Chapter Twenty

Light from the old projector flickers around the lecture theater. Ahead of him, curved rows of seating rise toward the door at the back of the room. The black shapes of students are dotted here and there in the darkness.

It is October 26, 1984, and Alan Hobbes has the devil at his back.

He glances behind him at the painting displayed on the screen: Tartini's Dream, by Louis Léopold Boilly. It depicts Giuseppe Tartini in his bed, asleep but responding with visible reverence to music played by the devil, who is perched half on the bed and half on a plume of smoke. When the composer woke, he was inspired to write his Violin Sonata in G Minor—the Devil's Trill—and then spent his life frustrated by the disparity between his own composition and the perfect music he had once heard in a dream.

Hobbes always uses the picture for this lecture.

He turns back, and his voice echoes around the auditorium.

"There are many objections one can raise to Laplace's demon," he says. "We have already discussed possible difficulties created by quantum theory and thermodynamics."

He pushes his glasses back up his nose.

"But. We should note that neither objection helps with the problem of free will. On that level, you are still—and forgive me for using obscure scientific terminology here—completely screwed."

A ripple of laughter goes through the theater. Hobbes pauses to allow it, enjoying it, but a moment later his attention is drawn to the back of the room. He watches as the door opens and a figure enters the room, silhouetted against the light there for a few seconds before quietly taking a seat in the back row.

There you are.

Hobbes realizes his mouth is dry.

There is water on the table, and he takes a sip.

"However," he continues. "We have ten minutes left in which I want to explore the problem from a different angle. Because there is another reason Laplace's demon is impossible."

The notion is a complicated one, but he has given this lecture many times now and has done his best over the years to refine the explanation and make it as clear as he can.

"As we know," he tells them, "Laplace's demon theoretically knows the exact state of everything in the universe, meaning that it can see—laid out before it—everything that will come to pass."

However, he explains, the problem is that if Laplace's demon were a part of our universe, then its thought processes would also be part of the universe. It would need to take those into account. Which means that the experiment would become endlessly self-referential, with cause and effect crumpling in on themselves the way a star collapses into a black hole.

"The only way it could work," he says, "is if Laplace's demon existed outside the world—somewhere completely distinct from the space and time we occupy, and yet somehow capable of observing it. And if that were the case… well, I believe we already have a different word for such a being."

He pauses again, taking the opportunity to look around the theater. Even in the darkness, he has become attuned to signs of confusion and misunderstanding in his students, and he checks for them now. His heart is beating a little faster than it normally would, and he's aware he fudged a few of his lines.

He avoids looking directly at the shadowy latecomer in the back row.

Another sip of water.

"Right," Hobbes says. "We have also talked about one theological argument for determinism—that God's omniscience requires the past, present, and future to be set in stone. But … that also creates problems for theology. For one thing, if it were true, how can anyone be praised or blamed for doing something they had no choice in? And as we all know from the lady who rants in the square by the refectory every Sunday, God is famously very keen on right and wrong."

Another ripple of laughter—albeit this time with a slight undertone of relief. Hobbes knows that talk of God leaves many of them cold.

No matter.

Just get through this.

"But what if we look at these problems together?" he says. "Imagine God as an artist. He can always see the whole canvas—yes, of course—and in that sense his knowledge is complete. But he is not finished. He keeps dabbing bits of paint here and there, making the picture deeper and more meaningful to him. Seeing what happens. And if some of those dabs were him giving us glimpses of the picture as it stood, wouldn't the choices we made as a result then have weight in his eyes?"

A final pause.

At this point in the lecture he almost always loses several of the students, and today is no different. Philosophy is meant to be a dry, logical discipline, and these flourishes of color have no real place in the discussion. But the hour is nearly over, and he has already covered the necessary components of the syllabus; he doesn't mind so much if he leaves a few of them behind. Especially because he's not really talking to them right now anyway.

Hobbes focuses his gaze on the shadow in the back row.

"And so the question, then," he says, "is whether God would want us to act on those revelations. Some might argue we should never go against God's knowledge—that our duty is simply to carry out his will, whatever terrible things it compels us to do. Deus scripsit. But I would ask you this. If you were a father, which would you prefer? A child who always did as they were told, or a child who disobeyed you and tried to forge their own path—to do the best they could for themselves and for others?"

There is a moment of silence in the room.

The black figure at the back remains still and implacable.

And then the bell on the wall rings loudly, jarring almost everyone.

"I'll leave that as a rhetorical question, then," Hobbes says.

The students are already gathering their things together, shuffling along the rows, eager to escape into what they are correct to believe will be one of the last warm afternoons of the year. Hobbes can't blame them. This is his final lecture of the day, and he is anxious to finish up some administrative work and get home to Charlotte. The thought of her makes him look again toward the far end of the hall.

The figure is gone.

Hobbes stares blankly for a moment, watching the other students filing out.

I had to protect her, Edward, he thinks. Because you were going to kill her.

I know you don't understand that, but you were.

