Here ’s a brief verbal description of the plot , to start off with :
store make reality . That ’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is get wind as he enquire the devastating phenomenon the medium has dubbed False Memory Syndrome — a mystical affliction that drives its dupe mad with memories of a life they never lived .
Neuroscientist Helena Smith already understands the exponent of memory . It ’s why she ’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will allow us preserve our most treasured consequence of our past times . If she win , anyone will be able to re - live a first buss , the giving birth of a child , the final moment with a dying parent .
The cover of Blake Crouch’s latest sci-fi tale.Image: Crown (Penguin Random House LLC)
As Barry search for the verity , he comes expression - to - face with an opponent more terrific than any disease — a strength that attacks not just our minds but the very material of the yesteryear . And as its effects begin to undo the world as we know it , only he and Helena , working together , will stand a probability at get the better of it .
But how can they make a stand when reality itself is transfer and dilapidate all around them ?
And here ’s the full cover , followed by the excerpt , which offer up a vivid model of how False Memory Syndrome impact those who experience it :
Barry
November 2 , 2018
Barry Sutton pulls over into the fire lane at the primary entrance of the Poe Building , an Art Deco tower beam white in the elucidation of its exterior sconce . He climbs out of his Crown Vic , rushes across the pavement , and pushes through the revolving room access into the vestibule .
The night watcher is stand by the bank of elevators , holding one open as Barry precipitation toward him , his shoes echoing off the marble .
“ What level ? ” Barry enquire as he steps into the elevator car .
“ Forty - one . When you get up there , take a rightfulness and go all the way down the Charles Martin Hall . ”
“ More bull will be here in a minute . Tell them I said to string up back until I give a signal . ”
The elevator race upward , belying the age of the building around it , and Barry ’s ears pop after a few second . When the doors finally part , he moves past a sign for a law firm . There ’s a light on here and there , but the floor tolerate mostly dark . He runs along the carpet , passing mum offices , a group discussion room , a interruption room , a depository library . The hallway finally open into a response field that ’s paired with the big part .
In the dim light , the item are all in shades of gray . A sprawling burnt sienna desk buried under file and paperwork . A circular table comprehend in notepads and mugs of cold , bitter - smelling java . A wet measure stocked with expensive - looking bottles of scotch . A glowing aquarium that humming on the far side of the room and contains a small shark and several tropic fish .
As Barry go up the Gallic room access , he silences his phone and remove his place . take the handle , he alleviate the doorway open and slip out onto the patio .
The surrounding skyscraper of the Upper West Side look orphic in their lucent shroud of daze . The randomness of the metropolis is gaudy and close — car horn rebound between the buildings and distant ambulances race toward some other tragedy . The pinnacle of the Poe Building is less than fifty feet above — a crown of shabu and steel and gothic Freemasonry .
The char sits fifteen feet away beside an eroding gargoyle , her back to Barry , her legs dangle over the edge .
He edge nigher , the sloshed flagstone soaking through his socks . If he can get close-fitting enough without espial , he ’ll drag her off the edge before she have it away what —
“ I smell your cologne , ” she says without looking back .
He stops .
She looks back at him , says , “ Another step and I ’m gone . ”
It ’s unmanageable to secernate in the ambient light source , but she looks like in the neighbourhood of forty . She wears a dark sports jacket and matching annulus , and she must have been sit out here for a while , because her hair has been flatten out by the mist .
“ Who are you ? ” she postulate .
“ Barry Sutton . I ’m a investigator in the Central Robbery Division of NYPD . ”
“ They mail someone from the Robbery — ? ”
“ I bump to be close . What ’s your name ? ”
“ Ann Voss Peters . ”
“ May I call you Ann ? ”
“ Sure . ”
“ Is there anyone I can call for you ? ”
She excite her head .
“ I ’m proceed to step over here so you do n’t have to keep straining your cervix to look at me . ”
Barry move by from her at an angle that also brings him to the breastwork , eight feet down from where she ’s sitting . He glances once over the edge , his insides contracting .
“ All right , let ’s hear it , ” she says .
“ I ’m no-count ? ”
“ Are n’t you here to talk me off ? Give it your best snapshot . ”
He decided what he would say riding up in the lift , call back his self-annihilation training . Now , squarely in the moment , he finger less positive . The only thing he ’s sure of is that his feet are freezing .
“ I bang everything feels hopeless to you in this moment , but this is just a minute , and moments pass . ”
Ann stare straight down the side of the building , four hundred feet to the street below , her palm flat against the rock that has been weather by tenner of acerb pelting . All she would have to do is push off . He suspects she ’s walk herself through the motility , tiptoe up to the thought of doing it . Amassing that final caput of steam .
He notices she ’s shivering .
“ May I give you my jacket ? ” he asks .
“ I ’m pretty sure you do n’t want to come any cheeseparing , Detective . ”
“ Why is that ? ”
“ I have FMS . ”
Barry resist the itch to run . Of of course he ’s heard of False Memory Syndrome , but he ’s never known or met someone with the affliction . Never breathed the same air . He is n’t sure he should essay to snap up her now . Does n’t even desire to be this close . No , be intimate that . If she moves to leap , he ’ll seek to save her , and if he cut FMS in the summons , so be it . That ’s the risk you take becoming a bull .
