"I'm not sure I'd want to go on without her."

"She, doubtless, would wish that you would go on, even if she herself could not. And, forgive my bluntness, but she is not your first wife, nor you her first husband. I do not denigrate the love you feel, but you are, quite literally, simply phases in each other's lives."

"And if I choose not to participate?"

"My expertise is in pharmaceuticals, Dr. Simcoe. If you choose not to participate, or if you feign acceptance, but give us reason to doubt your sincerity, you will be injected with mnemonase; it will break down all of your short-term memory. You will forget this entire encounter. If you really do not desire immortality, please take that option — it is painless and has no lasting side effects. And now, Dr. Simcoe, I really must have your answer. What do you choose?"

Doreen picked Lloyd up at the airport in Montpelier. "Thank God you're home!" she said, as soon as Lloyd got out of baggage claim. "What happened? Why did you miss the earlier flight?"

Lloyd hugged his wife; God, how he loved her — and how he hated being away from her. But then he shook his head. "It was the damnedest thing. I completely forgot that the return flight was at four o'clock." He shrugged a bit, and managed a small smile. "I guess I'm getting old."

Theo sat in his office. It had once, of course, been Gaston Beranger's office, but his five-year term had long ago ended, and these days CERN wasn't big enough to require a Director-General. So Theo, as director of the TTC, had made it his own. Old Gaston was still around; he was professor emeritus in physics at the University of Paris at Orsay. He and Marie-Claire were still happily married, and they had a terrific, honor-student son, and a daughter, as well.

Theo found himself staring out the window. It had been a month since the great blackout — the Flashforward in which everyone lost consciousness for an hour. But they'd done Klaatu proud: not a single fatality had been reported worldwide.

Theo was still alive; he'd avoided his own murder. He was going to live — well, who knew how long? Decades more, certainly. A new lease on life.

And, he realized with a start, he didn't know what he was going to do with all that time.

It was autumn; too late to literally smell the roses. But figuratively?

He got up, let the inner office door slide aside, let the outer office door do the same, made his way to the elevator, rode down to the ground floor, walked along a corridor, passed through the lobby, and exited the building.

The sky was cloudy; still, he put on his sunglasses.

When he'd been a teenager, he'd run from Marathon to Athens. When he was done, he'd thought his heart would never stop pounding, thought he'd never stop gasping for breath. He remembered that moment vividly — crossing the finish line, completing the historic run.

There were other moments he remembered vividly, of course. His first kiss; his first sexual encounter; specific images — postcards in his mind — from that trip to Hong Kong; graduating from university; the day he met Lloyd; breaking his arm once playing lacrosse. And, of running their first LHC experiment, the jump cut—

But—

But those sharp moments, those crisp memories, why, they were all from two decades or more in the past.

What had happened lately? What peak experiences, what exquisite sorrows, what giddy heights?

Theo walked along; the air was cool, bracing. It gave everything an edge, definition, form, a clarity that had been missing ever since—

Ever since he'd started investigating his own death.

Twenty-one years, obsessed by one thing.

Did Ahab have sharp memories? Oh, yes — losing his leg, no doubt. But after that — after he'd begun his quest? Or was it all a blur, month after month, year after year, everything and everyone subsumed?

But no — no. Theo was no Ahab; he wasn't hell-bent. He had found time for many things between 2009 and today, here, in 2030.

And yet—

And yet he'd never allowed himself to make plans for the future. Oh, he'd continued to work at his job, and had been promoted several times, but…

He'd once read a book about a man who learned at age nineteen that he was at risk for Huntington's disease, a hereditary disorder that would rob him of his faculties by the time he reached middle age. That man had bent himself to the task of making a mark before his allotted span was up. But Theo hadn't done that. Oh, he'd made some good progress in his physics work, and, of course, he did have his Nobel. But even that moment — receiving the medallion — was out of focus.

Twenty-one years, overshadowed. Even knowing that the future was mutable, even promising himself he wouldn't let his search for his potential killer take over his life, two decades had slipped by, mostly lost — if not actually skipped over, certainly dulled, reduced, lessened.

No fatal flaw? It is to laugh.

Theo continued walking. A chorus of birds chirped in the background.

No fatal flaw? That had been the most arrogant thought of all. Of course he had a fatal flaw; of course he had a hamartia. But it was the mirror image of Oedipus's; Oedipus had thought he could escape his fate. Theo, knowing the future was changeable, had still been dogged by the fear that he couldn't outwit destiny.

And so—

And so he hadn't married, hadn't had children; in that, he was even less than Ahab.

Nor had he read War and Peace. Or the Bible. Indeed, Theo hadn't read a novel for — what? — maybe ten years.

He hadn't traveled the world, except for where his old quest for clues had taken him.

He hadn't learned gourmet cooking.

Hadn't taken bridge lessons.

Hadn't climbed Mont Blanc, even part way.

And now, incredibly, he suddenly had — well, if not all the time in the world, at least a lot more time.

He had free will; he had a future to make.

It was a heady thought. What do you want to be when you grow up? The cartoon-character clothing was indeed gone. As was his youth; he was forty-eight. For a physicist, that was ancient. He was too old, in all likelihood, to make another major breakthrough.

A future to make. But how would he define it?

As laser-bright moments; diamond-hard memories; crisp and clear. A future lived, a future savored, a future of moments so sharp and pointed that they would sometimes cut and sometimes glint so brightly it would hurt to contemplate them, but sometimes, too, would be joyous, an absolute, pure, unalloyed joy, the kind of joy he hadn't felt much if at all lo these twenty-one years.

But from now on—

From now on, he would live.

But what to do first?

The name rose again, from his past, from his subconscious.

Michiko.

She was in Tokyo, of course. He'd gotten an E-card from her at Christmas, and another on his birthday.

She'd divorced Lloyd — her second husband. But she'd never married again after that.

You know, he could go to Tokyo, look her up. That would be a wonderful moment.

But, God, it had been so many years. So much water under the bridge.

Still…

Still, he had always been very fond of her. So intelligent — yes, that's what he thought of first; that wonderful mind, that sharp wit. But he couldn't deny that she was pretty, too. Maybe even more than pretty; certainly graceful and poised, and always immaculately dressed in the currently fashionable style.

But…

But twenty-one years had passed. There had to be someone new after all that time, no?

No. There wasn't; he'd have heard gossip. Of course, he was younger than her, but that didn't really matter, did it? She would be — what? — fifty-six now.

He couldn't just pick himself up and go to Tokyo.