The newcomer slumped back, sighed. “I know that, Mr. Ryan, and I don’t wish to argue with you. I just want to know if these allegations are true. This person, whoever it was, has written that Eileen is dead—”

“True enough, by God — and you killed her!” Uncle Seamus was losing his temper. Brian wondered if he would hit this man the same way he hit him.

“That would be difficult since I haven’t seen Eileen in over five years.”

“But you saw her once too often, you twisting sonofabitch. Got her with child, ran out, left her here with her shame. And her bastard.”

“That’s not quite true — nor is it relevant.”

“Get away with your fancy words!”

“No, not until I’ve seen the boy.”

“I’ll see you in hell first!”

There was a scrape and crash as a chair went over. Brian clutched the doorknob. He knew that word well enough. Bastard. That was him, that’s what the boys called him. What had this to do with the man in the parlor? He did not know; he had to find out. He would be beaten if he did. It didn’t matter. He turned the knob and pushed.

The door flew back and crashed against the wall and he stood in the doorway. Everything stopped. There was Grandfer on the couch, torn gray sweater, the cigarette end in his lips sending a curl of smoke into his half-closed eye. Uncle Seamus, fists clenched, the fallen chair behind him, his face red and exploding.

And the newcomer. Tall, well dressed, suit and tie. His shoes were black and shiny. He looked down at the boy, his face twisted with strong emotions.

“Hello, Brian,” he said, ever so quietly.

“Watch out!” Brian shouted.

Too late. His uncle’s fist, hard from years in the mine, caught the man high on the face, knocked him to the floor. Brian thought at first that it was going to be one of those fights, like on Saturday night outside the pub, but it wasn’t going to be like that, not this time. The newcomer touched his hand to his cheek, looked at the blood, climbed to his feet.

“All right, Seamus, maybe I deserved that. But just that once. Put your fists down, man, and show some intelligence. I’ve seen the boy and he’s seen me. What’s done is done. It’s his future I care about — not the past.”

“Look at the two of them,” Grandfer muttered, holding back a cough. “Alike as two pennies, the red hair and all.” His temper changed abruptly and he waved his arms, sparks flying from his cigarette. “Get back into your room, boy! Nothing here for you to see — nothing here for you to hear.

Inside before you feel my hand.”

Incomplete, disjointed, adrift in time. Memories, long forgotten, disconnected. Surrounded and separated by blackness. Why was it still dark? Paddy Delaney. His father.

Like slides in a cinema, flickering and quick, too quick to see what was happening. The blackness. The slides, suddenly clear again.

A loud roaring, the window before him bigger than any window he had seen before, bigger even than a shop window. He clutched tightly at the man’s hand. Frightened, it was all so strange.

“That’s our plane,” Patrick Delaney said. “The big green one there with the bump on top.”

“747-8100. I seen a pitcher in the paper. Can we go into it now?”

“Very soon — as soon as they call it. We’ll be the first ones aboard.”

“And I’m not gonna go back to Tara?”

“Only if you want to.”

“No. I hate them.” He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Looked up at the tall man at his side. “You knew my mother?”

“I knew her very well. I wanted to marry her but — there were reasons we couldn’t get married. When you are older you will understand.”

“But — you’re my father?”

“Yes, Brian, I am your father.”

He had asked the question many times before, never really sure that he would really get the right answer. Now, here, in the airport with the big green plane before them, he believed it at last. And with the belief something seemed to swell up and burst inside him and tears welled out and ran down his face.

“I never, never want to go back.”

His father was on his knees, holding him so tightly that he could barely breathe — but that was all right. Everything was all right. He smiled and tasted the salt tears, smiling and crying at the same time and unable to stop.

4

February 12, 2023

Erin Snaresbook was tired when she entered the operating room the next day. Yet when she saw Brian she forgot the fatigue. So much had been done; so much was left to do. The wrecked brain tissue, mostly white matter, had been removed. “I am about to begin the implanting series,” she said, almost in a whisper to herself. This was for the record, not for the edification of the others working in the O.R. The sensitive microphones would pick up her words, no matter how softly or loudly she spoke, and record everything. “All of the dead tissue has now been removed. I am looking at a severed section of white tissue. This is the area where the axons of many neurons have been severed. The proximal end of each cut nerve will still be alive because the cell body will be located there. But the distal end, the other part of the axon that goes on to join the synapses of other cells, all these will be dead. Cut off from food and energy supplies. This necessitates two different techniques. I have made molds of the surfaces of the cleanly cut and transected areas of white matter. Flexible PNEP microfilm chips have been fabricated from these molds. The computer remembers each mold so will know where each matching chip is to go. Connective tissue cells will anchor the chips into place. First the proximal fibers will be freed up to make contact with the connection chips as I insert them. Each axon stump will be coated with growth-stimulating protein. The chip film is coated with chemical spots that when electrically released will attract each growing axon to extend and then attach itself to the nearest film-chip connection pad. That is what I will begin doing now.”

As she talked she activated the connecting machine and instructed it to move over the open skull, told it to descend. When she did this the tiny, branching fingers slowly widened, spread apart, moved slowly downward. The computing capacity of the machine’s computer was so great that every single one of the microscopically fine fingers was separately controlled. The fingertips themselves did not contain the lenses, which needed a larger number of wavelengths of light to form an image. So the lenses themselves were a few branches back. The image from the lens on each finger was relayed back to the computer, where it was compared with the other images to build an internal three-dimensional model of the severed brain. Down the tendrils went again, some moving slower man the others until they were close to the surface, spread out and obscuring the surgeon’s view of the area.

Snaresbrook turned to the monitor screen, spoke to it.

“Lower. Stop. Lower. Tilt back. Stop.”

Now she had the same view as the computer. A close-up image of the severed surfaces that she could zoom in on — or move back to get an overall view.

“Begin the spray,” she ordered.

One in ten of the tendrils was hollow; in reality they were tiny tubes with electronic valves at the tip. The spray — it had to be a microscopically fine spray so small were the orifices — began to coat the surface of the severed brain. It was an invisible electrofluorescent coating.

“Turn down the theater lights,” she ordered, and the overall illumination dimmed.

The connection machine was satisfied with its work and had stopped spraying. After selecting the lowest area of the wound, Snaresbrook sent the tiniest amount of ultraviolet light down the hair-thin fiber optics.