Johnson’s suite occupied one whole floor at the top of the Mayflower. Floor-to-ceiling windows revealed Washington D.C., laid out like intricate circuit boards, lights twinkling, blinking, and flashing in precise patterns.

“Through here, Mr. Sullivan.” Agent Johnson led me to a door marked “Private Conference.”

I stopped in front of the door. “I call Gracie first.”

Johnson handed me his phone. “Of course. Take your time.” He walked a few feet away and turned away from me. I’m not sure if it was to give me some privacy or to appear to give me privacy. Either way, it was fine by me.

Gracie answered before it rang once on my end. “Paul?” Until Ruby, the photograph, and the missing building? She’d never answer before it rang three times. Ever. 

My first question to her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. Fine. That was her way of saying everything was messed up, but we’d talk later. “Confused as hell, yes. But I’m fine. These men, Johnson’s, I’m guessing, showed up claiming to be FBI, then just. . . left! Without another word, except to say it was all a huge misunderstanding. Paul, what’s going on?”

I sighed. “I can’t explain right now. I will when I get home, honey, okay?”

There was a long pause. “When do you think that will be?”

Johnson walked back to me, tapping his wrist, mouthing, ‘One hour, Paul.’

“Soon,” I told her. “A few hours, at the most. Go to your sister’s. Just for tonight, Grace. Please.”

“Paul.”

“Please.”

A pause. “Okay. But you’d better have one hell of an explanation.”

“I love you, too.”

“I love you, Paul.”

Ending the call, I handed the phone back to Agent Johnson, who pocketed it before opening the conference room door.

The room was small. I expected a private conference room in a building this size to be much larger. But all it had was a single table, two chairs, and, of course, a wall-mounted camera with a red recording light aimed at the door. And behind the table, in a wheelchair, making him look more frail than the photos suggested, sat my grandfather.

Paul Sullivan Sr. was a large man in my memory. Strong hands that could fix anything. Shoulders that carried me through at least seven county fairs. But now? Now he looked like paper stretched over bird bones. The eyes, however, those Sullivan eyes. I saw them in the mirror every morning when I woke up. His eyes were still sharp.

“Paul.” His voice was barely a whisper, but he smiled. “You look just like your father.”

I stood frozen. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. Here, right in front of me, was the ghost haunting me for more than thirty years of my life.

“Sit,” Johnson said. Gently, but firm. After glancing at his watch, his eyes met mine and my grandfather’s. “You have forty-five minutes left.”

I sank into the chair directly across from my grandfather. Johnson retreated to the corner, standing under the camera, hands clasped in front of him like a funeral director. His face was stoic, a guard standing watch over the frail man. Or at least that’s what I thought.

“You look well,” my grandfather said. “For a man in his, what? 80s now?”

“You? Don’t.” I pointed to the wheelchair.

He laughed, and a coughing fit ensued. When he caught his breath, he smiled. “Fair enough, I suppose. The years. They’ve not been kind. But then, that’s what happens when you live in places that don’t exist.” He winked at me.

“The building.”

He nodded. “Buildings. As in plural.” He leaned forward, ever so slightly. I was afraid he might tumble out of the chair. “They showed you the photographs.”

“Ruby showed me.”

“Ah, Ruby.” His smile returned. “Brilliant girl.” He shook his head. “Terrible timing, though.” He studied my face, his eyes watching my every move. “You’re angry, Paulie.”

“Children. . .” My eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t get the pictures out of my head, especially the boy on the gurney. “They were kids.”

“And, Paulie? They were dying.” He smacked his hand on the armrest of the wheelchair. His words cut through me. “Leukemia, Paulie. And brain tumors. Multiple genetic disorders we didn’t even have names for in the 60s. Back then? Their parents came to us. Conventional medicine gave up on these kids.”

My jaw was clenched so tight that I didn’t think my speech would be intelligible. “So you chose to experiment on these children?”

He leaned forward again. “Paulie, you have to understand. We tried. We did everything we could to save them. And, yes, some we did. The enhancement process. It wasn’t torture, Paul. It was treatment. Radical? Yes, perhaps. Unorthodox? Certainly. But for children facing a certain death, we offered hope.”

“Hope? By strapping those kids to machines?”

“Paul, we were expanding their consciousness. Teaching them to navigate realities beyond what we know of three dimensions, helping them accept something that isn’t absolute.” Behind his eyes was passion, old passion rekindled by our conversation. “Do you know what we found out, Paul, what it is we discovered?” He was leaning on the left arm of his wheelchair. “Some humans,” he pointed at himself and me, “those with specific genetic markers? They could perceive pathways through space-time. Pathways no one else could OR can!” Another coughing spat ensued, and Johnson snapped his fingers, bringing in three nurses to check on my grandfather. My grandfather waved them away, but not before reluctantly accepting a glass of water and taking a few sips. It stopped the coughing, and he continued, shooing away the three nurses. They stood close by, just in case. “Those of us who could, could actually step out of dimension! Those genetic markers allowed us to step literally sideways out of our reality.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s completely insane.”

