July, 1983 —Surrey, Engnd

  Surrey continued to suffer through its extended heatwave. July 1983 was officially the hottest month ever recorded. Everyone found something to compin about, even the Americans in Dr. Martell’s research group.

  “Ninety degrees and no air conditioning!” Carol protested. “Back in Boston, we could at least install a window unit.”

  All the windows in the b were open, but they were bare. Ed Martell was out trying to scrounge up some window fans, but the AC units were a complete non-starter.

  “You should have brought a couple with you then,” Alex said as he gnced at her before turning to the other American, who was not sweating at all.

  “That’s cheating. You said you wouldn’t do any of that on campus.”

  “Unless you are going to share with the rest of us,” Delphine mischievously added.

  “I think that’s only fair,” Edith said with a broad smile as she looked at him. “All or none.”

  “Fine,” Aric said. “Those in favor of all, raise your hand.”

  Everyone raised a hand. Carol raised two.

  “The alls have it,” he answered as he widened the energy field around him until it enveloped the entire room.

  Everyone sighed as the dry 69-degree air immediately began to have an effect.

  “Remercions les dieux, grands et petits!” Delphine said as she took hold of the bottom of her shirt and began to fan it up and down. Thank the Gods greater and lesser!

  Ed Martell returned—a box fan in each hand, a few minutes ter to a room full of merriment.

  The ughter stopped as soon as Ed walked in.

  Aric’s action had technically broken their unwritten code—and everyone braced for a lecture. Instead, Martell dropped the fans with a shrug.

  “Close the windows. You’re letting all the cold air out.”

  Dr. Martell studied the spectrographic results.

  “It’s some form of energy. Something we haven’t seen yet. We know that much at least, even if we don’t know what it is.”

  Hank shook his head. “I don’t like it. I don’t like that we can’t detect it directly. It’s invisible. It doesn’t show up on any detector we have.”

  Ever since Aric arrived Hank had taken on the role of unofficial doomsayer. But in this case, Edith was forced to agree.

  “We’re searching in the dark. Looking for something that we only think might be there.”

  “We know it’s there,” Carol said. “We see a reaction every time he uses his powers. He generates ripples in the background. Those we can definitely see.

  “It’s not like they’re hard to detect,” Alex added. “They’re an order of magnitude above baseline.”

  “Cosmic background has been fluctuating since the universe was formed,” Hank argued. “It could just be that. Random variation. Or some local phenomenon.”

  Dr. Martell was growing tired of Hank’s attitude, but the man did have a point, however small. “Cosmic microwave background fluctuations take hundreds of millions of years to evolve. On our time scale, they’re effectively constant. But you’re right on your other point. This is definitely a local phenomenon.”

  “They’re baryon acoustic osciltions,” Carlos finally spoke up. “Like the ones that formed patterns in the early universe. That’s what the survey shows. The same phenomenon — but happening right here, right now. It has to be a bck hole. There can’t be any other expnation.”

  Hank wasn’t quite done being a pain in the ass. “There can be. Maybe we just haven’t found it yet.”

  “Per amor de Déu, what else do we need to convince you?” Carlos asked loudly. “You can see it in the data yourself. Each time he uses his power, we see the local background change. It acquires an acoustic modution. He’s generating acoustic waves. In space. Where it shouldn’t be possible. And they stop when he stops.” For the love of God

  Alex pointed out a fact. “They’re baryon acoustic osciltions, which are definitely possible.”

  “Maybe we’re just in a random over-dense region?” Edith asked as she gnced at the faces around her.

  Carol shook her head. “There’s nothing random about this. It’s him. He’s doing it. He’s drawing them in when he uses his powers. Draws them in and then creates acoustic waves.”

  Alex stood up and pced his hands on his head. They were missing something. “But what’s amplifying them to this degree? Gactic BAO scale is about 150 Mpc. His are ten times that. He’s pulling from something we don’t see.”

  Delphine looked at the printed image in her hand, which showed a clear ring pattern. She held it up so everyone could see it.

  “Something we do see. This ring is caused by gravitational lensing. That much curvature in spacetime suggests he’s tapping into something massive. And not in our sor system. Maybe not even in our gaxy.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment.

  Ed Martell scratched his head. “I need to run this by a colleague at Harvard. If we’re seeing it, others will too. Like Alex said — they’re big. Big enough to get noticed.”

