The Sheep Meadow at twilight: silvery light, wet leaves on the grass.
Olive paused for a moment to orient herself, then walked toward the ancient double silhouette of the Dakota.
Hundred-story towers rose up behind it.
Credit: Simon and Schuster
Did Olive wish she could live on Earth?
She vacillated on the question.
Colony Two was soothing in its symmetry and its order.
Sometimes order can be relentless.
This was in Red Deer, four days into the tour.
Outside the hotel room window, the lights of residential towers glimmered in the dark.
“Don’t be pessimistic,” Dion said.
“Think of that quote I’ve got pinned up in my office.”
" ‘It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,’ " Olive said.
“How’s work going, speaking of your office?”
“I got assigned to the new project.”
Dion was an architect.
“The new university?”
“Yeah, kind of.
A centre for the study of physics, but also…
I signed an ironclad confidentiality agreement, so don’t tell anyone?”
I won’t tell a soul.
But what’s so secret about the architecture of a university?"
“It’s not quite…
I’m not sure it’s exactly a university.”
“There’s some serious weirdness in the blueprints.”
“What kind of weirdness?”
“Why would a university need a tunnel to the police?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.
There are so many passageways between them that it’s functionally the same building.”
“You’re right,” Olive said, “that seems weird.”
“Well, it’s a good project for my portfolio, I guess.”
Olive understood from his tone that he wanted to change the subject.
She was on an airship over the Atlantic when the answer to the puzzle came to her.
Research teams had been working on time travel for decades, both on Earth and in the colonies.
What is time travel if not a security problem?
KNOPF, AN IMPRINT OF THE KNOPF DOUBLEDAY GROUP, A DIVISION OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC.
COPYRIGHT 2022 BY EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
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