Slightly irritated, Billy set the phone aside, about to explain to his friend how he’d remembered the signature of Prof. Dr. Henry Thandros on one of the reports in the Rubik’s Cube, and wanted to give even the slim chance that the informant might lead them to him.
But Isaac had other concerns. His eyes went wide, staring past Billy. As if he’d seen a ghost, he raised his hand and pointed behind Billy.
"Damn, I don’t believe it," he said. "Look!"
"What is it?"
"Look, Billy!"
Billy hesitated, Isaac’s fearful expression making him feel completely on edge. He turned around and instantly locked onto the flatscreen on the back wall of Burger’s Paradise. A young blonde newscaster folded her hands over her notes, reading what was clearly a breaking news report from the scrolling text above the camera. Her cherry-red lips matched her blazer, which provided a revealing view of her cleavage at the center.
"Turn it up!" Isaac called out generally to the staff at the counter, as the miniature image of Marilyn’s Pearl rapidly expanded until it completely replaced the newscaster.
"The police operation at Times Square couldn’t have gone worse, according to police spokesman Ronald Hardy in an interview. The situation spiraled out of control at 2:43 a.m., three minutes after the team entered, when the known criminal Sato Ishim suddenly drew a handgun, prompting SWAT officers to return fire." An unfiltered image of the dead hitman appeared on-screen. Blood oozed from his mouth, and the light had completely faded from his eyes. "Many New Yorkers now fear an impending war between the police and Omar Branett’s powerful clan. The reason behind the police operation remains unclear, but it’s presumed to involve drugs." Behind the police tape, the club door opened, and in handcuffs, Omar Branett strolled out, escorted by a crowd of officers. His influence was so strong that the police didn’t even deny him the chance to answer a few questions from eager reporters.
Carry Web, the live reporter, led her camera team through the crowd of gawkers and rival reporters, trying to reach the police tape. At the same moment, Billy’s phone buzzed and vibrated softly on the table.
"Hello?" he said.
"I did a little research and came up with some results," said Mimir.
"You’re fast."
"First of all: It’s my job. Second, I’m watching the news right now, so I’m aware of the urgency of your situation. If Omar wants me to help you, I’d rather not risk angering him. He’s probably already boiling over. It’ll cost him a fortune to bail himself out of jail," she said, her voice growing softer, almost thoughtful. In the background, Billy could hear the delayed voice of the newscaster.
"So, what," he continued, "did you find out?"
"Professor Doctor Henry Thandros," the informant said, "born in 1920."
"1920?"
"He’s the only one in the Thandros family with a professor title. It must be him. He studied at the medical faculty in Pennsylvania in 1938. Eight years after his doctorate, he was a professor of genetics at Columbia in New York and later joined the Walser-Baehr research group. Let me guess, never heard of them?"
"Nope," Billy grumbled, glancing back at the news. "Not much help to me, really. The Henry Thandros I’m looking for is still alive."
"Patience," the informant said. "Luis Walser and Olav Baehr were the main figures in an American research team developing cryopreservation for human organisms. In 2030, the team won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Just three years later, Henry Thandros received the Nobel Peace Prize for his life’s work and his efforts to save the world with the Thandros Corporation."
"What? Thandros is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate?"
"Yup. At least, the old guy was."
"He was still alive in the thirties?"
"Si, si, yes, yes."
"He must have been… a hundred and ten."
Billy struggled to process everything at once.
"Maybe not entirely impossible," the woman’s flirtatious voice replied over the phone, "though now we’re veering into murky speculation. And honestly, I’m not a fan of that."
"What do you mean? Come on, spill it!"
"Well, according to my information, the professor developed a pathological fear of death at a young age, which only grew stronger over the years. Eventually, his thanatophobia drove him to study biochemistry after medical school, with the original goal of finding a way to halt the aging process..."
"You’re not saying that he..."
"I’m not saying anything," replied the smooth call-center voice. "I’m just providing the space for you to speculate as much as you like. Anyway, Henry Thandros led the most important research division of the TC, but he always tried to stay in the background as much as possible. His name was rarely mentioned; he wasn’t one for the public eye. But he was clearly unique: so far, only four people have been awarded the Nobel Prize twice—Bardeen, Curie, Pauling, and Sanger. With Thandros, it became five. And here’s the eerie part: shortly after receiving his second Nobel Prize, Henry Thandros vanished without a trace. No records, no data, nothing. A lot of myths surround his disappearance."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Billy hesitated. "Well, he must’ve died of old age. Why would anyone look into it?" he said. "If this Henry Thandros was born in 1920 and received the Nobel Prize in 2030, then he would have already been, as I said, 110. By now, he’d be 130. Can a human even live that long?"
Ignoring his question, Mimir replied, "His death was never confirmed. He simply… vanished. Officially, he’s listed as missing. There are many myths around him. Some claim he’s living a healthy life beyond the Paradise Walls, secretly continuing his research for the corporation. There are even people who believe he found a way to halt aging and now lives forever."
"Who says that? What kind of people? Insiders?"
"Conspiracy theorists, dismissed as crackheads these days. The FBI has already labeled the reports and leaked research documents as bogus—as in, fake."
"Great," Billy said, but then he suddenly stopped. After everything that had happened, could he still trust the FBI or any government agency? What if those leaked reports were indeed true?
Billy shook his head. This wasn’t what he’d hoped to hear. Once again, an answer had only raised more questions.