Then he turns back and begins collecting his own paperwork from the table by the projector. While, above him, the devil—perched there with his violin—continues to play.

It is October 4, 2017.

Hobbes opens the door of the bathroom cabinet and selects the various bottles he will need, lining them up one by one at the back of the sink. He does not swallow the pills yet; that moment comes later. They will not take action quickly enough to save him, and he will still be drifting in and out of consciousness when he is killed, but they should at least dull him to the worst of the pain. And after everything he has done, perhaps all he has earned is the right to shave the edges off the suffering due to him, not avoid it altogether.

He walks stiffly back through to the main room, which has been pared down to essentials over the years, a few personal items excepted. He moves over to the bed. On the table beside it, positioned so he can see it if he turns his head when lying down, is a photograph in an old silver frame. He picks it up and brushes a sheen of dust from the glass, revealing a picture taken of Charlotte and him on their wedding day. They both look so young. So happy.

So long ago.

But, of course, there is really no such thing as long ago, and for a few blissful seconds he can feel the warmth of the sun that day and the pressure of her hand in his. He doesn't need to remember the love he felt for her, though, because it has never left.

I love you so much, he thinks.

Then he takes the photograph into what had once been Joshua's room and stands by the desk. He looks up at the books on the shelves. In a day or two, they will all be gone. The instructions he has given to Richard Gaunt are detailed and specific. In the event of his death, most of the titles here will be kept in storage, but several of the titles will be donated to the university, while a few have been selected with care and affection to be sent to former colleagues and others who have become dear to him.

Hobbes picks up one in particular and rubs his hand tenderly over the cover. Then he takes the photograph out of the frame. The clasp is small, and his hands have been betraying him for months now, but when he finally manages it, he places the photograph facedown on the desk and then picks up the pen and adds a message on the back.

He turns it back over and looks at himself standing with Charlotte.

I love you, he thinks. I always have. I always will.

Then he places the photograph on top of the book and selects an envelope.

And I'm sorry.

It is October 26, 1984.

On his way back to his office after the lecture about Laplace's demon, Hobbes stops into the office to collect some paperwork from his pigeonhole. Before he can extract the pile waiting there, Marie—one of the secretaries—comes round from her desk.

"This was just dropped off for you, Alan."

"Thanks."

He takes the envelope she is holding out and begins to tear it open. Inside, he finds a single piece of expensive paper, and when he unfolds it he sees a short message there, written elegantly by hand in black ink.

You have committed blasphemy, and it will be corrected.

—Edward

Hobbes stares down at the message for a few seconds, a trickle of ice in his chest. That dryness in his throat again too. But, of course, there is no water at hand here to save him.

Marie notices his discomfort.

"You okay, Alan?"

He forces a smile.

"Yes. It's just another complaint."

There have been several of those over the years—students, perhaps overly sensitive, who have handled certain aspects of the course material badly—and his usual practice has been to reach out to those he feels he can help while disregarding the others. But he folds this particular piece of paper and hands it back to Marie.

"Can you make a note of this one and keep it on file, please?"

"Of course."

Hobbes heads off down the corridor. When he reaches his office, he closes the door quickly and then leans his back against it, closing his eyes. The window across from him is bright, and he can see the map of red blood vessels in his eyelids and feel his heart beating hard against his chest.

You have committed blasphemy, and it will be corrected.

His brother's words have landed. Hobbes truly believes what he told his students at the end of his lecture—that if he were God, he would neither want nor expect blind obedience from his children—and yet there is something in Edward's note that has conjured up a sense of dread inside him.

It is that notion of correction.

Because while he has made sure to keep his influence upon the world small, he has still undoubtedly made changes. He has gone against what was written. And because of this, there have been moments when he has experienced a sensation of being off-balance, as though he is attempting to steer a ship listing on a turbulent sea, and all the old timber around him is creaking and straining in an attempt to correct its course.

As though perhaps he has misjudged what is expected of him.

Deus scripsit.

Three sharp raps at his back.

Hobbes jumps slightly and steps away from the door, his heart beating faster as he then turns to face it. For a moment, he's convinced it must be Edward on the other side.…

But when he opens it, Charlotte almost bursts into the room.

His wife has her arms around him so quickly that Hobbes barely has time to register his confusion—she should be at home when he arrives back an hour or so from now—but he returns the embrace, grateful to see her. A part of him realizes he needed to after receiving Edward's message. Because there is a different version of this day—a worse one, in a more badly painted universe—where the woman who has become the love of his life is already dead by his brother's hand.

"This is a lovely surprise." He steps back a little while keeping his hands on her upper arms. "But aren't you supposed—"

"I just couldn't wait."

She smiles then, staring at him with those eyes that captured him the first moment he saw her. Good God, there is so much vitality to her, he thinks. She is so exceptional—so vivid—that he can almost feel her body fizzing with warmth and energy beneath his hands.

And yet as she puts her hands over his own and leans in to kiss him, that sensation of the world creaking around him is stronger than ever.

"We're going to have a baby," she whispers in his ear.