with me while I second-guessed myself for two years while writing this book.
I’d like to thank my editor, Michael Signorelli, who went above and beyond the call of duty on this, holding up a lamp for me when I was totally lost in the darkness. This book probably never would have been finished without you. You helped me find the real story in the story. I’d like to thank my agent, Seth Fishman, who is more than just an agent, and without whom I wouldn’t have had a novel career in the first place. I’d like to thank Stella Tan, Gillian Blake, Steve Rubin, Brooke Parsons, Christopher O’Connell, and the entire Holt team.
I’d like to thank my mother and my father. I count myself very blessed to be your son. Better parents I could never have asked for. I’d also like to thank Richard Feynman.
Lastly, I’d like to thank all my old lab buddies and fellow microscope jockies, you know who you are.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TED KOSMATKA was born and raised in Chesterton, Indiana, and spent more than a decade working in various laboratories where he sometimes used electron microscopes. He is the author of Prophet of Bones and The Games, a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel and one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2012. His short fiction has been nominated for both the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards and has appeared in numerous Year’s Best anthologies. He now lives in the Pacific Northwest and works as a writer in the video-game industry. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY TED KOSMATKA
The Games
Prophet of Bones
Thank you for buying this
Henry Holt and Company ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part II
Chapter 16
C
hapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part III
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Ted Kosmatka
Copyright
THE FLICKER MEN. Copyright © 2015 by Ted Kosmatka. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Rick Pracher
Cover photograph © Alex James Bramwell/Shutterstock
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Kosmatka, Ted, 1973–
The flicker men: a novel / Ted Kosmatka.—First edition.
pages; cm
ISBN 978-0-8050-9619-4 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-8050-9620-0 (electronic copy) I. Title.
PS3611.O74923F58 2015
813'.6—dc23
2014041149
First Edition: July 2015