Chapter 4: An Inconvenient Brain

Untold millennia of unpredictable and exceptionally unpleasant death have developed a human mind, that is, on its very best day, quite suspicious. And so, it was this very same innate distrust of the unknown that caused Sarah Humphreys to stare at the clock – glare at it, in fact. The white plastic face with black plastic numbers mocked her. The hands’ indifferent progress, mute – save the quiet ticking, infuriated her. Sarah diverted her gaze every few moments while trying to imagine excusable reasons for Nick’s absence. It was their anniversary. Where could he be? Why hadn’t he called?

Nick was helping a small child who had lost their way. Said child was a scam artist and had stolen his phone and wallet. Without any money or way to contact her, he was making his way home on foot. He had been resuscitating a kindly grandfather whose heart had just had too much, and Nick’s phone had fallen out of his breast pocket down a sewer grating. At the moment, her valiant fiancé to be was in the tedious process of explaining the death to the police. He had foiled a robbery while buying her an engagement ring. A bullet had shattered the phone, and while he was all right, Nick was filling out police reports. He was in the hospital. Unconscious. Unable to answer his phone. Unresponsive. There had been any number of potential accidents. And as she sat, waiting for him, he was running back and forth into different imaginary wreckages to save those who could not save themselves. He had no time to pick up the phone and call her. Fire. Accident. Robbery. Aliens. As his absence prolonged, the more exotic the excuse had to be.

Why hadn’t he at least called? If it were merely an issue of inconvenience and subsequently battery, surely, he could have figured out a way to charge the phone and call her. Surely, if he was going to be this late.

She checked the phone again.

No messages.

It was supposed to be such a nice evening, but now, with all the stress that she’d endured waiting for him, Sarah couldn’t see how it could possibly turn out well at all.

She kicked off her fancy shoes and sat on the couch, curling her legs under her. Any reason sufficient to excuse his tardiness would have to be so tragic that it would ruin the evening anyway. As Sarah spread an old comforter over herself, she contemplated whether she’d rather be furiously angry or inconsolably heartbroken. If he were being inconsiderate and staying late at the lab again, without so much as a phone call, she would really wonder if this Nick was anyone she wanted to include in her life for much longer. Maybe he’d been struck by a car or attacked by a crazy person. It wasn’t impossible. You heard about things like that on the news frequently.

She said a silent prayer that Nick was all right and had been unable to contact her because he had broken his phone while attempting to achieve some greater purpose for a surprise anniversary present. This was also possible. Sarah prayed to God that it was the truth.

Her eyes wandered back to the clock and its attendant worry.

8:27. He was supposed to have been there at 7:45.

Just as her mental image of Nick was receiving its third stab wound from a deranged homeless person, Sarah brought herself back to reality and checked the time on her phone, even though there was a perfectly good clock hanging on the wall. It was the kind of action she’d have chastised Nick for, after all, what was the point of having a clock if you were just going to waste time and battery, turning on your phone to check?

Honestly, she’d been doing it most of the night. What was that law that Nick was always pointing out about never knowing the correct time when you have two clocks?

8:30. Both clocks said it, more or less. He was getting close to an hour late. Something was very, very wrong. This was not like Nick. Or was it? That was probably the bigger question.

He was a graduate student at California’s acclaimed Metropolitan Science University. For someone who studied space-time, he certainly was understanding of the former. The latter, well…

Sarah sighed, resigning herself to the thought that Nick was regularly late, and that there would be some sort of excuse. He’d been late to their first date. Could she think of this as endearing? A quirky personality trait? Maybe, thirty-five minutes ago. Maybe.

They had met in the coffee shop she frequented during their undergraduate days at University of California at San Judas-Tadeo, or UCSJT; it was cute, in a sort of 90s way. It had been Nick’s junior year of college, her sophomore year. She had been waiting for a guy who had asked her out in her Psych 101 class. He never showed. Nick had approached, shyly. The shyness of this advance was strange because he was working there, apron and everything. At that moment, Sarah wondered how long he had been working at the coffee shop before she even noticed him. Was this his first day? When he placed the latte on the table in front of her, the spoon and ceramic plate clattered as his hand shook. He nodded at nothing like a foreign extra in a movie. Smiling. Hands together.

This guy likes me, she had thought.

A moment later, she called him over and gave him her phone number. After Frank Klobucar had not, apparently, found the time to even bother calling to let her know that he wasn’t coming, she needed a win. So, Nick Assencio of the blushing face and smiling, shining eyes was going to be it.

Sarah could remember that he had called her at 5:30 pm on the dot. She reasoned that he had tried to play it cool for a half of an hour after getting off of work. Here was a young man who was smitten. Six years later, however, at 8:38 pm, she admitted to herself that she had contemplated not showing up for their date, as revenge on the male populace, but he was sort of cute. The thought of what her rejection might do to him was mildly heart-breaking. So she went to the movies with him. And he was late. Only ten minutes, but it really had bothered her, having been recently jilted.

Six years ago, he had made her wait. Today… well, was he still coming?

As the minutes dragged by, Sarah’s inconvenient brain began imagining other scenarios - ones where Nick was more sinning than sinned against. He had met some other girl at lunch. Who was she? The girls around campus were young. She could be a freshman! Nineteen years-old - at the most! Not even able to buy a beer! That other lab assistant, Julie, she was quite pretty. Could Nick be fooling around with her on their anniversary? Surely, if he would cheat on her at all, missing their anniversary dinner to do it wouldn’t be any worse. Why wouldn’t he do that if he were going to cheat on her? Julie dressed so frumpily, but there was no denying that she was pretty. Was she Korean? She was something. Sarah was fairly certain that she had heard Nick mention that Julie had brought food from the dumpling restaurant at the ground floor of the science building. No, that didn’t mean that she was Korean, but… What did it even matter?

Sarah glanced back up at the clock, 8:47. Where was he?

Her heart hiccupped at a sudden loud and intentional sound, a knock at the door. Nick would have called. He would have messaged. He would not have just shown up late without any kind of warning. Unless he was drunk or something? And, when had that ever happened?

She said nothing. Nick would have called out to her. He would have used his key. Conclusion: this was not Nick.

“Mr. Assencio?” A voice called from the hallway.

She started to respond, but nothing would come out of her throat. The voice was low and authoritative. Whoever they were, they were looking for Nick. They knew where he would be outside of work.

“Ms. Humphreys?” the voice returned.

“Yes?” She replied, almost too quickly for her own taste. She must not be so eager to talk to this person. They could be anyone.

“Ms. Humphreys,” said the voice, “I am Special Agent Pietr Sokolov. I am working with the police department. You are not in any kind of trouble, but I was hoping to have a word with you.”

The cascade of dire potentialities crashed over her in a wave, but they were all wrong. Nowhere in the simultaneously sophisticated yet inelegant web of synapses was there a thought that even approached the truth of what had happened to Nick. Abducted by a cult? Murdered by a government conspiracy? Lost in space and time? In a fight for his life with the forces of darkness? The truth was adjacent to all of these, but it was none of them in particular. And, Sarah, Sarah Humphreys would never have believed it.