PROLOGUE: THE NIGHT EVERYTHING CHANGED
The coffee had gone cold an hour ago, but Marcus Chen kept drinking it anyway. That's what happened when you were three weeks behind on grading papers and the semester was careening toward finals like a runaway train. He sat cross-legged on his apartment floor, surrounded by a semicircle of student essays about the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, each one more painfully off-topic than the last.
"'In conclusion, AI is bad because of Terminator,'" he read aloud, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, Sarah. I showed you three peer-reviewed journals."
His phone buzzed. A text from his brother: Still coming tonight? Dad won't shut up about it.
Marcus glanced at the clock on his laptop 6:47 PM. The S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator launch was at nine. He'd promised his father he'd watch it with him, had promised three weeks ago when his eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas morning. Dr. Richard Chen had spent thirty years as a physics professor at Central City University, and tonight's launch was, in his words, "the culmination of everything we've dreamed about since Einstein."
Wouldn't miss it, he typed back. Bringing wine.
Dad says bring your brain instead. He wants to "discuss the implications."
Marcus smiled despite his exhaustion. Tell him my brain requires wine to function.
He set the phone down and stretched, his spine popping in three places. At twenty-eight, he was too young to feel this old. But that's what teaching philosophy to undergraduates did to you aged you in dog years. He hated it, though.so he switched to forenisics
His apartment was small, a one-bedroom in the Keystone District that he could barely afford on an adjunct professor's salary. But it was his. The walls were covered in bookshelves he'd assembled himself (slightly crooked, but functional), and his desk faced the window overlooking the street. He could see S.T.A.R. Labs from here, the building lit up like a beacon against the darkening sky.
Tonight, they'd make history. Or blow up half the city. His father insisted the former was far more likely.
Marcus wasn't so sure.
He'd done his research of course he had, he was his father's son—and the particle accelerator was ambitious to the point of recklessness. Dr. Harrison Wells was brilliant, no question, but brilliance and caution rarely went hand in hand. The safety protocols seemed solid on paper, but there was always that margin of error, that unpredictable variable that no amount of planning could account for.
Still, his father believed. And Marcus had learned long ago that sometimes belief mattered more than certainty.
His phone rang. Not a text this time an actual call. He saw the name and felt his stomach do that stupid flutter it always did.
"Hey, stranger," he answered, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he started gathering papers.
"Hey yourself." Ethan's voice was warm, slightly breathless. "You running late?"
"When am I not running late?"
"Fair point." He could hear the smile in his voice. "I'm at your dad's place. Brought Thai food. Your brother's already eaten half the spring rolls."
"Of course he has." Marcus stood, stepping over essay piles like they were landmines. "Tell him to save me at least two or I'm disowning him."
"Your dad wants to know if you've read the latest paper on dark matter collision theory."
"Tell him I've been reading essays about how AI is bad because of Terminator."
Ethan laughed, that easy, genuine laugh that had first caught his attention two years ago at a university mixer. He taught physics worked in his father's department, actually, which was how they'd met. It had been awkward at first, dating his father's colleague, but Ethan had navigated it with the same careful grace he brought to everything. They'd been together for eighteen months now, and Marcus still wasn't sure what they were. Serious? Casual? Heading toward something permanent?
He was a philosophy professor. He was supposed to be good at examining questions. But when it came to his own life, he was as clueless as his freshmen.
"I'll be there in thirty minutes," he said, already pulling on his jacket.
"Drive safe. It's getting crazy out there—everyone wants to see the launch."
"Will do. And Ethan?"
"Yeah?"
"Save me some pad thai."
"Already done. See you soon."
He hung up, grabbed his keys and the bottle of wine he'd bought yesterday, and took one last look at the essay disaster zone that was his living room. It would still be there tomorrow. Everything would still be there tomorrow.
Probably.
His father's house was in the suburbs, a modest two-story with a telescope permanently set up in the backyard. Marcus had grown up here, had spent countless nights out there with his dad, learning constellations and listening to him explain the mechanics of the universe in terms he could understand. His mother had died when Marcus was twelve cancer, quick and brutal and afterward, it had been just the three of them: Marcus, his father, and his younger brother David. They'd learned to be a family in a new configuration, learned to fill the spaces his mother had left behind.
The house was full when Marcus arrived. Not just his family and Ethan, but neighbors, colleagues from the university, even Mrs. Patterson from next door who definitely didn't understand particle physics but loved any excuse for a party.
"Marcus!" His father emerged from the kitchen, tall and thin with wire-rimmed glasses and hair that had gone completely silver in the past five years. He pulled him into a hug that smelled like Old Spice and coffee. "You made it."
