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“You fell for that?” Lily asked, punching him playfully on the arm. “I can’t believe you fell for that. I thought it was too corny.”

“Smoke machines and wires,” Lachlan replied. “A disco ball and strobe lights, nothing more. Just like Hollywood.”

“And the projector in my bathroom?” Jason asked incredulously, nonplussed at hearing these revelations about a murky world that existed in parallel with what he perceived as reality.

“It’s the only place inside your apartment that’s not under constant surveillance.”

“What? But why?” Jason protested. “Why me?”

Professor Lachlan held up Jason’s research paper, but he was holding up the reverse side covered in Jason’s doodles and speculative calculations.

“Because ever since you were a child, you’ve been drawing these equations.”

Jason went silent. Lily held his hand, squeezing his fingers. Initially, he wasn’t sure what to make of her touch. On one hand, her support was welcome. On the other, this wasn’t the Lily he knew. The Lily he’d known had never existed. She’d never been more than an actor on a stage playing a role for the crowd. Yet there must have been a genuine connection between them, as she seemed to feel something for him. He squeezed her fingers gently in reply, letting her know he was doing OK.

Lily turned to him, saying, “You don’t know just how special and unique you are.”

Her comment took him off guard. She wasn’t trying to flatter him or appeal to his vanity. He could tell that from the sincerity in her voice. She was speaking as though this was something he didn’t understand about himself.

Rain lashed the outside of the truck, pelting the trailer with what sounded like hail. It probably wasn’t hail, but the thin sheet metal magnified the sound of the torrential downpour that had begun to fall.

Jason felt as though the night were a dream. He looked into Lily’s eyes and saw her compassion for him. To her, this whole scenario apparently seemed quite ordinary, and as bizarre as that was, he was drawn to accepting her position. Her demeanor was relaxed, as though her blistering bike ride was nothing, as though sweet, little, lost Lily had returned to sit beside him. In his mind’s eye, he saw her again asking something quirky about the torn, tatty posters in his rundown apartment. She may have been acting for the past few days, he thought, but even knowing that, he felt he understood those points at which the real Lily had shone through.

Between the demeanor of Lily and the familiarity of Lachlan, Jason felt accepted, as though this twisted reality that had caught up with him was the norm. While he was tempted to freak out, they set him at ease with their matter of fact handling of the bizarre tempest breaking around him.

Lily was Lachlan’s daughter! As strange as that was, that was perhaps the easiest thing to believe so far. In the back of his mind the notion that someone had been shooting at him was disturbing.

Lachlan must have sensed his distraction. He flipped through a thick folder as he spoke.

“The NSI has been working with DARPA for decades, trying to figure out what these equations mean,” Lachlan continued. Jason wondered if he should think of him as Captain John Lee? But that name meant nothing to Jason. To him, this was Professor Lachlan. As surreal as his world had become, the professor was a link with reality, with sanity.

“Do you remember these?” the professor asked. He held an old piece of crumpled paper marked with crayon. The formulas weren’t as advanced and the handwriting was childish, but Jason remembered them. Somewhere in the back of his mind, that sheet of old, brittle paper looked strangely familiar. “You’ve been drawing these equations ever since you were a child. Haven’t you ever wondered why?”

Why?

No, he hadn’t ever stopped to think about why he scribbled.

For Jason, abstract thinking was as unconscious as humming a tune or chewing on gum. He’d never wondered why he doodled, he just did, in the same way some people chewed their nails when lost in thought. It was more than being absentminded, he knew that. Time would drift. Hours would pass, but he was content, at peace. Nothing else mattered, nothing other than those equations. Slowly, they’d take different forms. Each time, his perceptual awareness enlarged, and he found himself with a deeper appreciation of the universe.

Most of the equations were common, having been derived by others like Bohr or Schrödinger, but Jason had arrived at them himself, having reasoned through the math alone, and he found that intensely satisfying.

Why did he scribble physics equations? Was there a reason beyond his own simple whim and want? He could see Lachlan was giving him time to think this through for himself. He thought he knew, but clearly there was more for him to learn. He pursed his lips, leaning forward intently, listening carefully as Lachlan explained.