“But is it?” Grandfather asked me. “The pull. I know you feel it. It’s a certainty. Something exists, just past your fingertips, past your own perceptions!” He smiled, leaned back, and laced his fingers together. “You? You love patterns, shapes, and possibilities. Why do you think you worked as an actuary? Those patterns. The possibilities, Paulie! Calculating outcomes that have yet to happen? That’s deep inside your DNA.”

I shivered thinking of all the times I’d walked past empty parking lots, feeling buildings that should be there. They should exist. But didn’t. Dreams where I climbed stairs leading to floors that didn’t – no – couldn’t exist.

“What about the kids? The ones in all the photographs? What happened to them?”

Grandfather closed his eyes. “Seven died, unfortunately, because their conditions were too far advanced. Three lived with no measurable change.” He paused. “Two, however.” He paused again. “Those two? They did learn. Slipping back and forth between different worlds, different dimensions, if you prefer. One thrived, and the other? Merely survived. But they grew up, becoming two of our most valuable assets.” He poured a small glass of water from the pitcher sitting next to him, drinking a sip.  

“And then. That’s when both of your ‘most valuable assets’ turned on you. When they recognized what you had done to them.”

Grandfather took another drink of his water, nodding. “Of course, ethics are easier to ignore when you’re dying. It’s harder when you are healthy.” Rubbing his temples, he continued. “Ruby. She was one of them, you know. She’s the youngest subject to successfully navigate the pathways between both worlds. An eight-year-old with terminal brain cancer and six weeks to live, according to every physician who reviewed her medical history.”   

My vision blurred. The floor tilted, and my face? I could feel it redden. “Ruby was?” I didn’t finish my question; my hands balled into fists. I wanted to lash out at him, hit him. Make him hurt for what he had done to Ruby. Instead, I listened, doing my best to keep my cool.   

“Yes. Ruby was Patient 23. After her treatment, she recovered. Completely healed, living an everyday life until her early twenties. She started questioning everything, like we do. Where did the miraculous cure come from? Who funded the program? Why was she selected? Was it just to be a human guinea pig?”    

“You must’ve suspected something like this could happen. You’re a scientist, damn it! Someone subjected to science experiments, ethically questionable research, and you wonder why she started attacking you? And the program?” I lashed out, yelling each and every question. I wondered if Johnson would step in, but he remained in the room, stoic as ever.

Grandfather was nodding. “Yes. I should’ve seen that coming. But I didn’t. The results were so promising, so spectacular, that I ignored everything else. So Ruby’s been. . entangled with the program for decades. She can’t let it go, even as she’s trying everything in her power to destroy it. Stealing documents, like the ones she’s shown you. Sabotaging our various research facilities. Forcing us to relocate hundreds of subjects over and over again. It’s costing us more to relocate than it ever did to run the program.”

“I’m starting to think Ruby’s got the right idea.”

“Maybe she does.” His eyes met mine, the spark still there. “But it doesn’t change what you are, Paulie. What you inherited from me.” He pointed with his bony finger. “The ability? It’s in your blood. Dormant now, perhaps. I’m not really sure. We’ve never had someone in the program live as long as you. Until now.” He took another drink. “One treatment, Paulie. Just one. It’s voluntary and painless, unlike the old methods. Then you could see!” Grandfather was more than a bit animated now. “You could see, really see what I’ve seen! Walk in the places I’ve walked. Experienced the things I have. It’s like nothing you can imagine!”

I rolled my eyes. “Stepping into buildings that don’t exist.”

“Bah. Buildings that exist more fully than anything here,” my grandfather motioned around the room, “in this limited reality.” He grabbed my hand, and I jerked it away from him. “I’ve lived in paradise, Paulie! Paradise! Cities of pure light. I’ve touched the face of God – or something close enough that the difference? It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

I stood up, pacing. “And what’s the cost? What’s the price of this?” I was thinking about Ruby. About the agents chasing her. The children whose parents agreed to this ‘scientific research project.’ “Is it worth destroying the lives of kids?”

He folded his arms. “There’s always a price. Paulie, there’s always a cost that must be paid. Science has paid the price for years of research. Without testing boundaries, without taking the chance? Modern medicine wouldn’t be where it is today.” He pointed at me again, staring into my eyes. “But. The building? It changes you.” The spark in his eyes lit up, brighter than I’d seen it. “It will open doors in your mind that will never close! You will NEVER be satisfied with ordinary existence. “ Never be able to pretend,” he gestured around the room, “this is all there is.” Because it’s not.”  

I stopped pacing and sat down in the chair facing my grandfather. I had more questions, and I was running out of time. “You disappeared. Just up and left your family. Our family!”

He nodded. “I tried. I did my best to stay. God knows I did. But Paulie. Once you’ve seen infinity? How do you go back to mowing the lawn? Doing the dishes? Going to work? How can you sit through dinner parties discussing mortgage rates, investment portfolios, and the score of the last Cubs game when you have literally walked through halls of living crystal? How do you do that?”  

Clearing his throat, Johnson interrupted. “Ten minutes, Professor.”