"Told you I would." He handed him the wine. "Though I'm starting to think you invited half the city."
"Just a few friends. Everyone wants to witness history." His eyes were bright with excitement. "Do you understand what this means? If Wells succeeds tonight, we'll have proof of concepts we've only theorized about. We'll be able to study particle collision at scales we've never achieved. The applications for medicine, for energy, for—"
"Dad." David appeared, rescuing him with perfect timing. "You're doing the thing again."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you forget that not everyone speaks physics." David grinned at Marcus. "He's been like this all day. I had to physically stop him from setting up a whiteboard."
"I just thought people might want to understand—"
"We want to drink wine and watch pretty lights," Mrs. Patterson called from the living room. "Save the lecture for your students, Richard!"
His father laughed, shaking his head. "Fine, fine. Marcus, Ethan's on the back porch. He's been asking about you."
Marcus found him exactly where his father said, standing by the telescope, looking up at the sky. The sun had set completely now, and stars were beginning to emerge. S.T.A.R. Labs dominated the skyline, its particle accelerator building lit up like a spaceship ready for launch.
"Hey," he said softly.
He turned, and his face broke into that smile that still made his heart skip. Ethan was handsome in an understated way—dark hair, kind eyes, the kind of face that looked better the longer you knew him. "Hey. I was starting to think you'd gotten lost in essay hell."
"Almost did." He moved to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. "This is really happening, huh?"
"Looks like it." He glanced at him. "You nervous?"
"Should I be?"
"Your dad would say no. Wells would say no. But..." He paused. "I don't know. There's something about tonight that feels big. Like we're standing on the edge of something."
"That's either very profound or very ominous."
"Can't it be both?"
He smiled. "I suppose it can."
They stood in comfortable silence, watching the city prepare for its moment of transformation. Marcus thought about all the small choices that had led him here—choosing philosophy over physics, disappointing his father just a little bit, finding his own path. Meeting Ethan. Building a life that was his, ordinary and precious and real.
"Marcus," Ethan said, his voice suddenly serious. "I've been wanting to talk to you about something."
His heart rate picked up. "Okay."
"Not now—there's too many people. But soon. Maybe this weekend?"
"You're being mysterious."
"I'm being patient. There's a difference." He took his hand, laced his fingers through his. "I just want you to know that I—"
"Five minutes!" his father called from inside. "Everyone to the living room!"
The moment broke. Ethan squeezed his hand and smiled. "Later."
"Later," he agreed, though his mind was racing with possibilities.
They gathered around the television, the whole unlikely group of them, watching the live feed from S.T.A.R. Labs. Dr. Harrison Wells appeared on screen, confident and charismatic, explaining what was about to happen in terms that made it sound both revolutionary and perfectly safe.
"He's good," David muttered. "I almost believe him."
"Shh," their father said, leaning forward.
Marcus found himself holding his breath as the countdown began. Ten. Nine. Eight.
Ethan's hand found his again.
Seven. Six. Five.
"This is it," his father whispered.
Four. Three. Two.
One.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the sky lit up—not from S.T.A.R. Labs, but from everywhere at once. A wave of energy rippled outward, visible even from miles away, and the television feed cut to static.
"What—" someone started.
The lights went out.
Then came the thunder, a rolling boom that shook the house. Marcus ran to the window and saw it: lightning, but wrong, spreading across the sky in a web of impossible colors. Purple and gold and electric blue, branching and rebranching like veins.
"Oh my God," Ethan breathed beside him.
"Dad?" Marcus turned. "Dad, what's happening?"
But his father was already moving, grabbing his phone, trying to call someone. "The accelerator—something went wrong. The containment field must have—"
Another boom, closer this time. Marcus saw the lightning strike the house across the street, saw sparks fly. People were screaming now, running for cover.
"Everyone get away from the windows!" his father shouted.
Marcus started to move, started to follow Ethan toward the interior of the house. But something made him look back, made him turn toward the window one more time.
He saw the lightning coming.
It was beautiful and terrible, a bolt of pure energy arcing down from the impossible sky. He had time to think, absurdly, about his ungraded papers, about the conversation he and Ethan would never have, about all the ordinary moments he'd taken for granted.
Then the lightning hit.
Pain. Blinding, absolute, erasing everything else. He was aware of falling, of Ethan screaming his name, of his father's hands reaching for him. But it all seemed distant, muffled, like he was underwater.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was a strange image, burned into his retinas: a metal cap, intricate and alien, covered in circuitry that pulsed with the same impossible colors as the lightning. It was there and not there, real and imagined, a ghost of something that shouldn't exist.
The Thinker's cap, though he didn't know that name yet.
He didn't know anything yet.
Except that nothing would ever be ordinary again.