  He stood up and stretched before addressing his team. “It’s been a long day. Get some rest, everyone.”

  Carol stood up. “I’m going to home the dish, and run another ft field calibration.”

  “You just ran one this morning,” Delphine objected. It was already te, and Carol was signing herself up for two more hours of work.

  “I’m doing it anyway,” Carol said, brushing off the protest.

  “I’ll help,” Carlos said, which got a wide smile from Carol.

  “I’ll start the backup of today’s data,” Alex offered.

  Edith left without a word. Hank watched her leave. He knew exactly where she was going.

  "I’ll talk to Aric," she said softly, just before the door closed behind her.

  July, 1983 —Surrey, Engnd

  Aric knew she was coming. She felt it, just like he felt it. The invisible connection that had formed between them on a cold rainy rooftop was alive and well. She could have closed her eyes and let that bond guide her to the rge tree about a quarter mile from their b.

  It was strong, yet tenuous—like a microfiment of adamantine. Invisible to the eye, but undeniably real. It was yet another thing that he could do without having the faintest idea how he was doing it. Edith hadn’t told anyone else about it, it was their secret —hers and Aric’s. Like her confession of love. Something for the two of them alone to share. No one else.

  He hadn’t said I love you back. She hadn’t expected him to, but it still would have been nice to hear. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her. He did. That was also something she could feel through the invisible strand. He cared for her a great deal, probably as much as she cared for him. But she’d felt the need to bel it, and he didn’t. And when all was said and done, bels weren’t important. Substance mattered, whether you could see it with the naked eye, or only feel it through an undefinable bond.

  Through that bond she had felt something unexpected — loneliness. Not just the quiet kind, but a deep, aching solitude. It stunned her. How could someone so beautiful be so alone?

  “I’m sorry,” he’d said, gently pulling away — the connection snapping like a door shut softly but firmly.

  She caught the flicker of pain in his eyes before he looked away.

  “It goes too far sometimes,” he murmured. “Things leak through—things I’d rather keep hidden.”

  “Like loneliness?” she’d asked, careful not to break the fragile stillness between them.

  He nodded but didn’t meet her gaze. She knew that look — it meant he was trying to stay composed.

  “But why?” she whispered. “You’re—”

  Beautiful, she’d almost said. Untouchable. Not like the rest of us who had to try.

  “I’m a freak,” he said softly. “Always on dispy. I can’t go out in public without it turning into a scene. You’ve seen it.”

  She had definitely seen it.

  The unasked for, unwanted attention. The stream of women wanting to get close, to meet the stunning stranger. It didn’t matter that the two of them arrived together. Sat together. She was invisible to them. And their boyfriends, when present, staring daggers at Aric. Just like Hank. They’d taken to ordering in rather than eating out. Which made him feel more guilty that she was stuck inside just like he was. On those evenings she’d felt like the luckiest woman on the pnet, having him so close, all to herself.

  But she understood where he was coming from. At the beginning she’d gotten upset —jealous— whenever he smiled politely at the infinity of women that stared at him. Later, after the roof, when she could feel the difference, she knew it was just out of politeness. But those women had taken it as a come-ahead signal, which had at times turned into a whole thing, sometimes including a jealous boyfriend. At least once, that thing had almost turned violent as the rge boyfriend approached with clenched fists and hatred on his reddened face.

  Then she felt the air begin to hum.

  Aric hadn’t moved. But the look on his face as he stared the man down caused her heart to skip and her breath to catch. She’d never seen him like that before. It scared her. She’d caught a faint whiff of something —a burning smell— as the guy’s face dispyed a brief fsh of terror. It receded as quickly as it had arrived. Just like the boyfriend did as he fled, his girlfriend in hot pursuit asking what was wrong.

  She had girlfriends who were always fending off unwanted attention—and the accusations that followed, from men and women alike. But she’d never imagined a man could face the same. Not until Aric.

  His situation was so much more complicated. His abilities made it so. She realized suddenly how distant he had to keep everyone in his life. The ones that didn’t know. Even the ones that did know. Like her.

  How would she have reacted if she’d met him before? Not as a test subject, but just a bloke in a pub? A mindbogglingly attractive bloke, but inside just a man, not a demigod?

  You’d never have had the nerve to talk to him. And even if you had, there would have been yers upon yers of supermodel hot women between you and him. You’d have had to fight your way through.

  But if she had talked to him, and gotten to know him, how would she have reacted on the roof if she hadn’t known?