“ How long have you had it ? ” he ask .
“ One morning , about a month ago , instead of my dwelling house in Middlebury , Vermont , I was suddenly in an apartment here in the city , with a stabbing pain in the neck in my head and a terrible nosebleed . At first , I had no idea where I was . Then I remember . . . this life too . Here and now , I ’m single , an investment banker , I live under my maiden over name . But I have . . .”—she visibly braces herself against the emotion—“memories of my other life in Vermont . I was a female parent to a nine - class - old boy named Sam . I flow a landscaping business concern with my hubby , Joe Behrman . I was Ann Behrman . We were as glad as anyone has a right to be . ”
“ What does it feel like ? ” Barry ask , fill a underground footstep closer .
“ What does what feel like ? ”
“ Your fictitious retentivity of this Vermont life . ”
“ I do n’t just recall my nuptials . I recall the fight over the figure for the cake . I remember the smallest details of our habitation . Our son . Every moment of his birth . His jest . The nevus on his left cheek . His first day of schooltime and how he did n’t want me to leave him . But when I try on to visualise Sam , he ’s in black and snowy . There ’s no color in his heart . I tell myself they were dismal . I only see pitch-dark .
“ All my memories from that life are in shades of gray , like film noir stills . They feel veridical , but they ’re obsess , phantom memories . ” She infract down . “ Everyone think FMS is just false memories of the big moment of your life , but what hurt so much more are the belittled ones . I do n’t just remember my husband . I remember the odour of his breathing place in the dayspring when he rove over and faced me in bed . How every meter he got up before I did to sweep his tooth , I make love he ’d number back to seam and endeavor to have sexual activity . That ’s the clobber that kills me . The flyspeck , consummate details that make me have sex it happened . ”
“ What about this life ? ” Barry asks . “ Is n’t it worth something to you ? ”
“ peradventure some people get FMS and prefer their current memories to their put on ones , but there ’s nothing about this life I desire . I ’ve stress , for four long hebdomad . I ca n’t fake it any longer . ” Tears carve track through her eyeliner . “ My Logos never existed . Do you get that ? He ’s just a beautiful misfire in my brain . ”
Barry ventures another step toward her , but she catches him this fourth dimension .
“ Do n’t come any closer . ”
“ You are not alone . ”
“ I am very flaming alone . ”
“ I ’ve only known you a few second , and I will be devastated if you do this . Think about the people in your life who lie with you . Think how they ’ll feel . ”
“ I tracked Joe down , ” Ann enjoin .
“ Who ? ”
“ My hubby . He was last in a mansion out on Long Island . He acted like he did n’t know me , but I know he did . He had a whole other life . He was married — I do n’t recognize to who . I do n’t know if he had kids . He act as like I was screwball . ”
“ I ’m sorry , Ann . ”
“ This offend too much . ”
“ Look , I ’ve been where you are . I ’ve wanted to stop everything . And I ’m bear here right now telling you I ’m happy I did n’t . I ’m happy I had the strong point to ride it out . This low point is n’t the book of your life . It ’s just a chapter . ”
“ What happened to you ? ”
“ I lost my daughter . life story has broken my gist too . ”
Ann looks at the incandescent horizon . “ Do you have photo of her ? Do you still talk with people about her ? ”
“ Yes . ”
“ At least she once existed . ”
There is simply nothing he can say to that .
Ann appear down through her legs again . She kicks off one of her pumps .
picket it fall .
Then sends the other one plummeting after it .
“ Ann , please . ”
“ In my premature aliveness , my assumed biography , Joe ’s first wife , Franny , leap from this building , from this ledge actually , fifteen years ago . She had clinical depression . I know he charge himself . Before I left his house on Long Island , I differentiate Joe I was going to jump from the Poe Building tonight , just like Franny . It sounds silly and despairing , but I hop he ’d show up here tonight and salve me . Like he neglect to do for her . At first , I thought you might be him , but he never wore cologne . ” She smiles — wistful — then sum up , “ I ’m thirsty . ”
Barry glint through the French doors and the dark office , sees two flatfoot standing at the ready by the reception desk . He face back at Ann . “ Then why do n’t you mount down from there , and we ’ll take the air inside together and get you a glass of pee . ”
“ Would you bring it to me out here ? ”
“ I ca n’t leave you . ”
Her men are shaking now , and he record a sudden resolve in her oculus .
She looks at Barry . “ This is n’t your break , ” she says . “ It was always going to end this way . ”
“ Ann , no — ”
“ My Word has been erased . ”
And with a everyday grace of God , she eases herself off the edge .
Excerpted from RECURSION . Copyright © 2019 by Blake Crouch . issue by Crown , an impression of Penguin Random House LLC .
Blake Crouch ’s Recursion is out today ; place your right of first publication here .
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