"How did you get this information so quickly? Is it reliable?"
"Let’s just say, I, Mimir, am plugged directly into the source of wisdom. I have access to government computers," replied the informant coolly, leaving Billy unsure if she was joking. "The data is absolutely reliable."
"So there’s no way to track down this old guy?"
"As I said, if the old man isn’t long dead, he’s likely behind the Paradise Walls in Central Park, the official HQ of the corporation, and where he was last seen. But again, there’s been no information about him since 2030. Even at the ceremony for his second Nobel Prize, he was already nowhere to be found."
Billy squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, massaging his temples with his thumb and middle finger.
Yet another dead end!
"However…"
He perked up. "Yes?"
"During my research, I came across a rather suspicious physician: Professor Doctor Nicholas Curtis. His records only start in 2024, when he also joined the research team, and like Henry Thandros, he disappeared from public view for years. He was known as Thandros’s closest confidant."
"And this Curtis—he’s also… missing?"
"Yes. But with one difference: unlike Henry Thandros, he resurfaced a few years after his disappearance."
"That’s… a lead," Billy said.
"Hold on. According to a medical report, Nicholas Curtis suffered a severe traumatic brain injury from a fall down the stairs and now can’t remember anything."
Billy froze.
It had to be him!
The guy Omar mentioned.
He was just about to ask where Curtis lived when Isaac nudged him suddenly, pointing for the second time at the TV on the wall. The live coverage of the shooting at Marilyn’s Pearl continued but had taken a turn that would mean serious trouble for him and Isaac. A short pause buzzed through the phone.
"What’s the man’s name again? Where does he live?" Billy asked urgently.
"One moment," said the informant.
Billy heard her turn up the volume on her TV as the underworld king began to address live reporter Carry Web. Looking straight into the camera while being led away by the police, he said, "A message to the authorities: I’m innocent. Someone shot at me. And another message for Abiem, that cursed son of a bitch, and his bug-eyed lover: you stole my notebook and my cube. My men will find you, and then you’re done for!"
Billy pressed the informant to tell him where the old man lived, but it was already too late. Mimir had caught every word King Omar had said, totally absorbed by the news.
"You insane idiot, you stole his notebook?"
Billy barely had a chance to respond before he heard the quick, rhythmic beeps of a disconnected line.
And as if the informant had never existed, each time he tried to call back, a soft automated voice repeated, "The number you have dialed is no longer in service."
"I can’t reach her anymore," Billy said. The entire idea of getting into Central Park—which had tighter security than a maximum-security prison—suddenly seemed absurd, sitting here in the corner of Burger’s Paradise.
No one’s ever pulled this off.
They had faced so many dangers, he thought, but now they’d reached the end of the road. He was already imagining checking himself into a hospital while he still could. It seemed the only reasonable thing to do.
Maybe they’d be able to treat me—if I can get seen in time.
Maybe they’ll just diagnose me as completely crazy.
Just as he was quietly saying goodbye to the whole thing, Isaac grabbed the notebook and interrupted. "Did she tell you his name?"
Billy was about to stand up but then sat back down. "Curtis," he said. "Nicholas Curtis."
Isaac flipped through the notebook until his finger stopped at an entry about a third of the way in. "Here’s something strange. It says C.N.—Curtis, Nicholas? Could those be his initials?"
"I… I think I remember that entry," Billy said suddenly. "I remember there wasn’t a phone number under that entry." Then he hesitated. The brief rush he’d felt began to fade. "Weren’t there… a bunch of strange numbers under the initials?"
"No strange numbers," Isaac whispered, studying the entry. "They’re coordinates."
"Coordinates? Let me see!"
Billy grabbed Omar Branett’s little notebook and looked at the entry again:
C.N.
40° 34′ 44″ N , 74° 3′ 13″ W.
Billy took out his smartphone and entered the coordinates online.
"Where is it? Don’t tell me it’s in the middle of nowhere. We don’t have the time, the energy, or the cash to get to another state."
"It’s here in New York," Billy replied, toying thoughtfully with a back molar. After a moment, he turned his phone to show Isaac, zooming in on a map of the Lower Bay near Staten Island. Almost the entire screen was blue—except for one tiny island.
"Hoffman Island," Isaac read, looking at Billy questioningly.
"Yeah. The island, along with the smaller one south of it—hold on, here it is—you can see it; it’s a bit smaller than Hoffman Island—was used as a quarantine station back in the nineteenth century during the cholera epidemic, where immigrants were sent who came via the shipping route to America and brought diseases. Hoffman Island has been abandoned for a hundred years."
Billy alternated between the cracked phone display and Isaac’s eyes.
"A good place to hide," Isaac said.
"Yeah, but from what?"
"From guilt."
Billy looked into his friend’s eyes. "Like Mimir said, that’s a hell of a lot of speculation. But as far as I can see it, this is the only straw we have left to grasp at. We have just a few hours until the pill wears off and I can’t even stand."
"Then this is our last shot. Let’s take it."
"Let’s take it. To South Beach."
"That dump."
"This dump of a world."
Billy slid out from the corner. As he stood, a wave of nausea hit him, and he felt his stomach contents rise. He kept everything in his mouth, pressing his hand to his lips. Somewhere in the sour mess was also the pain pill, the bitter, chemical taste mingling with stomach acid and meat.
He swallowed it all back down.
"Let’s go," he said.