  You didn’t know, she continued to argue with herself. No one knew. Not even Dr. Martell. You were just as stunned as everyone else.

  And you reacted by telling him you loved him.

  The temperature was finally falling, and a soft breeze pyed across her skin. Her sleeveless blouse left bare the delicate pattern of dark lines winding from her fingertips to her shoulder—fainter now than they had been the morning after the rooftop.

  The bathroom mirror had still been fogged, her hair still damp. She was brushing her teeth when she noticed—something.

  She wiped the condensation from the mirror with her hand, then froze, toothbrush forgotten in her mouth, as her eyes and her brain tried to make sense of what they were seeing. When the final piece of the puzzle slid into pce with a mental click, she realized what she was looking at—or at least how the intricate pattern of lines had come to be there.

  “Do you have a moment to talk?” she’d asked Aric as soon as he arrived at the b. They were alone for the moment, but Edith knew that wouldn’t st.

  She closed the door to the supply room behind them, then rolled up her sleeve and showed him the lines. He smiled slightly as he looked at her arm, then rolled up his own sleeve—his right arm, the one he’d used to reach out to her on the roof with a tendril of light. The pattern there was simir to hers, but not identical. Like two voices in perfect harmony.

  They held their marked arms side by side, comparing the lines, as Edith spoke.

  “So either we got really drunk and got matching tattoos… or yesterday, on the roof—”

  “—Or yesterday, on the roof,” Aric echoed, trailing off.

  “I didn’t feel it at the time. Or after. I only noticed it this morning. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like… anything.”

  Aric closed his eyes. A moment ter, Edith felt the air begin to hum, and the lines on both their arms fred to life—glowing with soft, celestial fire.

  Her mind reeled.

  Hail Mary, full of grace—

  But then it was gone. The humming ceased. The light faded.

  “Okay,” Aric said, exhaling. “So it was me. I did it. For a second I wasn’t sure.”

  “You didn’t know you could do that? You’ve never done it before?”

  “No. Neither. But I’ve never met… I’ve never felt like…”

  He didn’t finish. The smile on his face didn’t quite mask the pain.

  Not pain, she realized, as the thread between them came alive—an echo of something that used to be there, now gone.

  The loneliness she’d felt on the rooftop—the one that had shocked her with its depth—had vanished. In its pce was something warm, flowing into her like the water of life. She had to fight the sudden urge to cry.

  She reached out with her right hand and traced the darkened lines—first on his arm, then on her own.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said softly, past the lump in her throat.

  Aric smiled and pced a hand gently on her cheek, his gaze locked on hers.

  “Beautiful,” he echoed.

  Her first glimpse of Aric showed him sitting on the ground with his back resting against the trunk of a massive weeping willow. As usual, there were three or four women seated nearby, talking and ughing, though mostly amongst themselves. Aric would occasionally smile or say a word or two, which would reanimate the group. As she got closer she could see the redheaded girl inch closer to him. His chaste amusement at the situation flowed through the thread, which made her ugh. When their eyes eventually met he stood up.

  “Hi,” she said as he stepped out of the female circle.

  “Hi,” he replied as he took her hands in his, which caused the circle to defte, and the redhead to give Edith a foul look. “Done?”

  “More or less. Carol’s at the dish. Carlos offered to help her.”

  Aric’s eyebrows went up as a mischievous smile painted his face. “Did he?”

  They began to retrace Edith’s steps, walking hand in hand. Edith’s mood was improving by the second. “He did. If she were here she’d thank you. Carlos is sweet. But he knows a lost cause when he sees one. He knows I’m off the market.”

  “He’s a good guy,” Aric said. “I like him. I like them all. Even Hank.”

  Even after the roof, he could still surprise her. “Hank? Really?”

  “I understand him. He’s hurt, and he’s acting out. I’ve seen it before. He was wooing you and I stepped in at the st minute...you get the idea. He lost you, and it broke his heart.”

  “He might have thought that, but I didn’t. Whatever cim he imagined he had, he was very much mistaken.”

  Aric stopped walking and turned to look at her. “No one can cim you. Not any part of you. You’re a free spirit, an unstoppable force. You set your path. You make your own choices.”

  They were standing close. She stepped in and wrapped her arms around him —stood on tiptoes to bring her mouth to his ear.

  “I’ve already made my choice,” she said before she kissed his lips for the first time.