Day One

I try to turn it on again—”

“It’s nothing but a weapon, a Trojan horse to be used against you. Against us.” Weller took a step toward her, and Hanscomb shrank back, as if fearful of being struck. “They’re after us,” he said. “Don’t you get it?” He looked around at all of them again. “The singularity is here, and it’s not what we all thought it would be. It’s not a new beginning; it’s an ending.”

* * *

Hawke had written about it before, in a series of early articles he’d done for the online news blog Timeline that explored concepts rather than offering any real insight. Coined by a science-fiction writer and made popular by futurist visionary Ray Kurzweil, the “singularity” referred to the moment when machines would blend with and then transcend their makers, becoming self-aware and independent. Kurzweil argued that the moment would usher in a new utopia. Others felt it made the future unknowable, a black hole in time after which the world would be impossible to predict. But all of them agreed that the time would come, most likely in the twenty-first century, and that it would change humanity forever.

The singularity. It was nothing more than an idea that framed something difficult to express, Hawke thought. Weller had lost his mind.

Everyone began talking at once, Vasco coming farther down the aisle as Hanscomb argued more vehemently, holding her small clutch in both hands and pleading her case as the others converged upon her like some senseless mob. It was like she held her husband in that clutch, Hawke thought, rather than a useless piece of machinery that was never going to reach him. Even if what Weller was saying was wrong and the phone was harmless, there was no signal, no way to get through.

The rabbi came out from behind the table, striding forward in his tallith like a man possessed by a higher calling, his congregation falling in behind him in lockstep. Hawke, nearly at the entrance to the vestibule, faded back, past where Price stood and away from them all, his body shaking now like a junkie coming off a fix. He wanted darkness, quiet, a moment alone. He needed to think.

Get to a checkpoint. You’ll be safe there.

As the arguing escalated, the sound of sirens outside made Hawke go to the temple doors. He opened them and peered out, his head and shoulders exposed.

The street outside was eerily empty, looking more like a war zone than the Upper East Side, except for a police car that had pulled up through the swirling smoke next to the Cadillac SUV. Two cops were advancing upon a man on the sidewalk holding a laptop case. No, not just any case.

It was the one Weller had carried out from his office. They’d left it somewhere on the street when the crash happened, completely forgetting about it in the rush to safety.

Where the hell had everyone gone?

The acrid smell of burning plastic and rubber wafted into the temple. Something Hawke couldn’t quite explain brought chills to the back of his neck. He peered out into the street, the red and blue lights from the cop car bouncing off the smoke and making it harder to see. The man holding the case was close to Weller’s age and build, dressed casually in sneakers, jeans and polo-style shirt, glasses perched on his nose, his thinning hair cropped close to his skull. The cops came with guns drawn and tight, shuffling steps, muscles tense in shooters’ poses, acting like the man was a wanted criminal. They barked orders at him, but Hawke couldn’t make out the words. The man kept shaking his head emphatically. He held out the case at arm’s length, as if making an offering. It was heavy, and he had trouble keeping it there.

While one cop kept his gun trained at the man’s head, the other grabbed the case and stepped back. He knelt on the broken curb for a long moment, his back to Hawke, apparently examining the security latch, unable to open it. He put a hand to his ear, as if listening to an earpiece, nodded once, then said something to his partner, who glanced at him and then back at the man, who stood frozen in place with his hands raised, the universal expression of surrender.

Hawke hesitated at the doors, itching to move, but the cops’ demeanor gave him pause. There was something about the way they were acting; the tension in the air felt wrong. The man seemed to feel it, too; he was shaking his head again, starting to back away almost imperceptibly, his arms dropping until the cop with his gun trained on him ordered him to halt.

The cop with the case stood up and scanned the empty street around them, then looked at the other, who took a single step forward. As the man put his hands up again and began to speak, both cops shot him through the palms, twin bullets blowing his brains out through the back of his skull to splatter on the concrete behind him like an abstract painting come to life.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

12:35 P.M.

WHEN THOMAS HAD JUST TURNED TWO YEARS OLD, Hawke lost him as they left the park three streets over from their apartment. It was a small park, little more than a triangle of green carved out of a block of old brick buildings, their lower floors converted to shops, the upper-section apartments looking out at one another across the grass. They’d been there several times before, but that day was different. It started out innocently enough and ended up dissolving into hell.

Robin was out for coffee with a friend from college, and Hawke bundled Thomas up for the fall weather and took him out to play, more to burn time before Robin returned than because of any desire either of them had for exercise. It wouldn’t have mattered much; there wasn’t enough space to do a lot of running or have a play structure of any kind. Hawke sat on the single bench near the end of the green triangle and watched Thomas totter around on chubby little-boy legs, clutching that lion he’d had since the day he was born. He was fascinated by all the things little boys were fascinated by: a dandelion gone to seed and poking up through rocky soil, a worm coiling in the sun, a crow that landed on the other side of the park and hopped sideways, tilting its head and staring with watchful, beady eyes until Thomas turned in its direction and it lifted away, flapping its wings and cawing.

He looked at Hawke, questioning. “That’s a bird,” Hawke said. “A big black bird.”

Thomas pointed in the direction of the crow, now a speck in the bright sky. “Bud,” he said, his face serious. “Big back bud.” Hawke nodded, keeping his own face carefully neutral, his heart swelling; although bright, Thomas didn’t speak much, and he was already beginning to display a need for order and symmetry and perfection. He rarely took a chance on anything he couldn’t say perfectly. But he was studying things, learning, trying to understand and communicate. This was one of those moments Hawke knew he would remember, another small thread of the web that bound them together. He had been single, and then almost without warning he was married; childless, and then he had a child. Hawke had begun to define himself as Thomas’s dad, rather than John Hawke, and he was surprised by how little that bothered him.

He wanted to give Thomas the stability he never had, the sense that his father would be there for him, no matter what. Most parents think of themselves as their children’s protectors; they think they are far more important in a child’s life than the other way around. Hawke wondered if that was the case or if he would come to realize, too late, that he could no longer live without his son.

They stayed for less than twenty minutes. When they left, Thomas wanted to walk in front of the stroller and Hawke let him, following closely down the sidewalk to make sure he didn’t suddenly change direction and stumble into the street. When Hawke’s cell phone chirped, he dug it out of his pocket to glance at the screen: a text from Robin saying she was on her way home. When he looked up again, not ten seconds later, Thomas was gone.

Hawke whirled, looking back at the park, expecting to see him at any moment. But the boy was gone. Hawke’s heart paused and swelled in his chest, blocking his throat like a balloon, the silence drawing out until his pulse began to pound like a jackhammer and adrenaline flooded his veins. He whirled again, scanning the street, the row of buildings to his left, the empty stroller, panic lighting him up, making him wild as he called out Thomas’s name, softly and then louder, his voice cracking at its height.