Grandfather leaned back in the wheelchair. “They need you, Paul. You are stronger, both physically and mentally, than I was. Even your genetics are more stable. More stable than Ruby’s, too. You could navigate that world WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF to the building. Just think of it! You, Paul. You can be the bridge between our worlds.”

I sighed. “That’s a lot to put on an old man.” I chuckled, realizing exactly who I was speaking to, namely, my grandfather, who was dead and buried more than a decade ago. “If I refuse? What then?”

Now, grandfather sighed. “I suppose you go home to Gracie. Live your retired life. Spend your time at that stupid diner. Read the headlines of the paper and the electronic ones, too. Spend the rest of your days feeling incomplete.” He smiled, sadly. “At least you’ll have Gracie, and you can be there for her. It’s more than I managed in my lifetime.”

“So I should just trust Johnson? Trust you? Believe that any of this is true?”

He shook his head, no. “Of course you shouldn’t. TRI and our staff? We’ve done terrible things.” It was hard to believe the grandfather was taking some responsibility for TRI’s experiments. “Justified by results? Perhaps. But terrible things, nonetheless.” He glanced at Johnson. “But, they are also the ones who do understand what we are. The building gives, Paulie. But it always takes more.”

“Ruby told me you’re a prisoner.”

He shook his head, yes. “Probably. But it’s by my choice. The building. It calls to me, constantly. Without TRI’s drugs? Their therapies? I’d step sideways into that world, never to return. TRI? They keep me tethered to our reality.”

“But can you call that living?”

“Is hanging out at a diner reading the news, living?”

“And what you are doing, grandfather? That’s not living, either.”

“Perhaps not to you. But it’s all about perception, is it not? When it allows moments like this,” he winked. “Thirty years of isolation for forty-five minutes with my grandson? Hell yes. Worth every single second.”

“Professor. Time.” Johnson stepped up.

“Wait,” I said, pulling out the photograph. “Is this real?” I asked.

He took the photo from me, smiling. “Yes. The very first successful navigation. Building 7. It does exist. It’s real. In a dimensional fold, near Reston. It’s still there. If you know how look,” he winked.

“Professor. Time’s up. We have to get you back.”

“Wait one more second, Johnson,” I begged. “Please.” Johnson nodded, holding the handles of my grandfather’s wheelchair. “Could you teach me, grandfather? To see it?”

The sparkle in his eyes. It was back. “That, Paulie? That’s what TRI is offering you. Training. Control. All under supervision, with the ability to travel safely.” He handed me back the photograph. “But once you see it, Paul? You can’t unsee it. This is Pandora’s Box. Once you walk the halls of that building, part of you will never leave.”

“Agent Johnson,” two men dressed head to toe in medical scrubs entered, “Professor Sullivan? It’s time. We can’t wait another minute.” Both men wheeled him out of the room, grandfather not protesting in the least.

“Whatever you choose, Paulie, I’m so proud of you. Asking the right questions? That’s more than I did. Even at your age.”

“Grandpa!” It was the first time I called him that.

“Tell your father, I’m sorry. For everything.” He shouted the last sentence as they wheeled him out of the room.

Now in the room alone with Agent Johnson, I felt the weight of impossible decisions.

Johnson sat in my chair, the one facing my grandfather’s wheelchair, placing a single sheet of paper on the table between us.

“This is the offer as it stands. Full disclosure this time. No lies. No manipulation. Join us willingly. Learn to navigate. See your grandfather whenever you like.” He slid a pen across the table. “Or walk away. But the gift in your blood? That stays with you. Always. And someday? It will demand you enter that other world.”

A one-page contract. Straightforward language and a three-year commitment. Training to take place at various undisclosed locations. Compensation, of course. Gracie would never worry about medical bills. Ever again.

And in bold letters, just before the signature line: Voluntary participation. May terminate at any time.

“That’s new,” Johnson said. “Your grandfather’s generation didn’t get an exit clause. Looks like the higher-ups have learned from their mistakes.”

“What about Ruby? She’s not crazy, is she?”

“Crazy? No. Not exactly. But the way she tells anyone and everyone about the other world? It will look like that. So, yes. She will be left alone if she stops trying to expose TRI. The documents she stole? They will die. With her. Everyone else, including you, moves forward.”

I thought about Gracie. I hoped she was at her sister’s by now. Probably unpacking her overnight bag right now, confused. And scared. About our everyday retirement life, we’ve built. Then I saw my grandfather’s eyes, talking about cities of living light. What would that look like? About a pull I’d been feeling my entire life, something that was just out of reach.

“If I sign this? I can walk away, anytime, right?”

Johnson nodded. “Though very few do walk away. The building tends to hold those who enter. In ways you can’t imagine.”

I was ready to sign, then I stopped, setting the pen on the paper. “I have to talk to Gracie first.”

His expression never changed. I wondered if he ever laughed, smiled, or cracked a joke. “Paul. This offer? It won’t stay open indefinitely. Too many people know too much about TRI. Relocation is happening. Soon. And when that happens?”

“The building does too,” I said.

He nodded, handing me his cell phone. “Paul, your grandfather was wrong about one thing. The building. It doesn’t change you. It reveals to you the true you. Are you ready to meet who you really are?”